Angel's Advocate

by Stanton, Mary

  “Blueberry for you?” Kayla said to Abel.

  “Peach.” Bree looked at the pie in her own hand. “He always liked peach.”

  “Peach coming right up.”

  Kayla disappeared into the kitchen. Bree followed Abel to the booth. After a long moment, Sasha walked to the glass door at the front of the diner and sat down. He looked back over his shoulder at them.

  We should go right now.

  “Handsome dog,” Abel said.

  “Yes, he is. His name is Sasha.”

  Abel craned his neck to look at the scar on Sasha’s hind leg. “Looks like that’s just about finished healing.”

  “The cast came off two days ago.” She looked at him. “A spring trap. In the yard of my office building. Remember how you found those guys who were setting the spring traps at Plessey? And beat the tar out of them, too.”

  He nodded. Abel’s job as manager at Plessey had lasted three years. It would have lasted forever if Bree hadn’t fallen in love with him. She never knew if he’d felt the same for her, although, in her wilder, Scarlett O’Hara moments, she was sure that if circumstances had been different, if he had been free . . .

  Bree cleared her throat. “And Virginia? She’s well, I hope?”

  “Just fine. Still working at the clinic. She’s steadier with a regular paycheck coming in.”

  Bree was never sure how to approach asking about Virginia’s illness. Abel never discussed it, although he was a tender, attentive nurse to his wife. Virginia herself was exhaustively, comprehensively, endlessly focused on it. She had one of the many forms of multiple sclerosis. Sometimes she was wheelchair-bound, and sometimes she wasn’t.

  “And you? Still finding the classroom too claustrophobic to stick at for long?”

  He nodded, but didn’t volunteer anything more.

  Bree shoved her pie back and forth along the table, almost overwhelmed with feeling. With a sudden, unwelcome flash of insight, she saw her infatuation with Payton McAllister as a blind and stupid hedge against her love for this tall, brilliant, caring man. She had a flash of amused comfort with herself, though: her affair with Payton was explained at last.

  “And you, Bree? I hear you moved on to Savannah.” He leaned forward and moved his hand toward her. “You okay? You look a little”—he hesitated—“ ‘careworn’ is the word that comes to mind.”

  “Yes,” Bree said. “Yes, I’m fine. Something just occurred to me that should have occurred to me long before.” She wanted to laugh and cry, all at once. Instead, she ate a piece of her peach pie, which was as good as she hoped it would be. “And I’ve opened a practice in Savannah. Uncle Franklin—you remember Uncle Franklin? Of course you do. Just before he died, he added a codicil to his will, leaving his practice to me.”

  “I didn’t realize he still practiced law. I thought he spent most of his career on the bench. Is it interesting, his caseload?”

  Bree opened her mouth and closed it. “You could say so,” she said thoughtfully. “More interesting than I’d anticipated, that’s for sure.” The peach pie suddenly tasted like cardboard. She sat back in the booth, exhaustion hitting like a brick. “Whoa. Sorry. Guess the drive down here took more out of me than I thought.” She rubbed her hands over her eyes. “And you? We didn’t hear much about you when you left Plessey.”

  “I did some work for the forestry service. And you remember my brother? Charles?”

  “I do indeed.” It seemed so strange to have this normal, chatty conversation on the surface, while the unspoken conversation underneath roared on like a river in spring spate. “He’s much older than you, as I recall. And he’s got something to do with horses.”

  “The Seaton Stud.” Abel’s face was impassive. “And he did have a great deal to do with horses. But not anymore. He died three weeks ago. I agreed to stay and help Missy out until she can find someone more permanent. Or sell out—she hasn’t decided which.”

  “My gosh. I’m truly sorry to hear that, Abel. I know you two weren’t close, but . . .”

  “A brother’s a brother.” He finished the sentence for her with a slight smile.

  “That’ll be quite a challenge. It’s huge, isn’t it? The Seaton Stud.” Her mouth was dry. She took a sip of the iced tea and choked a little as it tried to go down her throat.

  “Four stallions at stud and forty mares in permanent residence. And the number of mares doubles in early spring, of course.”

  “So Virginia’s fine with this? Pulling up stakes again and moving to Savannah?”

  Because that’s where the Seaton Stud was located.

  Five miles west of the office at 66 Angelus Street.

  Nine

  Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.

  —Othello, William Shakespeare

  “I ran into Abel Trask today,” Bree said casually. She sat curled up in one of the big wicker chairs that lay scattered across the wide verandah. Francesca perched next to her on the porch swing. Her mother was dressed in her usual fashion when she was at home: a long cotton skirt, a brightly colored tee, and comfortable old loafers. Her bright gold-red hair (recently “refreshed” at a darling new shop in Raleigh, she had informed her daughter) was coiled in a careless way on the top of her head. She wore small gold earrings in the shape of a heart.

  Plessey surrounded them both like loving arms. Wisteria vines curled around the porch railings, the leaves a yellowy green. The dried heads of hydrangea clustered among the hedges hugging the brick walls of the house were a creamy beige that only faintly recalled the riotous pink of summer.

  The old house stood in the middle of five hundred acres of cotton, and had something of the appearance of an oasis among the wide flat fields. Royal’s great-great grandfather had planted sycamores in the half acre surrounding the house and old outbuildings, and the trees had grown to huge, dignified heights. On this, the last day of October, the last of their leaves provided a minimal shade from the autumnal sun. Two large canvas tents had been erected on the wide front lawn. The whole party area was a hum of activity. White-jacketed waiters set up chairs, smoothed the linens on the two big bars, and fussed with the wooden dance floor that lay open to the sky.

  The road was a quarter mile away from the house. Since Bree had last been home, her father had skimmed another coat of blacktop on the long drive, and the lawn on either side had been neatly mowed. She looked down the length of the new tar to the wrought-iron gates, open in welcome, as they always were during the day, and said, “Mamma?”

  “Yes. I heard you. Abel Trask.” Francesca fiddled with her hair, and said, suddenly, “You’re looking thin.” Her mother nudged the porch floor with her toe and set the swing going. “Have another one of those shrimp thin gies.”

  Bree took another tiny shrimp sandwich from the plate on the wicker table at her elbow. Sasha’s ears went up and he cocked his head at her engagingly. Bree gave him her sandwich.

  “How is he? Abel Trask.”

  “Fine, or so it seemed. Hasn’t changed much. He has a little gray in his hair.”

  “That woman,” Francesca said with an audible snap of her teeth, “would put gray in the hair of the Kaiser.”

  Bree wondered if she should ask why the Kaiser, and not, say, some Episcopalian saint, but decided against it. Her mother’s thought processes were a continual delight to her family, but rarely logical.

  “Virginia,” Bree said. “He said she’s doing pretty well.”

  “Virginia. Yes, indeed.” Francesca lay back in the swing and stared at the porch ceiling. She looked so much like Antonia at that moment! “There are very few things harder than living with long-term illness,” Francesca said. “So I should shut my mouth and hope for glory.” She sat up and fixed her brilliant blue eyes on her oldest daughter. “The two of you have much to say to each other?”

  “Not much,” Bree said. “He’s moving to Savannah, I hear.”

  “Yes. That nice big brother of his, Charles, that was his name. Well, Charles up and got himself
kicked to death by a horse last week. Stands to reason that Abel would step in to help out Missy Trask. That’s what—”

  “—brothers are for, yes, Mamma. Kicked to death? That’s not a usual thing.”

  “I should hope not.” Francesca rubbed her nose, which was small and pert, like the rest of her. “Maybe he wasn’t kicked to death. Maybe he broke his neck going over a fence. Cubbing’s started,” she added, not all that irrelevantly, since if he had been riding to hounds, Charles Trask very well could have fallen to his death. “Anyhow, yes, we heard. Word like that gets around, of course.” She rocked violently, and then stopped the swing’s motion with a sudden stamp of her foot. “Your father and I always liked him. Abel Trask.”

  A short silence fell.

  Francesca had never questioned Abel’s abrupt resignation. And after he’d gone, his name never came up in family conversations. It was as if he’d never existed. But Bree remembered that in the weeks after he’d left, her mother had engaged in a sudden flurry of activity: hauling Bree to Charleston to visit one of Bree’s best friends; a series of unwelcome, but pretty, gifts of clothes, shoes, and purses.

  If her mother didn’t want to discuss it then, she surely wouldn’t now. Bree gave it up. “Has word gotten around about my wild child client, Mamma?”

  “Lindsey?” Her mother’s face cleared into a smile. “Well, now, we haven’t heard much. The Chandlers weren’t Southern originally, you know. They came from the Midwest someplace.” She waved vaguely. “Ohio? Is that right?”

  “Iowa, I think,” Bree said. “Ames, to be precise.”

  “Anyway, you know what it’s like, their not being local, I mean.”

  Bree knew. Her mother was openhearted and open-handed. But even she tended to close ranks to outsiders.

  “Besides, they were just the most tight-assed people.”

  “Mamma!” Bree couldn’t help but laugh, although a little shocked.

  “That was truly vulgar, wasn’t it? I do apologize. But the man was stingy, Bree. He had a stingy heart. You know how much he gave to the Overseas Orphans Fund when Bea Forester asked for a donation? Fifty dollars. Fifty dollars! And the man had an income bigger than the annual revenues of Southern Rhodesia. Or so your father says.” Her face brightened to the glow she kept for Royal Winston-Beaufort and nobody else. “And here he is. You can ask him about those Chandlers yourself, Bree.”

  Royal came around the side of the house, walked up the verandah steps, and settled himself into a wicker chair with a sigh. He reached over and gave Bree’s hand a gentle squeeze. “How’s my best girl?”

  “Just fine, Daddy.”

  Royal Beaufort was tall and thin, with a long, horsey face and a deceptively gentle manner. “Glad you could make it up, darlin’. Looks like we’re going to have ourselves a real party here tonight. Wouldn’t want you to miss it. Now, that sister of yours . . .”

  “She’s just desolated she can’t make it,” Bree said promptly. “But she can’t run out on her play.”

  “I suppose she can’t.” He sat back and folded his hands over his lean stomach. “So, you’re looking a little worn-out, child, since I saw you last.”

  “You saw me last a few weeks ago, and not much has changed since,” Bree said a little tartly.

  “You finished up that Skinner case okay?”

  “No problems at all. I gave two depositions in evidence. And I got a check from the client.”

  “Prompt payers are a blessing,” her father said piously. He winked at her. “So I guess you won’t need a check to tide you over.”

  “No, Daddy, I surely won’t.” Bree felt a familiar surge of chagrin, annoyance, and exasperated love. “I’m doing just fine.”

  The front door opened, and General’s dark head peeked out onto the porch. “Can I get y’all something? A whiskey soda, Mr. Royal?” He let the screen door shut gently behind him. “And it’s Bree! How’s by you, my girl? We haven’t seen you this age.”

  Bree jumped up and gave General a brief, warm hug. She couldn’t remember a time when the old man hadn’t been an important part of their lives. “I’m just home for the weekend, General, but I sure am glad to be here.”

  “I musta been out back with them deliveries when you come by,” he said regretfully. “And I see that you ain’t eatin’ enough to feed a birdie. I’ll get you a nice chunk of Adelina’s pecan pie, shall I? Along with that whiskey soda. Glad you’re back where you belong. And you brought that nice dog with you, too. I’ll see about some scraps for him.” He twinkled gently at Sasha and disappeared back into the house.

  Bree found herself smiling. Her mother reached over and nudged her. “What?”

  “It’s good to be home, Mamma.”

  “It’s good to have you home, darlin’.” She clapped her hands briskly. “Now, Royal. My little round of phone calls to make discreet inquires about the Chandlers turned up bukiss.”

  Bree and Royal looked at each other. Finally, Bree said, “You mean bubkes, Mamma?”

  “Whatever. I didn’t get much of a handle on Probert at all. He kept himself to himself, as the Irish say. A proper Methodist, he seemed to be, and that isn’t much of a compliment when you consider John Knox.”

  “Knox was a Presbyterian, Francesca,” Royal said. “But don’t be blaming him, either. What your mother is saying, Bree, is that the man stuck to business and family, and ran the both of them in what might be called a parsimonious way.”

  “You’re being gentlemanly, Daddy. Marlowe’s known worldwide for predatory pricing practices. They’re notorious for driving competitors out of business with cut-throat tactics. And they’re perfectly horrible to their suppliers. I know that much from skimming the business pages every day.”

  “The liberal press version of the business pages,” Royal murmured. “Now, don’t get your feathers ruffled. Any laissez-faire economy’s bound to have a version of Mar lowe’s. It’s the price of doing business.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” Bree said hotly.

  General came back onto the porch with a whiskey soda, a fine slice of pecan pie, and a small, steaming teapot. He handed the drink to Royal and the pie to Bree (who set it aside on the table) and poured a cup of tea for Francesca. He dropped a large hambone at Sasha’s feet, and then went gently away.

  Royal put his right leg over his left knee and sipped his drink. “I made a few calls myself, on your young client’s behalf. Did you know Probert had a partner?”

  Bree thought a moment. “Yes. I think I did. Lindquist, his name is.”

  “John Allen Lindquist. He and Probert were frat brothers at the University of Oregon in the pharmacy program. Lindquist’s kept pretty much in the background all these years, but he carried a lot more weight than you’d guess, just looking at the company from the outside. He’s a registered pharmacist as well as an MD, and has in fact done a whole lot of research into developing generic drugs.”

  “That’s where Marlowe’s makes most of its profits, isn’t it?” Bree said. “They have a huge plant down in Ames, I think it is, and they manufacture a lot of the generics themselves.”

  “Actually, the largest plants are in China.” Probert held his glass up to the sunlight and gazed appreciatively at the amber color. “Labor’s cheap. No one inquires too much into their employee practices, and so far, no one has imposed a whole lot of tariffs on the imports.”

  Francesca cleared her throat loudly. “Isn’t this interesting ?” she said fervently.

  Royal grinned at her. “Francesca. Light of my life. If you wish to duck out on this conversation, I can’t blame you one iota.”

  “Thank mercy.” Francesca got up in a flurry of skirts. “If I told you talk about some old plant in China was going to be the conversational highlight of my day, I’d be lying like a rug.”

  “You’d perk up right enough if you saw what those plants in China are like,” Bree said. “They stick those poor workers in warehouses you wouldn’t want a cat to live in, and they make them pay for t
he privilege.”

  “Now, Bree,” Royal said.

  “Sixteen tons,” Francesca said.

  Bree, about to spout off like the fountain in their rose garden out back, was abruptly silenced.

  “Of course,” Royal said. And then, in a chancy baritone he sang, “Sixteen tons, what d’ya get? Another day older and deeper in debt.”

  Francesca chimed in: “St. Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go, I owe my soul to the company store.”

  “You’re both crazy,” Bree said, laughing.

  Royal set his glass down with a flourish and rose to his feet. “Crazy like a fox. Guess who’s coming to the party this afternoon?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Tennessee Ernie Ford’s been dead a while. So, who?”

  “John Allen Lindquist was pleased to accept an invitation to Plessey’s annual Guy Fawkes Day Dinner and Dance,” Royal said. “What do you think of that?”

  Bree shook her head at them both. Parents. “I think that’s just fine.”

  “Then that’s all settled,” Francesca said with satisfaction. “Bree, honey, I have to go check on the caterers and make sure that Adelina isn’t cooking herself dumb and exhausted in the kitchen. And I talked to Antonia this morning. She said you didn’t get a lick of sleep last night. So I want you to trot right on up to your old room and take a nice long nap. I’ll come and wake you up in time to get ready for the party.”

  This was the best idea Bree had heard in a week. Her father made his leisurely way down the steps to the front lawn, and Bree followed her mother into the house.

  Plessey had been rebuilt as a center-entrance Georgian in the late 1820s, replacing the low-ceilinged cedar wood frame building that had preceded it. The house was three stories, surrounded by verandahs on all three levels. All of the large rooms—the parlor, library, sewing room, and dining room on the main floor, and the bedrooms and sitting rooms on the upper stories—had mullioned double doors that led out onto the porches. When Bree read Pride and Prejudice for high school English, she read about the inside of Mr. Bingley’s home, Nether-field, with a little jolt of recognition.