Eye of the Storm

  "Hey, hey, don't talk like that," he ordered. but I couldn't keep the tears behind the dam of my lids. They began to pour over and streak down my cheeks. "All the people I love are either dead or too far away to help me."

  "I'm here." he boasted and rose from his seat. He came over to me and put his arm around my shoulders. "You're going to do fine. Princess. We owe it to Frances," he said.

  "Sure," I muttered and flicked the tears away with the back of my hand.

  "I'm going to help you." he insisted.

  "Okay. Jake."

  "I mean it. I can help you."

  "Okay, Jake."

  He stepped away and stared at the wall,

  "I've got to believe she worked it so I would do this." he muttered, more to himself than to me.

  "Do what. Jake?"

  He was silent for a long moment. Then he turned and gazed at me, looking down at me as if he was high up on some mountain.

  "Give you our secret."

  "Whose secret?" I shook my head. "You're confusing me even more. Jake." I looked at the wine. Was he babbling now because he had drunk so much?

  "Frances's and mine." he said. He smiled. "And now yours, but you keep it like some last resort, some last bullet to put into your gun, okay?"

  I stared at him. He still made no sense. Jake was nice. He was a kind man. I actually loved him, but it was best to just nod and finish up the dinner. I thought.

  "You don't believe me, don't believe I can give you something to strengthen your position and your resolve, huh?"

  "Sure. I do. Jake."

  He sat and turned to me.

  "Frances and I were lovers once," he said quickly. "We had an affair. It lasted quite a while actually. We had lots of opportunity and we took advantage of it. We stopped when she became pregnant."

  "Pregnant?"

  "With Victoria." he said. "She's mine. I'm just about positive and so was she."

  I shook my head to throw the words back out of my ears. Grandmother Hudson unfaithful to her husband? She was my rock of morality.

  "It wasn't anyone's fault. It just happened. Everett neglected Frances. He was obsessed with his business interests and rarely traveled or went to a social occasion unless there was a financial benefit or reason to do it.

  "One day we started to spend more and more time with each other. I don't think it ever occurred to Everett that she might stray or have a romantic interest in anyone else, not that I ever believed she had any for him.

  "Theirs was one of those Old South, oldfashioned marriages. You know, parents get together and decide wouldn't it be perfect if your daughter married our son. Parents always knew better in those days. So much for what they knew better. huh?"

  He finished the wine in his glass.

  "Did my grandfather know? I mean. about Victoria not being his daughter?'

  "I think so, but he never said anything. He wasn't the sort who would," Jake said.

  "What sort is that?" I asked. grimacing.

  "Upper crust," Jake said. "One just couldn't conceive of such a thing in that world. Frances never said anything to him. As soon as she realized she was pregnant, she just decided that was it for us.

  "When I returned from my years in the navy and knocking about. Victoria was already in her late twenties. I used to be afraid that anyone could take one look at her and see me in her face. but Victoria has one of those faces that seems to have created itself. She doesn't look much like Frances and I don't think she looks very much like me. Our noses are different, our mouths. Maybe we have similar eyes and ears," he conceded.

  "Maybe she isn't your daughter then," I said.

  "She didn't look much like Everett either. You've seen his pictures. What do you think?"

  "Maybe there was someone else."

  "What? Someone else?" He shook his head. "No. never."

  "Why not? If my grandmother had an affair with you, she could have had one with someone else. too."

  He stared at me a moment as if the idea had never occurred.

  "Or are you upper crust. too. Jake, more upper crust than my grandfather, and can't even conceive of it?" I asked him.

  He continued to stare and then he smiled and shook his head.

  "No. Frances told me with an air of certainty that couldn't be challenged. We stood down by the dock late one afternoon, just before the sun set, and she said-- I'll never forget it because of how she put it-- she said. 'We've gone and done it up good. Jake.' Of course. I didn't know what she meant.

  "'What's that mean. Frances?' I asked.

  ''I've got a cake in my oven.' she said. That's what she said. Some cake. 'Too much unbridled passion.' she added. 'passion that makes you throw caution to the wind.'

  "I was stunned. I just stood there playing with a stick in the water and watching the ripples and thinking. What's going to be?

  "'Of course. we won't see each other that way anymore. Jake. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I needed you so much.' she told me and walked away.

  "I felt like everything had evaporated inside me. I felt like a shell. Any minute a wind would come sailing over the water, lift me like a kite, and blow me over the trees.

  "I guess in a way it did because soon after that I joined the navy."

  He sat there silently, staring down at his plate and his empty wineglass and then he closed his eyes.

  "I never loved anyone but Frances." he continued. "I couldn't.

  It was like I was given just enough love fuel for one woman and I used it all on her. I returned to work for her just so I could be around her.

  "Sometimes, when I drove her places. I'd pretend I wasn't her hired driver. I'd imagine we were man and wife and I was taking her somewhere just the way any husband would take his wife some place. If Victoria went along, I even imagined I was like any other husband and father."

  Everyone spends time in his or her fantasies. I thought. Everyone.

  "Does Victoria have any idea? Did

  Grandmother Hudson ever tell her?"

  "Oh no. no." Jake said quickly. "But that's why I wanted you to know, to have this information. When and if she has you up against the wall, you can fling it at her and I'll be there to verify it.

  "They got ways to test the blood and prove it beyond a doubt, you know. She'll know that so she won't be so sure of herself. It will knock her off that high pedestal," he promised.

  "It would be revealing Grandmother Hudson's secret. too. I don't know if I could ever do that. Jake."

  "Sure you can. If the time comes, you'll do it. You knew her well enough to know she wouldn't mind," he said confidently.

  "Wow," I said shaking my head. "Talk about skeletons in the closet. The closets here should be rattling."

  He laughed.

  "I'd better get going.' he said. "I got to get up early and head for Richmond to pick them up at the airport."

  "Don't you want some coffee. first?" I wanted him to have coffee because he had drunk so much wine, but it didn't seem to faze him.

  "No. Thanks. This was a great meal. You want me to help you clean up?"

  "No, Jake. I'm very experienced at it. remember?" I said referring to my days at

  Grandmother Hudson's sister's home in London, as well as my days here.

  "Right. Okay. MaybeI'll see you some time in the afternoon when I bring them around."

  "Oh, are they staying overnight?" I asked quickly. "No. I'm taking them back for a nine o'clock flight."

  Good. I thought. Jake kissed me on the cheek and left. When the door closed behind him, the emptiness of the great house settled around me like some dark cloud. The thickness of the night still heavily overcast turned the windows into mirrors flashing my image back to me as I crossed through the rooms. The wind was still strong enough to make parts of the house creak and groan. Just to have other sounds floating through. I turned on the television set and found a music channel. I made it loud enough to hear while I cleaned up the dining room and then the kitchen.

  Afterward. I returned to the d
en and watched some television until my eyelids felt heavy and I caught myself dozing on and off. I'll sleep well tonight. I thought, but the tension over tomorrow's family meeting slipped in beside me as I walked up the stairs. By the time my head hit the pillow, there was static in the air crackling around me, and with its tiny sparks of lightning, scorching my brain.

  No matter how I turned or scrunched the pillow against my cheeks. I was soon uncomfortable, turning and tossing again and again until it was nearly morning. Then. I finally fell asleep the way someone would accidentally step into a poorly covered old well, descending in a panic down into the darkness, my screams rushing out above inc as if they were tied to a hot red ribbon. The moment I hit bottom, my eyes clicked open. Sunlight was already streaming in, flooding the room with wave after wave of insistent, unrelenting illumination.

  I groaned. Every part of me ached. I panicked with the possibility of my getting sick. If there was ever a wrong time for that, it was now, today of all days, I thought. When I rose. I poured some of Grandmother Hudson's sweet-smelling bath powder into a hot tub and soaked for nearly twenty minutes before I got dressed and went down to make myself some coffee.

  The phone rang almost as soon as I entered the kitchen. It was Mr. MacWaine, the administrator of the Burbage School of Drama in London, the man who had discovered me and, with Grandmother Hudson's help, had brought me to England.

  He wanted to know how I was doing and what I was planning for my immediate future.

  "If I've had one inquiry concerning you. I've had ten." he told me. "We do hope you'll be returning. Rain," he said.

  "Thank you. I expect I will. I was going to contact you about arrangements to live in the dorm this time. Mr. MacWaine."

  "That won't be a problem," he assured me. "I am happy to see you will continue with us. I am sure Mrs. Hudson would have wanted that," he said.

  I thanked him for his concern and interest.

  "Oh, before I forget." he continued. "there was one inquiry I promised I would pass on to you. Apparently you won the admiration of a London professor. a Shakespearean scholar. Doctor Ward. He's an acquaintance of one of the board of trustee members and he's asked after you. Was he at our showcase?" Mr. MacWaine wondered.

  "Yes," I said. I didn't know what else to say, but almost immediately after I said it. I regretted lying. Whenever I lied about my secret past. I just added to the deception, the false foundation beneath this family now, I thought. I hated being any part of that.

  "Lovely," Mr. MacWaine said. "Do keep me informed as to your arrangements. In the meantime. I'll see to the dormitory space," he promised.

  Speaking with him lifted my spirits and reminded me that I did have a place to go, a future just waiting for me to fulfill it. I was certainly not stuck here. How wonderful that my real father was asking after me, thinking about me, looking forward to seeing me and getting to know me. Grandmother Hudson had been disappointed in people too often to believe there would be any value for me in pursuing my real father. I understood her cynicism. but I wasn't at all ready to accept it.

  Buoyed. I discovered I was hungry and prepared myself some breakfast, Then I went through the house, dusting and cleaning some so that Victoria couldn't point to anything and say, "See, see how she is letting our property deteriorate."

  As I was cleaning up after breakfast, the phone rang again. This time it was Aunt Victoria.

  "Your mother," she said punctuating the word with such venom, she turned it into a curse word. "and Grant are flying in this morning. We will be at the house by two o'clock. We're meeting with our attorney for lunch first," she added, which was clearly meant to intimidate me.

  "It seems like lawyer's day," I replied coolly,

  "What's that supposed to mean?" she fired back,

  "I'm meeting with my attorney for lunch here at the house. too," I said.

  I wasn't, of course. but I wanted to do her one better and show her I could be just as intimidating. There was a long pause.

  "You're making a big mistake being so obstinate," she said.

  "Isn't that odd?" I countered.

  "Isn't what odd?"

  "I've been thinking you're making a big mistake being so obstinate."

  If a moment of silence was ever packed full of explosive energy, this was it.

  "We'll all be there at two." she repeated. "Make sure you're there as well."

  "I have no place I'd rather be today," I said. "Thanks for the warning."

  When I hung up, my heart was pounding.

  But to me it sounded like all the ghosts in the house were clapping.

  2

  Fortune Hunter

  .

  When the doorbell sounded only a little after

  twelve. I knew it couldn't be my mother. Grant and Aunt Veronica. It was too early. My first thought was it might be Mr. Sanger, my lawyer, who must have decided he had to stop by and give me advice.

  Instead. Corbette Adams stood there looking in at me after I opened the door. Corbette had played George Gibbs to my Emily Webb in the Dogwood High School production of Our Town that had earned me Mr. MacWaine's admiration and the invitation to study the performing arts at his school in London. Easily the most handsome boy at Sweet William-- the sister school to Dogwood, the private school I had attended while living here with Grandmother Hudson-- Corbette had moved like some soap opera star over our campus, basking in the swoons of so many of my classmates.

  He was the first boy with whom I had made love, and confronting him now filled me both with angry heat and guilt. Who could blame me, however, for falling beneath the power of his charm and good looks then, especially me, someone so overwhelmed by all the wealth and privilege he and all the others enjoyed? I had been lifted from one world and dropped into another with little or no preparation.

  Corbette's familiar sapphire orbs brightened once again at the sight of me. He didn't look much different from the last time I had seen him. His brown hair with hints of copper was still unruly, curling upward at the nape of his neck, the only imperfection in his otherwise perfectly respectable appearance. Despite the position of esteem his family held in the community, there was always something defiant in Corbette, a danger which made him even more attractive and exciting to most girls, and admittedly, once to me.

  His strong lips opened and fell back in a soft smile.

  "You're even prettier now," he said. "Or else I have just forgotten how beautiful you were."

  "Hello. Corbette." I said coldly.

  I stood there in the doorway not backing up to let him in. He wore his Sweet William dark blue blazer over a light blue shirt, jeans and a pair of white tennis sneakers. In his right hand he carried a bouquet of white roses and quickly extended them toward me.

  I didn't reach for them and the smirk of displeasure remained on my face. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  "Sorry about Mrs. Hudson's death," he said. "My family went to the funeral and I heard how beautiful and dignified you looked. Many people were impressed with how sad and upset you appeared for a girl who only had been Mrs. Hudson's ward and for so short a time. too. There's a lot of gossip about you, about what she might have left you in her will," he added, still smiling with that unrestrained selfconfidence that I had come to despise.

  After all, once he had succeeded to have his way with me, he couldn't wait to brag and then treat me like some trophy he could cast off cavalierly.

  I still didn't take the roses. Remaining unimpressed. I looked from them to him.

  "What do you want. Corbette?" I asked briskly.

  "Oh. I just came to see how you were doing and pay my respects."

  "I didn't think you knew what respect meant," I snapped back.

  Confronting him now. I realized that time had done little to diminish the embarrassment and belittlement I had felt that day he had brought some of his friends over from Sweet William to watch me horseback riding. From the lusty smiles on their faces. I knew immediately that he had told
them everything about our intimate night after the play performance. He tried to get me to sleep with one of his friends, offering me up as if I belonged to him now and he could give me to whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

  Seeing me continue to stand like a stone statue in the doorway, he nodded and lowered the roses.

  "I know. I know." he said. "You've got every right to be angry at me."

  "Thanks for giving me permission," I said.

  "I was a jerk back then. I wanted to show off and it was wrong," he said. He shrugged. "You know how boys can be stupid sometimes. I was more in love with my own reputation and image than I was concerned about doing the right thing. Our male egos get us into more trouble," he bemoaned shaking his head. "That day I was just plain immature. I'd be the first to admit it. I wish I could go back in time and punch myself in the nose."

  His eves clouded with remorse.

  I shook my head. How easily he could assume different attitudes, pretend different emotions. No wonder he had been his school's best actor for so long. When a girl looked at that handsome face with its perfect nose and beautiful eyes, it was difficult to be hard and cautious. You wanted to believe him. You wanted him to mean every sweet thing he said to you and you would deny all the signals and warnings to the contrary.

  Men were always complaining about women using their good looks and sexuality to snare and trap them. Corbette Adams was a good example of the shoe being on the other foot. Catherine and Leslie, my two French girlfriends back in London, loved to think of themselves as femme finales, I remembered. Corbette was about as fatal for a femme as any woman could be for any man.

  "I'm happy you feel badly about that. Corbette. Maybe the next girl you seduce won't feel as low and dirty as you made me feel. Thanks for stopping by," I added and started to close the door on him.

  "Wait," he cried putting out his hand to prevent it from shutting. "Can't I spend a little time with you, catch up on things? I'm leaving for college in another two weeks and won't be back for months."

  "I really don't think we have much to say to each other, Corbette."

  "Ah, but that's where you're wrong," he said. I've had a couple of girlfriends this year. but I haven't known any girls as nice as you or as intelligent. It didn't take me long to realize how stupid I was to treat you badly. C'mon," he pleaded. "Let me at least apologize properly. Then, if you still want to throw me out. I'll even help."