Well Bred and Dead

by Catherine O'Connell

  The hissing sound in my ears was my ego deflating. “That mystery doesn’t concern me anymore. I learned that my friend was born Daniel Kehoe in Rochester, New York. Now I’m waiting to bury him. So that makes this an inconvenient time to go nosing around South Carolina.”

  “But I’ve only got a couple of days before I have to be back in Ireland. Pardon my insensitivity, but hasn’t your mate Ethan been on ice for a while already? What harm could it be to wait a few more days?”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “I’m not. Come down to South Carolina and help me look for the Englishman.”

  “This is a folly,” I said. “What could you possibly expect to find in South Carolina after all this time?”

  “Oh, ye of little faith. How can you know until we get down there? He’s probably bought himself a plantation and is sittin’ around the day long drinking mint juleps. Probably just forgot about his old mum. We could jog his memory. Don’t you want to make an old woman happy.”

  “And what if we learn the worst, that her son died down there?”

  His voice turned serious. “Then we can at least give her some peace of mind. C’mon, Pauline. Be a sport and join me. I’m going either way, and it would be a much better adventure with your lovely self at my side.”

  I thought about it, not too long and not too hard. Within moments my mind was made up, and I was going to be adding yet another airfare to my credit card balances. Even if the fingerprint check came through tomorrow, the funeral could wait a few more days. After all, Terrance was living and breathing. Ethan was not.

  “All right then, I’ll join you,” I said.

  “Wonderful. Meet me tomorrow evening in Charleston. I’ll be reserving two rooms at the John Rutledge House Inn. It’s small and, as I understand it, quite charming. I wonder how it will compare to the Angel. I do hope the mattresses are just as lumpy.”

  “I know the inn and you are correct; it is quite charming, as is Charleston. I’ll see you tomorrow then.” I hung up and told myself not to get too excited.

  I was beginning to feel as if I lived either on a plane or in the airport. After enduring two plane changes in order to get a reasonable fare, I began to seriously wonder if I was losing my sanity, still gallivanting about to some unknown end. I finally landed in Charleston at three o’clock and went directly to the hotel. As promised, a reservation had been made in my name. I went up to my room, charmingly decorated in vintage Southern with a large brass bed and a homey looking quilt. Terrance had not yet arrived, and since it was a glorious day, I decided to take a walk to ease my jittery nerves.

  Charleston is one of the very most charming outposts in the country, and being there put me in a remarkably upbeat frame of mind. I strolled through the historic district, abundant with springtime flowers: tulips, daffodils, dogwood, peppermint, peach. Lavender wisteria spilled from the front porches, or piazzas as the Charlestonians prefer to call them, of Italianate brick houses dating back to the colonial days. There was a certain civility in the air, and things moved at a leisurely pace I’ve yet to find anywhere up north, even in the small towns of New England.

  I was grateful to see the city had recovered from the devastation of Hurricane Hugo. My last visit had been shortly after the storm, and there had been so much destruction it felt like a war zone. Now, with the tarp roofs gone and the birds chirping instead of saws buzzing, it was the Charleston I knew and loved again.

  I contemplated calling one of my friends in town, yet another Radcliffe schoolmate, Victoria Kendall Kovitz. Victoria was both a DAR and a daughter of the Confederacy, born and bred in Charleston. She had horrified her family and the local aristocracy twenty years ago by marrying a football player who was now the coach of a high school football team. Not only was he “from away,” the term Charlestonians apply to anyone who is not of their ilk, but he had no pedigree to speak of and one of the thickest necks anyone had ever seen anyplace. Between football seasons, they lived on her parents’ former plantation, where she entertained frequently in order to see the right people. But because of Gus’s coarse style and lack of manners, they were seldom invited to the important doings in town—despite Victoria being a native. Charlestonians don’t take kindly to people from away and a person from away with bad manners has practically no status at all.

  I decided against calling Victoria, but not because I wasn’t fond of Gus. I actually found him amusing in a crass sort of way. No, the reason I didn’t call my friend was because I wanted to spend this time with Terrance all by myself. Had she known I was in town she would have insisted on seeing me.

  When I got back to the hotel, Terrance still hadn’t arrived, so I took a long cool bath to cool me down in more ways than one. I did not get dressed as I had brought a cream-colored linen dress and didn’t want to be a mass of wrinkles when I saw him. I realized then I had never asked him what time he planned to arrive. When six o’clock came and I hadn’t heard from him I called the desk. They informed me he still hadn’t checked in. Trying not to be too anxious, I lay on the bed in my slip reading, or rather trying to read, since concentration was nearly impossible. Finally, I gave up and turned on the television. The clock ticked off seven, and I wondered if he was really going to show. It was quarter of eight when the phone finally rang.

  “What,” I snapped.

  “Is that any way to be greeting a man who’s just come from the jaws of hell?”

  “I was beginning to wonder if you were coming at all.” I said, having difficulty hiding my irritation.

  “I’m truly sorry. Truth is, I wanted to be here earlier this afternoon, but got held up with business. As it is, I missed the last flight to Charleston and had to charter a plane to get here at all. Let me make it up to you over dinner?”

  My anger cooled. After all, how can one be angry with a man who charters a plane to fulfill his obligation? “All right,” I cooed.

  “Meet me in the lobby in ten minutes then. I’m looking forward to seeing you, Pauline.”

  I hung onto the phone for a solid minute after he hung up. Then I slowly replaced it in the cradle and put on my linen dress.

  We dined at the Restaurant Million, a charming establishment with exposed brick walls and Aubusson tapestries, situated above a noisy tavern. We ate crayfish and prawns and washed them down with two bottles of Corton Charlemagne. Conversation between us never lagged; it was both facile and spirited. There was no talk of Ethan being the reason we were there and, frankly, I didn’t care. I learned more about Terrance, that he read mystery novels when he wasn’t reading history. I told him that I had minored in art history and was therefore ingrained with a working knowledge of Greco Roman history and the Renaissance. He told me of his own love of art and admitted to owning a Renoir as well as some antiquities. I expressed to him my disdain for private collectors who take treasures out of the public domain, neglecting to mention the minor Pissarro that hung upon my own walls.

  We volleyed back and forth the entire meal. He wore a light blue seersucker suit, turning the blue of his eyes pale and transparent. They still held the spark that had captured my attention the first time we met, and there was no denying that it had me under his spell once again. I found myself laughing more freely than I could remember and there was something quite liberating about it. I felt so acutely alive, my eyes must have been sparkling, too.

  After dinner, we took a walk along the harbor in the sultry evening air. He guided me along, holding my arm in a loose impersonal way I found distracting. Suddenly, he let it go, stopping to lean against a railing and peer out at the Atlantic. The moon cast silver ropes upon the waves. I sidled up close to him, emboldened by the two bottles of wine we had drunk.

  “Why are you really here, Terrance?” I asked. “Is this a challenge to you, like a business deal?”

  “Pauline,” he replied, stopping and staring ever so deeply into my eyes. “What I told you on the phone was the truth. I travel the whole world, and I see a lot of things. I find lately I’
ve come to live mostly for business and what it gives to me. But seeing that old woman in Bury St. Edmunds really touched me heart. I’ve decided to make it my personal undertaking to learn what became of her son.”

  “I see.” Disappointed, I looked into the darkness as if there was something terrifically interesting out there.

  “But there’s another reason I’m here,” he continued. “The moment I saw you I felt something inexplicable, a kinship. I can’t explain it, but I know you felt it, too, or felt something. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here either.”

  His words were more intoxicating than the wine. I was feeling things I hadn’t since I met Henry. I turned to him in the moonlight and looked up at him in a way that made it clear I was available. He bent as if to kiss me, but instead tapped his forefinger lightly on the tip of my nose.

  “I think we should get an early start tomorrow,” he said, taking my arm and nudging me gently back toward the hotel.

  He walked me to my room and to my extreme disappointment made no effort to compromise my virtue other than a brotherly goodnight peck on the cheek. I stood in my room in the throes of unfulfilled passion trying to figure out Terrance Sullivan. He was a puzzlement. I had no idea what was going on with him, but one thing was for certain. I was confused beyond belief.

  Terrance rented a Mercedes convertible for the drive to Morristown, the origin of British Ethan Campbell’s last correspondence with his mother. With a straw hat tied beneath my chin to protect myself from the ravages of the Southern sun, I was glad for the wind on my face. My head felt that it might possibly explode after all the wine the night before. Terrance, however, seemed to be completely unaffected by both the sun and the alcohol. He drove hatless with his wild red hair blowing freely, humming an Irish tune as we rolled through the lush green hills of South Carolina. Every once in a while a cluster of houses would spring out of the countryside, a sore reminder of the unstoppable human encroachment upon all things beautiful.

  “It’s a shame to see these horrid complexes mar this exquisite countryside,” I said as we passed a sign announcing Chewton Glen Estates three miles ahead. “Who really thinks these houses are estates?”

  “It’s jargon,” he said. “Mediocrity is in the masses.”

  “Well, I’d rather see the land preserved and the masses kept out. Unfettered growth is the death of beauty.”

  “Watch who you’re talking to here, lassie. I come from the masses. Don’t expect to keep the rest of the world out just because certain rich people don’t want to see changes that’re going to make someone else richer. Developing is how I earn my living, and proud of it I am.”

  “Well, don’t tell anyone in Charleston,” I chided him. “They won’t let you back in. Developers are on the bottom rung of their social ladder.”

  “Lower than the lawyers then? Impossible.” He laughed heartily at his own joke.

  We drove past the Chewton Glen development, and I was reminded of Shannon Maglieri’s neighborhood, with its oversized houses pushing to the ends of cramped lots. Terrance honked the horn and waved and this time even I had to laugh. His frivolous and lighthearted nature was drawing me even further under his spell. So many things about him reminded me of Henry, including his love of history and his iconoclastic attitude.

  After driving several more miles, we spotted the exit for Morristown and turned off the main highway. We were on a quaint country road, shaded for much of the time by a canopy of Banyon trees, the air dense with the smell of horses and dewey green grass.

  “What on earth would have led young Ethan Campbell back into this neck of the woods?” he wondered aloud as the pristine countryside passed by. A few minutes later, a hand-painted sign signaled our arrival in Morristown. The road took us directly into the town’s center where a white church with a tall belltower sat opposite a cooling stretch of village green. The main street was lined with early colonial and Georgian buildings, giving one the sense of going back in time. In a way, the town was an American version of Bury St. Edmunds, the type of place a homesick Englishman might be drawn to.

  We found the St. Alder Arms without even looking, or rather it found us, on the main street just past the church. As if to say welcome, a parking spot was open directly in front of the wood-framed inn. Terrance pulled into it and the two of us sat looking at the reason for our journey.

  “How would you feel if we walked in and a lad named Ethan Campbell greeted us?” asked Terrance, the perennial tease.

  “He wouldn’t be a lad anymore, he would be over sixty, and I would be in a state of shock,” I replied. “Then I would insist he write to his poor old mother.”

  “Well, then, let’s have at it,” he said, getting out of the car.

  The polished wood floors clicked sharply beneath our feet as we entered the old inn. The intimate lobby had a sitting room off to the right, furnished with what were now antiques, though I suspected they weren’t antique when they were purchased. The registration desk directly in front of us had a coat rack and umbrella stand beside it. It was deserted, but there was a bell on the counter which Terrance picked up and rang vigorously. Almost immediately a young man emerged through a door behind the desk. He was about thirty years old with close cropped blond hair and a small yellow goatee.

  “Yes, may ah help you?” he asked in a Carolina accent thicker than maple syrup.

  Terrance left it to me to explain what now felt like an even more ridiculous mission than it had before.

  “As unbelievable as it sounds, we are trying to track down someone who stayed here around thirty-four years ago, an Englishman. I can’t begin to suppose you would know anything about him.”

  “’Spect I wasn’t even born then, ma’am, so no, I don’t suppose I would know anything about anybody who stayed here back then. Too bad my granddaddy passed last year, he probably would have remembered. I don’t think he ever forgot one person who spent a night at the St. Alder Arms. This here was his hotel, and when he dahd he left it to Mama and me.”

  “You don’t say.” I looked at Terrance who was leafing through an old-fashioned guest register on the counter. Beside each person’s signed name was a space for their hometown address.

  “How many years have you been keeping this kind of guest book?” he asked.

  “Since fo’ever, I suppose.”

  “Is there a chance you’d still be having the register from say 1965?” he asked, tapping at the guest book.

  The blond man scratched at his goatee, and a small accommodating smile crept onto his face. “You know, I just maht. Granddaddy never threw a thing away, and when he passed Mama and I just left ever’thin’ sitting up in the attic. Y’all are welcome to have a look around for yourself if you like.”

  “We’d like that very much,” Terrance replied. Without asking anything more, the trusting young innkeeper led us up two flights of stairs to the third floor. The hall was lined with what I took to be guest rooms from the brass numbers mounted on each door. He pulled down a trap door in the ceiling leading into a dark attic. After unfolding some rickety steps, he disappeared into the darkness. A moment later a light came on.

  “Y’all can come up now,” he called.

  I followed Terrance into the oppressively hot and dusty space. The young man cautioned us that there “maht be some spahders,” a warning that made my blood flush cold despite the sauna-like environment of the attic. Then he pointed out some packing boxes in the corner and said, “I’m pretty sure the books is in theyah. Y’all just make yourselves at home and come and get me when y’all are finished.”

  We thanked him and climbed across nearly a century’s worth of accumulated junk, furniture and tools, stacks of magazines, and even a Confederate flag. The boxes he had pointed out were carelessly stacked in a haphazard manner, but upon opening the top one we discovered that the contents were indeed old guest registers. There appeared to be one book for each year, dating all the way back to the nineteen twenties. It didn’t take us long to unearth the book labeled
nineteen sixty-five.

  “Do you remember the exact date of Ethan’s letter to his mother?” Terrance asked.

  “Surely you jest,” I said, thinking it a wonder that I had even held on to the address of the inn.

  “Well, I recall the month anyway,” he said impishly. “March, same month as my birthday.”

  “So, I just missed celebrating it with you?”

  “You can still buy me a present if you want.”

  Strangely enough, my hands shook as I leafed through the yellowed pages dating back oh-so-many years. The names and addresses of the previous visitors to the St. Alder Arms were written out in a grand variety of handwriting, some flowery, some scribbled, some methodical, and some barely legible where time had eaten the color from the ink. The signers came from places all over the country and globe. There were guests from Alaska and Denmark as well as locals from Charleston and Savannah. My eye moved down the left column, looking, looking, looking for that one name, Ethan Campbell. Instead, another familiar name cropped up on the page, a name causing me to gasp aloud.

  “What is it?” Terrance asked.

  It was an early version of the flowery handwriting I knew so well, the same hand that had so recently written a suicide note. I turned the book toward him and pointed it out. Danny Kehoe, Rochester, New York. Wordlessly, my eyes continued down to the name of the next guest registered. And sure enough there it was, written in the same concise hand as his final letter to his mother. Ethan Campbell, Bury St. Edmunds, England.

  Terrance regarded me with a raised brow. “Are you thinking what I am thinking?”

  I was, but I didn’t want to admit it. One Ethan Campbell disappears and another one surfaces. I suppose I had to have known in my heart that their paths crossed somewhere along the line. How else could Daniel have adopted Ethan’s name? But I didn’t want it to be the place where Ethan Campbell had posted his last letter to his mother. I wanted it to be some other place, not here where it implied so much wrong.