The Unloved (26 page)

Slowly, alone in what appeared to her to be a crowded room, she began to dance.…

*      *      *

Jeff looked sullenly around the dimly lit basement of the mansion. It seemed like he’d been down here forever, helping his father go through all the junk that appeared to fill every corner. The heat outside had penetrated even the cellar, and dust hung in the air, choking Jeff’s lungs. “Why do we have to stay here?” he asked, looking up at his father. “I hate it!”

“I thought you liked it,” Kevin replied. “When we first talked about staying here, you wanted to.”

“That was before,” Jeff said. “When Mom was here, it was fun. But it isn’t any fun anymore.” His voice began to crack, and he rubbed his fists in his eyes. “It’s too hot, and Mom’s dead, and I hate it here. I want to go home!”

Kevin set down the large box of cast-off clothes he had just picked up to carry upstairs, and knelt down so his eyes were level with his son’s. “Hey, champ,” he said, his voice gentle, “I know it’s tough. I miss your mom, too, you know. We all do. But there isn’t anything we can do about that. Even if we went back up North, that wouldn’t bring her back.”

Jeff sniffled, then wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I know,” he mumbled. “But I still hate it here.” He was about to say something else, when the door at the top of the stairs opened and Ruby called down.

“Will Hempstead’s here,” she said. “Wants to talk to you.”

Kevin glanced up with a flash of irritation and almost told Ruby to tell the police chief to come back later. Then he thought better of it and stood up, giving Jeff’s head a quick rub. “How about that?” he asked, forcing a light tone into his voice. “Just as we’re getting sick of being stuck down here, Mr. Hempstead comes along. Come on, let’s go see what he wants.” He started up the stairs, and Jeff, only somewhat mollified by escaping the hot confines of the basement, trailed along.

They found Hempstead in the library. When he turned to face Kevin and Jeff as they came in, his eyes were grave.

“Will,” Kevin greeted him, extending his hand and trying
not to show the sudden twinge of anxiety he felt at the expression on the police chief’s face. “Good to see you.”

The police chief shook Kevin’s hand perfunctorily, then dropped it. “Thought I’d come out and tell you the autopsy on Mary-Beth Fletcher’s done.” He paused then, nodding toward Jeff, and didn’t go on until Kevin had sent the boy out of the room. But neither of the two men noticed Jeff leave the door to the library ajar. “Couldn’t tell much, really,” he said when they were alone. “She’d been in the water too long and—well, you saw her. Anyway, the final report’s going to show that it was an accident. If the storm was strong enough to take a car off the causeway, Mary-Beth wouldn’t have had much of a chance at all.”

“Then it’s over,” Kevin replied, relaxing.

Hempstead shook his head. “I wish it were. But with this kind of thing—well, I’m afraid there’s some talk going around.”

“Talk?” Kevin echoed. “What kind of talk?”

Hempstead shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. “Well, I’m afraid it’s about Marguerite. There’re some people saying that since Marguerite was the last person to see Mary-Beth, and since they’d had some kind of fight—”

“It was hardly a fight,” Kevin interjected. “All Marguerite was doing was trying to talk Mary-Beth into waiting out the storm. Surely people aren’t saying—”

Hempstead cut him off with a gesture. “In towns like this there’s no telling what people’ll say. That’s why I wanted to come out and talk to you about it. You might hear some gossip, and I just wanted you to know that that’s all it is. There isn’t any evidence that anyone did anything to Mary-Beth, and I certainly don’t even intend to talk to Marguerite about it. I’ve known her too long, and I know she’d never do anything to any of the kids. The whole idea’s just plain ridiculous. But there’s always a few gossips, and they always have to find something to talk about.”

Kevin nodded. “You’re sure you don’t want to talk to Marguerite?” he asked. “She’s upstairs.”

Hempstead shook his head. “No use upsetting her,” he said.

The two men left the library, and Kevin frowned as he saw Jeff scuttle out of sight. But he said nothing, instead walking the police chief out to his car. They chatted briefly, then Kevin stepped back as the black and white car pulled down the driveway and onto the road to the causeway. As he started back into the house, Jeff came out to the veranda.

“Can’t we go to the beach, Dad? How come we have to work all the time?”

Kevin cocked his head and winked at his son. “Because if we don’t we’ll all starve to death. Now, come on. We’re almost finished down there, and once we’ve got all the junk cleaned out, we’ll knock off. Okay?”

Jeff silently followed his father back to the basement, but as Kevin once more began hauling crumbling cardboard boxes toward the foot of the stairs, he said, “I bet everybody’s right. I bet Aunt Marguerite
did
kill Mary-Beth Fletcher.” He clapped his hands over his mouth as he realized he’d just admitted his eavesdropping.

Kevin turned to stare at his son. “Aside from the fact that you shouldn’t have been listening to a private talk, what on earth would make you say something like that?”

Jeff glared up at his father, his eyes stormy. “Because she’s crazy,” he said. “She’s crazy, and I bet she killed Mary-Beth, and killed Mommy too!”

“Jeff!”

But Jeff wouldn’t be stopped. “Well, it’s true!” he yelled. “I saw Aunt Marguerite in Grandmother’s room, and she was acting real crazy. And when you’re around, she always acts like she likes me, but she doesn’t. When you and Julie aren’t around, she yells at me and tries to boss me around, and tries to act like she’s my mom! But she’s not. She’s a crazy person, and I bet she killed Mom and Mary-Beth. And I bet she wants to kill me too!”

Before he even thought about what he was doing, Kevin’s hand lashed out and struck Jeff across the face. “Don’t you ever talk that way again,” he said. “Aunt Marguerite loves you very much, and she’d never want to hurt you!”

“It’s not true!” Jeff shouted, tears streaming from his eyes, his hand pressed to his stinging cheek. “She hates me, and
she’s going to kill me!” As Kevin raised his hand once more, Jeff shrank away, taking a step backward. Losing his balance, he fell over, screaming in pain as his head struck one of the posts that supported the floor above.

His anger draining away as suddenly as it had come over him, Kevin stared helplessly at his son for a second, then reached down and picked him up. Jeff was screaming now and blood was streaming from a cut on the back of his head. Kevin charged up the stairs, Jeff clasped to his chest, calling out for Ruby. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, Ruby was there, waiting for him. Her eyes took in the situation at once.

“Take him to Dr. Adams,” she said. “Go on, take him now. I’ll call ahead and tell him you’re coming.”

“He—He fell,” Kevin stammered, his face pale as he still held his son. “I was yelling at him, Ruby. I—I even hit him, and he fell down and hit his head.”

Ruby brushed his words aside. “Don’t tell me. Just get him on into town and get that head sewn up. And don’t worry—cuts on the head bleed like crazy, but there ain’t nothin’ to them. Now, get along with you.” She hustled Kevin out the door, then hurried to the phone as Kevin loaded Jeff into Marguerite’s Chevy and started toward the village.

Julie woke up from a restless sleep and heard the car pulling away from the house. For a moment she thought it must be Mrs. Mayhew taking the girls home, but when she got out of bed and moved shakily to the window, she saw her aunt’s car with her father at the wheel, moving toward the causeway. And then, as the sound of its engine died away, she heard the faint notes of scratchy music drifting down from the ballroom above.

Her friends must still be in the house, and the lesson was running overtime.

She put on her bathrobe and went to the door. Her legs felt stronger now, but her mind was still fogged from the pills. Outside her room she leaned against the wall for a moment,
waiting for a slight dizziness to pass. Then she started along the hall, toward the stairs to the third floor.

She climbed the stairs slowly, pausing several times to catch her breath, but at last she reached the top and the small foyer that led through double doors to the ballroom.

Both the doors were closed, but she could hear the music clearly now.

Putting her hand on one of the doors, she pushed it open and stepped inside, expecting to see Jennifer, Allison, and Tammy-Jo on the floor, while Marguerite stood near the barre, watching them carefully, offering small corrections and words of encouragement.

Instead she saw that the room was empty save for Marguerite herself, who was in the middle of the floor, her eyes closed, her arms held aloft as she moved her body through a series of halting dips and turns.

Her right leg, made stiff by the long-ago accident, jutted out from her hip at an unnatural angle, and as she moved, her whole body jerked grotesquely as the lame leg refused to do her bidding.

Julie gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth as she watched the strange parody of a dance. But then, as she was about to slip away, Marguerite’s eyes suddenly opened.

“Come,” Marguerite said, her voice echoing in the empty room. “Come and dance with me.”

She moved toward Julie, her arm extended, and clasped Julie’s hand in her own, drawing her out onto the floor.

“Position one,” Marguerite commanded.

Automatically Julie’s feet turned outward, heels together, and her arms fell gracefully to her sides, her elbows bent so that her curving fingers nearly met.

Marguerite, her stiff leg resisting her mind’s commands, tried to force herself into the position, but her body twisted around on her left leg and she staggered before Julie caught her arm.

“You can’t, Aunt Marguerite—” she began, but her aunt ignored her.

“I must,” she breathed. “I must dance. It’s all I have … all I ever wanted.” Once again she tried to force herself into
the graceful pose, and a searing pain shot out from her hip as her body protested. Her eyes welled with tears.

“Don’t, Aunt Marguerite,” Julie protested. “You’ll hurt yourself. Wh-Where are the girls? Jennifer promised—”

“They’ll be back,” Marguerite said. She took a step forward, then turned, her left knee bending as she dropped into a stiff curtsey, while her crippled right leg, twisted at an odd angle, stretched out behind her. “I know they’ll come back. They won’t leave me. I know they won’t.”

Julie’s mind struggled in the fog of the sedative. Come back? But where had they gone? What was wrong? What had happened?

She was still trying to make sense of the strange scene in the ballroom when she felt a hand on her arm. She turned to see Ruby looking at her, her eyes filled with worry.

“You shouldn’t be up here,” the old housekeeper said. “You should be in your room, honey. You should be resting.”

Julie shook her head as if trying to clear it of the strange fog. “But what’s wrong?” she asked. “Where are my friends?”

Ruby gently eased Julie toward the door. “They’re gone, child. The class is over for today, and they’ve gone home.”

“But—But Aunt Marguerite …” Julie’s eyes searched Ruby’s face, imploring her. “Ruby, what’s wrong with her? She’s acting so strange. She’s—”

“Shh,” Ruby said, holding a finger to her lips. They were in the foyer now, and Ruby pulled the door closed behind them, then led Julie to the stairs. “She’ll be all right,” she said, though her voice was trembling. “We just have to leave her be, that’s all.”

“But what’s wrong with her?” Julie insisted. “Why is she acting like that?”

Ruby sighed, then shook her head. “Things have been hard for her,” she said at last. “She’s like you, honey. She’s just lost her mother. And there’s Mary-Beth too. Miss Marguerite sets a lot of store by her girls, you know. And to lose one like that …” Her voice trailed off as they came to Julie’s room. Ruby guided her back to her bed, tucking the sheet around her once more, then patted her hand reassuringly. “Now, don’t you worry about her. She’ll be all right, and so will
you. You just go to sleep, and when you wake up, you’ll have forgotten all about it.”

She waited a few minutes, and then, once more, the sedative overcame Julie, and her eyes closed. Only when she was certain that the girl was asleep did Ruby leave the room. But instead of going back downstairs to her work, she climbed back to the third floor and opened the door to the ballroom just wide enough to peer through.

Marguerite, her eyes closed, was still hobbling around the dance floor, her arms held high as if she were embracing an invisible partner.

The sense of unease she’d tried to conceal from Julie flooded back to Ruby. As she started back down the stairs, she tried not to think of what she knew she must do.

But perhaps this time it wouldn’t be so bad.

Perhaps this time Marguerite wouldn’t need to be locked up.

Julie woke up late in the afternoon, her body sticky with sweat and her mind vaguely disoriented. At last she rolled over to look at the clock on her bedside table, and was shocked to see that it was nearly six. It seemed only a few minutes ago that she’d fallen asleep—could it really have been seven hours? But it must have been—the strange fogginess she had felt this morning was gone, so the pills must have finally worn off. She lay in bed for a few minutes, waiting for the last vestiges of sleep to clear out of her mind, then got up and went to the window. Her father was down by the barn, his shirt off and his skin glistening as he wielded a rusty scythe against the overgrown weeds that choked the small paddock beside the barn. Julie called out to him, and he looked up and waved.