Charleston

by Margaret Bradham Thornton

  “I miss him.”

  “I know.” Eliza brushed the back of her hand across her eyes.

  “And I missed you, and I am not going to let anything get in the way. Just please don’t be upset with me.”

  “I’m not, Henry. I’m just, I don’t know. If I weren’t so in love with you, all of this wouldn’t matter so much. We both know”—she laughed across a sniffle and wiped her face—“I’m not very good with risk.”

  Henry stood up. “Listen, Eliza.” He took her wrist and pulled her close to him. “There is no risk.” He smoothed her hair from her forehead. “I’m so sorry for all of this. But the answers aren’t in the reasons. They are all around them—blurred, smudged. Everything will be okay.”

  HENRY CAME BY ELIZA’S HOUSE THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON and said, “I’ve had an awful time today.” He looked as if he’d been outside in the heat all day. “Things with Issie are blowing up.” He ran his hand through his hair and looked at Eliza and then out the window to some unknown place.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s just becoming unreasonable and emotional about everything.”

  He was distracted and paced back and forth with his hands on his hips. “It’s just impossible to have an unemotional conversation with her.” He spoke more to himself than to Eliza. “It was a mistake.” He sat down but stood up almost immediately and began walking back and forth again. “It was a mistake thinking I could or should talk to her. I thought we could sort all of this out between us, but it was a real mistake. When she came by yesterday, she was very pulled together, unusually so. She called this afternoon and asked to see me for fifteen minutes.”

  “What did she want?”

  “She said that she wanted to see Lawton now and that she didn’t want to wait for our lawyers to speak.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “I told her I understood, but that we should think about Lawton, and she got visibly rattled and angry and said that no one ever thought about her feelings. She said she had given birth to Lawton, he was her flesh and blood, she had every right in the world to see her son, that no one else, including you, needed permission to see him. No lawyer was going to tell her how and when she could see him. I told her that of course she could see Lawton, but that we needed to think through what was in his best interest as well as hers. That we should handle things in such a way as to get the outcome we all wanted. I reminded her that Lawton was away with my mother and that I needed time to speak to him when he came back. After that we could figure something out together.”

  “How did she react to that?”

  “She calmed down, and then I asked her what had happened to make her change her mind, and she started answering in an unemotional tone, but then within ten seconds she became hysterical. She said after Lawton was born, her father had threatened disinheritance if she returned to Charleston. Now that he has died, she could return, and how I didn’t understand what that was like. It was strange, as if a switch had been flicked.”

  “How did you calm her down?”

  “I told her I didn’t want her to be in such pain, that I would think about what she had said. My editorial board was waiting for me. I told her I had to meet with them, but that I’d be out in an hour. She could stay and wait for me, and we could continue talking, or I would call her tomorrow. She said she would wait, but when I returned she had left.” He sat down in a chair and pressed his thumb against the bottom of his front teeth. “I’ve got to figure out what to do.”

  They drove down to Folly Beach. Henry stopped in front of the washed-out area filled with water from the incoming tide.

  “It looks worse than last time,” Eliza said.

  “Ricky Baldwin should’ve finished this last week.” Henry shifted the Jeep into neutral and set the brake. “Let’s have a look.” They got out of the Jeep and walked to the edge of the submerged road. “Doesn’t look good,” he said.

  “How about the back road?”

  “It’s torn up with a four-foot ditch across it. Ricky dug up the old culvert to replace it, but the wrong size pipe was delivered, so he’s waiting for a new one. When I met with him last week he said he was going to start straightaway on this road.” Henry stood with his hands on his hips and then walked as far as he could around the washed-out section.

  “I have some two-by-fours in the back that I picked up to fix the dock at Oakhurst. I can lay them down to make a track.” Henry walked to the back of the Jeep and pulled out two of the eight-foot boards. “I can lay these down, and they should give me enough traction to get across.” He leaned the boards against the hood of his Jeep. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves, slipped off his shoes and rolled up his trousers. He picked up the two boards and held them upright like ski poles and surveyed the area.

  “Can I help?” Eliza asked about the makeshift tracks, but she was asking about much more. She wanted to make things easier for Henry, but she didn’t know how. He was worried about what could happen between Issie and Lawton. She could tell Henry assumed he would be the one who would have to sort everything out and get everyone through this difficult period.

  “I’m just trying to decide whether to lay them single file or side by side. Side by side would be better, but I don’t think I have enough.” Henry laid the first board down and then felt with his foot to its end. He lowered the second board gently down into the water and stood on it to secure its place. “There,” he said, pointing to the side of the road in line with the end of the second board. “Just stand there, so I know where it ends.”

  Henry walked back, balancing on the two boards. He laid two more planks one after another in the water. Eliza moved to mark the submerged end of the fourth plank. She followed his instructions until he positioned the last one. “That should do it.” He balanced on the submerged boards and walked back in line with the yellow beam of headlights.

  They got back in the Jeep. “Okay, remember the drill?”

  “Yes.” She buckled her seat belt.

  “How lucky are you feeling?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Yeah, me neither.” Henry slipped the Jeep into four-wheel drive. “Here goes.” He drove fast and kept the wheels on the planks. He stopped when they reached dry land and looked in his rearview mirror. “And I thought we only had about a fifteen percent chance of making it through.”

  “Do we have to worry about them floating away?”

  “We could, or we could live dangerously and not worry about it.”

  “Henry, I’m being serious.”

  “I know you are, and I find it endearing that of all the things we could worry about . . . Okay, seriously, the bottom is muddy, and the Jeep pushed all those planks into the mud, so they aren’t going anywhere, they’ll be there when we return.”

  THEY SAT ON THE PORCH OF THE COTTAGE. THE BREEZE coming from the ocean was warm and salty. Henry spoke that night as if he were in a trance. “You know, if Issie is planning, as she says, to move back here, she may ask for joint custody of Lawton. From what I can tell, she’s led a pretty unstable life for the past ten years. If Lawton didn’t exist, it would be as if I’d never known her. I can’t imagine a judge thinking she’s a stable mother and granting her request. My guess is the reason Issie is back here is because she and this painter have split, and she came back because she’s tired. That’s why a lot of people come back to Charleston. When they’re tired. Elliott says she has a twenty percent chance of winning, but it’s the trauma of a court case and dragging Lawton through it all—that’s my worry. Issie contends that the arrangements about Lawton were her father’s design, and it was not what she wanted, and that it has haunted her ever since, and she is his mother, and it’s not too late, and she is from here, and now that her father is dead, she can do what she wishes.”

  “Do you think her father was the reason she never came back?”

  “I don’t know, but I doubt it. My guess is that Issie would have come back if she had wanted to. I d
on’t know if you ever knew her father—he was formidable—but Issie has always done what she’s wanted to do. Issie is remembering things as she wishes. At twenty-two, she had no interest in becoming a mother, and there was nothing between us, and she wanted to be free and run around the world, and now she is tired and at a dead end, and she wants to come back home. She has nothing else. And I think she honestly believes she has Lawton’s best interest at heart. I told her, ‘Look, you just can’t come back here and expect Lawton to accept you. It will take some time and some work.’ And she said to me, ‘But why not?’ And I do believe that’s how she feels, at least at this moment. Issie says she’s going to stay, but she won’t. She’ll stay long enough to shake things up, create some confusion, and then she’ll leave. She’ll be off again.”

  Henry talked for hours that night. Eliza understood that he was speaking more to himself than to her, trying to understand all that had been said that day. He went backward and forward and sideways and did not get very far except to say, “I made the wrong assumption thinking that Issie would never want to come back.” Henry checked his watch. “It’s late. We should get some sleep. Lawton comes home tomorrow, and I need to deal with some things at work so I can spend the afternoon with him.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING ELIZA SAT WITH MRS. VANDERHORST in the small cypress-paneled living room of her house on Tradd Street. Eliza pulled several manila folders from her satchel and spread them in front of her on the floor. The portrait now hung over a small eighteenth-century walnut desk. “Oh, there she is,” Eliza said a little surprised.

  “Oh yes, that was William’s desk,” Mrs. Vanderhorst said, but her eyes were on all the folders spread out on the floor.

  “I have your photocopy here.” Eliza referred to the image of Mrs. Vanderhorst’s portrait. “But I’m glad we can look at the actual portrait. I’ll start with what I’ve learned and then explain how I got there, does that sound okay?”

  Mrs. Vanderhorst nodded.

  “I’m not sure if the pastel is a Johnston,” Eliza said. “The best I can say is that it is ‘in the manner of.’ What throws me off are her eyes—they are a little too large and round compared to eyes in other portraits. Here, let me show you.” Eliza leaned down and picked up a folder and moved closer to Mrs. Vanderhorst and opened it. “Helen Halsey at the Gibbes shared her files with me. She thinks this is a complete set of all of the documented portraits Johnston did when she was in America.” Eliza slowly turned the images of young women and a few young men. “See how almond-shaped all of the eyes are?” Eliza traced the eyes with her index finger. “The eyes in your portrait are more rounded.” Eliza held the photocopy next to the ones in her folder. Then she stood up and held several of the Gibbes images next to Mrs. Vanderhorst’s portrait, which hung on the wall.

  Eliza sat back down. “Do you see the difference?”

  “Yes, dear. I do.”

  “And there is another difference that concerns me.” Eliza took a small ruler from her bag. “The eyes in all of the documented Johnstons are almost exactly the same width as the sitters’ mouths. See?” Eliza slid the ruler across the photocopies to demonstrate her point. Eliza stood up again and held the ruler in front of Mrs. Vanderhorst’s picture. “In yours, the width of the eyes is about fifteen percent larger than the mouth. When I was in London, I went to the National Gallery and looked at the portraits Johnston did in Ireland before she moved to Charleston. They’re not any different. Here let me show you.” She leaned down to pick up a folder from the floor.

  Mrs. Vanderhorst untucked her handkerchief from her belt and began smoothing it out across her lap. Four tiny bouquets of violets were embroidered in each corner. “Oh, Eliza dear, I think I may have sent you on a wild-goose chase. It’s not necessary to explain any further. I think I understand. It’s just that William was so sure she was by Johnston.”

  “Well, she still may be, but I failed to find any conclusive evidence. I should tell you that someone has recently been going through the Johnston files at the Library Society and the Historical Society. I don’t know if it has any connection to you.”

  “Yes, I believe it was that nice dealer from New York. He said he would see what he could find, but I don’t think he found anything.”

  Eliza was not surprised. She had remembered Mrs. Vanderhorst mentioning Peter Marshall when she had first shown her the portrait.

  “Well, Eliza, what do you think we should do?”

  “The only other thing to do would be to have the paper of your portrait analyzed. If it matches the paper of her other pastels, I think it would be hard to say that someone in Charleston at the same time was copying her, so then it would be more than reasonable to attribute it as a Johnston, and your portrait is worth a lot. If the paper is not the same, then it is much more likely that your portrait is not by Johnston and is not that valuable. But it is also possible that Johnston bought paper from different sources and so not all the paper is the same. But the chances of that are small.”

  “And what do you think it would be worth then?”

  “I don’t know the market, but it would be worth considerably less, possibly by a factor of ten, and its greatest value would be sentimental—you know—a portrait that has been passed down for generations in a family.”

  “Well, you see, dear”—Mrs. Vanderhorst folded her handkerchief into squares as she spoke—“after me, there is no one to whom sentimental value would mean anything. Both William and I were only children—there aren’t any nieces or nephews.”

  “It may be better to leave its attribution unsubstantiated and ask Peter Marshall to sell it for you. But have him sell it on commission. You might want to ask your lawyer to draw up a contract for you so you are treated fairly. But let Peter Marshall take on the responsibility and risk of the attribution.”

  “What do you think he will offer?”

  “Remember he is not buying it from you, he is selling it on commission. I asked Helen what she thought the value of your portrait would be if it were a Johnston, and she said about four years ago, a portrait of a man came up at Sotheby’s and sold for $85,000. She said a portrait of a southern woman is much more desirable. She couldn’t think of when one last sold, but she thought it would be worth at least double.”

  “And what would I have to pay Peter for selling it?”

  “Helen said standard commissions down here are high—about thirty percent, but I think you could offer him twenty percent. This may be his only chance to have a Johnston or one attributed to her, so my guess is that he’ll take the twenty percent.”

  Mrs. Vanderhorst considered Eliza’s advice. “This is so difficult without William.”

  “I know,” said Eliza. She handed Mrs. Vanderhorst a folded piece of paper. “I’ve written all this down for you. I’d be happy to make an appointment to see Peter Marshall if that would be helpful.”

  “HOW IS LAWTON?” ELIZA ASKED HENRY WHEN HE CAME BY later that afternoon. They sat on the steps of the piazza that led to the garden.

  “Not good. I’ve just been with him. I told him about Issie. He didn’t say a word. He just sat there. I tried to get him to talk to me, but he keeps saying he doesn’t want to. I didn’t force him.”

  Eliza understood the stillness, the quietness. She remembered the moment her mother had learned of her father’s death. Someone had come to tell her—she couldn’t remember who—all that she saw now was a dark shape and her mother crying out and almost collapsing and the dark shape catching her mother and trying to comfort her. Eliza remembered standing as still as she could on the stair landing, trying not to breathe. But as much as she understood the stillness, she knew she could only guess at the turmoil in Lawton’s heart. It was one thing to understand that your mother had given you up when she was an abstract concept, but it was quite another to comprehend when she was standing in front of you. He had always believed it was just he and Henry. Eliza had watched him, knowing that he had no choice, struggle to acc
ept her. And now Issie. Eliza suspected that Lawton now no longer worried that he would have to share his father, but that he could be taken away from him.

  “I don’t know how to make this any easier for him.” Henry stood up and sat back down on the bottom step and pulled at blades of grass. “I know he’s suffering and is confused. He isn’t old enough to know how to think about this. Maybe I’m wrong about Issie, maybe she’s changed, but I don’t think so. I wish I could say ‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ but I can’t leave Lawton.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WHEN ELIZA ARRIVED AT PETER MARSHALL’S GALLERY, a young woman, who introduced herself only as “Mr. Marshall’s assistant,” told her that he was still in his 4:00 P.M. meeting but would be finished shortly. She welcomed Eliza to have a look around. Eliza surveyed the paintings hung on the walls of the gallery—landscapes of the Lowcountry, Charleston houses and street scenes, and several eighteenth-century-style portraits. The assistant, eager to tell Eliza about any picture that caught her attention, shadowed her as she moved from one to the next. Eliza stopped in front of an oil of a three-storied Charleston single house. In a field next to the house, five figures played baseball.

  “We just got that in,” the assistant said. “Andrée Ruellan.”

  “I knew Ruellan made a few trips to the South, but I didn’t know she came to Charleston,” Eliza said.

  “Yes, in 1936.”

  “Did she paint other images?”

  “Mr. Marshall knows of a few, but he is always on the search for more.” The assistant ended her sentence with the enthusiasm of a weather forecaster predicting sunny skies for a holiday weekend.

  Eliza took a few steps back then turned and asked, “Isn’t this the same house Edward Hopper painted? The one in, oh, you know, the neighborhood north of Calhoun that runs down to the Cooper River—Mazyckborough?”