When the Splendor Falls (80 page)

“There is nothing to forgive,” Leigh said, taking Lys Helene’s hand in hers for a moment.

“Thank you. Although, I don’t know how I can forget Travers Hill, when that is all Guy ever seems to talk about. Sometimes, I feel as if I know that house of mellow brick with its green-shuttered windows as if
I
were the one who’d been born and raised there. I could walk up to that green door with its pineapple-shaped brass knocker, and, without knocking, walk right inside the paneled foyer, where the painting of Charleston hangs and an Oriental carpet covers the pine floorboards. And over the door to the parlor is your grandfather’s flintlock fowling piece and a powder horn engraved with a map of Virginia. And across the foyer, above the door to the reception room are a couple of swords, which Stephen claims nearly beheaded a couple of guests once. Then there’s the bench along the wall, where your mama’s garden hat is always hanging, as if she’d just come in from gardening, and there are fresh flowers in the Sevres vase on the small table, and the scent of beeswax is always strong. And from the dining room would come the cheerful singing of songbirds from the domed birdcage between the windows, and on the big table, if it were Sunday, we’d have one of Travers Hill’s famous hickory-smoked hams, and chicken curry with rice, and your papa’s bourbon pecan cake would be brought in by no less a personage than Jolie herself. And then, later, the melodic strains of a waltz would drift from the opened double doors of the great hall, where the ladies and gentlemen would dance beneath that sparkling chandelier,” Lys Helene said, her voice dreamy. “And all of the linens would smell so sweetly of lavender and roses, and we’d have spicy geraniums in those kitchen windows again. But I think it’s the rose garden before the house that I know the best. I’d bring your mama’s roses back to life again, letting them breathe of the summer’s soft, balmy air, pulling up the weeds choking them, and I’d find that damask rose you told me about, Leigh. And watching over us, the running horse weather vane. All summer long it’d swing in a southeasterly direction, toward the river, then as the days shortened, the evenings turning cool, it’d start spinning, warning us of a blue norther coming, and I’d have time to cover the roses,” she said huskily, then becoming aware of the amazed expression on Leigh’s face, her cheeks pinkened.

“Silly, isn’t it. I know Travers Hill far better than I do Royal Bay, the home my father was born in, but he has never spoken of Royal Bay like all of you do your home.
Travers Hill
,” she said slowly, knowing she’d never enter the house she so longed to see. “If my father hadn’t left Virginia, and had stayed around Royal Bay and Travers Hill, then we could have been neighbors all these years. Grown up together.”

“Best friends, even,” Leigh said.

Lys Helene smiled shyly, because she liked to think they would have, for even though Leigh was a beautiful and accomplished young woman, who’d always had everything she wanted in life because of her privileged background, she wasn’t like those other snooty girls Lys Helene had come to despise that year she’d spent at a Charleston finishing school. Small and quiet, her freckled face burning so easily with mortification whenever she’d made a social blunder, the other girls had sensed her vulnerability and loneliness and had cruelly exploited it, until she’d run away in tears, managing to find her way to Lexington, and the comforting arms of Justin, who’d been a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute. With the help of their Uncle Noble, he’d arranged for her return home to the territories, her stay at Royal Bay too brief to ever have visited Travers Hill, or met Guy Travers—until now.

And
until now
, she’d never wanted to go East again, to face those coldhearted women who ruled society and prove to them, and to herself, that she was every bit as good. But now…now she’d show them, she thought with a determined glint in her dove-gray eyes, knowing no one would ever again cause her to run away. “Of course,” she added, forcing a cheerful note into her voice, her fair-complexioned face still bright with embarrassment as she tried to joke about something deep inside that was too precious to expose to anyone, “the roses wouldn’t fare too well the first year, since we haven’t any of that famous blend of manure to fertilize them.”

“So Guy told you about that too?” Leigh said, laughing, touched by Lys Helene’s loving description of Travers Hill, a place she’d never even seen, and wondering if she knew how much she’d revealed of her secret yearnings.

“Well, mostly about the stables, the horses, and his hounds,” Lys Helene admitted, thankful Leigh hadn’t ridiculed her about her sentimental talk of Travers Hill—after all, it had been their home, never hers. “Both you and Althea have spoken of Virginia, and your life there before the war. Although Althea never mentions anything that happened during the war. And I’ve heard absolutely
everything
about Travers Hill, and the Travers family, from Jolie and Stephen, and in letters to my mother over the years from Aunt Euphemia. We always wondered about the infamous Travers family, and then to have Nathan marry one of them, and now my own brother…well, you haven’t any secrets from me. I even know about the Reverend Culpepper,” Lys Helene warned, startled by the look that briefly touched Leigh’s face.

“Your childhood indiscretions are safe with me,” she added, grinning as Stephen came across the courtyard, his arms full of rose cuttings.

Leigh eyed Stephen in disbelief, remembering his offended dignity when they’d had to dig in the vegetable gardens, looking for anything edible that might have survived the long winter. And here he was carrying rose cuttings with a pleased grin on his face.

“Miss Leigh!” he said, momentarily returning to the old stiff-backed Stephen as he straightened his shoulders, and frantically looked for a place to drop the cuttings. Although he no longer wore the green livery, he’d managed to fashion a suit of charcoal-gray wool into as close a copy as possible, and as a free man he wore it even more proudly.

“Stephen has a gift for growing things,” Lys Helene said, taking the cuttings from him and gently placing them on the brick floor of the courtyard. “He’s going to plant these and raise them himself until they blossom into beautiful, fragrant blooms. He already has five cuttings that have taken root. Stephen selected the seeds, did the planting, and has tended the first sproutings in that window box without any assistance from me. And they’re going to grow strong and tall,” she said, meeting Stephen’s pleased expression with an encouraging one of her own.

Stephen actually looked sheepish as he met Leigh’s questioning glance. “Jolie’s not pleased, Miss Leigh. Says I’m actin’ like some sweaty field hand whose been out beneath the sun too long, says I’m tetched in the head, but I like the smell of roses. Reminds me of Travers Hill. They’re such pretty flowers, very dignified an’ proper. That’s why Miss Beatrice Amelia liked them so. Never before had the chance to go into the gardens much, ’cause I had more important tasks inside Travers Hill. Wasn’t proper for me anyway, Miss Leigh, ’cause I’m a majordomo. Hardly ever set foot out of the big house. Didn’t want anyone to take me for a field hand. An’ I didn’t know anything ’bout gardenin’ anyway, but now, I don’t have anything to do, except takin’ care of Mister Guy, an’ he’s no trouble. An’ figured since Mister Guy an’ me was out here in the courtyard with Miss Lys Helene all the time anyway I oughta give her a hand now an’ again, she’s hardly bigger ’n a mite. So, I started helpin’ Miss Lys Helene, but now she’s teachin’ me an’ lettin’ me help her with her plantin’ an’ prunin’. Makes me feel real good to help these lil’ sprigs an’ seedlings grow into somethin’ so pretty, somethin’ livin’ after all that dyin’, Miss Leigh. I understand now, for the first time, why Sweet John loved them lil’ mares an’ colts of his. He was helpin’ them to grow strong an’ proud. Real proud of him, I was,” he said, his hand gentle as he touched the delicate petals of several pink stocks and white alyssum, the honey-sweet fragrance reminding Leigh of warm summer afternoons at Travers Hill.

“Mama always complained that no one in her family would know an onion from a rose except for the smell. She would be pleased, Stephen,” Leigh said simply, turning away before he could say anything—the look on his face enough. She left Lys Helene and Stephen to their gardening, Lys Helene’s softly spoken instructions about the proper blending of soils drifting after her as she left the courtyard.

Leigh had nearly reached the end of the corridor when she saw Camilla sitting on one of the benches, a handkerchief pressed to her trembling lips, her other hand lost in the folds of her shawl. Seeing Leigh, she quickly dabbed at her red-rimmed eyes, then gave her short nose a trumpeting blow.

“What’s wrong, Camilla?” Leigh asked, hurrying to her side and thinking some tragedy had befallen them. “It isn’t Gil, is it? He hasn’t worsened has he?”

Camilla sniffed, struggling to control her tears. “No, dear, he’s full of aches and pains but he’ll do just fine. At least he didn’t lose any teeth, and he has such a sweet smile. I just don’t know how he managed to take such a tumble into that arroyo. It’s those big feet of his. When he grows into them, he’s going to be as tall as his father and Neil…and Justin,” she said, managing a watery smile.

Leigh sat down next to her on the hard bench. “What is it, Camilla?” she asked, still concerned. “Are you ill? May I help you to your room?”

“It’s Neil,” she said, starting to weep quietly again.

“Has something happened to him?” Leigh asked faintly, starting to get to her feet.

“Oh, no, child, no, he is fine. It is just that he has done such a wonderful thing. So dear of him to think of me. I never truly realized how kind a man he can be. Because of the misfortune of his childhood, living with those dreadful Comanche, people misjudge him. And he doesn’t seem to care. He lets them believe what they want. It doesn’t help him being such a loner, and so arrogant, but then that is a Braedon trait. I—I only wish his father could…well, perhaps that is not to be. Some things never change, and some people never can,” she said more to herself than to Leigh.

“What is it, Camilla? What did Neil do?” Leigh asked quietly, sitting back down beside her and putting her arm around Camilla’s shaking shoulders.

“We had a long talk last night, before he went to your room. He found Justin’s grave,” she said, pressing the damp handkerchief to her mouth, but a small moan escaped as she drew a shaky breath. “My boy was buried in a peaceful little village in the Shenandoah Valley. Neil said the valley is beautiful, a heavenly place, with rolling green hills, and softly murmuring creeks meandering through groves of willows and sycamores, and always in the distance are the Blue Mountains. And in the spring the apple blossoms are like a veil of lace over the land, and then in autumn the apples turn golden, then scarlet. Justin loved apples,” she sighed, seeming to find some solace in that thought. “Neil promised me that one day he would take me there. He promised me, Leigh. He always keeps his promises. He’s a good man. Better than a lot of people know. And sometimes, I think there is no reason for Neil to be so nice a man. He’s had a hard life, too hard. But now he has you. I was so worried, when we heard he’d married again. His first marriage wasn’t a very happy one. It was a terrible mistake. But when I met you, I knew everything was going to be all right. You are so warm and loving, I knew Neil would finally find his happiness with you. You do love him, don’t you?”

Leigh swallowed. “Yes,” she said softly.

“I knew you did. I could see it in your eyes when you saw him last night. You can’t hide love,” she said with a sigh.

But does he love me? Leigh wondered silently, then kissed Camilla’s cheek. She was right, though, about Neil. He could be a kind man—when he chose to be—because he had spared Camilla the truth of Sheridan’s devastation of the Shenandoah Valley. And in the eyes of Virginians, it equaled the savagery that followed in the wake of Sherman’s march to the sea and the confiscation and destruction of anything of value to the Confederacy that stood between the Yankee general and Savannah, leaving Georgia, and later the Carolinas, in ruins. Sheridan’s army had marched down the Shenandoah, burning barns, mills, fields, ravaging the land until there was little left. There would be no red and gold apples ripening this autumn, nor for many years to come. Adam had been right in his warning, and the Union had not allowed the Valley to continue to support the Confederacy with the bounty from its rich soil.

Slowly, Camilla withdrew a small box from the soft folds of her shawl, holding it close against her breasts. “Neil took a handful of earth from Justin’s grave. He brought it to me, so I could be close to him, to know he is resting in peace,” she said. Getting slowly to her feet, she suddenly looked tired and defeated.

Absentmindedly, she patted Leigh’s shoulder, then walked away, a forlorn little figure. Despite the family around her, Leigh knew Camilla would not be able to seek comfort from Nathaniel and would return to her room and grieve alone.

For a moment, Leigh remained sitting on the bench, wondering at Camilla’s words about Neil. What manner of man had she wed? That night in the garden at Travers Hill, when he had dueled with Guy, she had seen the deadly side of the man, seen a man who could very easily have killed—had it suited his needs. Instead, he had chosen a revenge that had been deliberately cruel, striking out to hurt her by taking something she cherished—Capitaine. And there was another man, one who had laughed with her in the stables when they had fallen into the hay—but that was a face he had shown all too briefly.

Then there had been the man who had become her lover, touching her with a gentle strength that still took her breath away. He was the same man who had held Lucinda so gently in his arms, and the man who had brought a bittersweet happiness to a grieving woman. He was also the man who had led a group of raiders behind enemy lines with deadly intent, and now could ride off so callously the very next morning after coming home from the war—humiliating his wife because he longed to be in the arms of his mistress.