After the grandmother's departure, we did not know what to do, or what to say, or how to feel, except unhappy and miser- able. My heart was fluttering madly as I watched Momma slip up her blouse, button it, and tuck it into the waistband of her skirt before she turned to give us all a tremulous smile that sought to reassure. Pitiful that I could find a straw to grasp in such a smile as that one. Chris lowered his eyes to the floor; his restless torment was expressed by his shoe diligently following the intricate scrollwork of the Oriental rug.
"Now look," said Momma with forced
cheerfulness, "it was just a willow switching, and it didn't hurt too much. My pride suffered more than my flesh. It's humiliating to be whipped like a slave, or an animal, and by your own parents. But don't worry that such a whipping will occur again, for it never will. Only this one time. I would suffer a hundred times over what whip weals I bear to live again those fifteen years of happiness I had with your father, and with you. Though it cringes my soul, she made me show what they did.. . ." She sat on a bed and held out her arms so we could cluster close about and be comforted, though I was careful not to embrace her again and cause more pain. She lifted the twins to her lap and patted the bed to indicate we should crowd up against her. Then she began to talk. What she said was obviously hard to say, and equally difficult for us to hear.
"I want you to listen very carefully, and remember all your lives every word I say tonight." She paused, hesitating as she scanned the room and stared at the cream-flocked walls as if they were transparent, and through them she could see into all the rooms of this gigantic house. "This is a strange house, and the people who reside here are even stranger--not the servants, but my parents. I should have warned you that your grandparents are fanatically religious. To believe in God is a good thing, a right thing. But when you reinforce your belief with words you take from the Old Testament that you seek out, and interpret in the ways that suit your needs best, that is hypocrisy, and that is exactly what my parents do.
"My father is dying, yes, but every Sunday he is carried into church either in his wheelchair, if he is feeling that well, or lying on a stretcher if he is feeling worse, and he gives his tithe--a tenth share of his yearly income, which is considerable. So naturally, he is very welcomed. He paid to have the church built, he bought all the stained-glass windows, he controls the minister and his sermons, for he is paving his way to heaven with gold, and if St. Peter can be bribed, my father will surely gain entrance. In that church he is treated like a god himself, or a living saint. And then he comes home, feeling completely justified in doing anything he wants, because he has done his duty, and paid his way, and therefore he is safe from hell.
"When I was growing up, with my two older brothers, we were literally forced to go to church. Even if we were sick enough to stay in bed, we still had to go. Religion was rammed down our throats. Be good, be good, be good--that's all we ever heard. Everyday, normal pleasures that were right for other people were made sinful for us. My brothers and I were not allowed to go swimming, for that meant wearing bathing suits and exposing most of our bodies. We were forbidden card games, or any sort of game that implied gambling. We weren't allowed to go to dances, for that meant your body might be pressed close to that of the other sex. We were ordered to control our thoughts, to keep them off lusting, sinful subjects for they said the thought was as evil as the deed. Oh, I could go on and on about all we were for- bidden to do--it seemed everything that was fun and exciting was sinful to them. And there is something in the young that rebels when life is made too strict, making us want to do most of all the very things denied to us. Our parents, in seeking to make their three children into living angels or saints, only succeeded in making us worse than we would have been otherwise."
My eyes widened. I sat spellbound, all of us did, even the twins.
"Then one day," Momma went on, "into all this, a beautiful young man came to live. His father had been my grandfather, a man who died when this young man was only three. His mother was named Alicia, and she was only sixteen when she married my grandfather who was fifty-five years old. So, when she gave birth to a boy, she should have lived to see him a man. Unfortunately, Alicia died very young. My
grandfather's name was Garland Christopher Foxworth, and when he died, half of his estate should have gone to his youngest son, who was three. But Malcolm, my father, gained control of his father's estate by having himself appointed administrator, for, of course, a three- year-old boy had no voice in the matter, nor was Alicia given a vote. Once my father had everything under his thumb, he kicked out Alicia and her young son. They fled back to Richmond, to Alicia's parents, and there she lived until she married a second time. She had a few years of happiness with a young man she'd loved since her childhood, and then he, too, died. Twice mar- ried, twice widowed, left with a young son, and now her parents were dead as well. And then one day she found a lump in her breast, and a few years later she died of cancer. That was when her son, Garland Christopher Foxworth the Fourth, came to live here. We never called him anything but Chris." She hesitated, tightened her arms about Chris and me. "Do you know who I'm talking about? Have you guessed who this young man was?"
I shivered. The mysterious half-uncle. And I whispered, "Daddy . . . you're talking about Daddy."
"Yes," she said, then sighed heavily.
I leaned forward to glance at my older brother. He sat so still, with the queerest expression on his face, and his eyes were glassy.
Momma continued: "Your father was my halfuncle, but he was only three years older than I. I remember the first time I saw him. I knew he was coming, this young half-uncle I'd never seen or heard much about, and I wanted to make a good impression, so all day I prepared myself, curling my hair, bathing and I put on what I thought were my prettiest and most becoming clothes. I was fourteen years old--and that is an age when a girl just begins to feel her power over men. And I knew I was what most boys and men considered beautiful, and I guess, in a way, I was ripe for falling in love.
"Your father was seventeen. It was late spring, and he was standing in the middle of the hall with two suitcases near his shabby shoes--his clothes were very worn looking, and he'd outgrown them. My mother and father were with him, but he was turning around, staring at everything, dazzled by the display of wealth. I myself had never paid much attention to what was around me. It was there, I accepted it as part of my heritage, and until I was married, and began to live a life without wealth, I hardly realized that I'd been raised in an exceptional home.
"You see, my father is a 'collector.' He buys everything that is considered a unique work of art-- not because he appreciates art, but he likes to own things. He would like to own
everything,
if possible, especially beautiful things. I used to think I was part of his collection of
objets d'art. . .
and he meant to keep me for him- self, not to enjoy, but to keep others from enjoying what was his."
My mother continued, her face flushed, her eyes staring off into space, apparently looking backward to that exceptional day when a young half-uncle came into her life to make such a difference.
"Your father came to us so innocent, so trusting, so sweet, and vulnerable, having known only honest affection, and genuine love, and a great deal of poverty. He came from a four-room cottage into this huge, grand house that widened his eyes and dazzled his hopes, and he thought that he had stumbled onto good luck, into heaven on earth. He was looking at my mother and father with all of that gratefulness plain in his eyes. Hah! The pity of him coming here and being grateful still hurts. For half of what he was looking at, by all rights, should have been his. My parents did all they could to make him feel like a poor relation.
"I saw him there, standing in the sunlight, beaming down through the windows, and paused halfway down the staircase. His golden hair was haloed by an aura of silver light. He was so beautiful, not just handsome, but beautiful--there's a difference, you know. Real beauty radiates from the inside out, and he had that.
"I made some slight noise that made him lift his head, and his blue eyes lit up--and oh, I can remember how they lit up--and then when we were introduced, the light went out. I was his half- niece, and forbidden, and he was disappointed, just as I was. For on that very day, with me on the staircase and him down there on the floor, a spark was lit between us, a little red glow that was to grow larger and larger until we could deny it no longer.
"I won't embarrass you with the telling of our romance," she said uneasily when I shifted, and Chris moved to hide his face. "Let it suffice to say that it was love at first sight with us, for it happens that way sometimes. Perhaps he was ready to fall in love, as was I, or perhaps it was because we were both needing someone to give us warmth and affection. My older brothers were both dead by this time, killed by accidents; I had only a few friends, for no one was 'good enough' for the daughter of Malcolm Foxworth. I was his prize, his joy; if ever a man took me from him, it would be for a dear, dear price. So, your father and I would meet furtively in the gardens and just sit and talk for hours and hours, and sometimes he'd push me in a swing, or I'd push him, and sometimes we'd stand on the swing and work it with our legs, and just look at each other as we flew higher and higher. He told me all his secrets and I told him all of mine And soon enough it had to come out, we had to confess that we were deeply in love, and right or wrong, we had to marry. And we had to escape this house, and the rule of my parents, before they had a chance to make us into duplicates of themselves--for that was their purpose, you know, to take your father and change him, make him pay for the evil his mother had done in marrying a man so much older. They gave him everything, I will admit that. They treated him as their own son, for he was to replace the two sons they had lost. They sent him to Yale, and he was brilliant. You get your intelligence from him, Christopher. He graduated in three years--but he could never use the master's degree he earned, for it had his rightful name on it, and we had to hide who we were from the world. It was hard for us in the first years of our marriage because he had to deny his college education."
She paused. She glanced reflectively at Chris, then at me. She hugged the twins and kissed the top of their fair heads, and a troubled frown came to worry her face and pucker her brow. "Cathy, Christopher, you are the ones I am expecting to understand. The twins are too young. You are trying to understand how it was with us?"
Yes, yes, both Chris and I nodded.
She was talking my language, the language of music and ballet, romance, and love, beautiful faces in lovely places. Fairy tales can come true!
Love at first sight. Oh, that was going to happen to me, I just knew it would and he'd be as beautiful as Daddy had been, radiating beauty, touching my heart. You had to have love or you withered away and died.
"Listen attentively, now," she said in a low voice, and this gave her words greater impact. "I am here to do what I can to make my father like me again, and forgive me for marrying his half-brother. You see, as soon as I reached my eighteenth birthday, your father and I eloped, and two weeks later we came back and told my parents. My father nearly threw a fit. He raged, he stormed, he ordered us both out of his house, and told us never to come back, never! And that is why I was disinherited, and your father too-- for I think my father did plan to leave him a little, not much, but some. The main portion was to be mine, for my mother has money in her own right. Why, to hear tell it, the money she inherited from her parents is the main reason why my father married her, though in her youth she was what is called a
handsome
woman, not a great beauty, but she had a regal, powerful kind of noble good looks."
No, I thought bitterly to myself . . . that old woman was born ugly!
"I am here to do what I can to make my father like me again, and forgive me for marrying my half-uncle. And in order to do this, I am going to have to play the role of the dutiful, humbled, thoroughly chastised daughter. And sometimes, when you begin to play a role you assume that character, so I want to say now, while I am still fully myself, all you have to hear. That's why I'm telling you all of this, and being as honest as I can. I confess, I am not strong-willed, nor am I a self-starter. I was strong only when I had your father to back me up, and now I don't have him And downstairs, on the first floor, in a small room beyond a giant library, is a man the likes of whom you have never encountered. You have met my mother, and know a little of what she is like, but you have not met my father. And I don't want you to meet him until he forgives me and accepts the fact that I have four children fathered by his much younger half-brother. This is going to be very difficult for him to take. But I don't think it is going to be
too
difficult for him to forgive me, since your father
is
dead, and it is difficult to hold grudges against the dead and buried."
I don't know why I felt so scared.
"In order to have my father write me into his will again, I am going to be forced to do anything he wants."
"What could he want from you but obedience and a show of respect?" asked Chris in the most somber, adult way, as if he understood what this was all about.
Momma gave him the longest look, full of sweet compassion as her hand lifted to caress his boyish cheek. He was a younger smaller edition of the husband she'd so recently buried. No won- der tears came into her eyes.
"I don't know what he'll want, darling, but whatever I have to do, I will do. Somehow he must include me in his will. But let's forget all of that now. I saw your faces when I was talking I don't want you to feel what my mother said is true. What your father and I did was
not
immoral. We were properly married in church, just as any other young couple in love. There was nothing 'unholy' about it. And you are not the Devil's spawn, or evil--your father would call that hogwash. My mother would have you think yourselves unworthy as another way to punish me, and you. People make the rules of society, not God. In some parts of the world closer relatives marry and produce children, and it is considered perfectly all right, though I'm not going to try and justify what we did, for we do have to abide by the laws of our own society. That society believes closely related men and women should not many, for if they do, they can produce children who are mentally or physically less than perfect. But who is perfect?"
Then she was laughing, half-crying, and hugging us all close. "Your grandfather predicted our children would be born with horns, humped backs, forked tails, hooves for feet--he was like a crazy man, trying to curse us, and make our children deformed, because he wanted us cursed! Did any of his dire predictions come true?" she cried, seemingly half-wild herself. "No!" She answered her own question. "Your father and I did worry some when I was pregnant the first time. He paced the hospital corridors all night, until nearly dawn, when a nurse came up and told him he had a son, perfect in every way. Then he had to run to the nursery to see for himself. You should have been there to see the joy on his face when he entered my room, bearing in his arms two dozen red roses, and tears were in his eyes when he kissed me. He was so proud of you, Christopher, so proud. He gave away six boxes of cigars, and went right out and bought you a plastic baseball bat, and a catcher's mitt, and a football, too. When you were teething, you'd chew on the bat, and beat on the crib and the wall to let us know you wanted out.
"Next came Cathy, and you, darling, were just as beautiful, and just as perfect as your brother. And you know how your father loved you, his beautiful dancing Cathy, who would make the world sit up and take notice when she came on stage. Recall your first ballet performance, when you were four? You wore your first pink tutu, and made a few mistakes, and everybody in the audience laughed, and you clapped your hands like you were proud, even so. And your father sent you a dozen roses--remember? He never saw any mistakes you made. In his eyes you were perfect. And seven years after you came to bless us, our twins were born. Now we had two boys, and two girls, and had tempted fate four times--and had won! Four perfect children. So if God had wanted to punish us, he had four chances to give us deformed or mentally retarded children. Instead, he gave us the very best. So never let your grandmother or anyone else convince you that you are less than competent, less than worthy, or less than wholly pleasing in God's eyes. If there was a sin committed, it was the sin of your parents, not yours. You are the same four children all our friends in Gladstone envied and called the Dresden dolls. Keep remembering what you had in Gladstone--hold on to that. Keep believing in yourselves, and in me, and in your father. Even if he is dead, keep on loving and respecting him He deserves that. He tried so hard to be a good parent. I don't think there are many men who care as much as he did." She smiled brightly through glistening tears. "Now, tell me who you are."
"The Dresden dolls!" Chris and I cried out.
"Now, will you ever believe what your
grandmother says about being the Devil's spawn?"
No!
Never, never!
Yet, yet, half of what I'd heard from both women I would have to ponder over later, and ponder deeply too. I wanted to believe God was pleased with us, and in who and what we were. I had to believe, needed to believe. Nod, I told myself, say yes, just as Chris did. Don't be like the twins who only stared at Momma, not comprehending anything. Don't be so
suspicious--don't!
Chris chimed up in the firmest of convincing voices, "Yes, Momma, I do believe what you say, for if God had disapproved of your marriage to our father, then he
would
have punished you and Daddy through your children. I believe God is not narrow- minded and bigoted--not as our grandparents are. How can that old woman speak so ugly, when she does have eyes, and she can see we are not ugly, and not deformed, and certainly we are not retarded?"