The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! (193 page)

Red beeswax bayberry candles burned lower and lower. Towering gelatin masterpieces began to sag. Melted cheeses began to toughen, and the heating sauces thickened. Crepe batter waited to be poured on turned over thin pans, while chefs eyed each other curiously. I had to look away from all that was going bad.

Fires cheered all our main rooms, making them cozy, exceptionally lovely. Extra servants grew restless and anxious-looking as they fidgeted and began to mill about, whispering amongst themselves, not knowing what to do.

Down the stairs drifted Cindy in a crimson hooped-skirted gown, so elaborate it put my delicately beaded gown to shame. Hers had a tight bodice, with a flounce of fluted ruffles to cover a little of her upper arms, displaying her shoulders to advantage and creating a magnificent frame for her creamy, swelling breasts. The red gown was cut very low. The skirt was a masterpiece of ruffles, caught with white silk flowers rain-dropped with iridescent crystals, A few of these white silk blossoms were tucked in her upswept hair, duplicating something Scarlett O’Hara might have liked.

“Where’s everybody?” she asked, looking around, her radiant expression fading. “I waited and waited to hear the music playing, then sort of dozed off, thinking when I woke that I was missing out on all the fun.”

She paused and glanced around before a look of dismay flooded her expression. “Don’t tell me nobody’s going to come!
I just can’t stand another disappointment!” Dramatically she threw her hands about.

“No one has as yet arrived, Miss,” said Trevor tactfully. “They must have lost their way, and I must say you look a dream of loveliness, as does your mother.”

“Thank you,” she said, floating his way and brushing his cheek with a daughterly kiss. “You look very distinguished yourself.” She dashed past Bart’s look of astonishment and ran to the piano. “Please, may I?” she asked a young, good-looking musician who seemed delighted to have something happening, at last.

Cindy sat down beside him, put her hands on the keys, threw back her head and began to sing: “Oh, holy night, Oh, night when stars are shining.”

I stared, as did all of us, at the girl we thought we knew so well. It wasn’t an easy song to sing, but she did it so well, with so much emotion even Bart stopped pacing the floor to turn and stare at her in amazement.

Tears were in my eyes. Oh, Cindy, how could you keep that voice a secret for so long? Her piano playing was only adequate, but that voice, the feeling she put into her phrasing. All the musicians then joined in to drown out her piano playing, if not her voice.

I sat, stunned, hardly believing that my Cindy could sing so beautifully. When she’d finished, we all applauded enthusiastically. As Jory called out, “Sensational! Fantastic! Absolutely wonderful, Cindy! You sneak—you never told us you continued with your voice lessons.”

“I haven’t. It’s just me expressing the way I feel.”

She cast her eyes down, then took a sly, hooded look at Bart’s astonished expression, which showed not only his surprise but some pleasure as well. For the first time he had found something to admire about Cindy. Her small smile of satisfaction fleeted quickly by, kind of a sad smile, as if she wished Bart could like her for other reasons as well.

“I love Christmas carols and religious songs, they do something for me. Once in school I sang ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,’ and the teacher said I had the kind of emotional feeling to make a great singer. But I still want most to be an actress.”

Laughing and happy again, she asked us to join in and we’d make this a real party, even if no one showed up. She began to bang out a tune resembling “Joy to the World.” Then “Jingle Bells.”

This time Bart was not moved.

He strode again to the windows to stare out, his back straight. “They can’t ignore my invitations, not when they responded,” he mumbled to himself.

I couldn’t understand how his business friends could dare to offend him when he had to be their most important client, and everyone loved a party, especially the kind of party they had to know would be sensational.

Somehow or other, Bart was accomplishing miracles with that five hundred thousand a year, making it grow in ways that Chris would have found too risky. Bart risked everything . . . calculated gambles that paid off handsomely. Only then did I realize that perhaps my mother had meant it to be this way. If she had given Bart all the fortune in one grand huge sum, he wouldn’t have worked as hard to build his own fortune, which would, if he kept it up, far exceed what Malcolm had left him. And in this way Bart would find his own worth.

Yet what did money matter when he was so disappointed he couldn’t eat a thing that was lavishly displayed? However, disillusionment drove him to the liquor, and in a short while he’d managed to swallow half a dozen strong drinks as he paced the floors, growing angrier by the second.

I could hardly bear to watch his disappointment, and soon, despite myself, tears were silently wetting my face.

Chris whispered, “We can’t go to bed and leave him here alone. Cathy, he’s suffering. Look at him pacing back and
forth. With every step he takes his anger grows. Somebody is going to pay for this slight.”

Eleven-thirty came and went.

By this time Cindy was the only one having a good time. The musicians and servants seemed to adore her. Eagerly they played and she sang. When she wasn’t singing, she was dancing with every man there, even Trevor and other male servants. She gestured to the maids, inviting them to dance, and happily they joined in the festivity she created around her as they took turns to see that she, at least, was entertained.

“Let’s all eat, drink, and be merry!” Cindy cried, smiling at Bart. “It’s not the end of the world, brother Bart. What do you care? We’re too rich to be well liked. We’re also too rich to feel sorry for ourselves. And look, we have at least twenty guests . . . let’s dance, drink, eat, have a ball!”

Bart stopped pacing to stare at her. Cindy held high her glass of champagne. “My toast to you, brother Bart. For every ugly thing you’ve said to me, I give you back blessings of good will, good health, long life, and much love.” She touched his highball glass with her champagne glass and then sipped, smiling into his eyes charmingly before she offered another toast. “I think you look absolutely terrif, and the girls who don’t show up tonight are missing the chance of their lifetimes. So here it is, another toast to the most eligible bachelor in the world. I wish you joy, I wish you happiness, I wish you love. I would wish you success, but you don’t need that.”

He couldn’t move his eyes away. “Why don’t I need success?” he asked in a low tone.

“Because what more could you want? You have success when you have millions, and soon enough you’ll have more money than you know what to do with.”

Bart’s dark head bowed. “I don’t feel successful. Not when no one will even come to my party.” His voice cracked as he turned his back.

I got up to go to him. “Will you dance with me, Bart?”

“No!” he snapped, hurrying to a distant window where he could stand and stare again.

Cindy had a wonderful time with the musicians and the men and women who’d come to serve Bart’s guests. However, I was deeply downcast, feeling sorry for Bart, who had counted so much on this. Out of sympathy for him, all of us but Cindy and the hired help moved into the front parlor, and there we sat in our fabulous expensive clothes and waited for guests who obviously had accepted, only to trick Bart later on—and in this way tell us what they thought of the Fox-worths on the hill.

The grandfather clock began to toll the hour of twelve. Bart left the windows and fell upon the sofa before the guttering log fire. “I should have known it would turn out this way.” He glanced bitterly at Jory. “Perhaps they came to my birthday party only to see you dance, and now, when you can’t—to hell with me! They’ve snubbed me—and they’re going to pay for it,” he said in a hard, cold voice, louder and stronger than Joel’s but with the same kind of zealot’s fury. “Before I’m through, there won’t be a house in a twenty-mile radius that doesn’t belong to me. I’ll ruin them. All of them. With the power of the Foxworth trust behind me I can borrow millions, and then I’ll buy out the banks and demand they pay off their mortgages. I’ll buy out the village stores, close them down. I’ll hire other attorneys, fire the ones I have now and see that they’re disbarred. I’ll find new stockbrokers, hire new real estate agents, see that real estate property values are undermined, and when they sell cheap, I’ll buy. By the time I’m through, there won’t be one old aristocratic Virginia family left this side of Charlottesville! And not one of my business colleagues will be left with anything but debts to pay off!”

“Then will you feel satisfied?” asked Chris.

“NO!” flared Bart, his eyes hard, glaring. “I won’t be satisfied until justice has ruled! I have done nothing to deserve this night! Nothing but try to give them what our ancestors did—
and they have rejected me! They’ll pay, and pay, and then pay some more.”

He sounded like me! To hear my very own words coming from the mouth of the child I’d carried when I’d said them made all my blood drain into my feet. Shivering, I tried to appear normal. “I’m sorry, Bart. But it wasn’t a total loss, was it? We’re all together under one roof, a united family for once. And Cindy’s music and singing made this a festive occasion after all.”

He wasn’t listening.

He was staring at all the food that had yet to be eaten. All the champagne with the bubbles gone flat. All the wine and liquor that could have loosened many a tongue and given him information he wanted to use. He glared at the maids in their pretty black and white uniforms, drunken and staggering around, some still dancing as the music played on and on. He glowered at the few waiters who still held trays of drinks gone warm. Some stood and looked at him and waited for his signal to say the night was over. The impressive centerpiece of an ice crystal manger, with the three shepherds, the wise men and all the animals, had melted into a puddle and spilled over to darken the red cloth.

“How lucky you were when you danced in
The Nutcracker
, Jory,” said Bart as he headed fast for the stairs. “You were the ugly nutcracker that turned into the handsome prince. You dominated every male role—and won the prettiest ballerina every time. In
Cinderella
, in
Romeo and Juliet.
In
The Sleeping Beauty
,
Giselle
,
Swan Lake
—every time but the last time. And it’s the last time that counts, isn’t it?”

How cruel! How very cruel! I watched Jory wince, and for once he allowed his pain to show, making my heart ache for him.

“Merry Christmas,” Bart called as he disappeared up the stairs. “We’ll never again celebrate this holiday, or any other in this house as long as I run it. Joel was right. He warned me
not to try and conform and be like others. He said I shouldn’t try to make people like or respect me. From now on, I’ll be like Malcolm. I’ll gain respect by inflicting my will on others, with fists of iron, and with ruthless determination. All who have alienated me tonight will feel my might.”

I turned to Chris when he was out of sight. “He sounds crazy!”

“No, darling, he’s not crazy—he’s just Bart, young and vulnerable again and very, very hurt. He used to break his bones when he was a child to punish himself because he failed socially and in school. Now he’s going to break the lives of others. Isn’t it a pity, Cathy, that nothing works out for him?”

I stood at the newel post looking upward to where an old man hid in the shadows, seeming to shake from his silent laughter.

“Chris, you go on up, and I’ll follow in a few seconds.” Chris wanted to know what I was planning, so I lied and said I was going to have a few words with our housekeeper about cleaning up the mess. But I had something far different in mind.

As soon as everyone was out of sight, I ducked into Bart’s huge office, closed the door and was soon rifling through his desk to find the R.S.V.P. cards that had dutifully arrived weeks ago.

They must have been fingered many a time from the ink smudges on the envelopes. Two hundred and fifty cards had accepted. My teeth bit down on my lower lip. Not one rejection, not even one. People didn’t do things like this, even to someone they disliked. If they hadn’t wanted to come, they would have tossed the invitations into the trash along with the return card, or sent back the card declining.

Carefully I replaced the cards and then headed up the back stairs to Joel’s room.

Without even a preliminary knock I opened his door to find him sitting on the edge of his narrow bed, doubled over in what appeared to be a terrible stomach cramp, or that hateful
silent laughter. He was in quiet convulsion, quivering, jerking, hugging himself with skinny arms.

Quietly I waited until his hysteria was over, and only then did he see the long shadow I cast. Gasping, his mouth sunken because his teeth were in a cup by the bed, he stared up at me. “Why are you here, niece?” he asked in that whiny but raspy voice, his thin hair rumpled into devil horns that stood straight up.

“Downstairs, a while ago, I looked up and saw you in the rotunda shadows, laughing. Why were you laughing, Joel? You must have seen that Bart was suffering.”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled, half turning to replace the teeth in his mouth. When he had them in, he ran a hand over his spikey hair, smoothing it down. Only his cowlick refused to behave. Now he could meet my eyes. “Your daughter made so much racket down there I couldn’t sleep. I guess the sight of all of you in your fancy clothes waiting for guests that didn’t come tickled my sense of humor.”

“You have a very cruel sense of humor, Joel. I thought you cared for Bart.”

“I do love that boy.”

“Do you?” I asked sharply. “I don’t think so, or else you would have sympathized.” I glanced around his sparsely furnished room, thinking back. “Weren’t you the one who mailed off the party invitations?”

“I don’t remember,” he said calmly. “Time doesn’t mean much to an old man like me when it’s growing so short. What happened years ago seems clearer than what happened a month ago.”