Miss Rutledge paused yet again to discern the expression on Emily’s face before continuing. “Warren had merely laughed then asked his father if that was what he was getting so worked up about—that Katherine and he had virtually grown up together like brother and sister. Then he had laughed even harder and told his father that it didn’t make any difference in their love for each other; it only made them closer. Then John had gotten angry. He started yelling at Warren, telling him in so many words that he meant what he had just said in the literal sense—that Katherine might in fact be his sister!”
“Your grandfather then went into shock, I believe. There had been this long silence as he no doubt thought over what his father was implying. Then Warren asked him what he meant by this. John then proceeded to tell Warren something that I’m sure he would rather have not learned had he been given a choice.
“John told him that many years ago, while hunting up on the mountain—he owned all of that land up there—he had passed by Clem and Nancy Porter’s house and saw Nancy Porter out in the yard hanging up clothes, wearing only a nightgown. According to John, he simply said hello to her and walked on by. But Nancy kept standing there—half-naked, as he put it—and made no effort to cover herself up or run into the house. Then, he said, she said hello to him, calm as you please, and winked her eye at him. He took this as a come-on and knowing that her husband wasn’t around—he was working at the mill that day—decided to approach Nancy just to see what would happen. He then swore on the bible to Warren that Nancy started chatting with him, real friendly-like, then asked him if he wanted to go into the house with her, which he did. He then proceeded to tell Warren, in so many words, that he had gone to bed with Nancy and made love to her.”
Miss Rutledge turned red and looked away from Emily, who was staring at her in utter shock. Then she resumed. “After relating this story to your grandfather, John actually had the nerve to insist that it wasn’t his fault that any of this had happened—that it was Nancy Porter’s fault for being such a ‘seductive whore,’ as he put it—and that any red-blooded man would have done the same thing. He then went on to say, as if to somehow further justify his actions, that he was, after all, a widower and occasionally yearned for female accompaniment. There wasn’t any sin in that, was there? he’d said. Warren had kept silent so far throughout his father’s story; I suspect because he was still in shock.
“Then John told Warren that just before he’d left the Porter house, Nancy had invited him to come back again—whenever he pleased—providing that Clem wasn’t there, of course. John said that even though he knew that it wasn’t fair to Clem, he simply couldn’t refuse Nancy’s offer. So for the next couple of weeks, John paid a visit to Nancy Porter every chance he could. Then, he said, his conscience started bothering him so he quit seeing her altogether.
“Warren either didn’t believe any of his father’s story or didn’t want to believe it, because he all of a sudden started laughing hysterically. He asked his father what made him so sure that he had fathered Katherine; assuming that this whole preposterous story was true in the first place? John replied that he was certain of this because it had been almost exactly nine months after all of this ‘activity’ that Katherine was born. Warren started laughing again after he heard this. He told John that this still didn’t necessarily make him the father—just because Nancy Porter had become pregnant around the same time as his alleged affair with her. He reminded him that Nancy Porter, after all, had a husband living with her. John responded to this by saying that he had been quite aware that Clem could have been Katherine’s father—until he’d overheard something that my mother told a friend one day. My mother supposedly had told her friend that Clem and Nancy Porter had been trying to have children, unsuccessfully, ever since they’d first gotten married. John then sort of snickered and said something like ‘poor old Clem’s just been shooting blanks,’ which I assumed was a crude way of implying that Clem Porter was infertile.
“He then asked Warren if he didn’t think it a little more than coincidental that all of a sudden, after ten years of trying, Nancy Porter gets pregnant at around the same time that he had been sleeping with her?”
Miss Rutledge stopped abruptly. “Emily, are you all right?” she asked, no doubt seeing the color leave Emily’s face.
Emily replied quickly. “Oh yes! I’m fine.”
“Are you sure, honey? You look a little pale. I hope I’m not upsetting you.”
“Oh no, please go on. I just think I’m a little hungry. I skipped eating lunch today.” she added weakly.
“Well let me get you something to eat, then,” she offered.
Emily replied, “That’s all right. I’ll be fine. Please go on.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, really. I’m fine, Miss Rutledge.”
“All right then. But please let me know if you want me to stop.”
“I will,” Emily replied, struggling to appear unaffected.
“Well, after John told Warren what he’d overheard my mother say, he fell silent for a long time. Your grandfather still refused to believe that any of it was true—that was apparent. He finally told John that there was no way to confirm if he was Katherine’s father or not—so what difference did it make? If Katherine was indeed his half-sister, Warren argued, then what bearing did that have on her having the baby? he wanted to know. John must have realized that it hadn’t yet sunk in on his son, so he told him to consider it for a moment. Warren still wasn’t getting the gist, so John asked him if he’d ever heard of inbreeding and the effects it can have on the offspring. Your grandfather, God love him, finally grasped what his father had been driving at throughout this entire conversation and he just completely broke down once it dawned on him. It was the saddest thing you can imagine.”
Emily was practically in tears. Miss Rutledge quickly said, “Emily, there is something you must understand before I go on. My mother was Nancy Porter’s best friend and she told me later that Nancy would never have done what your great-grandfather was claiming she had done. She was a good, decent lady who was deeply in love with her husband. So please, don’t think for a moment that the story he told your grandfather was true.”
“But why would he make up such a story, then? It doesn’t make any sense.” Emily said.
“Well, that’s what is so mysterious about all of this. I must admit that there is a good chance that something happened between John and Nancy Porter. Either he fabricated this whole story completely from beginning to end, which seems unlikely, or there is a shred of truth to his story—particularly the part about a sexual encounter with Nancy Porter . . .” she said, her voice trailing off.
Emily knew what she was implying. “You mean that he might have raped her, don’t you?”
Miss Rutledge flinched at the sound of the word.
“Yes.”
Emily suddenly felt ill.
Miss Rutledge quickly added, “Or there’s a remote chance that your great-grandfather still resented Warren and Katherine’s marriage enough to dream this story up to make Warren think twice about what he’d done against his will. Maybe he still thought that he could somehow break them up.”
Emily replied, “From what you’ve told me about how much in love they were, I hardly think that he would bother trying to split them up at that point.”
“I know dear, you’re probably right. But one other important aspect must be considered. If John had really, er, forced himself upon Nancy Porter, then we can safely assume that it happened only once. Therefore, it seems highly unlikely that he made her pregnant in that one single act of sin.”
Emily was still skeptical. “But you said that Grandma Katherine’s parents had tried for ten years to have children but had never succeeded in all that time. If my great-grandfather truly had raped Grandma Katherine’s mother when he said he’d slept with her . . . then there’s a good chance that it wasn’t just ‘coincidence’ that she’d gotten pregnant when she did.”
�
�Emily, I must be frank. Yes, there is a chance that it wasn’t sheer coincidence; that John Hoffman truly did make Nancy pregnant. But there is also a chance that he did not, as well. Katherine never for a moment believed that John Hoffman had been her father.”
Emily was surprised at this. “She didn’t?”
“She most certainly did not. Nor did Warren. I don’t think John had planned on Warren telling Katherine about their conversation, but he did. He marched out of the room, after calling his father a liar of the worst kind, then went to Katherine. I think now that he probably should’ve waited a spell before telling her; to allow himself a chance to think things through before laying all of this on poor Katherine all at once as he did. Katherine’s reaction had been the same as his—not believing a single word of it—and she immediately went on the offensive. She told Warren that from that day on she wanted absolutely nothing to do with John Hoffman, and that after she had the baby, she and Warren were going to move out of the house altogether. Warren had been taken aback by her bitter reaction but nevertheless promised her that they would do as she wished.
“Katherine later approached my mother and I to tell us that which I had already known; I’d never been able to bring myself to tell Mother I’d been eavesdropping that day. Once she’d told us everything, she suddenly began asking my mother a lot of questions about her dead parents—that subject being something that had always been avoided while she was growing up. John Hoffman had always insisted it was best that Katherine not be reminded of her past because it would only effect her in a negative way. At any rate, my mother told Katherine everything she wanted to know, including the fact that her parents had been very much in love with each other and that Nancy was a decent, God-fearing woman who would never have done what John Hoffman was claiming she’d done. This had only reinforced Katherine’s conviction that John was lying, and that she truly had been the daughter of Clem and Nancy Porter.
“Things became very different in the house as a result of all that had transpired. John Hoffman, no longer in existence as far as Katherine was concerned, became quite passive and I dare say, probably regretful that he’d ever opened this Pandora’s box. Katherine refused to speak to him and his own son did little more than discuss the business dealings of the mill with him. In the meantime, Katherine had persuaded Warren to build her a house on the mountain near her parent’s former home. John Hoffman had become a broken man and did nothing to stand in the way of the construction of the house—or much of anything, for that matter. He merely became a hopeless, pathetic drunk while Warren more or less took over the operation of the mill.
“Then a frightful thing happened. For some reason, in her eighth month, Katherine had a miscarriage. She’d been rushed to the hospital in terrible pain, but they couldn’t save the baby. It was a little girl.
“Katherine was devastated. She felt it was John Hoffman’s fault that she had miscarried. She told him that had he not made up the absurd and fictitious story about her mother and gotten her all riled up, that she could have carried her baby to term and been a mother to a healthy baby girl. John made a dismal attempt to apologize to her for her loss, but nevertheless still refused to concede that his story was untrue.
“John Hoffman took all his guilt to heart,” she continued. “His drinking got so bad that he stopped eating and in fact, I think, no longer had the desire to live. A couple of months after Katherine’s miscarriage, he had a violent stroke and passed away. John Hoffman died a lonely, estranged man . . . an empty shell. The house on the mountain—your house- was nearly completed and Warren and Katherine began making preparations to move in shortly after his funeral. When they at last did move, Warren allowed my mother and I to remain here. He even had this house renovated not long afterwards, as it was in bad need of repair. My mother remarried a few years later and I lived here with her and my stepfather until Katherine gave birth to your father.
“Katherine simply adored that house you and your father are living in now. She had a natural talent for interior decorating and took great pride and pleasure in appointing it. She spent practically all her time at home while Warren was busy managing the mill. She also spent a great deal of time roaming the mountain and visiting the old house where my mother had spread her parents’ ashes. Katherine was a wonderful, happy housewife and refused to let the past take hold of her life in spite of all the tragedy she had endured.
“Then, several years after John Hoffman’s death, Katherine became pregnant again. She was still fairly young—only twenty-eight years old—when she gave birth to Charles. My land, were those two happy as larks when your father was born! Charles was an adorable baby; happy and healthy as can be.
“But a week later, Katherine ran into some complications. She was taken back to the hospital and remained there for two weeks or so. Then she passed away.”
A tear came to Miss Rutledge’s eye and she struggled to compose herself. “When Katherine died, Warren became a lost soul. He had loved her so. The love of his life was gone and he was suddenly left all alone with a newborn baby child to raise. And what made it even more difficult for him had been Katherine’s request that she be cremated after her death and her remains scattered where her parents’ were at the old Porter house. Warren couldn’t deal with this. Not only did he not believe in cremation, he couldn’t bear the thought of Katherine’s body being burnt to ashes instead of buried in a funeral plot where he could some day be laid to rest beside her. I know it took every bit of reserve he had to go through with it, and he spent the rest of his life regretting that he ever had.”
“Grandma Katherine’s ashes are at the old house, too?” Emily asked incredulously.
Miss Rutledge nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry I never told you, but Warren insisted that I don’t. He was very sensitive about it.”
“But what about her grave? Grandpa was buried right beside her—I saw her head stone!” Emily objected.
“And that is all that’s there—a head stone. But Katherine’s ashes lie on the mountain.”
Emily, for some reason, was glad to hear this. Now she knew why she had always felt so close to Grandma Katherine whenever she visited the old house. Her spirit was there, along with her mother’s and father’s, just as it should be.
Miss Rutledge continued. “After Katherine passed away, your grandfather asked that I move into his house and help out with little Charles. I was more than happy to oblige, so I left my mother and stepfather to move in with Warren soon afterwards.
“Your father was a sweet little boy and a joy to behold. But from the very beginning I could sense in Warren what I believed at the time to be resentment toward the child. I thought then that he was secretly blaming Charles for Katherine’s untimely death, and that he was holding that against the poor defenseless angel. But as time went by, I began realizing that it was something other than that; and it became more and more apparent as Charles grew older.
“Warren was actually sporting the notion that Charles might not be a—uh, normal child. I don’t know what on earth led him to start believing this because I will swear on the Holy Bible that Charles never behaved in such a manner that anyone would think it plausible. But Warren got it in his head that Charles was ‘not all there.’ He let what his father had told him about Katherine being his half-sister come back to haunt him and all of a sudden started believing that they had produced an imperfect child.
“The tragedy of this was that Warren started treating Charles as if he was abnormal, which ended up having a profound effect on him as he grew up. Warren often criticized everything Charles did—usually finding fault with it—and Charles eventually became so terrified of his father that he frequently ended up retreating into isolation rather than trying to correct whatever it was he’d done wrong. Your father’s behavior, as a result, made Warren feel that his worst fears were confirmed; that his son was indeed mentally deficient.
“I tried countless times to reason with Warren. I told him that Charles was perfectly normal and t
hat he was only imagining he was anything but. Warren wouldn’t listen though. He was convinced that he was right and I was wrong. And your father, I’m afraid, paid the price for Warren’s obstinacy.
“The two of them grew further and further apart as Charles got older, but Warren eventually realized that he might have been wrong in his assessment of his son. Charles did very well in school and ended up maturing into a fine young man. Not long after he married your mother, Warren took your father aside and apologized for the way he’d treated him all his life. He begged his forgiveness and in a gesture of retribution, offered him the house he’d built for Katherine as a wedding present; he could no longer bear living there without Katherine anyway. Charles accepted his apology and the house, and for awhile, the two men were on friendly terms.
“But, as you know, they eventually drifted apart again. I don’t know what got into Charles; if it was simply too difficult for him to forgive and forget, or if the wounds of his childhood were just too deep. But he started defying your grandfather; criticizing the way he was running things at the mill and undermining his authority every chance he could. Your father’s behavior in the last twenty years or so has been reprehensible at times. Please forgive me for saying this, Emily, but I’m afraid that your father is not well. And what troubles me so is that he seems to be getting worse instead of better. But please don’t jump to any conclusions. I’m not implying for a moment that I think his problems are the result of an incestuous relationship between your grandparents. I just feel that Charles is psychologically unstable and needs professional help. I’m only telling you this because I fear for you and your well-being, especially now that your grandfather is no longer with us—God rest his soul.”
Emily knew that Miss Rutledge was now mincing words and in fact, was lying to her. She just didn’t want to come out and tell her that her father was crazy because his mother and father had actually been brother and sister. Or half-brother and half-sister—what difference did it make? Miss Rutledge was afraid that she would somehow let it ruin her life if she accepted the truth but couldn’t deal with the truth.
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