“I think she’s afraid if she opposes him, she’ll lose him,” Grace said.
“But he’s so bad for her,” Mike said. “Doesn’t she see what he’s doing?”
“Maybe she does, some of the time,” Grace said. “When you’re in love, or think you’re in love, you get a little crazy.”
“A lot crazy,” Hannah said. She began to put the canned goods in the cabinet over the counter. “Amelia can be quite vain. Even if she sees what’s happening, her pride may be preventing her from doing anything about it.”
Mike reached for another cookie. “Amelia’s regressed.”
Grace looked at him sharply. “How has she regressed?”
“It’s like all the confidence she developed over the past year has faded.”
Hannah’s eyebrows shot up. “True enough. Amelia’s in the process of giving herself over to this Lance. Never had much respect for women who lose themselves in a man, who let him decide how she will live, by what rules, when to do what, and with whom.”
“Stop!” Grace hit the table with the flat of her palm. “It’s Amelia we’re talking about, not any woman. We know she’s vain and proud and all that, and we love her anyhow. I’m worried about her. Like you, Mike, I’m frustrated.”
“Point well taken,” Hannah said. “You’re right, of course. What Amelia’s got is like a sickness. Hopefully, her inner strength will make her able to persevere. This Lance thing will run its course, and hopefully she won’t be too badly hurt.”
Mike looked at them shyly. “I ran off with a pretty face when I was eighteen, wouldn’t go to college. My folks took the attitude that I’d come to my senses. I did. But I think one has more resilience when one’s young. I just hope Amelia comes out of this unscathed.”
“We’re talking as if Amelia’s headed for doomsday. Aren’t we being a bit melodramatic?”
Mike helped himself to another cookie. “Maybe, Grace. But it feels as if Amelia’s soul’s in danger from the Prince of Evil.”
“I bet on Amelia,” Grace said. “She’s going to come out of this and be fine.”
“With or without Lance?” Hannah asked.
“Hopefully without,” Grace said. “Or if he’s still around, it’ll be with a new set of rules. Maybe Amelia’s right, and he’s been deeply hurt and is needy. If he starts trusting her, he may open up and be a different person.”
“Optimist.” Hannah turned to Mike. “Planning to eat yourself to death? I’m surprised you don’t have diabetes, all the sweets you eat.” Hannah patted his shoulder.
He withdrew his outstretched hand from the plate of cookies. “Didn’t even realize I was devouring so many.” He shook his head. “Meanwhile, I have a dilemma. We advertised a workshop. Twelve people signed up for our Florida Everglades trip in January, and now Amelia tells me to find someone else to help lead the group.” He ran his fingers through his hair, dislocating his ponytail.
“Mike. Listen to me. Wait this out,” Grace said slowly, emphasizing each word.
“Wait it out?” Mike’s voice rose octaves above its normal range. His eyes widened in dismay.
“I think Lance will blow it way before January.”
“Grace is right, Mike. Wait it out,” Hannah said firmly. “And while you’re waiting find someone else to help lead that January workshop. Life does go on, with or without Amelia.”
“You’re such good friends.” Mike reached for Grace’s hand, and then Hannah’s, and looked hopefully from one to the other. “You think Amelia will see the light, so to speak?”
They nodded.
“When?”
Hannah shrugged. “Eventually, she’ll see Lance as the self-serving bounder and controller we think he is. Amelia may be capricious, but she’s never deliberately cruel. Be patient.”
He lifted his shoulders and raised his hands. “What else can I do? Do you know she never came to her own show last Wednesday?”
They were surprised.
“We sold half of what we usually do. It’s Amelia they want. They adore her charm and her flair. Everyone wants to talk to her. They like it when she signs a work for them.” He scowled. “Wait it out. How?”
“Stay busy,” Grace said. “Don’t fight with her about Lance.”
Mike nodded. He took another cookie. “Comfort food,” he muttered.
“You have the recipe. I framed it for you last Christmas, remember?”
“Of course, and I make cookies, but these days . . .” He wrung his hands. “I’m not myself. Last batch I made burned up in the oven.” He looked exhausted.
“Mike.” Grace squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t drive all the way back to Fairview now. Go on upstairs and rest. There’s a small TV and some nice travel books in the guest room.”
“Take a shower if you want, or a bath,” Hannah said. “There’s a clean terry robe behind the bathroom door. Use it.”
A wisp of a smile tugged at Mike’s mouth. He sighed. “I love you both. You’ve saved my life. I’ll take you up on your kind offer.”
They waited as Mike mounted the stairs until they heard the guest room door close lightly. Then Grace said, “Whew! This thing with Amelia’s getting worse.”
“Grace, I went across the road. I met Bella Maxwell. She’s not a well woman,” Hannah said. “Is it warm enough do you think to sit out on the porch?”
“With jackets, I think. Let’s give it a try.”
“I’ve got a lot to tell you.”
Minutes later they were on the porch and Hannah told Grace, first, why she went to the Maxwells, then about the wraparound porch and its furnishings, then her surprise about Anna, and heart-wrenching visit with Bella Maxwell. “She knew about my hip surgery, that you’re a great cook, she even knew about your meatballs and prunes. Someone’s keeping her informed. Go with me to visit her?”
“Certainly. Is it Parkinson’s, Hannah?”
“Perhaps, or something like it. It’s odd,” Hannah said, suddenly remembering. “I was about to leave when out of the blue Bella said that Anson was a fool for selling. Swear, I never mentioned the man’s name.”
“Odd,” Grace said.
“I’ll never bring that subject up to them,” Hannah said. “They’ve got enough to worry about.” Then Hannah told Grace about her lunch with Karla Margolin. “I like her. She knows her stuff,” she said.
Grace had news of her own for Hannah. She had found Old Man and Lurina seated side by side on the old springy couch, going through picture albums. “He brought his pictures, and she must have dug out at least seven of her albums. Bet it took them hours to get around to them all. I heard a bit of it: every snapshot led to a long discussion about what happened to this person, that person, who they married, when they died, if they were dead. Most are. Quite a pair, those two,” Grace said. “Maybe they’ll get hitched, as Tyler would say.”
“Well, that’s a dream. Who gets married at their age?” Hannah laughed. How free and easy this friendship with Grace is, Hannah thought. Three people living together can be difficult. We’ve managed pretty well, but two is just easier.
26
A Time for Planting Daffodils
Mercurial and unpredictable, weather in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina often defied the best efforts of local TV weathermen. A forecast of snow might liquefy to rain, and conversely, a mild prediction often turned dark with hoary skies. December, this year, fluctuated from lows in the forties to highs in the sixties and even the seventies. Today was in the sixties, clear and sunny as Grace and Hannah walked across the road to Bella Maxwell’s home.
Anna served lunch on the screened porch. They ate on yellow plates set on purple place mats on a green table. “Anna loves bright colors,” Bella said. “And why not? They liven things up.” She leaned heavily on Hannah’s arm as they moved slowly down the length of the porch.
Anna had prepared chicken and rice, Spanish-style. The rice was golden, with tiny pieces of black olives and bits of red pimento, but was not too spicy. “You tak
e more,” Anna urged Grace. “You like, I give recipe.” She waved her hand toward the kitchen. “Chicken come from back of house. Jose, he chop heads. I cook.” The image was not appealing, but Anna stood there proud as a queen. The women assured her that lunch was delicious, and it was.
“I’ve seen you working in your yard, Hannah. Do you think it’s too late to plant daffodil bulbs?” Bella asked. “Zachary brought me a bag of fifty. He says they’re early bloomers.” Her voice trailed. “Early bloomers, March, I hope.”
“Tell us where you want them. Grace and I’ll help you plant them.”
“Would you do that?” She brought both hands together as if to clap them, then squeezed them as if in prayer.
“Of course.”
“That would be heaven,” Bella said. “Of all the things I’ve had to give up, I miss gardening the most, and my art. I paint, you know, watercolors.”
“How wonderful. I’d love to see your work,” Grace said.
“Upstairs, in my studio. I don’t go upstairs anymore.” Tears filled her amber eyes.
“No problem,” Hannah said. “I’ll carry you up the steps.”
“But your hip?”
“That’s why I had surgery. Fitter now than before.”
Grace worried about Hannah’s bravado, but then Bella seemed light as a summer breeze.
After a time, Anna cleared the table, and Bella said, “Anna, could you find a nice thick blanket and spread it on the ground under that tree?” She pointed to a spot about fifty feet from the porch. “Then, I could see them from my bed when they bloom.”
Anna looked at her blankly.
“The ladies are going to help me plant the bulbs Zachary brought.”
“You no can walk there, Missy Bella.”
“We’ll get her over there,” Hannah said, and a smile suffused Anna’s broad face.
“What first?” Hannah asked Bella. “Planting bulbs, or see the paintings?”
“Bulbs. Anna, please bring the bulbs, and ask Jose for that tool he uses to dig holes for planting bulbs, and oh yes, fertilizer, a jar of fertilizer, the one where the numbers are the same, ten-ten-ten, you know what I mean.”
Anna nodded and hurried away. A door slammed shut. “She’s not good at closing doors gently,” Bella said. She stood shakily, and Hannah slipped her arm about her waist, and they began their slow pilgrimage to the steps. Bella spoke of Anna and how the woman had come to work for them. “She came with her husband, Jose, Max’s foreman, from Ecuador, and after she spent three months of walking about the place mumbling to herself in Spanish, Jose begged Max to hire her inside the house, said she was a good cook. She was driving Jose crazy. Not enough to do. And what a boon she’s been, especially since I became ill. She’s an angel in disguise.”
Grace and Hannah wafted Bella down the steps and across the lawn to where Anna had spread a thick blanket. Gently, they set the frail woman down beneath the sycamore tree. “They’ll bloom here, won’t they?” Bella looked worried.
“They’ll bloom. Long before the leaves of this tree come on,” Hannah said.
“Good.” Bella folded her hands in her lap.
A door slammed. Anna came toward them carrying a stack of thick pillows. These she propped behind and about Bella. Satisfied, Anna marched away and moments later a door slammed again, and then slammed again, as Anna returned with all that Bella had asked for.
Hannah bored six-inch holes. Grace opened the bag and handed the bulbs to Bella, who leaned forward to drop them into the holes. When her arm could stretch no further, Grace took over, helping Hannah to fertilize and press the earth firmly above them.
“They’ll be magnificent, I know it,” Bella whispered. Her eyes glowed soft and gentle. “Thank you. You’ve gifted me with a most joyful day. It’s like a ceremony for me.
Grace wondered if Bella had spotted them that moonlit night last fall, when they paraded to the rear of the farmhouse carrying a box, a time capsule filled with remembrances of their lives. With great ceremony, they had buried it in their backyard.
Bella extended both her hands to them. For many moments they sat silent, until a bedeviling wind chilled their faces and arms. The sun vanished behind a cloud. Almost simultaneously, Bella’s face clouded and she looked exhausted.
“Let’s go in,” Grace said.
“You’ll come again?”
“Certainly, and next time we’d love to see your paintings.”
Bella smoothed her slacks. She smiled, a soft, sweet smile, nodded, and lifted her arms to Hannah.
27
Art, and Life’s Passages
Hannah visited the Citizen Times Newspaper in Asheville and managed to interest a young reporter in doing a story on Loring Valley. Her tour of Loring Valley stressed the environmental damage done there. Then Hannah realized they could look at but could not enter Anson’s land, nor could she really show it to anyone else who might support her cause, or poke around on it to search for an endangered species of bird or animal.
The reporter wrote about Loring Valley, then went on to tell about the Masterson park-in-waiting, all four hundred acres of it, and questioned the need for preserving another large tract of land in Covington. Bitterly disappointed, Hannah cried when she read his article.
Time was running out. Wayne had stumbled upon several dilapidated wooden buildings, a shed, a still for making corn liquor, unused for years, but no stone or brick chimney or foundation suggesting that it was of historic value or could be dated to over one hundred years. He would, he promised, sneak onto the land again on Wednesday, when he brought Old Man to visit Miss Lurina. There was a twinkle in his eye at the mention of his grandfather and Miss Lurina, but Hannah’s mind was fastened on other matters, and she let it pass.
“We need to visit Bella,” Grace said several days later. “I saw an ambulance drive in there earlier.”
“An ambulance?”
“It seemed to be delivering something and went off without a passenger.”
Goose bumps raised on Hannah’s arms. “Let’s go now. Could use a break from worrying about Anson’s land. That biologist in Raleigh finally called. He has to have permission from the owner to survey for endangered species. I suggested he sneak on, like Wayne does. He said they don’t do business that way.”
Carefully, Hannah lifted Bella from her bed, and moments later she and Grace were following Anna, all aflutter and anxious about her patient, up the stairs and down a long hall to a large room with north-facing windows and pale blue walls hung with framed watercolors. Bella melted into the oversized chair in the corner and watched with anxious eyes as Grace and Hannah made their way around her private art gallery.
Bella painted landscapes. There were paintings of a stream bordered by daylilies. Another of children wading in a winter river, their faces screwed tight as icy cold water whirled about their ankles. One of a river at flood stage. There were scenes of hillsides with grazing cows and windmills. A copper sunset played off mountaintops. Grace and Hannah each stopped when they saw that Bella had painted their farmhouse, not once, but three times. The woman with the wide straw hat kneeling below the porch planting flowers could only be Hannah. Behind her, purple clematis twined about porch railings. In another, three women sat in rocking chairs on a porch, their porch, and in yet a third painting someone, Amelia, crouched near their stream with her camera held to her eye. In the manner of the impressionists, the lines and form of the house and of the great oak were carefully blurred.
“You did these last year?” Hannah asked.
A faint yes from deep in the chair.
“They’re wonderful,” Grace said.
“You were sad when you did them?” Hannah asked.
“Lonely, and yes, sad.” Bella raised a thin arm. “You don’t like them?”
“I like them very much.”
“Look, over there.”
Neither of them had seen the painting she was pointing to until this moment. More intense in color, the brush-strokes were b
older than any of the others. It took several moments before Hannah realized she was looking at Anson’s old farmhouse and land. Tinged gold by sunset, the hills behind the house swooped and soared in a great amphitheater. Light smeared the rusty roof of his house copper.
“Have you noticed how the sunset colors Jake Anson’s land?” Bella asked. “I tried for years to paint it, but never could get it right. Did I get it this time, do you think?” She turned her face away. “I may never have another chance to paint it.”
“It’s more than right. It’s perfect,” Grace said.
Hannah studied the painting. Beautiful land threatened by development. “I’m trying to create a coalition to find funding so we can save it from development.”
“I know you are, and every night I pray that you can do that. Zachary told me how splendid you were, stirred everyone up at the church meeting. I would have liked to have been there.” Her voice was small and tired.
Hannah wondered why such lovely works of art were shuttered away, rather than being exhibited. She did not ask. A pang of regret, the sense of something special found and lost, saddened Hannah. If only she had visited Bella sooner.
“Would you like to come over for tea some afternoon? We’d have to have it in the living room. I’ll come get you, or Max could bring you.”
Bella smiled. “How I would like that.”
When Anna opened the door the following afternoon, she stood there twisting the edge of her apron and shaking her head. Her eyes were red from crying. “Missy Bella, she no can get out of the bed.”
“Did we tire her excessively? Can I go in? I won’t stay long.”
Anna wrung her hands. “Missy Bella sleeping. Ambulance come early, bring oxygen. After you go, doctor come. He give big needle.”
“What’s wrong with Miss Bella?” Hannah asked.
Anna shrugged and continued to block the doorway. “You ask Mister Maxwell. He in barn.”
“Thanks, Anna.”
Hannah moved around to the window of Bella’s bedroom and leaned into the glass with both hands, shading her face in an effort to see inside. The shades were down. No sound issued from the room. She circled the house to the barn. Every building, every shed, was freshly painted, every machine and tool sparkled clean, every animal stall freshened with a thick layer of straw. George Maxwell was nowhere to be seen. Hannah walked down their drive and returned home.
The Gardens of Covington Page 19