With One Look (39 page)

Victor made her the most uncomfortable. It was hard not to panic when he drew near. She stared at his arms and remembered how he had held, trapped and forced her; she remembered how hard she had struggled and fought, how she had begged and cried. Did he remember that day, too?

She watched him cautiously, suspiciously, as he sat on the bed or sometimes even lay down on it to talk to her. He always told her how his day was going. He didn't seem to understand she did

not care. Then he asked the same stupid questions: "When are you going to get better for me?" She had no idea, though she felt certain that if she did get better, it would not be for him. "Why won't you talk? Can't you say anything, sweetheart?" She didn't want to say anything, and to tell him that would be to say something. Talking interrupted her hard fight for peace. What was the point anyway? Talking hadn't worked that day, why would it work now? "What are you thinking, sweetheart?" She actually thought very little. That was the whole point, didn't he understand that? Didn't he know, or couldn't he guess, that when she thought at all it was so unpleasant that—

If she wasn't so afraid of him now, she would have liked to ask him some questions. He seemed caring and kind now, gentle and concerned, sympathetic and compassionate. Why was he like this now when she neither needed nor wanted it? Where were these qualities the day she needed them more than the air she took into her lungs? The day she had begged him to stop killing her?

There were things she might tell him, too. She didn't want him to touch her anymore, or to sleep with her anymore, and she especially didn't like it when he gathered her into his arms and pressed his body against hers. He must know that. The first time she felt that hard hot part of him, she had known fear. When she tried to move he had held her to him. "Come now, sweetheart, I'm not going to hurt you. I know you're not well enough yet to make love. I just want to hold you, that's all." She did not want to be held, but to tell him required more energy than the suffering.

If only he'd leave her alone ...

The Reverend Mother's grief felt profound, palatable, as if she alone understood the terror and anguish that Jade now had to live with, and she did, she did. For it was her own as well. The sun streamed through the balcony windows as she sat on the bed this day, watching as Mercedes slowly shut the door, leaving them alone. Jade shifted ever so slightly, so that her head lay upon the smooth black cotton of the Reverend Mother's habit. She closed her eyes, drawing in the familiar scent of oil and ink, succumbing at once to the tenderness of the weathered hands combing back her hair. The silence told Jade the Reverend Mother finally understood completely that she could no longer care about the roses or the collection or the new church music.

The Reverend Mother did understand, and the realization caused the stone fortress that was her strength to crumble. In a whisper she said, "I killed her, you know."

Jade nodded ever so slightly. She did know. She remembered now the day the Reverend Mother told her she died. It was as if she had known then. But of course she hadn't.

"After. Weeks later. We met on the levee. It was dark and late and so quiet. Only the rush of water. I begged her to confess. She pretended not to understand me. Then she laughed at me and even more than the profanity of that sound, 'twas her eyes. I couldn't bear the utter emptiness of her eyes. As if God had long ago left her. When my hands squeezed the breath from her, it felt like nothing. Like nothing. It seems so strange to me now. As if it hadn't happened. And after I pushed her body into the river and dropped to my knees to pray to God for forgiveness, I felt like I was pretending. I only went through the motions of asking God's forgiveness because I knew God didn't care "

Jade shut her eyes tightly.

The Reverend Mother was crying now. Tears for her; tears for her mother....

Each night after supper, Victor left to visit the one person he always sought when he was troubled and unable to see his way through a situation. Weeks after what Murray termed Jade's breakdown, and for the sixth night in a row, he arrived at the spacious thatched-roof cottage nestled in a grove of live oaks on the outskirts of town.

Manny, his father's only servant, showed him through the neat and noticeably bare rooms to the back patio. Victor assumed a seat at the table beneath a thatched awning.

On the table sat a chessboard—a game that had always been between him and his father— along with two glasses and a bottle of port. Once again he had to wait for his father—the only person he had knew who was busier than himself.

Insects flew around the lamps. The long chirping of crickets became the backdrop for his unpleasant thoughts. He was afraid. He was afraid he was losing her, that in fact he had lost her....

The nights were the worst. She woke up screaming two and three times before dawn. Dear Lord, if only he could save her from the nightmare of the door opening to a room washed in blood....

Victor glanced up at the sound of his father's approach. His father wore priest's robes only in church. All other times one found him in a tailored black suit and usually with the coat discarded and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up over strong, tanned forearms. The Church forgave—or rather, overlooked—his unconventionalities, for his work spoke well for him and the Church.

The handsome older man assumed the wicker chair across from Victor with only a nod of acknowledgment passing between them. Victor's gaze rested on a mirror image of himself—

separated only by the twenty years. They both shared the same sharp features: the bushy arch of brows, the dark blue eyes, large nose and generous mouths, though his father's hair was graying at the sides, something that only added to his distinguished features. He tilted his pipe, one of his few indulgences, and first opened the game. "Jade?"

"The same." Victor shook his head. "It's been almost three weeks now and I'm... I'm—" "Afraid she has truly lost her wits?"

Victor nodded, his gaze solemn and filled with this fear. "She still hasn't spoken and she won't eat, but the worst is her eyes, those beautiful eyes. The pain there..." He sighed. "The only things that seem to bring her comfort are her dog and, somehow, I think, the Reverend Mother."

"Victor," his father said kindly, "you want to attack the problem head-on, as a panther pounces its prey. The point is that Jade has every reason to act as she has been and no reason to change. It is true that she is suffering from shock; I suppose she is rather like a soldier suffering from battle fatigue. Blindness protected her from that tragic truth for many years until you forced her to see it."

"I know all that," Victor protested impatiently. "I also know that you know something I don't. I'm not going to lose her." Quietly, in a plea: "I need your help."

Unmasked admiration showed in his father's gaze as he considered his son. "It's your willfulness, Victor, this restless impatience with the world that prevents you from fully grasping what has happened. It all makes perfect sense when you consider Jade and the startling uniqueness of her person.

"You know, I could not have imagined a daughter-in-law whom I might receive with more affection than Jade Terese. There is no other woman I'd be happier to see you marry, and in many ways I consider it a perfect match. The one sense in which I thought you two ill suited is that Jade's startling innocence is often at odds with you and your world. Of course, the trouble is that Jade's innocence is at odds with anyone's world." He paused, drew on his pipe and smiled. "Do you know what one of the Sisters used to say about Jade?"

"Let me guess. Probably something about Jade's not realizing we fell from grace."

"She said Jade was like Eve before the forbidden fruit—that Jade had been born without original sin. We were all aware of it here; it triggered a wealth of fondness.

"Jade could never bear any ill—social or otherwise. I don't believe she has ever felt any ill feeling for anyone or anything. But, Victor"—he paused gravely—"you've changed all that. You've

opened her eyes literally and figuratively. I daresay she will never be the same. No, let me finish," he added quickly, stopping Victor's protest before it was uttered. "You did what anyone would, I know. Jade will eventually emerge from this a stronger person. Reality will no longer slap her in the face, so to speak. But, Victor, your battle—or rather, her battle—is far from over. It has, in fact, just begun. In the same way her blindness protected her, she is attempting to protect herself now by withdrawing from life. She could never bear any animosity, and she still can't. Presently she is desperately trying to protect herself from feelings that she can't stand to own."

"You mean her mother's death?"

"Certainly the terror is part of it. But there's more, Victor, much more. I saw it the first time I visited after it happened. Frankly, I was shocked, and only after some reflection could I come to understand it." A subtle light flickered in the dark eyes as he reached the most difficult point. "Surely you must have seen it, Victor? You must have recognized it in those lovely eyes of hers when she looks at you?"

Victor held his father steady in his gaze until suddenly he understood. He had seen it, though until this moment he had failed to grasp what it meant. While a majority of the time, Jade's eyes, her expression and manner, showed only that disturbing emptiness or unspeakable pain, every once in a while her eyes flashed with a fierce emotion before disappearing beneath lowered lids.

Victor looked away and began to speak almost apologetically. "I don't think I've ever done anything that would shock you—"

"Don't be so sure about that."

"In any case, that day would have shocked you. I was brutal, and God knows, I did hurt her badly. Repeatedly. But I've gone over it in my mind, looking for a way I might have made it easier for her, less painful or terrifying and—"

"Your conscience is clear," the elder man finished. "You did what you had to, I know." "She has every right to be angry." Victor looked directly at his father. "But she's still not

getting any better."

"Why should she?" "What do you mean?"

"Now that you understand what she's trying to hide from, I feel at liberty to discuss the matter in which you and yours are treating her. You are allowing her to withdraw,; tiptoeing around her as though she is an invalid, as though she has truly lost her wits!"

"She needs rest and peace."

"Victor, you don't grasp quite how dangerous the situation is. Don't you see the mistake in letting her hide from life? Then you do run a risk of losing her completely."

"What do you suggest?"

"You tell me. What would you take as the sign of her gaining health?" "Anything! If she began eating again, coming to dinner, talking, going for walks,

anything!"

"Obviously, she's not willing to do these things."

It was a loaded statement, and one that Victor understood only too well. He swallowed the last of the port, as though to help him face the unpleasant fact. "I should force her."

"I know that after what you've been through, you want only to win back her affection and trust, but I'm afraid right now she needs your strength even more than your love." He leaned forward and said solemnly, "Of course, you will know she is getting better when she finally asks who did this hideous thing."

"Yes," Victor said. "I am ready for it."

Joanie and Agnes, each carrying a brass pail of hot water, followed Tessie into the bedchamber. The two women smiled at Jade, nodded, and went about preparing the bath.

Jade turned away as they left. It was curious to see the faces of the two maids whom she knew so well. Joanie, the upstairs maid, who also helped in the kitchen, and her younger sister, Agnes the downstairs maid; both women were dark and plump, with smooth skin, dark luminous eyes and wide white grins.

Mercedes cast an anxious look at Tessie and pleaded, "Please, Jade Terese?" Victor had said to insist and be firm, that if they failed, he was to be called up. "I promise you'll feel better."

Jade lifted her face from Wolf Dog's fur and stared at her two friends before shaking her head. She didn't want a bath, and really what did it matter if her hair were dirty? Once upon a time she went out of her way to see that such an awful fate never happened. It no longer bothered her at all. Unfortunately, Mercedes and Tessie seemed quite upset over it.

"Jade Terese, you just must!" Mercedes abruptly threatened. "We won't leave you alone until you do."

Jade looked at them with distrust, her suspicions aroused by Mercedes's anxious tone and threat. They really weren't going to leave her be. Something had changed. What?

She struggled for a moment to comprehend their motive, but it was too difficult to think. She shrugged, reluctantly submitting to the bath only because submission was easier than protest.

Mercedes and Tessie exchanged smiles as she stepped over to the shiny brass tub, discarded her robe and sank into the hot lavender-scented water. She closed her eyes and suffered not one unpleasant thought as Tessie's familiar hands gently worked her hair with the thick lather, rinsed it and then applied the sweet-scented oil to soften the long locks.

Once her bath was done, Jade threw herself on the bed, feeling suddenly confused, very confused. The bath had made her feel better. Oh, why, if she felt better, did that make her frightened? It didn't make sense. Yet it was true....

She sought the comfort of withdrawal, the quite peace of solitude. But it eluded her, and the harder she tried to calm herself, the more panicked she became. Panicked, frightened, confused!

What was happening to her?

Victor's footsteps sounded on the stairs. Wolf Dog thumped his tail, casting his gaze toward the door. She shot a betrayed look at her dog for this small show of his affection and suppressed an urge to scold him for it.

Victor entered the room. She lifted her attention to him and stiffened as she felt a sudden and intense surge of fury and resentment that came like a floodgate opening. She resented everything about him: his looks, his height, his strength, the way he moved with such ease and confidence in the world, her world, and even the way he walked. She resented his clothes: the tight black breeches, his tailored white silk shirt and the black boots that made him even taller. The intensity of the emotion scared her, and she lowered her eyes.