When Daddy was alive and knew how to handle situations like this, he would pick them up as sacks of corn, one under each arm, and off he'd carry them to their room and order them sternly to shut up, or else they'd stay alone until they could, without TV, toys, without anything. Without an audience to witness their defiance, or hear their impressive wails, their screams seldom lasted more than a few minutes after the door closed on them. Then they would sulk out, quiet, meek and they would snuggle down on Daddy's lap and say in small voices, "We're sorry."
But Daddy was dead. There wasn't a distant bedroom where they could wind down. This one room was our mansion, and in here the twins held their captive audience painfully enthralled. They screamed until their faces went from pink to red, from red to magenta, and then on to purple. Their blue eyes went glassy and unfocused from their combined efforts. Oh, it was a grand show all right--and a foolhardy one!
Apparently, until now our grandmother had been held mesmerized by such a display. Then, whatever had held her motionless released its spell. She came alive. Purposefully, she strode over to the corner where the twins huddled. Down she reached to seize up ruthlessly, by their scruffs, two yelling children. Holding them stiff-armed away from her, as they kicked, hollered, and flailed their arms, trying ineffectively to inflict some injury on their tormentor, the twins were hauled up before our mother. Then down on the floor they were dropped like so much unwanted trash. In a loud, firm voice that punctuated through their yelling, she stated flatly, "I will whip you both until the blood runs from your skin if you don't stop that yelling this very instant!"
That inhuman quality, plus the cold force of this appalling threat, convinced the twins, as it did me, that she meant exactly what she said. In astonished and horrified belief, the twins stared up at her--and with open mouths they choked off their cries. They knew what blood was, and pain came with it. It hurt to see them handled so brutally, as if she didn't care if frail bones broke, or tender flesh was bruised. She towered above them, above all of us. Then, she pivoted about and fired at our mother: "Corrine, I will not have a scene so disgusting as this happen again! Obviously your children have been spoiled and indulged, and are in desperate need of lessons in discipline and obedience. No child who lives in this house will disobey, or scream, or show defiance. Hear that! They will speak when spoken to. They will jump to obey my voice. Now take off your blouse, daughter, and show those who disobey just how punishment is dealt out in this house!"
During this our mother had risen. She seemed to shrink smaller into her high-heeled shoes as she turned waxen white. "No!" she breathed, "that is not necessary now. See, the twins have stopped crying . . . they are obeying now."
The old woman's face grew very grim. "Corrine, are you heedless enough to disobey? When I tell you to do something, you will do it without question! And immediately! Look at what you have raised. Weak, spoiled, unruly children, all four! They think they can scream and get what they want. Screams will not avail them here. They might as well know there is no mercy for those who disobey and break my rules. You should know that, Corrine. Did I ever show you mercy? Even before you betrayed us, did I ever let your pretty face and beguiling ways stay my ready hand? Oh, I remember when your father loved you well, and he would turn against me in defense of you. But those days are over. You proved to him you are just what I always said you were--a deceitful, lying bit of trash!"
She turned those hard, flintstone eyes on Chris and me. "Yes, you and your half-uncle did make exceedingly beautiful children, I readily admit that, though they should never have been born. But they also appear soft, useless nothings!" Her mean eyes raked over our mother scornfully, as if we had caught all these demeaning faults from her. But she had not yet finished.
"Corrine, definitely your children need an object lesson. When they observe what has happened to their mother, then they will have no doubt as to what can happen to them."
I saw my mother straighten and stiffen her spine, facing up bravely to the large, raw-boned woman who topped her by at least four inches, and was many, many pounds heavier.
"If you are cruel to my children," began Momma in a voice that quavered, "I will take them out of this house tonight, and you will never see them, or me, again!" This she stated defiantly, lifting her beautiful face and staring with some determined fierceness at that hulking woman who was her mother!
A small smile, tight and cold, met Momma's challenge. No, it was not a smile, it was a sneer. "Take them away tonight--now! Take yourself away, Corrine! If I never see your children again, or hear from you again, do you think I care?"
Our mother's Dresden blues clashed with those steely tones while we children watched. Inside I was screaming with joy. Momma was going to take us out of here. We were leaving!
Good-bye, room! Good-bye, attic! Good-bye, all those millions I don't want anyway!
But, as I watched, as I waited for Momma to spin on her heel and head for the closet, for our suitcases, I saw instead something that was noble and fine in our mother crumble. Her eyes lowered in defeat and slowly her head bowed to hide her expression.
Shaken and trembling myself, I watched the grandmother's sneer become a large, cruel smile of victory. Momma! Momma! Momma! My soul was screaming Don't let her do this to you!
"Now, Corrine, take off that blouse."
Slowly, reluctantly, her face as white as death, Momma pivoted around, presenting her back just as a violent shudder shivered down her spine. Stiffly her arms lifted. With great difficulty each button of her white blouse was unfastened. Carefully, she eased down the blouse to expose her back.
Under the blouse she didn't wear a slip, or a bra, and it was easy enough to see why. I heard Chris pull in his breath. And Carrie and Cory must have looked, for their whimpers reached my ears. Now I knew why Momma, usually so graceful, had walked stiffly into our room, with eyes red from weeping.
Her back was striped with long, angry red welts from her neck on down to the waistband of her blue skirt. Some of the puffier welts were crusted over with dried blood. There was barely an inch of uncut, unmarred skin between the hideous whip marks.
Unfeeling, uncaring, disregarding our sensitivities, or those of our mother, new instructions issued from our grandmother: "Take a good long look, children. Know that those whip marks go all the way down to your mother's feet. Thirty-three lashes, one for each year of her life. And fifteen extra lashes for each year she lived in sin with your father. Your grandfather ordered this punishment, but I was the one who applied the whip. Your mother's crimes are against God, and the moral principles society lives by. Hers was an unholy marriage, a sacrilege! A marriage that was an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. And, as if that wasn't enough, they had to have children--four of them! Children spawned from the Devil! Evil from the moment of conception!"
My eyes bulged at the sight of those pitiful welts on the creamy tender flesh that our father had handled with so much love and gentleness. I floundered in a maelstrom of uncertainty, aching inside, not knowing who or what I was, if I had the right to be living on an earth the Lord reserved for those born with his blessings and permission. We had lost our father, our home, our friends and our possessions. That night I no longer believed that God was the perfect judge. So, in a way, I lost God too.
I wanted a whip in my hands to strike back at that old woman who had ruthlessly ripped so much from us. I stared at the ladder of bloody welts on Momma's back, and never had I felt such hate before, or such anger. I hated not only for what she had done to our mother, but for the ugly words that gushed forth from that mean mouth.
She looked at me then, that detestable old woman, as if sensing all that I felt. I glared back defiantly, hoping that she could see how I denied her blood relationship from that moment on-- not only her, but that old man downstairs as well. Never again would I pity him.
Perhaps my eyes were only glass to reveal all the spinning wheels of revenge I harbored, and vowed to let loose one day. Maybe she did see something v
engeful on those white wolins of brains, for she directed her next words solely at me, though she used the noun "children."
"So you see, children, this house can be hard and relentless in dealing with those who disobey and break our rules. We will dole out food, drink, and shelter, but never kindness, sympathy or love. It's impossible to feel anything but revulsion for what is not wholesome. Keep to my rules, and you won't feel the bite of my whip, nor will you be deprived of necessities. Dare to disobey me, and you will soon learn all I can do to you, and all I can keep from you." She stared in turn at each of us.
Yes, she wanted to make us undone that night, when we were young, innocent, trusting, having known only the sweetest part of living. She wanted to wither our souls and shrivel us small and dry, perhaps never to feel pride again.
But she didn't know us.
Nobody was ever going to make me hate my father or my mother! Nobody was going to have the power of life and death over me--not while I was alive and could still fight back!
I shot Chris a quick glance. He was staring at her, too. His eyes swept up and down her height, considering what damage he could inflict if he attacked. But he was only fourteen. He would have to grow into a man before he could overcome the likes of her. Still, his hands clenched into fists, which he forced to keep tight at his sides. The restraint pressed his lips into a line as thin and hard as the lips of the grandmother. Only his eyes were cold, hard as blue ice.
Of us all, he loved our mother best. He had her high on a pedestal of perfection, considering her the dearest, sweetest, most understanding woman alive. He'd already told me when he grew up, he'd marry a woman who was like our mother. Yet he could only glare fiercely. He was too young to do anything.
Our grandmother bestowed on us one last, long, contemptuous look. Then she shoved the door key into Momma's hand and left the room.
One question loomed sky-high, above all others.
Why? Why had we been brought to this house?
This was no safe harbor, no refuge, no sanctuary. Certainly Momma must have known how it would be, and yet, she'd led us here in the dead of night. Why?
Momma's Story
. After the grandmother's departure, we did not know what to do, or what to say, or how to feel, except unhappy and miser- able. My heart was fluttering madly as I watched Momma slip up her blouse, button it, and tuck it into the waistband of her skirt before she turned to give us all a tremulous smile that sought to reassure. Pitiful that I could find a straw to grasp in such a smile as that one. Chris lowered his eyes to the floor; his restless torment was expressed by his shoe diligently following the intricate scrollwork of the Oriental rug.
"Now look," said Momma with forced
cheerfulness, "it was just a willow switching, and it didn't hurt too much. My pride suffered more than my flesh. It's humiliating to be whipped like a slave, or an animal, and by your own parents. But don't worry that such a whipping will occur again, for it never will. Only this one time. I would suffer a hundred times over what whip weals I bear to live again those fifteen years of happiness I had with your father, and with you. Though it cringes my soul, she made me show what they did.. . ." She sat on a bed and held out her arms so we could cluster close about and be comforted, though I was careful not to embrace her again and cause more pain. She lifted the twins to her lap and patted the bed to indicate we should crowd up against her. Then she began to talk. What she said was obviously hard to say, and equally difficult for us to hear.
"I want you to listen very carefully, and remember all your lives every word I say tonight." She paused, hesitating as she scanned the room and stared at the cream-flocked walls as if they were transparent, and through them she could see into all the rooms of this gigantic house. "This is a strange house, and the people who reside here are even stranger--not the servants, but my parents. I should have warned you that your grandparents are fanatically religious. To believe in God is a good thing, a right thing. But when you reinforce your belief with words you take from the Old Testament that you seek out, and interpret in the ways that suit your needs best, that is hypocrisy, and that is exactly what my parents do.
"My father is dying, yes, but every Sunday he is carried into church either in his wheelchair, if he is feeling that well, or lying on a stretcher if he is feeling worse, and he gives his tithe--a tenth share of his yearly income, which is considerable. So naturally, he is very welcomed. He paid to have the church built, he bought all the stained-glass windows, he controls the minister and his sermons, for he is paving his way to heaven with gold, and if St. Peter can be bribed, my father will surely gain entrance. In that church he is treated like a god himself, or a living saint. And then he comes home, feeling completely justified in doing anything he wants, because he has done his duty, and paid his way, and therefore he is safe from hell.
"When I was growing up, with my two older brothers, we were literally forced to go to church. Even if we were sick enough to stay in bed, we still had to go. Religion was rammed down our throats. Be good, be good, be good--that's all we ever heard. Everyday, normal pleasures that were right for other people were made sinful for us. My brothers and I were not allowed to go swimming, for that meant wearing bathing suits and exposing most of our bodies. We were forbidden card games, or any sort of game that implied gambling. We weren't allowed to go to dances, for that meant your body might be pressed close to that of the other sex. We were ordered to control our thoughts, to keep them off lusting, sinful subjects for they said the thought was as evil as the deed. Oh, I could go on and on about all we were for- bidden to do--it seemed everything that was fun and exciting was sinful to them. And there is something in the young that rebels when life is made too strict, making us want to do most of all the very things denied to us. Our parents, in seeking to make their three children into living angels or saints, only succeeded in making us worse than we would have been otherwise."
My eyes widened. I sat spellbound, all of us did, even the twins.
"Then one day," Momma went on, "into all this, a beautiful young man came to live. His father had been my grandfather, a man who died when this young man was only three. His mother was named Alicia, and she was only sixteen when she married my grandfather who was fifty-five years old. So, when she gave birth to a boy, she should have lived to see him a man. Unfortunately, Alicia died very young. My
grandfather's name was Garland Christopher Foxworth, and when he died, half of his estate should have gone to his youngest son, who was three. But Malcolm, my father, gained control of his father's estate by having himself appointed administrator, for, of course, a three- year-old boy had no voice in the matter, nor was Alicia given a vote. Once my father had everything under his thumb, he kicked out Alicia and her young son. They fled back to Richmond, to Alicia's parents, and there she lived until she married a second time. She had a few years of happiness with a young man she'd loved since her childhood, and then he, too, died. Twice mar- ried, twice widowed, left with a young son, and now her parents were dead as well. And then one day she found a lump in her breast, and a few years later she died of cancer. That was when her son, Garland Christopher Foxworth the Fourth, came to live here. We never called him anything but Chris." She hesitated, tightened her arms about Chris and me. "Do you know who I'm talking about? Have you guessed who this young man was?"
I shivered. The mysterious half-uncle. And I whispered, "Daddy . . . you're talking about Daddy."
"Yes," she said, then sighed heavily.
I leaned forward to glance at my older brother. He sat so still, with the queerest expression on his face, and his eyes were glassy.
Momma continued: "Your father was my halfuncle, but he was only three years older than I. I remember the first time I saw him. I knew he was coming, this young half-uncle I'd never seen or heard much about, and I wanted to make a good impression, so all day I prepared myself, curling my hair, bathing and I put on what I thought were my prettiest and most becoming clothes. I was fourteen years
old--and that is an age when a girl just begins to feel her power over men. And I knew I was what most boys and men considered beautiful, and I guess, in a way, I was ripe for falling in love.
"Your father was seventeen. It was late spring, and he was standing in the middle of the hall with two suitcases near his shabby shoes--his clothes were very worn looking, and he'd outgrown them. My mother and father were with him, but he was turning around, staring at everything, dazzled by the display of wealth. I myself had never paid much attention to what was around me. It was there, I accepted it as part of my heritage, and until I was married, and began to live a life without wealth, I hardly realized that I'd been raised in an exceptional home.
"You see, my father is a 'collector.' He buys everything that is considered a unique work of art-- not because he appreciates art, but he likes to own things. He would like to own everything, if possible, especially beautiful things. I used to think I was part of his collection of objets d'art. . . and he meant to keep me for him- self, not to enjoy, but to keep others from enjoying what was his."
My mother continued, her face flushed, her eyes staring off into space, apparently looking backward to that exceptional day when a young half-uncle came into her life to make such a difference.
"Your father came to us so innocent, so trusting, so sweet, and vulnerable, having known only honest affection, and genuine love, and a great deal of poverty. He came from a four-room cottage into this huge, grand house that widened his eyes and dazzled his hopes, and he thought that he had stumbled onto good luck, into heaven on earth. He was looking at my mother and father with all of that gratefulness plain in his eyes. Hah! The pity of him coming here and being grateful still hurts. For half of what he was looking at, by all rights, should have been his. My parents did all they could to make him feel like a poor relation.
"I saw him there, standing in the sunlight, beaming down through the windows, and paused halfway down the staircase. His golden hair was haloed by an aura of silver light. He was so beautiful, not just handsome, but beautiful--there's a difference, you know. Real beauty radiates from the inside out, and he had that.