I then explained that I’d found two pension requests that mentioned Charles, though one slightly misspelled his surname, and both spoke of battles at Wilderness, Virginia, and Chickamauga, Georgia, each of which happened well after the Second Battle of Bull Run.
I showed the family small bits of proof after small bits of proof until they added up to an undeniable case that proved what Charles had written and said his whole life was true.
“I also found strong evidence to suggest that even if he were with the Fourth Infantry for a while, he transferred back to the Fifth at some point well before Appomattox, though no muster roll cards exist to prove this. However, if this were indeed the case, it would give a good reason why he presented himself as being with the Fifth Texas Infantry and didn’t really mention the Fourth in his journal, except as part of the proud fighting group known as Hood’s Brigade.”
Nodding to Helen, I said to the crowd of Charles’s descendants, “I have two more things to show you before we all go to lunch.”
Helen then brought up a photo of a single cursive letter, and I asked the crowd what they saw.
“It’s the letter P!” Tor called out, and everyone except for Jensen Hocknell agreed. She merely narrowed her eyes, but didn’t say anything.
“Actually, it’s the capital letter S. And if you recall, in the Chronology article, Charles’s accounts in his handwritten journal are instantly put into doubt when he mentions seeing a seventeen-year-old boy—someone he knew from home—being killed in action. He called that boy ‘young Powers.’ Yet there were no soldiers from the four regiments within Hood’s Brigade named Powers.”
I then explained that after realizing how hard it was to read flowery cursive writing sometimes, I had thought it might be possible that the name wasn’t “Powers” at all.
Helen slowly flipped through another three slides, which showed a weathered headstone, a letter with a very familiar signature, and a blog post titled “Farewell, Young Sowers.”
I said, “And sure enough, in the Fifth Texas was a young man killed early on in action named Oliver Sowers. Because he died in battle, no CMSR in his name exists. However, I found his record in the National Archives at Fort Worth. I also discovered his body was shipped home to Houston, and he was buried with a headstone bearing his name, rank, and regiment.”
I used the laser pointer to indicate the screen. “Here we have a blog post written five years ago by a descendant of Oliver’s younger brother, referencing not only Oliver’s regiment, but also that Oliver’s rucksack was delivered home to his parents, along with an accompanying letter telling his parents how and when their son died.” Using the pointer, I indicated the photo of the carefully preserved letter that had accompanied the blog post. “It was written and signed by Charles Braithwaite himself, and dated June fifth, 1862, just after the Battle of Seven Pines.” I used the pointer to highlight three scrawled letters before Charles’s name. “And if you notice, Charles signed the letter with his new rank …” My grin went wider. This was the best part. “C-p-l—short for corporal.”
The audible gasps of happy relief from the family members made me realize that thinking Charles had invented the contents of his journal and life had bothered them more than the possibility of his actually being a deserter.
Turning off the laser pointer and clasping my hands in front of me, I said, “And as the very last piece of my investigation into your ancestor, I contacted the editor of Chronology and explained my findings. He has assured me a retraction will be up on the website by this time tomorrow, and that a new article will be written—and approved by Camilla before it runs—on Charles, his life and legacy, and his amazing triptych painting.”
With that, Helen and I pulled back the curtains hiding the Braithwaite exhibit to show that it had been updated with a beautiful photographic rendering of both Charles’s Texas Emancipation Day drawing and his panoramic triptych. The title of the three-paneled battle scene was The Battle at Lawson’s Bridge. The title had been found, written in Charles’s own hand, on the back of Charlie Braithwaite’s recovered panel.
Then I blushed nine full shades of red as the whole Braithwaite family, led by Camilla and her aunt Jensen, stood and applauded me.
* * *
Later that night gave us an extra-happy surprise.
I had reserved Flaco’s new private chef’s table for a dinner with Serena, Josephine, Helen, all their boyfriends, Ben, and me. Then, learning Camilla’s family had all gone home, I invited her as well. For the first time ever, Camilla seemed shy around me, but my friends and I all worked to make her feel comfortable, and she was soon laughing and enjoying herself.
Just as the subject of the painting came up, I had gotten a FaceTime call from Grandpa. He’d merely called to check on me and make sure Ben and I would still be coming to Wimberley over the weekend. However, once my girlfriends knew it was Grandpa, my phone was passed around so that Serena and Josephine could shamelessly flirt with him as they always did, making him laugh.
A few minutes later, as Grandpa was chatting with Ben about the best fishing spots near Wimberley, he overheard Helen say to Camilla, “You know, I’m just dying to know how that other painting came to be on the outside in the first place. I mean, who put it there? Who painted it? It’s still a mystery, and it’s making me crazy.”
“Me too,” Camilla said. She gave me a wry grin. “Maybe I’ll have to hire you and Lucy to team up again just to find out.”
Helen and I looked at each other, then said to Camilla in unison, “Yes, please.”
Everyone laughed, but Grandpa’s voice silenced us.
“I just might be able to help with that, actually,” he said.
I leaned in so Ben and I could both see Grandpa’s face. “How do you mean?”
On the screen, Grandpa, relaxing in his favorite chair in his living room, said, “Well, as you know, this latest adventure undertaken by you three has been all over the news.”
Camilla, Helen, and I looked at each other with embarrassed grins. This time, the press had gotten ahold of my name, but sharing the unwanted spotlight with my two accomplices hadn’t been so bad. Plus, the good press that came out of it was nice for both the Braithwaite family and Helen’s business.
“So, this morning,” Grandpa continued, “I was enjoying my breakfast at the diner, and the ladies who’ve been teaching me mah-jongg at the senior center came in and insisted I join them.”
“Yeah they did, George! You’re hot stuff,” Serena catcalled, with Josephine adding, “Should we be jealous, George, darling?”
Grandpa, turning pink around the ears and grinning, said, “You two beauties say such tosh. Anyhow, the ladies primed me for information, knowing I’m Lucy’s grandfather and how proud I am.” Now I blushed as he went on. “Eventually, though, the subject of the outer painting came up, and one of the ladies, Patsy, told us her childhood best friend had been a Dolly Braithwaite. Patsy apparently spent a lot of time at the Braithwaite house growing up, and she has a fairly strong memory of hearing a story about how the painting came to be.” Grandpa chuckled. “Only she can’t recall the exact details.”
I looked up at Camilla, who was still watching Grandpa over my shoulder. “I’ve heard Dolly’s name, but I don’t know who she is in relation to me.”
I was already handing my phone to Ben and pulling my iPad out to look in my Braithwaite files for Dolly. “She was one of your uncle Charlie’s first cousins,” I said. “Born in 1933. Passed away ten years ago.”
“Darn it. I was hoping I could contact her,” Camilla said.
I looked at my phone to see Grandpa smiling. “Yes, but as I understand it, Dolly had several children …”
Picking up on his thread, I added, “And if the story was one that Patsy, a mere friend, heard, then it’s possible Dolly’s children heard it as well.”
Grandpa looked at me with pride. “Do your thing, Lucy, my love.”
I soon found that Dolly had five children, all of whom wer
e still alive, though only one still lived in Texas. Three of them had active Facebook accounts.
I met Camilla’s eyes. “Want to message them?”
“Are you kidding?” she said. She’d already found her cell phone and was soon messaging her distant cousins.
Grandpa, grinning after Camilla thanked him profusely, signed off, and our little group went back to eating as Flaco passed through a round of insanely good fish tacos as our next course. We didn’t expect to hear back from the children of Dolly Braithwaite anytime soon, so we all just stared in surprise when, over coffees, churros with Mexican chocolate dipping sauce, and tres leches cake at the end of our amazing meal, Camilla grabbed her phone and said, “One wrote back!”
We all waited with bated breath as she silently read the message.
“Well?” Serena said finally. “Tell us the scoop.”
Camilla began, “Apparently, it was Dolly’s father, Harold Braithwaite, who was the culprit.”
I checked for Harold’s name. “He was born in 1910,” I told her. “One of Nathaniel’s grandsons.”
“Thanks,” she said. “So, it seems that, one day, when he was young boy, Harold’s mother found the three panels stored under a bed while staying at Charles and Violet’s house. Thinking they were a castoff, she stretched a new canvas over each one of them and let Harold paint his own battle scene on top. When he was done, the three panels were put away and forgotten about. Later, Harold was away at college when Charles, who was by then very old, deaf, and suffering from cataracts, directed that each of the three panels were to be given to a member of the three branches of his family—but Harold heard about it. His mother was too embarrassed to confess what she’d done to the family heirlooms, and Harold didn’t want to give her up, so he never mentioned it.” Camilla looked up from her phone again, her eyes happy. “It became their family secret, which my cousin says was funny at the time, but she’s glad the truth is out now.”
“Wow,” I said, and everyone nodded.
Even better, Camilla grinned and held out her margarita glass to me in a toast. “To another mystery solved. Cheers, Lucy.”
“To another mystery solved,” I agreed. We clinked glasses, and soon everyone was following suit, calling out, “Cheers!”
FORTY-ONE
Ten days later, Ben and I were back in Houston. He was in a beautifully cut suit, while I wore a pale yellow strapless minidress embroidered with white vines. We stepped into the foyer of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, just two minutes before the presentation was about to start.
“There you are,” Mom said, coming up to us. “What took y’all so long?”
“I’m afraid it was my fault, Nita,” Grandpa said, coming around to my other side. He, too, looked dashing in a dark suit and a blue tie printed, if you looked closely, with tiny armadillos drinking from bottles of Lone Star beer. “I felt a new tie was in order and asked them to take me shopping before we came here.”
I put my hand up to the side of my mouth, but didn’t attempt to whisper. “He spent half the time flirting with a very pretty widow named Estelle, that’s why it really took so long.”
Grandpa winked, tightening the half-Windsor knot. “She thought this one brought out my eyes.”
“George, you old so-and-so,” Mom said with a laugh. “Did you get her number, at least?”
Grandpa unfurled his hand and a piece of flowered notepaper appeared out of nowhere. “I may have,” he said with a cheeky grin. With another wave of his hand, the paper was gone, and Grandpa offered his arm to my mother. “May I escort you to our seats for this incredible evening? You look lovely as always, Nita.”
Mom giggled and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, and they moved off to the second row of seats, passing a large banner that read The Treasure Beneath: The Wondrous Story Behind the Lost Civil War Triptych of Charles Braithwaite.
The words were printed over a close-up of the part of Camilla’s painting that included the incredibly moving view of the terrified soldier looking back over his shoulder with widened blue eyes. The gloriousness of Charles’s true painting had blown the minds of many an art appraiser—or so said Helen, at least. And I figured she would know.
Standing and looking at the banner, I saw the figure of Neil Gaynor and the younger woman I recognized from his Instagram photos as his sister, Dina. They were both smiling, and Neil looked relaxed. Before Camilla went back to Houston, I’d told her about overhearing Neil telling his sister that he planned to drop the lawsuit against the Braithwaites, and that he was giving up school to take a job so he could afford his aunt’s caregiver bills. I added that Ben had helped me verify that what Neil had said was true. Camilla had then spoken to her family, and while I didn’t know the details, I knew Neil and Dina were both able to remain in school, and they no longer had to worry about affording to keep on their aunt’s caregiver.
Camilla seemed to have been watching anxiously for us, and when I waved at her, she gave me an exasperated smile—but it was one you give a friend, so I just grinned and blew her a kiss for good luck. This was witnessed by both Roxie and Patrice, and while Roxie looked like she’d just eaten a handful of sour grapes, Patrice merely smiled and waved at me.
Camilla wouldn’t have to deal with either of them for too much longer, though, as she was moving to Austin to help oversee both the running of Charlie’s wine merchant business and the distribution and sale of his photographs, which had been appraised at a very nice price. With Camilla giving us a steep discount, Ben and I had bought three apiece, including the photo of the smiling, windswept woman on the streets of Paris. It now sat on the windowsill of my office, next to my desk.
I caught sight of Helen and waved, as Ben and I made our way to the front row, which had been roped off for special guests of Camilla’s, including Ben and me, Helen, Cisco, and, sitting in the last seat in the row, Elaine Trudeau. There was still a great sadness in her eyes, but she held herself with grace and smiled as I said hello to her and introduced her to Ben.
As we took our seats, Ben said under his breath, “Okay, you’re going to have to explain that. I thought she was Enemy Number One.”
There was so much talking around us that no one heard as I said in his ear, “So, Charlie lost all his money to a crooked business partner, right? Well, just before that, back in 1982, that business partner brought his new girlfriend—Elaine, who was going by her middle name at the time—to meet Charlie at the Kentucky Derby. Elaine and Charlie fell in love that day, but she was dating the business partner, so … Anyway, she broke up with him after finding out he’d stolen Charlie’s money, but she was too afraid to contact Charlie after that, fearing that he would somehow blame her or think she was part of it. She married someone else, had kids, and never saw Charlie again, until she got divorced and moved to Austin last year as a grandmother.”
“Did Elaine know Charlie was in Austin?” Ben asked.
“Apparently, yes, but she didn’t know where he lived. She was looking at several houses in the area and saw him gardening in his front yard one day. The house next door had a for-sale sign, and she bought it, sight unseen.”
Ben merely raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment.
“Anyhow, remember me telling you that she seemed obsessed with Charlie’s photos, and Helen had seen her holding one the night Charlie died?” Ben nodded, and I said, “Well, Elaine believed that Charlie wouldn’t remember her after four decades. Still, she feared that, if he did figure out who she was, he would never give her another chance with her connection to the business partner. So, she was trying to find the photo that proved they’d met and who she’d been dating so she could get rid of it. However, between the fact that Charlie usually came to her house and that he or Camilla changed up the photos so often—not to mention that there were so many of them—it took her a while. She finally found it and took it the night he died.”
“I wonder if he knew,” Ben mused.
“Turns out, he did,” I replied. “The four
photos he left Elaine were all of that day they met at the Kentucky Derby. On the back of one, he’d written, ‘The girl I love.’”
Ben looked at me, and I had a feeling we were thinking the same thing, about all the time Elaine had wasted trying to conceal her secret and what she must be feeling at the moment. Leaning in closer, he whispered in my ear, “Our situation is different, of course, but I’m really glad you gave me a second chance. I would have hated to lose out on you because of assumptions and off timing.”
I smiled, taking his hand and whispering back, “That sentiment goes both ways, believe me.”
There was a tap on the microphone and the museum curator took the podium, launching into the history of Charles Braithwaite and the Braithwaite family, deftly glossing over the current troubles within the family stemming from Savannah Lundstrom’s and Trent Marins’s greediness. He explained my role, making me stand and blushingly accept more applause, then did the same for both Cisco and Helen.
The curator then explained that beyond the extraordinary triptych that had survived unscathed all these years and depicted such incredible human emotions regarding war and suffering, the three scenes were also the only known rendering of the Battle at Lawson’s Bridge, which took place in March of 1865 near Richmond, Virginia.
“Though it’s a less famous battle, it was still an instrumental one,” the curator explained. “There’s a thought that Lawson’s Bridge set in motion events that paved the way to the Battle of Appomattox Court House, thus beginning the end of the war. Plus, not only is this the sole painting created of the Battle at Lawson’s Bridge, it’s also by an artist who was actually there.” He moved to stand by the right panel—Camilla’s piece of the triptych. “In fact,” he said, pointing toward the golden-haired soldier with a cleft chin, whose face I’d watched Helen clean so many days ago, “we believe this soldier might be Charles Braithwaite himself.” After the murmurs of excitement from the crowd had faded away, the curator beamed at the restored triptych, displayed in pride of place, the three paintings once more together, side by side. “They simply take your breath away.”
Fatal Family Ties Page 29