Louisa Rawlings (54 page)

Isobel smiled, her mouth curled in a vindictive sneer. “It was Arthur.” The words were clearly meant to hurt her.

“Good God, Mother. He was unfaithful to me five minutes after we were married. I don’t give a damn about
him
.” But Marcy? Willough frowned. That made no sense. There hadn’t been many letters from Drew in Paris, but his love for Marcy was in every line. Unless big brother is a fool, Willough thought, his wife couldn’t have deceived him. Particularly not with Arthur. Arthur wasn’t that smooth a rake. He’d only duped her—Willough—that time in the boathouse because she’d been so innocent. A man can only seduce a woman, she thought, if she doesn’t know what’s about to happen. Or if she
wants
to be seduced. Neither of which would seem to apply to Marcy. “How did he manage to seduce her? I thought she was in love with Drew.”

Isobel was beginning to shake. “You know these fortune-hunting women. They’ll run after any man! Now fetch me my tonic. I’m feeling poorly.”

Her mother was lying; she was sure of it. “There’ll be no tonic, Mother. I’ll smash the bottle right this instant unless you tell me everything!”

Isobel tried to rise from her chaise. “How dare you! Ring for my maid!”

“No! There’ll be no maid! And no tonic! How did Arthur manage to seduce Marcy?”

Isobel began to cry. “I didn’t want him to give up his painting,” she whined. “He was going to. Just for that woman!”

“And so you sent Arthur to seduce her.” Willough felt sick. “And how did Arthur manage it?”

Isobel held out a trembling hand. “For pity’s sake, Willough, give me my tonic.”

“
How
?”

“I…sent him a sleeping draught to use on her. I only did it for Drew. She was so common! She would have left him sooner or later.”

Willough crossed to a table and picked up the bottle of tonic. She handed it to her mother. In a frenzy, Isobel gulped it down, closed her eyes, leaned back against her chaise. “You horrible old woman.” Willough’s voice was filled with sadness, not anger.

Isobel’s eyes blinked open. “You’re mean, Willough. Mean and cruel!”

“Why do you hate me so, Mother?”

“Why shouldn’t I? You stole Arthur from me.”

A bitter laugh. “I give him back. But…no. It isn’t Arthur. For as long as I can remember—your face changed every time you looked from Drew to me.”

“That’s not so.”

“If we didn’t look so alike—Drew and me—I would have thought that”—she hesitated, then shrugged off the old restraints—“that we’d had different fathers.”

Isobel gasped. “Willough! Please!”

“Oh, God, Mother! Don’t you ever get tired of prudery? Of pretending such things don’t exist? I do! Why can’t we talk openly for a change? Who was my father? Some black-hearted gypsy who talked his way into your drawers and left you with bitter memories and a daughter you despise?”

“
Your father was an animal
.”

Willough recoiled at the loathing in her mother’s voice. “And Drew’s father?” she asked softly.

Isobel sighed. “I suppose I owe you an explanation,” she said at last. “The Carruths were a fine family. The finest in the city. But there’d been business reverses. Your Grandma Carruth wanted to arrange a good match for me. She was always telling me what was ‘proper.’ When Brian MacCurdy came along, I thought he was the handsomest man I’d ever seen. I found his earthiness exciting after the rich mamma’s boys my mother had tried to marry me to. A big, strapping man with the roughness of Scotland. But with a hunger to improve himself. My mother hated him, of course.”

“And so you married him.”

“Well, he was rich. And I thought it was romantic and generous that he was willing to change his name to please me.” Isobel stood up and began to pace the floor. “I was drunk on our wedding night. And of course Grandma Carruth had given me no warning of what to expect. I don’t remember much, except that it was…unpleasant.” She wet her lips nervously. “It happened a few more times. I still found it unpleasant, but Brian was impatient, so mercifully it never lasted long. Then I found out I was carrying Drew. On my doctor’s advice, I locked my door to your father.” Her tense expression softened. “Then Drew was born. The sweetest child a mother could want. I gave him Carruth for his middle name, of course, though your father was angry about it. But oh! that child was a treasure. I devoted all my time to him.”

“And Daddy?”

“I kept my door locked. I told him quite plainly I was no longer willing to submit to such filth. I think that’s when he first began to take mistresses, but I didn’t care. I had Drew. I had no room in my heart for a ruttish husband.”

“Is it ruttish to want to make love to your wife?”

Isobel sniffed. “I’m sure I don’t know what was in your father’s heart, but nice girls don’t enjoy that sort of thing!”

Willough thought, If it hadn’t been for Nat, I could have been like her.

“And then…” Isobel wrung her hands, “when Drew was around three, your father…he was very drunk. He burst into my room and started to tear at my clothes. Swearing and shouting in a drunken rage—‘I want a
real
wife!’ As if I hadn’t kept his home, and raised his son, and done all the things a wife is expected to do!”

Except go to bed with him, thought Willough.

“At one moment, hearing my screams, my maid rushed in. He threatened to beat her if she didn’t get out.” Isobel shuddered. “I still have nightmares about that night. My suffering. And the humiliation—knowing the servants were whispering behind my back.”

“What suffering? Did be rape you?”

“Willough! Merciful heaven! How can you use such words?”

“Oh, Mother, I’m tired of propriety! Sick to death of dancing around things that should be said straight out! Grandma Carruth and all her nice homilies turned you—and me!—into priggish snobs! Damn what ‘nice girls’ would do or say! Did he rape you?”

Isobel nodded wordlessly and sank back into her chaise. “But it was the last time he touched me,” she whispered. “He went to MacCurdyville the next day, and when he came back a month later, I knew I was carrying you. I told him if he ever touched me again, I’d kill myself. When you were born, he named you Willough after his grandfather. Out of spite. Because Drew was
mine
!”

Willough was trembling. “It wasn’t even me. All those years…I kept wondering what I’d done, wondering why you hated me. And hating you back. My God, I think I married Arthur to hurt you as much as anything else. And it had nothing to do with
me
!”

“Every time I looked at you, I remembered that night.”

“And I thought I was named Willough because Daddy was disappointed that I wasn’t a son! You and Daddy. What a pair. Was I ever really a person to either one of you?” Strangely, she felt no bitterness, only a sense of release.

“Your father was all to blame. When I got tired of his flaunting his women, I insisted he move out. His revenge was to tighten the purse strings. If it hadn’t been for Arthur, I don’t think I could have endured the years of loneliness.”

Willough laughed cynically. “It’s a good thing you didn’t marry Arthur. You might have been surprised. Daddy probably loved you, back then. Before your coldness drove him into the arms of Dame Fortune.” She fought back her tears, remembering her last meeting with Daddy. “He doesn’t have any other lover now. But Arthur? I don’t think he’s capable of love. Or ever was!”

“He loves
me
!” Isobel glared at her daughter with fevered eyes.

Willough felt a twinge of pity for this pathetic woman, bolstering her faded dreams with opium. “Then you can have him, Mother. I’m not as unforgiving toward my husband as you are to yours. Tell Arthur I won’t do anything to ruin him. I just want a quiet divorce, as quickly as possible. I’ll want custody of Cecily, and enough money to keep her well, but that’s all.” She hesitated, then leaned over and kissed her mother softly on the forehead. “How different things might have been if you and Daddy had tried to be a little kinder to each other.” She smoothed on her gloves and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To salvage Drew’s life, if I can.” At the door, she turned. “Tell me. When Nat was here last year…the way you treated him. Was that on purpose? To humiliate him? No. Don’t answer. I can see it on your face.” Oh, why hadn’t she listened to Nat?

“It was Arthur’s idea!” said Isobel defensively.

“Yes. Of course. The favor you did for him. That he paid back by seducing Marcy.” She sighed and went out into the vestibule.

Parkman hurried toward her. “Oh, Mrs. Gray. I’m sorry to disturb you. There’s a policeman here. He says it’s important. They sent him round from your house.” He motioned to the uniformed officer, who waited politely near the door. “Do you want to talk to him here in the vestibule?”

Willough had an eerie presentiment. “No. Perhaps it’s something that Mrs. Bradford shouldn’t hear as yet.”

“What shouldn’t I hear?” Isobel stood at the parlor door, leaning against the doorjamb.

“It’s a bit of bad news, ma’am,” said the policeman, stepping forward.

“Then tell it and get it over with,” snapped Isobel.

“It’s only that…” He turned to Willough. The eyes were like a puppy dog’s eyes, large and mournful. “It’s Mr. Gray, ma’am. There’s been an accident. A runaway brewery wagon…”

Willough turned cold. “Is be seriously hurt?”

The officer wrung his hat between his large hands. “I’m afraid he’s gone, ma’am.”

Behind them, Isobel began to gasp for breath, clutching at her bosom.

“Parkman!” cried Willough. “Get Mrs. Bradford to bed at once! Call Dr. Page. And make sure that Mrs. Bradford’s maid doesn’t leave her alone for a second until the doctor gets here. And she’s to take no medication before the doctor arrives. She’s just had her tonic. Be sure you tell the doctor that.”

“Yes’m.”

As Parkman helped the trembling Isobel from the room, Willough turned back to the policeman. “Is there anything I must do?”

“We’ll need someone to come down to the morgue and identify the body.”

“I’ll come myself.” It was the least she owed Arthur. “Must it be at once?”

“Well, no.”

“It’s just that I have an important errand to run first. Will it be all right if I can come in an hour or so?”

“Of course, ma’am.” He cleared his throat. “You’re a very brave lady, Mrs. Gray.”

She smiled into the sad eyes. “It’s my duty.”

“Jesse, let’s put the Seine painting over here.” Drew squinted at the blank wall, noticed the way the light hit it at just the right angle.

“Sure enough, Drew.” The tall man scratched at his muttonchop whiskers and glanced around the large studio. “But I want to put the drawings of your wife on that small wall. It makes a more intimate setting.”

“If you think so.” Drew turned away, stared at a speck of dust on the wall. He didn’t know why he’d allowed Jesse to talk him into framing and hanging the pictures of Marcy. She haunted him enough in his dreams. But now, this last week, getting ready for his exhibit, he’d had to see that face a hundred times a day. That beautiful face.

Oh, Marcy, he thought in anguish. What did all this matter without her? Without her laughter?

“Come on now, Drew. Smile! You can’t be that worried about the exhibit. Not after you had the brass to show with the Impressionists in Paris last spring!”

Drew turned about and managed a laugh. “Jesse, you’re a mother hen.”

“The homage Commerce pays to Art! I always knew when we studied together at the Cooper Institute that I’d go in to real estate with my father and you’d go on to greater glory as a painter.”

“God bless your real estate!” Drew indicated the bright gallery. “You’re more than a fair landlord. No rent! I couldn’t ask for better than that. Nor a better friend.”

Jesse looked embarrassed. “Humbug! The place was going begging anyhow! And I’m charging you for the gas. With no discount, mind you! And I expect a commission when you sell.”

“
If
I sell.” Drew sighed and put his hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “You’re not getting the best of this deal, old friend.”

Jesse bridled. “Humbug! I didn’t pay for the invitations for nothing! Tomorrow night, while you’re receiving the acclaim of your admirers, I expect introductions to all the famous art critics, half the editors of the newspapers,
the
Mrs. Astor, and any visiting royalty whom my invitations have managed to snag!”

Drew laughed. “Agreed. And I’ll even throw in introductions to any of my former lady friends who might come round.”

Jesse nodded toward the drawings. “With a wife like that, you surely don’t need them! When are you going to let me meet the little woman?”

Drew shrugged and turned away. “There’ll be time enough. She’s…in the country right now.” And what am I going to do about her? he thought. Mother had been urging him to get a divorce. He was sorry he’d told her about that scene in the railroad car. But he’d had to tell someone or go mad. He couldn’t confront Arthur—not his own sister’s husband.

But he wasn’t ready to divorce Marcy yet. It seemed too final. And too painful. One thing at a time. After the exhibit opened tomorrow night, there’d be time to think about Marcy.