The Unloved Read online

  Fear.

  And yet despite this sense of fear Helena immediately induced in Anne, the old woman was tiny. She seemed almost to disappear within the folds of the rusty black dress she wore, and her face, all but obscured by the layers and layers of makeup, was strangely expressionless. But her eyes—two brightly glowing embers—seemed to reach out to Anne, grasping her in their grip, drawing her forward. She reached the bottom of the stairs just as the chair lift clanged to a stop, but said nothing. Whatever was to be said, she instinctively knew, would be initiated by Helena Devereaux.

  The silence seemed to drag into eternity.

  “So you are the woman my son married,” Helena rasped at last, her eyes narrowing to appraising slits as her nostrils flared slightly. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing to be done about that, is there?” Then her eyes flicked away from Anne, taking in each of the children in turn. Her head bobbed in a barely perceptible nod. “The girl is a Devereaux,” she pronounced. “As for the boy, I don’t—”

  “His name is Jeff,” Anne said, her voice emerging from her throat in a strangled squeak, forced out only to prevent her son from hearing whatever his grandmother had been about to say. “And he’s every bit as much a Devereaux as Julie.”

  Helena’s eyes—cold as a snake’s now—fixed on Anne again, and once more Anne felt the strange power of the old woman. No wonder Kevin has nightmares about her, she thought. And no wonder he never wanted to come back.

  And then, once again, another unbidden thought formed in her mind.

  She doesn’t intend for us to leave. Not ever.

  Helena’s eyes abruptly released Anne and moved to her son. “Kevin,” she said, her tongue caressing his name. And then, though his mother said nothing else, Kevin stepped forward and offered the old woman his arm. Taking it, Helena struggled to her feet and started across the entry hall toward the open doors to the living room, her son on one side of her, her daughter on the other.

  It’s not just the island she owns, Anne reflected as she reluctantly followed the three Devereauxes into the gloomy depths of the parlor beyond the double doors. She owns Marguerite, and now she owns Kevin again too. And she wants to own my children.

  As Anne settled herself on the sofa a moment later, her children flanking her and sitting unnaturally close as they warily watched their grandmother, Anne wondered if there was anything she—or anyone else—could do to thwart Helena Devereaux’s wishes.

  An hour later, when Helena finally returned to her room, Anne felt exhausted, as if from the old woman’s very presence—her piercing eyes smoldering with the power of an indomitable spirit, belying the obvious weaknesses of her body. It wasn’t until then that Anne realized the meaning of the makeup Helena had used to cover the ravages of age.

  It was theatrical makeup, intended to cover up the person behind it, exposing only a carefully constructed façade to the world. Though the façade Helena Devereaux had created was truly frightening, Anne had the certain feeling that the terrifying mask, and the woman behind it, were one and the same.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was nearly two o’clock when Jeff and Julie finally escaped the cavernous gloom of their grandmother’s house, emerging out into the brightness of the summer afternoon only to have the oppressively tropical heat close around them like shrouds of wet sheets. They stayed in the protective shade of the oaks for a while, gazing out at the shimmering air that lay over the island.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it?” Jeff finally ventured. “Aunt Marguerite hardly said a word, and Grandmother looks like she already died.”

  Almost against her will, Julie snickered at the remembered image of the strangely painted old lady who had sat perched on a wing chair by the fireplace, ignoring the peeling wallpaper and mildewed plaster of the ceiling while she rambled on about how privileged the children should feel to be there. “It’s like she doesn’t even know the place is falling down around her,” she said finally. “And she hardly even spoke to Mom.”

  Jeff rolled his eyes scornfully in a vain attempt to rid himself of the strange fear he had felt in the presence of his grandmother. “And did you hear her talking about how I look exactly like Mom? Everybody knows I look just like Dad.”

  Julie giggled. “I bet she tells Aunt Marguerite that Mom’s just a carpetbagger and they should just pretend she doesn’t exist.”

  “What’s a carpetbagger?” Jeff asked.

  Instead of answering his question, Julie got to her feet and started down the gentle slope that led to a group of ramshackle outbuildings a hundred yards from the house. “Let’s go see what’s here,” she suggested.

  A moment later Jeff had darted ahead of her, disappearing through the half-open door of a vine-covered barn whose roof was almost barren of shingles. A few minutes later she stepped through the door herself. The barn had apparently once housed a stable of horses, but most of the stalls had long since collapsed. Sunshine filtered down through the slats of the roof, providing a soft, cool light which was tinged with green by the profusion of foliage that had penetrated the siding over the years. Perched on a loft at the rear, Jeff was grinning down at her. “Isn’t this neat?” he called. “If there were any hay, I could jump down into it!”

  “You be careful,” Julie warned. “It looks like the whole place could fall down any minute.”

  Jeff’s grin only widened. “The stairs already have. Is there a ladder in here?”

  Julie searched the barn, finally finding a splintery wooden ladder in the tack room at the rear. She propped it up against the loft, and Jeff scrambled down. “What were you going to do if I hadn’t been here?” Julie asked.

  “Jump,” Jeff replied with the self-assurance of his eight years. “I’ve jumped from the roof at home, and it’s a lot higher than that.”

  “And if Mom had caught you, she’d have cut you off TV for a week.”

  “But she didn’t,” Jeff reminded her. “Come on.”

  They left the barn and made their way farther down the slope to the row of collapsing cabins that had once served as slave quarters. Pushing his way through the tangled vines, Jeff found himself in a tiny room with only a single window and door. There was a rickety shelf on one wall and a couple of pegs still hanging precariously from the doorframe. Most of the floor space was taken up by four rusty iron beds, long since stripped of springs or mattresses. Just looking at it made him shudder, and he looked up at his sister in awe. “Did they really make people live here?” he asked, his voice dropping to a whisper.

  Julie shrugged. “I guess so,” she ventured. “Sometimes whole families had to live in rooms like this.”

  Jeff’s brows furrowed seriously. “How come Dad never told us about this?”

  “Because he’s probably ashamed of it,” Julie replied. “I mean, I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to know my family had made people live like this.”

  “M-Maybe they didn’t,” Jeff suggested. “Maybe these were just storerooms or something.”

  “And maybe elephants can fly,” Julie shot back. “Let’s go—this place gives me the creeps.”

  They pushed through the vines once more, glanced into a garage that contained an aging Buick and a rusty hulk that neither of them could identify, then started toward what had once been cultivated fields. As they approached a marshy area, a figure suddenly stepped out of a patch of bushes and stood in the path, staring at them curiously.

  It was a boy, about Jeff’s age, with an unruly mop of tangled black hair curling over his forehead. He was wearing a pair of torn blue jeans and a T-shirt that must once have been white but was now a dingy gray.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, his brown eyes fixing belligerently on Jeff.

  Jeff stared back at the boy. “Jeff Devereaux,” he replied. “Who are you?”

  The boy took an uncertain step backward. “Toby Martin. How come I never saw you before?”

  “ ’Cause I just got here,” Jeff replied. “How come you’re here? Nobody but my grandmother and my aunt�
�s ‘sposed to live here.”

  Toby glanced furtively at the house. “I just come out here sometimes. I don’t hurt nothin’. I just look around. You won’t tell, will you? The old lady doesn’t want anybody here.”

  Jeff glanced at Julie, who was studying Toby carefully. Finally she smiled conspiratorially at the worried little boy. “We won’t tell anybody you were here, if you’ll show us around. Okay?”

  The look of uncertainty disappeared from Toby’s eyes and he grinned crookedly, exposing a gap in his upper teeth. “I’ll show you everything,” he promised. “It’s neat—there’s marshes and ponds, and a neat beach. But you have to watch out, ’cause there’s all kinds of snakes and stuff too.”

  “Snakes?” Julie repeated, her voice trembling slightly. “Poisonous ones?”

  Toby nodded solemnly. “Water moccasins, and rattlers, and all kinds of other ones. But if you watch out, they won’t hurt you.”

  “Maybe we better not,” Julie said uncertainly. “Maybe we better go back to the house.”

  “What’s the matter, you scared?” Jeff taunted his sister.

  Julie glared at her brother. “Why shouldn’t I be?” she demanded. “If you had any brains, you’d be scared too!”

  “Toby comes out here all the time,” Jeff countered, and turned to the boy. “Nothing’s happened to you, has it?”

  Toby shook his head vigorously. “All’s you have to do is watch out,” he said. “My daddy says the snakes are more scared of you than you are of them.” As if the issue had been decided, he turned and began picking his way along the path, Jeff instantly following him. A moment later, deciding she’d better watch out for Jeff rather than leave him alone, Julie followed.

  They worked their way slowly toward the far side of the island, skirting the marshy areas and giving a wide berth to a pond in which an alligator lay basking, only his snout and eyes showing above the surface of the water. “Are—Are there a lot of them?” Julie asked, unable to keep her voice from trembling as she stared at the malevolent-looking reptile.

  “Some,” Toby replied. “You don’t want to mess with ‘em, but they won’t hurt you. Unless they’re hungry,” he added, glancing at Jeff out of the corner of his eye and giggling at the sudden paleness of Julie’s face, “Come on, let’s go to the beach.”

  A hundred yards farther, the thick vegetation gave way to a wide expanse of glitteringly white powdery sand. Line after line of low surf swept in from the shallow sea beyond.

  Julie stared at it in wonder, dropping down to sit on the sand in the shade of a small grove of smoky pines. It was by far the most beautiful beach she’d ever seen.

  It was completely deserted.

  “But—But where is everybody?” she asked. “You’d think everyone would be out here!”

  “It’s the old lady,” Toby replied, his small face scowling deeply. “She’s so mean she won’t let anybody use it, even though it’s the best beach around here. She makes everybody swim in the channel. We all hate her!” Then, suddenly, abashed as he realized he’d been talking about Jeff’s and Julie’s grandmother, he tried to apologize.

  “We don’t care what you say about Grandmother,” Jeff told Toby. “We think she’s weird too. And our dad hates her!”

  “Jeff!” Marguerite Devereaux’s voice cut through the brightness of the day, and all three youngsters jumped slightly as she stepped out of the grove of trees and onto the beach. “Even if that were true, which I hope it isn’t, it’s not a nice thing to say. Keep in mind that although you grew up in Connecticut, you’re still a southern gentleman.”

  Jeff’s eyes widened and he swallowed nervously as his aunt turned her attention to Toby Martin. Her eyes fixed on him sternly.

  “And as for you, young man, just what do you think you’re doing out here?”

  Julie glanced at Toby, fully expecting him to be on the verge of terrified tears. Instead, he was grinning up at Marguerite, his eyes dancing merrily.

  “I was fixin’ to steal a swim, Miss Marguerite,” he said. “You won’t tell on me, will you?”

  The sternness left Marguerite’s eyes, and she reached down to run her fingers through Toby’s hair. “If I got you in as much trouble with your mother as you get me into with mine, you’d never speak to me again, would you?” Toby shook his head wildly, looking for all the world like a happy puppy. “Well, you got off lucky this time,” Marguerite went on. “She’s taking a nap, and she didn’t see you. So scoot along home, but next time you come, you march right up to the door and knock. If Jeff invites you, she can’t tell me to order you off the island, can she?”

  Toby looked eagerly at Jeff. “Will you?” he asked. “I mean, invite me?”

  “Okay,” Jeff agreed. “But you have to invite me to your house too.”

  The eagerness faded from Toby’s eyes and he looked uncertainly up at Marguerite. “We’ll see,” she promised him. “But as long as Jeff’s here, you come out here any time you want to.”

  A few minutes later, as Toby started threading his way back along the path across the island and toward the causeway, Marguerite led Julie and Jeff up the beach toward the old mansion. They walked in silence for a few minutes, then Julie spoke shyly.

  “Aunt Marguerite? Why won’t Grandmother let anyone use the beach? It’s so beautiful, it seems like everybody should get to use it.”

  Marguerite said nothing for a while, then put her arm around Julie’s shoulders. “It’s just the way Mother is,” she said at last. “There isn’t any reason, really. It’s just that it’s our beach, and Mother always worries about what’s ours.” She fell silent for a moment, then: “But it won’t always be that way.”

  Jeff looked up curiously. “Why not?”

  Marguerite smiled sadly. “Because she’s dying, Jeff. And when she dies, things will be different.”

  For several minutes the trio walked in silence, then Julie spoke again. “Aunt Marguerite, don’t you care if Grandmother dies? I mean, she’s your mother.”

  Marguerite stopped walking and stared up at the weathered mansion surrounded by its protective grove of oaks, then her gaze drifted out to scan the sea. Finally her eyes came to rest on Julie. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I care that Mother is going to die. I care very much.” Taking Julie by the hand, she turned and started up the slope toward the great house.

  That evening five people gathered around the huge table in the dining room of Sea Oaks. Kevin sat at the head of the table, with Anne and Marguerite to his right. Opposite their mother and aunt sat Julie and Jeff, and far down the table, empty and somehow removed from the group while still dominating it, sat the chair that Helena Devereaux would have occupied had she been well enough to come downstairs. But she had not come down. Instead, upon waking from her nap she had summoned Marguerite and told her that she would take dinner, as usual, in her room.

  Five minutes after Ruby served the soup, the angry sound of the buzzer rent the conversation. Without a word Marguerite folded her linen napkin and moved stiffly out of the dining room. The family listened to her limping up the stairs.

  A few minutes later she was back. Slipping into her chair, she resumed eating her soup as if nothing had happened.

  The buzzer sounded again as Ruby was serving the entrée, and yet again before Marguerite had finished her salad.

  When the buzzer sounded once more as Ruby was putting bowls of ice cream on the table, Marguerite again folded her napkin, but before she could leave the table, Anne spoke, smiling uncertainly at her sister-in-law. “Why don’t you eat your ice cream before it melts? Whatever it is this time, surely it can wait a few minutes?”

  Marguerite shook her head apologetically. “She hates to be kept waiting, and I don’t mind, really. I’ve been doing it so long, I don’t think I’d know what to do if I got through a meal without her calling me.” Setting her napkin down, she hurried once more out of the dining room to laboriously climb the stairs.

  Only when she was certain that Marguerite was out of earshot
did Anne face her husband, no longer attempting to keep the anger out of her eyes or her voice. “Why didn’t you say something, Kevin? Your mother treats her like a slave! Shouldn’t she at least be allowed to finish her dinner?”

  “You heard her,” Kevin said mildly. “I really don’t think she minds. And she’s used to it.”

  “But her leg!” Anne exclaimed. “You can see that it hurts her. And for that awful old woman to make her run up and down the stairs all the time—well, frankly, I don’t see why she puts up with it! If I were Marguerite, I’d have put her in a home years ago!” And yet, despite her brave words, Anne wondered if she were speaking the truth. Wasn’t it more likely, given the strength she’d seen in Helena earlier, that she, too, would have given in to the woman’s demands rather than face her wrath? She suspected she would have.

  Kevin shrugged. “I don’t disagree with you. In fact, I think you’re right—I wouldn’t tolerate it, and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to either. That’s why I got out—it was either that or knuckle under to her. But Marguerite’s not like me—she deals with things, and she doesn’t complain. She never even complained about her leg.”

  Julie put down her spoon and faced her father. “What happened to her?” she asked.

  “An accident,” Kevin replied. “I was just a little boy, and she was in her teens. I don’t remember much about it, really, but she fell down the stairs and broke her hip. She was in the hospital for a while, and in a cast for a long time. But it never healed properly, and she’s had that limp ever since.” His lips tightened into a grim line. “She was going to be a dancer, and I guess she was damned good at it. The accident put an end to that, but I can’t ever remember hearing her complain about that either. In a lot of ways,” he added, “your aunt is a remarkable woman.” He smiled. “And in a lot of ways, you’re very much like her. You look like her, and you dance like her, and sometimes when I hear you talk, I’d swear I was listening to Marguerite when she was your age.”