Fallen Hearts

  How I had wanted to hug and kiss him then. I think that was when I first realized I was falling in love with him, slipping and sliding down a tunnel of affection, the walls of which were greased with sympathetic words, loving phrases and touches, soft, compassionate eyes, and hopeful promises.

  I recalled how we had walked quietly in the garden and talked until it began to rain and how he had fled from me that night. When I had asked him why he was leaving me so early, he told me it was because I was young and healthy and full of dreams he couldn't possibly share.

  How prophetic he was.

  Oh, Troy! I crushed the pillow against my face, smothering the sound of my sobs. Can I let you die a second time?

  EIGHT Forbidden Passions

  . IT WAS AFTER TWO A.M. I FELT AS IF I WERE IN A DREAM. FOR hours I had dwelled fitfully on the rim of sleep, tossing and turning, moaning and crying softly. Finally I fell more into a state of troubled unconsciousness than the peaceful oblivion I had so desperately sought. I saw myself hanging from the edge of a sharp cliff, dangling hopelessly above the darkness. The jagged edges of the rock to which I clung cut painfully into my fingers until I had to let go. I felt myself endlessly falling and awoke with a start.

  I sat up quickly. The illusion of hanging from that cliff had been so vivid that I actually felt pain in my fingers. I opened and closed my hands and looked about the room. Moonlight cast a thin white beam through the curtains. I felt as though I were looking through gauze.

  Suddenly the silence around me was pierced by the silvery soft notes of the piano below. Was it my active imagination at work, or had Troy taken another of his nocturnal, ghostlike walks and made his way back to the past? Was this his way of mourning for our lost love, crying through the music, or was this his way of calling to me? If he was calling to me, why was he haunting me with impossible promises?

  I got out of the bed, put on my velvet slippers and went to the door of the suite. My fingers trembled as I turned the brass handle. When I opened the door and looked down the corridor, all was silent and dark. The piano music had to have been a trick my mind was playing, I thought No one else had been lured out of sleep by it. Yet I didn't close the door and return to bed. I stepped forward, like a sleepwalker, feeling as if I were floating over the carpet, and continued down the dimly lit hallways.

  For a moment I lingered at the top of the stairway and looked down at the empty rooms below. The great house seemed to be holding its breath. I took one step and then another and another, still feeling as if I really hadn't awakened, as if this was all part of that tumultuous nightmare that had seized hold of me. I paused at the doorway of the living room and looked in at the piano. No one was there. The keyboard was closed. All was still; all was quiet, yet I felt a flush come into my cheeks and throat as if I had discovered Troy waiting, pleading for me to come to him. I wanted it to happen so much that I couldn't admit to myself that he wasn't calling to me.

  I didn't return to my suite. That secret part of me that had been stirred was now in command. I proceeded on through the dining room to the kitchen and the pantry that led to the doorway which opened on the stairway leading down into the tunnels. I took up the candle and its holder from the shelf by the door and lit the flame, which, like a gentle hand, parted the darkness below, laying out a flickering yellow pathway for me to follow.

  Each step I took was accompanied by the imagined voices, some whispering warnings, some beckoning me softly. As the light washed the blackness from the tunnel walls, I saw a gallery of faces there from past and present, each animated, each offering words of advice or condemnation. There was Granny telling me to be careful, warning me about unseen evil spirits. There was Luke scowling and nodding as if to say I was doing what he expected I would do. There was Torn, beautiful, graceful Tom, urging me to think of Logan; there was Fanny laughing lewdly, urging me to go forward to satisfy myself. And there was Ethan, heavily made up, warning me that I was only going to grow old before my time. Finally there was Tony, looking scared and jealous, pleading with me to turn back.

  I moved around a bend in the tunnel and all the faces drew back into the darkness behind me. I was alone once again, surrounded by silence so deep I could hear the thumping of my own heart. After a moment that was replaced by the melodious tinkling of the piano. Was I still dreaming? Was I really here?

  I paused when I reached the cellar of the cottage. There was still time to turn back, I thought, and hesitated before going any farther. But a breeze coming from behind me made the candle flicker and before I could cup it protectively, the light went out, leaving me in pitch darkness. I saw a dim glow emanating from the door upstairs. When I peered up the stairway, I saw that Troy had left the door open.

  Was he expecting me or was he merely hoping I would come to him? Or had he indeed just returned from playing the piano in Farthy and left the door open, knowing what the magic of our past memories could do? I looked back into the darkness behind me and then, with my heart thumping harder than ever, began to ascend the stairway. Just before I reached the doorway, his silhouette appeared in the light of a small lamp behind him. His face was masked in shadows, but I saw his hands reach out for me.

  "Oh, Heaven!" he cried. "You shouldn't have come."

  "I know," I whispered. As my eyes drank in his precious beauty, I took his hand.

  "You should turn back before it's too late," he whispered, but his eyes belied his words.

  "It's already too late," I insisted, putting all my love and passion into my low raspy voice.

  "We must not do this," he said, but he pulled me closer to him and caught me up in his arms and pressed me against him. "Oh, Heaven, how can I turn you away?" He swung me up into his arms and carried me to his bed.

  Many times since that fateful day when I had found Tony by the beach and he had described Troy's death to me, I had made love to Troy in my hungry imagination. It was my way of bringing him back to life. I had longed so for this moment, even during the time Logan began to court me again. And now, in Troy's arms with his eyes gazing lovingly into mine, this all seemed more like something imagined, something dreamt.

  He continued to offer frail statements of protest, even as we clung to each other, but I was protective of our stolen moments of passion and joy and I kissed him into silence again and again until all the hesitation in him disappeared.

  A part of me still wanted to resist, a part of me remembered that for better or for worse, I was married to another man. But in Troy's arms, and with his lips against mine, tasting his passion caused whatever resistance that lingered to quickly die.

  I didn't care. I loved him, I would always love him. I wanted him to consume me just as a flame consumed that kindling that fueled it. It seemed appropriate that we would die in each other's arms and go up in the smoke of our demanding passion. Never had I felt such passion for a man. Never had our lovemaking been as intense and exciting as it was at this moment, perhaps because it was so forbidden. I surrendered myself completely to our love.

  "Oh, Troy," I whispered, "I've dreamed of you, longed for this moment so much."

  He kissed me deeply. "I love you still, Heaven. Still and always my heavenly Heaven."

  Our lovemaking was so wonderful, it brought tears of happiness to my eyes, tears he eagerly kissed away. Over and over we reached an ecstasy from only of the truest, deepest passion, a passion that knew no right or wrong.

  After it was over we lay in each other's arms, satisfied, spent, like two small boats caught in a hurricane after they've come home to harbor.

  "Heaven," Troy asked as he caressed my hair, "how can something so wonderful and good be sinful? It's a cruel joke that's been played on us."

  "I don't care," I said defiantly. "All I care about is being in your arms and having you hold me tightly to your body. Let's stay like this until we die."

  He laughed and kissed first my right eye, then my left.

  "How much you sound like the Heaven I first met," he exclaimed, "wildly hopefu
l and willing to challenge any obstacles to our love. t ut it's all different now; it's all changed," he said sadly. "I shouldn't have allowed this to happen. I'm afraid you're going to be sorry when you think about it later on. I'm sorry."

  "Oh, no, Troy!" I cried and held him more tightly to me. "Never. I'II never be sorry about loving you, about wanting you, about giving myself completely to you."

  He sat up in the moonlight and combed his fingers through his long hair, his beautiful, sensitive face erased by the silvery light filtering in through the window. Then he turned to me.

  "Perhaps you don't know yourself as well as I know you, Heaven." His voice was low and gravelly, and sadder than tragedy. "Think about Logan, about what you've started together. Can you just cast all that aside for a few stolen moments of pleasure with me?"

  "I don't care," I insisted. "I will treasure this moment for as long as I live."

  "Yes, but what about Tony? He might find out; he would be furious and would end the construction of that factory in Winnerow. And if the folks in Winnerow found out why, you could never, ever go home to the Willies again, Heaven. You, yourself, know how much incest goes on in the hills. People there would condemn you as just another hillbilly. The people in the Willies would resent you for destroying their newfound hope, their only chance to better themselves. You would be more alone than ever."

  "I wouldn't be alone if I were with you," I pleaded, clinging to him as if for dear life.

  "Could you live with yourself, knowing what kind of pain you imposed on poor Logan? None of this is his fault. You admit yourself that he is devoted to you, that he loves you dearly. Is this your way of repaying him?"

  "Oh, Troy." His arguments tore at my frail bubble of joy. I felt crushed, my rainbow world crushed by truth and reality, and I hated it. I searched my thoughts for a way to overcome the inevitable end.

  He got up from the bed and walked to the window. I watched him staring out at the dark world in silence, hot tears now streaming down my face.

  "Don't think there isn't a part of me that wants to encourage you to do it. I told you, I came back hoping to spend the rest of my life with you, no matter what the consequences, but that was before all this. There are too many people to hurt now. Oh, we could be happy for a short while, but Heaven"--he sighed, turning back to me--"neither of us is insensitive enough to live with the pain we would cause. You know I am right about that, don't you?" he asked softly. I nodded and he came to me. He kissed away my hot tears and stroked my hair.

  "I can't give you up. I can't!" I cried.

  "My poor, precious Heaven," Troy soothed.

  "Troy," I said, straightening up quickly, a childlike excitement returning to my voice, "why can't we have it both ways? Don't leave the cottage. Don't leave Farthinggale. I'll come to you whenever I can. No one need ever know. The tunnels our ancestors built will become a blessing, a way to link us forever and ever."

  "Oh, my darling," he said. "Don't you realize that would be even more painful for us? Every time you left me to go back to Logan, every time we heard some sound near the cottage and jumped in fear, we would suffer additional agony. And how long would it be before Logan would realize that your kisses were restrained? That you were holding yourself back for another man?

  "A man can sense that, you know. I don't care how busy he is, when he comes home at night and looks for tenderness and love, he will feel that your heart is somewhere else. There you will be denying his accusations, covering up, living like some sort of criminal or spy. Maybe he would employ one of the servants to watch you while he was away. Maybe he would complain to Tony, who would soon realize what was going on,

  "And after the truth was revealed, how would you feel about yourself? How could you face Logan? No, darling Heaven. It would be even worse for us to carry on in secret, traveling through the underground tunnels, meeting when Logan was away or you could steal an hour here, an hour there.

  "Our love, our precious, beautiful love would become something sordid, sneaky, even ugly."

  "And do you know what would eventually happen? Eventually you would come to resent me for it," he said. Then he gently ran the palm of his hand down the side of my face. I closed my eyes at his touch.

  "What makes you so wise?" I asked him.

  "I'd rather not be, believe me. You know that the things I am telling you are true, don't you? You realize how painful it is and will be for me to deny you?"

  "Yes," I said. "I know because I know how painful it is for me."

  We stared at each other in the darkness, our eyes lit by the moon. We were like two stars blinking at each other in the night sky, so bright, so eager to touch and become one, and yet so distant.

  "Go back, Heaven," he whispered sadly. I reached out and touched his lips with the tip of my fingers to silence him.

  "Not yet," I said. "If we have stolen one precious time, one night more together, let us enjoy it together until the end. I want to lie here beside you until the first light of morning. Then I will rise quietly and leave your bed forever."

  He said nothing. He didn't resist. He kissed my neck and drew me back down to him. We fell asleep in each other's arms afterward, but I awoke at the break of day, just as I had promised. I was facing the window, and I watched as the morning light began to lift away the veil of darkness. I had hoped the night would go on forever, but morning had come, just as truth and reality had, just as all the things Troy had said would happen would come. There was no denying time. Our love was too fragile, too private to hold back the flood of minutes and hours, days and months, all the years we would be without each other.

  My heart felt like a brick in my chest. Gently I untangled myself from his embrace. Troy was locked in sleep. He looked like a little boy, dreaming of holiday happiness, perhaps dreaming of some tiny new Tatterton Toy. Maybe it was a toy world in which two people like us could share their love without restraint.

  I slipped silently from the bed and put on my nightgown and peignoir. I got back into my slippers and went out to-the kitchen to get a match to light the candle in my holder. When I looked back at Troy, he was still asleep, his eyes shut tight, his lips closed gently. I thought about going to him and kissing him once more, but I was afraid to wake him. It was better for him and for me that I simply go. Perhaps when he finally awoke, he would think it had all been a dream. Perhaps after I got back to my suite and into my bed, I would think it had all been a dream. Perhaps it had all been a dream.

  I closed the door behind me and made my way down the stairs into the cellar and then started through the tunnels. All was quiet. The voices that had escorted me during the night had been silenced by our lovemaking. There were no faces on the walls. I passed through the darkness swiftly and made my way up the stairs, through the back of the kitchen and into the great house. It was still early enough for all to be quiet. No one had yet stirred.

  I went up the stairs and paused in the corridor. The strong morning sun was beginning to lift away the dimness and the chill that accompanied it. Without further hesitation I went toward my suite. But just before I reached the door, I heard a horrible scream echo down the corridor. I turned as Martha Goodman came running out of Jillian's suite, her hands pressed against her cheeks. She turned in a circle until she saw me standing there.

  "Heaven!" she screamed "Come quickly! Quickly!"

  I rushed down the corridor just as Tony, dressed in his blue silk robe, emerged from his suite. He looked at me and I raised my arms to indicate I knew nothing. We both followed Martha into Jillian's bedroom and discovered what it was that had caused her hysteria.

  Jillian was slumped in her soft velvet vanity chair facing the empty mirror frame. Her arms dangled over the sides. She was dressed in her black wool crepe suit trimmed with a mink collar and cuffs. From beneath her jacket peeked a glittering black chiffon blouse. I remembered her in that outfit. I remembered how beautiful she had looked, how stunning, how like a diamond set against black velvet.

  The room reeked of
her jasmine perfume, suggesting she had bathed herself in it. Her hair was pinned up with pearl combs and she had been at her face again, caking it with makeup, staring into an illusion of herself and going through those long, intricate beauty rituals that used to take up so much of her time.

  Only this time she had been preparing herself for her final gala affair. I gasped and seized Tony's arm as we both stared down at what was obviously a dead Jillian. On the floor, just beyond the reach of her dangling fingertips, lay the bottle of tranquilizers.

  Martha Goodman was weeping hysterically. I went to console her.

  "What happened?" Tony asked, as if hearing it said by someone else would be the only way it would register in his mind as real. Slowly he went to Jillian and knelt at her side. He took her hand into his and looked into her silent face. Death made the smile under her mask of makeup look even more grotesque. He turned to me and Martha Goodman. "What happened?"

  "Oh, Mr. Tatterton, I didn't know she even understood what it was she was getting whenever I gave her the pills. I told her they were vitamins, just so she would take them willingly. She always smiled and nodded and looked eager to take them."

  "Yes?" he said. Martha looked to me. Why wasn't he understanding. She turned back to Tony.

  "Well, she must have always known what they were. Sometime during the night she snuck into my bedroom and stole the whole bottle. Then she came back in here, dressed herself like that, and made herself up like that and . . . and she took the entire bottle of tranquilizers. I never heard her; I never knew what had happened until I got up to see how she was and found her like this. But it was too late. Oh, dear, it was too late," Martha said and started to cry again.

  I tried to comfort her. "Martha, it's not your fault. You can't blame yourself," I said.

  "My darling," Tony said tenderly, wiping off Jillian's makeup. "You'll be able to rest now. There will be no more ghosts to haunt you."