Garden of Shadows
: Part 1 – Chapter 4

I WEPT ALONE IN BED THAT NIGHT. FOR EVEN THOUGH I thought I knew what Malcolm wanted, everything grew confused in my mind. His mother had left him when he was five years old. She had not died and she was more alive than ever in his mind. The shadows of the night ridiculed me. So you wanted to know, they whispered, now you know. My true education about my husband had begun. It was not my softness that Malcolm had wanted me for; it was my hardness. It was not that mysterious, graceful, womanly magic he had longed for, but a solid, trustworthy woman like myself. I would never be one of those thrilling spring flowers for Malcolm. No, I would be like a hardy lily that survived the frost, the tallest flower in the garden, sturdy, proud, and defiant of even the coldest winter wind. That is what Malcolm had seen in me. That is what I would be. With this determination I consoled myself and drifted off to a troubled sleep.

The next morning I awoke early and descended the staircase slowly. The beating of my heart made me so dizzy I had to take hold of the balustrade and pause. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and continued into the dining room. Malcolm was at the end of the table, eating his breakfast, as if nothing had happened between us.

“Good morning, Olivia,” he said coldly. “A place for you has already been set.”

All my fears had materialized. My place was at the opposite end of the long table. I tried to catch his eye as I sat down; I tried to read what he was feeling. But I couldn’t penetrate his façade. All I could hope for was that Malcolm had lost himself in his mother’s room yesterday, and that he, like I, was hoping it was something we could quickly consign to the past and go about building our future together—a future I knew would be practical and filled with material wealth, a future that would contain none of the frivolousness that had so perplexed me and had so hurt Malcolm.

I pressed my lips together and sat down.

“Olivia,” Malcolm said, and I heard kindness in his voice. “It’s time to celebrate our wedding. Tomorrow night will be our wedding party. Mrs. Steiner has made all the preparations and I have invited anyone who is anyone in the vicinity. I shall do you proud, my wife, as I expect you to flatter my own appearance.”

I was thrilled. Obviously he, too, had decided to put yesterday’s events behind us and start our wedding afresh with a celebration. “Oh, Malcolm, can I help?”

“That won’t be necessary, Olivia. It’s already all set for tomorrow night, and as I said, Mrs. Steiner has taken care of everything. My family has always been known for hosting the finest, most extravagant parties, and this time I intend to outdo myself. For as you know, Olivia, I have big plans, and of course you are part of them. Soon I will be the richest man in the county, then the richest man in the state, then, perhaps, the richest man in the entire United States. My parties always reflect my status in society.”

I could barely eat. I wanted to make the best possible impression on Malcolm’s friends and colleagues, but all I could think about was that I had nothing beautiful enough to wear. As Mrs. Steiner poured my coffee, I kept seeing my wardrobe floating before my eyes—the hanging gray dresses, the high button collars, the practical blouses. The moment my plate was whisked away, I ran to my room and hurriedly rummaged through my closet, so neatly hung by the servants the day before. I came upon the blue dress I had worn that night I had first met Malcolm. If it had impressed him then, surely it would impress everyone else now. I felt satisfied that the dress would reflect everything Malcolm wanted in a wife, a woman who was proud, conservative, well-bred, and, most of all, the match of Malcolm Foxworth.

• • •

That afternoon the house was abustle with party preparations. Since Malcolm had made it clear that my help was not necessary, I felt I should stay out of the way. It was sweet, actually, since the party was in my honor, that he insisted I have the day to myself. I hesitated to continue my explorations of Foxworth Hall, fearful now of what I might replace lurking in the shadows. But I had already begun, and was it not better to know the whole truth than only part? Now I was determined more than ever to learn about the people who had lived here. As I walked down the hall of the northern wing, I counted fourteen rooms. Malcolm had told me that these were his father’s rooms. These hallways were even darker, colder than the rest of the house. Finally I came to a door that was slightly ajar. I checked to make sure that no one was watching me and opened it to a good-sized bedroom, although to me it appeared cluttered with furniture. So far away from the main life of the house, it seemed to be a room for hiding people; for unlike the other rooms in the north wing, with the exception of his father’s room, this one had its own adjoining bath. I could just imagine Malcolm condemning one of his more unpopular cousins to these quarters.

The furniture consisted of two double beds, a highboy, a large dresser, two overstuffed chairs, a dressing table with its own small chair between the two front windows that were covered with heavy, tapestried drapes, a mahogany table with four chairs, and another smaller table with a lamp. I was surprised that beneath all the ponderous dark furniture was a bright Oriental rug with gold fringes.

Had this room indeed served as some sort of hideaway, perhaps an escape for Corinne? It was most intriguing. I went farther into it and discovered another, smaller door at the far end of the closet. I opened it and broke the intricate cobwebs that spiders had spun undisturbed for some time. After the dust settled before me, I confronted a small stairway and realized that it must lead up to the attic.

I hesitated. Attics like this one had more than a sense of history to them. They had mystery. Faces in portraits were easy to read. No one cared if you saw some resemblances, and when I asked about the ancestors, only the facts, details, and tales Malcolm wished to tell me would be told.

Truly though, in an attic hidden behind a small door in a closet, there had to be buried family secrets better kept undiscovered. Did I want to continue? I listened to the house for a moment. From this position it was impossible to hear anyone or anything going on below.

The moment I took my first forward step and broke the wisp of cobweb drawn across the stairway by some guardian spider, I felt it was too late to turn back. A spell of silence had been broken. I was going up.

Never had I seen or imagined an attic as big as this one. Through the cloud of dusty particles that danced in the light coming through the four sets of dormer windows stretched across the front, I gazed down at the farthest walls. They were so distant, they seemed hazy, out of focus. The air was murky; it had the stale odor of things untouched for years, already in the early stages of decay.

The wide wooden planks of the floor creaked softly beneath my feet as I ventured forward slowly, each step tentative and careful. Some of the planks looked damp and possibly weakened to the point where they might split beneath my weight.

I heard some scampering to my right and caught sight of some field mice that had found their way into what must have been to them the heavens.

As I looked about, I realized there was enough stored in this attic to furnish a number of houses. The furniture was dark, massive, brooding. Those chairs and tables that were uncovered looked angry, betrayed. I could almost hear them ask, “Why leave us up here unused? Surely there is someplace for us below, if not in this house, then in another.” Why had Malcolm and his father kept all this? Were they both hoarders? Were these pieces to be valuable antiques someday?

Everything of value had been draped with sheets on which dust had accumulated to turn the white cloth dingy gray. The shapes beneath the sheets looked like sleeping ghosts. I was afraid to touch one or nudge one for fear it would awaken and float right to the ceiling of the attic. I even stopped to listen, thinking I had heard whispering behind me, but when I turned around, there was nothing, no movement, no sound.

For a moment I wished there were voices, for they would be the voices of Malcolm’s past and what they would say would prove most revealing. All of the secrets of Foxworth Hall had found sanctuary here. I was sure of it, and it was that certainty that moved me forward to look at the rows of leather-bound trunks with heavy brass locks and corners. They lined one entire wall and some still bore the labels from travel to faraway places. Perhaps one or two of these trunks had been used to carry Corinne’s and Malcolm’s father Garland’s clothing when they went off on their honeymoon.

Against the farthest wall giant armoires stood in a silent row. They looked like sentinels. I opened the drawers of one of them and found both Union and Confederate uniforms. Because of the geographical position of this part of Virginia, it made sense to me that some of the Foxworth family would go their separate ways and even end up in battle against one another. I imagined Foxworth sons as stubborn and determined as Malcolm, hotheaded and angry, shouting oaths at one another as some joined the northern cause, some the southern. Surely those who saw the value and importance of industrialization and business went north. Malcolm would have gone north.

I put the uniforms back and looked at some old clothing like my mother used to wear. Here was a frilly chemise to be worn over pantaloons, with dozens of fancy petticoats over the wire hoops, all bedecked in ruffles, lace, embroidery, with flowing ribbons of velvet and satin. How could something so beautiful be hidden away and forgotten?

I put the garment back and moved across the floor to look at some of the old books left in stacks. There were dark ledgers with yellowing pages, the ends of which crumbled when I opened the covers. Beside them were dress forms, all shapes and sizes, and birdcages and stands to hold them. How wonderful! I thought. I should bring these cages back downstairs and bring back the music of birds. Surely that would enliven Foxworth Hall. I slapped my hands together to rid them of the dust and started back toward the stairway, when a picture left atop a dresser caught my eye.

I went to it and looked down at a pretty woman, perhaps no more than eighteen or nineteen. She wore a faint, enigmatic smile. She was ravishingly beautiful. Her bosom swelled out suggestively from a ruffled bodice. I was mesmerized by her smile, a smile that seemed to promise more and more right before my eyes. Suddenly it occurred to me who this was. I was looking at Malcolm’s mother! This was Corinne Foxworth! There were clear resemblances in the eyes and in the mouth.

Could Malcolm have brought her picture up here to hide away with the rest of his past? But there was something even more unusual about this picture: it sparkled unlike anything else in the room. Everything else I had touched had a film of dust over it. Everything else left smudges on my fingers. This picture was clean, clear, freshly dusted and polished. It was just like her room. It seemed that everything that was Corinne’s was kept spotless, shining, and cherished. Who in this house was preserving Corinne Foxworth so lovingly? It couldn’t be Malcolm’s father—he was in Europe. The servants? Or … was it Malcolm?

How many other things up here had once belonged to Malcolm’s mother? I wondered. Surely they tormented him. He must have put them up here to keep them from his view and from stirring up his childhood memories, and yet, just like the swan room, drew him back.

I had come up here hoping to discover answers and had found more puzzles and more mystery. I put the picture down carefully and started toward the front stairway, when I discovered another, separate room to the attic, right off a second stairway. It looked like a school classroom because it had five desks facing a large desk up front. Blackboards lined three walls over low bookcases filled with faded and dusty old volumes.

I went to the desk and saw where names and dates were etched: Jonathan, age eleven, 1864 and Adelaide, age nine, 1879. There were two coal or wood stoves in the corners. It wasn’t just a playroom; it had been a real classroom and could easily be restructured into one now. Was it traditional for the Foxworth children to receive their early education?

Wealthy, special, provided with a tutor, the Foxworth children were schooled in the attic of Foxworth Hall, far enough away from the adults so as not to be any bother. Why, they could even play up here on rainy days, I thought, noticing the small rocking horse. How many hours of his childhood had Malcolm spent up here?

I went over to one of the dormer windows and looked out at what would have been his view, but all I saw was a slate black roof fanning wide beneath the windows, blocking the view of the ground below. Beyond the roofs were treetops; beyond the treetops, enclosing mountains were shrouded by blue mists. It was not the kind of view that would distract children.

In a way, I thought, looking back down the vast attic, they were imprisoned here. I shuddered, remembering my mother shutting me in a closet because I had tracked in mud all over her bedroom carpet. Although the door wasn’t locked, I was forbidden to open it. I was told if I did, I would be kept in longer, so although I was terrified of the terrible darkness and the small space around me, I sobbed silently and kept my fingers from the closet door.

The revived memory lingered like molasses on my fingers. I couldn’t shake it off while I remained in the attic, so I hurried to the front stairway, which I noticed was far clearer than the rear stairway. There were no cobwebs here. I descended the steps and left the long, dark, and dusty room behind me, its secrets and its mysteries still intact.

I had barely scratched the surface of who the Foxworths really were and here I was, now one of them.

• • •

That evening, when Malcolm asked how I had spent my day, I didn’t dare tell him about replaceing his mother’s picture in the attic, but I did tell him I had found the room at the end of the north wing.

“There were some cousins who were an embarrassment to the Foxworths many years ago,” he said, “and they were cloistered there for a time.”

“It looked like a place for someone to hide from the world,” I said. He grunted, not keen to tell me more about the cousins or why they were kept living there. When I told him I had wandered up to the attic and found the birdcages, which I wished to bring down, he became rather annoyed.

“My mother had them all over this place,” he said. “At times it sounded like an aviary. Leave them where they are. Think of more dignified things to do when you re-decorate the house.”

I was not about to argue any matter that concerned Malcolm’s mother. We talked a bit about Charlottesville and he described his offices and why he was so busy. He blamed it on a number of slipshod practices and poor decisions his father had made just before beginning his travels and going into semi-retirement. But then he returned to a happier note.

“I made a rather good move in the stock market today. I bought one thousand shares at twenty-four and by late afternoon it was up to fifty. A brilliant move, if I do say so myself. Do you know much about the stock market, Olivia?”

“No, not really,” I said. “I kept track of my father’s investments, of course, but I couldn’t advise him as to where to place his funds and where not to.”

“Precisely why you ought to reconsider what you do with your own fortune, Olivia. In my hands it could be developed, increased, grow the way it is meant to grow.”

“Must we talk about that tonight, Malcolm? There’s so much for me to get used to.”

His eyes clouded over, and he picked up his water and drank the entire glass down. “Of course, dear. As a matter of fact, I have to be going now anyway. I have some business to attend to. But I shan’t be late. I’ll return just after you retire for the day,” he said. Then, to be sure his meaning was clear, he added, “Olivia, don’t bother to wait up for me.”