“The marble mantels in each room are matched pieces, and there are the chandeliers,” he mused.
“I had in mind a large mirror, like a pier mirror, reaching from just above the floor to the ceiling on each end, between the windows in the center of each wall. If these line up exactly with the chandeliers, the effect, when you stand in the middle of the room, is an optical illusion. The mirrors reflect their images over and over, so that the eye sees an endless line of chandeliers marching down the center of a room that stretches to infinity.”
“The effect with the mirrors can be done,” he said thoughtfully, “but I’m not certain about making the two rooms a mirror reflection of each other, if by that you mean buying duplicates of each piece of furniture.”
“Why not?”
“The front parlor has windows facing the drive, but the opposite side of the second parlor is a solid wall.”
“Oh,” she said, her expression fading. “So it is.”
“But it was still a good idea,” he said, his tone soft.
She sent him a small smile. “It’s been done before; I don’t suppose we have to have it at Crapemyrtle.”
“No,” he agreed.
She tilted her head to one side. “It may even have been a little gimmicky for the house.”
“It’s possible.”
“I’ll think of something else,” she asserted.
His laugh rang out then. “I don’t doubt it. I don’t doubt it at all.”
With the chandelier packed away once more, Laura got to her feet, brushing the dust from her skirt. Justin came upright also.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said, a tentative note in his voice.
Laura was instantly on her guard. “Yes?”
“I know that you are just coming to the busiest and most complicated part of your job here at the house, and I know that your mother is already watching for suitable antiques to furnish it, but I would like for you to coordinate the two, and see to the complete decoration.”
“You mean that you want me to suggest color schemes and furniture arrangements for the rooms?”
“I mean I want you to buy whatever is necessary to make this house look the way it should, whether it’s chairs, tables, beds, bureaus, or footstools — everything right down to the draperies, curtains, linens, even the towels and soap in the bathrooms. That is, if you will.”
“But — what about Myra?” The question had to be asked.
“What about her?”
“She won’t like it if another woman furnishes her home for her, and I really can’t blame her.”
He shook his head. “If you think she would be interested in the details, you are mistaken. Oh, she might buy a knickknack or two, but she wouldn’t dream of tackling the whole job. If we had built a new home, she would have turned the decorating of it over to a design shop, and I see no difference here, except that it’s even more important for the job to be done right.”
“She didn’t like it when I opposed her on the game room and the pool.”
“That was just a whim; she gave them up easily enough when she understood my objections.”
“I appreciate the compliment —” she began.
He did not allow her to finish. “If it’s interference you are worried about, I can assure you there will be none. You will have carte blanche. You can choose whatever you like and send the bills to me.”
“It isn’t only that,” she said.
“Money, then? I know this isn’t a usual requirement, and I certainly expect to pay you extra for the service.”
“No! Listen to me,” she insisted, her voice rising above his. “I can furnish this house as nearly as possible like it was, or else as I think it should be. But I’m not certain that you would like it or that it would be suited to the tastes of your fiancée.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“That’s easy for you to say, but how can I not? It was only a short time ago that you didn’t want me as designer-consultant to the project, and now you are giving me the power to complete the job down to the smallest detail. That’s quite a change.”
“Consider it an endorsement of your abilities.”
“Before I can do that, I have to convince myself that this trial you insisted upon is really over.”
A frown drew his brows together. “Good Lord, Laura! Don’t you know that you would have been out long ago if I hadn’t been more than satisfied with your work?”
“I thought so,” she answered, “but you never put it in so many words.”
“Then let me take this opportunity to set the record straight,” he told her, his voice firm. “I’m more than satisfied, I’m proud of the job you have done here. You wanted a showcase for your efforts. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got it.”
It was a vindication. She wanted to reap the triumph, but felt instead only warm joy and anticipation. With great simplicity she said, “I’ll do my very best to finish the interior as it should be.”
For a long moment, his dark eyes met hers, and there seemed to be a promise only half-concealed in their gold-flecked depths. The next instant, he was looking past her to where a green-tinged darkness was gathering beyond the windows.
“It looks like it’s coming up a storm. We had better get a move on if we are going to beat it back to town.” As if in answer, his words were accented by a low-pitched rumble of distant thunder.
Though they were scarcely aware of it inside the stout, thick walls of the old house, the leaves of the oaks outside were tossing, displaying their lighter undersides as they were twisted in the strong, gusting wind. They must have spent longer than she had thought over the heirlooms, Laura told herself — either that, or this storm was approaching with incredible swiftness. Even as they watched, the shadows in the room grew deeper, closing around them until their faces were no more than pale blurs in the darkness.
“I think you’re right,” Laura said, and moved quickly ahead of him from the library into the hall, turning toward the entrance.
It was as they opened the front door that they felt the full force of the wind. It swept under the overhanging gallery with a banshee wail, carrying bits of trash and leaves in its strength, filling the air with grit and the white swirl of spent blossoms. It tore at their clothing, sending Laura’s hair flying like a witch’s tresses, slapping the collar of Justin’s sports shirt against his cheek. Across the lawn, the thick, dark-green hedge was bent nearly to the ground. Lightning flashed with an unearthly silver-gold glow that, once started, seemed unable to stop, though it was followed immediately by a booming vibration of thunder so strong it shook the ground and made the columns of the great house shiver on their bases.
Laura started across the gallery floor. Justin shot out his hand to catch her arm, pulling her to a halt. “Wait. I think it’s too late to outrun it. We had better stay here.”
Hard on his words, there came a fierce surging in the wind. Overhead, the limbs of the live oaks creaked and groaned, and the timbers of the house behind them squeaked, making snapping noises as if in sympathy. A branch, its leaves fluttering like helpless, clutching fingers, came flying from nowhere to skitter across the gallery floor. Justin and Laura retreated back to the shelter of the open doorway.
“You don’t think —” Laura began.
He gave a short nod, his dark gaze scanning the dark, roiling clouds and the blown debris whirling past them. “It could be a tornado.”
The words were nearly drowned in a deafening crackle followed by an endless rending, wrenching sound. Out on the drive, in the glittering brightness of the storm, they saw one of the great old oaks waver, as if seeking with its enormous limbs for balance; then, with a thunderous roar, it toppled, gathering speed, falling with a mighty crash across the gravel of the drive.
“Oh, no,” Laura breathed, a sound of distress. A tree a hundred and forty years old, planted when the house was built, an ancient and venerable oak of stature and dignity lost, gone
beyond recovery. At least it had come down without striking either car. There was that much for which they could be thankful.
“Oh, yes,” Justin said, his voice grim.
And then, as the lightning flashed in the swollen blackness of the storm-battered sky once more, she saw it. The oak had been at the very end of the drive, a monster whose moss-laden limbs had been as thick as most trees. Its descent had carried the topmost branches over the hedge while the thickest portion of its trunk lay across the opening that gave onto the black-topped road beyond. It would take men armed with power saws several hours to clear such an obstruction so Justin and Laura could get their cars out of the drive. They were trapped, and the tornado was upon them.
Six
The limbs of the live oaks thrashed, their leaves streaming in the wind that roared with the sound of a rushing train. Lightning lit the sky in a silver shimmer, while thunder rolled and rumbled. Justin and Laura did not waste time watching.
“Open the windows,” Justin said tersely, “front and back, those that are under the galleries.”
Laura did not have to be told twice. She knew as well as any that under these weather conditions, the air pressure inside the house had to be equal with that outside. The sudden drop in air pressure preceding a tornado could actually make the windows and doors of a tightly built structure burst outward like an overblown balloon. There was not so much danger in this old house, where the openings had not yet been fitted with tight weather-stripping; still, they could take no chances. In addition, it was as well to provide as little resistance as possible to the wind, allowing it to sweep through the house, dissipating its force instead of beating against the walls. The overhanging galleries and loggias, so much a part of the design of the houses built for this storm-prone climate, would protect the interior from the blowing rain that must come.
Come it did. It surged toward them in a solid sheet, splashing, splattering, thrumming with the incredible, penetrating wetness of the semitropical Deep South. It poured from the roof in a thousand silver-shot streams, rushed down the gutters, spattered on the floors of the galleries, its fury nearly drowning the sound of the wind.
Darkness closed in completely, relieved only by the flicker of lightning. A clammy dampness filled the house that, combined with the wind and a sudden drop in the temperature, struck chill to the bone.
Justin and Laura retreated to the sitting room. They stood at one of the windows; it was twelve feet tall, with the lower sash pushed up to an opening fully tall enough for a man to walk through.
Staring out into the night, Justin spoke. Laura heard the sound of his voice, but though she was less than four feet away, she could not make out what he said over the sound of the storm. She moved closer.
“What?”
He leaned toward her, speaking against her hair. “I said if we had any sense, we would take ourselves back to the pantry. At least it has no outside windows.”
Laura nodded, but neither of them moved from their places. Laura felt little real fear. The old house had withstood the storms of so many years; surely it would weather one more. After a moment she said, “Do you really think we should?”
He gave a slow shake of his head, a movement she felt rather than saw. “I think the wind is dying down now.”
It seemed to be so, though the thunder still shook the heavens and lightning sent its sullen glow around the horizon. A blown gust sent fine, misting rain across the lower gallery toward them. As it touched Laura, she shivered.
“Cold?”
Laura hugged her arms. “A little. I — I have a sweater in my tote bag, wherever it is.”
“We’ll find it in a minute,” he answered, his voice low, coming from close beside her. An instant later, she felt the encompassing warmth of his arm around her.
She stood stiff, but his hold remained impersonal, an offer of his own body heat, nothing more. By degrees she relaxed against him. There was no need to be silly about it or to make a big thing out of nothing. Still, she — more aware than she liked of his nearness, of his lean muscular length against her and the steady rise and fall of his breathing.
“Laura?” he said, a quiet note of inquiry in his voice, his warm breath stirring her hair.
She turned her head slightly and felt the gentle brush of his lips against her temple, as though in accidental contact. “Yes?”
He drew back slightly. The seconds ticked past. A muscle corded in his arm, then his clasp loosened. “I think,” he said evenly, “that we can close the windows now.”
That was not what he had been going to say, of that she was certain. Whether she should be glad or sorry that he had discarded his original intent, she could not decide.
In the hallway, Laura found her tote and drew out her sweater, slipping it on. Then, piling everything onto the floor, she dug out the small flashlight she bad learned to carry for seeing into the dark nooks and crannies of these old houses. Using its thin yellow beam, they moved upstairs and secured the windows and doors once more, then returned to the lower floor to do the same there.
The storm did not abate, but seemed to come in waves, the thunder and lightning rising to a crescendo, then falling away again and again. And through it all, the rain pounded down.
“It would have been nice,” Justin said, as he turned from locking the last window, “if I had had the foresight to install at least one phone when the telephone company ran the service lines. We could have called someone, told them where we were, even if our cars can’t be gotten out of here until something has been done about that tree tomorrow morning.”
Laura nodded in unhappy agreement. “My mother will be getting worried, especially with the storm. She knew where I was going, but I’m usually home before dark.”
“The nearest house is about three miles back toward town, I think.”
“That’s right,” Laura said. There was nothing any closer in the other direction.
“I could walk back there and use their phone if it didn’t mean leaving you alone here.”
“I don’t mind,” Laura told him, “but there’s no point in you going out into this. It could be dangerous. When the rain stops, we’ll both go.”
They argued the question back and forth, but Laura finally prevailed, primarily because Justin was reluctant to leave her in the house alone, she thought, and because he was just as reluctant to let her come with him into the wind and rain.
To counteract the growing coolness while they waited for the weather to clear, he built a small fire in the sitting-room fireplace, and they sat on the floor in front of it. The cheerful blaze not only took the dampness from their clothing and warmed them, but allowed them to turn off the flashlight, saving the batteries for when they might need them more, later on during the long walk for help.
The fire did not give a bright light, by any means. The yellow-orange flames sent flickering shadows over the walls and reflected in the glass of the uncovered windows, but it left the corners of the room in darkness and failed entirely to reach into the black, echoing emptiness of the hallway. It narrowed their world to the small semicircle in front of it, creating a soft and insidious intimacy.
Laura sat with her legs curled beneath her skirts, resting on one arm as she stared into the glowing heart of the fire. Outside, the rain lashed at the house, streaming down the windows. In the streaks of lightning, they could see the water that sheeted the lawn, turning the driveway into a millrace that flowed beneath the fallen oak and tumbled into the deep brimming ditches beside the blacktop road. Still, the storm showed no sign of letting up.
Laura glanced at the man beside her, sitting with one elbow resting on his drawn-up knee. The firelight touched his face with a reddish glow that accented the brooding lines of his features. He was a quiet, self-contained person, with something in his makeup of the protective instincts and the formality of another era. Despite a certain autocratic behavior that went with it, she found these qualities attractive. Were they inbred, or was it simply that he was
a man who had made his own way in the world, rather like the early planters who had carved their fortunes out of the lush lands of the South? They had risked everything for the prospect of riches, something that required the same traits of strength, courage, and humanity whatever the time period.
It would be a mistake to romanticize his character, she told herself. Her interest was not personal. He was only a man, and one who was engaged to marry another woman at that.
To deflect the unwelcome direction of her thoughts, she said, “I hate that the oak was blown down after so many years.”
“As long as the others on either side weren’t damaged, it doesn’t make a great deal of difference. The row on that side was uneven.”
“Yes, I know, but still —”
“It will be even now, the way it was in the beginning.”
She sent him a curious glance. “I’ve always wondered about that.”
“When my great-great-grandfather planted the oaks the year the house was built, there were eighteen, the same number as the columns around the house. The one on the end on the left side fell victim to a pony cart driven by his oldest son in 1853, a boy of ten at the time.”
“I didn’t know that,” she exclaimed in delight.
“There were a few things that happened at Crapemyrtle, bits and pieces of family history handed down by word of mouth, that aren’t mentioned in your diary.”
Laura shook her head, smiling. “I should hope so. The diary only covers a few months. But I’ve often wondered what became of your great-great-grandfather, why he let the house go.”
“He was killed in the war. He fell with his eldest son at Chancellorsville. Luckily there were several daughters and a second son who survived him, though they didn’t consider themselves so lucky when they had to leave Crapemyrtle in the late sixties.”
“Yes,” Laura said, though the look in her eyes was reflective. Jean Bienvenu Roman, dead at Chancellorsville at the age of — what? His middle fifties? Not a young age for a soldier, but in the South, as the war crept along, the supply of men of the correct youthfulness had been depleted. They had been forced to rely on men both older and younger than usual until, at the last, only the gray beards and the beardless were left. And when the war was over, the scavengers had fallen upon the rich land. There were no people left to work the thousands of fallow acres. Confederate money, which most had converted to from gold, was worthless; there was little means to pay the taxes that had accumulated over the years. And so all but a few of the big houses went out of the hands of their owners, were passed from one uncaring tenant to the next. Some finally fell into decay, some were torn down and the lumber used for other things, some were ravaged by fire. A few were restored by wealthy patrons who thought to borrow from their past grandeur, a few became schools, museums, boarding-houses. There were not many that returned to the ownership of descendants of the original builders.
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