Return to Tradd Street
I closed my eyes, allowing my despair to consume me, to convince me that everything was hopeless. My mother’s hand was still held tightly inside my own, but it had gone slack. I had never felt so utterly and completely alone.
Pounding began on the door again, something heavier than fists this time, and then Jack’s voice. “I’m coming, Mellie. Keep fighting; I’m coming.”
His voice forced me to open my eyes. As I lay there trying to find a focus, to find a place to start, I heard the high-pitched cry of a newborn winding its way around the furniture and the rafters of the old attic like a ribbon. JJ. Sarah. My brain shouted their names over and over like a mantra as I began to struggle with renewed vigor. I had to get free. Not for me, or for my mother, or even for Jack. I had to do it for the two children who’d just begun this life and would need their mother to help navigate it.
Keep fighting, Mellie. “Mother! Open your eyes. I need you to open your eyes.”
They opened to slits, her eyeballs moving beneath the lids.
“Mother, please. I need you to open your eyes and give me your other hand. Please.” I sucked in my breath, my mind searching for a way to convince her. “If there was ever a time when you felt you needed to make up for thirty-three years of abandonment, this is it.”
Her eyes fluttered open in understanding as her hand pulsed to life inside of mine.
“Let go of the cradle, and then grab my other hand. We are stronger than she is. But we have to do this together.”
She nodded, and I watched her forehead crease in concentration. I tightened my hand on hers and then shouted, “Now!” With a loud gasp she wrenched her hand off the cradle, then rolled closer to me, slipping her other hand into mine. I held on tightly, afraid to let her go.
Scrape, slide, scrape. My mother glanced around her, her eyes widening as she watched a rustic oak bookcase edge its way toward her. When she looked at me, her eyes held only questions instead of answers, and desperation quickly overtook my fear.
“Camille? It’s you, isn’t it? Please don’t do this. I have two babies, and they need their mother.”
My words did nothing to slow down the approach of furniture and boxes toward the tiny space where my mother and I lay.
“Let us send you into the light. Let us give you peace.”
A loud crash sounded from somewhere out of my line of vision, and I remembered the pine curio cabinet with its dusty collection of Depression glass that had been tucked beneath the window, now imagining the floor studded with bright shards of glass.
My mother tugged on my hand. “Tell her what she needs to hear, Mellie. Tell her what you both need to hear.”
I blinked my eyes in confusion for a moment, trying to understand what she was telling me, wondering why her lips were moving but it wasn’t her voice emerging from her mouth. You know the truth. You can see it. But it is not the end of your story. Listen to your heart and remember that sometimes when you think you have lost everything, you have won your heart’s desire.
I blinked my eyes again, but this time it was to clear the tears that had begun to well up inside them. I now understood what Louisa had been telling me, understood why she’d sent me the package containing the christening gown. Because Camille Vanderhorst had been grievously wronged, and after more than one hundred and fifty years, it was time to make restitution.
“Camille,” I shouted again. “I know what happened, and I will see to it that the world knows, too. You didn’t deserve what happened to you. You were robbed of the most precious thing—your children. I understand that now. This is your house, and your children’s house. It belongs to their descendants. I will do the right thing for them; I promise.”
The sound of moving furniture ceased as a crushing silence descended, the air seeming to wait with held breath. My mother squeezed both of my hands, a silent we are stronger than you between us. When she spoke, her voice was firm, the love between mothers and their children a bond that reached across time.
“It’s time for you to join them,” my mother said. “It’s time for you to all be together again. They are waiting for you inside the light.”
The electric buzzing sound that had been zipping around the corners of the room suddenly stopped, replaced by the cries of the baby I’d been hearing since the day the remains of a newborn had been discovered in the foundation.
“Go to them,” my mother said. “Go to them and rest now. We will take care of things here.”
The weight of the trunk lessened, and I was able to push it off my legs and slide out from under it. I quickly stood, pulling my mother up with me. I listened as sirens wailed in the distance, the sound growing louder, the pounding on the door and Jack’s voice resuming.
We turned at the rustling of taffeta and watched as the figure of a woman knelt by the cradle, now tucked against the armoire, and lifted a baby into her arms. The beautiful folds of a linen-and-lace christening gown flowed softly against the satin of her voluminous skirts. She glanced at me, and her eyes were no longer empty, but ovals of shining light as she held the child she’d been denied all those years ago. She nodded in our direction and, with one last glance, slowly began to walk toward the window, disappearing through it with a shimmer of blue light before the attic fell dark again, lit only by the light of the moon.
The attic door opened as easily as if it had taken only a turn of the doorknob, and Jack stumbled in, outlined by the hallway light and holding the saber-scared pineapple finial from the top of the main staircase. He ran up the attic steps and pulled the chain switch that flipped on the overhead single bulb. Pausing at the top step, he stared at my mother and me huddled together in the middle of the attic, furniture crowded around us like spectators at a boxing match.
He was breathing heavily, sweat dripping down his forehead, his hair porcupine-like. There was worry and concern in his expression, as well as confusion. “Are you all right?” he asked with hesitation. Then, with more emphasis: “Why didn’t you open the door? It wouldn’t open and I was panicking. I called the fire department. . . .”
He stopped when he saw my gaze settle on the finial, and I knew what that extra pounding on the door had been. “Sorry,” he said. “I hope Sophie can forgive me.”
I looked at the scarred wood of the door and winced before I realized that I didn’t need to worry about the house anymore. My term as caretaker of the house on Tradd Street was over.
I made my way amid the furniture to Jack, throwing my arms around him as if I hadn’t seen him for a very long time. I pressed my face into his chest, finding comfort in the smell of him even as my enormous loss threatened to drag me under.
“Tell me I’m doing the right thing, Jack. Please tell me that everything’s going to be all right.”
With lips close to my ear, he whispered, “We’re together, Mellie. It’s all going to be fine.”
I nodded into his chest, afraid to meet his eyes and allow him to see my doubt. Pulling away, I turned to my mother. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. To Jack, she said, “Mellie will tell you everything later. But first, we need to get out of this attic. And I think the fire department is here.”
On not-so-steady legs, she began to thread her way toward the stairs. Jack took her arm to assist her, sending a questioning look in my direction. Later, I mouthed, not quite ready to relate what had just transpired in the confines of the attic.
I pulled on the chain, turning out the light and throwing the attic back into darkness, the moonlight casting fingerlike shadows through the spindles of the old cradle.
I followed Jack and my mother out of the attic and closed the battered door, leaving the cradle and all of its ghosts behind me.
CHAPTER 33
I bent down to untangle a strand of fig vine that wound its way through the small topiary in one of the new planters my father had just delivered to grace either side of the front door.
Daniel—“Just Daniel, please”—Rebecca’s wedding planner, stood behind me with h
is wrist on his hip, tut-tutting his displeasure. “Melanie,” he said, his rich Charleston accent heavy on the vowels. “These planters don’t go with the theme of tonight’s party. They look like baby cradles, which, I’m afraid, will give the wrong impression to the guests about the wedding couple.”
“They look like cradles because they are cradles. And there are two of them because the family that built this house has a history of twins. I thought it appropriate.”
I studied the two planters—one from the attic and the other a replica my father had made—marveling at what a beautiful job my father had done with the conversion from open-sided cradles to planters with an assortment of blooms and greenery that could only be described as eye candy. The Manigault family cradle had finally arrived, too, and it now held a place of honor outside near the kitchen door as a container garden for Nola’s herbs. At least, they would be her herbs until Irene Gilbert decided what to do with the planter.
Daniel looked heavenward, his pencil-thin eyebrows and mustache making him look like a silent-film star. “Could I at least put a pink bow on them?”
“Absolutely not. And I must insist that the large bow on the Baccarat chandelier be removed. It’s almost sacrilege.”
“But Ms. Edgerton—” he started to protest.
“Yes, as you’ve said dozens of times, it’s her party. But it’s my house. At least for now. So I get the final word. I agreed to allow my dog to wear a pink bow tie, but that’s my last concession.”
With compressed lips, he turned and left, his cell phone already pressed to his ear, undoubtedly to call Rebecca and let her know about another one of my ill-designed changes to his plans.
“I love you in red, but I must admit that you look quite delicious in pink, too.”
I turned around to see Jack in the doorway, the look on his face close to a lascivious leer without actually being one. He was dressed in a dark suit with a cobalt blue tie that brought out the color of his eyes. I might have swooned if I didn’t have the porch railing to hold on to.
“Thanks, but I feel like a cupcake. What’s with this bell-shaped skirt? I haven’t worn a dress like this since I was six.”
“I’m not sure what a bell-shaped skirt is, but I like the way it shows off your legs.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but I didn’t want to look anything like Daniel. Instead, I walked toward Jack. “Need me to fix your tie?”
“Sure.” He grinned, straightening as I reached him.
He placed his hands on my hips as I played with his tie, making it impossible to suck enough breath into my lungs. “Six weeks is like an eternity,” he said softly, and I blushed. That was the time Dr. Wise said I needed after the birth of the twins until we could “resume marital relations.” I’d been too embarrassed to tell her that there’d been no relations to resume. At least not marital ones. And definitely not plural.
I focused on his already perfect tie instead of meeting his eyes. “She said it could be longer depending on how I feel.”
He smoothed down my dress with the palms of his hands, skimming my waist and hips. “I think you feel pretty good.”
My hormones, most recently consumed with growing babies inside of me and producing milk, began to awaken and stretch like bears after a long winter. But I held myself back, resisting the urge to press him against the door. I had reconciled myself to the fact that I loved him, and had admitted it when I’d been about to give birth and he’d asked. I’d even reconciled myself to the fact that I was not the rightful owner of the house I’d only begun to call my home. But I couldn’t yet reconcile myself to the fact that I was married to a man who had never said he loved me.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
I patted his tie and stepped back, a prim smile on my face. “As well as it can be. Mr. Drayton called earlier. The Gilberts flew in yesterday. He’s setting up a meeting for tomorrow afternoon—he’ll let us know what time once he speaks with my lawyer. When I spoke with Sterling yesterday, we talked about what I might expect. He thinks we should be able to get some reimbursement for my out-of-pocket costs associated with the house’s restoration.”
The familiar sting behind my eyes began again, so I focused on picking imaginary lint from his suit. “Hopefully we’ll have enough time to find a new house before we have to move. With no offers on your condo yet, and your insistence that we find another historic home South of Broad, I’m afraid even your advance would barely cover a down payment. I’m a little short on cash right now, too, so we’ll probably have to rent for a while until I sell a few more houses and you start making royalties again.”
I tried to smile, but my lips wobbled too much to be convincing. “The house I showed you in Ansonborough is still available, by the way. I thought maybe we could bring Nola to look at it with us, see what she thinks. I put a call in to the listing agent to see how desperate the owners are to sell and whether or not they’d consider long-term renters with the possibility of buying in the next couple of years.”
“Mellie . . .” he began.
I shook my head. “Don’t. Please. I’m sorry I brought it up, but I really can’t talk about this right now. I went to a lot of trouble with my makeup and I don’t want to mess it up.”
He kissed the top of my nose. “All right. But we’ll figure this all out. Together, remember?”
I nodded, staring at the crease between his eyebrows. “What is it?”
“I was just wondering about something. It’s been bothering me ever since you told me about what happened in the attic. It’s about Charlotte. Why isn’t she haunting the house?”
I shrugged. “I can only guess, but I’m thinking it’s because she got what she wanted in life. I hope she’s now facing due penance in the next one.”
“And Louisa and Camille—do you think they’ve moved on and are at peace now?”
“I’d like to think so—I mean, it’s not like I get postcards or anything to let me know. But I still feel a presence, a maternal one. It might be Louisa, or it could be Camille, making sure I keep my end of the bargain. But it’s a gentle presence, whoever it is, and I don’t mind it. I’m almost thinking we should make sure our next house has ghosts, just to keep it interesting.”
Jack chuckled. “At least it would give me an unending source of plots for future books. That and anything you pick up from cold cases, if you decide to work with Detective Riley.” He raised an eyebrow. I’d mentioned the offer from Thomas, and Jack had actually said he thought it was a good idea if I found a positive way to use my gift, whether or not it gave him book ideas. And even if it meant my working with Detective Riley.
“If somebody doesn’t beat me to it, I’m thinking about making Camille’s story my next book after the Manigault book.”
“Don’t worry about Marc scooping you again, because I’m not saying a word to anybody—especially not Rebecca. As for telling Camille’s story, she’d like that,” I said with confidence. “She’d want the world to know the truth.”
A car door slammed and we looked over at the street to see a new navy blue Jaguar pulled up to the curb. It was too early for either guests or the valet parkers Daniel had hired, so I assumed it had to be the guests of honor. “Great. They’re here,” I said through gritted teeth.
I couldn’t believe that I’d agreed to host Marc and Rebecca’s rehearsal dinner. My only excuse was that the pregnancy hormones had made me temporarily insane. Still, I was grateful that I had a reason to dress up the house one last time and open the doors to guests. It was bittersweet, but still a better way to say good-bye than just locking the door behind us and loading up the van.
“Have you fed the babies yet?” Jack asked.
“No, I was just about to, so their tanks will be full before Nola takes over. She’s not too crazy about feeding the babies breast milk, even if it is in a bottle. She’s afraid some might touch her.”
“I think you’re going to need to go change, too.”
“I thought you said you li
ked this dress,” I said, my gaze following his to my chest. “Oh.” I looked down at the two wet spots staining my bodice. The garden gate clanged shut, and I turned to Jack in panic. “Please make my excuses—and don’t you dare tell them the real reason I had to change my dress. Tell them one of the babies puked on it or something.”
“That’s better than breast milk?” he asked.
Instead of answering, I turned and ran inside the house, listening as Jack greeted Marc and Rebecca. “Hello, Matt. It’s good to see you again.”
I snorted with laughter as I ran upstairs to feed the twins.
The scent of flowers saturated the house from the elaborate bouquets Daniel had set up and from the open doors and windows that brought in the sweet scents of tea olives and Confederate jasmine from the garden. The Baccarat chandelier, which Sophie had helped repair and restore after it had smashed onto the floor the first year I’d owned the house, sparkled as prisms of light shot through its crystal pendants. The wood floors had been polished with old-fashioned beeswax per Sophie’s instructions—but without her help, since her own due date was quickly approaching—and the Tiffany glass on the front door had been cleaned by hand using Q-tips to get into all of the crevices. I had actually volunteered for that project, wanting it to be my good-bye gift to the house.
There were forty guests for dinner, twenty-four of them to be seated at Camille Vanderhorst’s dining room table, the other sixteen at smaller tables set up in the large dining room. Daniel had been delighted to use the Vanderhorst china, mixing and matching the set with the roses dancing delicately along the edges of the plates with the gold Haviland Limoges china with the large “V” emblazoned in the middle.
Silver candelabras blazed from the table and every surface, festooned by pink roses, pink toile, and pink satin. Even I had to admit that everything looked beautiful against the pink lace tablecloths—custom-made to fit the tables—the candlelight reflecting off the antique mirrors and hand-painted wallpaper. All the possessions I had once looked at as just one more thing that would eventually need repairing or replacing.