“And he’ll never be back, Sylvia. I guarantee that.”
“Oh,” she said. She looked stunned, worried, and then she smiled. “My lessons are over. That’s all right, Audrina. I know what to do.”
“Good. That’s the way to think of it. I’ll try to think of it that way, too.”
We went into the kitchen. I was still clinging to the folded sheet on which Arthur Price had drawn my sister half-nude. I couldn’t help glancing at it every once in a while, and that made the shock of the scene in the cupola return. Finally, I put it in a drawer by the refrigerator where we had other important household papers. Then I tried to talk about other things. We had our tea and biscuits in the kitchen. Suddenly, the idea of sitting in the living room to enjoy it had turned sour. Sylvia didn’t care. I kept talking—babbling, really—and then I started to plan dinner, and she quickly forgot about what had happened. I doubted that I ever would.
A little more than half an hour later, Arden came home. He looked at both of us to see if we were all right, and then he told me to follow him to Papa’s office, which was now his. I left Sylvia mixing batter for a vanilla cake.
“What did you do?” I asked as soon as he closed the door.
“Where’s the picture he drew?”
“In the drawer by the refrigerator.”
“Get it,” he said, and dropped himself into Papa’s desk chair. His face was flushed with rage. I hurried out and returned with the drawing.
He studied it a moment and nodded. “This is good. I mean, it’s important that we have it.” He took a breath, sat back, and said, “I confronted him at his home.”
“You did?”
“Yes. He tried to keep his wife out of the discussion by taking me to his home studio, but I think she was just outside the door listening. He swore up and down that he didn’t mean any harm to Sylvia and that he did not sexually abuse her. I told him I didn’t care. That if he came within a thousand yards of Whitefern, I’d press charges. To me, it was the same as abusing one of his students in school. He got the point quickly. He promised he wouldn’t come anywhere near us, nor would he say a word. He offered to give back all the money he took. I accepted it.” He showed me a check he had in his inside jacket pocket.
“I don’t want his money,” I said. “The money isn’t the important thing, Arden.”
“Of course it’s important. Money is always important. Consider this to be the fine levied against him, only we didn’t have to go to court to sue him and attract all sorts of prurient public interest, get Sylvia—and us—in the newspapers. Can you even imagine what it would do to our business image?”
“I’m not worried about our image. I’m worried about Sylvia.”
“The two things go hand in hand,” he insisted. He looked at the drawing again and then put it in his desk drawer, the one that could be locked. “We’ll hold this as our insurance. Have you had a talk with Sylvia? Does she realize what’s happened now?”
“A little,” I said. “She’s not upset with herself or him, however. She’s upset that I’m upset. It’s probably better if we don’t talk about it anymore.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Over and done with. She’ll be all right.” He put the check back into his jacket pocket.
“I’m upset with myself for letting it happen.”
“I’m sure you could never have imagined this happening. I did, but that’s because I’m a man, and I can understand how the male mind and lust work. If anyone taught me that well, it was your father. So I’m not blaming you. Let’s go about our lives with this stuffed away in the cellar of horrors Whitefern has accumulated.” He looked at his watch. “I have some calls to make because I left the office in a rush. Fortunately, Mrs. Crown did a good job of covering it up.”
“Does she know why you left?”
“Not really,” he said.
I wasn’t sure what “really” meant, but I was mentally and emotionally exhausted and didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “I’ll get back to making dinner,” I said. “Although my stomach is in so many knots I don’t think I can eat a thing.”
“You’d better. Don’t get Sylvia upset,” he warned. “I know her. She’ll be the one who gets sick over it.”
Suddenly, he was thinking more about her welfare than I was. That made me feel even more guilty. Arden was truly more mature and sensible than I was, I thought. He should be totally in charge of our business and our lives. Look at what a mess I had made of one simple thing.
I nodded and left, telling myself I had to put on as good an act as I could for Sylvia. She asked no questions and went about our dinner preparations as if it was just another day. I wond
ered how well her memory did work. I knew from the way she had usually acted toward Vera the day after Vera had abused her that bad memories didn’t cling to her the way they did to me—or anyone else, for that matter.
But several days after the incident with Mr. Price, she looked up at me while we were having lunch and said, “Something bad happened in the cupola.”
“Yes, Sylvia, something bad happened.”
She thought for a moment and then looked at me and said, “I liked it, Audrina.”