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Luke. How I missed him, needed his comfort. I hadn't heard from him for days now, because of what had happened in the hospital. But surely I would hear from him soon. I turned to look at that night table.
No phone!
There's no phone. How could he call? A flush of heat and panic swept up through my chest.
"Mrs. Broadfield!" I called. "Mrs. Broadfield!" Had she gone away, thinking I would fall asleep? "Mrs. Broadfield!"
I heard the scurrying footsteps, and a moment later she appeared.
"What's wrong?" She flicked on the lights.
"Mrs. Broadfield, there is no telephone in this room."
"My God, was that why you screamed like that?" She put her palm against her chest.
"Please, haveTony come up here."
"Now, Annie, I told you to take a nap, and you said--"
"I won't take a nap until I see Tony," I insisted, and folded my arms under my bosom the way Aunt Fanny often did when she insisted on having things her own way. I could be just as stubborn and determined to have my own way.
"If you insist on acting like this, you'll prolong your recuperation for months. Maybe you'll never recupenn ate,,"
"I don't care. I want Tony."
"Very well." She spun on her heels and left the room. Very shortly afterward I heard Tony coming, so I worked myself up into a sitting position.
"What's wrong, Annie?" he asked, his eyes full of alarm.
"Tony, there is no telephone in this room. I can't call anyone and no one can call me. It was all well and good at the hospital. I understood because I had had a bad time, but I'm going to be here for a while; I must have my own phone."
Tony's face and shoulders relaxed. He glanced quickly at Mrs. Broadfield, who stood beside him in a stiff posture of annoyance.
"Oh, of course you will. In time. I spoke to the doctor about that just before we brought you out here. He requested that we keep you quiet for a while longer and then ease you back into things. In fact, he'll be here himself day after tomorrow to give us an evaluation of your recuperation and let us know just how to proceed."
"But surely talking to someone like Luke or Drake or some of my old friends--"
"Drake will visit you today, and if Luke wants to come later on, he may. I'm following the doctor's orders, Annie. If I didn't and something else happened to you, I would feel entirely to blame."
I stared at him. He had his hands out, almost as though he were pleading for me to do what was good for myself. I felt ashamed and shifted my eyes toward the windows.
"I'm sorry. I just . . . I'm in a strange place and--" "Oh please, don't think of this as a strange place. This is your ancestral home, too."
"My ancestral home?"
"Your great-grandmother lived here, your grandmother lived here, and your mother lived here. Very soon you'll feel right at home. I promise."
"I'm sorry," I said again, and dropped my head back to the pillow. "I'll take my nap now. You can turn out the lights."
He came to the side of my bed and fixed the blanket. "Sleep well."
After he left I looked toward the doorway and saw Mrs. Broadfield silhouetted in the light from the hallway. She looked like a sentinel standing guard. I imagined she was waiting to be sure I was going to do what I had been told.
I was tired and defeated and lost, so I closed my eyes and thought about my mother and the first time she had closed her eyes and put her head down on her pillow on this bed. Did she wonder about her own mother in this room and her life at Farthy? Were there just as many mysteries about her mother's past as I felt there were about mine? It was as if I had inherited*my grandmother's and Mommy's fears.
Surely, my grandmother Leigh must have felt strange and alone when she had first been brought to Farthy by her mother, my great-grandmother Jillian. Everything might have been newer and fresher in Farthy, the colors brighter, the rugs and curtains clean and new, the halls shiny and the windows clear. There were many servants about, gardeners, housekeepers, but still, from what I understood, Leigh had been uprooted, taken from her father to live a new life here at Farthinggale with a step-father, Tony Tatterton. She had gone to sleep listening to the same sea breeze push a
t the windows and thread through the shutters.
