When Venus Fell

  “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 t
hat 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.”

  She and I leaped up and ran out of the suite. “I think she’s had a stroke,” Min cried softly.

  I nodded.

  I felt as if everything I loved was falling apart around me again.

  Thirty-one

  For the second time in a week we gathered at the hospital in Knoxville. It turned out that Bea was in no serious danger; she’d suffered a very mild stroke and was able to talk slowly but intelligibly the next day.

  Tests were done to check the arteries in her neck for blockage, but none was found. “She’s eighty years old. This kind of thing happens,” the cardiovascular specialist told us. “I don’t see any sign of long-term disability. The only thing that worries me now is her mental health. She seems very depressed.”

  She lay in bed dully gazing at soap operas on her room’s television set, eating only because her regular doctor threatened to keep her hospitalized longer if she didn’t, and refusing most conversation.

  Olivia insisted on staying with her constantly. Gib arranged for a cot. Olivia huddled beside Bea’s bed, watching her with profound sadness. There was a strange new dynamic between the two of them; something had happened before Bea collapsed, we were certain, but neither of them would answer when asked about it.

  • • •

  Bea came home two days later, but retreated to her room and wouldn’t get out of bed. “I’ve lost my heart,” she said repeatedly, with no explanation. She held Olivia’s hand because Olivia forced her, but she rarely looked at her. Gib and Min gently questioned Olivia, but she would only write,

  It is between us. Only us.

  “What did Emory whisper to you that upset you so much?” Gib persisted.

  It is my business alone. Don’t ask him. Don’t meet with him. Don’t give him any answers. Don’t let him in this house again until Bea is stronger. I cannot fight so well without her beside me.

  “You don’t have to fight now. That’s my job.”

  This battle is far older than you.

  I returned to the cottage, brooding over the strange turn of events while Ella continued to reject help. “I brought a care package,” Gib said. He set a wicker basket on the porch and lifted a checkered napkin to reveal containers filled with food.

  Food was not what I needed. I wanted him to absorb me, I wanted to be naked with him, I wanted to press close to him and listen to his voice. Gib looked down at me with the same crackling intensity. “I’m taking you for a walk,” he said. Then he gripped my hand and led me into the woods. The weather was freezing; the ground was hard. We didn’t care. Once we were alone we were rough with urgency and need.

  We walked back in the early-winter dusk. Ella had turned on the porch light but sat in the shadows, wrapped in a blanket. Gib saw her first and put a hand on my arm. We stopped at the foot of the steps. I felt guilty.

  Carter drove up in his truck. He got out, looked at the odd scene—Gib and me standing in the yard, Ella hunched in a rocking chair in the shadows. “I just came to see if you were feelin’ better today,” he said to Ella.

  She wobbled to her feet. “Can’t we talk? I’ve been thinking—maybe we could visit a priest for some marriage counseling.”

  “I don’t need some outsider telling me what-for, darlin’. I need for you to make up your mind. If you need somebody to tell you how to think then we got a worse problem than I thought. I know what I think. I know how I feel. I don’t need a shrink to talk to.”

  “You’re saying that I need that kind of help?”

  “You’ve been making all the rules. Now I’m making some.”

  He turned to leave, jerking his truck door open. She stumbled to the edge of the porch. “Don’t go.” She tripped and Gib lunged to catch her. I leaped forward, too. He caught her by the waist. I heard Carter running toward us.

  “Ellie!” Carter said. He thrust his hands under her arms and helped guide her down on the top step. We sat in a mutual huddle.

  “My head,” she murmured.

  Carter got in front of her and dropped to one knee. He bent close to my sister and began stroking her hair. “I don’t understand. Is this one of your headaches?” She nodded.

  “It’s a migraine, not an ordinary headache,” I told him. I looked at Gib. “I need your help to get her inside.” He eyed me meaningfully then nodded toward Carter. “Carter,” I corrected, “I need your help.”

  Carter snared Ella around the waist. “I’m carryin’ you, darlin’,” he announced, his voice choked. “I’ve got you.” He carried her inside.

  Gib and I looked at each other. “Do you think she’s faking?” he asked.

  I hesitated. Then, “If it works, that’s all that matters.”

  • • •

  Carter was back on our doorstep the next morning. He’d spent most of the night watching Ella sleep. “I need to see my wife,” he said hopefully, “if she’s awake and feeling better.”

  I called Ella, and finally she walked outside. She was dressed in her robe, pale and hollow-eyed, her black hair disheveled. “Are you still angry at me?” she asked.

  “You’re my woman. If you move out on me then you never meant to stick with me forever. Enough of this hooey. You needed me last night. You need me now. Now come on with me, right this minute. I mean it.”

  I could have kicked him. His domineering attitude blew the fragile reconciliation to shreds. Ella reacted by sinking into a rocking chair and clutching the armrests as if no force on earth could move her. “You think I’m a possession? You think you can order me to follow you as if I’m a dog? I can’t … touch you! I can’t bear to touch myself! I feel empty. I can’t even think. And you don’t understand!”

  He gaped at her. “You don’t have to think. Just do what I tell you. I was trying to make it easy for you. Ellie, please. I don’t know what to say, goddammit.” Anger rose in his face. The moment of vulnerable entreaty evaporated. “I never knew my daddy, and my own mama left me with her kin. I won’t put up with being walked out on again.”

  “I’m not good enough for you. That’s what you think. That’s what everyone in the family thinks. That I’m mentally defective and … and barren.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. I’m half-crazy myself over this, Ellie. So bad I went up to New Inverness the other night. I got stinkin’ drunk and called a couple of my old friends. They came and sat with me.”

  “Girls?”

  “That’s right. But nothing happen
ed.”

  “You’re telling me this to hurt me. You’re saying I’ve driven you to other women already.”

  “Goddammit, Ellie, I’m telling you because I’m ashamed of it and I don’t want you to hear it from somebody else. Nothing happened.”

  “If you want other women, then go and sleep with them. Have babies with them. Everyone would approve of your choice.” She fled indoors, crying. Carter turned numbly and wandered toward his truck. I stalked him across the yard.

  “Don’t do it,” I said. “The women. Don’t do it.”

  “I couldn’t,” he mumbled. Tears on his face, he leaned on the truck’s hood. His long hair dangled around his jaw. He looked terrible. “I can’t give up on her. But I can’t hang around here tearing myself up when she won’t even listen to me. I’ve had it. I’m leaving for Oklahoma tomorrow.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until Ellie agrees to come back to me.”

  “This isn’t the way to deal with her.”

  “It’s my way,” he said.

  “Carter’s gone,” Gib told me.

  We stood in the yard of the cottage the next afternoon. I exhaled wearily. “I have to think of some way to convince Ella he isn’t deserting her just like that bastard in Detroit did.”

  “Do you want me to come inside and talk to her?”

  “No.”

  “I see. Do you realize how you’re making me feel? What your attitude is doing to us?”

  “I’m taking care of my sister.”

  “I’d help you if you’d let me. You’re as bad as she is. When the chips are down she rejects everyone but you. You’re doing the same thing for her sake.”

  “She could end up in a hospital psych ward if this goes on much longer. I’ve got decisions to make.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  My heart was breaking. “It means I’ll take her away from here if I have to.”

  Those words were like flint on stone. He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind now. “Forget it. You don’t want to go and I won’t let you do it.” His bald-faced warning, delivered not as a threat but as a simple statement of fact, left me speechless. His blunt possessiveness didn’t upset me; with alarming ease I loved him more than ever.