“Uh-huh. She wrote an article in a part of the paper that says IN OUR OPINION.”
“That's the editorial page. Read it.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Cherry took a breath and began reading Gloria Lawrence's editorial aloud. “‘When I took over the Gazette, I found the following column in the archives. It had never been printed. It was written by Laurel Selene McCready, a seven-year employee of this newspaper. This is a quote from Ms. McCready's article:
“‘The time has come to be honest about Garrison Gardens and the Garrison resort. Because they are the main employers in Charles Valley, they have been getting away with abusive treatment of their workers for far too long. We all know about layoffs that hit without warning and employees who have worked overtime without being compensated for it. We know about wages that are the lowest in the state and unsafe working conditions that result in serious injuries. We know about these things, but we don't say anything. We give the gardens and the resort a free pass because they have power. They've become the elephant in our living room. We need to stop ignoring it.'”
Cherry looked up from the newspaper. “That's the end of the stuff Laurel McCready wrote,” she announced.
“Go on with Gloria Lawrence's editorial.”
Cherry nodded and began reading again. “‘According to my records, the day after she wrote this column Ms. McCready was fired from this paper. Ironically, the vehement Ms. McCready is now the owner of the resort, and she has the deciding vote on the board of trustees that makes policy for the gardens. And, according to yesterday's announcement, the gardens and the resort are now planning to raise the cost of health insurance premiums for those workers for whom Ms. McCready expressed such concern. When asked to comment, Ms. McCready replied, “I don't know anything about business. There are people who know what they're doing, and they say this is the way it has to be. My opinion doesn't matter.” In our opinion, it does matter what Ms. McCready thinks, and she got it right the first time.'” Cherry looked up again. “That's kind of wild,” she said. “I guess when you're the owner you change your mind about being the elephant in the living room.”
Mrs. Rain knew better. She knew exactly what had happened to change Laurel's mind. “Cherry, stop reading,” she said.
“But there's more in this article, Mrs. Rain—”
“I've heard enough. I need a pen and my notepaper. It's upstairs in my bedroom. In my desk, I think. Or it might be in the nightstand. I can't remember, damn it!”
“I'll find it. Don't worry.”
“Worry? Child, I'm so relieved I can't stand it!”
Her instincts hadn't been wrong. Laurel Selene McCready was being bullied, in the same way Myrtis and Peggy had been bullied. Laurel needed to know the truth so she could fight off the enemy.
Mrs. Rain picked up the pen Cherry had given her. Then she put it down again. She wanted to tell her tale from the beginning, but she didn't have time for that. She'd have to start with the hard part—the dangerous part. She'd be trusting a total stranger with secrets that had been kept for over seventy years. Her hand hesitated over the pen, then she picked it up.
“Dear Ms. McCready,” she wrote. Her handwriting was shaky, but that couldn't be helped. “You don't know me, but I want to tell you a story. It begins in the summer of 1933 when two young girls got on a train for Georgia.”
Chapter Fifty-two
IVA CLAIRE
1933
SMALL TOWNS AND FARMS passed by the train window, but Iva Claire didn't see them. It was the middle of the afternoon, they'd been traveling for two and a half days, and Beneville was the next stop. She hadn't been able to sleep, unlike Tassie, who was snoozing in the seat next to her.
She and Tassie hadn't talked about the future, not that there was much to talk about. The act was finished. When they went back to New York they wouldn't have work or a place to live. They didn't even know how they were going to get to New York. But all that would come later. Iva Claire couldn't look farther ahead than the train's arrival in Beneville.
After she'd snuck off to Atlanta to meet her father years ago, her mother had finally filled in some of the blanks about his illustrious background. His family had founded Beneville to support the cotton mills they owned. They'd gotten rich off the mills, sold them, and gotten even richer in cotton brokering and banking. They were like royalty in Beneville, Mama said. Her father, whose name was Randall Benedict, was treated like a prince. And now his illegitimate daughter was going to show up and make the prince say he was sorry. She'd finally realized that was what she was traveling all this way to hear. It might not seem like much to anyone else, but she'd just buried her mother in a pauper's grave in a state she was never to see again. He couldn't change that, but, by God, she was going to hear him say he was sorry.
I'm as crazy as Mama after all. If Tassie's smart she'll get away from me and go off on her own.
If he hadn't known Mama was sick, it wouldn't have been so bad. But he'd read the two letters she'd sent from the Normandy Hotel, begging for his help. He'd read them and sent them back to her instead of the money she'd humiliated herself to ask for. He'd sent them back because he wanted to hurt her.
He'll say he's sorry for that. I'll make him say he's sorry.
The train was slowing down. Soon she'd see her father again, and this time it would be different. This time she wasn't a little girl he could throw out of his hotel room. This time she was going to make him admit what he'd done.
She leaned over to wake Tassie up.
The afternoon sun was starting to fade when they got off the train and stood on the Beneville platform. On either side of them, a pretty little town spread out in a neat grid of intersecting streets, with the train tracks running through the middle of it. A sign on the station house said the town had been founded in 1874 by the Benedict family. Her father's family. Not her family.
Beneville was a classic mill town. At its edge ran the river where the mills were located. Closer to the railroad on the right were the cotton warehouses, a hotel, and two long low buildings that looked like some kind of dormitory housing, probably for mill workers. All these structures were made of red brick.
The streets that ran perpendicular to the railroad tracks were narrow and tree lined. On her left, Iva Claire could see a small town square. In the distance, overlooking the center of the town, was a gently sloping hill. Iva Claire could make out a large white house perched on top of it, almost completely hidden by trees. She didn't have to check the address. That had to be her father's home.
“Iva Claire? What do you want to do?” Tassie asked quietly.
“I'm going up there.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“I've got to do this alone.”
Tassie seemed to understand—or was she a little relieved? “There's no train back to Atlanta until tomorrow morning,” she said. “I'll get us a room in that hotel. Give me your suitcase.”
Iva Claire handed it to her. “I'm not taking a bus or a taxi. I'll walk,” she said. “It'll be easier to hide that way.”
“Why do you have to hide?”
She had a brief memory of opening the door to the hotel room in Atlanta and seeing a face that was unmistakably like hers. She didn't want word getting out in this small town that a girl who looked like the prince was walking around.
“I don't want anyone to see me until I've seen him,” she said. “I want to surprise him.”
“If you don't want anyone to see you, I'll wait for you out on the porch of the hotel. That way you won't have to ask what room I'm in.”
Iva Claire nodded, and Tassie started to pick up the suitcases. Then she stopped. “Iva Claire, you know your father's a son of a bitch, don't you? I mean, you're not expecting him to be nice to you.”
“Don't worry, I'm not expecting a thing.” Except an apology.
She began walking toward the big white house on the hill.
Because of all the trees, she hadn't realized how isolated the house was. By th
e time she finally reached 51 Mill Street, the address she'd memorized so many years before, she hadn't seen another building for at least half a mile. The winding drive leading from the street to the house was shaded by a canopy of oaks. The sun was setting by the time she reached it, and the trees made it even darker and harder to see her surroundings. She could make out flower beds laid out in formal patterns on either side of the canopy and, on her right, ahead of her, a garage with a car parked in front of it. To her left, almost behind the house, she could see some headstones and three mausoleums surrounded by an iron fence. Two statues of angels faced each other at the gates. Her father's family had a private cemetery. Her father would never end up in a pauper's field in a town where no one knew him.
The canopy of trees ended abruptly, and the house was in front of her. It was two stories high, built on a raised brick foundation with a square porch that wrapped around three sides. Two wide steps led to the porch and the front door. At first she thought the house was dark, but then she saw a light in one of the windows upstairs. He was home.
He'll be angry, warned a voice inside her head.
So am I. She walked up the steps and knocked on the front door. Nothing happened. She knocked louder. She banged with her fists. He was not going to get away from her. Not now. She banged even louder. The door swung open.
And in the half-light of the porch, Iva Claire found herself staring at her own face for the second time in her life. Her father was a masculine version of her, but the young woman in front of her was almost her mirror image.
“Who . . . are . . . ?” she managed to get out.
“I'm Myrtis Benedict.”
Chapter Fifty-three
THERE WERE DIFFERENCES between them. But you had to look closely to see them. Myrtis's hair was a lighter brown than hers, and it had been cut fashionably short; Iva Claire and Tassie kept their hair long to look young for the act. Myrtis's eyes were a lighter blue than Iva Claire's and perhaps more deep-set. Myrtis's mouth was smaller than hers, the lips were thinner, and Myrtis was shorter by about an inch and fuller in the hips and bust. But the shape of their faces and their eyes was the same; they had the same nose and the same distinctive chin.
The resemblance was as stunning to the other girl as it was to her. They stood on either side of the doorway staring at each other until Iva Claire finally pulled herself out of her trance.
“I'm Randall Benedict's daughter—” she started.
The sound of her voice roused the girl. “Get inside!” she commanded in a whisper.
“If you could tell him—”
“Get in here. Now!”
Iva Claire went in. A wide hallway ran from the front door through the center of the house to a back door at the other end, with rooms opening onto it on either side. In the front, a heavily carved staircase led to the second floor.
“This way!” Myrtis was still whispering as she opened a door on one side of the hall and pushed Iva Claire into what looked like a small parlor. “Don't move,” she hissed. Then she left, closing the door quietly behind her. Iva Claire could hear the heels of her shoes clicking down the hall to the back of the house.
There were sounds of female voices talking, followed by noise of a door opening and closing—the back door, Iva Claire guessed—and a few minutes later she heard a car driving off. She listened for other signs of life, but there were none. Was she alone? Where was her father? Her mind was whirling, from lack of sleep and from the shock of finding her mirror image standing across from her. She could call out and see if her father was in the house, but the place seemed to be deserted and she didn't want to hear the sound of her voice echoing through that long hallway. Besides, if he wasn't there, she was damned if she was going to stay all alone in this strange house in the middle of nowhere. She'd come back in the morning, she told herself, when the sun was shining.
She started out, but her eye caught a small writing desk next to the parlor door. On the desk was a picture of her father. A black ribbon with a small black rosette was attached to the frame. Iva Claire remembered something she'd registered in the back of her mind when she first saw Myrtis Benedict standing in the doorway of the house. In the height of a Georgia summer, the girl was dressed in black. With the world spinning, Iva Claire hadn't had time to wonder why she was wearing what were probably mourning clothes—or whom she might be mourning—until now.
There was a large brick fireplace on one wall of the parlor. Next to it was a chair and a small table with the only lighted lamp in the room. Iva Claire moved to the stiff little chair, sat down, and waited.
She was still sitting there when she heard the car come up the drive and stop. A couple of minutes later, the back door of the house opened and there was more shoe clicking in the hallway. Then Myrtis was back, standing in front of her, and Iva Claire once again had the unreal sensation of staring at herself without a mirror.
“I had to get the maid out of the house,” Myrtis said. “She always takes the late bus, and I don't even remember how I explained driving her home to Colored Town. Thank God I've already let the other servants go.”
She had an unusual speech pattern. In spite of its weariness, Iva Claire's brain started analyzing it. Her pitch is like mine, but the accent is fussy—almost theatrical. And there's a southern lilt.
Myrtis was still talking. “How did you get here?” she demanded.
“Walked from the railroad station.” I wonder if this feels as nutty to her as it does to me.
“You came by train? Well, you won't be leaving that way. There isn't another one out of here until tomorrow morning.”
“I know that.”
“Yes, I'm sure you checked. But you miscalculated. I'm not going to let you stay overnight.” She had a way of biting off her words like she was cutting a thread with her teeth. And she arched her eyebrows at the end of her sentences. Watching her was like being in a strange dream where someone else was using your face.
“I didn't expect—” Iva Claire started to say, but the thread-biting teeth cut her off.
“I can't tell you how unimportant your expectations are to me. I'll drive you to the next town. You'll stay there tonight, and tomorrow you can go back to wherever you came from.”
She was used to pushing people around and getting her way.
“I came here to see my father,” Iva Claire said.
“Daddy died six months ago.”
Of course. She'd known he was dead as soon as she'd seen the picture frame, but hearing it made it official. She'd traveled hundreds of miles to make him say he was sorry, and he was gone. The son of a bitch had gotten away from her. She wished Tassie was here. Tassie would understand what a big stupid joke it was. But instead of Tassie, her father's idiot daughter was standing in front of her, talking and talking. Iva Claire tried to make her tired reeling brain comprehend the words.
“But you knew Daddy was gone,” Myrtis said.
“No, I—”
“Of course you did. I'm not stupid. I know why you're here.”
You couldn't. But she didn't say it.
“You're wasting your time,” the daughter went on. “He didn't mention you in the will, and you have no claim on the estate.”
“The estate? I never thought of that.”
“And I'm selling the house, or it can rot for all I care. Either way, there won't be a dime for you.”
“That's not why I came.”
“Don't lie! You're after the money. You and your gold-digging mother have been milking him for years.”
The scorn in her voice cut through the weariness and the shock. Iva Claire had had enough. She got up so they were facing each other. “If I were lying, believe me, I'd be doing a much better job than this,” she said. “Now tell me how my father died.”
Myrtis didn't want to. But she didn't know what to do when someone stood up to her. “It was an accident,” she said sullenly. “It was late; Daddy had been to a party. They said he was drunk and lost control of the automobile. The
re was a woman with him.” She covered quickly. “A family friend.”
I bet.
“His car went into a ditch on the side of the road,” Myrtis went on. “They didn't find him until the next day. I was in England, and he died before I got here. I didn't know until it was too late.”
That makes two of us.
“After the funeral, I went back to London to be with friends. I never got to say good-bye.”
I never got to hear him say he was sorry.
Then it hit her—there was nothing for him to be sorry for. He hadn't cut Mama off. He hadn't deserted them. He'd died.
Myrtis was tearing up at the thought of their father.
He was a cold man, but she loved him.
“This is hard for both of us,” Iva Claire said. “A couple of hours ago, I didn't even know about you.”
“I, on the other hand, have known about you for six months. When I was here for the funeral and went through Daddy's papers. All those canceled checks. What a lovely surprise that was.”
“I guess we've both been surprised.”
“Don't even suggest that there are any similarities between us.” Myrtis brushed away her tears angrily. “All those years when he sent me to England to school, I thought he was getting rid of me. I thought he didn't want me around.”
That's a similarity right there.
“But it was because of you and your mother. He didn't want me to find out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Now I don't belong anywhere. I can't live in this country; I've been here by myself for two weeks and I'm going mad. But I'll never belong in England—not quite the right class. When I'm in London, I'm just an American mill owner's daughter.” She spat. “I'll always be an outsider.”
So will I.
“They tolerate me. I'm the rich Miss Benedict, after all. But it'll never be home. I don't have one, thanks to you.”
“No. Thanks to him.” Suddenly it was important to make this girl understand. “Your daddy—and mine—is the one who did it to you. He did it to both of us.”
The Ladies of Garrison Gardens Page 21