by Amy Reade
One night at dinner Graydon and Vivian announced to everyone at the table that they were thinking of going out of town for Thanksgiving. This evidently came as a surprise to Evie and Heath. Evie protested that the family always had Thanksgiving together at Peppernell Manor.
“This year is different, Evie,” Graydon explained quietly. “With Mother and Harlan both gone, we thought we might take a little vacation to get away from Peppernell Manor for a short time. Your mother thinks it might be too difficult around here without them. Just this year, you understand. By next year maybe we can be together again at home.”
“I guess I could celebrate Thanksgiving with Boone’s family,” Evie said with a pout. She turned to Heath. “What about you?”
He looked at me. “I don’t know yet,” he answered. “It kind of depends on Carleigh and Lucy.”
Graydon smiled at him. Heath actually blushed.
“My parents have invited me—us—to have Thanksgiving with them,” I ventured. “That is, if you’re interested.”
“I guess I’m having Thanksgiving in Florida this year, then,” Heath said with a grin.
“With us?” Lucy asked him.
“Yup.”
“Yay!” she squealed.
Evie looked troubled. “What about Ruby? And Phyllis?”
“Ruby is going with us,” Graydon replied.
“And Phyllis will just have to find family or friends to visit while we’re all gone,” Vivian stated flatly.
“Well,” Evie began doubtfully, “I guess we don’t have much choice this year. But please, can we all be here for Christmas? You too, Carleigh. And Lucy.”
I laughed. “Let’s get through Thanksgiving first before we start worrying about where Lucy and I are going to be for Christmas.”
Over the next several days I finished the floor in the sitting room, touched up several places where the paint had removed the stain from the ballroom floor, and painted the front hall. In contrast to the other rooms on the first floor, Cora-Camille had chosen a soft ivory color for the walls in the front hall. She had told me she didn’t want to startle anyone who walked into the entry hall with a great swath of color. I thought the ivory would be beautiful with the grand staircase and the marble floors. Cora-Camille’s idea had been to find portraits of Peppernell ancestors in the basement and attic and have them cleaned, reframed if necessary, and hung in the front hall to greet guests. I initially thought the idea was a little morbid, but she thought it was a great way to give a nod to the Peppernell ancestors.
Cora-Camille had taken me up to the attic one day to find the portraits she had in mind. There were several. Large, severe-looking portraits of men, women, and children in the Peppernell line had been wrapped in cracked brown paper and stacked against each other. But those portraits weren’t sufficient to cover the walls as Cora-Camille had wished, so I needed to look for more portraits in the basement. Unfortunately, Cora-Camille had passed away before she had gotten a chance to go down there with me.
I went down to the basement by myself one afternoon while Vivian was looking after Lucy for me. As fascinating as the cellar was, my imagination sometimes took charge when I was down there alone. The echoes of my footsteps reached me from the dark recesses of the huge space, and I couldn’t wait to locate the paintings and get back upstairs to daylight and other people.
I poked through several of the small rooms in the basement before I finally found the portraits stacked on the floor in an old storage area. Like the ones in the attic, these were wrapped in brittle brown paper. I took them upstairs to the large table in the kitchen to unwrap them and have a good look at them. I was amazed at what I found.
Looking up at me from the top of the stack was a portrait that could have been taken of Heath. Or Harlan. Some old Peppernell ancestor stared from the canvas, his spectacled eyes bright and intelligent. I was thrilled with my find and couldn’t wait to have it reframed and hung up in the front hall.
I also found a portrait of a woman seated in what looked like the drawing room. I was very pleased to note that the color of the walls behind her was a deep coral, just like I had painted it so recently. What interested me most about the portrait, though, was not the subject herself, but a person standing behind her and to the very edge of the painting. It was a woman—one who looked just like Phyllis, but younger.
Could that be Sarah? I wondered. How wonderful it would be if I could have this painting restored and given to Phyllis as a gift. I didn’t know if she had ever seen the portrait, but I doubted so. I would ask Evie before broaching the subject with Graydon or Vivian. And if the person in the background of the painting was Sarah and I could get the portrait restored, maybe Phyllis would forgive me for forging ahead with the restoration of the slave cabins.
I could hear Phyllis coming to the back door of the kitchen from her apartment, so I quickly covered up the portrait and picked up the unwieldy stack of paintings. I took them all into the drawing room and placed them against a wall.
I hadn’t even asked Graydon about his ideas for the entry hall, but I assumed he would accede to his late mother’s wishes, as he had done since her passing. I asked him about hanging the portraits in the entry hall that night at dinner.
“I guess so,” he said a little doubtfully. “What do you think, Carleigh?”
“When Cora-Camille first suggested the idea, I thought it was a little macabre. Like something you’d find in a haunted house. But the idea has grown on me, to be honest with you. Having old Peppernell ancestors looking down on the people coming and going through the front hall might be a really interesting way of keeping history alive in the manor.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Ruby said. Again, I had forgotten to address her in my inquiries regarding the restoration of the manor. It was easy to forget that she was one of the owners, too.
“Well then, let’s go ahead with it,” Graydon boomed. “If we decide we don’t like it, we can always take the portraits down, but they might look very good up there.”
Later that evening, I sat in the drawing room with Evie. Lucy had fallen asleep on the sofa, so I would just carry her upstairs when I went to bed. “You wouldn’t believe two of the paintings I found in the basement this afternoon,” I told her. “There’s one that looks exactly like Heath and Harlan and one is of a person who I think might be Sarah.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding! I’d love to see them.”
I got up to unwrap the paintings I had stacked against the wall earlier. She was amazed by the resemblance between the old Peppernell gentleman and her brothers.
“Hey,” she said excitedly. “How about having this restored and giving it to Heath for Christmas? He could hang it in the carriage house instead of in the front hall. What do you think?”
“I didn’t even consider that,” I admitted. “I assumed it would hang in the front hall in the manor. But he might like it in his own house. Could I give it to him for Christmas? I’d pay to have it restored myself.”
“He’d love it!”
“Now you have to see this other painting,” I told her. She couldn’t believe the resemblance between the woman in the painting and Phyllis. I told her my idea of having the portrait restored and given to Phyllis as a gift.
“Is there a date on the back of the portrait? I guess we can figure out whether that’s Sarah if we can figure out when the portrait was done.” We checked the back and sure enough, there was a date that corresponded with the time Sarah would have worked as a slave inside the great house at Peppernell Manor.
“As long as we can assume this is Sarah, I think it’s a good idea to give Phyllis the painting as a gift. But don’t tell Mother what you’re planning,” she cautioned. “You know how she feels about Phyllis.”
“I don’t want to hide anything from your mother.”
“Then maybe I can suggest to Daddy that I pick out a gift for Phyllis for Christmas this year. We always get her a nice gift, and if he puts me in charge I can see that
this painting is restored and given to her. Mother will be more likely to keep her mouth shut if she thinks she might hurt my feelings by saying something uncharitable about Phyllis’s gift.”
I grinned. “That’s a great idea. Thanks.”
I carried Lucy upstairs that night and could hear Addie barking again as I drifted off to sleep. The next morning Heath came over to the manor for breakfast.
“Heath, can’t you keep that dog of yours quiet at night?” Graydon asked grumpily. “She kept me up long past my bedtime.”
“Sorry, Dad,” Heath replied. “At first I thought she was barking because she was lonely, but now I’m beginning to think that she’s barking because she likes the sound of her own voice.”
“Can’t you keep her inside your house?”
“Usually I do, but I have to let her out once in a while.”
“All right,” Graydon grumbled. “Thank the good Lord she doesn’t bark all day, too, or I’d never get any work done.”
Heath grinned at his father. “I’ll have a talk with Addie.”
I noticed Phyllis looking at me out of the corner of her eye as she served breakfast. She raised her eyebrows at me as if to say I told you that dog is bad luck.
“Phyllis,” Vivian said, “we need to start pulling decorations out of storage for the holiday open house.”
“I’ll start that today,” Phyllis answered.
“Any word on that storm?” Heath asked Graydon.
“It’s a slow-moving one,” Graydon replied. “The last I heard it’s supposed to miss Florida and move in farther north toward the Atlantic coast of the U.S.”
“What are they saying about timing?” Heath wanted to know.
“Still several days off,” Graydon answered. “We need to keep an eye on the radar.”
I didn’t like listening to talk of any storm. “What happens if the storm heads this way?” I asked no one in particular.
“We batten down the hatches,” Graydon said. “I’m going to keep my radio on today and see what the meteorologists are saying. We’ll have to get some work done around here on the outside of the manor if the storm is headed for us.”
“What kind of work?” I asked.
“We’ll need to shutter all the windows on the manor and on the dependencies,” Heath said. “Anything outside has to be fully secured. I’ll have to make sure the stables are good and tight and we’ll have to make sure all the farm machinery and tools are put away and secured.”
“Has there ever been a hurricane here before?”
“Oh, sure,” Graydon told me. “Lots of them. Some are worse than others, of course. There have been some storms that caused terrible damage, and others that haven’t turned out to be that bad. It just depends on the track of the storm.”
I hated to talk about this in front of Lucy, but I needed to know for my own peace of mind that there was a plan in place if a hurricane were headed our way. Besides, she seemed preoccupied with a bird that was hopping around on the ground outside the window.
But she had been listening. On the way into Charleston just a short while later, she asked, “Mama, is there a storm coming?”
“I don’t know. We have to wait and see.”
“Soon?”
“Maybe. But don’t worry. It’s just rain and wind.” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.
“I love rain and wind,” she responded cheerfully.
I spent much of that day in several Charleston shops, gathering information about the best place to drop off all the paintings that needed to be restored. I eventually decided on a small shop off the beaten path in the city, and left the paintings there. Unfortunately, though, they would not be ready in time for Vivian’s open house.
After I picked up Lucy that afternoon, we went back to the manor and Evie looked after her for a short time while I painted some touch-up spots on the walls in the front hall. The walls looked clean and elegant in ivory. I spoke to Graydon and Vivian that evening about artwork that could go on the walls temporarily while we waited for the portraits to be restored.
Vivian snapped her fingers. “I have just the thing,” she said excitedly. “A collection of antique Lowcountry oil paintings just came into the store. I could bring them back to the manor for a temporary display on the walls in the front hall.
“There are twelve paintings in the collection and they’re quite large,” she said. “They won’t all fit in the front hall. Why don’t you come into the store tomorrow and we’ll decide together which would look best?”
When I arrived at Vivian’s store the next morning after dropping Lucy at school, she was with a customer. She smiled at me when I walked in and turned back to the man so I had a chance to watch them interact. She seemed very knowledgeable about the antiques in her store. I was impressed, as was the customer. He bought two large pieces of furniture and several smaller knickknacks.
After they had made delivery arrangements, the man left and Vivian walked over to me.
“I didn’t even put any of the paintings on display,” she told me conspiratorially. “I wanted you to see them first to decide if they’ll work at the manor. I think they’ll be perfect.” She led me to a large back room that was chock-full of antiques. I could have spent hours wandering around that room and the front of her store. She walked straight to a large wooden crate and bent over its side. She beckoned to me and I joined her. Inside the crate were at least twenty wall hangings, presumably paintings, all generously wrapped and stacked on their sides. She was busily unwrapping a painting.
She stood back so I could see it. It was a gorgeous oil painting done in light greens and yellows and blues. The sun rose in the background and pathways of water wound through marshland in the foreground. The sun twinkled on the water. The effect was idyllic and serene.
“I love it,” I told Vivian. “Can I see some of the others?”
“Of course.”
I took my time perusing the artwork. There were several pictures that were similar to the one I had seen already. There was a stunning painting of an allée of trees just like the ones at Peppernell Manor. That painting would definitely have to go in the front hall. There was another picture of a narrow waterway snaking its way toward the sunset between two stretches of land. The clouds, colored pink and purple by the sunset, looked real. The painter had done a beautiful job. And I especially liked one of Lowcountry tree silhouettes under a full moon.
“What do you think?” she asked excitedly.
“I think it’s going to be hard to narrow down our favorites!”
“How about this? You pick four and I’ll pick four. Then we can see if they go together and will fit in the front hall. Did you bring the measurements?”
I laughed. “I don’t go anywhere without all the measurements of every room. You pick your four first.”
“All right.”
I watched as she chose her favorites. Sure enough, she picked the allée painting that looked like Peppernell Manor. She also picked out a marshy-looking painting as well as one with several shorebirds walking among the reeds and one of the open ocean with a beach in the foreground.
“My turn?”
I chose my four carefully. I ended up with the first painting I had seen—the one of the sunrise—plus I chose the one with the silhouettes under the full moon, one with a field of wildflowers in the foreground and a watery marsh in the background, and another ocean painting, this one with a faraway sailboat. All eight paintings would indeed look striking grouped together in the front hall of Peppernell Manor. In fact, they looked better than the portraits would—too bad these were only on loan until the portraits were restored.
Vivian was very happy with the entire ensemble. She told me she would do the necessary paperwork to take them home for a loaner display and then get them to the manor as soon as possible.
I went back to the manor and walked around slowly in the rooms I had finished thus far, taking a few more photos and noting whether there were any finishing tou
ches that I needed to complete. I was pleased with the progress of the restoration and was anxious to get started in the withdrawing room. All of the other public spaces downstairs were complete, with the exception of some furniture for the ballroom and the paintings for the front hall.
I walked into the withdrawing room. It was a small room, paneled entirely in cypress, as was the custom in the grander homes of the mid-nineteenth century. Though there had been some staining, I could see that the wood, once restored, would be the color of a fine cognac. A large fireplace stood along one wall, with a green-and-black marble hearth. The carved details on the cypress were astonishing. They looked like they were still in very good shape, so I might not need a special woodworker to finish this room.
I had completed the work on the ceiling weeks ago, but now I would have to get to work refinishing the walls due to the discoloration from cigar smoke almost as old as the manor. It would probably take a couple of long days to completely remove the stains. This room was carpeted, too. A dark blue carpet with a gold fleur-de-lis design covered the floor. It looked rather worn and dingy and I wondered whether I would be able to save it.
I got to work on the walls right away. It would be great to have this room finished in time for the open house in case anyone wanted to use it. Lucy even “helped” me after I picked her up from school during the afternoon. She had her own cloth to wipe down the walls; she had fun and I didn’t have to worry about her or ask someone else to watch her for me again.
Heath joined us at dinner that night. Vivian was focused on the open house and the plans that she had made so far. Phyllis tried to speak once when she was serving the meal, but Vivian shushed her and waved her away imperiously. “Not now, Phyllis. When I need your advice, I’ll ask.” Phyllis looked daggers at her but said nothing.
Heath had more important things to discuss. “Dad, it’s looking more and more like that storm is going to make landfall along the Carolina coast. When do you want to start buttoning things up?”