“The Ryker business?” Addie knew it was still fresh on hers.
“No. But I’m not looking forward to telling Ben about it.” She looked at Addie’s face. You need to take some of my make-up to cover your bruise.”
“It’s pretty sore, especially when I chew. Are you still wondering about Miss Lilly’s sudden change of attitude toward us?”
Della sighed. “No. I think I know the answer to that. And I’ve been afraid you’d find out before I could explain it to you.”
Addie looked at her mother in surprise. “What? Explain what?”
“Well, you know about Evelyn Ann seeing me come out of the parsonage still putting my clothes together.”
“Yes. But what did that have to do ... Oh! The town’s two biggest gossips! Did they ...?”
“They did. Or somebody did – turned the truth, which they didn’t know, into a nasty piece of gossip.”
“Then – why were you being so nice to them?” Addie demanded in anger. “Inviting them to breakfast, then lunch at Stonegate.”
“I was hoping to dispel the gossip by letting them know the truth. And, honey, I feel sure your school friends and Donnie were trying to keep you from hearing the ugly gossip last week at school.”
“Yeah. That had to be what they were doing. I knew something was up. But, Mama, what is it? What are the gossipers saying about you?”
Della was silent for a few moments while Addie waited. She didn’t want to have to tell her daughter what she must. She wasn’t quite sure how she would take it. Quietly, she said, “That I was having an affair with Morris Kirkland and found myself pregnant. And when I went to the parsonage to tell him he packed up and left town immediately.”
“OOOHHH!” Addie screamed. “OOHH! I can’t believe that! I’ll kill that Evelyn Ann, and her mother!” She exclaimed, pounding her fists on the table.
“Honey! Don’t get so worked up! And listen to this! You know Susie Purdue that I work with a lot at church?” But Addie was red in the face and screeching. “Listen!” Della demanded. “Susie called me a few minutes ago and said she had just heard the strangest thing – that Eva and her friend Mavis Brown had had a falling out over some story Eva had told Mavis about me that Eva said proved not to be true. So maybe I did do a little good.”
“Of course it’s not true, and that must be what the black headed woman was telling Miss Lilly. Oh, Mama! What are we going to do? What will daddy do? He’s bound to hear it.”
“I don’t know. I guess I’d better tell him before he does. But that’s not what’s bugging me right now. I can live with the gossip if you and Ben can? It’ll die down as soon as they find somebody else to gossip about, I hope.” Della looked at her still fuming daughter.
“Honey, I’m sorry I had to tell you, but calm down. I want us to think about something else.”
Addie took a deep breath. “What, Mama? What could be more important?”
“Just listen, please. You remember Helene Cutler telling about her neighbor whose crippled maid looks exactly like me? Well, mama said that Henrietta and I looked enough alike to be twins, although I’m two years older. Addie,” Della said. “I’ve got to see that woman. I drove past their house on my way home. I know which one it is. Helene said two doors down. There was no one about of course.”
“Are you thinking there’s a possibility she might be your sister?”
“I don’t know. I just know I have got to see her. But now tell me, did you get everybody at Stonegate taken care of?”
“I hope so. William insists he isn’t going back to school. I think he’s afraid to even go out of the building. He and the Castles are going to take care of the three men and the two Simmons women the rest of the week. Deena and I will go back to school on Monday, but by then, Jo Ann Simmons should be able to get around enough to care for herself and her aunt with a little help. Miss Mattie wants a dinner club on the second floor, and grandpa wants a child care center on the first, and grandpa and Jo Ann Simmons think we could have a nursing home on the third ...”
“Addie!” Della exclaimed. “What is going on? How did you get yourself so involved?”
“I don’t know, Mama. It just all seemed to happen at once. One thing just led to another. Mr. Sully is taking care of it all, and the trolleys. He says they should be on the streets in a couple of months or so. Mama, he’s such a nice man. I want you to meet him.”
“I have a feeling I will, but what is Grant Cutler going to say about all this?”
“If I can put Stonegate to some good use to where it will meet the upkeep, which he says is exorbitant, then he can’t say anything about it. He said Stonegate and everything in it is mine. It’s not his.”
Della was shaking her head slowly. “Addie, honey, I’m having an awfully hard time believing how you’ve changed, how you’ve grown up overnight. It’s like you are another person, a very capable and independent person with a strong-willed mind – especially for a sixteen year old.”
“I feel different Mama. Maybe this me was always me. I just couldn’t be me because of Vicki. At times I’ve even felt a little frightened. Then I tell myself it’s just me – no more memories and thoughts that are not my own. Do you understand what I’m saying?” And she looked at her mother uneasily. There was something else she had to ask, but she was afraid to – afraid of the answer. But she had to know. “Mama, do you still love me?”
“Oh, Addie, my darling,” Della was quick to say as she reached for both her daughter’s hands. “Love you? You can’t know how much. And I’m so happy that you can finally be your own person. I do love you. You must never doubt that for a moment, but you have to understand that I’m also having to get used to the new you. And I have to confess that sometimes I miss my quiet, gentle Addie.”
They both rose at the same time to wrap their arms around each other. “It’s just me, Mama, and I love you and daddy so very much. You’re my whole life, even if my life is different now.”
Della hugged her daughter to her. “I understand, honey, and we may have to help Ben to understand, but you know that he loves you.”
“I wish I could stay home tonight,” Addie said longingly.
Della held her at arms’ length. “Now, honey ...”
“I know. I have a lot of responsibility at Stonegate, and Miss Mattie is expecting me before dark.”
“So help me with a few things then let’s eat a bite of supper.”
Later, when she let herself into the summer kitchen, Deena was there and helping William with the supper’s pots and pans. She hugged her friend. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you came, but I’m so glad you’re here. Is your mother okay? Do you like your room? Is your grandfather satisfied with the move?”
“Oh, Addie,” Deena said hugging her. “All three of us think we’ve died and gone to Heaven. And mom cried when she saw the room. It’s so pretty, and that pink bathroom – we’ve never seen anything like it. Oh, Addie, how can we ever thank you? We’re so grateful to you.”
“Deena, I’m just as grateful that I could do it.”
Then she turned to William. “And how was your first dinner for eight people?”
“Nine,” he said. “I insisted that Miss Horn eat with us. I don’t think she thought I could cook,” he said with pride. “And I’ll be bedding my three men down as soon as I finish here. Mr. Harris says he can’t believe he’s living at Stonegate. He used to deliver coal here back when they had a coal furnace.”
Addie chuckled. “Tell him we’re glad he’s here. And what about the Simmons women?”
William shook his head. “I don’t know about that woman. Every time the old lady naps, she’s out in that wheel chair looking the place over with a pad and pencil. What’s she up to?”
Addie felt sure she knew, but she said to William, “Maybe I’d better find out.” And she headed for the elevator – not to check on Jo Ann, but to find grandpa. Then she remembered that all she had to do was call him in her mind. Which she did.
&nbs
p; He immediately appeared beside her at the elevator. “I can’t watch the news on a dead TV box,” he complained.
“Sorry, Grandpa. I’ll attend to it.” And on the way to her bedroom, she said, “I had to go home for a little while to help mama.”
“Will she be all right at home by herself?”
“Oh, I’m sure she will. She’ll call me if she needs me.”
“You seem a bit down. Anything wrong, young Addie?”
“I guess it’s the ugly gossip going around about mama. She’s not too worried about it, but it makes me furious. She says I’m not to worry about it, but I can’t help it. And I’m worried about what my daddy will do when he hears it. Mama says they’ll be home about supper time tomorrow night.”
When they reached the TV in her dressing room, Addie found that the cord would not reach the only available outlet.
“Are you going to tell me about the gossip?”
“If you want me to after I ask Miss Mattie for an extension cord.”
“There’s one not being used behind the sofa in Willy’s study.”
Addie wondered if he knew every little thing about the mansion as she went to get it. She soon had his TV plugged up and one of the blue, side chairs from the bedroom pulled into the dressing room for him. She tuned in the news channel then took a seat on the floor at his feet. She told him about the gossip, how it had gotten started, and of Della’s efforts to squelch it with the Mobleys.
“That’s the couple who came to lunch on Sunday?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t like the woman. She and her daughter should be horsewhipped. The man seemed decent enough, but he reminded me of Hiram Stone the way he catered to his wife.”
“Mr. Stone really loved Victoria, didn’t he?”
“Yes he did – would do anything in the world for her.”
“And you were married to Victoria’s mother.”
“Yes, and to answer your next question – no, I was not Victoria’s father.”
“Oh. So, that’s why you’re not my great-grandfather.”
“Yes.” he said, but nothing more. She wanted him to tell her more, but when he didn’t, she asked, “Grandpa, why are you still here?”
He waited so long before answering her, she was afraid he wasn’t going to. Finally, he said, “Because I don’t know what love is. I’ve never loved anybody, and no one has ever loved me.” He sighed. “Apparently, when I find love, one way or the other, I will leave this world. I sure hope so.”
This was unbelievable to Addie. “But, your wife!” she exclaimed. “Didn’t you love her? And your mother and father?”
Grandpa chuckled. “Young Addie, it’s a long and ugly story. You don’t want to hear it.”
“I do too. The gossip about my mother isn’t pretty, and I shared it with you.”
“That you did,” he said. “And turn about is fair play.” He paused, and she could tell he was thinking. “I’ll have to go back to my birth for you to understand.
“My brother, Gabe told me all this of course. It seems my mother died birthing me. Omar Gates, my father, didn’t know she had breathed her last when he cut the cord, else he wouldn’t have cut it. When he realized she was dead, he flung me across the bed and into the wall. Gabe picked me up to see if I was dead too. That’s when I started crying, he said. Gabe hated Omar as much as one person could hate another, and even more so now that his ma was dead because of Omar.
“But Omar blamed me for her death. Gabe said he worked her to death. He was about ten then. He said his mother had one or two miscarriages a year for as far back as he could remember. Said she wasn’t a very big person and just skin and bones. Said Omar worked her like a man all day in the fields and when she’d miscarry, he’d yell at her, ‘woman ain’t you never going to give me any help for around here?’ Gabe said when I started to cry, Omar swore, and said he’d drown the little rat. That , since there was no woman to care for it, it would just be a burden to him. And Gabe told him if he did, he’d tell the sheriff the next time he came looking for whoever was stealing sheets, and table cloths, and things off women’s clotheslines. Anything that could be cut up into diapers when she had carried me long enough that they figured they would be needing such things.
“So Omar said, ‘Fine, then you have yourself a youngun to raise’, because he wasn’t having anything to do with me.
“How I survived, I don’t know. I was just too stubborn to die, I guess. Gabe, at ten or so, certainly had no love for a newborn baby he had to raise. Omar still made him work in the fields. When I got too big to stay in the bed while they were out, he’d put me on the floor and sit the bedpost on my clothes. But once they came in for lunch and a snake was coiled up in front of me. After that they just tied me in the bed until I was big enough for them to take me to the fields with them.
“Gabe had been named Gabriel, so he named me Elijah. He grew up tall and muscular like Omar. The females all though him handsome. After I got big enough to look out for myself, he started running away. But Omar always caught him – would drag him back screaming and yelling. Then he’d beat him real good. When he was sixteen, he ran away, and Omar couldn’t bring him back. I planned to do the same thing.
“But right after my fifteenth birthday, Omar and I were planting corn one day when two men and a woman come riding up. One was a preacher man. The other was Silas Hightower, the owner of the Riverbend bank, and the woman was his daughter, Olivia. First they wanted to know if we knew Gabe’s whereabouts. They knew we didn’t, so they took Omar’s word for it. Then Hightower pointed his shotgun at Omar and said that his Olivia was carrying a Gates’ baby and she was going to have herself a Gates’ husband right then and there. He gave Olivia a choice. Well, she started squalling. It was obvious she had already been doing a lot of that. She claimed that Gabe would be back and marry her if her father would just give him time. Hightower said three months was time enough.
“Well, I thought I was going to get myself a stepmother. But when Hightower told her to choose or he would, I got myself a wife. In no time, I was married and trussed up on the back of her horse. That wasn’t necessary because I wasn’t about to run.
“I figured I was through with working from sun up to sun down, getting backhanded a few times a day, and living in that miserable shack. We rode away with Olivia still screaming and yelling, and me expecting Omar to come after me with his shotgun. But he didn’t. That was the last I ever saw of Omar. I don’t know what became of him.
“For three nights I slept on a cot in the Hightower wash house with the man of all jobs locking me in every night and watching my every move during the day. He also put me to work every morning. But they fed me good, and I didn’t have to cook it, so I was still better off than with Omar, and nobody backhanded me.”
Addie was spellbound by his story. She didn’t interrupt because she didn’t want to miss a word of it. And grandpa seemed to be enjoying talking about his life – once he got started.
“All this time,” he continued, “Hightower was yelling at his wife and daughter, night and day. He could be heard if you got anywhere near the house. Then the fourth morning, he came out on the back porch and called me. He told me to wash up at the basin on the porch there and to come in to breakfast with the family. I did as I was told. When I sat down at the table, he said, ‘I haven’t heard you say a word. Can’t you talk’?
“I said, ‘sure can if I’ve got something to say.’
“His wife came in, and he introduced us and said she was going to make a list of the clothes I needed. So while we ate, he was telling her what to put down, the size of each item and how many. And she would tell him the price. When he finished, he asked her how much it all came to. She said it would take her a while to add it all up. And he told her not to take all day because he had already been away from the bank too long.
“I thought I’d do my share, and I said forty-nine dollars and thirty five cents. They both looked at me, and Hightower asked if I was b
eing a smart mouth? I said, ‘No, Sir, figures just add themselves up in my head.’ Then he wanted to know how much schooling I had had. I told him none. That my brother, Gabe, had taught me my numbers and to read and write. That Omar had made him do it.
“Well, he took the sheet and added the numbers while we waited. His figure was different, so I told him he was wrong, that I never made a mistake. He added again and found that I was right.
“Then every night for a week, he brought home columns of figures that had all ready been added, and he called them out to me. Four times his figures were wrong. Once a thousand-dollars and another time three hundred. He finally became convinces that his new son-in-law was always right, and I became his assistant at the bank.”
“And you and Olivia ...”
“No, young Addie, we never became husband and wife. I lived in one bedroom upstairs, and she lived in one downstairs. She never stopped hopping that Gabe would return one day.”
“Did he?”
“And ,young Addie, one thing I learned at that time was that few people can afford to speak ill of any member of the, shall we say, most well-to-do family in town. When they know ...”
“But I don’t want most people to know.”
“And just how long do you think you can keep it a secret? And why, young Addie?”
“Well, I guess because I don’t make friends easy. I have three friends who were my friends before I could do anything for them. We’re about the four poorest kids in high school. Maybe that’s why we’re friends. But when people find out we have money, I’m sure I’ll have all kinds of friends – but not the kind of friends I want. And I don’t know how long I can keep it a secret, but as long as I can.”
“Which won’t be much longer.”
“Did he?” she asked again.
“What? Oh, Gabe. Yes. He came back in about four months. Hid in the barn to wait for me. He needed money of course. I was sorry I didn’t have much on me. I felt like I owed him, and told him I’d have more after the first of the month. Hightower paid me well, and I didn’t have much to spend it on since I lived and ate at his house.
The Daughters of Julian Dane Page 53
