The Unloved (2 page)

Anne’s eyes met his, and the smile that had been playing tentatively at the corners of her mouth disappeared. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked. “You really think it means something.”

Kevin spread his hands helplessly. “I wish I knew,” he said. “I just have this feeling that maybe something’s happened to her.” He glanced at the clock, wondering if he ought to call his sister, then dismissed the idea. At three-thirty in the morning all he would do was give her a good scare.

But he knew he couldn’t go back to sleep. Not yet.

Not until he had thought about the dream, thought about what it might mean, figured out why, after all these years, it had come back to him. He leaned down and brushed Anne’s lips with his. “Go back to sleep, honey. I’m going to go down and raid the refrigerator.”

Anne gazed at him for a moment, her eyes reflecting her concern. “If you’re going to sit down there and brood, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

Kevin chuckled in spite of himself, and kissed her again. “All right, so maybe I’m going to brood a little bit. I’m forty years old, and I have a right to brood, don’t I? Now go back to sleep, and don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

He switched off the lamp on Anne’s bed table, slipped out the door and moved silently down the hall past his children’s rooms, then down the stairs. But instead of going to the kitchen, he went into the living room and settled himself into his favorite chair—a big leather wing chair just like the one in the library, when he was growing up.

Just like the one his mother had never let him sit in.

But he was forty years old now, and his mother was nearly eighty, and he should have forgotten about that chair—and everything else—a long time ago.

And he thought he had, until tonight.

Now he realized that he hadn’t forgotten anything, and that the dream had, indeed, meant something.

It meant that he still hated his mother as much as he ever had. He still wished she were dead.

Lucinda Willoughby jerked awake and instinctively glanced at the large man’s watch on her wrist. Three-thirty, which meant she’d been asleep for more than two hours. Not that it mattered, really, for the old woman in the bed across the room usually slept straight through the night, and Lucinda didn’t see what difference it could make if she herself dozed off for a few minutes. And she certainly had a right to, considering the way Helena Devereaux treated her. After all, she was a nurse, not a servant.

Her nap properly rationalized, Lucinda was just reopening the book that had fallen closed in her lap when the sound that had roused her from her catnap was repeated.

“Don’t you hear me, missy?” Helena’s querulous voice demanded. “I don’t pay you to sleep all night, you know!”

The book snapped shut, and Lucinda heaved herself to her feet. “I wasn’t sleeping, ma’am,” she began, but then fell silent at the wrath she saw in Mrs. Devereaux’s eyes.

“Don’t tell me what you were doing,” the old woman snapped. “I’m not dead yet, and I’m not blind!” Helena Devereaux was sitting bolt upright now, and Lucinda could see her reaching for the glass of water on the table next to the bed. Moving more quickly than her bulk should have allowed, the nurse snatched up the glass just before the old woman’s fingers could close around it.

“How dare you?” Helena hissed. “You give me that this instant, do you hear?”

Taking a deep breath and counting silently to ten, Lucinda reluctantly handed the water glass to her patient.

Instantly, Helena hurled the contents of the glass into the nurse’s face, then flung the glass across the room, where it shattered against the wall. “Now where is he?” Helena demanded. “Where is Kevin?”

Lucinda gasped, staring in shock at the old woman. She knew who Kevin was—there wasn’t anyone in Devereaux, South Carolina, who didn’t. But he hadn’t been there in years, and how could Lucinda Willoughby be expected to know where he was?

“I want him,” Helena rasped, her voice trembling. “I’m dying, and I want to see my son before it’s too late. I want to see him!”

Suddenly Lucinda thought she understood, and reached out to take the old woman’s shriveled hand in her own. “Now, Miss Helena, you just calm down,” she said in her best professional voice. “You’re not going to die, not while I’m taking care of you. I’ve never lost a patient yet, and I sure don’t intend to start with you.” As she talked, she took the old woman’s pulse. It was slightly erratic, but Lucinda knew that was only a symptom of the old woman’s anger, not an imminent heart attack.

“I won’t calm down,” Helena snapped, jerking her hand away. “I’m dying, and you know it! I want to see Kevin before I die!” Her voice rose to a high-pitched screech, and her eyes searched the table for something else to throw. “You get him for me, do you hear? It’s your job, you lazy, good-for-nothing—”

“Mother! Mother, what’s wrong?”

Helena’s eyes snapped away from the nurse and fixed on her daughter, who stood at the open door to the room, clutching a robe to her bosom. “Kevin!” she said once more. “I want Kevin. I want to see him, and I want to talk to him!”

Marguerite Devereaux frowned, and glanced inquiringly at Lucinda, who could only shrug helplessly. Helena Devereaux did not miss the silent exchange, and her eyes blazed with renewed fury. “Don’t either of you understand plain English?” she demanded. “I’m dying, and I want to see my son!” She fell back against the pillows, her angry outburst having drained her energies. Her frail bosom heaved erratically and her breathing took on the labored raling of approaching death. Instantly Lucinda Willoughby grasped her wrist, her strong fingers feeling once more for the old woman’s pulse. A second later she found it, fluttering wildly as the pumping of her heart raged out of control.

“A glass of water, Miss Marguerite,” she ordered. “Quickly.” Her anger forgotten, she gently lifted the old lady into a slightly raised position, plumping up the pillows behind her. By the time Marguerite returned from the bathroom, Lucinda had Helena’s medicine ready. She deftly slid the pills between her patient’s thin lips, then held the glass as the old woman sucked in enough water to wash the pills down. A moment later Helena Devereaux’s breathing returned to normal and her pulse evened out. Only when Lucinda was certain the immediate danger had passed did she signal Marguerite into the hall with her eyes.

“What happened?” Marguerite asked anxiously when Lucinda had pulled the door shut.

“I don’t know. I’d fallen asleep, and when I woke up, she was screaming at me.”

“But why?” Marguerite pressed. Then, remembering her
mother’s words, she reached out to grasp the nurse by the arm. “Is it true?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Is she dying?”

Lucinda Willoughby hesitated only a moment, then nodded. “She could have died just now,” she said. She paused, then decided there was no reason not to go on. “It’s her temper, Miss Marguerite. If she’d just learn to stay calm, she could go on for years yet. But she won’t. She’ll keep flyin’ off the handle at folks, and every time she does, she’ll just make herself worse. Since we all know she isn’t going to change, we better face up to the fact that she’s going to die.”

Marguerite stood perfectly still for a moment, letting the nurse’s words sink in. She knew, of course, that it was true—had known it for years now. Her mother couldn’t live forever. But there had always been something about the old woman that seemed eternal; Marguerite couldn’t quite imagine the house she’d lived in all her life without her mother’s presence. And yet, a few minutes before, she’d seen mortality in her mother’s face, seen death stroking the old woman’s sunken cheeks.

And her mother had been demanding to see Kevin.

It was the first time Helena Devereaux had spoken her son’s name in more than twenty years.

Marguerite turned away from the nurse and started slowly along the wide second-floor corridor toward her own room. Almost unconsciously her right hand went to her hip, her fingers pressing at the pain. The sharp stabbing, like a hot knife driven deep into the bone, had been part of her life for so many years that she rarely noticed it anymore. Except that tonight it seemed even sharper than usual, and she could feel the lameness in her right leg shooting all the way down into her ankle.

Resolutely she put the pain out of her mind and tried to straighten her gait. At the door to her room she felt a touch on her shoulder and turned to see Ruby, the woman who had been in the house even before Marguerite was born, looking anxiously at her, her large, dark eyes reflecting her worry.

“What is it, Miss Marguerite?” Ruby asked softly. “Is it Miss Helena?”

Marguerite nodded and managed a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid so, Ruby. I think—I think I’m going to have to call Kevin in the morning and ask him to come.”

A slight gasp escaped Ruby’s lips. “She asked for him? She spoke his name?”

Once again Marguerite nodded. “I wonder,” she breathed, more to herself than to the old housekeeper. “I wonder if he’ll come.”

Ruby’s lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. “He’ll come,” she replied. “And you won’t need to call him, Miss Marguerite. He already knows Miss Helena’s bad off.”

Marguerite tipped her head slightly, examining Ruby’s dark face in the soft glow of the tarnished brass sconces that lined the hallway. What was she talking about? “But he can’t know,” she said. “Ruby, none of us have even talked to Kevin for years.”

“Don’t matter,” Ruby replied, her voice stolid. “He knows what’s happening with his mother. He’s a Devereaux, and that’s the end of it. You see if I’m not right, Miss Marguerite. You see if he doesn’t call himself, come morning.” Without waiting for a reply, Ruby turned away and a moment later disappeared down the back stairs to her room, next to the kitchen.

When she was gone, Marguerite retreated into her own bedroom, closing the door behind her. She took off the robe and slid back into her bed, pulling only a sheet over her body. Even the worn cotton felt heavy in the humid warmth of the summer night, but she left it where it was, taking a faint reassurance from its closeness. Outside, the droning of insects and tree frogs all but screened out the soft murmuring of the sea a few hundred yards away, and the sweet perfume of honeysuckle drifted around her.

She thought about Kevin then. It would be good to see him again, good to meet his family. He’d been gone far too long, and though she’d never told her mother, she’d missed him terribly.

But did it have to be her mother’s death that brought him home?

It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t have to lose her mother to regain her brother.

Still, she had to come to grips with the fact that her mother was going to die, whether Kevin came home or not.

It was a fact of life, and life was to be dealt with.

And whatever happened, Marguerite had always dealt with life as best she could, and never complained.

She would not begin complaining now.

She would accept whatever happened, and deal with it.

With the perfume of the honeysuckle and the sounds of the night lulling her senses, she drifted into sleep.

In her own room, Helena Devereaux did not sleep. Instead, she lay still in her bed, willing her heart to keep beating smoothly, just as she had willed most things in her life to happen according to her own choices. Until the last few months her will had been sufficient. But she was nearing the end now. She could feel her strength slipping away from her, feel her grip on Ruby and Marguerite loosening, just as her grip on life was loosening too. Now, as she lay in the darkness of her room, she wondered which she hated most—the fact of dying, or the fact of losing her control over events around her. Not that it mattered, of course, for in the end it added up to the same thing: death was the ultimate loss of control.

Memories drifted through her mind.

Her first meeting with Rafe Devereaux, when she’d been only sixteen. Rafe had been ten years older than she, darkly handsome and dashing, and he’d promised her the world. But all he’d been able to give her were the remnants of a worn-out plantation and a family heritage that had been meaningless to her. What did she care for Rafe’s Huguenot ancestors and their long-faded antebellum glory? She’d assumed, during the first months after she’d married him, that after a year or so he’d take her to New York and use his influence on behalf of her career. But it turned out that he had no influence beyond Charleston, and even there the Devereauxes weren’t on the best social lists. Then Marguerite was born, followed eight years later by Kevin, and her dreams had slowly faded
away until all that was left of her dancing was the lessons she gave to her daughter.

Then, when Kevin was seven, Rafe had given up on life completely and killed himself. She’d covered it up, of course, cutting his hanged body down from the rafters in the barn and shoving it off the edge of the hayloft herself. The doctor, as she’d intended, had called his broken neck an accident, and never even noticed the traces of rope burns on his throat.

It wasn’t until the next week that she’d discovered that even in death Rafe Devereaux had done nothing for her. The entire estate was left to her only in trust. She could keep it until she died, but then must pass it on, intact.

And so, in the fury that had sustained her from that day forward, she’d banished her son to boarding school and devoted her energies to Marguerite.

Marguerite, too, had failed her, and in the end—and she knew now that the end was very near—she had been left with nothing. Nothing but a weakening body that kept her confined to bed most of the time now, and a weakening spirit that was losing its ability to dominate. She could even see it in their eyes. They weren’t afraid of her anymore, not really. They were only humoring her in her last days.

Well, she wasn’t through yet.

She might not be able to control Marguerite much longer, but there was still Kevin.

She chuckled silently to herself as she realized that now, in the end, her long-dead husband was finally going to help her. In his own will he’d given her the tool she needed to maintain her power, even after her body submitted to its final failure.

The chuckle still echoing in her mind, she at last let herself give in to sleep.