Your loving father,
Simon Mountfort
I sat for a little while with the pages in my hand, stunned by his gifts: the letter, Mountfort Hall, and the tangled web of crimes instigated so long ago. He had written a sad and baffling letter, expressing his fears but telling me nothing I could use. I was not sure whether I ought to share what he had written with anyone else. What might I stir up if I did? Yet I could not keep his words to myself.
More than anything at the moment, I wished I could see his face, look into his eyes. Perhaps I could do that. I’d been told there was a portrait of Simon Mountfort in this house. It was time for me to find it. Perhaps I could read more in his face than in his words.
7
Still carrying the pages of my father’s letter, I went down the hall stairs quietly, so Honoria and Amelia wouldn’t hear me, and stopped in the doorway of the Victorian drawing room I’d glimpsed when I came into the house. The portrait I looked for hung above the fireplace, and was lighted by its own small lamp.
Simon Mountfort was seated with the river side portico of Mountfort Hall behind him. He must have been a judge by the time this picture was painted, for he was not a young man. He’d dressed informally in tan trousers, with a dark corduroy jacket over a yellow sweater. One hand balanced a book resting facedown on his crossed knees. The other held a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that dangled from his fingers. He looked as though he had just put his book down and glanced up at a visitor—with not too welcoming an expression.
In a painted shaft of sunlight, hair touched with gray rose thickly above a fine forehead. The eyes were not fully open, as they might have been when he was young, and the mouth was straight, the lower lip fuller than the upper. No humor showed in either eyes or mouth. His expression was stern and rather distant. There was sadness here that matched the tenor of his letter, so the picture could have been painted not long before his death.
The man who had spoken to me lovingly in the pages I held in my hand was not to be found in the portrait. It was a terrible disappointment to me, telling me less than his letter. Yet pity stirred in me. He must have been a strong and powerful man until events forced him toward final despair.
I turned my back on this father I would never know and went upstairs to look for Amelia and Honoria.
My sister’s door stood open and they both looked up at me—Honoria expectant, Amelia anxious. Until now I hadn’t been sure whether I would show them the letter. But I couldn’t keep it to myself. There was too much I needed to know, and I held out the pages.
“I don’t know what to make of this, but I think you must read what he has written. You both knew him, so perhaps you can better explain it to me.”
Honoria reached for the letter. “Let me read it first, since I must leave soon.” She took it out into the hall, where she could be alone, and Amelia and I looked at each other uneasily. To avoid her eyes, I moved about the room.
It was a charming, feminine room that suited her, but was very different from my plainer style at home. The four-poster bed featured a lacy canopy from which mosquito netting might once have hung—before screens and air-conditioning. Rice-grain finials topped the posts, and several small fluffy pillows banked the head of the bed, their flowered material carrying out the rosebud theme of the wallpaper.
Amelia was watching me and I smiled at her. “It’s a lovely room, and it suits you.”
“What about the letter, Molly?” she asked. “Do you think I should read it?”
“Let’s leave that up to Honoria,” I said. “I don’t know how to answer you.”
“Whatever it says, we mustn’t show it to Mama. She mustn’t be upset—she needs time to recover.”
“Recover from what? Has she been ill?”
“From the shock of your coming here.”
“Perhaps it would be better if I could see her, spend some time with her. I should think she would insist on seeing me.”
Amelia shook her head unhappily. “Cousin Porter believes—”
“But why? And why must you all listen to him?”
“He’s been like a brother to her, Molly. You don’t know what it’s been like. I could never make it up to her for losing you. Now that you’re here, I can marry Charles with a freer heart. Once she accepts you, she won’t need me as much.”
I listened with a heaviness of spirit. There was nothing to do but hold her and I reached out my arms. She felt smaller and more fragile, even though we were the same size. I couldn’t promise her anything—I was still too unsure about everything. But I tried to find words that might comfort her a little.
“Now that we’ve found each other, Amelia, we will always belong together. Even when we’re apart, as we may have to be, this feeling will connect us.”
As Amelia clung to me, Honoria returned with the letter in her hand, and smiled. “Good! I knew this would happen between twins as close as you are. Amelia, I think you must read your father’s letter. But don’t show it to your mother—she has enough to deal with right now. Later, perhaps. Molly, will you come down to the door with me, please?”
Amelia took the letter almost fearfully, and I didn’t look back as I followed Honoria.
Miss Kitty had vanished, and after calling her a few times, Honoria left the carrier by the door and we went outside to stand at the top of the steps.
“I wanted to talk to you about Simon’s letter, Molly. The gift of Mountfort Hall is an amazing show of love and will upset some people a great deal, but what is meant to be will be. He must have been terribly sad and concerned when he wrote this letter. Even guilty. It’s true he had a bad heart, and that was what killed him. So he tried to reach out to the daughter he would never live to see again. But what he wrote was too full of his own confusion and self-blame to do you much good. Did you know Orva Jackson found him the day he died? They were good friends, and that was very hard for her.”
“Perhaps I’ll talk to Orva about this the next time I see her. I liked her a lot, and I’d also like to meet her daughter.”
“That’s easily managed. The County Library, where she works, is several blocks away, so you’d better drive. Ask Amelia if you can borrow her car.”
I held Honoria a moment longer. “Why can’t I see Valerie?”
“As far as I am concerned, you can see her anytime. But Porter doesn’t think it’s advisable yet. So you’ll have to talk to him.”
“But why?”
“Maybe because Valerie makes up scenarios in her own mind and expects others to act in them. It’s better to wait until she can make up her mind sensibly.”
I must have looked as impatient as I felt, for Honoria put a hand on my arm. I’d noticed her making that gesture with others, and I felt subtly quieted.
“Take it easy, Molly. You need time too. Time to digest who you are. You can’t take it all in with one big swallow. We’ll talk again later. Now I must hurry along to my appointment. It’s only a short walk. ’Bye for now. And look after your sister.”
For just a moment I wished someone would look after me. But my father on Long Island already belonged to another life, and whatever I needed to do, I must do myself.
When I rejoined Amelia she handed me Simon’s letter. “Thank you for letting me read it,” she said politely. “I must go see Mama now. She shouldn’t be left alone when she’s upset. We won’t tell her about this letter yet, Molly. Can you amuse yourself for a while on your own?”
The letter had clearly shaken her, but it had also caused her to withdraw from me.
“I can manage,” I told her. “Don’t worry about me. Honoria suggested that I might drive over to the library, since I’d like to meet Katy Jackson. May I borrow your car?”
“Of course—a wonderful idea! The library is over on King Street and easy to find. Tell Katy hello for me. I’ll see you later.”
She gave me the car keys
and a key to the house, and hurried toward Valerie’s room, eager to escape from me. When I entered my cheerful little bedroom, I found Miss Kitty asleep on the bed. She heard me and gave her tiny mew of greeting, rolled over on her back and stretched, offering her long white belly for stroking. Such trust was irresistible and I obliged for a moment.
“You were hiding, weren’t you, kitty? Go back to sleep now and I’ll see you later.”
She rolled herself into a ball and tucked her tail around her body, going right to sleep, though her tail twitched and flipped, speaking its own wide-awake language.
I went downstairs to where Amelia’s blue car waited at the curb, but I didn’t get into it at once. Across South Battery and the park I could see gulls wheeling above the wall, and I stood for a moment watching. A scent of the river came to me, pungent, yet not unpleasant as I grew accustomed to it.
When I got into the car I found a map in the glove compartment and studied it. The library wasn’t five minutes away, and I was able to find it easily. A statue of John C. Calhoun dominated the area, his cloak blowing in a perpetual wind as he surveyed his city.
The entrance to the library was on the southwest corner of the building. I went inside to the desk and was told that I would find Miss Jackson upstairs. I climbed a long flight to the second floor and entered the reference room, where I found Katy sitting at a desk near a window. She wore a creamy cotton blouse the color of magnolia petals and a bright printed skirt in a geometric pattern. She had none of her mother’s angularity, but was more gently rounded and not as tall. Her skin was dark, and she had used makeup discreetly across her high cheekbones, with a touch of dark red lipstick. Her black hair formed a rounded sculpture over her forehead.
“I’m Molly Hunt—” I began, and she looked up in quick recognition, her smile warm.
“I know who you are. Though for just a minute I thought Amelia had cut her hair. My mother phoned to tell me about you.”
We shook hands in mutual liking, and she went on. “I’m glad you stopped in. I expected to see you at the rehearsal tonight, but we’ll be too involved to do much talking then. Can you sit down for a moment while it’s not busy?”
She led the way to a table, where we could talk quietly in the empty room.
“You’ve known the Mountforts all your life, haven’t you?” I said. “I’m still trying to get used to a pretty astonishing turn of events in my life, and I’m anxious to learn more about them.”
She nodded. “It can’t be easy to be both North and South in one body. Especially when you’re not very well acquainted with your southern half. I lived out at Mountfort Hall when I was young, because my mother was more like part of the family. Of course, I knew all the young people—they’re still my friends. Tell me, how can I help you?”
“There are so many pieces I’m trying to put together. I know how my father died, but I’ve just been told that your mother found him. Do you know anything about that?”
“Not much. Mama never wanted to talk about it, because she felt so sad about his death. Everybody liked Mr. Simon. But twenty years ago we were all children and nobody told us much. When he died Mr. Simon was sitting at the piano in the music room playing something from Debussy—a piece your mama liked real well.”
Her words set me back in that room with the shrouded furniture. I wanted to hear the music he had played, and I had to learn what it was.
I was curious about Katy Jackson, as well as about the past. “Where did you go to school?” I asked.
Her answer surprised me. “I went to Stony Brook University on Long Island. I’ve often crossed the island to Bellport, where you’re from, Miss Mountfort.”
“I’m Molly,” I said. “But you came back to Charleston—you didn’t want to stay in the North?”
“I feel comfortable here. There’s more prejudice against blacks in New York than I expected. Though it’s a different kind from what we still meet here in some places. People have better manners here. And they smile at you.”
Talking with Katy had a calming effect on me. She belonged to the present and I felt I could speak to her more openly than to anyone else I’d met since I’d arrived here.
“And I feel more comfortable in the North,” I said. “I’m having trouble digesting a life that’s totally different from the one I know. I’m a Mountfort without any of the traditions that are second nature to the family.”
“Lucky you! I still have to live with some of those traditions because of my mother. She says you’ve already met the Mountfort ghost.”
“‘Met’ isn’t exactly the word. I understand that Nathanial Amory was your tutor too?”
“And a very good one. We all loved him and his death frightened us and made us sad.”
“How did it frighten you?”
“It was too sudden and strange. I think there was a lot of hushing up about what happened. Nobody would talk to us children about it. Miss Honoria carried on like crazy, and my mother was full of portents and warnings. She can be like that sometimes.”
“Do you suppose what happened could have any connection with the present?”
“If that boat was damaged before he took it out, maybe it does.”
“But the police—?”
“Of course they investigated, but the boat was never found. Some of us wondered if somebody made sure that it wouldn’t be found. There might have been a pretty big scandal, and that would have meant disgrace to the family.” Katy sounded wry. “The police put it down to accident, but my mother doesn’t believe that it was.”
“What do you mean?”
“She believes that every event, every deed, perhaps every thought we think, weaves threads into a life tapestry that we’re fated to follow. Without a crystal ball, we can’t even know whether what happens is good or bad when it occurs. We can only see the significance when we look back from the distance of years. Sometimes, she says, good can come out of terrible happenings.”
At least, finding Katy seemed a good event in my life, and I opened up enough to tell her about Simon Mountfort’s letter, though I avoided any mention of his gift to me.
She listened thoughtfully. “About all you can do is try to help your sister.”
“Of course. But how? Sometimes I think I’m getting to know her, and then she moves away from me. Is she afraid of something, Katy?”
Orva’s daughter met my eyes gravely before she spoke. “Could be she’s afraid of you.”
“Of me? How could that be?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Anyway, she was fearful enough before you came, and I don’t really know why. At least you’re there now in the South Battery house, so perhaps you can get her to talk to you.”
I didn’t know where to go with this and tried another direction. “I’d like to know more about Nathanial Amory.”
“Would you like to meet him?”
That startled me, and I watched as Katy went to a shelf and took down a slender volume to bring to me.
“These are the only poems he had published. Thanks to Honoria, they appeared after his death. If you’d like to borrow them, I’ll check this book out under my name. We kids were all happy to see those lines he’d read to us printed in a real book. His picture’s there on the back.”
I turned the book over and studied what must have been an informal snapshot of a slender young man, fair-haired, with wide dark eyes that seemed to look into mine. An eerie effect after what had happened out at Mountfort Hall. He wore a cardigan and light trousers, and carried an armload of books, his smile directed at whoever stood behind the camera.
“Honoria took that picture. She caught the special way he had of looking at people—as though he cared about everyone. We missed him a whole lot after he died.”
And of course Honoria had cared about him most of all. “I wonder how Honoria came to marry Porter Phelps after Nathanial?�
��
“Nobody stands against Mr. Phelps, Molly. If you’re here long enough, you may find that out.”
While I was wondering about the formal manner in which Katy spoke of Porter, she looked away from me toward a man who had just come into the reference room, and said she’d see me tonight. I thanked her for the loan of Nathanial’s book and went down to Amelia’s car.
For a few moments I sat leafing through the pages, reading lines here and there. These words were all that was left of a man who had been very much loved by the young people he had taught, and by one woman who had never forgotten him. I wished I might have known him—and not as a ghost!
The book in my hands seemed to fall open of its own accord to a poem entitled “To Nora.” The lines had an old-fashioned ring as I read them aloud, as though the writer had absorbed from a literary past and rejected present fashions in poetry. It was a love poem, and a sad one, the words filled with rain and tears and the scent of magnolias. The line between sentiment and the sentimental could be slight, but I had no doubt that these lines had come from the heart of the writer, and that the poet was speaking of a forbidden love. Nora? Honoria? An exquisite young Honoria? But why forbidden?
I put the book into my handbag, not ready yet to return to the house on South Battery. For a little while I would explore Charleston’s Historic District on my own.
Later, when I looked back on my course of action, I thought again of that destiny both Orva and Honoria seemed to believe in. How else could I have been led toward a “chance” meeting at my publisher’s office that would open up all sorts of possibilities?
At that moment, however, when I turned innocently to a further exploration of the area, I still thought I was moving of my own free will.
8
Again, the map gave me my direction and I drove down Meeting Street and found a place where I could park. I knew about the Market and I planned to do some exploring there. On foot I could move as I pleased.
The character of the Historic District was becoming familiar by this time. Charles had told me that once a fire had destroyed a third of all the buildings in this area. The siege and bombardment of Charleston by Federal troops had left a city in ruins. There had been hurricanes and tornadoes as well, and a disastrous earthquake—the worst ever to hit the East Coast. Yet walking along these sunny streets, I saw nothing to indicate any of this, except for an occasional earthquake bolt, which might or might not be real, since sometimes newer buildings adopted the rosettes as decoration.
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