Рита Браун - Crazy Like A Fox

“A lot of old people do,” Sister said.

Margaret smiled. “If I ever get like that, Sister, shoot me.”

“Ditto.” Sister changed the subject. “Think the lost treasure of Old Paradise will be found with all this digging, rebuilding? Is there any old estate in Virginia that doesn’t have a story of lost treasure, murder, woe, perfidious Yankees? Ever notice it’s rarely perfidious Southerners?”

“We do no wrong.” Margaret clinked glasses with Sister, as she’d picked up her drink.

As Sister walked over to chat with Kasmir and Alida, visiting for a long weekend, she thought about wrongdoing. Yes, there were old murders, thefts, family feuds of which the DuCharmes were a leading example, but what Virginians excelled at, reveled in, were sexual peccadilloes. Wrongdoing. Yes, but so very fascinating.

Daniella Laprade, a fountain of old war stories, of scandal and sin, knew more than she was telling. Sister thought she’d wait a bit, then revisit the intrepid lady.

CHAPTER 11

“How do you like it?” Yvonne asked Tootie as they walked through her rental.

“I really like the stone fireplace. You’ll be glad you have it when the cold comes.”

“Why? This place has central heat.” Yvonne smiled, pleased with herself. “I inspected the heat pump and it’s five years old so it ought to be good.”

“I’m sure it is, but, Mom, these old places don’t have insulation. They might have horsehair in the walls, hair from the tails, but not what you’re used to, plus the windows will get ice cold.” Tootie walked to a window putting her hand on the single pane. “Wavy, see?”

“Yes.”

“That means it’s original. Beveridge Hundred was built in the 1790s. Least that’s what Sister says. She likes historical research, especially old buildings.”

“You live in a new old building.” Yvonne put her hand on the wavy glass, which, even though the temperature that Friday was 64°F, felt cool.

“The foundation was dug in 1787, the stone foundation under the front part of my cabin. It was one of the first settlements that far west.”

“Really?”

“Most people didn’t come out this far until after the Revolutionary War. Anyway, so many of those homes still stand. Like this one.”

“I love the old names. Sister gave me one of last year’s fixture cards and I never heard of such names: Mousehold Heath, Close Shave, Mud Fence. They’re fanciful.”

Tootie smiled. “Usually the name involves some feature, like Mud Fence. They didn’t have enough money in the beginning for fences so they made them out of mud. Mill Ruins you saw. Was the first big mill this far west. Tattenhall Station used to be a stop for Norfolk and Southern railroad. Uh—” She thought a minute. “After All Farm was named by Edward Bancroft’s grandfather after 1865. They came down from New York City, made a fortune during the war. After All. Sister teases the Bancrofts and says it’s just beginning, no after all at all.”

“People know one another well here, don’t they?”

“Pretty much.”

“When you finish vet school I assume you’ll return here.”

Tootie looked out the window. “I have to get into vet school first. Mom, there’s a UPS truck coming down the drive.”

Yvonne walked to the front door, opened it, and stepped outside to greet the driver, who introduced herself and handed over a UPS envelope. Tootie, outside now, too, waved at the driver.

“You know the UPS driver?” Yvonne was surprised.

“Karen Allison. She covers our territory.”

“I see.”

What Yvonne was beginning to see was that people did know one another. It wasn’t like Chicago, too huge for that to be possible, but a city, like most American cities, where one could stay in one’s glitter ghetto. You need not see or speak to anyone terribly different from yourself, especially different economically. You might know some people in your city block or blocks.

Yvonne opened the large cardboard UPS envelope and pulled out papers, a legal firm’s address at the top center.

Scanning the papers, she laughed. “According to your father’s legal firm, I’m not entitled to half. If I press this, I will be attacked by killer zombies.” She threw the papers on the little table by the front door, laughing as she did. “If he pushes this into court, he will regret it for every day that he lives thereafter. You’d think he’d know by now that my IQ is above a good golf score.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I guess there is no such thing as a good divorce.”

Well, she thought, out of the mouths of babes. Then she answered, “No, but some are better than others. I haven’t provided much maternal advice but I can tell you when you marry get your name on everything. Absolutely everything. That way when you divorce, your husband’s lawyers can’t play Starve the Wife.” Tootie remained silent so Yvonne continued. “You aren’t seeing anyone?”

“No.”

“Ah. Someone will come along.”

“Mother, I am never getting married.”

Yvonne laughed. “Every young woman says that, I swear. Granted, your father and I haven’t left you with much of an example.”

Tootie shrugged, then offered, “I’ll stack wood for you. Sister has a lot of downed trees. Gray and I can cut them up. You’ll need wood. It will really help, plus a fire in the fireplace is, I don’t know, kind of perfect.”

“All right. I will pay you and I’ll pay Sister.”

“She wouldn’t take anything and neither will he.” Tootie paused. “How did UPS know how to find you?”

“I hopped online, gave them my address the minute I signed the rental contract. Otherwise, you would have been inundated by things like that.” She pointed to the papers on the table.

Tootie nodded, then smiled. “I like your place. It’s cozy, and better yet, it’s in the middle of our hunt country. We call all this out here the Chapel Cross fixtures ’cause where the roads cross is the old chapel. Still in use.”

“I’m beginning to understand that everything is still in use. I expect to see Robert E. Lee walk around the corner.”

Tootie considered this, then countered, “Mr. Jefferson.”

“But of course,” Yvonne agreed.

—

Sister, over at After All, showed Edward the video. As Daniella had mentioned Edward’s late sister, she thought it worth a try.

He looked at it. “Mother and Father were upset with Evie but I didn’t really know the scope of it. I was in my junior year at Dartmouth. Evangeline was not a student by any means. My sister was a party girl. She was intelligent but like most girls at that time, her job was to marry well, produce children.”

“She never said anything?”

He shook his head. “Not really. Again, I was in college. We weren’t that close. All I knew was that she infuriated our parents and they packed her off to London for the season. And there she stayed because she met Nigel.”

“Ah.” Sister took the phone back. “I don’t know why I’m determined to find that cowhorn. Find out what this is really about. It can’t be that much, really, and it was a long time ago.”

Tedi poured Sister more tea. “People are still fascinated by the bizarre affair and that was what, the beginning of the nineteenth century?” Tedi named a scandal of illicit love, the possibility of infanticide. Still no one knew what happened but, despite the accused man—a Randolph, no less—being cleared in the court, the scandal greatly reduced the power of the Randolph family. The name still held cachet but the political and economic power had faded over the ensuing two centuries.

“Who can resist a good mystery?” Sister smiled at her old friend.

“Did Louis the Fourteenth have a twin?” Edward added. “And for decades people believed the Czar, the Empress, and the children still lived. The bones weren’t found until fairly recently. God, what an awful story.”