"Why doesn't he want me to come here?" I asked, not for the first time.
For a flashing second shadows seemed to darken his expression. "In the beginning when first I met you, I didn't want to become involved with your life. Now that I know you better I feel obligated to help. When I lie down to sleep at night your eyes come to haunt me. How can a sixteen-year-old girl have such depth in her eyes?"
"I'm not sixteen!" I cried out in a hoarse choked voice. "I am already seventeen years old--but don't you dare tell Tony that." The moment the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. He owed Tony loyalty, not me.
"Why in the world would you lie about something so inconsequential as one year? Sixteen, seventeen, what's the difference?"
"I will be eighteen this February twentysecond," I said with some defensiveness. "In the hills girls of eighteen are usually married and have children."
That made his face turn my way. "I am very glad you no longer live in the hills. Now tell me why you told Tony you were sixteen instead of
seventeen?"
"I don't know why I did it. I wanted to protect my mother from appearing foolish and impulsive when she married my father, whom she knew only a few hours before she said yes to his marriage proposal. Granny always said it was love at first sight. I didn't understand what she meant, and I still can't understand how she, a girl from a rich and prominent family, with such a cultured background, could have fallen for a man like my father."
His dark eyes had the kind of deep forest pools have; in them I could drown.
His grandfather clock began to strike the hour of eight o'clock, and still the blizzard raged on. A music box that must have also been a clock began to play a sweet and haunting melody, while tiny figures emerged from a small door one by one. "I never saw a clock like that," I said irrelevantly.
"I have a collection of antique clocks," Troy murmured absently, rolling on his side to study me with soft understanding. "When you are as rich as a Tatterton, you don't know how to spend your money . . . and to think, all the time you were in the Willies, needing what I could have given so easily. It seems an obscenity now to know I have so much while others have so little. It shocks me too to know I never gave poverty a thought before, perhaps because I've always lived in my own world, and the people I knew had as much as I did."
I bowed my head even lower, realizing now how different Troy's life had been from mine. And even as I continued to sit, Troy gazed at me until I grew uneasy from his long survey, squirming before I stood and stretched. "I've taken too much of your time already. Now I have to go home so Tony won't ask too many questions."
Truthfully, I expected him to object, to tell me again leaving was impossible, but this time he rose to his feet and smiled at me. "All right. There is a way that I didn't want you to know about. It's a cold climate here, and when Farthy went up, with the surrounding barns and stables, my practical ancestors anticipated the deep snows. They had tunnels dug to the barns and stables, so the horses and other animals could be taken care of and fed. A long time ago where this cottage stands now, there was a barn with a deep cellar. And that, of course, makes this cottage very accessible to the main house during the worst of weather. I could have told you this before, but I wanted you to stay and keep me company." His eyes moved from my face and turned slightly glassy. "It's very strange how comfortable I feel with you, a mere child." Again his penetrating eyes fixed on me. "If you enter the cellar of Farthy and use the west door that is painted green, the tunnel will bring you to the cellar beneath this cottage. The other doors of blue, red, and yellow will take you nowhere, for Tony had those tunnels sealed. He thought too many passages, no matter how secret, made Farthy vulnerable to thieves."
He brought my coat and boots from his guest closet and held the coat while I slipped my arms in, and when he had the fur coat snugly on my shoulders, his hands lingered. He was behind me, so I couldn't see his expression. When I turned around, he smiled before he reached for my hand and led me to a door in his kitchen that took us both down steep, wooden stairs into his cellar, which was damp and cold and very large. And then Troy was showing me the green door with its arched top. "I'll go with you to the house," he said, leading the way and still holding my hand. "When I was a boy these underground tunnels always scared me. Every time the tunnel made a bend, I expected monsters to appear, or ghosts, something I didn't want to see."
Even with him leading the way, and giving me security with the warmth of his hand covering mine, I knew exactly what he meant. I was reminded of a coal mine tunnel that Tom and I had entered once despite signs that had read "Danger! Keep Out!"
Troy released my hand only when we'd reached the end of the freezing tunnel, having arrived at the bottom of steps that were steep and narrow and going up. "You will come out in the back kitchen hall," he whispered. "Listen carefully before you open the door you see at the top. Rye Whiskey often works late." He touched my cheek then and asked, "How are you going to explain to Tony?"
"Never mind. I'm a good liar, remember?" And with those words I threw my arms about his neck, but I didn't kiss him. I only pressed my cold cheek against his. "Without you I don't know what I'd do."
He held me fast against him for a brief, exciting moment. "You just remember all the time that it is Logan you love and need, not me."
I ran up the stairs, hurting all the way because he thought it so necessary to warn me to keep my distance. What was wrong with me? I needed someone like Troy. Desperately needed his sensitivity and understanding. There were times when I looked at Tony, then quickly I'd make myself forget his charm and good looks. He was too dominating, like Pa.
Beginning to sniffle now, I entered the narrow hallway in back of Farthinggale Manor's huge kitchen. Even at this hour of the night, Rye Whiskey was in there, preparing the food to be served the next day. He was singing to keep rhythm with each roll of his pastry pin, and beyond him the young black boy he was teaching used spoons to keep the beat. On tiptoes I slipped past the kitchen door, and only then did I quicken my steps.
An hour later I lay on my bed, staring out the windows, hearing the wind and thumping of my heart. I had great difficulty falling asleep, though I was deep in dreams when my bedroom door was thrown open, and Tony's voice roared loud enough to bolt me wide awake.
"When did you slip into the house without my seeing you?"
Disoriented and frightened by his voice, I bolted upright, clutching the topsheet and blankets to my bosom. Untruths, which could sometimes come readily to my tongue, failed me this time, so I could only tremble. And I suspected even Troy could not protect me from Tony's anger once I'd earned it.
Tony strode into my bedroom and lit the lamp beside my bed. Towering above me he stared long and hard at my face. "Where were you, and how did you manage to return from Boston? There hasn't been a road open north of the city since three o'clock!"
As I floundered, trying not to let him see how terrified I was of his anger and disapproval, thoughts of what was likely to happen choked in my throat. Falling back on my pillows, I gazed at Tony with wide eyes of terror. How intimidating and how cold he seemed as he glared down at me.
His voice came low and hard. "Don't you lie to me, girl, and expect to get away with it. We have made a bargain, you and I, and I expect you to live up to your side of it."
"I . . . I . . I never left," I faltered, feeling for the lying words. "When the taxi passed under the gates I suddenly lost my nerve. I felt ashamed to let you know I don't really like those Winterhaven girls, and I was too insecure to pretend I do. So I slipped in the side door and stole back to my bedroom, and then . . ."
"Then what?" he asked coldly, his blue eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"I was afraid you'd check my room, so I hid myself away in one of the unused rooms."
"You lost your nerve?" he asked scornfully. "You hid? Now that is interesting. In which room did you hide?"
Oh, God! How easily he could trap me! "It was the second room in that norther
n wing, you know, the room Jillian wants to redecorate. The room full of pale peach. The room she considers passe."
His frown deepened. "And at what time did you decide to leave that room and return to this one?"
Now he was baiting his trap. All through the evening he could have checked this bedroom . . . two hours ago he could have seen the bed empty. "I don't remember, Tony, really I don't. I fell asleep in the peach room, and when I stumbled back here, I didn't look at the time. I just undressed and went to bed."
"And not a thought of me, and how worried I might be?"
"I'm sorry," I whispered, "but I'd trapped myself, and I didn't know how to tell you the truth without losing face."
"You have already lost face," he said harshly, glaring down at me. "I don't know whether or not to believe your story. Jillian and I had a terrible argument this afternoon. She is terrified that her friends will suspect you are her granddaughter, and they will ask questions about Leigh."
Nervously I fingered the narrow ribbon beading the neckline of my pink nightgown.
At the open doorway his figure almost blocked out the light in the hall. "Heaven," he said with his back turned. "I don't admire cowards. I hope you will never again do what you did today."
He closed the door.
Eleven Holidays, Lonely Days
.
WONDERFUL PREPARATIONS FOR THANKSGIVING DAY began a week ahead of time.
From Friday to Monday I had a whole week's vacation. Upstairs where Jillian and Tony reigned supreme all seemed as usual, but downstairs in the kitchen such an array of produce began to arrive that my breath caught in my throat and seemed to stay. Fresh pumpkins, three of them, and only six guests had been invited to dinner. But with Jillian and Tony, and Troy and me, that made ten. Oh, at last, at last, Troy was going to be included as a genuine member of this family!
"Tell me about the others who are coming," I eagerly asked Rye, perched beside him on a high stool, and busily chopping vegetables and anything else he thought I could handle. And he was a hard master to please. Just from his smiling or frowning expression I knew when I wasn't putting enough "slant" on my vegetable chopping, or I knew when I was doing it right.
"Friends," he said, "of the mistress and her husband. Important friends who fly in just to eat in Farthinggale Manor. I flatter myself that I help draw them here with all the fine dishes I'll prepare. But that's not the only reason they come. Mr. Tatterton has a winning way with people, they all adore him. And they also come to see Mrs. Tatterton, so they can see how much she has aged since they saw her last. And now they also come to see Mr. Troy, who only shows up at very important functions. He is a mystery to them, just as he is to the rest of us. Don't expect to see anyone younger than twenty. Mrs. Tatterton hates children at her parties."
Thanksgiving Day dawned bright and sunny and very cold. I was so thrilled that Troy was coming, every once in a while I caught myself singing. I was wearing a very special wine-red velvet dress that Tony had chosen, and it was so flattering I was glancing in a mirror to admire myself every few minutes.
Troy was the first guest to arrive, and because I'd been watching the maze, it was I who ran to open the door instead of Curtis. "Good afternoon, Mr. Tatter-ton. What a pleasure and delight to have you favor our dining table, at long, long last."
He was staring at me as if he'd never seen me before. Did a dress do that much? "I have never seen you look so lovely as you do this very minute," he said, as I reached to help him off with his topcoat. And Curtis, way back in the broad hall, stared our way with a certain kind of sarcasm. But what did I care, he was just a presence, very seldom a voice.
I hung his coat carefully in a closet, making sure his shoulder seams were right, and then I spun around to catch both of his hands in mine. "I'm so glad you're here I'm nearly bursting. Now I won't have to sit at a table with six guests I've never met."
"They won't all be strangers. Some you have met before at other parties . . . and there is one special guest who flew all the way from Texas just to meet you."
"Who?" I asked, my eyes growing huge. "Jillian's mother, who is eighty-six years old. It seems Jillian wanted to cover the tales she'd told about you, and your great-grandmother became so intrigued she telephoned to say she was coming, despite the fact that she has a hip fracture."
He smiled and pulled me to a sofa in the grandest salon of all. "Don't look so concerned. She's a tough old bird, and she's the only one who doesn't tell lies one after the other."
She overwhelmed me right from the beginning when she came through the front door with two men supporting her weight on both sides. She was hardly five feet tall, a thin wisp of an old woman whose hair still held most of that silvery gold. On her scrawny fingers she wore four huge rings, ruby, emerald, sapphire, and diamond. Her colored jewels were all ringed with diamonds. Her bright blue dress hung loosely from her shoulders, and a heavy choker of sapphires decorated her neckline. "I hate tight clothes," she said as she glanced at me, and cringed a little closer to Troy.
She also hated crutches, which couldn't be trusted. Wheelchairs were an abomination. Pillows, shawls, and afghans were brought in from the car outside. In thirty minutes she was made comfortable, and only then did she turn those sharp, small eyes on me.
"Hello, Troy, it's nice to see you for a change," she said without even looking his way. "But I didn't fly all this way just to talk to family I already know." Her eyes scanned me again from head to toe. "Yes, Jillian is right. This is Leigh's daughter. There is no mistaking the color of her eyes--just the way mine used to be until the years stole the best of my features. And that figure, it's Leigh's all over again, when she wasn't hiding it behind some shapeless garment. I never could understand how she could wear such clothes in such miserable winter weather as this." Her small eyes, lined with wrinkles, narrowed as she briskly asked: "Why did my granddaughter die at such an early age?"
Down the stairs Jillian drifted, looking stunningly beautiful in a wine-red dress, very much like mine, except hers had a broad insert of jewels around the neck. "Oh, dear, dear Mother, how wonderful to see you again. Do you realize it's been five years since you came last?"
"I never intended to come again," answered Jana Jankins, whose name had been kindly provided to me by Troy as Jana was being arranged in her seat. And even as I watched Jillian with her mother, I could almost smell the smoke of animosity between them.
"Mother, when we knew you were coming, despite your leg cast, Tony very thoughtfully went out and provided you with a wonderfully handsome chair that used to belong to the president of Sidney Forestry."
"Do you think I'd sit in a chair used by a killer of trees? Now don't mention the subject again. I want to hear about this girl here." And almost faster than I could answer she was plying me with questions, how had my mother met my father, and where had we lived, and did my father have money? And were there other family members she could meet.
I was saved from making up more lies by the chiming of the door bells. Tony stepped out of his office looking like a fashion plate, and Thanksgiving began despite Jana Jankins, who just couldn't manage to out-shout everyone.
Then, to my dismay, Jillian finally noticed me sitting as quietly and demurely--and as close to Troy--as I could manage. Jillian's eyes grew large. "Heaven, the least you could do is check with me about what color I'm wearing when we are entertaining."
"I'll go and change mine right now!" I offered, about to jump up to change as quickly as possible, though I truly loved this dress.
"Sit down, Heaven," commanded Tony. "Jillian is being ridiculous. Your dress is not bejeweled, or nearly as lavish as my wife's. I liked the dress when I saw it on you, and I want you to wear it."
It was a strange kind of Thanksgiving dinner. First Jillian's mother had to be carried in and put at the end of the table (the hostess end, because Tony's chair was too near the wall), and once Jana assumed the role of hostess, she ruled, no one else. This greatgrandmother of mine was rude, abrasive,
and totally honest. It amazed me that Tony and Troy seemed so fond of her.
Still, it was a tiring meal, an exhausting evening, during which I was plied with a thousand questions I didn't know how to answer unless I lied. When Jana asked me how long I'd be staying at Farthinggale Manor, I didn't know what to answer. I looked hopefully at Tony and saw next to him a steely-faced Jillian, who held her fork midway to her mouth and turned to Tony and glared as he began to rescue me. "Heaven has come to stay for as long as she likes," he announced, smiling first at me, then turning to Jillian and giving her a shut-up-or-else rictus. "She's already begun school at Winterhaven. In fact, she did so well on her entrance exams that she entered as a senior--a year ahead of her age group. And we've already applied to Radcliffe and Williams so she won't have to go too far away for a first-rate college. We're both so happy to have -Heaven here. It's a bit as if Leigh had at last returned to us, isn't it Jill?"
All during this little speech Jillian had been shoveling food into her mouth, as if to cram it too full for any betraying words to slip out. She said nothing, merely glared at me. Oh, how I wished she could learn to love me. I needed so badly to have a real mother, someone I could really talk to, someone who could teach me how to be the right kind of woman. But I was beginning to realize that Jillian would never be that. Perhaps if she were more like Jana--rude and overbearing, but at least interested in getting to know me.
Thankfully, Jana had little chance to do that. I spent the meal in agitation, afraid she would begin asking about my past again, afraid some truth would slip out and contradict what I'd told Tony. But the meal was finished amidst a din of small talk and soon after dinner Jana left for her elegant hotel in Boston.
"I'm sorry I can't stay and get to know you better Heaven, but I've never been comfortable staying here at Farthy"---here she cast an accusing glare at Jillian--"and I must get back to Texas tomorrow. Perhaps you'll come and visit me sometime." And before she left she gave me a kiss on each cheek, making me feel that at least one female in the family had accepted me.