Dark Angel

  about.

  We can't marry. And yet last night I took you

  and did my best to make you conceive. Forgive me for

  my selfishness. Go to Jillian. She'll tell you the truth.

  Make her tell you. She will if you push her hard

  enough, and call her Grandmother, and force her to

  abandon her disguise.

  The love I have for you is the best thing that

  has ever happened to me. I thank you for loving and

  giving me so much, even knowing all my weaknesses.

  And my greatest flaw has been my overwhelming

  love and devotion to my brother. 1 have been blind,

  deliberately blind.

  Jillian came and told me everything. To save

  you I have to accept what could have saved your

  mother. For Jillian had to admit that Tony was wild

  with his infatuation to possess your mother. I know

  now, after you have goaded me into thinking

  backward, that she hated him, and he was the one she

  ran from. Heaven, you are Tony's daughter, and my

  own niece!

  I'm going away until I can learn to live without

  you. Even if you weren't Tony's daughter, and my

  niece, I'd ruin your life. 1 don't know how to live

  complacently and accept each day as it comes. I have

  to make every day meaningful and important, for each

  day I live seems always the last one.

  .

  He signed that note with a huge TLT.

  This morning brought back sharply the horrible

  day I'd bitten into an apple, then wandered into the room 392 where Sarah had left Pa a note saying she was leaving him and never coming back. In leaving Pa, she left all of us to fend for ourselves. Here I was again having to fend for myself in a house that no

  longer wanted me.

  The unbearable pain of my shattered love

  turned into fury! That fury gave me racing legs. I went

  to Jillian's rooms and banged on her door, shouting

  her name, demanding to be let in, when it was only

  nine o'clock and Jillian always slept until noon or

  even later.

  But Jillian was out of bed, exquisitely dressed,

  as if ready to go out but for adding the jacket to her

  dressy, pale suit. Her hair was pulled softly back from

  her face, and I'd never seen it that way before. She

  looked older, and at the same time, lovelier, or more

  correctly, less like a haunted, life-sized doll. "Troy has gone away," I said accusingly,

  glaring at Jillian. "What did you say to make him

  decide to go?"

  She didn't reply, only turned to pick up her suit

  jacket and put it on, then, slowly she turned to stare at

  me. What she saw on my face made her eyes widen in

  alarm. Her blue, startled eyes flicked as if to find

  refuge in Tony's arms. Again came that bewildering, brilliant happiness that lit up her eyes. "Troy's gone! Really gone?" she whispered, her joy so great I felt

  sickened.

  Unexpectedly Tony came into Jillian's rooms

  without knocking. He ignored her and addressed me.

  "How is Troy this morning? What did you tell him?" "Me? I told him nothing! It was your wife who

  felt he had to know the truth, the ugly truth!" Jillian's radiance died. Her eyes went blank.

  Whirling about, Tony's fire blue eyes lashed at his

  wife. "What did you tell him? What could you tell

  him? Your daughter never confided anything to the

  mother she despised!"

  Jillian stood in her lovely suit in unwrinkled

  perfection, seeming about to open her mouth and

  scream. "Did my mother come to you, Jillian, and tell

  you why she had to run? Did she, did she?"

  "Go away. Leave me alone."

  I persisted. "What made my mother run from

  this house? You've never adequately explained. Was it

  a five-year-old boy? Or was it your husband? Did my

  mother come to you with tales of her stepfather's

  sexual advances? Did you pretend you didn't know

  what she was talking about?"

  Her pale hands pulled at her loosely fitting rings, on and off, on and off. I'd never seen her wear rings before. Mindlessly she dropped three rings into an ashtray. The small clatter of the rings striking crystal caused her eyes to widen. "I don't know what

  you're talking about."

  "Grandmother . . ." and I said this clearly,

  sharply, causing her to shudder as she went dead

  white. "Was Tony the reason my mother ran from this

  house?"

  Her cornflower blue eyes, so like my own, went

  wide, stark, bleak, as if I'd snatched the floor from

  beneath her feet. Gossamer strands of sanity seemed

  to shred before they snapped behind her eyes, and her

  hands fluttered helplessly to her face. Her palms

  pressed tight on either cheek, so tightly her lips parted

  and from them came screams, terrible, silent screams

  that tortured her face--and suddenly Tony was there,

  yelling at me!

  "Don't you say one more word!" He stepped

  forward to sweep Julian into his arms. Go to your

  room, Heaven. Stay there until I come and have a

  chance to talk to you." He carried Jillian to her

  bedroom, and I watched him lay her carefully on her

  ivory satin spread, and only then did her mute anguish

  find its voice.

  Over and over she screamed! Hysterical rising

  and falling screams that buckled her back and flailed

  her arms, and as I stood there almost paralyzed by

  what I'd brought about, I watched the youth peel from

  her face as if all the time she'd worn a mask of onion

  peelings.

  I turned away, appalled by what I'd done, overwhelmed with grief to have destroyed what had been

  so carefully cultivated.

  In my rooms I paced the floor, forgetting everything but Troy and his welfare. On occasion my

  thoughts flitted to Jillian and what havoc I'd wrought.

  Then Tony was rapping on the door and coming in

  without waiting for my response. He saw that I was

  packing my suitcases and winced. "Jill is asleep now,"

  he informed. "I had to force her to swallow a few

  sedatives."

  "Will she be all right?" I asked worriedly. He sat with a certain kind of indifference on the

  frailest of my silk brocaded chairs, elegantly crossing

  his legs, taking pains to tug up his trouser legs and

  keep the creases sharp. And only when he'd seen to all

  the little details only a man of impeccable taste

  thought important did he smile in a crooked ironic

  way. "No, Jill will never be 'all right.' She hasn't been right since the day your mother ran away. She had always refused to talk about that last day . . and only

  now do I have all the pieces together."

  Quickly I sat down in the twin chair to his,

  placed opposite him, and I leaned forward with

  breathlessness, when already I'd heard the worst--or

  so I thought. But then, I was still an innocent, not

  accustomed to the complexities of human nature and

  all the devious ways it had of maneuvering to salvage

  its self-respect, when some things could never be salvaged.

  He began, lowering his eyes as if ashamed now,

  now when it was too late. "In the year when your

  mother ran from this house, I had flown to G
ermany

  to confer with a manufacturer there who does some of

  our small-part mechanical work."

  "I don't care about your toys at a time like this."

  I intervened.

  He flicked his eyes upward. "I'm sorry, I'm

  digressing, but I wanted you to understand why I was

  away. Anyway, your mother had tried to tell Jillian a

  number of times that I was making improper advances. And on this day, she screamed at Jillian, who

  didn't want to listen, that she had missed one of her

  monthly periods. 'Does that mean I'm pregnant, Mother, does it?' Jill whipped around and tore into her, refusing to believe anything she'd said. 'You filthy-minded little slut,' she shouted. 'Why would a man like Tony want a girl like you, when he has me, me? If that's the way you're thinking, I'll send you

  away."

  "You don't have to bother,' whispered Leigh,

  her face gone dead white, go and you'll never see me

  again! And if I'm pregnant, I'll be the one to have the

  Tatterton heir!"

  I was caught unprepared for those words. "How

  did you find out, how?"

  Tony's hands bowed into his hands. His voice

  came out wretched and torn. "I knew a long time ago

  Jillian envied Leigh's beauty, which needed no

  makeup or other enhancements . . but it was only

  when she broke a few minutes ago that she screamed

  the truth at me. Leigh was pregnant when she left

  here, driven out by her own mother's failure to

  understand and help. And in loving Leigh, I not only

  destroyed her, I have destroyed my brother." I sat on and on, reeling with the full knowledge.

  I wasn't Pa's daughter. I wasn't a scumbag Casteel, no

  daughter of the hills. But what good would it do me

  now, now that Troy was gone?

  Twenty-one Passing Time

  . TROY WAS GONE. I WAITED EACH DAY FOR A LETTER from him. None ever came. I walked through the maze each day to his cottage, hoping against hope that he'd come back, and we'd be close friends if nothing more. The cottage and its lovely gardens began to look neglected, so that I sent Farthy's gardeners over to bring it back to order. Then, one day at breakfast, with Jillian still upstairs asleep, Tony told me he'd heard from one of his plant managers that Troy was visiting each European factory one by one. "That's a good sign," said Tony brightly, struggling to smile. "As long as he goes out and sees the world it means he's not lying in a bed somewhere, waiting to die."

  Tony and I were allies of a kind, united in a common cause, to bring Troy home again, to help him survive. Despite the terrible thing Tony had done to my mother, whether or not she had led him on, each day it lost some of its importance, as I fought the routine of going to college and studying so hard sometimes I fell into bed exhausted. That's when Tony was very helpful to me, assisting me over scholastic hurdles I couldn't seem to climb alone.

  As for Jillian, she became a ghost of her former self. Bringing the full truth of her daughter out of the closet and into the light put Jillian in the closet. All the parties and charity affairs she had loved to attend were forgotten in the self-abuse that keep her in bed, so she no longer cared how she looked. She cried constantly for Leigh to come back and forgive her for not listening, for not understanding, for not having cared enough. But of course it was too late for Leigh to come back.

  Yet life went on. I shopped again for new clothes. I wrote letters to Tom and to Fanny, and always included a check for both. Striving for the top grades became my main objective in life. Often when Tony and I were forced to join each other just to feel we weren't alone-in a huge house, I found his blue eyes riveted on me, as if he wanted to say something that would knock down my wall of hostility, but I was reluctant to let that wall down. Let him suffer, I'd think. But for him my mother wouldn't have run away. She wouldn't have ended up in a mountain shack where poverty killed her. Then, contrarily, I'd remember the sweet days in the Willies when all five of the Casteel children and Logan Stonewall had found a great deal of happiness just in being together.

  One cold November day when the sky threatened another snowfall, a letter arrived from Fanny.

  .

  Dear Heaven,

  Your selfishness forced me to marry with my

  rich old man, Mallory. Now I don't need your stingy ole pin money. Mallory's got a big house, pretty as one in them fancy house magazines, and he's got a mean cranky ole ma who'd like to see me dead. Not that I kerr. Ole fishface is about ready to kick off any day, so her not liking me don't matter much no how. Mallory is trying to teach me to act like a lady, an talk like one. I wouldn't waste my time with nothing so silly if one day I didn't think I'd run into Logan Stonewall agin, an if I could talk and act proper, maybe this time he'd love me. Love me as I always wanted him to love me. An you can kiss him off as gone ferever, once he's mine.

  Your loving, caring sister Fanny

  .

  Fanny's letter disturbed me. Who would have

  ever thought that Fanny, who had played the field far and wide, and had treated all males more or less like machines whose buttons she knew only too well how to push, would have fallen so for Logan, the very one who scorned her most.

  If Fanny wrote just one letter, Tom wrote many. I found that roll of bills that you gave to Grandpa. Really, Heavenly, where was your good sense? He had it shoved down in his whittling box, underneath all the wood. He's a pitiful old geezer, always wanting what he hasn't got, so that when he's here, he's yearning for the hills, where Annie wants to be. And then when he's in the hills about two weeks, he then wants to be with his "chiluns." 1 think he gets lonely there with only that old woman who comes in the morning and fixes enough food to last the day. Gosh, Heavenly, what do you do with someone like that?

  Without Troy, Farthy became just a place to stay on the weekends. I said as little as I could to Tony, and yet sometimes I felt sorry for him, prowling alone the long empty halls of a huge house that no longer resounded with the laughter and gaiety of many house guests. Yet I went on about my business, reminding myself each day that I had come to Boston with a goal in mind, and on that I concentrated, thinking somehow, at some point in time, I would find the happiness that was due me.

  The years passed swiftly after that tragic day when Troy decided it was better to put miles and miles between us. Only once in a great while did he write home, and then it was always to Tony. Grief and unhappiness were mine for the longest time, but when the sun shines, and the wind blows, and the rain freshens the grass, and you see the flowers you planted in the fall coming up in the spring, bit by bit grief and unhappiness slips away. I had my dream now, my college days. The beautiful campus, the boys who asked me for dates, all that helped. One very quiet, unassuming, but nice-looking boy I took home for Tony to meet. Yes, the son of a state senator was perfect, even if I did find him more than a bit boring. Once or twice I saw Logan near the university, and he'd smile and say a few words, and I'd smile and ask him if he'd heard from Tom, but Logan never asked me for a date.

  Feeling sorry for Jillian, I made a point of visiting her as often as my hectic routine allowed. I began to call her Grandmother. She didn't seem to notice. That alone was enough to tell me some drastic change had taken place within her. I brushed and styled her hair, and did many small things for her that she also didn't notice. And seated always in a far corner, as discreet as possible, was the nurse that Tony had hired to see that Jillian did no harm to herself.

  During each of my summer breaks, Tony planned something special for us to do together. London, Paris, and Rome, finally I had my chance to see them. We traveled to Denmark, Iceland, and Finland so he could show me the small Danish town that had been Jillian's mother's birthplace. Not once did we ever make the journey to that Texas ranch where Jillian's mother and two older sisters still lived. Often I had the feeling that Tony was
trying to make up for my deprived youth. I think both of us kept up a constant hope of finding Troy during our European vacations.

  Many a time I thought about visiting Grandpa, who had made several round trips from Georgia to the Willies, but there was always the threat that Pa would be with him, and I wasn't ready to face Pa. When I thought of Stacie, I thought of that handsome little boy named Drake, and to him I mailed all sorts of wonderful gifts. Each time Stacie wrote back in a few days to thank me for remembering Drake, who thought he was very lucky to receive toys all through the year, and not have to wait for Christmas.

  "You could be a huge help to me at Tatterton Toys," said Tony time and time again. "That is, if you've lost your ambition to become another Miss Marianne Deale." He gazed at me steadily. "It would be quite wonderful for me if you had your surname legally changed to Tatterton."

  Strange how I took that. I'd never been proud of being a Casteel. And yet it was as a Casteel that I wanted to return to Winnerrow with a college degree, to prove to them that, at last, a scumbag Casteel was not so ignorant and stupid they had always to end up in prison. As I thought over Tony's proposition, I realized I didn't know now exactly what I wanted for myself. I was changing, changing in all sorts of subtle ways.

  Tony was trying so hard to make up for the damage he'd done in the past. Doing for me all the things I used to dream that Pa would do. Tony made me the center of his life, gave me all the attention, love, and charm that I used to think Pa owed me. During one cruise to the Caribbean, I relaxed enough to smile and flirt with several good-looking young men, and for a moment or so--I didn't worry about Troy. Whatever happened to him, it wasn't my fault, wasn't my fault at all.

  But when I dreamed, I dreamed of Troy. Troy somewhere needing me, still loving me, and tears would be on my face in the morning. When I could put worries about Troy behind me, I found a certain kind of acceptance about life, and how much you could do to control it. And then one wonderful day, Tony delivered, to me something totally unexpected, and wonderful.

  It happened on July the fourth. I had one more year to go in college. "We're going to have a fabulous poolside picnic, with weekend guests I more than suspect you are going to enjoy very much." Tony's smile was very broad. "Jillian seems a bit better, and she'll be there--and other special guests as well," "Who are the special guests?"

  "You'll be pleased," he assured me, smiling his secret smile.