Casteel - Dark Angel Part 3

My nerve ends tw.a.n.ged. He was the one to know more than Granny or Grandpa, or even Pa! "How would they know unless she told them?" I asked with some resentment. "From what I've heard, she never talked about her home, except to say she came from Boston, and she was never going back. My granny guessed she was rich, for she brought such pretty clothes with her and a small velvet box of jewelry, and her manners were so elegant." And for some reason I didn't say a word about the portrait bride doll she'd hidden in the bottom of her single suitcase.

"She told your father she was never coming back?" he asked in that strange, tight voice that showed he was affected. "Who did she tell that to?"

"Why, I don't know. Granny used to wish she'd go back to where she came from, before the hills killed her."

"The hills killed her?" he asked, leaning forward and staring at me hard. "I had presumed inadequate medical care took her life."

My voice took on intonations that reminded me of Granny, and the spooked way she used to make me feel. "Some say that there isn't anyone who can live in our hills happily unless they are born and bred there. There are sounds in the hills that no one can explain, like wolves howling at the moon, when naturalists say that gray wolves disappeared long ago from our area. Yet we all hear them. We have bears and bobcats and mountain lions, and our hunters come back with tales of having seen evidence that gray wolves still live in our hills. It doesn't matter whether or not we see the wolves, not when the wind carries their howls and cries to wake us up at night. We have all kinds of superst.i.tions that I tried not to pay attention to. Silly things like you've got to turn around three times when you enter your home, so devils won't follow you inside. Still, strangers who come to live in our hills fall sick easily, and sometimes they never get well. Sometimes there's nothing wrong with them, and still they fall into silence, lose their appet.i.tes, grow very thin, and then death comes."

His lips grew so tight and thin a white line developed around them. "The hills? Is Winnerrow in the hills?"

"Winnerrow is in a valley, what the hillfolks call a 'holler.' I tried all my life not to talk as they do. But the valley isn't any different from the hillsides. Time stands still back there, on the hills, in the valley, and not in the way it does for Jillian. People grow old quickly, too quickly. Why, my granny never had a powder puff,-Much less put polish on her nails."

"Don't tell me any more," he said somewhat impatiently. "I've heard enough. Now why in the world would a smart girl like you want to go back there?"

"For my own reasons," I said stubbornly, lifting my head and feeling the tears sting behind my eyes. I couldn't tell him how I wanted to lift up the name of Casteel and give it something it had never had before --respectability. For my granny I'd do this, for her.

So I stood and he sat. For an eternally long time he sat with his elegant, well-manicured hands templed under his chin, saying nothing, and then he lowered those hands and drummed a mindless beat on the crisp white breakfast cloth, and on my nerves. "I've always admired honesty," he said at length, his blue eyes calm and unreadable. "Honesty is always the best gamble when you don't know whether or not a lie will serve you better. At least you get to state your case, and if you fail, you can keep your 'integrity.'" He flashed me a brief, amused smile. "About three years after your mother ran from here, the detective agency I hired to find her finally traced her to Winnerrow. They were told she lived outside of the city limits, and those who were born or those who died in the county didn't often make it to the city records. But many residents of Winnerrow remembered a pretty young girl who married Luke Casteel. My detective even tried to find her grave for a record of the day she died, but he never found a grave with her name on the headstone . . . but long ago I knew she was never coming back. She made good her word . ."

Were they tears I saw in his eyes? Had he loved her in his own way?

"Can you truthfully say she loved your father, Heaven? Please, think this question over well. It's important."

How was I to know anything about what she felt, except what I'd always heard? Yes, so Granny had said, she had loved him--because he never showed her his cruel, hateful side! "Stop asking me about her!" I cried, hara.s.sed to the point of breaking. "All my life the blame for her death has been put on my head, and now I think you're trying to put something else there as well! Give me my chance, Tony Tatterton! be obedient. I'll study hard. I'll make you proud of me!"

What was it he heard in my voice that made his head bow into his cradling hands? I wanted him to hate Pa for killing her just as much as I did. I wanted him to pledge with me a joint resolve for revenge. And with that expectation I quivered as I waited.

"You swear your obedience to abide by my decisions?" he asked, looking up quickly and narrowing his steady gaze.

"Yes!"

"Then you will never use the maze again, or seek out opportunities to visit my younger brother, Troy." My breath caught. "How did you know?"

His lips curled. "Why, he told me, little girl. He was very excited about you, how much you look like your mother, what he can remember of her."

"Why don't you want me to see him?"

He shook his head, frowning. "Troy has his own afflictions, which may well be just as fatal as your father's illness. I don't want you to be contaminated with them--not that anything he has is contagious."

"I don't understand," I said helplessly, deeply disturbed to hear he might be ill . . and dying.

"Of course you don't understand, n.o.body understands Troy! Did you ever see a more handsome young man? No, of course not! Doesn't he appear remarkably healthy? Yes, of course he does. Yet he's underweight. He's been in and out of illness since the day he was born, when I was seventeen. Now do as I say, for your own good, leave Troy alone. You can't save him. n.o.body can save him."

"What do you mean, I can't save him? Save him from what?"

"From himself," he said shortly, waving his hand to dismiss the subject. "All right, Heaven, sit down. Let's get down to business. I will provide you a home here and outfit you like a princess, and send you to the very best schools, and for all that I do for you, you will do just a little for me. One, as I said before, you will never tell your grandmother anything that would cause her grief. Two, you will not see Troy in secret. Three, you will never again mention your father, either by name or by reference. Four, you will do your best to forget your background and concentrate only on improving yourself. And fifth, for all the money that I am investing in you, and for your benefit, you will give to me the right to make all important decisions in your life. Agreed?"

"What . . . what kind of important decisions?" "Agreed or not agreed."

"But . . ."

"All right, disagreed. You want to quibble. Be prepared to leave after New Year's Day."

"But I have nowhere to go!" I cried out in dismay.

"You can enjoy yourself over the next two months, and then we will part. But don't think by the time you are ready to go you will have won over your grandmother so much she will slip you enough money to see you through college, for she doesn't control the money Cleave left her--I control it. She has everything she wants, I see to that, but she is a fool with money."

I couldn't agree to something as monumental as his making choices for me, I couldn't!

"Your mother was planning to attend a special girls' school that is the best in this area. All the affluent girls cry to go there in hopes of meeting the right young man they can marry later. I expect you will meet your 'Mr. Right' there, too."

Long ago I'd met my Mr. Right, Logan Stonewall. Sooner or later Logan would take me back. He'd forgive me. He'd realize I had been a victim of circ.u.mstances . . .

Just as Keith and Our Jane were victims. My teeth came down on my lower lip. Life offered very few chances such as he was extending to me. Here in this big house, with his business in town to take him away often, we'd seldom see each other. And I didn't need Troy Tatterton in my life, not when one day soon I'd see Logan again.

"I'll stay. I agree to your conditions."

He gave me his first really warm smile. "Good. I knew you'd make the right choice. Your mother made the wrong one when she ran. Now, to simplify what might puzzle you, and make it unnecessary for you to go snooping, Jillian is sixty years old, and I am forty."

Jillian was sixty!

And Granny had been only fifty-four when she died, and she had looked ninety! Oh G.o.d, the pity of that was numbing. Still, I didn't know what to do or say, and my heart was thudding fast and furiously. Then came the relief, flooding over me, inundating me so I could breathe, relax, and even manage a tremulous smile. It would work out all right in the end. Someday I'd put Tom, f.a.n.n.y, Keith, and Our Jane together again, under my very own roof. But that could wait until I had a strong, educated grasp on the future.

"Winterhaven has a waiting list yards long, but I'm sure I can pull a few strings and get you in; that is, if you are a good student. You will have to take a test to establish your grade level. Girls all over the world want to attend Winterhaven. You and I will go shopping together and leave Jillian to her own affairs.

You'll need extra warm clothes, coats, boots, hats, gloves, robes, the works. You will be representing the Tatterton family, and we have set certain standards you must live up to. You'll need an allowance so you can entertain your friends, and buy whatever your heart desires. You'll be well taken care of."

I had fallen into a bewitched state, caught up in this charming fantasy of riches, where I could buy anything I wanted, and the college education that had always been so far out of reach was suddenly close, within grasp.

"This woman Sarah that you mentioned, the girl your father married shortly after Leigh died, what was she like?"

Why did he want to know that? "She was from the hills. She was tall and raw-boned, and her hair was bright auburn, and her eyes were green."

"I don't care what she looked like, what was she like?"

"I loved her until she turned against . . . " and I started to say "us" before I stopped abruptly. "I loved her until she ran off because she found out Pa was dying."

"You must strike the name of Sarah from your lips and your memory. And hope never to see her again."

"I don't know where Sarah is," I hastily said, feeling strangely guilty, wanting to defend Sarah, who had tried, even though she had failed . . .

"Heaven, if there's one thing I've learned in forty years, it's the fact that bad seeds have a way of turning up."

I stared at him with forebodings.

"One more time, Heaven. When you become a member of this family, you have to give up your past. Any friends you may have made there. Any cousins or aunts or uncles. You will set your goals higher than being just another schoolteacher who buries herself in the mountains where nothing will improve until those people decide they want to improve. You will live up to the standards of the Tattertons and the VanVoreens, who do not turn out average citizens, but exceptional ones. We commit ourselves, not only in words, but in deeds, and that means both s.e.xes."

What kind of man was he to demand so much? Cold, mean, I thought, trying very hard to conceal my true feelings, even as I wanted to stomp and rage and tell him just what I thought of such cruel restrictions.

And I guessed, or so I thought at the time, just what had made my mother run away. This ruthless, demanding man! Then, like the true sc.u.mbag Casteel I was, a slithering, sneaky thought squirmed through my brain. Even Tony Tatterton couldn't read my thoughts. He wouldn't know what letters I wrote to Tom and f.a.n.n.y. He wanted to be a dictator, well let him want. I would play my own game.

Humbly I bowed my head. "Anything you say, Tony." And with my back straight and my head held high I headed up the stairs. Bitter thoughts kept time with my steps. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. I was unwanted, even here.

Five Winterhaven .

THE VERY NEXT DAY TONY TOOK OVER MY LIFE AS IF neither I nor Jillian had anything at all to say about it. He set schedules for every minute of my day and stole some of the thrill I might have experienced if he'd have gone more slowly toward creating a princess out of a scullery maid. I needed time to adjust to having servants at my beck and call; time to learn my way about a house almost as complicated in design as the maze outside. I didn't like Percy drawing my bath and laying out my clothes, leaving me no decisions to make. I didn't like the order that clearly stated I was not to use the telephones to call anyone in my family.

"No," he said forbiddingly, looking up from his study of the stock market page, "you don't need to say goodbye to Tom again. You told me you'd already done that."

I felt stunned by events that happened too quickly to control, and when I murmured a few words of complaint, he stared at me with astonishment. "What do you mean, I move too fast? It's what you want, isn't it? It's what you came for, isn't it" well, now you have what you've dreamed about, the best of everything. You'll have to begin school right away. And if you think I am sweeping you along in a tidal current, that's what life is all about. It's not my way to tread slowly, or carefully, and if you and I are to establish a nice rapport, my way had better become your way."

When he smiled, and looked me over, I tried not to feel resentful.

While Jillian slept the mornings away and spent another few hours behind closed doors performing her "secret beauty rituals," Tony drove me to small shops where clothes and shoes cost small fortunes. Not once did he ask the prices of sweaters, skirts, dresses, coats, boots, anything! He signed sales slips with the debonair air of one who would never run out of money. "No," he said, when I whispered it would be nice to have colored shoes to match all the outfits. "Black, brown, bone, blue, and one pair of gray-andred shoes isenough variety in colors, until you need summer white. I'll leave unsatisfied some of your desires. No one should realize every dream all at once. We live on dreams, you know, and when there are none, we soon die." Darkness clouded the clear blue of his eyes. "I made the mistake once of giving too much, too soon, holding back nothing. Not this time."

We drove home that early evening with the back seat loaded down with parcels, enough clothes for three girls. He didn't seem to realize that already he'd given too much, too soon. I, who had dreamed of beautiful, expensive clothes all my life, was overwhelmed. And still he didn't think I had enough. But then, he was comparing my closets with Jillian's.

It hurt many times the way Jillian either ignored me completely or gushed over me with enthusiasm; I was never comfortable in her presence. Often I had the sense that she wished I'd never showed up. At other times I'd see her sitting quietly on her bedroom sofa, playing one of her eternal solitaire games, and from time to time she'd glance my way. "Do you play cards, Heaven?"

Eagerly I jumped to the challenge, happy that she wanted to spend time with me. "Yes, a long time ago a friend taught me how to play gin rummy." That friend had also given me a brand-new pack of Bicycle cards "borrowed" from his father's pharmacy store.

"Gin rummy?" she asked in a vague way, as if she'd never heard of the game. "That's the only game you play?"

"I learn quickly!"

She started that very day to teach me how to play bridge, which was her favorite game. She explained the points of each face card, gave me detailed instructions on how many points you needed to open, and how many you needed to respond to your partner's opening bid; it wasn't long before I realized I'd have to buy a book on bridge and study it in private, for Jillian went much too fast.

But she was enjoying teaching me, and for an entire week she gloated every time I lost. Then came that telling day when we were seated behind our little computerized game board that would play with one, two, or three players (or none at all--it would play against itself), and to Jillian's complete chagrin, I won. "Oh, you were just lucky!" she cried out, her hands rising to her face to press her cheeks together.

"After lunch, we'll play another game and see who wins then."

Jillian was beginning to need me, to want me, to like me. This was the very first time I'd eaten any meal with Jillian but dinner, served in the dining room. Here was one of the richest women in the world, and surely one of the most beautiful, and she lunched on tiny cuc.u.mber or watercress sandwiches and sipped champagne.

"But it's not a healthy, nutritious lunch, or even filling, Jillian!" I exclaimed after our third lunch together. "Quite honestly, even after I eat six of your tiny sandwiches, I'm still hungry, and I don't really care for champagne."

Her delicate eyebrows rose as if in exasperation. "What kind of food do you and Tony eat when you lunch together?"

"Oh, he lets me have anything on the menu. In fact he encourages me to try foods I've never tasted before."

"He indulges you, just like he indulged Leigh." She sat for long moments with her head bowed over her dainty meal, and then waved her hand, as if in dismissal. "If there is one thing that really disgusts me, it's to see a young girl eat with a ravenous appet.i.te--and do you realize, Heaven, that's the only way you know how to eat? Until you can control your need for so much food, I think it best that you and I never eat lunch together again. And when we are in the dining room, I will make an effort to pay as little attention as possible to your dining habits."

Jillian was as good as her word. She never asked me to play bridge with her again. We never shared another luncheon, and when we were seated in their elegant dining room with Tony, she addressed all her remarks to him. And if out of pure necessity she had to say something to me, she didn't turn her head my way. Because I wanted so much to please her, I tried to turn down second and third helpings, and I even made my first servings very small. Now I was hungry all the time, so I took to stealing to the huge kitchen, where Ryse Williams, the stout black chef, welcomed me into his domain.

"Why girl, you are just like your mother, sweet Jesus, I never saw a girl so much like her mother-- even if your hair is dark."

In that gleaming kitchen, with copper pans and thousands of kitchen tools I'd never seen before, I spent many an hour listening to Rye Whiskey and his tales of the Tattertons, and though I tried many a time to force him to talk of my mother, he always grew uncomfortable and busied himself with his cooking when I asked. His smooth, brown face would go blank, and very quickly he'd change the subject. But one day, one day soon, Rye Whiskey was going to tell me everything he knew--for already I suspected from his expressions of shame and embarra.s.sment that he knew a great deal.

In the privacy of my bedroom I wrote to tell Tom all about it. So far I'd written him three letters and had warned him not to reply until I could send him a "safe" address. (It hurt me to imagine what he had to be thinking.) In those letters I described Farthinggale Manor, Jillian, and Tony, but I didn't say a word about Troy. Troy was naggingly on my mind. Too much on my mind. I wanted to see him again, and was afraid to see him again. I had a thousand questions to ask Tony about his brother, but Tony scowled each time I approached the subject of the man who lived in the cottage beyond the maze. Twice I tried to talk about Troy to Jillian, who turned her head and waved her hand, dismissing the subject. "Oh, Troy! He's not interesting. Forget him. He knows too much about everything else to appreciate women." And, while I thought too much about Troy, I decided it was time to write the most difficult letter, to the one who truly belonged in my future, to find out if he'd let me back in his again.

But how did I write to someone who had once loved and trusted me, and now no longer did? Did I ignore what had brought about the end of our long relations.h.i.+p? Should I discuss it openly? No, no, I decided, I had to see Logan and watch his expression before I went into more detail about Cal Dennison.

Finally I managed a few words that didn't seem adequate.

Dear Logan, At last I am living with my mother's family as I always hoped to do. Soon I will be attending a girls' private school called Winterhaven. If you have any feelings for me left, and I hope and pray you do, then please try to forgive me. And perhaps we can start over.

Fondly, Heaven .

The return address I put on the envelope was the post office box I had secretly opened the day before, while Tony purchased clothes for himself in the shop down the street. I chewed the end of my pen thoughtfully before I finally put that single small sheet into its envelope, with a small prayer. Logan, with all his strength and fidelity, could save me from so much if he would, if he still cared enough.

The very next day I had a chance to mail my letters. I told Tony I needed to use the ladies' room, then I dashed out of the store's side door and ran to drop my letters in a mailbox. There, I sighed with relief. I'd made contact with my past. My forbidden past.

Then back again to Farthy, which was beginning to seem like home, now that I had possessions I could call my own. I was up early each morning to swim with Tony in the indoor pool, and after drying off and changing my clothes, I'd eat breakfast with him, already I had grown accustomed to Curtis the butler, so I could ignore his presence almost as well as Tony did--until I needed something. I saw very little of Jillian, who wasted half her day in her room before she came flitting out, looking gorgeous, on her way to her hairdresser or some luncheon party (where I hoped she ate more substantial meals than tiny sandwiches with champagne).

As for Tony, soon after breakfast he left for Boston to conduct his business at the Tatterton Toy Corporation. Sometimes he'd call from his city office and invite me to lunch in an elegant restaurant, where I felt like a princess. I loved the way people turned to stare at us, as if we were father and daughter. Oh, Pa, if only you'd had half the manners Tony displayed as second nature.

Then came the hard days, the surprising days, when I had to drive off with Tony early each morning, while he was on his way to work, and he'd let me out in front of a tall and forbidding-looking office building where I was to take tests that I would have to pa.s.s even to be admitted to Winterhaven. "The first tests will get you in to Winterhaven," Tony explained, "the others will determine whether or not you will qualify for the best universities. I am expecting you to receive high scores, not merely average ones."

I sat one evening in Jillian's room watching her put on makeup, wis.h.i.+ng I could talk to her as a mother, or even a grandmother, but the moment I brought up the difficult tests I'd taken that day, she flung her right hand out impatiently. "For G.o.d's sake, Heaven, don't bore me with talk of school! I hated school, and it was all Leigh could talk about. I don't know what difference it makes anyway, when beautiful girls like you are so quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed off the market they seldom have use for what brains they have."

My eyes widened with shock when she said this--what century did Jillian live in, anyway? Both parents worked in most marriages nowadays. Then, looking Jillian over gain with more perception, I guessed she had always believed her good looks would win her a fortune--and so they had.

"And furthermore, Heaven, when finally you enter that hateful school, try never to bring home any friends you might make there--or if you feel you have to, please warn me at least three days in advance so I can make other plans for myself."

I sat silent and stunned and deeply hurt. "You are never going to let me be part of your life, are you?" I asked in a pitifully small voice. "When I lived in the w.i.l.l.i.e.s I thought when finally I met you, my mother's mother, that you would love me, and need me, and want us to be a close, loving family."

How oddly she looked at me, as if at some circus freak. "Close, loving family? What are you talking about? I had two sisters and one brother, and none of us got along. All we did was fuss and squabble and find reasons to hate one another. And have you forgotten what your mother did to me? I have no intentions of allowing you to win your way into my affections, so that I'll be hurt again when you leave."

From the way she kept looking at me, her faint brows raised a trifle, I knew it wouldn't have to be anything earth shattering to put me out of this house --and out of her life. Jillian wanted her life just as it had been before I came. I was giving nothing at all to her. I had never felt so depressed.

But Tony more than made up for Jillian's lack of interest and enthusiasm. I pa.s.sed my tests with very high scores, the first hurdle overcome. Now all he had to do was grease all the wheels necessary for the faculty of Winterhaven to bypa.s.s hundreds of other girls who were on the waiting list.

We were in his posh home office when he gave me the news, his blue eyes watching me narrowly. "I've done all I can to enter you into Winterhaven. Now it's your turn to prove yourself. You scored very high on your tests and will enter as a senior. And we must make your college applications now, and your SAT scores will be forwarded along. Winterhaven is a highly academic school. They'll make you work. They'll supply you with intelligent teachers. They reward their best students with what they consider is good for you, such as special social activities that you may or may not enjoy. If you reach the top of their academic lists, you'll be taken to teas and you'll meet those people who really count in Boston society. You'll be favored with concerts and operas and plays.

Sports are very neglected at Winterhaven I'm sorry to say. Do you partic.i.p.ate in any particular sport?"

When I lived in the w.i.l.l.i.e.s I'd studied hard to earn good grades. There hadn't been time or energy to play sporting games, when I walked seven miles to school each day and seven miles back to that shack in the hills. Once I reached home there was laundry to do, and gardening, and helping Sarah and Granny. Living with the Dennisons in Candlewick hadn't been that much better, not when Kitty had expected me to be her slave. And Cal had wanted only an indoor playmate.

"What's wrong with you? Can't you answer? Do you like sports?"

"I don't know yet," I whispered, keeping my eyes lowered. "I've never had the chance to play sports."

Too late I realized keeping my eyes lowered wasn't enough when Tony was so observant. I had to keep my facial expressions calm and unrevealing as well. Casting him a quick glance, I saw a glimmer of pity in his eyes, as if he guessed far more about my miserable background than I'd told him. But not in a million years would he be able to guess all the horror of being poor. Quickly I smiled, lest he read too much. "I'm a very good swimmer."

"Swimming is good for the figure. I hope you will continue to use our indoor pool this winter."

I nodded, feeling uneasy.