Gates of Paradise (Casteel 4)

"Tony? Anyone here?"

Whose suite was this? I wondered. It didn't look like it would be Tony's. There was something feminine about it. Then I caught the strong scent of jasmine. My curiosity was like a magnet, much stronger than caution, pulling me along, drawing me forward to the second entryway, the doorway of the bedroom.

I wheeled myself into it and stopped. On the chair before the white marble vanity table was draped an ivory float trimmed with peach lace. The table itself was crowded with powders and skin creams, lotions and bottle after bottle of perfume. What drew my attention quickly, however, was the blank oval of bare wall. The glass in the mirror that had once hung over this vanity table had been removed. Why?

When I turned to the left, I saw that the same was true for the wall mirror and the mirror that had been on the closets. Both were only frames. Steeped in curiosity now, I wheeled farther in and saw the red satin shoes beside the king-size canopy bed, a bed almost the duplicate of mine. Over the bed had been laid a cherry-red crinoline party dress with puffed sleeves and a frilly collar. The quilt was turned down on the bed the way it would be had someone just gotten out of it.

Farther to the right I saw that the dresser drawers had been left open. It looked as though someone had come into the room and rifled through those drawers, searching madly for some precious hidden valuable. Undergarments and stockings dangled over the sides.

On top of the dressers and tables jewelry boxes lay open. I saw glittering necklaces, bejeweled earrings, diamond and emerald bracelets scattered everywhere randomly. I felt I was definitely intruding on someone and began to back myself out. Suddenly I had backed myself into a wall. But when I turned around, I looked into the hot eyes of Mrs. Broadfield.

Her face was blazing red. She looked as if she had been running at full speed. Her usually perfectly brushed-back hair had rebellious strands popping up like ruptured piano wires. Because I was seated so low and looking up at her, her nostrils seemed larger, bull-like. Her bosom heaved with her heavy breathing, rising and falling against her tight, aseptically white nurse's uniform. The buttons looked as if they would pop and she would explode right before my eyes. I actually began to wheel myself away, but she reached down and seized the arm of the chair, preventing any more movement.

"What do you think you are doing?" she demanded in a harsh, threatening voice.

"Doing?"

"I came into your room and discovered you weren't in your bed, the wheelchair gone." She took a deep breath and pressed her hand against her lower throat. "I called for you, knew you weren't downstairs, and then began searching the corridor, never expecting you had gone down this way. I couldn't imagine . . . I thought for sure something had happened to you in one of the rooms."

"I'm fine."

"You don't belong down here," she said, getting behind my chair and wheeling me out quickly. "Mr. Tatterton specifically asked that no one come down here. He's going to blame it on me, think that I brought you," she said, coming out of the suite and looking carefully up and down the corridor before preceding any farther.

I thought she was being ridiculous, sneaking me back to my suite like this. "Tony surely wouldn't mind my coming down this side of the corridor," I exclaimed, but she didn't slow down. It was obvious she was petrified sh

e would lose her position.

"If he finds out, I'll tell him it was all my doing, Mrs. Broadfield."

"That won't matter. I'm responsible for you. I step out just for a few moments to take a short walk and get some fresh air and look what happens. You wake up, drag yourself into the wheelchair, and go wandering off through the house."

"But why would Tony mind?"

"Maybe there are sections of this house that are no longer safe . . . weak floorboards or something. How would I know? He told me what he wanted. It was simple enough. Who would have thought you would do this? Oh dear." She turned into my suite quickly.

"I'll ask him when he comes in."

"Don't you dare mention it. Maybe he won't find out and it won't matter."

She stopped at my bed and stepped back, looking at me and shaking her head.

"There's someone else living here, isn't there? Who is it?"

"Someone else?"

"Beside Tony and the servants, you and me. That room's being used."

"There's no one I've seen. See, you're starting to imagine things, make up stories. Mr. Tatterton will be furious. Don't say any more about this," she warned, her eyes narrow and cold. "If I get in trouble because of this . . . both of us will suffer," she added, the tone of threat quite clear. "I'm not losing this job because a crippled girl violates rules."

Crippled girl! No one had ever put the label on me. Rage filled me until it spilled out my eyes in tears. The way she had pronounced "crippled," she had made it sound less than human.

I was not a crippled girl!

"I called for you," I asserted. "I was hungry, but there was no one here. Even after I got into the wheelchair, I called."

"I just took a short break. I was coming right back. If only you would be a little more patient."

"Patient!" I exclaimed. This time when my eyes met hers, I didn't shift them away. My rebellion rose like a giant fire. I glued my gaze to hers, the rage pouring out. She stepped back as if slapped. Her face became horribly animated, her mouth working as if to find the right shape to phrase words, her eyes growing large and then small. The veins in her temple became prominent in the light, the outline of their weblike shape pressing up against her thin, scaly skin. She took a few steps toward me.