Garden of Shadows
: Part 2 – Chapter 8

AFTER THE BIRTH OF CHRISTOPHER, GARLAND BEGAN TO spend a great deal more time at home. Malcolm claimed he was happy to have his father out of his hair at the office.

“He doesn’t understand the intricacies of high finance and I have to spend too much time explaining things to him. He annoys everyone with his questions,” he said. “It’s better that he behaves more like a retired man. I wish he would officially retire,” he added.

Garland never did anything intentionally to upset me, but it was upsetting for me to have him around so much because I was forced to witness his and Alicia’s love.

He hovered about Alicia, watching her feed the baby, and then he took them both for walks or for short rides. Occasionally, they asked me to accompany them, but I always refused. The few times I caught my reflection and Alicia’s in a mirror, I thought I looked more like her mother than the wife of her stepson. I found it ridiculous to think of her as a mother-in-law. I knew it would just be too uncomfortable for me to go anywhere with Garland and her, unless Malcolm were with us too. And then something more disturbing began to take place.

Less than two months after Christopher’s birth, Garland and Alicia began going up to their suite in the middle of the afternoon. At first I didn’t understand their eagerness to do so. They would come in from a walk looking somewhat flustered, always clinging so closely to each other, forever kissing and embracing. Sometimes they walked past me as though I weren’t even there.

With his arm around her shoulders and her arm around his waist, they would practically run up the spiral staircase and disappear into their suite for most of the afternoon. The maids and Lucas would smile slyly at one another when they saw them gallivanting up the stairs. On a number of occasions I overheard them talking about Garland and his young bride. Once, I was just about to go into the kitchen, when I stopped at the partially opened doorway because I heard Mrs. Steiner talking to Mrs. Wilson.

“It’s remarkable,” Mrs. Steiner said, “how they are always at it. I can’t get into that bedroom to clean!”

“In the beginning it was like that with the first Mrs. Foxworth too,” Mrs. Wilson said.

“Such a contrast between the elder Mr. Foxworth and his bride and Malcolm Foxworth and Olivia,” Mrs. Steiner said. “I can’t recall them ever showing affection for each other so openly.”

“Affection for each other?” Mrs. Wilson said.

“Olivia is so cold. Those gray eyes of hers are like two granite slivers. I’m so happy the boys have his eyes.”

“Yes. Whenever Alicia is in a room, there is such light and happiness, even if Olivia is in the same room. Alicia’s brightness is too strong for Olivia’s cloudy face,” Mrs. Wilson said. “I wish she were the real mistress of Foxworth Hall, as she should be. She is just too sweet to exert her authority.”

“It would be as different as night and day, wouldn’t it? One has a constant smile on her face, and the other has only a scowl, no matter how hard I work. She told Mary to dust after me in the foyer yesterday.”

“When a woman is unhappy in love, she takes it out on whoever is around,” Mrs. Wilson said.

“Which is why I wish Alicia were the true mistress of Foxworth Hall.”

I stepped away from the door, my heart beating so hard and my rage so strong, I was afraid what I would do if I heard any more. Was Alicia conniving to win over the servants? She would never criticize any of them. She was making me out to be the ogre. And their obscene passion for each other was something the servants admired? Where was decency? Where was self-respect? How could they be so loving and hot-blooded anyway? I wondered. Was it real or just a show?

One day, intrigued with their passion and energy, I followed them up the spiral staircase. I went into my room and placed my ear to the wall by my dressing table. What I heard brought the blood to my cheeks.

Their kisses were one thing, but the sounds of Garland’s moaning in passionate ecstasy and Alicia’s little cries were overwhelming. I heard them in their bed and I knew exactly when Alicia was experiencing the climax of her lovemaking, or should I say the climaxes, for she cried out loudly each time, and each time Garland said things like, “Oh, my love, my love. It’s good, is it not? I’m far from an old man.”

Sometimes they would grow very quiet afterward and I would think they were both asleep, but soon I would hear her pleas for more and their passion would begin again. Then I would lie in my own bed and try to imagine what it would be like if Malcolm made love to me the way his father made love to his bride. Never did I feel the need to cry out the way she did and never did Malcolm say the things to me that Garland said to her when she was in his embrace.

Their lovemaking, whether it be night or day, was soon something to which I looked forward. Listening to them, imagining them in bed together, I could replace far more excitement than I could in reading my novels.

One day I listened to them talking in the dining room and understood that they were going for a walk for the express purpose of making love by the lake. Just thinking about such a thing made my heart flutter. My face flushed so, I had to go and dab cold water on my cheeks. Looking out of a window, I saw them start off toward the path that led to the lake. Garland carried little Christopher in his cradle. I watched them disappear around a corner and then I followed them.

I felt guilty about it, but I couldn’t turn myself back. It was one thing to listen through the walls, but to actually see them making love was too great a temptation. They were too far ahead of me to know I was following.

There was a clearing near the dock where we kept a canoe. By the time I was close enough to spy on them, they had spread their blanket out and they were lying upon it. The baby was asleep.

Alicia’s figure had returned rapidly after she gave birth. It was impossible to look at her and know she was already a mother. She looked younger and more vibrant than ever. Her bosom was still high and her waist was so tiny. She had the perfect hourglass figure.

Her hair spilled down around her shoulders. She sat in her blouse and skirt and embraced her knees as she looked out at the lake. Garland sat beside her, leaning back on his hands. They were like that for the longest time, and I began to feel very silly and guilty about spying on them. I continually looked behind me to be sure Olsen or some other servant wasn’t close enough to see what I was doing.

Suddenly Garland turned to Alicia and kissed her on the neck. She dropped her head back and closed her eyes as though that single kiss was a key opening the doorway to her ecstasy. I pressed my fingers against my own neck and watched in fascination as Garland brought his lips to the bodice of her blouse, untying the string that held it together.

He peeled the garments off her so gently and gracefully, it was as if they melted away. When they were both naked and in each other’s embrace, the soothing words between them, spoken too low for me to understand, sounded like a soft religious chant, the cadences were so regular and continuous. I watched them go from great passion to gentle caressing, the words turning to laughter.

When I had seen enough, I turned to go back to the house and found myself so short of breath and weak, I was afraid to take a step. I heard the baby’s cry and their laughter, and I took deep breaths to get control of myself. Finally I was able to walk back to Foxworth Hall.

I went directly upstairs to my bedroom and lay there for over an hour staring up at the ceiling, recalling vividly the love scene I had just witnessed. How much I had been cheated! How much of what should be every woman’s was not mine and would never be mine! I felt as if fate were pulling me through a knothole, dragging me to a destiny I never wanted to accept.

Someday, perhaps, my portrait would be painted in dark oils and hung on the walls of Foxworth Hall. With gray eyes and pale lips pressed together so tightly they looked sewn shut, I would regard my descendants. My great-grandchildren would look up at me and conclude that I was a very unhappy woman, a woman haunted by the other austere faces of Foxworth Hall, a woman pained by her own existence. And they would know.

While I was still in my room, I heard Garland and Alicia return from the lake. They were laughing, their voices high and gay. They both sounded so young, I felt as if I were the stepmother and Malcolm was Garland’s father.

That night after dinner, Garland and Malcolm had a long meeting in the trophy room. Alicia and I were sitting in the salon, tending the three children. Mal was showing Joel and Christopher his toys, explaining each to each as though they could understand. There must have been some strong filial feeling among them, because the infants were quiet, entranced, attentive.

Alicia and I were crocheting. She was better at it than I anticipated she would be. Apparently, she had learned a great deal from her mother before she married Garland. Alicia smiled at the children and smiled at me.

“It’s going to be wonderful for them all to grow up together,” she said. “They’ll marry beautiful, brilliant women and raise their families here at Foxworth Hall.”

“Maybe their wives won’t get along,” I said. I couldn’t stand her childish fantasies. Just because life was all roses for her didn’t mean it would be that way for everyone.

“Oh, but they will. I’m not saying they won’t have small differences. Everyone does, but they’ll be Foxworths and their children will continue the traditions.”

“We’re not royalty,” I said. “Neither you nor I are queens.” She looked at me a moment and then smiled as though she had to humor me. I couldn’t believe the audacity that came from such a simple mind. I was about to let her know how I felt about her smiling, when finally Garland and Malcolm emerged from their tête-à-tête and they came down to join us.

I could see from the expression on Malcolm’s face that their discussions had been intense, and I could also sense that he wanted to tell me something; so I gathered Mal and Joel together, saying that I had to take them up, and left the room. Malcolm followed me to the nursery, something he rarely did. He watched me put the children to sleep.

“What is it?” I asked finally.

“We discussed his will. He’s drawing up a new one, of course.”

“Of course. You expected he would.”

“I am to get the house and the business in the event of his death; however, Alicia and Christopher can live here as long as they want. Alicia is to get three million dollars in stocks from our various investments, and Christopher two million, held in trust. I will serve as administrator of their income, investing it as I see fit. He’s more dependent on me than I had thought.”

“All that should make you happy,” I said.

“My father recognizes my financial abilities, something you should also consider.”

I stared at him. “I’m not doing so badly with my own investments,” I said.

“You’re making a fraction of what you should.”

“Nevertheless, it is I who am making it.”

“Stubborn foolishness. Is that a Winfield trait?”

“I would have thought it a Foxworth trait. You continually tell me how foolish your father is, and who could be more entrenched in his own ideas than you?”

Malcolm’s face reddened, but he didn’t pivot and leave the room as I had expected he would.

“I wanted you to know these details,” he said, “because I want you to tell me if you sense or learn that my father has any intention of changing them. Alicia tells you everything, apparently. I’m sure she’ll be telling you about this. I suspect she’s not going to be all that happy with the arrangements and she’ll be using her charms to get him to give her more.”

“You want me to be your spy, spy on your father and his wife?”

“Don’t you?” he asked sharply.

My face whitened. He smiled, a cold, wry smile that left a layer of ice over my heart. He didn’t wait for my response.

“It’s in your own interest to do what I ask, and in the interest of the boys,” he said, and left the room without so much as a glance at the children. Never, since they were born, did Malcolm ever kiss the boys good night.

I looked down at them. They were both already asleep. How good it was that they were still too young to understand their father’s words. But what lay ahead for them when they were older and they would have to deal with what he wanted for them and demanded of them?

I sat there wishing they could remain babies forever.

• • •

Alicia wanted to move into the Swan Room and Garland decided they should. She had always been fascinated by the room and the furniture and often asked questions about it. I saw how nervous Malcolm became whenever she brought up the room in conversation, but I never thought she would want to move into the room that had belonged to Garland’s first wife. A second wife shouldn’t want to revive her husband’s memories of his first wife, but either she was incapable of understanding this, or she didn’t care.

In any case, one evening at dinner Garland announced that Alicia was moving their things into the Swan Room.

“And the small swan cradle is so perfect for Christopher,” she said.

Malcolm stopped eating.

“That room belonged to my mother,” he said as if no one knew.

“And it still does,” Garland said. “Your new mother,” he added, embracing Alicia.

“I hardly can think of someone so much younger than myself as my mother,” Malcolm snapped, but neither Garland nor Alicia seemed to care.

“I don’t want to change a single thing,” she said. “Everything has been kept so clean and polished anyway. It all looks brand new.”

“No one’s ever slept in that room since … since my mother deserted me!” Malcolm exclaimed.

“Well, it shouldn’t be kept like a museum,” Alicia said, and laughed. She didn’t mean it to be a cruel remark, I know; but it cut into Malcolm like a blade through the heart. He actually winced in pain.

“A museum. I like that. A museum,” Garland said. He joined her laughter.

Afterward, Malcolm ranted and raved about the disgusting way his father gave in to every whim and wish of Alicia’s.

“He’s spoiling her just the way he spoiled my mother,” he told me.

“How could you know?” I asked. “You were so young.”

“I was a precocious child; I saw, I knew. There wasn’t a dress she saw and wanted that she didn’t get. She had enough jewelry to open her own shop. He thought that by buying her endless things, he could keep her happy. I understood a great deal more than other children my age.”

“I believe that,” I said. “Your father is forever telling me how hard it was for your mother to handle you. You were too smart, he says. She couldn’t discipline you because you were always replaceing ways to get around her punishments or prohibitions. You knew she didn’t have the patience or tolerance for endless discussions. He thinks she ran away from you.”

“He says that?” He clenched his teeth. “It was he who couldn’t handle my mother. Do you think she would have run off with another man if he had been the firm, strong husband he should have been? Why, she even had her own personal funds,” he added, “so that she could afford to pick up and go wherever and whenever she wanted.” He stopped abruptly and left the room as if he had said too much.

Could this be why he wanted complete control of my funds as well as his own? I wondered. Did he harbor the same fears in relation to me, afraid that I might leave him and go and do what I wanted whenever I wanted … something that would be an embarrassment to him, but even more than that, something that would be a reminder of what his mother was and what his mother had done to his father?

It didn’t matter what he thought about my money, nor did it matter what he thought about what Alicia wished. The next day Alicia’s things were moved into the Swan Room and the doors were opened. Whenever Malcolm and I walked past it together, he would speed up as though he could be burned by the light spilling from the room into the hallway. He wouldn’t look into it. He would act as though it no longer existed. At least, that was what I thought, until one day he made a remark that left me wondering.

“It’s disgusting what goes on in that room now,” he said, and I understood that he either came upon the room when they were making love or he put his ear to the wall in the trophy room and listened in. Could he have done that? Would he have done that? Curiosity took me to the trophy room one day when he was at work and they were in the Swan Room.

Early in our marriage Malcolm had made it clear to me that the trophy room was to be his private sanctuary, a man’s room in every sense of the word. No matter when I walked past it or looked into it, it reeked of cigar smoke. By now the odor was embedded in the walls, I thought. In some ways it reminded me of my father’s study, but there were many differences. My father had one stuffed deer head with antlers given to him as a gift from a very satisfied customer. Malcolm’s and Garland’s trophy room was just that—a room filled with animal trophies.

There was a tiger head and an elephant head with its trunk uplifted. Garland’s father had killed them both on safari. Garland had shot a grizzly bear, an antelope, and a mountain lion on hunting trips in western America. Malcolm had just begun his own collection. Two years ago he killed a brown bear. Now he talked about going on an African safari, as soon as business permitted him to take that much time off. Garland kept telling him he could go, that he would watch after things while he was away; but Malcolm wouldn’t hear of it.

On the far wall there was a stone fireplace at least twenty feet long. There were windows on either side, draped with black velvet curtains. The mantel was covered with artifacts from various hunting expeditions. Against one wall was a dark brown leather couch and matching settee. Facing it were two rockers and one black leather chair with a small table beside it. Ashtrays were everywhere.

I closed the doors softly behind me and made my way to the wall on the left. On the other side of that wall Garland and Alicia lay in the swan bed. But when I put my ear to the wall, as I often did now in my own suite, I could barely hear their voices. This wall was too thick. Disappointed that my suspicions weren’t proving true, I turned away when I saw a picture of Garland when he was much younger, dressed in his safari outfit, one foot on the carcass of a tiger. The picture was tilted. I moved it, intending to straighten it, and I discovered the hole in the wall.

It wasn’t very large, but it had obviously been dug out neatly with some sharp instrument. I brought my eye to it and saw Garland and Alicia naked in the swan bed. I gasped and pulled myself back, looking about the trophy room, terrified that I would be discovered.

How long had this hole been here? Did Malcolm dig it out as soon as Alicia moved into the Swan Room? Or had this hole been here for years and years, perhaps dug out by a five-year-old boy?

I left the picture frame the way I had found it and slipped out of the trophy room, now feeling more like a burglar who had robbed the room of some great secret. I would never reveal to Malcolm what I had learned, I thought. I was sure he would deny knowledge of it, but what would be far worse would be my own embarrassment in letting him know that I knew he was more interested in his father’s and Alicia’s lovemaking than he was in our own.

Was he so taken with his father’s bride? Did spying on them titillate him the way it had titillated me? My questions were answered one hot summer day.

Alicia and I had finished feeding the children. It was one of those rare days when Garland went to the offices. Christopher was now a year and a half old. Joel was two and a half and Mal five. It was Malcolm’s decision that a tutor would be brought here to give both Mal and Joel their primary education. The classroom in the attic that had been Malcolm’s classroom and his ancestors before him would now be theirs. For this purpose he hired an elderly gentleman, Mr. Chillingworth, a retired Sunday-school teacher. Mal hated him and I found him quite cold and much too firm in his manner with a five-year-old, but Malcolm thought he was perfect.

“Discipline is what they will need during these early years. It’s when they will form their study habits for the rest of their lives. Simon Chillingworth is perfect for the task. He was my Sunday-school teacher,” he said.

Nevertheless, every time Mr. Chillingworth arrived to tutor Mal, Mal resisted, sometimes clinging to my skirt and begging me to keep him downstairs. But Malcolm was intractable. The only thing I could do to ease Mal’s fear was to permit Joel to go up with him, even though Joel was too young for lessons. Malcolm approved of Joel’s attendance because he thought the little boy would learn something just by being present.

Mr. Chillingworth arrived after lunch for his three and a half hours tutorial session and Mal and Joel went up with him. I felt sorry for them up there in the hot attic on this particularly warm summer day, and offered the north salon, the coolest one, to Mr. Chillingworth. But he wouldn’t hear of it.

“There’s a sufficient breeze from the dormer windows,” he claimed, “and I want the use of the black-boards and desks. The children must learn to cope with discomfort anyway. It makes us stronger Christians.”

I dressed the boys as lightly as I could and shook my head in pity. Alicia was practically in tears for them. She vowed to say something to Malcolm that night, but I forbade her.

“I don’t need you to speak for me,” I said. “And I’m not in total disagreement with Malcolm,” I added. It was a lie, but the idea of Alicia getting Malcolm to do something I had wanted him to do was infuriating.

“Very well,” she said, “but the poor boys.”

She took Christopher up for a nap and returned shortly after, still complaining about the heat and the stuffiness in the house. I retreated to the cool salon to do some reading, but she was too restless and too flushed to relax.

“Olivia,” she asked, “don’t you ever want to bathe in the lake?”

“Bathe in the lake? No. I don’t even have a bathing suit,” I said, and turned back to my book.

“We could go for a quick cool dip without suits,” she said.

“Without suits? Hardly,” I said, “and besides, I don’t have any inclinations to do so.”

“Oh. Too bad. Well,” she said, “I think I might just do it.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” I said. “It’s not something a lady should do,” I added.

“Fiddlesticks,” she said. “Garland and I have done it often.”

I know I blanched, for I had spied on them once when they had. She didn’t seem to notice my guilt. Instead, she left to get some towels and head for the lake.

As soon as I heard the front door close, I peered out the window to see her hurrying off toward the lake. Before she disappeared from view, however, Malcolm drove up. I was surprised to see him home so early, but I knew he wasn’t above checking on Mal’s tutorial. I saw him looking at the disappearing Alicia.

Then, to my surprise, instead of coming directly into the house, he followed in her direction. The hot summer breeze fluttered the lace curtains; insects trying to escape the direct sunlight beat their frail bodies against the screens. For a moment I was unable to move.

Then I rushed out of the salon and out the front door. I moved quickly but stealthily, the way I had when I wanted to spy on Alicia and Garland. What was Malcolm intending to do? Why had he followed her? Before I reached the lake, I heard her voice and crouched down behind a large bush to peek out at them.

Alicia was already undressed and in the water. Malcolm stood on the bank, his jacket and shirt off.

“Don’t come any closer,” she warned, crossing her arms over her breasts and keeping herself down in the water. “Just go on back to the house, Malcolm.”

He laughed.

“Perhaps I should take your clothes back with me,” he said, teasing her with a movement toward her garments.

“Don’t you dare touch anything! Go away!”

“Come now, Alicia, surely you don’t enjoy being alone here.”

“I’m only here for a short dip to cool off. Garland will be home any moment.”

“No, he’s doing business in Charlottesville. Actually, he won’t be home for quite a while.”

“Get away,” she repeated, but he didn’t move.

“I’d like to cool off, too, and it’s more fun to have company.”

“Go and get your own wife then, and stop pursuing me.”

“But you can’t possibly be satisfied with that old man.”

“Garland is not an old man,” she protested. “In many ways he’s twenty years younger than you are. He knows how to laugh and enjoy himself. You know nothing about anything but making money. Why, you don’t even treat your own wife properly,” she said.

Malcolm stared down at her, but he didn’t continue to undress. Her words had bitten him.

“You’re just a child,” he said slowly, his anger building. “You married my father because he’s rich, and you expect him to die any day, leaving you a fortune—but it won’t happen that way. I promise you.”

“Get away from here,” she insisted.

“I don’t think that’s what you really want,” he said, his voice softening. He dropped his trousers and she moved farther back.

“Go away!”

“I told you; I’m hot too.”

He slipped off his shorts. Now, naked, he started into the water toward her.

“You don’t want to scream,” he said. “We don’t want the servants here. Garland might not understand.”

“You devil,” she said. She swam to the right and he went after her.

“You are so beautiful, Alicia,” he said. “So very beautiful. You should have been my wife, not his.”

She didn’t wait for him to reach her. She kicked up and swam toward the shore. He started in pursuit, but when she reached the shore, she turned on him.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed. Her loudness froze him in the water. “Leave me alone from now on, Malcolm, or you will force me to tell Garland how you keep trying to seduce me.”

What was she saying? This wasn’t the first time he had tried something like this?

“I’ve protected him from knowing what you try to do, just to give this family some peace—but no longer! I hate and despise you, Malcolm Foxworth. You’re not half the man your father is, not half!” she yelled. She emerged from the lake and scooped up her clothing and her towel, wrapping it about her quickly, and then headed for the bushes, fortunately not close to me.

I watched Malcolm. He stared after her a moment and then he started out.

“My mother didn’t believe that,” he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. “She ran off easily enough with some man not worth a cent.”

He went to his clothing instead of pursuing her. She was nearly dressed and on her way back to the house anyway. I crouched lower in the bushes. I was disconsolate, so alone and betrayed, over and over. Slowly, slowly, I sank to the ground and began to cry silently. Where was security, truth, and honesty? Malcolm used me to fit his purposes and pursued me for my money, money he still hoped to control. There wasn’t the slightest bit of love between us.

After he dressed, he began to make his cautious way back to the house, ever careful of his expensive clothes amongst the briars. He talked to himself as he went by me.

“She’ll pay for this day of insult, and pay dearly,” he mumbled. “The damned little conniving slut can’t possibly love an old man like my father. She’s playing her game. From now on, I’ll play mine more subtly.”

From that day on, whenever Garland was out of sight, Malcolm treated Alicia with disgust, disdain, and rudeness that bordered on cruelty. At times I was moved to take her defense, to confront him with the scene I had witnessed at the lake, but I never did.

Despite the way she had rejected Malcolm, I was angry at her for being so beautiful and tempting. I let the fire burn between them—Malcolm’s fire of passion and anger, a fire that burned and singed her.

Garland was either blinded with love or too skeptical of anything Alicia told him about Malcolm, for as far as I knew, he never confronted Malcolm. Something was happening to him anyway, I thought, as time went by. He and Alicia were still passionate and loving with each other, but Garland seemed to be aging quickly. I noticed him taking longer naps by himself. His usually voracious appetite diminished. During their second winter at Foxworth Hall, he had a long, disabling cold that nearly became pneumonia.

Throughout it all, Alicia continually turned to me for guidance. I knew she was trying to reach out, to get me to help her, especially with her relationship to Malcolm; but I remained distant, cold, and disinterested. What I wanted to happen was beginning to happen. The cheeriness went out of her voice. She wasn’t as bubbly and energetic. She stopped going out with her young girlfriends and spent more time alone, waiting for Garland to come home or to wake from a long nap, avoiding Malcolm in any way she could. She kept herself busy with Christopher, who was now nearly two and a half. In fact, she spent a good deal of time with the children. She was the one who started Mal on the piano, much to Malcolm’s displeasure. Both Joel and Mal showed a natural talent for music, but Malcolm had the idea that musicians were weak, effeminate men who made little money.

I began to think that it was her way of getting back at him—teaching the boys something about music. I let that go on because the boys enjoyed it so much and because it annoyed Malcolm so much.

For a time I was like someone in the audience observing the unhappiness, taking pleasure in some of it, even though it did little to relieve my own sorrows.

I did not understand that my selfish pleasure permitted something else to grow. Without realizing it, I had opened Foxworth Hall to more demons of the heart and of the mind. They took their places in the shadows and waited for their opportunity to act.

It wouldn’t be long before the opportunity came and the demons would bring with them more misery than I had ever imagined could live in the cold, empty rooms of Foxworth Hall.