Garden of Shadows

ARROGANT AS EVER, MALCOLM SHOWED NO REMORSE, NO guilt, no shame. When he arrived home that night, I followed him into his private study, a study into which he retreated every evening before dinner, a study that was off limits to everyone in the house save Malcolm and the maid who cleaned it once a week. As I opened the wide oak door without knocking, Malcolm looked startled and angry. “What are you doing in here, Olivia?” he asked sternly.

I made my face like stone, and put the haughtiest sneer in my voice. “I’m here to talk about your new little baby,” I said. Then I confronted him with Alicia’s story. I spit every detail at him as I raged against his lust and audacity. The sky was shrouded by a spring storm, furious and dark, with angry bruised clouds hovering outside the windows beyond Malcolm’s desk, threatening to come in and consume us. But the clouds were not as bruised and angry as I, and if anyone would consume today, it would be me.

“You’re making far too much of this, Olivia,” Malcolm said as he rearranged the pencils on his desk.

As I spoke, the desk lamp cast a glow over his face, darkening his eyes. The storm played havoc with the electric system, causing all the lights to blink. With the windows shut tight to keep out the fierce rain, which now pounded furiously against the windows, scratching at the glass, we seemed trapped together in his study. Malcolm continued to look down at the papers on his desk. He appeared calm and composed, even now. His brow was dry, his face smooth. He looked down at his papers, pretending that this whole situation was of little importance. I waited patiently as he sorted documents into two piles.

I knew why he was ignoring me. It was a battle of wills. I was determined not to whine, to scream, to act the role of the violated wife, even though that was the role in which he had cast me. Hysteria would only make me weak and cause me to lose control and dignity. Finally, he looked up at me.

“Olivia, I wanted another child, a daughter, and now I’m going to have one,” he said calmly.

“What right do you have to assume that I would accept a child of such heinous sin into my home? Did you think you could carry this out without my cooperation?” I asked, my voice still low, my arms resting against the front of my body, my hands gently clasped. I did not allow my posture to reveal the tension building within me. I had learned from Malcolm how to put a shell of myself over myself.

“I should think you would be in favor of it,” he said, a snide look on his face. He sat back in his chair loosely.

“Remember, Olivia, when we first contracted to be married, it was assumed that you would provide me with a large family, something I made clear that I required. I had and have definite ideas about what a Foxworth woman should be. You knew what I wanted, yet you failed me in this regard.”

“That is an unfair statement. It hasn’t been that I didn’t want to have any more children,” I said, moving forward, my hands on my hips.

“Nevertheless, my dear Olivia, the fact is that you didn’t have any more children. Couldn’t or wouldn’t is not important,” he said.

“So you went ahead and raped your father’s wife?” I asked, smiling sarcastically.

He smiled, too, to show me he could not be intimidated. How I had come to hate that cold, calculating grin.

“You can believe it was that way if you want to.”

“What do you mean, if I want to? I heard it all directly from Alicia,” I said.

“What would you expect her to say? Olivia, you can be so blind sometimes. What do you think was going on here, even when my father was alive? Did you think a man that age could really keep the appetite of a girl like that satisfied? She was soon making eyes at me, finding ways to accidentally meet me alone in the house, tempting me with a turn of her shoulders, a glimpse of bare skin here, a glimpse of bare skin there. How many times did she find an excuse to come to me in the library here or even … to my room?” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“You’re making all this up to justify what a horrible thing you have done.”

“Am I?” He smirked.

“Yes. I know that she sought to drive you away from her, that you pursued her even when Garland was alive.” He smiled again. I would wipe that confident smile off his face yet. My eyes drilled into his. “I witnessed it!”

“Oh? Exactly what did you witness?” I saw the worry around his eyes, the way his eyebrows turned in toward each other, the way his forehead creased.

“One afternoon at the lake. You followed her and tried to force yourself on her, but she refused you. I was in the bushes; I saw and I heard it all.” I dropped each word as if it were a cold, hard stone to batter his composure.

“You fool.” Anger came into his face and tightened his features into granite. “You thought by spying on me you would learn the truth. You learned only half of it. She was a tease, a temptress. Why do you suppose I came home early that afternoon and went to the lake? She left all sorts of hints that she would be there, swimming naked. She wanted me to come just so she could torment me. It was part of her pleasure.

“Later on,” he continued, “she wasn’t so eager to refuse.”

“That’s ridiculous. That day, before she went to the lake, she asked me to go along with her.” I looked at him confidently; I had caught him red-handed in a lie.

“Knowing all along that you wouldn’t. It was her way of being sure you wouldn’t be around when I appeared. She didn’t anticipate your snooping, however,” he said thoughtfully.

“You’re a liar!” I pounded my own thigh with my fist for emphasis. He winced, but he didn’t give ground.

“Am I? Why do you think Garland’s death lies on her mind so heavily? She was more responsible for it than you think. She wanted me in that room that night.”

“Wanted you? Wanted you? I saw her nightgown ripped; I saw what you had done. You forced yourself on her!”

He maintained his cold, confident smile. “It was her way. She enjoyed it rough. The struggle helped to quiet her conscience when afterward she would give in wholeheartedly.”

“You’re mad!

“No, Olivia, hardly am I mad. It is you who are mad; you know and understand so little of the ways of men and women. So little because you are so little woman yourself, except, of course, in height.”

Oh, he knew how to hurt me. How to try to blame me for his infidelity. But if sin and lust were true knowledge, I would rather remain ignorant. “I don’t believe a word you say,” I hissed.

“Believe what you want. You don’t want to believe it, Olivia, because you don’t want to face the fact that you are a disappointment in many ways as a wife. Besides not being able to provide me with any more children, you can’t provide me with warm, affectionate love. It’s not in your nature; it never was.

“I accepted that as long as I thought you could provide the other necessities. You do run the house well; you present a proper image to the community, but I can’t think of one time that I walked past your bedroom and had the urge to enter it,” he added.

I couldn’t stand it a moment longer. “Yes, my nature may be as it is, but when you entered my bedroom, you never found a woman like your mother.”

“You’re despicable,” he said.

“I am what I am, just as you are what you are,” I said, taking control. “Threats are of no significance anymore. The die is cast. Upstairs in that room that woman is pregnant with your child, a child that will be our child in the eyes of the world. This is how it will be: I will have command of everything, command of how every detail of this mockery shall be carried out,” I said, savoring my power over him.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning? We’ll follow your shoddy plan, but it is I who will carry it through. Alicia will hide in the north wing until the baby is born. And, yes, the word will be given out that she is leaving on an important family trip. Christopher will remain with me and you will treat him as though he were another of my sons. When we hold Alicia’s staged departure, I want you present, Malcolm. Afterward, I’ll dismiss all the servants, all except Olsen. You will provide each one of them with a year’s salary as severance pay.” I knew my gray eyes were cold, sharp, piercing him like darts.

“A year’s salary!”

“No, two years’ salary! I want them to leave very, very satisfied. After Alicia returns and is secretly hidden in the north wing, you’ll hire some new servants to carry out the menial tasks. And you’ll make sure that none of those servants ever goes into the north wing.”

I watched him fuming.

“Furthermore, you are never to set foot in the north wing while she remains there. If you should do that, I will immediately end this charade and face whatever indignities result from the exposure. I mean that, Malcolm. Is that understood and agreed?” I glared at him intently. He knew he could not lie about this to my face now; he knew I would see it in his eyes.

“I have no interest in her other than to see that she gives birth to a healthy child.”

“Is it agreed to then?” I persisted.

“Yes, yes.” For the first time, I saw weakness in Malcolm. His shoulders drooped. His face looked haggard. I gloated in my newfound power, savoring every moment.

“Good,” I said finally. “I will be in total charge of her. You will have nothing to do with her. I will inform you as to when we should seek the services of a midwife and you will contract with someone and bring her here.”

“I was going to suggest that,” he said.

“But you didn’t, did you, Malcolm? I thought of everything myself,” I said, delighted with myself and eager to continue revealing my intricate plan.

“After she gives birth to the baby, she is to leave immediately with her financial situation set up the way Garland wanted it to be. A deal is a deal,” I said, making it sound as cold as it was. His snide smile formed again.

“To put that kind of wealth into the hands of a child …”

“A child who is to have your baby,” I responded. His smile waned. “If she is old enough and capable enough to have your baby, she can have a portion of your fortune.”

“Frankly, Olivia, I am taken with your motherly concern for her,” he said, desperately trying to take power by hiding behind a shield of sarcasm. He hoped to slow me down by turning me against Alicia. But now it was I who wore the look of indifference and control.

“It’s my concern for what she is and what you have turned her into,” I said as matter-of-factly as I could.

“What is she?”

“A woman, something you don’t highly regard.”

“You’re insane with your ideas,” he said. He shook his head, but he knew I was right.

I stood arrogantly and confidently above him. He was slumping in his desk chair. The storm outside was beginning to lessen. I could even see some of the twilight filtering through the gray clouds, clouds as gray as Malcolm’s face had become.

“Now for another thing,” I said. “Classes for the boys in the attic will have to stop.”

“Why? They’ll be sufficiently far away from her and they’ll be up there only part of the day,” he said.

“We can’t take the chance of Mr. Chillingworth discovering anything, and the boys must never know she is there. Can you imagine if Christopher discovered his mother locked away? Mal and Joel are to believe that the child to be born is their brother or sister. They must never discover Alicia waiting to give birth.”

“It will be a girl,” he said, “and it will be their sister.”

“Half sister,” I corrected. “But they will believe she is their full sister. I couldn’t bear for my sons to know that their father produced a child with his own father’s wife. There are sins and there are sins. Even your generous contributions to the church can’t undo the evil significance of what you have done.” I wagged a finger at him like a strict Sunday-school teacher.

He shook his head. I was beating him down; I could feel it and it made me feel stronger.

“What about their education?”

“They will be sent out to school, like other normal children. Dismiss Mr. Chillingworth tomorrow and make the arrangements for their public education,” I said, stressing the word “public.” He winced and glared at me with such hateful eyes, but the more hateful his look, the more satisfied I felt.

“Anything else?” he asked bitterly.

“You will transfer one million dollars into a trust fund for each of our sons until they reach the age of eighteen.”

He nearly jumped out of his chair. “What? You’re mad. Why would I do that?”

“So that they will have some control over their lives and not be totally under your thumb,” I said, stating the obvious.

“I would never do that. It would be a foolhardy waste of money. What would boys that age know about handling such a fortune?”

“You will do it and it will be done immediately. Put your lawyers right on it and have the documents ready by the end of the week. They will be given to me for safekeeping,” I said, waving the air like he often did to indicate I would tolerate no more discussion on the subject.

“A million dollars each?” He was facing the unavoidable fact that there was little he could do about it.

“Consider it… a fine,” I said. He stared at me, with not so much a hateful look on his face as the look of a man who realized, perhaps for the first time, that his antagonist was formidable. I think that in his strange way, he even respected me at that moment, even though he hated everything I was demanding.

“Is there anything else?” he asked, fatigue and defeat in his voice.

“Not at the moment. We both have enough to do. I suggest we get started.”

I’ll never forget how I felt when I pivoted and started out of the library. It was as though I were leaving him in my wake, in the shadow I now cast. For the first time, my tallness didn’t bother me, for I felt I had fulfilled my height. I had rescued what could have been a very sad and tragic time for me and I had even benefited from it. Malcolm, who had always gotten his way and had always gained from whatever he did, had had to give. He was losing more than I was.

I stepped out into the foyer and looked up the spiral staircase toward the Swan Room, where Alicia waited to learn her sentence and her fate. It wasn’t Malcolm who went up and told her; it was I. I was the one who started up the stairs; I was the one who carried the news and the orders. I was the one who would cause things to happen, people to move and to change. I was the one who would shift the shadows and the light in Foxworth Hall. I would close doors, open windows, put lights on and put lights off. I would decide when the sunlight could be permitted to enter and when the shades would be drawn. I would dole out happiness and pleasure, sadness and pain the way a maid served soup.

I opened the Swan Room door without knocking. These kinds of indignities were mine to impose now at will. Alicia, who had just taken a bath and washed her beautiful hair, quickly wrapped a towel around herself and reached for her robe.

“Sit down,” I commanded her. She went to the bed and sat as obediently as any child. I hesitated as she looked up at me with her eyes wide, fear and anticipation in her face. I took my time, walked over to the window to stare out at the gray-white twilight sky. The rain had stopped and the clouds were moving quickly off to the east. The sight of such a rapidly changing sky filled me with more energy. I felt as though nature touched me with her power. Just like nature, I could change from one extreme to another almost instantly. I walked over to the dressing table and looked at her powders and perfumes.

The scents were all enticingly feminine. They filled the air with promises of love and affection. It was as if this were a magical dressing table. Any ugly duckling could sit down at it and moments later be turned into the most attractive and inviting woman, a woman who could break men’s hearts by simply turning away or ending her smiles. Surely every time Malcolm inhaled these flowery scents, his mind raced with amorous thoughts and dreams. The scents lingered in the air, long after Alicia passed a room or descended the stairs. Malcolm, coming after her, would trail behind like some dog mesmerized by the aroma of promise. That would all have to come to an abrupt end. I spun around to confront her.

“When you move into the north wing,” I began, “you can’t take any of these things with you.” It was my way of telling her it had all been decided as Malcolm wanted.

“Then I am to go into seclusion until the baby is born? You could not change his mind?” she asked, her voice dripping with defeat and resignation.

“No,” I said. “It’s the only way for you and for Christopher to leave with anything. You’ll have to do it and do it as I described.”

She brought her hands to her face, but she did not cry.

“You should continue to dry your hair,” I said. “Before you catch cold. Getting sick now, even getting a cold, is the worst thing that could happen.”

She nodded, looking like one in a trance. Her eyes were vacant, her shoulders sagged. She looked down at her own small hands, held together in a clasp of prayer. A shawl of doom had been placed over her head, but I felt no need to offer any words of comfort or hope.

I started out of the room.

“Olivia,” she cried. She stood up. “I’m afraid.”

“After a while,” I said, “you won’t be. Believe me, I know.” I left her looking small and alone, her face pale, her childlike beauty wrinkled with worry.

• • •

I waited impatiently to execute my plan. I had decided that Alicia’s confinement would begin only after she began to show—around three months. That left me, and Alicia, time to prepare the boys for what was to happen. One morning in May, after I had told Alicia everything she must say, we entered the nursery.

The nursery was warm and sunny, the warmest, sunniest room in the house. Mal was on the floor, children’s books all around him. Joel was on his knees, playing with his cars and trucks. Christopher was sitting, sucking his thumb, watching the two older boys. “We have something to tell you,” I began. Alicia was hovering behind me, wringing her hands, trembling like a bird.

“What, Mommy, what?” Mal asked.

“Something very sad, I’m afraid.”

The three of them moved closer together and all stared with wide eyes at Alicia, who was now on the verge of tears.

“May I tell them, Olivia,” Alicia whispered.

“No,” I said. “It is I who am in charge here.”

Alicia sat down in the wicker rocking chair and all three boys ran to pile up on her lap. She put her arms around them and squeezed them to her breast as Christopher rained kisses on her, and my boys joined in.

“Alicia is going to be leaving us.”

They simply stared, not saying a word. They didn’t seem to understand.

“Alicia is going to be leaving us,” I repeated.

“I don’t believe you,” Joel shouted.

“Me too,” Christopher said, staring wide-eyed at his now weeping mother.

“Why?” Mal asked, his little voice filled with pain. He was growing into an intelligent, sensitive little man. He was already years ahead of boys his age in reading and writing, and nearly a half a foot taller than other boys his age. He would be as tall as Malcolm.

“Why?” he asked again. “Is she mad at us?”

Christopher buried his head between her breasts as Alicia burst into sobs. Joel put his hands over his ears and said, “Alicia can’t go, she gotta play piano with me today.” Joel was still a small, frail child who suffered from allergies. A speck of dust could set him coughing and sneezing for hours, something Malcolm couldn’t bear to witness.

Mal climbed off Alicia’s lap and came over to where I stood, like a toy soldier looking up at his general. “Why?” he shouted at the top of his voice.

“You boys are too young to understand,” I said, putting calm and compassion in my eyes and voice. “When you grow older, these things will make sense to you. If it were up to me, Alicia could stay here forever. But your father doesn’t want her to.”

Suddenly, Mal’s little face crumpled up and tears poured down his cheeks.

“I hate him,” he shouted. “I hate him! I hate him! He never lets us have anything we want!”

Joel was so hysterical by now. He was coughing uncontrollably, and Alicia began to stroke his back, desperately trying to calm him down, as her own son remained buried in her breast.

“Please, please,” he choked, “can’t we go with her?”

“No,” I said sternly. “I’m your mother. And you belong here with me.”

“But what about Christopher?” Mal asked.

“Christopher will stay here for a time, until Alicia gets settled in her new house,” I explained. At the sound of his own name, Christopher suddenly looked up at me and just as quickly back at his mother. “Mommy,” he cried, his little voice squeaking with terror. “I’m not coming with you?”

“No, my darling, no,” Alicia cried. “But I’ll be coming back for you soon. And then we’ll be together always. It won’t be for long, Christopher my darling, my boy. And you’ll have Olivia to take care of you. And Mal and Joel to play with.” Then she turned to my boys. “Please, please, remember that I love all of you, that I will always love you. In my heart I’ll always be with you, watching you practice the piano, watching you make your beautiful artistic drawings, and when you go to sleep at night, I’ll be kissing you in my dreams.”

• •

The next day I informed the servants of Alicia’s coming departure. I could see the unhappiness in their faces when I told them. As I came down the stairwell, I overheard Mary Stuart and Mrs. Steiner talking in the dining room as they prepared the table for dinner. I stood just outside the doorway, listening.

“The light is going from this house,” Mrs. Steiner said. “Believe me.”

“I’m so sorry to see her go,” Mary said. “She always has a smile for us, unlike the tall one.”

So that’s how they distinguish between us, I thought. “The tall one.”

“If you ask me, the tall one got her way. She didn’t want young Mrs. Foxworth here from the start and probably worked to get rid of her the day Garland Foxworth died. Can’t blame her though, I suppose. I wouldn’t want a beautiful young woman like that about for my husband to see day in and day out. Especially if I looked like her,” Mrs. Steiner said, raising her voice for emphasis.

“That’s for certain,” Mary said. I was sure she was smiling when she said it. I could hear the smile in her voice.

Good riddance to you all, I thought, and decided that I would inform them sooner that their services were no longer required. I called them into the foyer one afternoon: Mary, Mrs. Steiner, Mrs. Wilson, and Lucas. I sat in one of the high-back chairs, my arms flat on the arms, my head against the back, my hair tightly woven up in a bun on the top of my head, looking more like a crown. They gathered around and faced me, both fear and curiosity in their eyes. I was like a queen about to address her subjects.

“As you know,” I began, “Mrs. Garland Foxworth is leaving Foxworth Hall next month. She will be gone for some time, but her return here will only be long enough to get her son and then she will leave again. Permanently,” I added. “I have given everything great thought and I have decided that we will no longer be needing your services.”

Mrs. Wilson turned white. Mrs. Steiner nodded, her eyes small, as if she had been expecting something like this. Lucas and Mary Stuart looked frightened.

“Our services? You mean you’re letting us all go?” Mary asked incredulously.

“Yes. However, I have decided that all of you will receive two years’ salary as severance pay,” I added, making sure they understood it was my generosity that provided them with such a large settlement. “When do we leave?” Mrs. Steiner asked. She dressed her words in ice.

“You are to leave the same day Mrs. Garland Foxworth leaves.”

• • •

The final preparation was to move Alicia out of the Swan Room and to store all her trinkets and wardrobe that she wouldn’t be needing during her confinement. I supervised her packing, lording over her and approving and disapproving of every object, every garment she wished to take with her to the north wing.

“There is no need for you to take along your formal dresses,” I said as I saw her press a frilly blue frock to her breast as she stood before the mirror. “You won’t be going to any parties for a while and you won’t be able to have your clothing cleaned and washed as regularly as you have it done now. I’m going to have to do whatever you can’t wash for yourself in the sink and bathtub, so let’s not take one item that’s not necessary.”

She looked down at her gowns sadly. I couldn’t believe the array of clothing she possessed. The frivolity on which she had wasted Garland’s money. Did she think she was a walking fashion magazine that had to change her entire wardrobe every season? It was profligate spending and vanity such as this that brought about what had happened to Alicia.

“But it makes me feel good to look good,” Alicia said.

“You won’t be able to fit in most of it soon anyway,” I added.

“But I have no maternity clothes left, Olivia. I gave them all to charity after Christopher was born. What will I use for maternity clothes?”

“I’ll give you some of mine.”

“But yours are so … so big, Olivia.”

“What difference does it make what you look like in that room, Alicia? Only I will see you. You’re not dressing to draw the attention of men anymore, dear. All that matters is that you are warm and comfortable.”

The image of her lost in my maternity dresses suddenly made me smile. Now she would know what it felt like not to see beauty looking back at her from the mirror. Now she, too, would be awkward and unappealing. And what was more fitting than that she wear my maternity clothing, I thought. After all, she was having what was going to be my child.

“Of course,” I added, “I will be wearing maternity clothing also.”

She looked up at me as if she were shocked. Could this not have occurred to her? Did she think I would move about the community as I was and then suddenly announce that I had given birth to a child? How simple and naive she could be! There was no conniving, no deceit in her, even when it was necessary for her survival.

“Oh,” she said, finally understanding. She looked back at her fine dresses and blouses and skirts. In the end I reduced everything she would take to the north wing to what would fit into one trunk and two suitcases.

• • •

Sadness reigned in Foxworth Hall the day Alicia made her false departure. It was a gray, rainy day, the sky crying along with the children. Although it was the first day of summer, a cold winter chill filled Foxworth Hall. We had to keep lights on and close windows tightly.

The servants, who had been packing their own things, stood in the downstairs as Alicia descended with me behind her, carrying her suitcase. I had never seen her look so small and gray, like a sad little mouse. I had insisted the children remain in the nursery. I did not want the histrionics of an overly emotional farewell. Christopher had been barely consolable for days, and my boys, too, were on a short tether. But I had insisted that Malcolm be present at this painful little charade. As we reached the bottom of the stairs, I handed Malcolm the suitcase and he grasped it awkwardly, annoyed, but afraid to cross me at this juncture. Alicia’s eyes filled with tears as she came upon the farewell gathering, for she was truly bidding everyone good-bye. She looked about the great foyer like one who knew it would be some time before she would see it again. Her act was very convincing because it was only half an act. She would see it when she returned, but it would be only a short glimpse on her way up to the north wing.

She went to embrace Mrs. Steiner, but I grasped her arm and ushered her toward the awaiting car. “There is no time for sentiment,” I said.

Suddenly, she felt limp in my arms. “Please, please let me say good-bye to Christopher one more time,” she pleaded.

Malcolm whispered in my ear. “Must I stay and witness this hysteria?”

“Put her in the cab, Malcolm,” I ordered.

Alicia had to be half carried, half dragged to the car. As soon as the suitcase was locked in the trunk, I rapped on the window and ordered the driver to be off. The tires spun in the wet mud and the car lurched to life. Behind me, I heard the front door fly open and the boys screaming “Wait, wait” as they hurtled down the steps, yanking themselves free of the servants’ restraining arms. Mal led the pack, holding Joel by one hand and Christopher by the other, practically dragging them along. They chased the car for some time, screaming and crying.

“Get your sons, Malcolm,” I ordered, “all of them.”