“We’re not even going to discuss that,” Gib said, in a cold tone.
“All right, all right,” Emory conceded. “But someone started that fire—and I’m going to find out who and why and what for. I’m not saying formal charges must be brought, but I am saying that if we have a firebug among us she must be identified and controlled with humane but appropriate measures.”
“You want to lock Aunt Olivia up?” Isabel asked in breathy shock.
“If she’s suffering some kind of dementia, there are many fine nursing homes in Knoxville—”
“Forget it,” Gib said, cutting Emory off.
“Gib, my only concern is protecting our heritage. I believe everyone but you and Olivia is ready to admit the opening weekend was a disaster. It is clearly time to turn this property over to new management. Now, Aunt Olivia is technically the only person who can make that decision, but if someone was to have her declared incompetent—”
“You scheming son of a bitch,” Gib said, and then there were crashing sounds, and a myriad of raised voices. I clawed my way down the hallway and staggered into the den. Min, Isabel, Carter, and Ruth were pulling Gib away from Emory. Gib had his hands around Emory’s throat. A well-dressed stranger—Mr. Nolan, the arson expert—stood nearby, gaping at the scene. Joey lurked beside him. Ella, who stood to my left cradling a sleeping Dylan in her arms, turned and saw me. “Vee! What are you doing out of bed!”
Gib released Emory and strode toward me. “You don’t need to be part of this mess tonight,” he said, but when he moved to pick me up I stopped him. I had come to Tennessee to reclaim memories of Mom and Pop’s happiness—of our family’s right to be happy. But happy memories couldn’t survive in the silences between failures. I had brought Ella here, and together we’d destroyed what was left of our fantasies. What was left of our family’s music. Sooner or later, if I didn’t stop this, either Olivia would be blamed for another crime of the heart, or Ella’s ring would be discovered at the chapel and she would be accused, ruined, punished.
“I did it,” I announced, looking straight into Gib’s eyes. “I set the fire.”
Silence. I was the center of a hot universe, feeling the stares from everyone. Gib’s gaze never left my face. I thought my heart would break—he would hate me, he would turn away. He searched my eyes with strange calm, an intensity that went beyond surprise, and then he said softly, “You’re not capable of destroying the chapel. You almost died trying to save it.”
That was the faith he had in me, not knowing that I’d lied to him already, a sin of omission. “I set the damned fire,” I insisted shakily. “I did it because I wanted revenge for what this family did to Ella. I was going to take Ella and leave last night. But I went back to see if the chapel was burning, and I found Olivia there. I couldn’t let her be hurt. The fire wasn’t her fault. It was mine.”
“You’re only trying to take the blame off Olivia,” Ella cried, “because we owe her so much for her kindness. Don’t honor her by sacrificing yourself. I’m sure she doesn’t want that.”
Carter rushed to Ella’s side. He handed Dylan to Isabel then put his arms around Ella tightly. “Vee’s a hellcat,” he said, “but I don’t believe she’s a firebug.”
“I don’t believe it, either,” Isabel said.
“You loved that chapel,” Min added quietly. “Gib’s right. You almost died trying to save it. You can’t convince any of us you meant to harm it.”
Stunned, I could only repeat, “None of you really know me or what I’m capable of doing.”
Gib reached into his shirt pocket. “Oh? I think we do.” He pulled out a folded sheet of paper. My good-bye note. He opened it and read slowly, “ ‘Keep the money. Keep the piano. I give it all to you openly and freely and with love. There’s no way I can pay you and your family enough for making us feel wanted, at least for a few months.’ ”
He looked at me quietly. “So you gave up everything you originally came here for. You gave it to the family, with love. That’s a strange kind of revenge.”
“You’re not taking me seriously, dammit—”
“For God’s sake,” Emory snapped. “She said she set the fire. There’s no logical reason to doubt her.” He rubbed the red-streaked skin above his shirt collar. “She’s given you a confession. Be that as it may, I really don’t want to see this public-relations soap opera get into the press or the legal system. Despite being attacked just now, I’m still willing to be as fair as anyone could be.”
“Daddy’s being reasonable,” Joey said. “And he’ll be fair when he’s in charge, here, too.”
Ruth stepped past him. “Shut up, Joey.” She walked over to me, her gaze frozen on mine. “I hate to admit this, but I recognize a criminal when I see one, and you don’t qualify.”
“Aren’t any of you listening to me? I said I did it.”
Gib picked me up. “All right. The person you need to confess to is Olivia. Right now.”
“I will,” I said dully.
Bea looked bewildered as she ushered Gib and me into the parlor she shared with Olivia. She clucked at me as Gib set me in a chair across from the tea table. “My poor brave, overwrought, singed dearies, you look the way Herself feels. Like ghosts have bit you on the arse. I’ll fetch Herself. She can no’ even write, she’s so stiff and sore, but I know she’s wanting to see you, Venus.”
“Should I help you?” Gib asked. “I could carry her if she’s still too sore to walk.”
“She’ll whack you if you pick her up. She’s in no mood for pampering.” Bea shuffled away.
My throat hurt, my back throbbed, and my hands felt raw inside the gauze mitts. I stared at my lap and felt Gib watching me. “Did you really think I’d believe you set the fire?” he asked in a low voice. I refused to answer him. What Ella had done stuck in my chest. “Who are you trying to protect?” Gib asked. “I need you to trust me with the truth, Nellie.”
“Facts aren’t the whole truth. The truth is harder to condemn.”
“Are we arguing your father’s case again?”
Olivia crept into the sitting room before I had to answer him. Gib stood. She leaned heavily on Bea’s arm; every movement seemed an effort. The ruffled nightgown she wore with an equally ruffled robe stood out like a bell around her body. But she met my eyes with shrewd energy.
“Sit,” Bea ordered Gib. When everyone was settled she gestured toward the tea table, which bore a small fresh flower arrangement in a basket. The room was filled with flowers. “Herself has received such a bounty from old friends and admirers already,” Bea told us. “ ’Tis certainly her due for trying to put out the fire.”
Olivia scowled. Bea saw the look and scowled back. “I know that’s what you were about doing. There’s no shame in enjoying a bit of grandeur on your own behalf. I do no’ care if some tongues are wagging.” Bea gave a grand huff and frowned at us. “Herself knows what the rumors are. That she spilled the lamp. Caused the accident her own very self. But it’s no’ true. The fire is a mystery we must solve, dear Gib, you with your expert ways, but until then I’ll no’ have folks whispering that Herself may have been responsible. When she can work her poor sore hands again she’ll do her explaining. Look at her hands! Swollen with arthritis due to the brave efforts she made!”
I met Olivia’s blue eyes. “You won’t have to explain to anyone,” I said, “because I know what happened, and it wasn’t your fault at all.”
Olivia’s fine white brows arched in surprise. Bea leaned forward. “What are you saying, child?”
“I set the fire before Olivia got to the chapel. I’m sure she found the rugs burning when she went there. I did it.”
Olivia’s expression frightened me. It slowly became more and more intense—shocked, upset, bewildered, angry. Gib looked concerned. He leaned toward Olivia, his eyes respectful but steady on hers. “I don’t believe Vee did it,” he said. “Whatever happened last night, I don’t think it was deliberate. When you can write again you can tell me what you s
aw and what you did at the chapel.”
Olivia’s mouth moved in wordless fury. She shook her head. Moving her hands stiffly, she clawed at a pen and pad on the tea table. “Stop, you’ll hurt your poor self!” Bea cried, snatching the writing tools away. “Calm yourself! Are you in such a fit you’ve lost your mind? Vee is asking for your mercy, I’m sure of that, and it tears at her soul to see she caused harm! I, for one, know what pain that means!”
After that odd comment Olivia gazed at Bea, her mouth working again, frustration obviously building to a steam inside her. She shoved her hands into Bea’s ample bosom, punching her. Bea gasped. Gib and I stood quickly. Gib gently grabbed Olivia’s wrists and kept her from pummeling Bea again.
“I don’t understand,” he said grimly. “You taught us all to be fair, to listen to both sides, to never judge people on their words alone. Why are you condemning Vee without a second thought?”
Olivia turned her tortured, enraged face up and stared at me. She trembled wildly. Her lips pursed. She swallowed with convulsive effort. She seemed so angry, she might spit at me.
“Gib, let her go,” I whispered. I could barely speak myself. “I had no right to expect special treatment.”
I struggled out of my chair and started for the door. Olivia kicked the tea table and it wobbled sideways then crashed to the floor. She struggled to rise from her chair. Bea shrieked. Gib knelt by her chair and firmly trapped his tiny, enraged great-aunt against his chest as if she were a child. Her hair dangled in disheveled gray shanks. She stared at me, her crystalline blue eye almost savage.
“Please, stop,” I cried, backing away. “Please, don’t hate me.”
She flailed an arm at me. I continued to retreat. Her throat flexed convulsively. “Not you,” she said.
Silence. Shock. We all stared at her, incredulous. The frail, breathy, rusty little sound that had come out of her might have been an illusion. She writhed as if giving birth, breathing hard, trying to push more words to the surface. Finally they broke free.
“I set … the fire,” she rasped.
Thirty-three
After fifty years of silence, Olivia Cameron had finally found her voice. Amazed she’d formed audible words, we were incapable of analyzing what she’d confessed. She seemed amazed, herself, afraid to try another sound.
Gib carried her into the den of the family wing. “Where’s Emory?” he said.
“I politely kicked him out,” Ruth answered. “At least for now.”
“Good.”
Bea sat beside Olivia on the couch, staring at her and murmuring, “It can be so, it can be so,” like a chant to keep the voice muse from deserting. Deep inside me was a symphony, an entire music festival of relief. I had no idea how or why Olivia could have set fire to the chapel, I only knew she’d freed Ella from blame.
Min, Isabel, Ruth, Ella, and Carter clustered around her. “What happened?” Ruth demanded, studying Gib’s and my expressions.
“She spoke,” Gib said simply. “And she told us she started the fire.”
Olivia absorbed everyone’s shock with wide-eyed wonder of her own. “Let me get this straight,” Ruth said. “Aunt Olivia spoke. Actually by God spoke out loud and formed recognizable words. And on top of that she said she deliberately tried to burn the chapel down?”
Gib nodded toward their great-aunt as if her solemn presence were proof enough. Ruth pulled a small footstool close to Olivia and perched on it. She laid one hand on Olivia’s arm. “Aunt Olly,” she began with patronizing concern, “with all my heart I want to believe you can speak again. But I cannot believe you started that fire on purpose.”
Olivia frowned fiercely. Her throat worked. We all held our breath while she struggled. Then she said quite plainly, “You doubt my word?”
Min and Isabel gasped. Ella clapped her hands to her mouth. Carter whooped. Ebb and Flo, listening from a doorway as usual, screamed and ran to tell FeeMolly. Bea cried gently and silently, curling her thick, fleshy hand around one of Olivia’s thin ones. Gib and I traded new incredulous looks. Ruth sat back, gaping at her annoyed great-aunt.
Olivia tasted her own lips with the tip of her tongue. She raised a hand and touched just her fingertips to her mouth, and then touched them over her heart. She looked at me, her eyes gleaming. I nodded.
The connection had been restored.
Gib questioned Olivia gently. She explained about the chapel in short, halting sentences. The explanation made no sense at that point. We were all so caught up in the miracle of hearing her voice. Each word came hard, with stilted pronunciation. Slowly a new, even more bewildering scenario of the fire emerged.
“I walked through the woods. It took a long time.”
“Weren’t you too tired? How did you walk that far?”
“I rested every few minutes. I know how to be patient.”
“Why didn’t you ask one of us to drive you?”
“I did not want an audience. I had plans.”
“What kind of plans?”
“To set a fire, of course.”
This stopped the progress for a second, as we looked at one another in shock. Gib shook his head slowly, frowning. He cleared his throat. “We’ll come back to that point in a minute.”
“I will only repeat it. Don’t be so shocked.”
“Let’s talk about how you set the fire.”
“I poured lamp oil on the rug. I set candles in the oil.”
“All right. Then you decided you could light the candles and leave? That you’d have time to walk back to the Hall before the candles burned down and set the oil on fire?”
“No. I planned to sit outside and watch the fire. I intended to tell everyone that I did it. That was the point.”
So far, her rationale had been impossible to fathom. Gib scrubbed a hand over his face and looked at her askance as each new answer was more astonishing than the last. “What happened next?”
“I lit one candle. Then I had second thoughts. I felt a presence around me. I sat down to consider it.”
“A presence? You mean Vee found you, then?”
“No. She came later.”
Isabel said eagerly, “Then you mean you felt a spiritual presence?”
Olivia glanced at Ella then looked straight at me. My heart raced. Oh, yes, it must have been a spiritual dilemma, having my sleepwalking sister glide in unannounced. I could imagine Ella sitting down on the floor, dazedly admiring the flames of the candles. Olivia must have been flabbergasted when Ella curled up on the floor and went to sleep.
“Yes,” Olivia said. “I believe an angel visited me.”
Gib rubbed his jaw and sighed. “What did you do after you sat down for a while?”
After I found Ella and hustled her away, I added silently.
Olivia looked at everyone calmly. “I started to light more candles. But I dropped the match and the oil caught on fire. It startled me. I moved away too fast. I slipped on the oil and fell. I hit my head.”
“Did you black out?”
“Yes. When I woke up, Venus was there.” She wheezed a little. Tears glistened in her eyes. “I was afraid we would both die. She wouldn’t leave me.”
“I guess I’m stubborn, like you,” I said.
“Now wait a minute,” Ruth interjected. “Aunt Olly, I’m sorry to pressure you, but we can’t avoid this slightly important point. Why did you want to burn the chapel?”
Olivia hesitated. Until then she’d been firm and sure. But now her eyes clouded and she seemed lost in troubled thought. “Emory’s investors,” she said slowly, “might not spend their money where a crazy old woman would start more fires.”
“Aunt Olly,” Min said in a low voice, “no matter what I considered doing before, let me tell you something now. I would never agree to Emory’s proposal now. Simon wouldn’t want a museum built in his name that way. It wouldn’t honor him at all.”
Olivia looked at Min tenderly. “I was only afraid we’d all forget what is important, the way we did after Si
mon died. We are no saints. But we are not victims, either.” She looked at Bea when she said that.
Bea gasped softly. She understood some implication that evaded the rest of us. Her face convulsed with tenderness and sorrow. “Were you trying to gather shame about yourself so I’d stop grieving over my own shame?”
“I love you,” Olivia said. “And if you are evil, then I will be evil, too. Now I am notorious again. Let Emory do what he likes with our letters. The world has changed. We shouldn’t be ashamed anymore.”
Letters. This was new information. Everyone leaned closer. Bea and Olivia gazed at us stoically. Gib said carefully, “Are these mysterious letters what upset you two? Is that what Emory whispered about the last time he was here?” Gib’s mouth tightened. “Is that what upset Bea so much that she had a stroke?”
Olivia looked at Bea. Their silent, poignant communication held a lifetime of shared joy and pain. A lifetime of shared strength. “Let me speak for us,” Bea said quietly. “It’s such a dear old habit.”
Olivia nodded wearily. Bea faced everyone. “When we were young, Herself’s husband—I will no’ call that monster by his name—Herself’s husband stole our letters. Letters I wrote to Herself before she married the bastard, and after, too. I was foolish and impulsive. Herself was so unhappy. She could no’ stay with me in Scotland—it just wasn’t done. She had to make a proper marriage. But she never meant to marry a beast. I wanted so much for her to run away from him. But she would no’ do it. She’d made vows, she said. She had her bairns to think of.”
“You wrote … indiscreet letters to her?” Isabel asked gently.
“I wrote my love to her,” Bea corrected firmly. She sighed. “Her husband found the letters and stole them to torment her. He used them to bully Herself.”
“You mean he threatened to tell the family about her relationship with you?” Ruth asked.
“Aye. What a shame it would have been. People had no sense. Herself worried that her children would be tormented if others knew about us.”
Min touched her shoulder. “How did Emory get the letters?”