Carolina Mist

by Mariah Stewart

  Leila’s brothers and sisters were, in Leila’s books, ever youthful, ever strong. There was William, the oldest, who, like his father, had become a rancher. And Jonathan, who had gone back east to claim a place in his grandfather’s family bank. Then the sisters, Sarah and Eliza, so much alike they were called the twins, though they were a little more than a year apart in age, who were followed by Avery, the family wanderer. Lastly, Leila herself. Somewhere in the recitation of Sarah’s children had appeared Abby’s own mother, Charlotte, who had defied family tradition by marrying late in life and producing but one child.

  Abby sat on the very edge of the sofa, the fabric, roughened with the passing years, scratching at the backs of her legs. The sensation conjured up the memories of a hundred times when she had sat on that very spot and leaned closer to the old woman who held the photos under the dim lamps to cast the best amount of light on the faces she had loved so well and never stopped missing. Holding a small pillow to her chest, Abby could have sworn the smell of lavender had grown stronger for a moment. With a sigh, she replaced the pillow at the corner of the sofa and snapped off the small reading lamp that stood on the marble-topped table. Looking around Leila’s room once more before turning off the overhead light, Abby made a mental note to come back in on the next rainy day and look for the albums.

  Sleep was a long time coming, Abby’s head spinning with the visions of the faces remembered from the old photographs. For a time, Grandmother Sarah’s face intertwined with her mother’s and then with Aunt Leila’s. Greatgrandfather Dunham and Great-uncle Avery’s faces blended, one into the other, then, to her amusement, took on the features of Alex Kane. She could see herself and Alex, squirming uncomfortably, perched on the edges of their chairs, her fingers tugging at the starched collar of her organdy dress. What had happened to those clothes? she wondered.

  Leila’s own childhood frocks, carefully preserved through the years, freshly washed and starched, had been waiting for Abby every summer. Sometimes on rainy days, Abby would go into the attic and poke through the trunks and the freestanding wardrobes that lined one wall, looking at those things she could not yet wear, dresses waiting for her to grow into them, waiting for other summers when it would be their turn to be worn once again. Abby had made a game of sifting through stacks of old photographs to find pictures of Leila wearing whatever it was that Abby had worn that year.

  On a whim, she got out of bed and went into the hall. The house crouched in sleepy darkness, and she felt along the wall for the light switch. She opened the attic door and turned on that light as well before tiptoeing up the ancient steps. The old attic was airless and closed, the lavender fragrance heavy even there. Abby pushed a window open slightly, wondering how long it had been since anyone had been up there.

  Perhaps not as long as one might have suspected, she noted, glancing at the footsteps that remained in the dust around the windows. Maybe one of the roofers had been up there, she thought, then frowned as she followed the trail of steps from one trunk to the next. She opened first one trunk, then another, anger filling her as she realized that the contents were in total disarray. Leila had been meticulous about keeping everything neatly packed away. Her roofers must have ransacked them. What had they taken?

  She emptied each trunk and carefully returned the contents. Old fans with handpainted peacocks or roses, soft elbow-length leather gloves, boxes of hat pins and hair combs, silk evening shawls—was anything missing? She pecked through her memory, searching for a hint of what might have been taken, but it had been too many years since she had last removed and replaced the old items. She recognized each and every one of the old treasures but could not recall what else the trunk once held. Judging by the amount of things remaining, if anything had been taken, it hadn’t been much.

  Abby closed up the trunks and walked through the dust on the creaking boards to the wardrobes, opening the door before her. In the attic’s dim light, her hand ran along the row of dresses from a bygone era, dresses that spanned the decades of Aunt Leila’s life.

  What a shame no one dresses like this anymore, she thought, fingering the high-necked ivory silk dress that had been one of Leila’s favorites. On a whim, she stripped off her nightshirt, carefully removed the dress from its hanger, and floated it over her head. On Leila, the dress had been calf-length, but on the much shorter Abby, the hem skimmed the floor. She gathered it up to keep it from the dusty floor and started downstairs to find a mirror. Seeing the stack of hat boxes, she stopped to open first one, then another, until she found Leila’s favorite summer hat, a vision of ivory netting and palest pink cabbage roses. Abby pulled her hair up on top of her head and put the hat on.

  She crept down the steps, giggling in anticipation of beholding herself in the old clothes. Playing dress-up in the middle of the night…

  “Oh my!”

  Belle had opened her door, and at the sight of Abby, she slumped back against the wall, her hand flying to her heart.

  “Belle!” Abby rushed across the hall to catch the old woman before she landed in a breathless heap on the floor.

  “Oh, Abigail, you gave me such a start,” Belle exclaimed as Abby helped her into her room and seated her on the side of her bed. “I thought I was seeing a ghost. My goodness, child, you look just like Leila in that dress.”

  “Belle, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I’d go into the attic and see if the old clothes were still there. Here, let me get you a glass of water.”

  Abby rushed to the bathroom and back. She sat on the edge of the bed and guided the glass of water into Belle’s trembling hands.

  “I have it, dear, thank you.” Belle’s breathing was still labored. “Oh my.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Oh my.”

  “Belle, are you all right?” Abby leaned forward a bit, truly concerned.

  “Yes, I’m quite fine, Abigail. I thought I heard the noises in the attic again—you know, sometimes at night you hear things, but you’re not certain that you’ve really heard anything? Well, I thought I’d just peek in and see if you were awake. If you’d heard it, too.”

  “I’m so sorry, Belle. I was the noise in the attic. I probably should have waited till morning to satisfy my curiosity.”

  “That’s all right, Abigail. How strange to see that dress again. It was one of Leila’s very favorites for, oh my, for as long as I can remember. And that hat.” Belle, relaxed now, began to chuckle. “Why, I remember when Luellen Bronson made that hat for Leila. That hat was her pride and joy. Wore it every Sunday afternoon for years.”

  “I remember.” Abby lifted the hat from her head and shook her hair loose. “I thought she was so grand, presiding over the ladies of Primrose at tea like a duchess. Funny, Naomi and I were talking about that this afternoon, about the teas Aunt Leila used to have in the summer. I guess that’s what got me thinking about the clothes in the attic.”

  “Naomi is a dear.” Belle sighed and moved back on the mattress slightly, her tiny feet dangling over the side like a child’s. “Hard as it was to give up my house, it would have been infinitely harder had it passed into the hands of someone who’d never love it. Naomi loves that house, as I did. It made it seem not quite so bad.”

  “She is a very nice woman,” Abby agreed, “one I’d like to get to know better.”

  “Naomi is very kind.” Belle yawned. “I am very fond of her, as Leila was. And, of course, we both doted on those two little ones of hers.”

  “We were talking about maybe having a tea some Sunday afternoon,” Abby told Belle as she helped the old woman back against her pillow and pulled the blankets up around her.

  “Oh, how I miss those days,” the old woman murmured wistfully. “No matter what was really happening in our lives, for just a few hours, all was well. The day before my house was sold, Leila and I sat and had tea—never mentioned what the next day would bring.”

  “Ignoring reality isn’t always a good idea.” Abby paused in the doorway.

  “Nor
were we, dear. It just all went away for a while. There is a certain solace in sharing a quiet cup of tea with an old friend. Observing the tradition, you see, life is, just for a while, pleasant and gentle once again. I do miss Leila most at tea time…” Her voice began to trail away. “Haven’t had a decent scone since she died…”

  Then tomorrow you will, Abby promised silently, closing Belle’s door and tiptoeing quietly the length of the hall to her room. After removing the silk dress, she laid it carefully on the other twin bed, placing the hat next to it. Realizing she’d left her nightshirt in the attic, she debated whether or not to return for it. Deciding against the risk of waking Belle again, she took another shirt from the suitcase and slipped it over her head.

  Tomorrow, she would put her clothes in the dresser drawers. She would go to the hardware store and buy the tools she would need to begin her work on the house. And she would find Aunt Leila’s cookbooks and look up the recipe for scones. She began to drift into sleep, opening her eyes once, thinking she’d heard something overhead. Then she recalled the window she’d opened.

  In the morning, she told herself as she faded into a deep slumber. I’ll go up and close it in the morning.

  11

  “Abby?” a voice called up the steps.

  “I’m in the back room, Naomi,” Abby called back.

  “Wow, you’re ambitious.” Naomi looked up at Abby, who was perched on the ladder she’d bought just that morning.

  “Not so much ambitious as desperate.” Abby grimaced, turning to sit on one of the top steps. “You wouldn’t believe how much money I’ll save by doing this myself.”

  “Yes, I would.” Naomi laughed. “Here, I brought you some coffee and a slice of zucchini bread. Miz Matthews said you’ve been hard at work since early this morning, so I thought you could use a break.”

  “Thanks.” Abby smiled, touched by the thoughtfulness of her new friend.

  Friend. How long has it been since I had a friend? Abby mused. She enjoyed the prospect.

  “Now, tell me what you’re going to do in here.” Naomi cleared a spot on the old four-poster bed, which Abby had moved to the center of the room, and sat on the edge, her coffee mug perched on her knee.

  “Well, once I get the rest of the paper stripped, I think I’ll just paint the woodwork and the walls.” Abby looked around the room as she spoke, envisioning the changes she would make.

  “You sure did get a lot done in a few short days,” Naomi noted.

  “Well, the paper is so old and the glue so dry, it practically jumps off the walls.” Abby moved the old drapes she’d taken down from the windows and flung onto a chair and sat down, nibbling on the zucchini bread. “This is great bread, Naomi.”

  “We had a bumper crop of zucchini last year.” She grinned. “The freezer’s full of zucchini bread, zucchini muffins, stewed zucchini, zucchini quiche… you name it, we’ve got it. I took five loaves out of the freezer this morning to send down to the church for their Christmas bazaar tomorrow night, and you’d never know anything was missing.”

  “Are we that close to Christmas?” Abby frowned.

  “A few weeks. Something wrong?” Naomi asked.

  “I just haven’t much enjoyed the holiday these past few years,” Abby noted, recalling Christmases when she’d sat alone in her apartment. The city of Philadelphia had always dressed gaily for the season, though none of its spirit had ever seemed to permeate the little home Abby had made for herself, where no carols played and no tree had been decorated. She had stopped acknowledging the holiday the year her parents died and, alone since that time, had simply ignored it.

  “Well, maybe this year we can change that.” Naomi smiled. “Folks in Primrose pull out all the stops this time of year.”

  “Momma, Sam needs to use the bathroom,” a child’s voice called from the bottom of the steps.

  “Oh, of course he does.” Naomi sighed. “Abby, can we…?”

  “Second door to the right.” Abby nodded.

  “Bring him on up, Meredy,” Naomi instructed her daughter. “I’ll be right back, Abby,” she said, then told the tiny girl who entered the room tentatively, “Don’t you touch anything, Meredy, and don’t get in Miz McKenna’s way.”

  The biggest, roundest, darkest eyes Abby’d ever seen darted around the room before settling on Abby’s face.

  “What’re you doing, Miz McKenna?” she asked without a trace of shyness.

  “I’m taking off the old wallpaper.” Abby smiled. “And you can call me Abby.”

  “My momma says it’s impolite to call grown-ups by their first name,” Meredy said as she watched Abby climb the ladder.

  “Well, maybe your momma will make an exception,” Abby told her, “since we’re neighbors.”

  “I’ll have to ask,” the child replied seriously. “Are you going to have to clean up this mess all by yourself?”

  “I certainly am.” Abby nodded, wondering what to say next. She’d had no experience with small children and felt uncomfortable left in the company of one so small and unfamiliar. “What was your name?”

  “Meredith Dare Hunter,” the child told her matter-of-factly, “but everyone calls me Meredy. My middle name is Dare, ’cause that was my momma’s name before she married my daddy. Momma’s Lumbee.”

  “What?” a confused Abby asked.

  “Momma’s Lumbee,” Meredy repeated.

  “What’s Lumbee?”

  “Lumbee Indian, of course,” the child explained with politely disguised exasperation.

  “Oh.” Abby digested this information as she resumed scraping long, dry pieces of wallpaper which flopped in clumps to the floor. “I’m sorry, Meredy. I’m not familiar with the Lumbee Indians.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re from up north,” Meredy reasoned forgivingly. “Lumbee’s mostly in North Carolina.”

  “Meredy, I told you not to bother Miz McKenna,” Naomi said, returning with the little boy in her arms.

  “I’m not bothering her,” Meredy informed her mother, “and she said I could call her Abby, since we’re neighbors.”

  “Meredy was just starting to tell me about the Lumbee Indians,” Abby told Naomi. “I wasn’t familiar with the name.”

  “Most folks outside North Carolina aren’t.” Naomi shrugged. “We’re a relatively small tribe, don’t live on reservations, and are pretty well integrated into the mainstream. We never were involved in a war with the government and never entered any treaties with Uncle Sam, so we never got much attention. Except from folks studying the Lost Colony.”

  “The Lost Colony? You mean, as in Roanoke?” Abby asked as another chunk of paper flopped onto the floor.

  “Right.” Naomi nodded as she stood her son on the floor and tucked his shirt in. “Some folks think that that English settlement was not lost at all. Some think they met up with the Lumbee and moved inland, intermarried with members of the tribe.”

  “Really?” Abby stopped her work and peered down at Naomi. “I never heard that before.”

  “And you’re not likely to.” Naomi grinned. “At least, not from anyone who’s not Lumbee. There’s a great romance to the legend, you know, the first English settlement in America vanishing without a trace. Look at all the tourist dollars that would be lost each year at the reenactment. And history books would have to be rewritten.”

  “Do you believe it?” Abby asked.

  “Well, let me just say that an awful lot of Lumbee have English surnames. Like Lowry, Oxendine, Dare.”

  “Like Virginia Dare? She was, what, the first English child born on American soil?” Abby sought to recall her elementary school history lessons.

  “That’s right,” Naomi told her. “Dare was my maiden name.”

  “Sounds pretty convincing to me.” Abby nodded, sending a hunk of dried paper to join the others at the base of the ladder.

  “Names can be borrowed.” Naomi frowned. “I think it’s more telling that early explorers reported meeting up with some fair-skinned, Engl
ish-speaking Indians along the Lumber River, inland and south a bit from here. I’m full-blooded Lumbee, but I’ve got blue eyes and naturally curly hair—not your typical Native American characteristics. Good grief, would you look at the time. Meredy, get your jacket, baby. We have to get you to school,” Naomi instructed her daughter, who was quietly piling the discarded wallpaper into a neat stack on the floor. “Afternoon session starts at twelve-thirty.”

  “Thanks for the snack,” Abby told her. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I guess I should go down and make some lunch for Belle.”

  “I made a sandwich for her before I came up,” Naomi said. “I figured you’d probably lost track of time.”

  “I had, and I thank you.” Abby paused in her work, silently blessing Naomi’s thoughtfulness.

  “Gotta run.” Naomi herded both son and daughter toward the door.

  “Miz Mc… Abby.” Meredy stopped in the hallway. “Would you come to my Christmas play?”

  “Meredy, I’m sure Abby has better things to do on Christmas Eve,” Naomi began.

  “Not at all.” Abby smiled at the child, who waited expectantly for a reply. “I’d love to go. And I appreciate the invitation, Meredy.”

  “I’m going to be an angel,” Meredy told her. “Momma’s making my costume.”

  “A serious bit of miscasting on someone’s part,” Naomi muttered as she followed her daughter to the first floor.

  Abby swung the ladder toward a virgin turf of wall and began to loosen the paper, amusing herself by recalling the last Christmas pageant she herself had been in. She was seven years old, and one of the live sheep brought in for the occasion had butted Tommy Picard off the stage. She paused, thinking she heard the sound of a ringing telephone from the entry hall below.