When Venus Fell (49 page)

“I’ve had enough of your morbid shit. This family is in a mess and we need to either help or get out of the way. Which is it going to be?”

“That won’t work,” she said. “You can’t bully me with tough love. This isn’t something you can understand, Sis. You’ve never wanted children the way I do.”

“You have
no
idea what I want. You think the world revolves around you and your heartfelt emotions. I don’t look for feathers and I don’t talk to angels, and I don’t suffer dramatically with migraines and nervous twitches, but I
do
have feelings.”

“You should be happy that your dire predictions have come true. You never believed in my fantasies. You were right.”

“I’m sick of your self-pity. We don’t need fantasy here—the reality is pretty good. We have friends, we have, dammit, we have
family
, we have work, we have goals.
You
have a husband who’s miserable over the way you’re treating him. He really loves you. All right, I’ve admitted it. Hear me? He loves you and you can depend on him.”

“I love him but I don’t understand him. I’m disappointed in him. I never thought he’d be so casual about our children. To him our lost baby is only a
trial run
.” She was crying by then, and gesturing wildly with both hands. “And he thinks I’m crazy.”

“Ella, he’s not a poet. He’s a twenty-four-year-old guy whose idea of talking to women, before he met you, was limited to cheesy one-liners and quotes from country-western songs. If you don’t get yourself under control you’ll damage
this marriage past the point of recovery. Stop looking for fantasies and appreciate what you’ve got. Grow up.”

“You’ve changed. Before we came here you would never have talked to me this way.”

“Maybe I should have. I’m ashamed of you.”

“Oh, Vee!” She huddled over her wedding ring, sobbing.

Olivia and Bea drove up to the cottage in their golf cart. Isabel clung to the side. I walked out into the yard as if guarding the cottage’s front door. Bea spoke. “Herself says a woman must grieve inside without words in the way. Leave Ella to her own means. She’ll come about when she can speak without pain.”

This didn’t reassure me. Olivia had not overcome the loss of her children in half a century and counting. I wanted my sister to develop the Cameron strength but not the tendency to mourn destructively for a lifetime.

“You must come to the Hall,” Bea ordered. “Emory’s shown up a day early. He’s conniving.”

“I can’t leave Ella.”

“I’ll stay with her until you get back,” Isabel begged. She climbed off the golf cart and looked at me wistfully. “Please. Maybe I can talk to her.”

“She’s asleep.”

Bea read a note Olivia held out. “Herself says what Ruth did was unforgivable, but do no’ be adding to the misery yourself. Gib’s taken Carter to Knoxville for the day to get his mind off Ella. He’s no’ here to defend our side.”

“He’s not at the Hall?”

“No, he’s away all afternoon. Herself needs you more than ever today. I think you care for Gib”—Olivia prodded her arm with a fingertip, and Bea sighed—“All right, all right, anyone with eyes can see you and Gib are all for each other. Do it for him, eh?”

“That’s not—” I stopped. Gib and I were no secret,
obviously. For a moment longer I struggled with refusal. Then, to Isabel, “If Ella wakes up tell her I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Isabel nodded eagerly. “I want to talk to her about something. Min gave me permission. If you think it might help.”

“What is it?”

“Min and Simon were married for over ten years before Jasper and Kelly were born. They’d almost given up on ever having children. Min miscarried five times.” Knotting her hands together, Isabel waited for my reaction.

“All right. If Ella feels like talking, you can tell her that.”

“And I’d like to tell her that I was in therapy last year. After my divorce, and Simon’s death. I couldn’t take antidepressants because I was nursing Dylan. I went to a counselor twice a week.”

“I’d rather you not talk about psychological problems and babies any more than can be helped. It upsets her.”

“Certainly. I’ll be very careful. Vee, we really aren’t rejecting her. Nobody but Ruth wants to be cruel, and Ruth realizes everyone’s angry at her tactics. That’s all I’m trying to tell you.”

“The damage is done. It’s not me you need to convince.”

Bea snorted. “Come along, Venus. Leave Isabel to watch over your sister. And stop worrying. Poor Ella’s no more looney than the rest of us.”

Olivia nodded her agreement. Her eyes, direct and fiercely calm, said she’d been judged far more harshly.

“I decided to have a preliminary meeting with Minnie alone,” Emory said smoothly. He carried a portfolio of drawings and documents he wouldn’t open for anyone but her. Min, looking somber, acquiesced. They closeted themselves in the library.

“Underhanded bastard,” Bea growled. She helped Olivia into a chair in the music room. When Min came out of the
library she looked troubled. Emory all but glowed with satisfaction.

“I’m going to let Minnie tell you how generous the investors are willing to be,” Emory said. “I’ll leave the new proposal and drawings in the library for all of you to look at before our formal meeting tomorrow.” He eyed me. “I’m so sorry to hear about your sister. I’m assuming, considering her emotional state, she won’t be capable of participating in the vote.”

“If she can’t participate, there won’t be a vote.”

“What?”

“Olivia gave her a vote, so now she has to be included. Therefore, you’d better reschedule. I can’t tell you how long it might be before Ella’s well enough to make a decision.”

“This is outrageous!” Emory pivoted toward Olivia. “This is some ploy of
yours
, isn’t it? You’ll hang on to the last hurrah! But I
will
get what’s best for the Hall one way or another.”

Olivia’s expression grew so calm that only her eyes seemed alive, but they gleamed ferociously. She pulled a pad and a large black Magic Marker from her dress pocket. She wrote slowly, then thrust the pad at Bea.

Bea read in a loud, ringing voice, “ ‘I have had enough of you. I am overthrowing my own democracy and naming myself queen. Therefore the decision to sell is mine alone. I vote no. There.
No
. It is settled. This is the last time you’ll torment me.’ ” Bea drew a deep breath, then finished grandly, pointing at Emory, “ ‘I banish you and your kin from the Hall forever.’ ”

Olivia’s pronouncement was not quaint. Min reacted with profound silence. I heard gasps from Ebb and Flo, who were hiding around a corner. Emory’s face turned livid. “Now, look,” he said, his voice rising. “There’s no need for—”

“It’s about time,” Bea said. “I’ve ne’er understood why Herself tolerated you. I’ve told Herself for years she should put the Word on you.”

“I’m sure you have. You’ve never liked competition for Olivia’s attention, have you? You absurd old woman. You
have no idea what I could have done to you when you came here and established yourself as Olivia’s personal aide-de-camp. What I can
still
do to you, if forced.”

“Emory, I’ll ban you from this house myself if you keep talking petty nonsense like that,” Min said in a low voice.

Instantly he composed himself. “I’m sorry, Minnie. But I think it’s time to clear something up. I will not be summarily dismissed. I will not be saddled with
banishment
. This is the modern world, and it’s time to move away from the useless traditions that have held this ancestral property of ours in a time warp. We agreed last fall to take another vote. I intend to have it.”

He pointed to Olivia. “Do you think I’d have put up with your insults and the arrogance of this family all these years when all I’m trying to do is what’s best for the Hall—do you think I’d put up with that unless I was
convinced
I have a duty to this place and that my work on behalf of its future would pay off eventually? I know why you’ve put up with
me
, Aunt Olivia. I know what’s stopped you from just closing the doors to me and mine before now. I’m sorry you’ve always felt a little pressured, but Aunt Olivia, I’ve done right by you. I really have.”

She had gone as still as a bird. He dropped to one knee by her chair. “I’m going to guarantee you something,” he said in a courtly tone. “A promise I have honored since I was a boy, for the sake of you and our family’s good name. My father consigned that responsibility to me when he passed on, and I’ve protected it dearly. For your sake. But now the time has come for you to honor
me.”

This mysterious speech of Emory’s brought frowns of bewilderment to Min and Bea’s faces. Olivia, however, remained still, her hands clasped hard around the ends of the chair arms. She held his gaze as if some horror would leap the instant she faltered.

He bent his head next to hers and whispered something
in her ear. Then he stood and nodded to her. “I’ll grant you one more week to think about it,” he said, then he walked out of the Hall.

Bea lumbered over and patted Olivia’s hand, but was obviously shaken. “There’s ne’er been a secret between us, old doll, and you must no’ sit here now with one clenched inside you,” she sputtered. “What’s his meanin’? It could no’ be so terrible that you should sit lookin’ like doom.”

Olivia stood shakily, grabbed for the cane beside her chair, then swung it. She smashed a small vase on the end of a massive antique sideboard along the wall outside the library. Glass scattered everywhere. She walked through the scattered pieces, barefoot, as Min and I dashed to stop her and shove shards of glass from her path. “You’ll no’ do such nonsense and tell naught of the reason to me!” Bea cried, but Olivia only moved as swiftly as possible down the hall toward the kitchen.

She and Bea disappeared into the family wing and then into their suite of rooms. Min went after them but Olivia had shut herself in her own bedroom and Bea was so agitated she sat in her recliner, refusing to say much to anyone. She vowed not to move until Olivia confessed the mystery.

“Don’t any of you know what that was about?” I asked as we hunted for stray pieces of the crystal vase. Min shook her head. Ebb and Flo went off to the kitchen to ask their mother. But even FeeMolly had no clue.

Min sat down limply at the library table, Emory’s closed portfolio in front of her. “His new proposal doubles the size of the museum,” she explained. “It includes a separate folk-art gallery for Isabel.”

Min raised her eyes to mine. “And a small music pavilion for you and Ella. He says the whole complex would be like nothing else in the mountains. He suggests we call it the Simon Cameron Center for Folk History and Culture.” She paused, her throat working. “And his proposal includes a
permanent foundation to fund and develop the center. I don’t know what to say. How can I vote against something that honors Simon and everything he believed in so much?”

“You have to have faith in Gib, now,” I told her.

She looked away.

Gib walked into the Hall and was immediately confronted by the news of Emory, Olivia, and the whole chaotic mess. “We can’t just dismiss this,” Min said hoarsely. “We have to get Ruth and Carter and Ella—everybody concerned—we have to have a meeting and discuss this.”

“You’re not dragging my sister over here,” I said.

“Do you want to see the Hall and the valley turned into some kind of theme park?” Gib asked Min. “There’s a downside. There’s a sacrifice. The more control we give up the more we risk in the long run.”

“Have we proved we’re ready for the ‘long run,’ without Emory’s help?”

“I’ll never be Simon, but I thought that’s exactly what I’d been doing since last fall. Proving myself.” Gib exhaled wearily. “We’ll hold a family meeting tomorrow. I need your wholehearted support, Minnie. Either we stop this dance with Emory once and for all or we settle it and take the offer.”

“I agree. We can’t go on saying maybe. It isn’t fair to us. It’s certainly not fair to Emory.”

“I don’t give a damn about Emory. He’s always looked after his own interests. I’m going back to Knoxville tonight and see him. By God, one way or the other he’ll tell me what he said to Aunt Olivia.”

I grabbed his arm. Min crowded close. “No,” she and I said in unison.

“He obviously terrified her. I won’t have it.”

Min nodded. “But I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. It’s probably nothing sinister. You know how some people
squabble over feuds and fights so old that no one else even remembers the point.”

Gib gave her a hard look. “Aunt Olivia isn’t a senile old lady who gets the vapors over petty quarrels. You know that as well as I do.”

Min’s expression fell. She nodded. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

Suddenly a buzzer sounded. Gib had installed several emergency alarms in Bea and Olivia’s suite. They were part of his security innovations. We’d all shaken our heads over it, not laughing at him so much as amazed at his methodical approach. He’d placed simple remote controls on Bea’s and Olivia’s nightstands and on the tea table of their sitting room.

Now the alarm echoed ominously through the family wing. We rushed to their rooms. Bea lay on the floor of the sitting room, half leaning against the cluttered bookcases, disheveled and half-conscious, her eyes dazed. Olivia was crouched beside her, clutching the remote and still pushing the alarm button.

Gib and Min knelt on either side of Bea. Gib checked her pulse. Her mouth moved sluggishly. She moaned. I gently pried the remote from Olivia’s small hands. She fumbled for her notepad and looked around frantically. I snatched a pencil from the tea table.

Fainted
, Olivia wrote.
Help. Help. Her pressure
.

“Her blood pressure,” Min said.

“Dizzy,” Bea moaned.

“Get Carter,” Gib told me. “Tell him to bring one of the vans to the front.” He cupped his hand along the right side of Bea’s fleshy face, touching his fingertip to the corner of her eye and mouth. I saw what he was noticing. The slight, unnatural droop on that side. Min saw it, too.

“Funny-headed,” Bea groaned.

“I’ll call Bo,” Min said quickly. “He’ll send a forestry helicopter for her. We can meet it in Hightower.”