Art's Blood (30 page)

“I don’t understand,” said Elizabeth, looking up from the faded newspaper. “I thought the trip never happened.”

“Well, now, hit didn’t. But that story there come out a week afore they was supposed to git on the train. And they was a play-party for ’em up at the Center the night afore the big trip. Folks from all around come but that ol’ Tildy wouldn’t even set foot on the grounds. Eat up with jealousy, some said, and of her own sister. You could tell hit made Fanchon feel right bad, but that Yankee woman kept on a-talkin’ of all the things they’d see and how they’d send postcards and letters back.

“I weren’t but a little thing but my whole family went and we was all there at the depot the next day, waitin’ to see ’em git on the train and go to meet Mr. Roosevelt. But the train come and the train left and no sign of the Yankee woman nor Fanchon.”

Omie was sitting on the edge of the open trunk, her eyes faraway. She touched the Fanchon quilt lovingly. “Well, some said they might have been an accident. Bragg Strother was ’posed to fetch ’em from the Center in that car of hisn and carry ’em to the train. And some said that Bragg weren’t none too happy to see Fanchon go off and that he might have made them late a purpose. And folks is standin’ about and sayin’ what they think might have happened when here comes the Center’s old wagon.

“Miss Geneva’s drivin’ and beside her is the Yankee woman and the wagon bed is filled up with fancy grips and boxes and such. That Yankee woman’s settin’ up just as straight, not lookin’ to one side or t’other. Her lips is pressed together tight and her eyes is red like she’s been cryin’ hard. Everyone crowds around the wagon but Miss Geneva just says, ‘Please, would some of you men get out Miss Cabot’s luggage. She’s catching the next train to Asheville.’

“And not one more word would she say till that Yankee woman was on the train and out of sight. Then she told us that the quilt had disappeared and that Fanchon had gone off with Bragg Strother. And they weren’t goin’ to be no trip to see the President of the United States.”

As they drove back toward Ridley Branch, Elizabeth had repeated to Phillip the story of the Fanchon quilt. “And it wasn’t till twenty years later, long after the Center had shut down and the ladies had moved away, that your aunt found the quilt.”

Elizabeth looked at the fragile newspaper that lay across her lap. “I asked if I could make a copy of this story to put up along with the quilt. I think it might be interesting to find out a little more about these four women. Miss Birdie’s cousin Dorothy may have known Fanchon fairly recently.”

“They’re probably all dead by now, wouldn’t you think?” Phillip slowed to let a state trooper’s car pull past him. “Or very ancient.”

“Probably. But it would add some extra interest to the quilt exhibit to give a history of the Center. I have to be a little careful though. It’s not clear why exactly the whole D.C. trip didn’t come off, and there seem to have been some bad feelings. For example, I asked your aunt what happened to Miss Cabot and she said that she came back almost ten years later looking for Fanchon. She said, ‘That Yankee woman come by, ridin’ in a great fancy car with a colored man in a uniform drivin’ her.’ ”

“I wondered what was taking you two so long back there.” They were behind one of the numerous yellow school buses that swayed along the mountain roads in the afternoon. Two young boys stared out the back window at them, making faces and laughing. A shoe flew out of a side window and the bus pulled to a lurching stop on the shoulder. The driver’s arm motioned Phillip to pass.

“So you got the backstory, did you?” Phillip pulled around the bus and they continued on.

“More than you might think.” Elizabeth smiled, thinking of all that Omie had told her about Phillip’s ex-wife and children. “Your aunt had a lot to say, that’s for sure. She remembers events down to the last detail. You know, most of my older neighbors up here are that way— I think it comes of growing up without radio and television: a real oral tradition. Aunt Omie made it sound like a mystery— the strange affair of the missing quilt— the return of the Yankee woman.”

Omie had delighted in telling the story as she remembered it. “When the Yankee woman come to our house, now that would’ve been in ’43, she told my mommy as how she had got married to an Asheville lawyer and lived there now. Said she had her a little girl. She asked my mommy where Fanchon was at, for she had stopped at the old Rector place and seen that there weren’t no one livin’ there. Course, by this time Bragg had got him a job in one of them automobile plants and him and Fanchon had moved to De-troit. And then Tildy went to live with ’em after her folks died. My mommy told the Yankee woman all this and sent her over to see could Miss Caro and Miss Geneva tell her how to git up with Fanchon.

“So off she went in that fancy car. But someone told me that when she sent that colored man up to knock on the door, the ladies just pretended they wasn’t there. Everwhat did happen, that Yankee woman went away and never come back.”

And there it had ended. Omie knew no more of what happened to Fanchon and Tildy or to “that Yankee woman.” Omie said that Miss Caro and Miss Geneva had moved away shortly afterward when one of them had developed an illness of some sort. “I believe that hit was some female problem but didn’t no one rightly know fer sure. The ladies was closemouthed about hit. But they left out right quick; they give away the looms and such and sold the house and outbuildings.”

Elizabeth wound up the story. “As I said, your aunt made it all sound very dramatic and mysterious. Anyhow, I’d like to know more. I’m going to see what I can find in the newspaper archives in Asheville.”

The moon was near full, washing the trees with silver and illuminating the pastures where the dark shapes of grazing cattle moved quietly across the slopes of Pinnacle Mountain. Elizabeth sat on the porch, sipping her coffee and thinking about the tangled relationships that surrounded her. Phillip had declined her offer of a light supper, saying that Janie was coming over and he needed to get back home.

Is Janie jealous of me? Does she wish her father and her mother weren’t divorced? Probably. But that happened years ago; Phillip said his wife got tired of playing second fiddle to his job as a police detective. Maybe Janie just wants his undivided attention, after so many years of seeing him only on weekends. But she’s busy all the time, according to him.

And what’s the real truth about Kyra and
her
father? She accuses him of murder but he seems extremely protective of her. Is she lying? Is there some weird Oedipus— no, that’s not right. Electra— Electra complex going on? And what about Ben?

Yet again, Ben was gone for the night. His truck had been pulling out of the driveway when she and Phillip returned. He had waved briefly but had kept going.

Later that evening as she was rereading the article in the old newspaper and once again studying the picture of the four women, a vague memory began to tease at the edges of Elizabeth’s thoughts.
Where did I put that handout from the museum?
She went to her bedroom closet and found the long black skirt she had worn to the
Strike on Box
performance. There, in one of its pockets, was the folded handout that announced the opening of the Gordon Annex.

A picture of the benefactor, Mrs. Robert B. Gordon, was followed by a brief biography. Elizabeth skimmed down to the third paragraph.

“My god! I’ve met her! Kyra’s GeeGee is the Yankee woman….”

In the yellowed newspaper photo Lily Cabot was young and attractive, though completely unremarkable. She could have been any fair-haired, pretty young woman. Lily Gordon, on the other hand, seventy-some years later, as pictured in the museum’s handout was obviously a force to be reckoned with. Dark hawk eyes glared from the professional photo, and her wrinkled face was set in an uncompromising take-no-prisoners expression. The young Lily Cabot had possessed a tentative prettiness, but Lily Gordon at ninety clearly knew herself to be a beauty. Whatever trials, joys, sorrows, and temptations she might have passed through, all had been written on her countenance and all had shaped her into the formidable woman who reigned from her mansion in Biltmore Forest.

T
HIS IS
E
LIZABETH
G
OODWEATHER—
K
YRA’S
neighbor. May I speak with Mrs. Gordon?”

A man on the other end of the line said politely that he would ascertain if Mrs. Gordon were available. A few minutes passed. Then she heard the precise tones of the distinguished old woman who had spoken at the opening of the new annex to the art museum. “This is Mrs. Gordon. How may I help you?”

“Mrs. Gordon, this is—”

“Yes, Mrs. Goodweather. Buckley told me. Is it something about my great-granddaughter?”

“No, ma’am, at least I did want to ask how she was, but I wondered if you could help me with something entirely different. You see, I’m putting together a quilt exhibit for our local library, and a friend’s aunt has lent the most amazing quilt….”

Elizabeth worked her way through the story, ending by explaining her interest in learning more about the long-defunct Appalachian Women’s Craft Center. “…and I wondered if you could answer some questions for me?”

There was a silence on the other end and then a weary sigh. “Questions. I don’t know, Mrs. Goodweather. It’s been a very long time.”

“Oh, I understand. But there are so many things that only someone who was there could tell me.”

Again the old woman seemed to echo her. “Someone who was there…” And then her voice grew stronger with some hidden resolve. “Perhaps you’re right, Mrs. Goodweather. Yes, I’ll answer your questions. But it wearies me to use the telephone for any length of time— my hearing is not what it was.”

“I could come in—”

“I believe that I would enjoy a ride in the country tomorrow. I’ll have Buckley bring me out in the afternoon— he knows the way.”

Elizabeth hesitated. “Mrs. Gordon, it’s a four-wheel-drive road up to my house and then a flight of steps. I could meet you at the lower place and drive you up, but I don’t know…can you—”

A low chuckle came from the other end. “You’re very thoughtful, my dear. If I can’t manage your steps, Buckley will carry me. And we have a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Shall we say half past three?”

The gray-haired man in the chauffeur’s cap lifted the exquisitely dressed little nonagenarian from the white SUV, carried her along the rock-laid footpath and up the six steps to the porch as if she were a clutch of phoenix eggs on a silken cushion.

“Thank you, Buckley. Please return for me in an hour. You have the keys to the barn where Kyra’s remaining possessions are, I believe.” It was not a question. Buckley touched the brim of his hat and retreated wordlessly down the steps. Elizabeth watched him go.

So it had been Buckley outside the Candlestation— and Buckley who was following Kimmie. Was he working for Marvin Peterson, as well as Lily Gordon? Surely this frail and elegant old woman wouldn’t use her driver as a…a henchman. Elizabeth looked closely at her guest.

Lily Cabot Gordon was leaning on her gold-headed ebony cane and surveying the surroundings. “Well,” she said, after an inspection that missed nothing, from the patchwork cushions in the rocking chairs to the fish pool below the porch to the dogs’ half-gnawed bone that Elizabeth had hurriedly kicked to one side. “Kyra has told me so much about your home. I’m delighted that you would allow me to visit. It’s been many years since I’ve seen Marshall County.”

“And I’m delighted that you could come out, Mrs. Gordon. I have some tea ready, if you’d like to come inside.” Elizabeth smiled, restraining the impulse to curtsy.
I haven’t totally forgotten how to play the lady game. Gramma would be proud of me.

As soon as she had hung up the phone on the previous evening, Elizabeth had gone into a whirlwind of activity to be ready for a visit from Lily Cabot Gordon. She had tidied; she had vacuumed; she had mopped. And she had made a lemon pound cake.

In the morning she had picked fresh flowers— black-eyed Susans and some deep blue-purple wild lobelias— for her dining table and living room and had given the wooden tabletops a swipe with fragrant lemon oil. She had taken out and washed Gramma’s Haviland teacups and saucers and had unearthed a wispy square of embroidered linen that had graced many bygone tea tables.

What the hell are you carrying on like this for, Elizabeth?
She had asked herself this question as she was cutting excruciatingly thin slices of homemade white bread, having, at some point, decided that cucumber tea sandwiches, as well as bread and butter, would be nice with the lemon cake.

But as she ushered Lily Cabot Gordon into the cool, clean, lavender-scented living room and saw her guest’s face light up appreciatively at the sight of the tea things laid on the low table, she knew the answer.
I think I did all this for Gramma, as much as I did it for Mrs. Gordon. Gramma would be pleased to know that her pretty china and linen are being used, that the old ways aren’t forgotten.

“This is lovely, Mrs. Goodweather.” The old woman settled into a comfortable armchair and accepted a cup of tea. “So few people have time for tea anymore. I’m afraid you must have gone to a great deal of trouble. I believe Kyra said that you have no help.”

“It was my pleasure, Mrs. Gordon.” Elizabeth offered her guest the plate of tiny sandwiches. “My grandmother and I used to have tea like this, and I enjoyed fixing it. This was her china. It’s nice to have an excuse to use it.”