Part 18 (1/2)
”Yes, Miss Casteel, I'll tell Mr. Troy that you called. He's out for the day.”
Unsettled and disconcerted to think Troy wasn't where he should be, I used the elevator again, to find Logan waiting in the hotel lobby for me. He rose politely when I advanced, but didn't smile. ”What can I do for you now?”
My hands rose to my forehead. I had four hours before my flight left for Boston.
”Reverend Wise, I have to see him. But I can make it there on my own.” My eyes lowered to study his hands while I began my apology. ”I'm sorry I was ugly acting. I thank you for helping me, Logan. I wish you all sorts of happiness. You don't need to do anything else for me. From now on take care of myself.”
For the longest time I felt his eyes on my face, as if trying to read my mind. Then, not responding with words, he took my arm and led me to his parked car, and while we were on our slow way, he tried to answer my question.
”Does Pa come often to visit Grandpa?”
”I think he comes when he can.”
Logan didn't say another word until he let me out on Main Street, directly in front of the parsonage, where the Reverend Wayland Wise lived with his wife, and infant daughter.
”Thank you again,” I said stiffly. ”But you don't have to wait.”
”Who is going to carry your bags and put them in your rented car . . . if you still have a rented car?” he asked with irony.
So he waited, insisting on doing that, and I tried not to stumble or wobble as I made my way up the walkway recently swept free of all storm debris. Once I had reached the high porch, I turned to see Logan waiting patiently, his head slightly bowed, as if he'd fallen asleep behind the wheel from the fatigue of waiting on me night and day.
And as I stood there and waited for someone to respond to my knock, a terrible anger washed over me, erasing my weakness and giving me sudden strength.
The Reverend and his wife had no right to steal f.a.n.n.y's baby! He had seduced f.a.n.n.y when she was just a child, a minor! Fourteen years old. Statutory rape!
Yes, I was here to bring into the family fold at least one child to replace the two I'd lost. Though I doubted very much that f.a.n.n.y should be the one to raise the child.
It was Rosalynn Wise herself who came to respond to my sharp raps on her door. She scowled to see me, though surprise didn't show in her eyes. It was as if she knew from my visit to the church eight days ago that sooner or later I'd show up. As usual, she wore a dark, unflattering dress that succeeded admirably in making her look like a stick wearing clothes.
”We have nothing to say to you,” she said in greeting. ”Kindly take yourself off our porch and don't come back.”
And like f.a.n.n.y had in the past, she prepared to slam the door in my face, but I was ready this time. Stepping forward I shoved her aside and entered the house. ”You have a great deal of explaining to do,” I said in my coldest sharpest tone. (I'd learned a great deal in Boston on how to act imperious.) ”Take me to your husband.”
”He's not here.”
She moved to keep me from going farther. ”You get out! You and your sister have caused enough trouble.” Her long, lean face took on the pious air of those in contact with filth.
”Oh, so now you admit f.a.n.n.y is my sister. How interesting. Whatever happened to Louisa Wise?”
”Who was that at the front door?” called the Reverend in the kind of ordinary voice he must reserve for at-home use.
His voice led me to his study, where the door was partially open, and I stepped inside, despite all his wife did to prevent this. Now that I was confronting the most influential man in Winnerrow, I longed for stronger health, for all the words I'd had ready to say before fever came and stole them from my memory.
Half-rising from his chair, ”Waysie” Wise smiled in a pleasant way, and that left me at a loss. I'd come expecting to catch them both at a disadvantage. It wasn't quite ten o'clock. Yet she was dressed, and so was he. The. only concession he gave to at-home comfort were black velvet house slippers lined with red satin. For some odd reason those exotic, elegant slippers threw me.
”Aha!” he said, rubbing his dry palms together, his full, handsome face taking on a blank, smooth look. ”I do believe it's one of my sheep coming to be embraced, at last, into the fold.” He couldn't have found better words to restore my fighting ego. As if I'd been born for this day I felt a rising sense of justification and satisfaction to have a good reason for telling him my opinion of what he was. He seated himself again in his high-backed, comfortable chair before the fireplace where fake flowers took the place of the grate. With care he chose a cigar from a bra.s.s box lined with red cedar that was near his chair; he snipped off the end, checked it over with scrutinizing eyes, and only then did he light it. All this time I was left standing.
Obviously they weren't going to invite me to sit down. I strode forward and selected the twin to his chair and sat. I crossed my legs and watched his eyes as they traveled over my legs, which Troy had told me many times were very shapely. My shoes were brand new.
Lazily, the Reverend's dark, sloe eyes looked me over. Smoldering interest thrived deep in those eyes, and gradually it drifted to the forefront and forced him to smile disarmingly. A smile so sweet it was no wonder someone as naive as f.a.n.n.y had been taken in. Even up close he was a very good-looking man. He had good features, a clear complexion, and robust good health that made his ruddy skin glow. His extra pounds were just beginning to hint at middle age, though later I suspected he'd go from paunchy immediately to obesity.
”Yesss . . . I do believe I've seen you before,” he said in a throaty, flattering way, ”though forgetting the name of such a lovely girl is simply not my way, absolutely not my way.”
When I'd entered this house, I hadn't the foggiest idea of how to approach him, but his very words had given me exactly the impetus I needed. He was afraid. He'd hide behind a guise of innocence.
”You haven't forgotten my name,” I said in a pleasant way, swinging my foot and making my high heel a threatening weapon. ”No one ever forgets my name. Heaven Leigh has its own distinction, wouldn't you say?”
And all that coughing had done something tor my throat, something that made it different, slightly hoa.r.s.e, and my time in Boston had given my voice a certain sophisticated s.e.xiness that surprised even me. ”f.a.n.n.y is very well, thank you for asking, Reverend Wise. f.a.n.n.y sends her best regards.”
I smiled at him, feeling a kind of power growing just because I could tell he was taken with my youth and beauty. I suspected he'd been an easy foil for f.a.n.n.y's seduction, even though he was a man of the cloth. ”f.a.n.n.y is very appreciative to both you and your wife for taking such good care of her daughter, but now that she has given up a stage career and will soon settle down to married life, she wants her child back.”
He didn't blanch or blink an eye, though behind me I heard his wife gasp, then sob.
”Why isn't Louisa here to speak for herself?” he asked in a soft purr.
I tried to find exactly the right words. ”f.a.n.n.y trusts me to say what she cannot say without crying. She regrets her hasty decision to sell her unborn child. She knows now that a woman can never be the same after giving birth. Her arms ache to hold her little girl. And she isn't asking that you take a great loss, for I have come prepared to repay you the ten thousand dollars.” His smile stayed pasted on. He even managed to talk while still smiling. ”I really don't understand what you mean. What ten thousand? What do my wife and I have to do with f.a.n.n.y's baby? We realize, of course, that dear Louisa was free with her s.e.xual favors, being hill-born and hill-trained, and wild as a b.i.t.c.h in heat, and if she sold her baby and regrets it, indeed we are sorry . . .”
Standing, I strode to his desk and picked up a silver-framed studio portrait of a child about four months old. The baby smiled into the camera lens with f.a.n.n.y's own dark eyes, true Casteel Indian eyes. The little girl's mop of hair was not straight and coa.r.s.e like f.a.n.n.y's, but soft and curly, as the hair of the Reverend must have been when he was an infant. And oh, she was lovely, this baby that f.a.n.n.y had so heedlessly sold. Plump, dimpled hands, a tiny little ring on one finger. Sweet little white dress with lace and embroidery. A cherished, pampered, beloved daughter.
Suddenly the portrait was s.n.a.t.c.hed from my hands!
”Get out of here!” screamed Rosalynn Wise. ”Wayland, why do you sit and talk to her! Throw her out!”
”I came prepared to pay for f.a.n.n.y's child,” I stated coldly. ”You can accept twenty thousand dollars. Ten thousand for your care of the child. If you don't I will call in the police, and tell them what you did when you drove to our cabin and paid my father five hundred dollars for f.a.n.n.y. I will tell the city authorities that you used f.a.n.n.y as your slave to do housework. I will tell them that their good minister molested and s.e.xually abused a fourteen-year-old girl, and forced her to have his child because his wife was barren . . .”
The Reverend stood up.
He towered above me, his eyes turning into cruel, dark river stones. ”You have threat in your voice, girl. I don't like that. A hill-sc.u.m Casteel can't threaten me, not with your tone, not with your fierce glare and your silly words. I know all about you and your kind.” His confident smile came back as he sought to intimidate me. ”Louisa has not called or written to us, after all we did to make her happy and comfortable. Yet it's often that way with our Lord's chosen , . . to try and be the good Samaritan, and in turn be given nothing but malice from those who should be grateful.”
He intoned other words, quotes from the Bible that were apt, as if in a million years I could never disturb his equilibrium.
”Stop!” I yelled. ”You bought my sister from my father.” I named the day and the year. ”And my brother Tom and I were there as witnesses to swear this took place in our cabin.” I paused, watching him slip his large feet out of the velvet slippers and into loose loafers before he moved to sit ponderously behind his immense desk, kept exceptionally neat. When he settled back in his swivel chair, he tipped it far back, then templed his fingers beneath his chin. He held his hands clasped like that very high so his mouth was hidden. It was only then I found out the lips combined with the eyes made for the best mindreading abilities. Now I had only his eyes, and they were hooded.
”You can't come to me and make demands, girl. You may wear diamonds, and costly raiment, but you are still a Casteel. And between your word and mine . . who do you think those in authority will believe?”
I found my own confident smile. ”Darcy looks like f.a.n.n.y.”
His smile turned oily and evil. ”Let's not debate a proven fact. We have papers to prove my wife gave birth to a baby girl on the third day in February of this year. What legal proof do you have to indicate that f.a.n.n.y has even had a baby?”
My smile wavered, then grew strong. ”Stretch marks. Does your wife have those? Fingerprints. Footprints. We Casteels are not quite as dumb as you think. f.a.n.n.y stole a copy of her daughter's birth certificate. On that certificate she is named as the mother, not your wife. You had a forgery made--how will that sit with those in authority?”
Behind me Rosalynn Wise groaned.
The Reverend blinked his eyes once or twice. And I knew I had them! And I had lied! As far as I knew f.a.n.n.y didn't have any proof. None whatsoever.
”No man would ever need go to the trouble of seducing your promiscuous sister!” yelled Rosalynn Wise, her face gone paper white as she backed toward the door.
My head jerked higher. ”That is beside the point. The point being, Reverend Wise took advantage of a fourteen-year-old girl. He, a man sworn to the cloth, fathered f.a.n.n.y's baby when she was a minor! A baby that this honorable minister now tells everyone was conceived in his wife's own womb! It can easily be proven by a physical examination that your wife has never given birth. f.a.n.n.y wants her little girl. I want her to have her daughter. I have come to take Darcy home to her mother.”
Rosalynn Wise whimpered like a beaten dog.