“Is. A real looker and a fabulous rider. The two of them are well suited for each other,” Sister replied. “You know, there are so many good marriages in foxhunting. I have often wondered, is it because we share danger?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know. I think marriage is danger enough.” Betty laughed.
Ben put a hand on some of the untidied pages, for Sister had the rest in a neat pile. “I assume the Falconers are gone?”
“Yes. Both. And sad to say, the daughter Madeline—‘Madge’—died of the same type of cancer that took her mother. They were Northern Virginia people but we all knew one another from hunting. Of course, I knew Madge and Christine only socially and from hunting. Makes me wonder if cancer is inherited. Ah, well.” Sister thought a moment. “I keep coming back to that. Love or money.”
—
Vic Harris, exposed and humiliated, knew in his gut Yvonne would kill him if she could, for love and money. Well, soured love. She did the next best thing. The decision was whether to just cave and tell the press they had settled out of court, or to fight back even harder just to make the bitch miserable.
Yvonne had instructed her lawyers at Hart, Hanckle and Himmel to release to all the social media footage she had, thanks to the most expensive private investigation firm in Chicago: footage of her husband cavorting with his two blonde mistresses. The elect, the one receiving twenty thousand dollars a month, performed many a service, but what would knock back people of his generation was how Mistress Number One was only too happy to work over the close-to-sixty-year-old man with Mistress Number Two. He kept up, literally.
So there he was, a self-proclaimed leader of the black community, for decades extolling the necessity to praise and focus on African American women. He, of course, criticized Justice Thomas for marrying a white woman. Any man of color who married a white woman came in for a blast in his magazine, on his cable network. He even blasted Hispanic men who slept with white women.
The overground media reported this fall from grace. They showed head shots of the two knockout blondes, but could not show the home-style porn. The social media showed everything.
Unfortunately, this meant that Tootie beheld her father in action when a so-called friend sent it on to her. Unfair as her father had been to her, she didn’t want to see this. She didn’t want to know what a complete hypocrite he was.
She didn’t bother to text her mother. She drove over to Beveridge Hundred once her chores were completed. Shaker had not seen the trash, and Sister was at the sheriff’s office. Tootie would have gone to Sister first, but confronting Yvonne would happen sooner or later.
“Mother!” Tootie opened the door to the cottage.
“In the back.”
Within a minute, Tootie stood in the back garden on this perfect October day.
“I saw everything.”
“Ah.”
“Mother, why did you do it?”
“I didn’t do it. That’s the point.” Yvonne dropped into a wooden red Adirondack chair as Tootie followed suit, in a blue one.
“I know, but”—she groped for words—“that was awful. Everyone we know will have seen Dad. I am so humiliated.”
“You didn’t do it. You have nothing to be humiliated about. He has acted without regard for his wife or daughter. If anything, people should be sympathetic to us.”
“I don’t know.” Tootie’s voice trailed off.
“I built that business. I worked every day for years to build that business. I made calls. I organized dinners. I talked to complete assholes and pretended they were brilliant. He thinks because I’m a woman he can cut me out, buy me off cheap. He’s been married to me for thirty-one years and he thought he could back me down? He may be able to continue running the business without me—I expect he’ll hire a regiment of ass-kissers—but he will no longer be an admired person. I wonder what the wives of our friends will do? Maybe nothing. Maybe cut him dead. What I expect is my half of the funds—quite soon, actually.”
“You don’t want to stay in the business? You liked working.”
“I did. Most of the time. I didn’t always like the people especially, but I liked building something and I liked working with him. I loved him once. I gave him everything I had. And what you saw was my reward.”
“Mom, he wasn’t always like that.”
“No. This priapic behavior”—Yvonne was careful in her choice of words—“arrived with his fiftieth birthday. He panicked. People thought I would panic when my turn came four years later. Lots of speculation about how much plastic surgery I’d have, stuff like that. I was fine. I am fine, and sixty is getting closer, not too close yet but closer. I don’t give a damn, but I do give a damn about respect.”
Tootie sat there, wiggled her toes in her boots. “I don’t ever want to see him again.”
“He is your father. I can’t interfere in your relationship or lack of one.”
“You never fought for me when I tried to explain to him why I didn’t want to go to law school or med school. He called me a nuevo field hand!”
“Tootie, at first, I somewhat agreed with him. I did and I’m sorry. I thought your desire to hunt, to literally clean shit, was beneath us. We had risen so far in the world. Like most people of my generation I couldn’t understand why any of our people would want to work in agriculture or with animals. We don’t see it as a career. As time went by, I accepted that this is your life. When you said later you wanted to be a veterinarian, I thought, okay, she will be using her brain. But now that I have actually seen you out there, like at Old Paradise, I understand you are using your brain. In time I did stand up for you, but not when he was hot. There is no talking to your father when he’s lost his temper.”
“I hate him. I really do.” Tootie clamped her lips shut. “I will never fall in love with anyone.”
A wave of guilt, sorrow, and anger lapped at Yvonne all at once. “I have been an inadequate mother. Not bad, but not so good. I wish I could take back those years when you needed me and I wasn’t there. I am so sorry.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Tootie, don’t say you won’t love anyone. It can be the most wonderful thing in the world. Much as I loathe that son of a bitch now, when I was young, when we were working together, when you were born, I loved him. I didn’t change; he did.” She paused. “Well, I did change. I got older.”
“Mom, I’m sorry.” Tootie was able to look past her own feelings of the moment.
“Do you forgive me?”
Tootie lifted her shoulders. “You’re my mother. I love you.”
Yvonne rose from the chair, knelt before her daughter, tears streaming now, and took her hand. “I love you, too, honey. I think it has taken me a long time to grow up. In so many ways you are ahead of me.” She stood now, leaned down and kissed Tootie on the cheek. “I pray someday you will find love. You will feel all the excitement and happiness I once felt, and your love will come to a better conclusion. Men”—she thought about this for a bit—“change.”
“Don’t we?”
“We do, but it’s different. Men fear age in a different way.” Noting Tootie’s facial expression. “It’s nothing to worry about now, and not everyone fears age.”
“Do you?”
Sitting now on the flat arm of Tootie’s Adirondack chair, Yvonne, voice lower, said, “When I hit forty I determined to fight it, and then one day, when someone said to me, ‘Yvonne, still so beautiful,’ I knew I couldn’t fight time. No one ever uses the word ‘still’ when you are young. No, I don’t fear age, but I fear not being able to do the things I like to do. I fear illness, some of the things that come with age.”
—
“Still beautiful. I would know you anywhere, in any century.” Daniella, stunned, listened to Weevil as he took her elbow.
Daniella enjoyed her early morning walk, and her sunset walk, as she thought of it. She missed her late son, Mercer, who would usually walk with her, but Gray and Sam, individually or sometimes together, would parade with her at lea
st once a week.
The first Monday in October, temperatures in the high 60s, color at the top of the deciduous trees, filled her with delight. At six o’clock she grabbed her ebony cane with the ivory hound’s head, flicked it in front of her, and started her sunset walk. West Leigh, a good neighborhood west of Charlottesville proper, pretty houses, always provided something for her to look at. If a neighbor, and the yards were large, worked in the yard, she’d swing up her cane as a hello, or stop and chat. Usually she kept walking, laughing at herself and saying if she stopped it would be hard to start the motor again. She hadn’t been out for ten minutes when she heard a footfall, felt a strong hand on her elbow.
Keeping complete composure, she replied, “Weevil, you say that to all the girls.”
He chuckled. “But you were the best one. We did have fun, didn’t we?”
Brain whirring, she smiled. “While it lasted, yes. So tell me, Weevil, how is death? I’d like to know as I draw ever closer.”
“You exist in another dimension. No hunger, thirst, work. You can see people here. You can visit them if you want to, obviously. But most of us realize it is too upsetting. I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
“You stole your horn from the museum.”
“Did. Missed it. There’s a little story on the scrimshaw. I wanted to see it again. Hold it. Blow it. Daniella, I can’t escort you for very long. I don’t think anyone around these parts knows who I am, but I can’t take the chance, you know? I have two questions.”
“Ask them.”
“Who is still alive? Tom Tipton, you. Is there anyone else?”
“Randall Farley. His mind is gone, gone. He’s in assisted living. But many of our generation’s children are still living.”
The long rays of the setting sun turned his golden hair to red as he inclined it toward her.
“Did anyone ever find Sophie Marquet’s fortune?”
“The founder of Old Paradise? It must have all been spent. The DuCharmes finally sold the place to Crawford Howard. He’s a rich, pushy white man.”
“People have secrets. Evangelista Bancroft did.” Weevil smiled, teeth straight.
Daniella, surprised, asked, “Edward’s late sister?”
“H-m-m. She was three, maybe four years older than Edward. Always liked him. Liked the woman he married. Loved Evangelista. But Evangelista had her ways. I was not her first.”
Daniella absorbed this. “I’m afraid I am of no help to you. I knew everyone, of course, but how could I run in the same social circles as Evangelista? I thought she was a dreadful snob.”
Weevil squeezed her elbow, then lifted up her hand and kissed her palm. “Just speaking with you has been a help.”
He dropped her hand, loped behind one of the houses, and disappeared.
Daniella, head up, breathing deeply, reached her house, closed the door, picked up her phone. “Gray!”
As she usually called with a request, Gray pretended he was glad to hear her voice. “Aunt Daniella, you sound chipper.”
“I have just had a walk with Wesley Carruthers.”
CHAPTER 18
“West Indian, George Trumper,” Aunt Daniella, perfectly calm, told Sister and Gray. “It’s an old men’s cologne, established in 1875. Favored by rich men, as is Creed. One of those things where if you know, you know. If you don’t, you’re farther down on the ladder. Edward Bancroft would know of it. Weevil imitated the rich when he could. Cologne is affordable.”
Sister and Gray had driven over immediately after her call.
“No one else mentioned it. Tom Tipton vaguely recalled a scent.”
Aunt Daniella thought about this. “Tom might recognize the fragrance but not know what it was. Also, from your report, it sounds as though Tom was terrified.”
“Unlike you.” Sister smiled at the nonagenarian.
“I am very close to the red exit light. Nothing scares me.”
“Nothing ever did.” Gray complimented her. “Mother used to say of all of the family, you were the strongest.”
“Ah” was all Aunt Daniella said, her lips, dark red lipstick, parted slightly.
“He wanted to know who was alive?”
“Just as I told you. Tom Tipton. Randall Farley in assisted living.”
“According to Marion, who has canvassed the two Northern Virginia hunts where Weevil started out, of his contemporaries, all gone.”
“H-m-m. How is Tom, by the way?”
“Still a little shaken, but recovering. I spoke to Sara Bateman, who is keeping tabs on him,” Sister replied.
“Good fellow, Tom. I always thought he would rise higher than he did.” She wondered. “Mercer would mention Tom from time to time, as he remembered him from his childhood. Said Tom had been kind to him.”
Mercer, her son, was a good rider, as were all the Lorillards and Laprades.
“It’s a funny thing, Aunt Daniella.” Sister spoke to this. “Carrying the horn is very different from whipping-in. Some people find they can’t do it. Some can do it but much prefer whipping-in. I actually think the whippers-in often see more. They certainly see more foxes.”
“No doubt.” The old woman nodded.
“Aunt D.” Gray called her by her nickname. “Have you any idea why he is here? Why he has showed himself?”
“No.”
“Did you think he was a ghost?” Sister inquired.
“He seemed as alive as the three of us. He looked like Weevil, smelled like Weevil, spoke like Weevil. A flatterer, as always.”
“And Weevil mentioned Evangelista Bancroft?” Sister questioned.
“He said he had loved her and that she, in his words, ‘had her ways.’ He also declared Evangelista had secrets.” A long pause followed this. “Don’t we all? Would you want to know anyone who didn’t have secrets?” A sly smile followed this.
Gray, having fixed his aunt her double bourbon, himself a light Scotch, and a Perrier with lime for Sister, cleared his throat. “Speaking of secrets. Now don’t fuss at me. Did you have an affair with Weevil?”
“Of course I did. If anyone else asks me I will lie, lie through my teeth, but to you and you,”—she inclined her head toward Sister—“I will tell the truth. It was one of those mad things. The kind of affair Cole Porter wrote songs about. We parted friends. I was in no way prepared to settle down, and neither was he.”
“Aunt Daniella, you couldn’t have married him back then. The miscegenation laws.” Gray recalled the law forbidding whites and blacks to marry.
“I didn’t say I would marry him. I said settle down. They couldn’t arrest us for that, plus I can easily pass for white. However, everyone here knew I was not.” She waved her hand dismissively. “When are people going to realize you can’t control human behavior? Do you think for one instant Weevil and I were the only young, attractive people in the state of Virginia enjoying each other’s bodies? Ha.”
“Did you think he was a good man?” Sister drove to the heart of it.
“Yes. Weevil was the grasshopper. Remember the story about the ants and the grasshopper? The grasshopper fiddles, sings, and dances while the ants work, prepare for winter. Winter comes, the grasshopper will die, but the ants save him. That was Weevil, and I declare, someone would have saved him. If he were ninety-four as I am, some woman somewhere would be ministering to him. But he didn’t have a mean bone in his body, and in his own way, he could be uncommonly sweet.” She paused. “Almost feminine, really, his sensitivity to other people.”
“Do you think he had a feeling he would be murdered? Do you think he felt it?” Sister continued.
“I don’t know. By the time he disappeared our frolic had ended. Oh, I would see him, but time had passed and in its way, passed us by.”
“And what did you think of Evangelista?” Gray jumped in.
“Gorgeous. Impossibly rich. A creature of her time and place. A snob. It’s interesting that her brother isn’t. Edward is an open fellow.”
“You didn’t tell Weevil that Edw
ard was alive,” Gray remarked.
“Edward was at Dartmouth back then. He wasn’t really our contemporary. His father, as I’m sure you heard, broke up the relationship and packed Evangelista off to Europe. Paris, London, Moscow. God knows where she traveled once there. She did marry upon her return, but I can tell you, she didn’t love him. He was well-bred and rich. She did what she was raised to do, except she never had children.” Aunt Daniella held up her glass, which Gray promptly refilled, giving her the tiniest twist of orange.
“What’s this?”
“A little twist just for you. You have lemons, oranges, and limes sitting at the bar.”
“For show.” She grinned. “Love the color.”
“Back to Evangelista. How had she changed?” Sister plucked the lime out of her Perrier and sucked on it for a moment.
“How can you do that?” Aunt Daniella asked before returning to the question. “Too tart for me. Ah, yes, Evangelista. Well, she never had children, as I said. Swore she wanted them. Said she and her husband tried. I actually think she didn’t want children. It was as though some of her colors had faded, like a salmon taken out of the stream. She performed all the duties of a woman of her class. She delighted in Tedi and Edward’s two girls, but after her return I never once saw her laugh spontaneously—or do anything spontaneous, really. It was clear she tolerated her father and vice versa.”
“Aunt D, do you think Evangelista’s father could have killed Weevil? Or Edward, for that matter?”
She looked at her handsome nephew. “No. If old man Bancroft was going to kill him, or have him killed, I think he would have done it during the affair. Same with Edward, but he was up in New England. I really don’t think Edward could kill anyone, unless defending his family.”
“I don’t either,” Sister agreed. “And he asked about Sophie Marquet’s fortune?”
“I said I thought it was a story and nothing more. Those two worthless brothers lost everything. If there had been treasure and they found it they’d have fought about that, too, and blown it. I told him Old Paradise had been sold. I did not describe Crawford as new money. He would figure that out anyway. Ah yes.” A slightly malicious smile crossed her lips. “Money talks. Crawford intends to tell us all. The vulgarity of that man, that awful new mansion. Does he think we can’t tell the difference?”
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