‘‘Nana, what’s wrong?’’ Chloe demanded again, resting a hand against a fluted pillar that soared two stories above her and looking down at Callie, who was a little more than halfway up the dozen steps.
‘‘Honey . . .’’
The waiting car honked impatiently. They all glanced toward it. At the same time, Martha saw and recognized Olivia, and her jaw dropped.
‘‘Well, I never! Miss Olivia!’’
‘‘Hello, Martha.’’ Olivia managed a smile. One hand curled tightly around the wrought-iron railing that ran up both sides of the steps. Her other hand clasped Sara’s. The housekeeper had changed very little, she saw. Martha lived in town, coming into the Big House three days a week to do the heavy cleaning. On other days, she cut hair. Or at least, that was the way it had been when Olivia was a girl. ‘‘It’s good to see you.’’
‘‘You, too. Why . . .’’
The car honked again.
Callie threw her hands up in the air and glanced distractedly from Chloe to the car. ‘‘Oh, goodness, I have to go. Big John’s had a—spell, Chloe, and they’ve taken him to the hospital, and that’s where I’m headed. It’s nothing for you to worry about. Martha, you and Chloe take Olivia and her daughter in and get them settled for the night. Olivia, we’ll talk tomorrow. At least . . .’’
‘‘Oh, my lord in heaven!’’ Martha said, one hand flying to press against her throat, her eyes round as saucers. ‘‘The ambulance—it weren’t ever for Mr. Archer?’’
‘‘Nana, I want to go to the hospital with you!’’ Chloe was shrilly insistent.
‘‘Honey, you can’t. Hospitals don’t allow children. Now, these are your cousins, come to visit, and I need you to stay here and help them feel welcome. I have got to go. Phillip, Mallory . . .’’
Those two were already running down the steps. With another distracted flutter of her hands and an admonition to Chloe to be good, Callie followed them. Olivia, whose instinct was to go, too, stayed where she was. Having relinquished her place in the family long ago, she was left to bite her lower lip, tighten her hold on Sara’s hand, and carry on as best she could.
The front passenger door of the car swung open from the inside as the trio rushed toward it. Phillip snatched open the rear door, and he and Mallory jumped into the back. Callie, reaching the car last, clambered into the front seat. The car took off down the driveway while the doors were still closing. As there was a long line of traffic in the driveway in front of them, the driver honked his horn repeatedly. Other cars pulled over onto the grass to let the Lincoln pass.
Olivia stared after them, her stomach in a knot and her eyes burning with unshed tears. She should be speeding to the hospital, too.
‘‘Well, we sure ain’t doing ourselves or nobody else any good standin’ out here. You better come on in, Miss Olivia.’’ Martha’s brisk words brought Olivia back to reality. Even if she were welcome at the hospital, even if Seth had not made it clear that she had no place at Big John’s side, she could not go rushing off and leave Sara on her own among people who were strangers to her. For her daughter’s sake, she had to stay where she was, had to present a calm, controlled exterior, had to deal with the situation as it existed.
Almost stealthily, Olivia brushed at her burning eyes with her free hand. Then she took a deep breath, looked up at Martha and Chloe, who stood on the veranda—as the downstairs gallery was properly called, some half dozen steps above them—and started to say something to Chloe.
But Chloe spoke first.
‘‘If you’re my cousins, how come I’ve never seen you before?’’ she demanded, scowling down at Olivia and Sara. ‘‘I know all my cousins, and none of them looks like you.’’ She looked Sara over critically. ‘‘You’re fat.’’
CHAPTER 6
‘‘SARA IS NOT FAT!’’ OLIVIA RESPONDED INSTANTLY, fixing Chloe with a look that should have shriveled her on the spot. She could feel Sara shrinking against her side, and tightened her own hand consolingly on Sara’s smaller one. Sara’s weight was a sensitive issue for the child. ‘‘Sara is the absolute perfect size for Sara.’’
‘‘Miss Chloe!’’ Martha gasped at the same time, her shocked tone a reproof. ‘‘Say you’re sorry right this minute!’’
There was a moment of silence while the issue hung in the balance. Then, ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ Chloe said sulkily.
‘‘Are you Seth’s daughter?’’ Olivia asked in a gentler tone, reminding herself that Chloe was just a child and had almost certainly not meant to be hurtful. She held tight to Sara’s hand as they began to once again ascend the steps. She could sense Sara’s reluctance to continue, but drew her daughter upward anyway. Sara’s retiring nature was totally unsuited for this shattering homecoming.
‘‘That’s right,’’ Chloe said, still sulky. ‘‘But you’re not my cousins. You can’t be. Phillip and Carl and Angela are my daddy’s only cousins. And Melissa, and Amanda, and Courtney, and Jason, and Thomas, and Patrick are their children, and Nana says that makes them my cousins, too. But that’s all. So who are you?’’ Her sweeping glance included Sara in what was unmistakably a condemnation.
‘‘You’re right, we’re not precisely your cousins.’’ Olivia held on to her patience with an effort. She reached the wide, plank-floored veranda with Sara’s hand curled tightly in hers and Sara herself hovering close against her side. Everything about the veranda was just as she remembered it, from the weathered gray paint beneath her feet to the white wicker swing and rockers at its far end to the leafy ferns that hung in baskets from its eaves. Even the pair of stuffed ring-necked pheasants that Charlie, a skilled taxidermist, had hung by wires from the ceiling as a joke years ago were still there. ‘‘I guess you could call us courtesy cousins, though, if you wanted to.’’
‘‘Why would I want to?’’ Chloe asked, looking Olivia and Sara up and down with narrowed eyes.
‘‘To be polite?’’ Olivia suggested, in an even gentler tone than before.
Martha put a silencing hand on Chloe’s shoulder. Chloe made a face at Olivia, but said nothing more. Standing in the column of light that spilled through the open screen door as Chloe was, her hair looked almost platinum and, except for her sullen expression, she was as flawlessly lovely as a doll. Olivia wondered briefly if Seth’s ex-wife was a blonde like her ex-husband and daughter, and as pretty as Chloe. Then Sara’s hand twitched in hers. A glance down at her daughter’s stricken face told Olivia that her silent child was totally intimidated by the other girl. She sighed inwardly— Sara’s lack of confidence around other children was a source of never-ending concern to her—and gave Sara’s hand another supportive squeeze.
‘‘Miss Olivia grew up here, just the same as your daddy did,’’ Martha said to Chloe in a scolding tone. ‘‘She’s your cousin in all the ways that count, and this is her home, just the same as it’s yours.’’
Olivia smiled gratefully at Martha, then looked at Chloe again. The child was scowling at her. Maybe she was just having a bad day, Olivia thought, trying to be charitable. She knew from experience that even the best-behaved child could occasionally turn into an adult-mortifying monster. Giving Chloe the benefit of the doubt, she tried to explain the situation in a way the girl would understand.
‘‘Big John had four children, you know: Michael, James, David, and Belinda. Your grandfather was Michael, Big John’s oldest son. My stepfather was James, the second oldest. Your father is the big cousin who looked out for me when I was growing up. Your nana is my aunt Callie, and Big John is my stepgrandpa, and Phillip and Carl and Angela are the pesky cousins who used to come over all the time to bug me.’’
‘‘So what you’re saying is you’re just a stepcousin,’’ Chloe said scornfully. They were entering the house now with Martha, who kept a hand on Chloe’s shoulder, holding the screen door open so that Olivia and Sara could precede them inside.
‘‘That’s right,’’ Olivia said with a flickering smile, as the cooler air inside the house enveloped her.
When she had left, there had been one window air-conditioning unit downstairs and two upstairs, and that was it. They had rattled all the time, and had cooled the air a maximum of maybe five degrees. This coolness felt different—fresher and colder. Maybe Big John had finally sprung for central air. If he had, though, it would surprise her. He had always been careful with a dollar.
Chloe shrugged off Martha’s hand to follow them inside. ‘‘So if you grew up here, how come I’ve never seen you before? Where’ve you been, then?’’
‘‘Miss Olivia got married and moved away,’’ Martha interjected before Olivia could reply, shooting Chloe a warning look as she stepped into the hall and closed the door. ‘‘And that’s about enough out of you, missy, or you’ll make me tell your daddy that you were rude to guests.’’
To Olivia’s surprise, the threat seemed to work. Chloe was silent. For a moment they stood rather awkwardly in the huge entry hall without speaking, bathed in the soft glow of the antique crystal chandelier that hung overhead. As far as Olivia could tell, nothing in the hall had changed so much as one iota from when she was a girl. Same well-polished hardwood floors with the same red-based Oriental runner leading toward the door at the far end of the hall that opened into the kitchen. Same cream-painted walls with the same quartet of mahogany pocket doors opening into living room and dining room and library and office. Same elaborate moldings accentuating the soaring fifteen-foot ceiling. Same oil paintings of dogs and horses, in the same places. Same wide, elegant staircase that rose with a graceful curve to the second floor. Even the smell was the same, a combination of faint mustiness from the never-ending damp, furniture polish, the rose-based potpourri that Aunt Callie used to combat the scent of everything else, and what Olivia had always thought of as just plain old. The house had always smelled old.
Taking it all in, Olivia felt, for an unsettling moment, as if she had been transported back in time. Nine years back, to be precise. On the surface, at least, nothing was different from the way it had been when she last saw it, on the night she had the quarrel to end all quarrels with Seth, and then had eloped with Newall.
‘‘Martha, Carl Vernon’s on the phone, wantin’ to know what hospital they were taking old Mr. Archer to.’’ A woman of about Olivia’s own age, whom she did not recognize but who was clearly some kind of household help, from her black uniform dress and the white apron around her waist, entered through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. Her gaze touched on Olivia and Sara briefly, then returned to Martha. ‘‘Did something happen to old Mr. Archer?’’ she asked, agog.
Martha nodded, and gave Chloe a significant look as an obvious signal to the other woman to say no more. ‘‘Tell Mr. Carl that I don’t know any more’n he does, and the rest of the family’s done took off with the ambulance.’’
Eyes wide, the woman nodded acknowledgment and withdrew.
‘‘Come on into the kitchen, why don’t you?’’ Martha said to Olivia, then glanced at Sara and smiled. ‘‘I bet you’re thirsty, hon. I’ve got some soda pop in the ice-box. Or maybe you’d rather have a glass of milk?’’
Sara pressed closer against Olivia’s side, and shook her head no without replying.
‘‘Doesn’t she ever talk?’’ Chloe asked, frowning curiously at Sara.
‘‘This is my daughter, Sara Morrison,’’ Olivia said, addressing Chloe in a slightly stern tone without giving a direct reply to the question. Introductions, she felt, were in order, before Chloe’s rudeness rendered Sara permanently mute. ‘‘Sara, this is Chloe Archer. Say hello.’’
‘‘Hello,’’ Sara produced, in a rough approximation of her normal voice, and actually raised her eyes to look at Chloe, although she continued to hang back, keeping Olivia’s body partially between herself and the other girl.
‘‘How old are you?’’ Chloe looked hard at Sara.
‘‘Eight,’’ Sara said, in response to a well-disguised maternal squeeze of the fingers.
‘‘So’m I.’’ Frowning, Chloe continued to look Sara up and down. Clearly unnerved, Sara dropped her gaze to the rug again.
Olivia sighed inwardly.
‘‘Martha, I think we’re just going to go on upstairs. It’s late, and Sara needs to get to bed,’’ Olivia said, earning a grateful finger squeeze from Sara.
‘‘That’s probably a good idea.’’ Martha glanced at Chloe. ‘‘Miss Curiosity here needs to be headin’ for her bed, too. She gets cranky when she stays up too late.’’
‘‘I do not!’’ Chloe protested.
Martha sniffed eloquently. Then she looked at Olivia and rolled her eyes heavenward. Olivia understood the unspoken message: Chloe was definitely having a bad day.
‘‘Let’s see, I guess Sara can have your old bedroom for tonight, and you can have the room next door to it, that used to belong to Miss Belinda. They’re all ready, and I just changed the sheets this mornin’, in case anybody needed to stay all night after the party, if you know what I mean.’’
Olivia nodded. In case anybody got too drunk to make it home, was what Martha was really saying. ‘‘That sounds fine.’’
‘‘Miss Chloe, you lead the way, why don’t you.’’
Chloe obeyed, and they all headed upstairs. Family portraits, oils in elaborate gilt frames, marched one after the other up the wall of the stairwell all the way to the ceiling. There were many of them: Over the years, the Archers had tended to be a prolific lot. More examples of Charlie’s handiwork were interspersed here and there among the portraits: a small, stuffed boar’s head with graying tusks, a horned sheep, a three-point buck. The occasional landscape made an appearance, too, along with the odd memento, such as a framed fan. Beneath Olivia’s fingers, the hand-carved cypress rail felt cool. Underfoot, the center of each uncarpeted step had a slight dip worn into the wood from generations of climbing feet. This, the main part of the Big House, was more than one hundred and fifty years old, and was as grand as any plantation house in any movie about the Old South. As a child, Olivia had always been a little awed by it, and she could see that Sara was, too.
‘‘Oh, we don’t want to forget about your suitcases.’’ Martha, who was following Chloe, paused midway up the stairs and spoke to Olivia over her shoulder.
‘‘There’s nothing to forget.’’ Olivia grimaced ruefully. ‘‘We left our suitcases behind the counter at the bus depot.’’
‘‘The bus depot! Don’t you have a car?’’ Chloe piped up, turning at the top of the steps to give Olivia and Sara an astonished look.
‘‘Lands, then, how’d you get . . .’’ Martha sounded perplexed. Then, with a scandalized gasp: ‘‘Never say you walked all the way from the bus dee-poe!’’
Olivia nodded ruefully. ‘‘I tried to call somebody at the house to pick us up, but there was no answer here. And Ponce must have been at the party, because he didn’t answer his telephone, either. If he even runs the taxi service anymore.’’ If her statement was a trifle mendacious, then so be it. Coming home as the not-so-sure-of-her-welcome poor relation was hard enough without admitting to being dead broke as well.
‘‘Ponce has done retired,’’ Martha said. ‘‘His son— you remember Lamar?—well, he runs the business now. When he feels like it, that is.’’
There was condemnation in her voice. Olivia did indeed remember Lamar. Although he had attended the local public high school and she had gone to St. Theresa’s, an expensive private school in Baton Rouge, their paths had crossed with some frequency when they were teenagers. Two years older than Olivia, Lamar Lennig had been a good-looking, if sullen, boy who had seemed to spend most of his time finding trouble. He’d been a great admirer of hers, like most of the local boys.
She wouldn’t have given him much more than the time of day back then, if Seth hadn’t caught him hanging around once too often and ordered him to keep away from her. After that, she’d gone out with Lamar a few times, just to teach Seth that he couldn’t run her life. Her open defiance had infuriated Seth. Looking back, Olivia had to ad
mit that Seth had been right. Lamar had been a major-league loser. Just like Newall. Seth had warned her against him, too.
Olivia sighed. ‘‘I remember Lamar,’’ she agreed.
‘‘I bet you remember where your room is, too,’’ Martha said with a smile. They were in the upstairs hall now. Olivia nodded, and turned left, toward the newer of the two wings that had been added to the main house decades after it had been built. The east wing, where her old room was, was built around 1930. The ceilings were lower than in the main house, only about ten feet high, and the crown moldings were not as elaborate. But they were spacious. Each of the four upstairs bedchambers boasted a fireplace and a little sitting area, and there were two bathrooms, although neither of them was en suite.
Her childhood bedroom was the second on the right. Reaching it, Olivia opened the door and walked inside. It had been completely redecorated, of course. When she had inhabited it, the walls had been painted a bright, cheery yellow, ruffled chintz curtains had hung at the pair of long windows that opened out onto the upstairs gallery, and a matching chintz bedspread had covered the white-painted iron bed. The room had a more masculine feel now, sporting taupe wallpaper with a white windowpane check and simple white linen curtains and bedclothes. But the fireplace was still the same, with its small, elaborately carved mantel and creamy marble surround, and the windows, the moldings, and the narrow oak floors were unchanged, too.
Just walking into the bedroom that had been hers during her growing up years brought back emotions so powerful that Olivia was momentarily dizzy with them.
Her mother . . .
Staring at the bed, the same bed although the spread was different, Olivia was suddenly overcome by a long-forgotten memory of her mother bending over her, kissing her good night as she lay tucked up in bed in this room. The light floral scent of her mother’s perfume, the warmth of her lips, the silken brush of her hair against Olivia’s cheek as she straightened—all suddenly came back to her with such force that Olivia was shaken.
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