Carolina Mist (9 page)

“I’m glad you told me. I guess I would have been
wondering where to take our stuff
… though it seems to me that Bell
e did mention that you had been helping out. I’ll take a look when I go inside.”

“The dryer’s fine, but the washer stalls a bit between the first two cycles. I’d be happy to show how to get around that when you’re ready.”

“I appreciate that. Thank you, Naomi.”

“Just give me a call.” Naomi waved as she started toward the sidewalk. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad we finally met after all these years.”

“So am I,” Abby said sincerely. “I’m sorry it took so long. I would have liked to have known you, back then. And I want to thank you for taking such care of Aunt Leila. And of Belle.”

“Think nothing of it,” Naomi said with another wave of her hand. “It was just my way of paying them back.”

“For what?”

“For giving me dreams,” Naomi called over her shoulder
as she crossed the street.

10

I
t was almost midnight by the time Abby checked all the
locks on the doors and began to turn off the downstairs
lights. She’d been in the sitting room at Leila’s desk all night studying the carpenter’s estimate, then had gone room to room, checking off those things she could do herself. Scrape peeled paint, strip old wallpaper, repaint the walls and the wood trim—how difficult could those things be?

The list was the size of a small manuscript by the time she finished, exhausting her by its overwhelming proportions. She tapped her fingers on the desktop in agitation.

What had she done back at White-Edwards when she had a massive project assigned to her?

She’d broken it down into manageable sections, focusing
her energy on each section until the whole had been completed.

So I
’
ll go one room at a time,
she told herself resolutely.
I’ll finish one room, then go on to the next. If I take it little by little, maybe it won't seem so bad.

It
’
ll take months.
She sighed, tossing her pen onto the writing surface.
But then again, it doesn’
t look as if I’m going anywhere in the near future. And maybe by the spring, the job market will have opened up and I
’ll
find something. The house will look better by then, and maybe I’ll be able to find a buyer. I’ll sell the emeralds and use the money to have the heavy work done, the things I can’t do for myself.

Cheered at having a game plan, at having found a use for her old management skills as well as for her overabundance of spare time, she snapped off the hall light and climbed the steps.

She paused at the top of the stairs, where a sudden whiff of lavender seemed to welcome her. With a sigh, she followed the hall to the right and carefully, almost reverently pushed open the door to Leila's suite of rooms.

Here, the scent of lavender was strongest, Leila having tucked sprigs in her dresser drawers, hung bunches from the drapery tie-backs, and filled porcelain bowls with potpourri, all of which combined to give a sweet yet spicy heaviness to the still air. Abby stood in the doorway for a long moment, trying to recall where the light switch was. She located the old wall switch, which clicked loudly as she flicked on.

Aunt Leila’s old carved oak tester bed stood along the near wall. The spread of palest yellow silk, embroidered with silken threads of dark green and purple to create a striped pattern of chain stitches, ran the length of the bed and spilled onto the floor. Lacy shams stood across the front of the headboard, which was nine feet in height. A heart- shaped needlepoint pillow spelled out “Peace—Be Still” in dark burgundy letters through which wound some white flowers on shaded green vines.

The room remained exactly as it had been in Abby’s
memory, with the porcelain dock and matching vases on the mantel and the heavy drapes of dark gold velvet blocking the light from the windows. There were paintings on one wall, a doorway leading to Leila’s bath on another. Yet another doorway to the right led to Leila’s sitting room, the second floor of the tower, and it was in this room that Abby had often sat with Leila on rainy nights or stormy mornings. Abby followed the worn carpet to the door and pushed it open.

The old Belter parlor set of the deepest crimson velvet and carved rosewood—Leila’s pride and joy—still graced the alcove formed by the curve of the tower.

She could almost close her eyes and see Aunt Leila perched on the velvet upholstery of the chair, like a princess in her tower, her reading glasses set upon her long fine nose, her legs crossed at the ankle. In her hands, she would hold what she laughingly called her family Bible—th
e silver-
covered book she had brought from her mountain home in which she had preserved the precious photos of the family she left behind when she ventured east to marry Thomas Cassidy.

Leila would point to her siblings and name them, pausing over each to tell some story or other, so that by the time Abby was six years old, she knew their names and faces and the anecdotes that over time became family legend. There were Leila’s parents, the beautifully exotic Serena Dunham and her rancher husband, Will. And the only existing photo that Leila had ever seen of her maternal grandparents— Elizabeth, whose Cherokee name had been Song of the Wren, and Stephen Cameron, the Philadelphia blue-blood who had forsaken his birthright for the love of a woman who had, as a small child, walked the Trail of Tears.

Leila’s brothers and sisters were, in Leila’s books, ever youthful, ever strong. There was William, the oldest, who, like his father, had become a rancher. And Jonathan, who had gone back east to claim a place in his grandfather’s family bank. Then the sisters, Sarah and Eliza, so much alike they were called the twins, though they were a little
more than a year apart in age, who were followed by Avery, the family wanderer. Lastly, Leila herself. Somewhere in the recitation of Sarah’s children had appeared Abby’s own mother, Charlotte, who had defied family tradition by marrying late in life and producing but one child.

Abby sat on the very edge of the sofa, the fabric, roughened with the passing years, scratching at the backs of her legs. The sensation conjured up the memories of a hundred times when she had sat on that very spot and leaned closer to the old woman who held the photos under the dim lamps to cast the best amount of light on the faces she had loved so well and never stopped missing. Holding a small pillow to her chest, Abby could have sworn the smell of lavender had grown stronger for a moment. With a sigh, she replaced the pillow at the co
rn
er of the sofa and snapped off the small reading lamp that stood on the marble-topped table. Looking around Leila’s room once more before turning off the overhead light, Abby made a mental note to come back in on the next rainy day and look for the albums.

Sleep was a long time coming, Abby’s head spinning with the visions of the faces remembered from the old photographs. For a time, Grandmother Sarah’s face intertwined with her mother’s and then with Aunt Leila’s. Greatgrandfather Dunham and Great-uncle Avery’s faces blended, one into the other, then, to her amusement, took on the features of Alex Kane. She could see herself and Alex, squirming uncomfortably, perched on the edges of their chairs, her fingers tugging at the starched collar of her organdy dress. What had happened to those clothes? she wondered.

Leila’s own childhood frocks, carefully preserved through the years, freshly washed and starched, had been waiting for Abby every summer. Sometimes on rainy days, Abby would go into the attic and poke through the trunks and the freestanding wardrobes that lined one wall, looking at those things she could not yet wear, dresses waiting for her to grow into them, waiting for other summers when it would be their turn to be worn once again. Abby had made a game
of sifting through stacks of old photographs to find pictures of Leila wearing whatever it was that Abby had worn that year.

On a whim, she got out of bed and went into the hall. The house crouched in sleepy darkness, and she felt along the wall for the light switch. She opened the attic door and turned on that light as well before tiptoeing up the ancient steps. The old attic was airless and closed, the lavender fragrance heavy even there. Abby pushed a window open slightly, wondering how long it had been since anyone had been up there.

Perhaps not as long as one might have suspected, she noted, glancing at the footsteps that remained in the dust around the windows. Maybe one of the roofers had been up there, she thought, then frowned as she followed the trail of steps from one trunk to the next. She opened first one trunk, then another, anger filling her as she realized that the contents were in total disarray. Leila had been meticulous about keeping everything neatly packed away. Her roofers must have ransacked them. What had they taken?

She emptied each trunk and carefully returned the contents. Old fans with handpainted peacocks or roses, soft elbow-length leather gloves, boxes of hat pins and hair combs, silk evening shawls—was anything missing? She pecked through her memory, searching for a hint of what might have been taken, but it had been too many years since she had last removed and replaced the old items. She recognized each and every one of the old treasures but could not recall what else the trunk once held. Judging by the amount of things remaining, if anything had been taken, it hadn’t been much.

Abby closed up the trunks and walked through the dust on the creaking boards to the wardrobes, opening the door before her. In the attic’s dim light, her hand ran along the row of dresses from a bygone era, dresses that spanned the decades of Aunt Leila’s life.

What a shame no one dresses like this anymore,
she thought, fingering the high-necked ivory silk dress that had
been one of Leila’s favorites. On a whim, she stripped off her nightshirt, carefully removed the dress from its hanger, and floated it over her head. On Leila, the dress had been calf-length, but on the much shorter Abby, the hem skimmed the floor. She gathered it up to keep it from the dusty floor and started downstairs to find a mirror. Seeing the stack of hat boxes, she stopped to open first one, then another, until she found Leila’s favorite summer hat, a vision of ivory netting and palest pink cabbage roses. Abby pulled her hair up on top of her head and put the hat on.

She crept down the steps, giggling in anticipation of beholding herself in the old clothes. Playing dress-up
in the middle of the night…

“Oh my!”

Belle had opened her door, and at the sight of Abby, she slumped back against the wall, her hand flying to her heart.

“Belle!” Abby rushed across the hall to catch the old woman before she landed in a breathless heap on the floor.

“Oh, Abigail, you gave me such a start,” Belle exclaimed as Abby helped her into her room and seated her on the side of her bed. “I thought I was seeing a ghost. My goodness, child, you look just like Leila in that dress.”

“Belle, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I’d go into the attic and see if the old clothes were still there. Here, let me get you a glass of water.”

Abby rushed to the bathroom and back. She sat on the edge of the bed and guided the glass of water into Belle’s trembling hands.

“I have it, dear, thank you.” Belle’s breathing was still labored. “Oh my.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Oh my.
”

“Belle, are you all right?” Abby leaned forward a bit, truly concerned.

“Yes, I’m quite fine, Abigail. I thought I heard the noises in the attic again—you know, sometimes at night you hear things, but you’re not certain that you’ve really heard anything? Well, I thought I’d just peek in and see if you were awake. If you’d heard it, too.”

“I’m so sorry, Belle. I was the noise in the attic. I probably should have waited till morning to satisfy my curiosity.”

“That’s all right, Abigail. How strange to see that dress again. It was one of Leila’s very favorites for, oh my, for as long as I can remember. And that hat.” Belle, relaxed now, began to chuckle. “Why, I remember when Luellen Bronson made that hat for Leila. That hat was her pride and joy. Wore it every Sunday afternoon for years.”

“I remember.” Abby lifted the hat from her head and shook her hair loose. “I thought she was so grand, presiding over the ladies of Primrose at tea like a duchess. Funny, Naomi and I were talking about that this afternoon, about the teas Aunt Leila used to have in the summer. I guess that’s what got me thinking about the clothes in the attic.”

“Naomi is a dear.” Belle sighed and moved back on the mattress slightly, her tiny feet dangling over the side like a child’s. “Hard as it was to give up my house, it would have been infinitely harder had it passed into the hands of someone who’d never love it. Naomi loves that house, as I did. It made it seem not quite so bad.”

“She is a very nice woman,” Abby agreed, “one I’d like to get to know better.”

“Naomi is very kind.” Belle yawned. “I am very fond of her, as Leila was. And, of course, we both doted on those two little ones of hers.”

“We were talking about maybe having a tea some Sunday afternoon,” Abby told Belle as she helped the old woman back against her pillow and pulled the blankets up around her.

“Oh, how I miss those days,” the old woman murmured wistfully. “No matter what was really happening in our lives, for just a few hours, all was well. The day before my house was sold, Leila and I sat and had tea—never mentioned what the next day would bring.”

“Ignoring reality isn’t always a good idea.” Abby paused in the doorway.

“Nor were we, dear. It just all went away for a while.
There is a certain solace in sharing a quiet cup of tea with an old friend. Observing the tradition, you see, life is, just for a while, pleasant and gentle once again. I do
miss Leila most at tea time…”
Her voice began to trail away. “Haven’t had a d
ecent scone since she died…
”

Then tomorrow you will,
Abby promised silently, closing Belle’s door and tiptoeing quietly the length of the hall to her room. After removing the silk dress, she laid it carefully on the other twin bed, placing the hat next to it. Realizing she’d left her nightshirt in the attic, she debated whether or not to return for it. Deciding against the risk of waking Belle again, she took another shirt from the suitcase and slipped it over her head.