Cruel as the Grave (11 page)

‘They told me the baby had died during delivery,” she said, her voice without inflection. “I was stunned at first, but I didn’t believe them. I had memories of hearing the baby crying. They told me I was just imagining things, that I was just hysterical because I’d lost the baby. They kept me in the hospital another two months, and they drugged me most of the time. But I never really believed that the baby had died.”

Maggie was struggling to hold back her tears. “What did you do?”

Helena grimaced. “I came back home. And I snooped and snooped. It took me nearly a year, but I found out what Henry had done. The baby hadn’t died. Henry instructed them to tell me that, so the baby could be put up for adoption without my knowing about it. I’ve despised him ever since.”

Helena then retreated abruptly somewhere that Maggie could not reach, exhausted by her revelation, and the two women sat in silence. Maggie was appalled beyond anything she could have imagined, and Helena was locked into a private pain that she could not share. For a few minutes Maggie watched her great-aunt nervously, made fearful by the woman’s pallor. Finally Helena wrenched her mind away from its private torments and gazed at Maggie.

A ghastly smile twisted her face. “I’m sorry to subject you to this,” she apologized, “especially after all that's happened today, but this might come out now, and I figure it’s better that you hear it from me than from someone else.” A shadow—whether of pain or fear, Maggie was not certain—passed briefly over her face before she continued. “Only the family knows about my... my ‘skeleton in the closet,’ and you can bet Lavinia, if she ever finds out, will be happy to tell anyone if she thinks there’s anything to be gained by it.”

What could Maggie possibly say to her that would make any difference? She held open her arms, and Helena leaned forward into the embrace.

“What happened to the baby?” Maggie asked softly when Helena sat back. “Did you ever find out who adopted her? Or him?”

“Him,” Helena smiled sadly. “Yes, eventually I did. And by that time I figured he was better off with his adoptive parents. I’ve never made any attempt to get in touch with him, to tell him about me. I figure that if he ever wants to find out who his natural mother is, he’ll come looking. I don’t want to disturb him or his adoptive family, if he doesn’t want to know, himself.”

“That must have been so very hard for you,” Maggie said.

Helena shrugged. “I never forgave Henry for what he did. That’s something the Lord and I still have to work out, but I did manage to come to terms with it, or they would have hauled me off to Whitfield a long time ago.” Seeing Maggie’s raised eyebrow, Helena explained that Whitfield was the state mental hospital. “Anyway, I guess I figured that Henry could damn well support me the rest of my life after what he did, and he never begrudged me anything I wanted.” Helena smiled grimly. “That’s how I came to have five master’s degrees. I spent the next ten years or so after it happened in school, getting one degree after the other. I’m a born dilettante, so I took advantage of the situation and did just what I wanted to do.” She looked sideways at Maggie. “I don’t know if you can understand what I did, and why I did it, but that was the way I chose to cope, and it served well enough.”

Maggie had little idea what to say. She merely nodded in response to the plea implicit in Helena’s voice. It was too late, and she was too tired, to be able to cope with the things she was learning about her grandfather. The less thought she gave to anything right now, the better off she’d be.

“What about the others?” Maggie asked, curious what further horror stories Helena would tell her. She’d rather hear it all now, while the surreal nature of the situation shielded her somewhat from the awful truth.

Helena took a deep breath. “Retty was very happily married to a man named Lionel Butler. He died about twenty years after they were married. They had one son, Lionel, Junior, who grew up to be a lawyer just like his father and his uncle, and he married a lovely young girl named Louise. They had one daughter, Sylvia. They were such a beautiful little family,” she sighed. “Everything seemed perfect for them, except that Louise couldn’t have any more children. Lionel, Junior, was doing well in Henry’s law firm, even though he was kind of spineless. Like the rest of us, he never could stand up to Henry over anything, and eventually it cost him his life.”

Helena frowned down at her hands, remembering. “Lionel was terrified of flying, especially in small planes. Henry had to have a deposition for an important case, and he insisted that Lionel fly over to Starkville to take it late one afternoon, then fly back that evening so Henry could have it for court the next morning. Lionel didn’t want to go because the weather didn’t look very good—they were predicting thunderstorms—but he was more afraid of Henry than he was of flying, so he said he’d go. Louise offered to go with him, because flying didn’t bother her, and she knew she’d be able to keep Lionel calm. Something went wrong on the way over to Starkville, and the plane crashed, killing Lionel, Louise, and the pilot.

“Retty just about went out of her mind, because Lionel was the most important thing in her life after her husband died. We were all horrified, of course, and Henry was very upset, but he insisted that it wasn’t his fault. But we all knew that Lionel and Louise would never have gotten on that plane if it hadn’t been for him, so Retty always held him responsible for their deaths. She called him a murderer to his face more than once.”

Helena with a strained smile looked at Maggie. “Sylvia grew up very bitter at Henry. That’s the way Retty taught her to be, because she raised the girl. In the last few years I think Sylvia got over some of it, especially since Henry paid all her fees for nursing school, but I guess she figured—just like the rest of us—that it was the least he could do. Blood money, if you will.”

Helena slowly unlocked her legs from their tucked position and stretched them downward until her toes touched the floor. She stood up. “I need a sip or two of water, I think.” Her body wilting with fatigue, she walked into Maggie's bathroom.

Maggie could hear the splash of water in the sink as she waited for Helena to return.
How much more could there be?
she wondered.

Helena came back to the bed and sprawled across it on her stomach. “Including Gerard, that’s three down, two to go,” she announced with a faint attempt at striking a lighter note. “Harold’s next, I guess.” She shifted onto one side, her face toward Maggie and her head propped on one hand. “Gerard in some ways is a lot more like Harold than he was like Henry,” she said musingly. “They used to sit for hours on the odd occasion when Harold was home from the university where he taught, talking nothing but literature. Henry was always jealous, I think, because he had no patience for such things, and he resented the fact that Harold and Gerard had something like that in common. So, being Henry, he took it out on Harold. Every chance he could, he ridiculed Harold because he was a college professor and didn’t have a real job making real money. And about the time your father left home for college, we found out that Harold... um... was having an affair with one of his colleagues. And the colleague turned out to be a man.” She glanced sideways at Maggie to gauge her reaction.

“That doesn’t make a bit of difference to me,” Maggie replied gently to the question on Helena’s face.

Relieved, Helena continued. “Naturally, that was something that Henry just couldn’t understand, so Harold wasn’t welcome in this house for a long time. He hardly ever came home as it was. I guess he just didn’t feel comfortable around the rest of us. Anyway, he retired about two years ago from his teaching job, and we thought he’d be living comfortably on his Social Security and his retirement benefits, but Retty and I found out he had given all the money he had managed to save to a sort of protege of his.

“This young man was going to turn it into a fortune for Harold, but of course he lost it all, and Harold was practically penniless. Well, it took Retty and me quite a while, but we finally got Harold and Henry to talk, and Henry asked Harold to move back home a little over a year ago.” She took a deep breath. “For the first couple of months it was awful. Henry kept making these pointed remarks—even though he had told me and Retty he would let Harold alone—about the wisdom of letting ‘perverts,’ as he called them, handle large sums of money.”

She looked apologetically at Maggie. “It was sort of a relief when Henry had that stroke, because he was driving Harold crazy with all the snide remarks. They almost got into a fight one day, and Adrian had to pull them apart. It was awful.” Dolefully she shook her head.

“Is that everyone, then?” Maggie asked tiredly. She wanted sleep, anything to keep her from thinking for at least twelve hours.

Helena grimaced. “Well, there’s Lavinia.” There was so much venom invested in the way Helena said the name that Maggie blinked awake again.

Admiringly Helena continued, “Lavinia was the only one— before tonight, that is—who ever had the gumption to try to kill Henry.”

Chapter Eight

Helena glanced demurely at Maggie to see how the younger woman reacted to her statement. Maggie was now wide awake again, paying close attention to what the older woman had to say. Helena continued.

“Lavinia was fifteen years younger than Magnolia, and they looked a lot alike. Even their voices sounded alike. But your grandmother was a lady, and Lavinia’s just a spiteful bitch who’s never been satisfied with anything.”

The venom in Helena’s voice kept Maggie alert. There had been little hint of Helena’s feelings toward Lavinia earlier, Maggie thought as she cast her mind hazily back over the events of the day. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember too many instances when anyone had had much to say to Lavinia. Did they all dislike her as much as Helena obviously did?

Spiteful herself, Helena went on, “Lavinia always wanted everything her big sister had, including her big sister’s rich husband. Lavinia tried her best to get Henry into her bed, but that’s one thing I’ll say for him, he had better sense than to fall for a trollop like her. He was devoted to Magnolia—he could never see another woman as anything more than a walking dress, even when Magnolia was nowhere around. Even after Magnolia died, Lavinia wouldn’t give up. She finagled Henry into inviting her to live here, but being under the same roof made him dislike her just that much more.” Helena laughed maliciously. “In the end, Lavinia had as much reason to hate him as the rest of us. And, like I said, she’s the only one of us who ever had the nerve to try to kill him.”

“What happened?” Maggie asked.

Helena rolled her eyes. “I guess it’s not so funny now, really, but this all happened about a couple of years after Magnolia died—before Lavinia realized that Henry’d rather bathe in acid than have anything to do with her. Anyway, Lavinia’s got an awful temper, just like Henry, and one day they got into a real knock-down-drag-out. Lavinia had been messing about in here, going through Magnolia’s things, and Henry cussed her out, but good. She followed him back down the hall—they were still screaming at each other—and when they got to the stairs, she pushed him. Luckily he didn’t hurt himself, and of course she realized she really had gone too far, so she couldn’t apologize enough. She was afraid he’d kick her out of the house, and by then she didn’t have enough money to live like she wanted on her own. Henry accepted her apology and let her stay here, but after that he never had too much to say to her.”

Helena stifled a sudden yawn as she looked at her watch. “Good gracious, it’s almost two! I’d better go and let you get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a pretty rough day.” Wearily she stood up.

Maggie was ready to get some sleep, but a little bump of curiosity remained unsatisfied. Stifling a yawn herself, she quickly asked, “What about Claudine and Adrian?”

Helena smiled indulgently. “Well, they really are like family, I guess—especially Claudine, since she pretty much grew up in this house. Her mother was our housekeeper for nearly thirty years. She died of cancer a few years ago.” She smiled again. “I can still remember the day she and Claudine came here. Claudine could just barely toddle around, and she was the most beautiful baby. Her mother had worked for Magnolia’s family at one time—there was some sort of trouble there, we never did find out exactly what—and when Magnolia found out that Lorraine needed a job, she hired her as the housekeeper. Claudine was so cute, and she just adored Henry. For a long time I believe she actually thought he was her father.” She laughed, but then sobered quickly.

“When she was a teenager, though, Claudine went through one of those stages,” Helena continued. “She was just hateful to everybody. I think it really bothered her, growing up in this house, seeing all the money all around her, and she couldn’t have the kinds of things that Sylvia had. But later on she settled down—just grew out of the rebellious stage, I guess. She’s a wonderful nurse.”

That explained Claudine,
Maggie thought,
but what about Adrian?
Startled, she realized that she had spoken her question aloud.

“I think I’ll let you ask him that yourself,” Helena announced pertly. She bent over to give Maggie a quick kiss on the cheek, admonished her to lock the door, then hurried out of the room before Maggie could question her further.

Blushing furiously, Maggie did as Helena had bidden, feeling suddenly vulnerable without the company of her exasperating great-aunt. Maggie climbed in between the covers of her bed, letting the firmness of the mattress soothe her tired back. She turned off the overhead light from a convenient switch on the bedside table. The sudden darkness of the room smothered her for a moment, and she forced herself to breathe slowly and steadily until her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the strange room.

Gradually her breathing became more regular, and she concentrated on slowing her chaotic thoughts so that she could sleep. She began conjugating verbs in Latin, a trick that rarely failed her, and soon had drifted into sleep.

Dimly Maggie was aware that someone was poking hundreds of little needles into her right hand. She shifted her head groggily from beneath the pillow, and the pale sunlight filtering into the room assaulted her eyes. She shook her hand to get the blood flowing back into it and turned over onto her back, wondering what time it was.