Part 6 (1/2)
”So you see, I have no one now! Tony has ordered me to cut my family out of my life, even out of my thoughts, and he doesn't even know about Tom, f.a.n.n.y, Keith, or Our Jane. Tom hasn't responded to my letters. f.a.n.n.y is expecting the Reverend's baby, and she never writes to me. I don't even know if she wants to. And someday I have to find Our Jane and Keith!”
”Someday you will find them,” said Troy with the kind of sincerity that made me trust him. ”I have a great deal of money. I can't think of a better way to spend some of it than to help you find your family.”
”Cal promised me the same thing, and nothing ever came of it.”
He turned to give me a chastising look. ”I am not Cal Dennison, and I don't make promises I don't keep.”
My tears began again. ”Why would you do that? You don't know me. I'm not sure you even like me.”
He came to sit beside me at the table. ”For you and for your dead mother I will do this, Heaven. Tomorrow I'll see my attorneys and put them on the trail of this lawyer whose first name is Lester. You should bring me the studio portraits of Keith and Our Jane that you told me about. Photographers are always proud to display their names somewhere on their photos, or on the back. In no time at all, you will know the full names of the couple who bought your younger brother and sister.”
I sat spellbound, breathless with the hope that flooded me. Hope that soon simmered down to nothing, for hadn't Cal Dennison promised the same thing? And I didn't really know Troy.
”Now tell me what you'll do when you know where they are?”
What would I do?
Tony would put me out of his life. He'd stop his support of my education.
I was on my way now toward the goal I had to have . . . but I'd think of the answer later, when his attorneys found the little boy and girl who belonged with me. I'd find some way to get them back and to hold fast to my goals too. I was determined, now that I'd come this far, never to slip back again.
Oh, if only things had been different! If only I could have grown up like a normal girl! I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes again. Shoving my memories away and taking a deep breath, I said, ”There, now you know everything about me. And I'm not even supposed to be talking to you. Tony has ordered me to leave you alone, never to come to your cottage. In fact he told me before he left that you were not here at all. If he knows I've broken one of his rules he'll send me back to the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. I'm terrified of going back there! There's no one in Winnerrow who cares what happens to me. Pa lives somewhere in Georgia or Florida, and Tom is living with him, but Tom never writes, nor does f.a.n.n.y! I don't know how to live without someone who loves and cares about me.” I ducked my head so he couldn't see those irrepressible tears that began to fall. ”Please, Troy, please! Be my friend! I need someone so desperately.”
”All right, Heaven. I'll be your friend.” He sounded reluctant, as if he were committing himself to something that was going to be burdensome. ”But remember that there are good reasons why Tony doesn't want you to become involved with me. Don't be too harsh on him. Before you decide that I am just the friend you need, you have to realize that Tony rules here, not me. We are at different ends of the pole in personality. He is strong, and I am a weak dreamer. If you arouse Tony's disapproval and displeasure, he will send you out of his life, and out of Jillian's, straight back to the w.i.l.l.i.e.s! And he'll do it in such a way I'll not have the chance to save you, or even to give you money.”
”I would not take money from you!” I flared, my pride rearing high.
”You take it from my brother,” he said wryly.
”Because he is married to my grandmother! Because he told me he manages the money Jillian inherited from her father and her first husband. Money that would have gone to my own mother if she had lived. I feel perfectly justified in taking from Tony.”
He turned his head away so I could no longer see his face. ”Heaven, your pa.s.sion exhausts me. It is much later than I thought it was, and I'm tired. Would you mind if we continue this discussion next Friday when you come home from Winterhaven?I'll still be here.”
He touched me deeply as he sat there, looking totally vulnerable, and I suspected he was terribly afraid of letting someone like me into his wellorganized life. Slowly I got up from the floor, reluctant to leave the cozy warmth of his cottage.
”Please, Heaven, I have a thousand things to do before I go to bed tonight. And don't cry because Logan Stonewall didn't recognize you. His thoughts could have been elsewhere. Give him another chance. Call him up at his dorm. Offer to meet him somewhere you can talk.”
Troy didn't know Logan's stubbornness. Logan was like his name, a stone wall!
”Good night, Troy,” I called at the door, ”and thank you for everything. I'm looking forward to next Friday.”
Softly I closed the door behind me.
No servants were around when I slipped inside the door of the big house, and in the dining room, when I checked, I found food in silver chafing dishes: wonderful, thin slices of meat covered with French sauce. Before I knew what I was doing, I'd put a little of each dish on a plate and then sat down to eat again. All by myself, at a table big enough for all the Casteels.
Seven Treachery .
THE GIRLS OF WINTERHAVEN WERE NOT AS DISTANT my second week there. Boldly they eyed me up and down, staring at the lovely knit dress I wore, for I'd be d.a.m.ned before I'd go back to wearing clothes not so much better than what I'd worn in the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. To my delight, that Very Monday when I sat down to eat my lunch, Pru Carraway smiled my way, then invited me to eat at her table. Three other girls were seated there. Happily I gathered up my silverware, my plate and napkin, and carried them over. ”Thank you,” I said, as I sat down.
”What a pretty pink dress,” said Pru, batting her pale eyelashes.
”Thank you. The color is mauve.”
”What a pretty mauve dress,” she corrected, as the three other girls t.i.ttered. ”I realize we have not been very nice to you, Heaven,” and again she put stress on my name, ”but we try never to be nice to any new student until we are sure she's worthy of our approval.”
What had I done to gain their approval? I wondered.
”How do you know so much about poverty and hunger?” asked Faith Morgantile, a very pretty, brown-haired girl in a clean but ratty-looking white sweater and pants.
My heart skipped a beat. ”You all know I am from West Virginia. That is coal-mining country. There is also a cotton mill there. The hills are full of very poor people who think an education is a waste of time . . . so naturally, I know about the people who used to live around me.”
”But you described the pangs of hunger so well in your theme paper,” persisted Pru, ”it's almost as if you knew hunger from firsthand experience.”
”When you have eyes and ears, and a heart that feels compa.s.sion, you don't really need firsthand experience.”
”How nicely you put that,” said another girl, smiling at me warmly. ”We've heard that your parents divorced, and your father won custody of you . . . isn't that unusual? Most of the time the mother wins custody, especially when the child is a girl.”
I tried to shrug nonchalantly. ”I was too young to remember the details of the divorce. When I was older my father refused to talk about it.” And with that I dismissed the subject as my fork stabbed into my tossed salad and speared the tomatoes and lettuce I liked most.
”When will your father be coming to visit you? We would just love to meet him.”
You bet they would love to meet him! Luke Casteel would shock them into instant old age. I resented Pru Carraway, who was like a thorn constantly trying to draw blood. I felt the power of her background, her family, her heritage, the friends she had and I didn't, forming a barricade around her, while I was defenseless, with only my wits and new clothes to s.h.i.+eld me. I finished my lunch with determination, eating every strand of spaghetti, relis.h.i.+ng every morsel of the meatb.a.l.l.s, and wanted in the worst way to sop up the spicy tomato sauce with what remained of my Italian bread, but I didn't dare. And they were watching me with such fascination I felt I was doing everything wrong; showing too much enthusiasm for an ordinary dish like spaghetti. Made hostile and angry from their insinuations, I decided to blast them with a little truth. ”My father will never come to see me, for we don't like each other, and he is dying.”
Each one of those four girls stared at me with lips agape, as if I were an apparition straight from the cemetery of bad taste. And even as I'd said the words, the thought of Pa being dead filled me with strange, uneasy guilt. As if I had no right to hate him or wish him dead because he was my father. There was no reason why I should feel ashamed. None! He deserved every mean thought I gave him.
Again Pru Carraway spoke, carefully: ”We have in this school certain private clubs. Now, if you could arrange, somehow, for one of us to have a date with Troy Tatterton . . . we would be very appreciative.”
Thoughts of Pa had come between me and them. I was caught off guard. I sat with the last of my Italian bread held halfway to my mouth. ”I really couldn't manage that,” I said uneasily. ”He's a man who makes up his own mind, and he's much too old and sophisticated for the girls of Winterhaven.”
”Troy Tatterton turned twenty-three only two weeks ago,” stated Faith Morgantile. ”Some of the students here are eighteen, and just right for a man of his age. Besides, we saw him with you on Sunday, and you are only sixteen.”
It stunned me that in a giant city like Boston I'd be spotted with Troy!
So that was it! The reason for their sudden interest in me! They had seen me, or one of their friends had, in the coffee shop with Troy. I stood up. I dropped my napkin on their table. ”Thank you for inviting me to your table,” I said with real pain in my heart, for I'd so hoped to have friends here. All my life I'd never had a girlfriend, only f.a.n.n.y, who had been kind of a family cross to bear. At my own table I picked up the books I'd left there and stalked from the dining room.
From that moment on I sensed a difference in their att.i.tudes. They had been suspicious of me before just because I was new and different. Now I had challenged them, and without any effort at all, I had made enemies.
The very next morning I selected from my dresser drawer a beautiful cornflower blue cashmere sweater to wear with its matching skirt, and to my utter horror, my brand-new sweater had begun to unravel. And the wool skirt I'd laid out on my bed, brand new, was losing its hem, and very carefully someone had picked at the rows of st.i.tches that held a front box pleat neatly in place. In the w.i.l.l.i.e.s I would have worn the sweater and skirt anyway, but not here, not here! Not when I knew that just yesterday both sweater and skirt had been perfect!
One sweater after another I took from the drawer and inspected! Five of my sweaters were ruined! I ran to the closet to check on my skirts and blouses and found them hanging as I'd left them, still in good shape. Whoever had done this hadn't had time to ruin everything I owned. That Tuesday morning I didn't have time to eat breakfast. I went to cla.s.s wearing just as blouse with my skirt, and no sweater. None of the girls ever wore topcoats to cla.s.s, scorning thoughts of colds and chills, even though most of them sat with their arms crossed over their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and s.h.i.+vered from time to time. Hardy, puritanical souls ruled Winterhaven, seeing that none of us experienced too much luxury. The cla.s.sroom was not much warmer than the cabin in the hills had been in late October. All morning I s.h.i.+vered, thinking I'd run to my room at noon and pick up a lightweight jacket.
I ate my lunch so fast I almost choked on it, then I dashed upstairs to my room; the door was never locked. I ran to the closet to s.n.a.t.c.h from the rod one of the three warm jackets Tony had chosen for me. Two jackets were missing! The one remaining jacket was sopping wet!
Were they so rich and powerful they thought they could get away with vandalizing my possessions? s.h.i.+vering as much from anger as from cold, I ran down the hall with the wet jacket extended before me. I barged into the bathroom. Six girls were in there smoking and giggling. The moment I came through the door a deadly quiet descended, while the cigarettes burned and created the worst kind of choking smoke. Using both hands I held up the wool jacket. ”Did you have to put it in hot water?” I asked. ”Wasn't it enough just to ruin my sweaters? What kind of monsters are you, anyway?”
”Whatever are you talking about?” asked Pru Carraway, her pale eyes innocently blank.
”My new sweaters are unraveled!” I yelled. I shook the water from the jacket so some of it flew into their faces. They drew back and formed a tight bunch. ”You have taken two of my jackets and ruined the third! Do you think you'll get away with this unpunished?” I glared, with what I hoped was menace, into each pair of eyes that stared back at me. The very fact that they didn't seem intimidated by me or my puny threats made me even angrier. Their confidence grew as I hesitated, not knowing how to defeat them.
Turning, I thrust the sopping-wet jacket into one of the two clothes chutes. The heavyweight metal door had a very strong spring that slammed shut. There was a multisectioned bathroom on each one of the three floors. With two hundred girls bathing or showering daily, hundreds of white towels were used. Each day maids brought up stacks and stacks of clean white towels and put them neatly behind the gla.s.s doors of the linen closets. The chutes took the wet, soiled towels quickly to the bas.e.m.e.nt, where they fell into huge baskets.