"I've fallen in love," he whispered huskily, raining kisses expertly on her face, behind her ears, traveling down her neck to end up on her breast that he bared. "I've never met a girl who was half the fun you are. And you were right. They don't grow 'em better in Texas .. ."
Half drunk on too much wine, intoxicated, too, with the expertise of his foreplay, Cindy's efforts to resist his lovemaking were weak, ineffectual. Soon her own passionate nature was responding, and eagerly she helped him to undress as he unzipped her dress and soon had it off, along with everything else. He fell upon her--and that's when Bart showed up.
Bellowing like an enraged bull, Bart rushed the parked car, catching Cindy and Victor in the very act of copulating.
Seeing their naked bodies with arms and legs entwined on the back seat confirmed all his suspicions and enraged him more. Bart threw open the door and yanked Victor out by the ankles, forcefully dragging him off the top of Cindy so he fell face downward upon the rough gravel of the roadside.
Not giving the boy a chance to recover, Bart attacked, using his fists brutally.
Screaming her anger, disregarding her nudity, Cindy hurled her dress directly into Bart's face, blinding him momentarily. This gave Victor the chance to jump to his feet and deliver his own blow that momentarily gave Bart pause, but already Victor's nose was bleeding and he had a black eye.
In the moonlight his nakedness seemed blue in Cindy's eyes. "And Bart was so ruthless, Momma! So awful! He seemed like a madman--especially when Victor managed to smash a good right hook into his jaw. Then he tried to kick Bart in the groin. It did hit him there, but not hard enough. Bart doubled up, cried out, then rushed Victor with so much fierce anger that I was scared he'd kill him! He came out of that pain so fast, Momma, so fast--and I'd always heard that stopped a man cold." Cindy sobbed with her head on my lap.
"He was like the Devil straight from hell, screaming abuse at Victor, using all the obscene words he never wants me to use. He knocked Victor down, then beat him into unconsciousness. Then he came at me! I was terrified he'd batter my face and break my nose and make me ugly, like, he's always threatened to do. Somehow I'd managed to pull on that dress, but the zipper was wide open down the back. He grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me so hard the dress fell to my ankles and I was naked--but he didn't look to see anything. He kept his eyes on my face as he slapped one cheek and then the other and my head was rocked from side to side, until I felt dizzy and faint. My head was reeling before he picked me up like a sack of grain, threw me over his shoulder and took off through the woods, leaving Victor lying on the ground.
"It was awful, Momma, so humiliating! To be carried like that, as if I were cattle! I cried all the way, pleading with Bart to call an ambulance in case Victor was seriously hurt . . . but he wouldn't listen. I begged him to put me down and let me cover myself, but he ordered me to shut up or else he'd do something terrible. Then he took me to--"
She cut off her words abruptly, staring before her as if mesmerized by fear.
"Where did he take you, Cindy?" I asked, feeling sick, as if her humiliation was mine, and so furious with Bart, feeling sorry for her shocking plight. At the same time I was so angry that she'd brought this upon herself by disobeying and disregarding everything I'd tried to teach her.
In a small, weak voice, with her head lowered so her long hair fell to hide her face, she finished, "Just home, Mom . . . just home."
There was more to it, but she refused to tell me anything else. I wanted to scold her, to chastise her, remind her again that she knew all about Bart and his fierce temper, but she was too traumatized to hear more.
I got up to leave her room. "I'm taking away all your privileges, Cindy. I'll send up a servant to take out your telephone so you can't call one of your boyfriends to help you escape. I've heard your side of the story now, and Bart just this morning told me his side. I don't agree with his method of punishing you or that boy. He was much too brutal, and for that, I apologize. However, it seems you are very free with your sexual favors. You can't deny that any longer, for I've seen you with my own eyes when that boy Lance was here. It hurts to know that you've heeded so little of what I've tried to teach you. I realize it's hard to be young and different from your peers, but still I was hoping you'd wait until you knew how to handle intimate relationships. I couldn't bear for an unknown man to lay a finger on me--much less take me totally--and you just met that boy, Cindy! A complete stranger who might have hurt you!"
Her pitiful pretty face lifted. "Momma, help me!"
"Haven't I done my best to help you all your life? Listen to me, Cindy, for once really listen. The best part of loving comes with learning to know a man, by allowing him to know you as a person before you begin to think about sex--you don't pick up the first man you meet!"
Bitterly she railed back. "Momma, all the books write about sex. They don't mention love. Most psychiatrists say there is no such thing as love. You've never explained to me exactly what love is. I don't even know if it really exists. I think that sex is as necessary at my age as water and food, and love is nothing but excitement; it's your blood heating up; your pulse racing, your heart pounding, your breath coming faster, heavier, and in the end it's only a natural need no worse than wanting to sleep. So despite you and your old- fashioned ideas, I give in when a boy I like wants to make out. Victor Wade wanted me . . . and I wanted him. Now, don't blaze your eyes at me that way! He didn't force me. Didn't rape me--I just let him! I wanted him to do what he did!"
Her blue eyes defied me as she jumped up and stared me in the eyes. "Now go on and call me a sinner like Bart did! Yell and scream and say I'll go to hell, but I don't believe you any more than I believe him! If so, ninety-nine percent of the world's population are sinners--including you and your brother!'
Stunned, deeply hurt, I turned and left.
The beautiful summer days dragged by while Cindy sulked in her room, angry at Bart, at me, even at Chris. She refused to eat at the table if Bart or Joel were there. She stopped showering two and three times a day and allowed her hair to become just as stringy and dull as Melodie's, as if proving to us she was now on her way to abandoning us as Melodie had, and it was Melodie's manner she tried to duplicate as much as possible. However, even in sullenness her eyes still sparked with fire, and she managed to look pretty even when she looked messy.
"You're not accomplishing anything but making yourself miserable," I said when I saw her quickly turn off the TV set she had in her bedroom, as if she wanted me to believe she didn't have a single pleasure left to enjoy when her room contained every luxury but the telephone, which I'd removed so she couldn't arrange secret dates with Victor Wade or anyone else.
She sat on the bed, staring at me resentfully. "You just let me go, Momma. You go and tell Bart to let me go and I'll never bother him again. I'll never come back to this house again! NEVER!"
"Where will you go and what will you do, Cindy?" I asked with concern, afraid she'd slip out one night and we'd never hear from her again. And I knew she didn't have enough money saved to see her through longer than two weeks.
"I'LL DO WHAT I HAVE TO!" she screamed, tears of self-pity streaking her pale face, which was already losing its rosy tan. "You and Daddy gave to me generously, so I won't have to sell my body if that's what you're thinking. Unless I just want to. Right this moment I feel like being everything Bart doesn't want me to be, and that would show him, really show him."
"Then you stay in this room until you feel like being everything I want you to be. When you can speak to me with respect, without yelling, and express to me some mature decisions on what you intend to do with your life, I'll help you escape this house."
"Momma!" she wailed. "Don't hate me! I can't help it if I like the boys and they like me! I'd like to save myself for that special Mister Right, but I've never met anyone that special. When I refuse to let them, they go straight from me to some other girl who doesn't refuse. How did you manage it, Momma? What did you do to keep a
ll those men loving you, and only you?"
All those men? I didn't know how to answer.
Instead, like other parents put on the spot, I avoided giving the straight answer I didn't have anyway. "Cindy, your father and I love you very much, you should know that. Jory loves you. And the twins smile just to see you come near them. Before you decide to do something rash, let's sit down with your father, with Jory, and then you have your say, and let us know what you want for yourself. And if it is at all reasonable, we will do what we can to see that you obtain your goals."
"You won't let Bart in on any of this?" she asked suspiciously.
"No, darling. Bart has proven he doesn't reason when it comes to you. Ever since the day you joined our family he's resented you, and at this late date there doesn't seem to be much any of us can do about that. As for Joel, I don't like him, either, and he has no place in our family discussion about your future."
Suddenly she flung her arms about my neck. "Oh, Momma, I'm so ashamed I said so many ugly things. I wanted to hurt you the other day because Bart had shamed me so much. Save me from Bart, Momma. Find a way, please, please."
After Chris, Jory, Cindy and I talked, we found a way to save Cindy not only from Bart but from herself. I tried to calm Bart, who wanted to punish her more drastically.
"She's only adding fuel to the fire already burning in the village," he shouted when I entered his office. "I try to lead a decent, God-fearing life--now don't you yell at me and say you've heard differently. I'll admit I was rolling in filth for a while, but things have changed. I didn't enjoy those women. Melodie was the only one who gave me anything that approached love."
I tried to keep the frown from my face. How easily he had turned away from her once he knew he had her loving him .
Looking around at all the valuables in his office, I wondered again if Bart didn't love things more than he loved people; I stared at the luxurious antique Orientals that he'd purchased at auctions, costing hundreds of thousands. His furniture put that in the White House to shame. He would be the wealthiest man in the world if he kept doubling his five hundred thousand a year every few months, the way he was somehow managing to do now. Even before he came fully "into his own" he'd have made his billion or so. He was clever, quick, brilliant. What a pity he couldn't be more to mankind than just another greedy, selfish millionaire.
"Leave now, Mother. You waste my time." He swiveled his chair around and stared out at the beautiful gardens now in full bloom. "Send Cindy away-- anywhere. Just get her out of my hair."
"Cindy told us last night she'd like to spend the remainder of the summer in a New England drama school. She had the name and address of the one she preferred. Chris called to check them out, and they seem reliable and have a good reputation. So she's leaving in three days."
"Good riddance to rubbish," he said
indifferently.
Standing, I threw him a look of pity. "Before you condemn Cindy so harshly, Bart, think about yourself. Has she done any worse than you have?"
He began to use his computer without replying. I slammed the door behind me.
Three days later I was helping Cindy finish her packing. We'd been shopping, so she had more than enough casual clothes, six pairs of new shoes and two new swimsuits. She kissed Jory goodbye, then lingered wih the twins cuddled in her arms. "Dear little babies," she crooned, "I'll be back. I'll sneak in and out and won't let Bart even see me. Jory, you should get away from here, too. Momma, you and Daddy go with him " Reluctantly she put the twins back in their play pen and came to hug and kiss me. I was already crying. I was losing my daughter. I knew from the way she looked at me that nothing between us would ever be quite the same again.
Still she came to me and hugged me. "Daddy's going to drive me to the airport," she said as she bowed her head on my shoulder. "You can come, too, if you don't cry and feel sorry for me, because I'm happier than any lark to be free of this damned house. And take me seriously for once--get Jory and yourselves free of this house. It's an evil house, and now I hate its spirit just as much as once I loved its beauty."
We drove to the airport without Cindy bidding Bart or Joel farewell.
Without another word to me, her remote expression told me everything. She was warmer with Chris, kissing him goodbye. She only waved to me as she raced toward her departure gate. "Don't hang around and wait for my plane to take off. I'm boarding it gladly."
"You will write?" Chris asked.
"Naturally, when I can find time."
"Cindy," I called despite myself, wanting to protect her again, "write at least once a week. We care about what happens to you. We'll be here to do what we can when you need us. And sooner or later, Bart will find what he's looking for. He'll change. I'll see to it that he changes. I'll do anything I have to so we can be a family again."
"He won't find his soul, Momma," she called back coolly, backing away even farther. "He was born without one."
Before her plane left the ground, my tears stopped flowing and my determination hardened into concrete. Indeed, before I died, I was going to see my family united, made whole and healthy--if it took the rest of my life.
Chris made attempts to pull me out of my depression as he drove me back to what had to be called "home." "How's the nurse making out?"
My concern for Cindy had kept me so involved that I'd paid little attention to the beautiful, darkhaired nurse Chris had recently hired to live in and help with the twins and Jory. She'd been in the house a few days and I'd hardly said more than six words to her.
"What does Jory think of Toni?" he asked. "I took considerable pains looking for just the right one. In my opinion, she's a real find."
"I don't think he's even looked at her, Chris. He stays so busy with his painting and the babies. They're just beginning to crawl without so much effort. Why, yesterday I saw Cory--I mean Darren--pick up a bug from the grass and try to put it in his mouth. It was Toni who ran to prevent that. I don't recall Jory even looking at her."
"He will, sooner or later. And Cathy, you've got to stop thinking of his twins as Cory and Carrie. If Jory hears you call them Cory or Carrie he'll be angry. They are not our twins--they are Jory's."
Chris said nothing more during the long drive back to Foxworth Hall, not even when he turned into our long drive and then drove slowly into the garage.
"What's going on in, this crazy house?" Jory asked as soon as I stepped onto the terrace, where he was seated on an athletic mat put on the flagstones. The twins were with him, playing happily in the sunshine. "Shortly after you left to drive Cindy to the airport, a crew of construction workers arrived and knocked and banged away in that downstairs room Joel likes to pray in. I didn't see Bart, and I didn't want to talk to Joel. And then there's something else--"
"I don't understand . . ."
"It's that damned nurse you and Dad hired, Mom. She's gorgeous and she's good at her job-- when I can get hold of her. I've been calling for ten minutes and she hasn't responded. The twins are dripping wet, and she didn't bring out enough diapers so I can change them again. I can't go in the house and get more without leaving them alone. They scream now when I try to put them in the slings. They want to be on their own. Especially Deirdre."
I diapered the twins myself and put them down for naps, then went in search of the newest member in our household.
To my astonishment I found her in the new swimming pool with Bart, both of them laughing, splashing water at one another.
"Hi, Mother!" called Bart, looking tan and healthy, and happier than I'd seen him since the days when he had believed himself in love with Melodie. "Toni plays a super game of tennis. It's great having her here. We were both so hot after all that exercise that we decided to cool off in the pool."
The look in my eyes was read clearly by Antonia Winters. Immediately she clambered out of the pool and began to dry off. She toweled her dark curly hair dry, then wrapped her red bikini with the same white towel. "Bart has asked me to call him by his first n
ame. You won't mind if I do that, will you, Mrs. Sheffield?"
I looked her over appraisingly, wondering if she was truly responsible enough to take care of Jory and the twins. I liked her dark hair that sprang
immediately into soft waves and curls to frame her face becomingly without makeup. She was about five eight and had as many voluptuous curves as Cindy, curves that Bart had despised on his sister. But from the way he was looking at the nurse, he approved of her figure very much.
"Toni," I began with control, "Jory, who I hired you to help, tried to call you to bring more diapers for the twins. He was out on the terrace with his children, and you should have been with him, not Bart. We hired you expecting you'd see that neither Jory or his children would be neglected."
Embarrassment heated her face. "I'm sorry, but Bart . . ." and here she hesitated, seeming flustered as she glanced at him.
"It's all right, Toni. I accept the blame," said Bart. "I told her Jory was fine and able to take care of himself and the twins. It seems to me he has made a big point of being independent."
"See that this doesn't happen again, Toni," I said, disregarding Bart.
That damned man was going to drive all of us batty! Then I had a brilliant idea. "Bart, you and Toni would have done Jory a great favor if you had included him in your swimming party. He has full use of his arms. In fact, he has very powerful arms. And you should remember, Bart, that it's rather dangerous to have a pool like this without a fence, when two small children are around. So, Toni, with Jory's help, I'd like you both to begin teaching the twins how to swim . . . just in case.'
Thoughtfully Bart stared at me, seeming to read my mind. He glanced again at Antonia, who was striding toward the house. "So you're going to stay on--why?"