Gates of Paradise (Casteel 4)

I expect you and I shall never set eyes upon each other again or touch each other the way we touched each other last night. But the memory of you is so engraved in my heart that I take you with me no matter where I go.

Forever and ever, Troy

.

I sat back, dazed.

"Momma, did you know what you were bequeathing me when you gave me this cottage, the symbol of your love?" I whispered.

The unfairness, the sadness, the tragedy of it all struck me like a cold gust of wind. How horribly history had repeated itself. Something I had sensed in my heart, but hadn't quite put into words in my thoughts, had been true: Mommy and Troy Tatterton had been lovers, but their love was just as Troy had written at the top of the letter--forbidden. It was as forbidden a love as the love between Luke and myself, for Troy was Tony's brother, my mother's uncle. A blood relationship had made their love for one another foul, just as our blood relationship had made my love for Luke and his love for me foul.

So my mother always knew that Troy was still alive, but she could never speak to him, or write to him, or go to him again. Now I understood why Troy Tatterton had looked at me the way he had when he had first set eyes on me. I had surely roused his memories, especially with my hair colored the way Mommy's hair had been.

Much of what was written in the letter made sense to me, since I had been at Farthy. I understood the references to Jillian's madness, the idea of spirits wandering the big house, Tony's torment and the reason Troy had made himself invisible to the world around him. But what I didn't understand or know until this moment, of course, was Mommy's agony, for it seemed from the way Troy wrote, that she had loved him as much as he had loved her.

How well she would have understood what was happening between Luke and myself now, I thought; and now I understood why she was so concerned about the time he and I spent with one another. She anticipated all this because it had happened to her.

"Oh, Mommy," I whispered, "how I wish you and I could have just one more conversation. How much I need your counsel and wisdom. I would easily see that you had lived through this kind of pain and I would be guided by your words."

Until the first tear splattered on the letter, I did not realize I had been crying. Much of what Troy had written here to Mommy, Luke could have written to me. In fact, as I had read the words, I had heard Luke's voice.

I refolded the letter and lifted the roof from the cottage once again to return it to its special hiding place where it had been kept all these years. It belonged with the cottage; it was part of it. The music tore at my heart much the same way it must have torn at Mommy's whenever she sat alone and listened, for while it played, she surely saw Troy's face and heard his words of farewell, time after time after time.

Perhaps this had much to do with why she never wanted to return to Farthy. It wasn't only her anger at Tony. The memories of lost love were too painful. And all those times Luke and I talked about the maze and fantasized about Farthy . . . the pain we were inflicting on her without realizing it. Oh, Mother, I thought, forgive us. Our little fictions must have sent you back to this little toy cottage to mourn the love you had buried forever.

Just then Mrs. Avery knocked on my door. I called to her to come in. She looked unusually flustered and excited.

"There's a gentleman on the phone who says he's calling from Farthinggale Manor. He says it's very important."

Would I ever be free of Tony Tatterton and his mad hallucinations and confusions? Bubbles of anger began to boil in me. "Well, you'll have to tell Tony Tatterton--"

"No, Annie, it's not Mr. Tony Tatterton. He says it's about Mr. Tony Tatterton. He says he thought you ought to know."

"Know? Know what?" My heart stopped and then began to pitter-patter.

"He didn't say, Annie. He asked to speak directly to you and I came looking for you."

"Oh. Tell him I'm coming." I took a deep breath and drove back the cold shiver that had started to climb my spine.

I followed Mrs. Avery as quickly as I could. Now that was up and about, I was frustrated by my slow and awkward gait.

Mrs. Avery handed me the telephone receiver and I sat down to speak.

"Hello," I said in a tiny frightened voice. I thought the pounding of my heart could be heard over the phone; it was that loud to me.

"Annie," he said. I had no trouble recognizing the voice, just as imagined Mommy would have had no trouble had she heard it after years and years. "I thought you would want to know and might want to come to the funeral."

"Funeral?" My heart paused and I held my breath. "Tony passed away a few hours ago. I was at his bedside."

"Passed away?" Suddenly I felt sorry for him, pining away at Farthy, thinking the woman he loved had left him again. Through me he had relived his own tragedy. I had unwillingly been an actress in a play cast years and years ago. Like some understudy, I had stepped into a role Mommy had been forced to play, too. Now, finally, mercifully perhaps, the curtain had been brought down, the lights had been turned off, the players had all left the stage. For Tony Tatterton, the agony had come to an end.

But Troy's voice was filled with sincere sorrow, not relief. He had lost a brother who had once been more of a father to him.

"Oh, Troy. I'm sorry. I didn't think he was physically unwell. You were with him?"

"I had just made up my mind to make myself more visible and give him some comfort at a time in his life when he desperately needed someone to care for him, for what I had told you was true--he did care for me whenever I was sick. And," he added, his voice cracking, "he did love me very much. Ultimately, we had no one but each other."

My throat closed up and I couldn't swallow for a moment. I felt my eyes fill with tears. It was not difficult for me to imagine Troy at Tony's bedside, Tony's hand in his, Troy's head bowed, his shoulders shaking with sobs when the life left his older brother.