The Unloved Read online

  When Marguerite came up, Ruby had been waiting at the top of the stairs, her eyes stormy and her jaw set stubbornly. “She’s refusing to eat her breakfast again, Miz Marguerite. I swear, I don’t know what to do with her anymore. It’s like she wants to starve herself to death or somethin’.”

  “It’s all right, Ruby,” Marguerite had told her. “Go on back to whatever you were doing, and I’ll talk to her.”

  Ruby regarded Marguerite doubtfully. “Seems like every time you talk to her lately, she just starts callin’ you names and treatin’ you like dirt!”

  Marguerite sighed tiredly. “I’m all right. And it can’t go on forever, can it?” She opened the door and stepped into her mother’s room.

  “Where have you been?” Helena demanded instantly. “When I call you, I expect you to come, not dawdle around like a useless child!”

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” Marguerite said evenly. “I had to speak to Ruby for a moment—”

  “Ruby!” Helena spat the word distastefully. “I don’t see why we keep her around here! She’s as useless as you are!”

  Marguerite’s eyes shifted away from her mother to the untouched breakfast that still sat on the tray bridging Helena’s thin legs. “Was there something wrong with your breakfast?”

  Helena’s eyes raked Marguerite scornfully. “Was there something wrong with your breakfast?” she mimicked acidly. “How am I supposed to eat, with the house filled with strangers? That miserable little boy runs up and down the stairs as if this were a reform school—which is exactly where he belongs—and that wife of Kevin’s keeps prowling around as if she owns the house! I won’t have it! Do you hear me?”

  “I’m sure everyone in the house heard you.” Though she had intended only to think the words, Marguerite was shocked to hear them tumble from her lips.

  Helena fairly quivered with rage. “How dare you speak to me like that?” she demanded. “I’ve taken care of you your entire life! And what do I get in return? Ingratitude and impertinence! You apologize to me, Marguerite! This instant!”

  Marguerite choked back the sob that rose in her throat, and stared miserably at the floor. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she said softly. “I meant no disrespect!”

  “Didn’t you,” Helena sneered. “You chatter those words like a parrot, child. Do you think I believe them? I’m not a fool, you know, even though you’ve always thought I was!”

  “I told you I’m sorry, Mother,” Marguerite whispered miserably. “I don’t know what else I can do. But they’re Kevin’s family, and I’m sure they don’t mean to disturb you—”

  “They’re not Kevin’s family,” Helena hissed. “You are Kevin’s family. You and I! I don’t know why he brought them here! And I won’t have that woman poking around my house!”

  “I’m sure Anne wasn’t—”

  But the old woman cut her off once more. “You don’t know! I want you to go and make sure the nursery is locked. She was trying to get in there this morning. I heard her!”

  Marguerite hesitated a second too long.

  “Do it!” Helena demanded.

  Swallowing hard, her heart pounding with frustration and barely contained anger, Marguerite hurried out of the bedroom and down the hall to a door near her own. She was just trying the handle when the door to the room Kevin and Anne shared opened and Anne looked out.

  “That room’s locked,” Anne said, and was surprised to see Marguerite’s back stiffen and her hand drop away from the doorknob as if it had burned her. Frowning, she stepped into the hallway itself. “What is it, Marguerite? Is something wrong?”

  Marguerite, her back still toward Anne, shook her head, then finally turned around. Her face was pale and her hands were trembling. “Marguerite, what is it?” Anne asked. “Something is wrong.”

  “?-How did you know this room was locked?” Marguerite asked.

  Anne stepped back in surprise. “I—why, I tried the door earlier. That room is right next to Julie’s, and I thought Jeff might like to be in it. He’s so far down the hall, all by himself—I just thought he might like to be closer to the rest of the family, that’s all.” Her puzzled frown deepened. “Why? What’s in that room?”

  Marguerite’s eyes suddenly took on a haunted look. “It-It’s nothing, really. It’s just that mother has some things in here she likes to keep locked up. She just wanted me to check it, that’s all.”

  Anne’s lips tightened. “Well, you can tell her that neither I nor my children have any intention of stealing anything,” she said, then, seeing the hurt in Marguerite’s eyes, wished she could take the words back. She crossed the hall and put her arms around her sister-in-law. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “That was unkind of me, and unfair. It’s just—well, maybe it’s just the heat.”

  But Marguerite shook her head. “No, it’s not, Anne. Let’s not try to pretend we don’t both know what Mother’s like. And, of course, that’s exactly what she was thinking, and she made me come down here to check the door.” She forced a small smile. “Well, at least I can tell her it’s still locked, can’t I?” Giving Anne a quick embrace, she stepped away, then brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead.

  Anne stayed where she was for a moment, watching Marguerite walk heavily back to her mother’s room, her limp more pronounced than Anne had yet seen it. Then she turned back to stare speculatively at the locked door.

  There was something else behind the door; she was sure of it. It wasn’t just a collection of valuable furniture.

  No, there was more to it than that. But what?

  * * *

  Julie stepped shyly through the enormous double doors that opened from the third-floor landing into the ballroom. It was the first time she’d been up here, and her eyes widened in awe.

  Forty feet by sixty, the room covered most of the third floor. The ceiling rose fourteen feet above the floor, its plaster heavily molded into a series of garlands and rosettes. A massive chandelier hung from the center of each rosette, but the brass was heavily tarnished, and the crystals—many of them chipped, others missing entirely—were covered with a thick layer of grease and dust. Opposite the main doors from the landing a long wall was broken by four sets of French doors opening onto a balcony above the veranda at the front of the house, and heavy draperies hung limply at the sides of the doors. At either end of the room large windows provided panoramic views of the island and the sea.

  The floor was smoothly fitted parquet in a pattern of rhombuses so intricate it made Julie dizzy, but the finish on the floor had long ago worn away, and no trace of its former polish remained. A thick carpet was rolled up against one wall, and Julie was certain that it hadn’t been moved from its position in years.

  In the far comer there was a grand piano, next to which stood an old phonograph console, the wood over its single speaker carved in the form of a treble clef. A short barre had been bolted to the wall between the windows at that end of the room, backed by a mirror whose silvering had flaked away in places, leaving a web of dark veins, and large, smudgy expanses in which a reflection was barely visible. A dozen chairs, their gilt frames badly marred and their red velvet seats all but worn through, were scattered near the piano.

  Marguerite sat on the piano bench, softly playing a passage from Stravinsky’s Firebird, and on the floor five girls moved haltingly through the difficult choreography their teacher had devised. When she glanced up and saw Julie, Marguerite abruptly stopped playing, stood up, and came across the room to draw Julie inside. Her hand still holding Julie’s, she turned to face her students.

  “Girls, this is my niece, Julie.”

  Quickly, she introduced Julie to each of the girls, but by the time she was done, Julie realized she only remembered the names of two of them.

  Jennifer Mayhew, whose smile had been particularly friendly, and Mary-Beth Fletcher, who hadn’t smiled at all.

  “Why don’t we finish what we were doing while Julie warms up, then we can all go to the barre and run through a few of
the basics,” Marguerite suggested.

  “I warmed up downstairs, Aunt Marguerite,” Julie replied. “I didn’t want to take up any extra time.”

  Marguerite nodded appreciatively. “Then why don’t you take the position nearest the piano, where I can see you clearly.”

  The five other girls glanced uncertainly at each other, but started toward the barre, Jenny Mayhew falling in next to Julie and leaning over to whisper in her ear. “She wants to see what you can do, but doesn’t want to make you do it by yourself.”

  “And if there’s any more whispering,” Marguerite observed from her place at the piano, winking at Jenny, “the whisperer can do a solo for all of us.”

  Jenny giggled, and winked back at Marguerite, then took her place next to Julie.

  “First position, girls,” Marguerite directed, striking a chord, then beginning to play a simple tempo. “Second position … third … and turn!”

  Julie began going through the movements, passing from one position to the next effortlessly, her arms moving gracefully as her feet fell naturally into the poses her aunt directed. The music seemed, as always, to flow directly from the piano into her fingertips, and then through her body until she felt it absorbed within her and her movements seemed to come directly out of the notes themselves. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift, enjoying the feel of the dance, the stretching of her muscles, even the pain in her feet as she rose up onto her toes.

  And then, abruptly, the music stopped, and she opened her eyes to see all the other girls staring at her. Her aunt was on her feet.

  “Did—Did I do something wrong?” she asked, her voice anxious.

  “Wrong?” Marguerite asked. “Hardly. You did everything nearly perfectly!” She turned to the other girls. “Why don’t all of you sit down for a few minutes? I think we’d all enjoy watching Julie, and certainly we can all learn something from her.” Her attention went back to Julie. “You’ve only been studying for three years?”

  Julie flushed in embarrassment. “I’ve only been studying seriously for three years,” she admitted. “But I’ve been taking lessons since I was six.”

  Marguerite’s brows rose appreciatively. “Nine years! Then you must have a solo, don’t you?”

  Julie shrugged dismissively. “Just some things I’ve done in recital.”

  “Would you do one for us?” Marguerite asked.

  Julie’s eyes immediately scanned the other girls.

  Mary-Beth Fletcher’s eyes had narrowed slightly, and Julie saw her glance at the girl next to her, then whisper quickly into her ear. But Jennifer Mayhew was smiling encouragingly, as was one other girl, whose name suddenly came back to Julie: Tammy-Jo Aaronson.

  “I—I guess I could,” she said finally. “I have something my teacher at home choreographed. Do you have the music from West Side Story?”

  “I do, indeed,” Marguerite replied. She put on a record, and a moment later the opening strains of The Dance at the Gym’ filled the ballroom, the vibrant rhythms strangely out of place in the faded nineteenth century grandeur of the ballroom.

  Then Julie was alone on the floor, once more lost in the music, dancing with her eyes closed, swaying fluidly to the rhythms, her body moving effortlessly. Marguerite watched her niece with undisguised pride, seeing in Julie’s every movement the heritage that had come to Julie direct from her aunt and grandmother. And as she watched, her eyes drifted over the other girls in her class.

  Jennifer Mayhew and Mary-Beth Fletcher were her most promising students, but compared to Julie, it was obvious even to Marguerite’s biased eye that neither of them had any real future as professional dancers. As for the others, Tammy-Jo Aaronson, a slightly overweight girl who never seemed to worry about anything at all, was at least willing to try.

  Allison Carter—blond, and thinly pretty—was really only in the class because of her mother’s social hopes for her daughter. But Allison didn’t really care, either about her mother’s ambitions or Marguerite’s lessons. The fifth girl, Charlene Phillips, was present, Marguerite knew, simply because she was Mary-Beth Fletcher’s best friend and did whatever Mary-Beth did.

  And after this class, there would be no more. Marguerite had decided years ago that this group of girls would be her last. She would enjoy them while she could, and hadn’t thought too much about what she would do when they grew up.

  But it didn’t matter, really, for she had them now, and she loved each of them for what she was. And now, for a while at least, there was Julie. In Julie she could see all the dreams of her youth, still vibrant and alive.

  The music built to a crescendo, and Julie spun across the floor, her legs moving instinctively, her arms a graceful counterpoint. Then it was over, and after a moment she heard Jennifer and Tammy-Jo begin clapping. A moment later the other girls joined in.

  Only Mary-Beth Fletcher sat still, her hands folded in her lap.

  Marguerite rose from her chair and hurried across the floor to hug Julie.

  “It was beautiful,” she whispered. “I couldn’t have done it better myself when I was your age.” Then she turned back to the girls once more, and gestured Julie to take a bow. Julie performed a deep curtsey, then deliberately let herself collapse to the floor in a perfect parody of having lost her footing.

  Mary-Beth Fletcher again refrained from joining in the response as the girls laughed. Instead she leaned over to whisper to her friend, who immediately cut short her own laughter.

  Julie scrambled to her feet and grinned happily at her aunt. “Was I really all right?”

  “Of course you were,” Marguerite replied. “You were more than all right—everything about what you just did shows your talent. Except your eyes. Never close your eyes when you dance, Julie. Remember, you aren’t doing it for yourself. You’re doing it for an audience, and they want to see your eyes.”

  “But I always dance with my eyes closed,” Julie protested. “At least, if it’s a solo. I can feel the music so much better—”

  “But you mustn’t!” Marguerite proclaimed. “You must always be aware of the audience. Always!”

  Slowly, the class resumed, but as Julie danced with the others, she felt her aunt’s eyes on her; indeed, she could even feel the pride her aunt was taking in her, and when the hour was over, she wished she could go on for another hour. Even the heat in the ballroom didn’t seem to affect her anymore.

  But at last Marguerite ended the lesson and the girls began drifting downstairs. As she had earlier, Jennifer Mayhew fell in beside Julie.

  “You’re really good,” she said, her voice frankly admiring.

  “You’re not exactly bad yourself,” Julie replied.

  Jenny shrugged. “I try, but when I watch you, I feel like I might as well forget it. Trying just isn’t enough—you have to have talent too. And I guess we all know where you got yours.”

  Julie nodded. “I wish I could have seen Aunt Marguerite dance. Dad says she was really good.”

  Jenny nodded. “She still is. There’s a lot she can’t do, I guess, but she never stops trying to show us how.”

  Julie cocked her head, looking at Jenny carefully. “You really like my aunt, don’t you?”

  “Are you kidding?” Jenny asked. “Everybody likes Miss Marguerite. She always has time for us, and she’s never mad at us, and she always seems to know just how we feel.” Her voice dropped lower. “That’s why most of us come—we all know we aren’t ever going to be dancers, but it gives us an excuse to be with Miss Marguerite, and she always makes it fun.”

  Suddenly Mary-Beth Fletcher, who was a few steps ahead, turned around and fixed her eyes on Julie.

  “And she’s never had favorites either,” she said. “At least she hasn’t until now!”

  Before Julie could say anything, Mary-Beth turned away and hurried down the stairs. When she was gone, Julie looked at Jenny, the pain of Mary-Beth’s words burning her eyes.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jenny told her. “Until you came along, Mary-Beth a
lways thought I was Marguerite’s favorite. And if it wasn’t me, it would have been somebody else. Besides,” she added, her grin suddenly flashing, “why shouldn’t you be her favorite? You’re her niece, and you’re the best dancer.” Then, without missing a beat, she changed the subject completely. “Hey, you want to go to the beach this afternoon? I’ll introduce you to the rest of the kids.”

  Julie hesitated only a split-second, then nodded eagerly. “I’d love it. You don’t know how bored I’ve been.”

  “I do too,” Jennifer shot back. “Don’t forget, I’ve lived here all my life. And it can get booooooring!”

  By the time Jennifer left a few minutes later, Julie was feeling much better about Devereaux. Perhaps, after all, the trip wasn’t going to be a total waste of time.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Kevin, what on earth are you doing?” Anne demanded. After searching the house, she’d finally found him behind the west wing, his shirt stripped off and his chest gleaming with sweat. A mound of tangled vines surrounded him, and when she spoke to him, he turned to face her with a triumphant grin spread over his dirt-streaked face.

  “I can’t believe it,” he replied, dropping the big pair of hedge shears to the ground and planting his hands on his hips. “You know, when they built this place, they knew what they were doing.”

  Anne’s brows arched skeptically. “If they knew what they were doing,” she countered, “why is it falling apart?”

  “That’s just it,” Kevin told her, his grin widening. “It isn’t falling apart. Underneath the siding, the brick is as solid as ever, and even most of the siding just needs repainting and new nails. I thought this wall would come down when I went after the vines, but look!” He gestured toward the expanse of wall he’d stripped naked of twenty-five years of growth, and Anne’s eyes reluctantly followed his gesture.

  “I see buckled siding with no paint on it at all, two shutters that are about to fall on your head, and a rain gutter that’s missing a whole section,” she said. “And that drain pipe’s coming down, those windows on the second floor are cracked, and if that’s not dry rot down there by the foundation, then I’ve gone blind.”