I didn’t really want to marry anyone, but I’d do it for his own good. I had no role models for married bliss, but I’d try to learn. My mother had been killed by marriage, and as for Swan, of course, she was a self-contained entity, a cool puzzlement outside the realms of marital convention. My grandfather, the doctor, was just a mild-mannered bald man in a photograph. For all I knew my mother had been an immaculate conception. I watched Swan gracefully entertain men among her guests at parties, but I never saw her kiss one. The Italian marble baron occasionally happened to show up when we traveled to New York, and at those times Swan would leave me in the care of some New York socialite or other, some friend of hers from her youth, and she and the marble baron would spend late nights on the town. But that was all.
Matilda’s husband, Mr. Dove, was a faceless mystery. She lived alone with Karen in one of the smaller Esta Houses, a fine 1930s bungalow of river stone trimmed with marble, on a shady town street not far from Marble Hall. It was no secret that Swan had given the house and five acres of woodland around it to her as a young woman. Whatever this generosity smacked of—a remnant of the retainer system born in slavery, or white Hardigree noblesse oblige—Matilda had no doubt earned the marble-supported roof over her head. Pride and independence seemed to drive her as hard as they drove my grandmother.
And then there was Great-Aunt Clara, she of the sinister silences and shrouded history. So much for studying Great-Aunt Clara’s example.
Men, it seemed, were only window dressing in the Hardigree female universe. Just the pediment that held up the vase for admiration, not to be confused with a solid foundation or a permanent decoration. I couldn’t imagine Swan doing the thing a woman had to do to get a baby. Karen had told me all about the process, from the lying down naked and the kissing to the poking and the gooey result. I had to believe Karen was telling me the truth, since she’d gotten the information from a copy of The Joy of Sex she found in a box at the Hardigree County Library, where Matilda sent books Swan had donated. But I couldn’t fathom it.
Swan would never undress for a man—she didn’t even show herself to me. I’d never caught her in anything less revealing than a fabulous nightgown and a long, white, silk robe. She had a whole collection of those. Besides, Swan would never allow anyone—man, woman, God, or Satan—to get on top of her.
I knew that for sure.
Every May Swan held a weekend party at Marble Hall for her alumni class at the Larson School For Girls in Asheville. Even a cousin of one of the Vanderbilt descendents had attended while Swan was there as a teenager, since at that time various Vanderbilt heirs still lived at their castle-like mansion, Biltmore, secluded on a vast estate along Asheville’s borders.
Marble Hall was full of elegant matrons of Southern society. Swan brought in extra help for the meals, the afternoon tea, the evening cocktails by our large marble pool and marble gazebo in the back gardens. It was Annie Gwen’s first big event as our maid, and Eli was pressed into service hauling trash and washing dishes. In his spare time, he was supposed to babysit Bell. It didn’t work.
Bell Wade peered at me with terrified eyes from inside one of the big, whitewashed floor cabinets in the mansion’s vast kitchen, where she’d burrowed into the pots and pans. She had a colander on her head. Wisps of her fluffy, dark hair poked through the sieve holes. She was dressed in tiny cut-off jeans and a tiny Sesame Street t-shirt. “Here she is, Eli. She’s hidden like a rabbit.”
He grimly knelt beside the open cabinet door, hiking the knees of his overalls. I was dressed in a pink organdy shift with pink patent-leather slippers. “Baby Sister,” he crooned softly, holding out his hand. “Come on here. You look like something from outer space.”
She stared at us with huge dark eyes and didn’t move.
“We have to get her out of there before Matilda catches her.” I darted looks at a butler door to the dining room. Matilda and Annie Gwen were just on the other side, serving luncheon platters of tomato bisque and almond chicken salad to Swan and her twenty-five classmates. “Matilda has your mother polish these pots like they’re fine silver!”
“Well, now they’re a crown for Bell.” Eli carefully laid a hand on the tiny girl’s hand. She clutched a stew pot in her lap, and held on hard. “Come on, Baby Sis, come on out for me.” Eli never lost patience with Bell, though she tried him all the time. I hiked my slender pink dress up a little and got down on my knees. “Come out this instant,” I ordered in a cool, dry tone. “Time is money, and you are two nickels short of ruining my schedule.”
Eli gritted his teeth and gave me a narrow look. “I don’t need your help.” He jabbed a hand inside the cabinet and latched onto his sister’s wrist. “Outta there, Bell.” She uttered a soft squeal but he dragged her out anyway. I caught pots and pans hurriedly, trying to keep them from clanking. Bell braced a tiny, tennis-shoed foot against the cabinet’s door frame. Eli grunted, wrapped both hands around her leg and jerked.
She slid onto the marble-tiled floor as if birthed from a stew-pot womb. In the bright sunshine streaming through the kitchen’s high windows I saw how pale she was, how utterly terrified of this place and its strange people. She shook with fear. Eli winced and pulled her to him for a deep hug. “It’s okay, Baby Sister.”
But it wasn’t. Slowly, a yellow stream of urine slid from beneath her bottom. I leapt up. The clatter of footsteps on the hall floor outside the butler’s door made us jump. I shut the cabinet door. “Just hide her,” I told Eli. “Go up the back stairs. There’s a linen closet right near the top. Get inside and close the door. I’ll come in a minute.”
Eli frowned as he stood and hoisted Bell into his arms. “What are you going to—”
The steps were almost at the door. “Go!”
He bounded out an arched doorway in the kitchen’s back corner. I heard his feet on the narrow servant’s stairway, then blessed silence. I faced the butler’s door, my breath short. It swung open, and Annie Gwen pushed her way through. She carried a large, empty silver tray. Her brown hair was pulled back in a crisp bun, and she wore a pink maid’s uniform with pink tennis shoes. Her kind, plain face lit up in a smile when she saw me. “Miss Darl, honey, what you need, sweetie?”
I sagged with relief and put a finger to my lips. “Bell tinkled.” I pointed to the floor.
Annie Gwen gave a soft yip of dismay. “Where is she?”
“Eli took her upstairs. I’ll go help him dry her off. It’s all right.”
Annie Gwen leapt to a utility closet and pulled out a mop. I bounded up the backstairs. The house closed in on me, dark and cool and as quiet as a big marble mausoleum. At the top of the landing I carefully inched open the wide louvered door of the linen closet. Eli sat in the floor of the dark closet with Bell huddled in his lap. He’d wrapped her in one of Swan’s finest monogrammed bath towels. Her soggy shorts and her flower-print panties lay on the floor. “It’s okay,” I said, and explained. He exhaled. “Now I just got to get her some dry clothes.”
“I’ll get her some. I’ve got a whole trunk full of my old clothes. Just wait.” I shut the door and hurried up another flight of back stairs. My personal bedroom was a small, pink suite on the mansion’s backside. It overlooked the pool, the gazebo and the back gardens. I could even see beyond the pink stone terrace to the shallow koi pond far below. Along that terrace, interspersed with shrubbery, the line of tall marble swans guarded Hardigree secrets, including my small one about Bell.
I dug in a white cedar chest until I found a frilly pair of shorts and ruffled panties. These looked the right size. All was well. I hurried back down the stairs and had just opened the linen closet door an inch when I heard steps on the long marble staircase at the hallway’s other end. I tossed the clothes to Eli. “It’s just one of the guests,” I whispered. “I’ll talk to her.”
He wrapped his arm tighter around poor Bell. “Just don’t let nobody open this d
oor.”
“I won’t.” I shut it, then planted myself in a tall, upholstered wing chair nearby, as if I was just part of the décor, a small part. The hall was wide and long, the marble floor covered in a full-length carpet of delicate scrolls and fleur de lis. Along its length were more sitting areas. Paintings of English landscapes and good reproductions of the old European masters hung on the walls. I swung my legs as if perfectly relaxed, hoping the guest wouldn’t even notice me in the rich shadows. The hall was lit only by the sun filtering through a tall window at the far end.
A doughy blonde woman in a pale silk midi dress huffed her way to the top of the marble staircase. Her face was flushed. She swayed a little on her feet. “Why, little Darlene, wha’ you doin’?” Her genteel, magnolia-soft voice was kindly but slurred. She’d had one too many Bloody Marys for lunch.
“Just sitting, Mrs. Colson.” She lumbered my way and sat down near me on an antique velveteen loveseat. Her bleary eyes filled with tears. “You look just like Julia, sitting there. That was one of her favorite spots. She used to play with her dolls in that linen closet. She called it her special dollhouse.”
I stopped swinging my feet. Goose bumps rose on my skin. Swan’s friends never spoke of my mother to me ordinarily. “Was she as pretty as her pictures?”
“Beautiful. A beautiful brunette with big blue eyes, just like you.”
“Was she smart?”
“No, honey, she was foolish and reckless. But she was certainly sweet.”
We sat there gazing at each other for a moment, while I absorbed such honesty. Mrs. Colson began to talk about Swan and my mother, how close they’d been, how both had been full of smiles and laughter around each other, how Swan had adored her and indulged her. A small pain twisted my heart. My mother had had a real mother. Why couldn’t Swan love me that way?
Mrs. Colson rambled on, shaking her head sadly. “It was just too bad about her and Katherine. Poor Katherine. Just wild blood. But what else could you expect from that mix?”
Katherine Dove. She was talking about Matilda’s daughter, Karen’s mother, the unknown girl we’d never seen in a picture, never heard discussed. I slid out of the chair, as stiff as a soldier. Mrs. Colson clamped a moist, doughy hand on my arm and peered at me tearfully. “If it hadn’t been for that girl’s bad influence, I expect your mother would have been fine. You poor child. Don’t you ever feel bad about her. You might not have had a good mother, but you have a wonderful grandmother.”
My breath caught in my windpipe. “Didn’t my mother want me?”
Mrs. Colson smoothed her hands up and down my arms, uttering soft sounds of comfort. “Well, no, but your grandmother wants you. And when Swan Hardigree Samples wants somebody, they don’t get away.” She released me, stroked one hand across my hair, then went down the hall and disappeared into a bedroom, pulling the door shut behind her.
I turned blindly, weeping without tears, numb. I opened the door to the linen closet. Eli still sat on the floor, holding Bell in his lap, wrapped in the towel. She had hidden her small face in the towel. SHS, Swan’s monogram, was all I saw of her face. Eli looked up at me with his large, dark eyes, somber with sympathy, and I knew to my horror he’d heard every word Mrs. Colson spoke. “Darl,” he said gruffly. The first time he’d ever spoken to me by my name.
I gasped for air. “I’m going to the Stone Flower Garden.” I left him there and hurried down the back stairs, then out a door to a sunroom, then out the sunroom door into the bright spring afternoon. I skirted the back gardens behind tall snowball hedges then went down a set of stone steps along the back terrace. In a moment I was racing past the Japanese goldfish pond and into the deep woods, sliding and falling on the forest floor of matted leaves, briars tearing at me. When I reached the sunken glen I threw myself down next to a bench and pillowed my face in my arms, sobbing.
Eli followed me, carrying Bell. They sat down in the leaves beside me. Of all wonders, he put his arm around my shoulders. “This is a good place, a safe place,” he said. “When we come here we don’t have to be who we are. We’ll just be who we want to be. All right?”
I raised my head and nodded. Suddenly a small, soft hand touched me on the arm. Eli and I both looked down at Bell in amazement. She pointed at the shorts I’d given her. Pink ones, of course. “I’m pink, now,” she whispered. Her eyes were sorrowful, her voice sweet and melodic. She patted my arm. “Like you.”
“Glory be, she’s talking,” Eli said softly. She had a talent for compassion, and I’d unleashed it by crying in our magic garden. I scrubbed my eyes and sat up. Eli and I traded amazed looks. The strength of Eli’s arm around my shoulders felt good. He nodded to me. “We’ll be ourselves, no matter what,” he said.
From then on, he and Bell and I met often in that hidden, peculiar garden, hoping and dreaming together in the only safe world we knew.
Chapter Four
Three years passed. Eli still kept to himself, counting his family’s new life every quiet, safe day like a miser afraid to turn his back on pennies, but poured out his dreams to Darl in the garden. He never said he hated working in the office at Hardigree Marble, but he thought she suspected. Just as he suspected she was lonelier than any other human being on the face of the earth, except when they were together. The world turned in small, quiet circles, with them at the center.
Godawmighty, it’s Leon Forrest his own self, and if looks could kill, everybody in this town would be stone-cold dead.
That was Eli’s first thought on the winter afternoon when the older boy slunk into the offices at Hardigree Marble to fill out paperwork for a quarry job. Eli looked up from a corner table where Mr. Albert had him adding payroll invoices as fast as his fingers could fly with a pencil. Leon stood there like a thundercloud. He was fourteen, now, over six feet tall and thinner than Eli, who was nearing the six-foot mark himself. Leon’s skin was black as tar, and his hair jutted in nappy tufts no matter how much he tried to pick it into a preened Afro. His folks had gone bust at farming, and now he was dropping out of school to work at the quarry. He hunched his shoulders inside an old army coat. His bitter gaze fell on Eli. “What you watchin’ me for?”
Eli clenched his pencil and refused to look away. “I dunno. Guess we’re in the same boat. I gotta work here, too.”
“Huh. What you’re doin’ ain’t work.”
“Beats rasslin’ marble in the cold.” Eli tapped a ledger. “This is smart work.”
“You sayin’ I ain’t smart enough to do what you do?”
“I got no idea. But I’d teach you how to keep these books if they’d let me. I hate doin’ it.”
“I could keep books. I like books. I’m sure not gonna rassle marble all my life.”
“You sure will if you don’t learn to do something else. I’ve seen how that just naturally happens around here.”
Leon fumed. Mr. Albert saw him from his office window and, scowling, hustled into the front room. “Don’t you loiter in here, boy. Your daddy’ll come by and fill out your forms for you.” He pointed to the picture window that overlooked the quarry. “Get on out there and tell that tall man in the blue coat I said to put you to work.”
“Yessir,” Leon mumbled.
Mr. Albert grimaced at Leon’s overalls and mud-covered farm boots on the office’s carpeted floor. “And don’t you ever walk in here with dirty feet again.” He turned on his heel and left the room. Eli looked at Leon Forrest sympathetically and saw the humiliation in his face. “That man in the blue coat is my pa. Just do what he says and he’ll be fair to you. You’ll be okay.”
Leon stared at him. “Day’ll come when nobody around here tells me where or how to walk.” He stomped out.
At six Mr. Albert closed the office for the night. The cold afternoon was settling into an icy dusk. “We’re done, Mr. Genius,” he ordered. Eli gratefully donned a heavy scarf and his
padded canvas jacket then loped to the secluded parking lot to wait for Pa. There were only a few pickup trucks left in the graveled area, and steep hills covered in fir and hemlock surrounded it, making a natural arena. The air turned his breath to frost. Eli shivered and stared in dismay as three rough-looking young black men dragged Leon out of the woods, swinging at him with their fists. Eli recognized none of them. Leon plowed into the trio, and all four tumbled in a mauling heap among the trucks.
I could go get Pa, Eli thought first, but there wasn’t time. He crept over, ducking behind truck beds, until he was close enough to hear the wild grunts and curses. Leon was getting the shit beaten out of him. As Eli watched, one of the young men flashed a switchblade knife. Eli stood up and yelled like a banshee as the man swung the knife at Leon. Everybody jumped. The tip of the blade only caught Leon across the cheek but left a nasty gash. Red blood poured down Leon’s dark jaw and neck.
His breath like the white puff of a steam engine, Eli lunged at the young men with his fists up. The sight of a tall, skinny white boy yelling maniacally and landing punches on them must have raised prospects of white Burnt Stand policemen and white trouble in general. “Fuck you, dude,” the knife-wielding fighter said. He slashed at Eli, then he and the others sprinted for a low silver sedan and left in a hail of gravel and dust.
Eli stood there defiantly for a few seconds, then wavered and looked down at himself. His jacket’s spongy filler protruded from a foot-long cut in the canvas directly over his stomach. He shakily opened the jacket and made sure his guts were still in place. Leon moaned and sat up. Eli hurried over and knelt beside him, grimacing at his bruised and bleeding face. The skin of his cheek had been opened like a zipper, the line showing red meat in the black skin. “Reckon you’re gonna need some stitches,” Eli said.