"Sure," he said laughing. He turned to look at me. "You mind if I just look at you awhile, watch you fall asleep?" he asked. "There were lots of times I did that back home and you didn't even know it."
"What? When?"
"Oh, different times. Beni would be fast asleep and I'd sneak into your room and just stare at you."
"You didn't."
"A-huh, I did."
"When?"
"Lots of times, Rain, especially during the last year we were all together. I worried about you, about things that were going on and about the trouble Beni might get you into. And..." he said after a moment, "I just wanted to look at you. You've always been the most beautiful girl to look at," he said.
I felt the heat crawl up my neck and into my face. "There's lots and lots of beautiful girls in the world, Roy."
"Not for me," he said, shaking his head with a determination that made my heart heavy.
"Roy."
"Don't you ever get so angry you could just spit, Rain? Don't you ever just want to rip into anything and anyone around you?"
"I guess I do, but what good would come of it, Roy?"
"I don't know. Maybe it doesn't matter whether good comes from it or not. Maybe it's just a way of... of making yourself feel better. You were right before when you said something about a cruel joke being pulled on us, making us think we were brother and sister all this time when we weren't. It's like, like being tortured or something," he declared. "At least for me," he added looking away.
I reached out and touched his face and he looked up again. With just a slim shaft of moonlight at the one window, I could see the tears in his eyes, the pain.
"Can I just hold you?" he asked.
"Sure you can, Roy. I'd like that," I said and he slipped his arm behind my head and around my shoulders as he leaned on the bed and pulled me closer to him. For a long moment we remained like that, quiet, me listening to his steady, heavy breathing. My right arm was against his chest and I could feel his heart pounding. It made mine pound harder too.
He brushed my hair back and then he kissed my cheek. "Look at us, cast out in this world like two lost fish dumped off a boat into a lake they never swam. Both of us, rushing about, trying to make some sense of it all and every once in a while, running across each other and wondering if the other knows anything new, found a new school or some new companion to help manage the mess."
"From what I can see, Roy, that about describes most people?'
"Yeah," he said, "but it doesn't have to describe us." He kissed my cheek again. "Remember that day I looked at you and you didn't stop me?"
"Roy, let's not think about all that now."
"I never stop thinkin' about it, Rain. Whenever I was the loneliest, feeling about as low as a worm, I'd bring that picture up out of my treasure chest of memories and just fight to keep it there in my mind. After a while I didn't hear anything, smell anything or see anything else but you. That's the truth and I wouldn't tell it to anyone else but you, Rain. The other guys all think I'm some sort of dangerous, angry man, but if they knew how quickly a thought about you turned me into Mama's homemade jam, they'd probably jump me and pound the glory out of me just for the satisfaction."
"Oh Roy, don't say that."
"I have to say what I feel, don't I? You are about the only person I never lied to, Rain. Never, except when I thought we were brother and sister and I had to hide my feelings. I'd tell you I was watching you to .protect you or make sure you didn't get into any trouble, but the real reason was my eyes wouldn't turn away from you. I just liked to watch you."
"You're torturing yourself, Roy. You're making the joke crueler on yourself."
"It doesn't have to be that way:' he insisted.
I felt his hand on the side of my leg. It moved smoothly, softly up to my hip bone and then settled on my stomach. My heart was thumping louder and faster than his.
"Roy."
"If we did it once, Rain, just once, we wouldn't think again about who we were, only about who we are. That's the only way to know for sure if we could."
"I don't think I can, Roy."
"Sure you can. You just keep telling yourself we aren't blood relations. We are two different people. We had different mamas and papas and if we met someplace and never knew each other before, it would be fine. You just tell yourself that," he said. His hand moved down. I jerked myself away a little, but his hand stayed there and then he turned my face slowly and kissed me on the lips.
"What did you say your name was again? Rain? Wayne?"
I smiled.
"Where are you from, girl?" he followed, continuing his make-believe scene.
It seems that we all need our pretended lives, I thought.
"D.C.," I said. Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should have just laughed and said I was tired and let's go to sleep now, but I closed my eyes and let myself drift into the fiction like someone who had been running frantically, full of terror, through a dark corridor, trying one door of escape and then another and finding them all locked, all except this one that let me out onto a cloud.
"D.C.? I was there once. Didn't like it, but if I knew you were there, I would have stayed longer," he said. He kissed me on the lips again and touched me gently, sending an electric warm sensation through my stomach and into my heart.
Then he peeled away the blanket and gracefully moved my nightgown up my legs, following along with his lips until he was at my breasts, kissing under them, around them and then touching each nipple with the tip of his tongue.
"I'm Roy," he whispered. "Roy Arnold. Pleased to meet you, Rain," he said.
When he kissed me this time, he moved himself onto the bed, slipping his legs between mine. The next kiss was longer, harder. I brought my arms around him and held on to him like someone clinging to a raft. When he entered me, I did feel like I was drowning, drowning in a swirl of unleashed, wild passion. I was a wild animal, collared and flinging itself, about to break free. I heaved myself in one direction and then another until he touched something inside me that shut down all my resistance.
I traveled over that sweet, soft pathway, out of the darkness, out of the fear, out of the loneliness. When it ended, I was like a kite that had lost all the wind and was drifting slowly back to earth, riding the warm air, coasting and then settling softly on a plush green, cool lawn.
Roy moaned his own contentment and then he lifted himself away and lay beside me on the bed, holding on to my hand. I didn't move. I didn't speak. I kept my eyes closed.
"You're a beautiful girl, Rain Arnold," he said. "I'm glad we met. I don't want to ever say good-bye to you. No, ma'am."
He still held on to my hand.
"You all right?" he finally asked.
"I don't know," I said.
"Just like two people who never knew each other before," he preached. "That's all it is. Two people, two strangers, getting to know each other and falling in love. Happens every day someplace," he told me.
Pretend, I thought.
Imagine.
Drive away the truth, shoo it out and slam the door on it.
Don't you come back here, you cruel joke, you. Don't you come knocking on this door, hear? You go plague some other poor soul or go back to hell where you were born, I told the darkness in my mind.
Roy and I held hands until we both grew too tired and then his fingers slipped from mine and fell away like the fingers of someone I was trying to keep from drowning, but in the end, didn't have the strength to hold on to.
Sleep closed over me. I thought I felt fingers in mine again, but this time, when I looked, it was Mama beside me, smiling, telling me not to worry.
"We'll do fine," she was saying. She was always saying. "We'll be-all right. We've got each other and believe me, honey, that's a lot more than most folks have. Most folks, they've got only their poor selves."
She was so right about that. Mama, she was so right.
Morning broke through the window like a stone shattering the glass. I nearly
jumped up. I had slept clear into breakfast. My heart did flip-flops just thinking about all the trouble I was about to be in. Not only would they complain about my oversleeping, but they'd find Roy was here. I looked down at him. He was on his stomach, his long, muscular arm around the pillow, his eyes still tightly shut.
As quietly as I could, I rose and went out to the bathroom. I rushed to get dressed and then I hurried down to the kitchen. Mrs. Chester was sitting at the small table sipping tea with Leo who sat across from her. They both looked up.
"You're the luckiest girl," she said. "I forgot myself that today they were goin' to the church breakfast."
"Oh," I said, releasing my trapped hot breath. My heart stopped pounding.
"What surprises me is Boggs didn't go poundin' yer door down."
Leo nodded his agreement.
"Lucky me. I'll get ready for school then," I said. "Don't you want a cup of tea?" she called after me. "No. I'm late," I shouted and hurried back to my room. Roy had risen and gone to the bathroom. I quickly changed into clothes for school. When he returned, we just looked at each other.
"I overslept," I said. "I've got to hurry."
"Sure. I'll go with you to see where the place is," he said. He threw on his shirt and jacket.
"There's a side door," I said. `It might be better if you went out that way and met me out front:'
He nodded, avoiding my eyes. Neither of us seemed to want to acknowledge what we had done. I took him to the door. Just as I opened it, Boggs stepped out of his room and looked at us. Our eyes met, but he didn't speak. He walked off.
"He doesn't seem that bad," Roy said.
"Everyone has his own problems here," I told him. "Be out in a minute."
Roy left and I went through the house, feeling silly about sending Roy out secretly now. The only ones I was hiding him from now were Mrs. Chester and Leo and they wouldn't have gone running to the Endfields with any stories.
I grabbed Randall's umbrella in the alcove and joined Roy in front of the house. We started for the Burbage School.
"It doesn't look like it's going to rain," Roy said, seeing the umbrella.
The sky was partly cloudy and the air was warm.
"You never know here and I've got to return this to a friend anyway," I said.
When we arrived at the school, I told him when I would be finished for the day, and he said he would meet me in front of the school.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I feel like someone still on a merry-go-round," I said. "When it stops, know how I am."
He nodded.
"That's the way I've been feeling for a long time."
He gave me a quick peck on the cheek goodbye and I hurried into the school to class, my mind a maze full of confusion and turmoil. I was hoping it would all settle down before the day at school ended and Roy and I could have a sensible discussion about what had happened.
But Fate had other plans.
Fate was like someone in the wings watching us perform, smiling at us, knowing all along that what we thought was real was just an illusion. We thought we were the players, the actors, but we were really in the audience watching what we thought was ourselves.
When the lights came up, as they always would, we'd find there was no one there.
The curtains would close on just another dream.
15
Last Wishes
.
My mind was wandering like some satellite that
had fallen out of orbit and was drifting aimlessly through space. Mrs. Winecoup's words seemed to become all one continuous note falling farther and farther behind until it was almost gone. In fact, I was in such a daze that it took me a few seconds to realize I was being addressed.
"Rain!" she repeated. I blinked and looked around. Everyone was staring at me.
"Mr. MacWaine needs you," she said when she saw she finally had my attention. She nodded at the doorway and I turned to see him standing there, the expression on his face so severe and dark, it made me tremble just to look at him.
"Please, come with me," he directed.
I rose slowly, picked up my books and left the classroom. When I stepped out, he closed the door.
"Your employers, the Endfields, have sent their car and driver for you," he began.
"Why?"
"I'm afraid I have some rather bad news. Mrs. Hudson passed away this morning," he told me. "They'd like you to return to their house
immediately."
It was as if my heart stopped and all the blood in my body drained down to my feet. He saw the paleness in my face and quickly seized my arm.
"Are you all right?"
I nodded but leaned back against the wall to catch my breath. It was just like being punched in the stomach without any warning. Grandmother Hudson, dead? No, no, I need her. I wanted to make her proud of me.
"What happened?" I barely managed to utter.
"I don't know any details, I'm afraid. I was just told she'd passed away and asked to send you to Endfield Place as soon as their car had arrived. I do hope it all turns out well for you," he said. "And I'm very upset myself about Mrs. Hudson's departure," he added as if Grandmother Hudson had merely decided to take an earlier train out of this world. "She was a very fine woman, a great lady," he said. "As I'm sure you were well aware."
He walked me to the front entrance. I saw the Rolls waiting with Boggs behind the steering wheel staring coldly ahead. The last place I wanted to go to now was Endfield Place. I just wanted to run far in any other direction. I certainly didn't want to get into that car with Boggs, but I had little choice. As I stepped out, I remembered I was meeting Roy. He would be coming here, looking and waiting for me at the end of the school day. I turned to ask Mr. MacWaine to tell Roy what had happened, but he was already on his way back to his office. There was no way to contact Roy. I was sure he was just wandering about the city. Maybe I could have someone call from the house and tell Mr. MacWaine later, I thought and continued toward the vehicle.
Boggs got out when he saw me and came around to open the door, which surprised me. Training was paramount, imagined. A chauffeur was a chauffeur and a passenger a passenger, even if that passenger was someone like me.
"Thank you," I said and got in.
He said nothing, returned to the driver's seat and we started away. It wasn't until we were well along that I wondered why the Endfields would have sent for me immediately anyway. Why wouldn't they have waited for me to return from school? They didn't know about my real relationship to Grandmother Hudson and I would never have expected them to be so concerned for me.
The answer was obvious as soon as I had entered the house and Leo directed me to the drawing room. Great-aunt Leonora was on the settee, a handkerchief pressed to her face. Great-uncle Richard was seated in the chair across from her. He looked as stern and as formal as ever in his three-piece pinstriped suit, his face filled more with anger than sorrow.
"Have a seat," he commanded, nodding at the settee. I turned to Great-aunt Leonora as I crossed into the room, She lowered her handkerchief, revealing her bloodshot eyes and pale face, swallowed hard and watched me walk to the settee as if she was meeting me for the first time. I guess in a sense she really was.
"What happened to Mrs. Hudson?" I asked as I sat.
My Great-uncle Richard sat up straighter in his chair and glared at me.
"I'll be the one conducting this inquiry," he said.
"Inquiry?"
"Victoria called us a little over two hours ago with all the bad news," he said, stressing all and bad. "It appears that you have been living here under a deception," he said with stinging eyes of accusation. "Almost like some sort of spy planted in our home, disguised as a poor orphan girl who had to work her way through school as a mere domestic, when in reality, you are heir to Frances's fortune now and indeed a blood relative," he said.
Great-aunt Leonora let out a loud wail and sobbed hysterically for a few moments, her shoulders shaking so hard, I tho
ught she might crack a bone. Great-uncle Richard just watched her disdainfully and then finally said, "That's enough, Leonora. Enough!" he commanded when she didn't stop instantly.
Her sobs diminished into gasps like a small engine running out of gas and so did her trembling. She covered her face with her handkerchief and glanced at me.
"There is sadness, tragedy and disgrace, almost in equal portions," he continued. "I don't know where to begin with this ugly mess."
"It wasn't my idea to keep everything secret," I said. "Grandmother Hudson thought that for now it would be best."
"Grandmother Hudson! Oh, dear, dear, dear," Great-aunt Leonora moaned.
"I'd appreciate it if you would refrain from calling her that while you are still here with us," Great-uncle Richard said. "We have been able to contain the embarrassment and keep it amongst ourselves in this house, however I must know immediately who else knows the truth about you. I mean, of course, who else in England? It's not as important in America, but here reputation is more valuable than a large bank account."
I stared at him, trying to decide what Grandmother Hudson would want me to do: just get up and walk out or tell him everything? I decided it made little difference now. It was clear they didn't want me here and I couldn't want to leave any more than I did at the moment.
"My real father for one," I said, enjoying the look of shock on both their faces.
"What's that? Real father?" He grimaced. "I'm talking about here in England," he said
condescendingly as if in England such a father would never exist.
"And I repeat, my real father. He lives here and has been living here for some time."
No one spoke. Great-uncle Richard looked lost for words for a moment and Great-aunt Leonora sat there with her mouth open, her tongue frozen.
"This man, this real father, this is the man with whom our niece Megan. He waved his hand in the air to finish his thought. It was beneath him to do more than make some vague references to my mother's affair.
"That's how it works," I said. "How babies get born."
"Don't be impudent," he snapped, but looked away quickly. I began to wonder what bothered him the most about me now: the fact that I was a relative or that he had put a relative into one of his fantasies in the cottage? I was tempted to ask, to shoot hot, mean words back at him, but one glance at Great-aunt Leonora halted my fury. It would drive her into further hysterics and I had no reason to punish her.