The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! (208 page)

“No, darling, he’s no worse.”

“Cathy, what’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here.”

Chris reached home an hour later and rushed in to embrace me before he hurried to Jory. “How’s my son?” he asked even as he sat on Jory’s bed and reached to feel his pulse. “I hear from your mother that someone opened all your windows and the rain soaked you.”

“Oh!” cried Toni. “Who could have done such an awful thing? I’m so sorry, Doctor Sheffield. It’s my habit to check on Jory, I mean Mister Marquet, two or three times during the night, even if he doesn’t call for me.”

Jory grinned at her in a happy way. “I think you can stop calling me Mister Marquet now, Toni.” His voice was very weak and hoarse. “And this happened on your day off.”

“Oh,” she said, “that must have been the morning I drove into the city to visit my girlfriend.”

“It’s just a cold, Jory,” said Chris, checking his lungs again. “There’s no hint of fluid in your lungs, and from your symptoms you don’t have the flu. So swallow your medicine, drink the fluids Toni brings you, and stop fretting about Melodie.”

*  *  *

Later, sprawled in his favorite chair in our sitting room, Chris listened to everything I had to say. “Did you recognize the voice?”

“Chris, I don’t know any of the villagers well enough. I do my damnedest to stay away from them.”

“How do you know it was a villager?”

That thought had never occurred to me. I’d just presumed. Nevertheless, as soon as Jory was well enough, we both determined to leave this house.

“If it’s what you want,” said Chris, looking around with some regret. “I like it here, I must admit. I like all the space around us, the gardens, the servants who wait on us, and I’ll be sorry to leave. But let’s not flee too far. I don’t want to leave my work in the university.”

“Chris, don’t worry. I won’t take that away from you. When we leave here, we will go to Charlottesville and pray to God nobody there will know that I’m your sister.”

“Cathy, my dearest, sweetest wife, I don’t think even if they knew, they’d give a damn. And besides, you look more like my daughter than my wife.”

Wonderfully sweet as he was, he could say that with honesty in his eyes. I knew then he was blind when he looked at me. He saw what he wanted to see, and that was the girl I used to be.

He laughed at my doubting expression. “I love the woman you’ve become. So don’t you go looking for the tarnish when I deliver to you eighteen-karat-gold honesty. I’d say twenty-four karat, but you’d then say it was too soft and therefore useless functionally. So I give to you the best there is: my eighteen-karat love that truly believes you are beautiful inside, outside, and in between.”

*  *  *

Cindy flew in for one of her whirlwind visits, breathlessly gushing out every detail of her life in exquisite minute detail since last she’d seen us. It seemed incredible that so much could happen to one girl of nineteen.

The instant we were inside the grand foyer, she raced up the stairs, hurling herself into Jory’s arms with such abandon I thought she might tip over his chair. “Really,” he laughed, “you weigh more than a feather, Cindy.” He kissed her, looked her over, then laughed. “Wow! What kind of outfit is that, anyway?”

“The kind that is going to fill the eyes of a certain brother named Bart with horror. I picked this out just to annoy him and dear Uncle Joel.”

Jory turned solemn. “Cindy, if I were you, I’d stop deliberately baiting Bart. He’s not a little boy anymore.”

Unknown to Cindy, Toni had stepped into the room and stood patiently waiting to take Jory’s temperature.

“Oh,” said Cindy, turning to see Toni. “I thought after that terrible scene Bart made in New York that you’d see him for what he really is and leave this place.” The look in Toni’s eyes made Cindy glance again at Jory, then back to Toni again, and she laughed. “Well,
now
you’ve got good sense! I can read your eyes, Toni, Jory. You’re in love! Hooray!” She rushed to hug and kiss Toni before she settled down near Jory’s chair and stared up at him with adoration. “I met Melodie in New York. She cried a lot when I told her how pretty the twins are . . . but the day after your divorce went through, she married another dancer. Jory, he looks a lot like you, only not nearly as handsome, and he doesn’t dance as well, either.”

Jory kept his small smile, as if Melodie had been put on the shelf and there she’d stay. He turned his head to grin at Toni. “Well, there goes my alimony payment. At least she could have let me know.”

Again Cindy was staring at Toni. “What about Bart?”

“What about me?”
asked a baritone voice from the open doorway.

Only then did we all notice that Bart was in the doorway, lounging insolently against the frame, taking in all we said and did as if we were specimens in his special zoo of family oddities.

“Well,” he drawled, “as I live and breathe, our breathless little imitation Marilyn Monroe has come to thrill us all with her stagey presence.”

“That’s not how I’d describe my feelings on seeing you again,” Cindy said with her eyes flashing. “I’m chilled, not thrilled.”

Bart looked her over, taking in her skin-tight gold leather pants, her striped cotton knit sweater of white and gold. The
horizontal stripes emphasized her breasts, which jiggled freely each time she moved, and knee-high gold boots decorated her feet and legs.

“When are you leaving?” asked Bart while he stared at Toni sitting on Jory’s bed and holding his hand. Chris sat next to me on a love seat, trying to catch up on some mail that had been delivered to the house and not to his office.

“Dear brother, say what you will, I don’t care. I’ve come to see my parents and the rest of my family. I’ll be leaving soon enough. Chains of steel couldn’t keep me here longer than necessary.” She laughed and stepped closer and looked up his face. “You don’t have to like me, or approve of me. And even if you open your mouth and say something insulting I’ll just laugh again. I’ve found a man to love me that makes you look like something drug up from the Dismal Swamp!”

“Cindy!” said Chris sharply, putting down his unopened mail. “While you are here, you will dress appropriately, and you will treat Bart with respect, as he will treat you. I’m sick of these childish arguments about nothing.”

Cindy looked at him with hurt eyes, making me say apologetically, “Darling, it is Bart’s home. And sometimes I would like to see you in clothes that aren’t too small.”

Her blue eyes changed from those of a woman to those of a child. She wailed, “You’re both taking his side—when you know he’s nothing but a crazy creep out to make us all unhappy!”

Toni sat uncomfortably until Jory leaned to whisper something in her ear, and then she was smiling. “It doesn’t mean anything,” I heard him say in an undertone. “I believe Bart and Cindy enjoy tormenting one another.”

Unfortunately Bart’s attention was drawn from Cindy to take notice of Jory with his arm about Toni’s shoulders. He scowled, then beckoned to Toni. “Come with me. I want to show you the inside of the chapel with all its new additions.”

“A chapel? Why do we need a chapel?” asked Cindy, who had not been informed of the newest room transformed.

“Cindy, Bart wanted a chapel added to this house.”

“Well, Mom, if anybody ever needed a chapel close at hand, it’s the creep of the hill and the Hall.”

My second son didn’t say a word.

Toni refused to go with him. She gave him the excuse of needing to bathe the twins. Anger lit up Bart’s eyes before it died, leaving him standing there, strangely desolate-looking. I got up to take his hand. “Darling, I’d love to see what new additions you’ve made in the chapel.”

“Some other time,” he said.

I watched him covertly at the dinner table as Cindy taunted Bart in rather ridiculous ways that might have made the rest of us laugh if he could only see the humor she displayed. However, Bart had never been able to laugh at himself, more the pity. He took everything so seriously. Her grin was triumphant. “You see, Bart,” she teased, “I can put away my childish foibles, even physical ones. But you can’t put away anything that sours your guts and chews away on your brain. You’re like a sewer, ready to hold all that’s sinking and rotten and never give it up.”

Still he said nothing.

“Cindy,” spoke up Chris, who’d remained quiet during our evening meal, “apologize to Bart.”

“No.”

“Then get up and leave the table, and eat in your room until you can learn to speak pleasantly.”

Her eyes flashed balefully again, this time at Chris. “ALL RIGHT! I’ll go to my room—but tomorrow I’m leaving this house and I’m never coming back! NOT EVER!”

Finally Bart had something to say. “The best news I’ve heard in years.”

Cindy was in tears before she reached the dining room archway. I didn’t jump up to follow her this time. I sat on,
pretending nothing was amiss. Always in the past I’d shielded Cindy, chastised Bart, but I was seeing him with new eyes. The son I’d never known had facets that weren’t all dark and dangerous.

“Why don’t you go to Cindy, as you always have in the past, Mother?” asked Bart, as if challenging me.

“I haven’t finished my dinner, Bart. And Cindy has to learn to respect the opinions of others.”

He sat staring at me as if completely taken off guard.

*  *  *

Early the next morning, Cindy stormed into our room without knocking, catching me wrapped in a towel, fresh from my bath, and Chris was still shaving. “Mom, Dad, I’m leaving,” she said stiffly. “I won’t enjoy myself here. I’m wondering why I even bothered to come back. It’s clear you’ve decided to take Bart’s side on every issue, and if that’s the case, then I’m finished. I’ll be twenty next April, and that’s old enough not to need a family.”

Her eyes smeared with the tears that came unbidden. Her voice turned small and broken. “I want to say thanks to both of you for being wonderful parents when I was little and needed someone like both of you. I’m going to miss you and Daddy, and Jory and Darren and Deirdre, but every time I come here, I leave feeling sick. If ever you decide to live somewhere far from Bart, maybe you’ll see me again . . . maybe.”

“Oh, Cindy!” I cried, rushing to embrace her. “don’t leave!”

“No, Momma,” she said staunchly. “I’m going back to New York. My friends there will throw me a party, the best kind. They do everything better in New York.”

But her tears were coming faster, harder. Chris wiped his face free of shaving lather and came to hug her close. “I can understand how you feel, Cindy. Bart can be irritating, but you did go too far last night. In a way you were very funny, but
sadly, he can’t see that. You have to judge whom you can tease, and whom you cannot. You’ve outgrown Bart, Cindy. And we won’t object if you want to leave so soon. But, before you go, we want you to know your mother and I are taking Jory and his children, and Toni, too, and moving to Charlottesville. We’ll find a large house there and settle down in the midst of people, so when you come again, you won’t be lonely, and Bart will still be here, high on this hill and far from you.”

Sobbing, she clutched Chris. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I was nasty to him, but he always says such mean things to me, and I have to hit back or feel like a doormat. I don’t like for him to wipe his feet on me—and he is like a sewer,
he is
.”

“Someday I hope you’ll see him differently,” said Chris softly, tilting up her pretty tear-stained face and kissing her lightly. “So kiss your mother, say good-bye to Jory, Toni, Darren, and Deirdre . . . but don’t say you won’t come back to see us again. That would make us both very unhappy. You give us a great deal of joy, and nothing should spoil that.”

I helped Cindy pack the clothes she’d just unpacked. And even as we did this together, I saw that she was undecided and wanted to stay on if only I’d plead. Unfortunately we’d left her door open, and I looked around to see Joel standing in the doorway watching us.

Joel turned pale eyes on Cindy. “Why are you red-eyed, little girl?”

“I’m not a little girl!” she screamed. She turned wrathful eyes on him. “You’re in league with him, aren’t you? You help make him what he is. You stand there and gloat because I’m packing my bags, don’t you? Glad I’m leaving—but before I go, I’m telling you off, too, old man. And I don’t care if my parents scold me for not showing respect for old age.” She stepped closer, her posture dominating his cringing form. “I hate you, old man! Hate you for preventing my brother from being normal, and he could have been without you! I HATE YOU!”

Hearing this, Chris, who’d been seated near the window, became furious. “Cindy, why? You could have gone and said nothing.” Joel had disappeared by this time, leaving Cindy staring at Chris, bleak-eyed. “Cindy,” Chris said softly, reaching out to caress her hair. “Joel is an old man dying of cancer. He won’t be around much longer.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “He looks healthier than when he came.”

“Perhaps he’s had a remission. He refuses to see a doctor and won’t let me check him over. He says he’s resigned to dying soon. So, I take him at his word.”

“I expect now you want me to apologize to him—well, I won’t! I meant every word! That time in New York, when Bart was so happy with Toni, and they seemed so much in love, we were at a party, when suddenly an old man appeared that looked like Joel—and instantly Bart changed. He turned mean, hateful, like a spell had been cast, he began to criticize my clothes, Toni’s pretty dress that he said was shameless . . . and only a few minutes before, he’d complimented the way she looked in that very same dress. So don’t tell me that Joel doesn’t have a great deal to do with Bart’s nutty behavior.”

Instantly I was with Cindy. “You see, Chris. Cindy believes just as I do. If Joel weren’t here using his influence, Bart would straighten out. Drive Joel out, Chris, before it’s too late.”

“Yes, Daddy, make that old man leave. Pay him off, get rid of him.”

“And what do I say to Bart?” asked Chris, looking from one to the other of us. “Don’t you realize he has to be the one who sees Joel for what he is? We can’t tell him Joel’s not a healthy influence. Bart has to discover that for himself.”