"My wife is very tired," reminded Chris softly. "We've had a very busy schedule what with seeing our youngest son graduate, and all the parties, and then this trip . . ."
Joel finally broke the long, stiff silence that kept us standing uncomfortably in the dim upstairs rotunda and mentioned that Bart would be hiring servants. Already he'd called an employment agency, and, in fact, had even said we could screen people for him He mumbled so inaudibly that I didn't catch half of what he said, especially when my mind was so busy with speculations as I stared off toward the northern wing and that isolated end room where we'd been locked up. Would it still .be the same? Had Bart ordere
d two double beds put in there, with all that clutter of dark, massive, antique furniture? I hoped and prayed not.
Suddenly from Joel came words I wasn't prepared for. "You look like your mother, Catherine."
I stared at him blankly, resenting what he must have considered a compliment.
He kept standing there, as if waiting for some silent summons, looking from me to Chris, and then back to me before he nodded and turned to lead the way to our room. The sun that had shone so brilliantly for our arrival was a forgotten memory as the rain began to pelt down with the hard, steady drive of bullets on the slate roof. The thunder rolled and crashed overhead, and lightning split the sky, crackling every few seconds, sending me into Chris's arms as I cringed back from what seemed to me the wrath of God.
Rivulets of water ran on the windowpanes, sluiced down from the roof into drains that soon would flood the gardens and erase all that was alive and beautiful. I sighed and felt miserable to be back here where I felt young and terribly vulnerable again.
"Yes, yes," Joel muttered as if to himself, "just like Corrine." His eyes scanned me critically once more, and then he was bowing his head and reflecting so long five minutes could have passed. Or five seconds.
"We have to unpack," Chris said more forcefully. "My wife is exhausted. She needs a bath, then a nap, for traveling always makes her feel tired and dirty." I wondered why he bothered to explain.
Instantly Joel pulled himself back from where he'd been. Maybe monks often just stood with bowed heads and prayed, and lost themselves in silent worship, and that was all it meant. I didn't know anything at all about monasteries and the kind of lives monks lived.
Slow, shuffling feet were at last leading us down a long hall. He made another turn, and to my distress and dismay he headed toward the southern wing where once our mother had lived in sumptuous rooms. I'd longed to sleep in her glorious swan bed, sit at her long, long dressing table, bathe in her black marble sunken tub with mirrors overhead and all around.
Joel paused before the double doors above two wide, carpeted steps that curved outward in halfmoons. He smiled in a slow, peculiar way. "Your mother's wing," he said shortly.
I paused and shivered outside those too familiar double doors. Helplessly I looked back at Chris. The rain had calmed to a steady staccato drumming. Joel opened one side of the doors and stepped into the bedroom, giving Chris the chance to whisper to me, "To him we are only husband and wife, Cathy--that's all he knows."
Tears were in my eyes as I stepped into that bedroom--and then I was staring bug-eyed at what I'd thought burned in the fire. The bed! The swan bed with the fancy rosy bedcurtains held back gracefully by the tips of wing feathers made into curling fingers. That graceful swan head had the same twist of its neck, the same kind of watchful but sleepy red ruby eye half open to guard the occupants of the bed.
I stared disbelievingly. Sleep in that bed? The bed where my mother had been held in the arms of Bartholomew Winslow--her second husband? The same man I'd stolen from her to father my son Bart? The man who still haunted my dreams and filled me with guilt. No! I couldn't sleep in that bed! Not ever.
Once I'd longed to sleep in that swan bed with Bartholomew Winslow. How young and foolish I'd been then, thinking material things really did bring happiness, and having him for my own would be all I'd ever want.
"Isn't that bed a marvel?" asked Joel from behind me. "Bart went to a great deal of trouble to find artisans who'd handcarve the headboard in the form of a swan. They looked at him, so he said, as if he were crazy. But he found some old men who were delighted to be doing something they found uniquely creative, and financially rewarding. It seems Bart has detailed descriptions of how the swan should have its head turned. One sleepy eye set with a ruby. Fingertip feathers to hold back filmy bed curtains. Oh, the flurry he made when they didn't do it right the first time. And then the little swan bed at the foot, he wanted that, too. For you, Catherine, for you."
Chris spoke, his voice hard. "Joel, just what has Bart told you?" He stepped beside me and encircled my shoulders with the comfort of his arm, protecting me from Joel, from everything. With him I'd live in a thatched hut, a tent, a cave. He gave me strength.
The old man's smile was faint and sardonic as he took notice of Chris's protective attitude. "Bart confided all his family history to me. You see, he's always needed an older man to talk to."
He paused meaningfully, glancing at Chris, who couldn't fail to catch the implication. Despite his control I saw him wince. Joel seemed satisfied enough to continue. "Bart told me about how his mother and her brothers and a sister were locked away for more than three years. He told me that his mother took her sister, Carrie, the twin left alive, and ran off to South Carolina, and you, Catherine, took years and years to find just the right husband to suit your needs best-- and that's why you are now married to . . . Dr. Christopher Sheffield."
There were so many innuendoes in his words, so much he left unsaid. Enough to make me shiver with sudden cold.
Joel finally left the room and closed the door softly behind him. Only then could Chris give me the reassurance I had to have if I was to stay here for even one night. He kissed me, held me, stroked my back, my hair, soothed me until I could turn around and look at everything Bart had done to make this suite of rooms just as luxurious as they'd been before. "It's only a bed, a reproduction of the original," Chris said softly, his eyes warm and understanding. "Our mother has not lain on this bed, darling. Bart read your scripts, remember that. What's here is here because you constructed the pattern for him to follow. You described that swan bed in such exquisite detail that he must have believed you wanted rooms just like our mother used to have. Maybe unconsciously you still do, and he knows that. Forgive us both for
misunderstanding if I'm wrong. Think only that he wanted to please you and went to a great deal of trouble and expense to decorate this room as it used to be."
Numbly I shook my head, denying I'd ever wanted what she had. He didn't believe me. "Your wishes, Catherine! Your desire to have everything she did! I know it. Your sons know it. So don't blame any of us for being able to interpret your desires even when you cover them with clever subterfuges."
I wanted to hate him for knowing me so well. Yet my arms went around him. My face pressed against his shirtfront as I trembled and tried to hide the truth, even from myself. "Chris, don't be harsh with me," I sobbed. "It came as such .a surprise to see these rooms, almost as they used, to be when we came here to steal from her . . . and her husband . . ."
He held me hard against him "What do you really feel about Joel?" I asked.
Considering thoughtfully before he answered, Chris spoke. "I like him, Cathy. He seems sincere and overjoyed that we're willing to let him stay on here."
"You told him he could stay?" I whispered.
"Sure, why not? We'll be leaving soon after Bart has that twenty-fifth birthday when, he 'comes into his own.' And just think of the wonderful opportunity we'll have to learn more about the Foxworths. Joel can tell us more about our mother when she was young, and what life was like for all of them, and perhaps when we know the details, we will be able to understand how she could betray us, and why the grandfather wanted us dead. There has to be an awful truth hidden back in the past to warp Malcolm's brain so he could override our mother's natural instincts to keep her own children alive."
In my opinion Joel had said enough downstairs. I didn't want to know more. Malcolm Foxworth had been one of those strange humans born without conscience, unable to feel remorse for any wrong thing he did. There was no explaining him, and no way to understand.