Wild Midnight Page 9

  D’Arcy turned to Rachel with an astonished look on her face. “Oh lord, you’ve met! No, don’t tell me about it,” she cried. “I can just see he’s been horrible. What’s he been giving you a bad time about, some of his old cows? That’s all he ever gets excited about, the fool.”

  “What did Beau do?” the teenager wanted to know, eyeing Rachel owlishly. She stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Sissy. Beau’s a nut,” she added laconically.

  The world seemed to be tilting. Rachel took the younger girl’s hand with a dazed feeling. The tall blond woman darted in between. “Just put the suitcase in the backseat, honey, never mind opening the trunk. We’re going to go over to Beau’s, do you hear? And leave him some money. Rachel has to do that before we can go, and my goodness, it’s going to take for-damn-ever to get out of Draytonville if we don’t get moving!” D’Arcy looked around with her air of distracted gaiety. “Sissy,” she screeched suddenly for her sister, right behind her, “why don’t you be helpful instead of just standing there? Why don’t you scare us half to death and drive us over to Belle Haven?”

  Soon the Butlers’ massive Lincoln Continental sped silkily down the Draytonville-Hazel Gardens highway, then turned into a winding asphalt road that followed the banks of the Ashepoo River for several miles. D’Arcy chattered nonstop—under the impression, apparently, that Rachel needed a guide to local history. The river road had been laid out following an Indian trail used by French Huguenot and early English planters, although they preferred the river for transport rather than the rough tracks in the forest.

  “Mostly they built their homes on the river,” D’Arcy explained. “Like Belle Haven—it’s one of the oldest places in South Carolina, did you know that? Each planter had a pier, you can still see the ruins off the point at Old Beaumont Docks. Oh, look,” she cried, “look at all those rice birds, Rachel—you don’t see those up north! There must be hundreds and hundreds of them. That’s the low country, honey—we’ve still got rice birds long after the rice plantations are gone. Can’t make any money anymore growing rice now. Beau says we can’t compete with California. He’s sold on cattle raising, uses the dikes to keep the river out of his pasture instead of flooding it like they used to do. It was so damned beautiful here,” D’Arcy ended abruptly, her quicksilver voice changing. “I never found another place as beautiful as Carolina low country, I swear I didn’t, not any other place in the whole world, and I’ve been a lot of places, since Daddy’s in the Navy. But I’m like all the other Carolina crackers—I always come back.”

  Rachel rested her head against the window in the rear of the limousine and tried to invent an intelligent response to D’Arcy’s remarks. The effort was too much. The country was beautiful—the closer they got to the marshes, the more the melancholy loveliness of this particularly dreaming land settled on them. That the sun was shining brightly, and that there was even a boisterous wind shaking the gray Spanish moss in the trees, did nothing to dispel the feeling.

  Sissy, driving the big silver car with proficiency, turned onto a road between two green lakes thickly covered with lily pads, their golden yellow buds still unopened in early spring. A flock of white herons rose from the surface and streaked breathtakingly across the sky. Beyond the two lakes the road seemed to dip—down, it seemed, below the river itself. Across fenced, bright green meadows as smooth as carpet, grazed the gray, humpbacked shapes of heat-resistant Brahma cattle. The slave-built earth dikes that kept the Ashepoo River at bay, now long overgrown with grass, could be seen in the distance.

  “Belle Haven’s built on an old Indian mound.” D’Arcy swiveled in her seat to talk to Rachel in the back. “It’s the highest spot around here, but it still sits right smack in the marsh. The big house used to be about a mile from the river, but the coastline is sinking, has been for two hundred years. Now the river comes right up to the back door. Well, there’s still a lawn,” she added quickly, “but Clarissa wanted to put in a swimming pool in back, and there just wasn’t room anymore.”

  As the limousine turned into a crushed-shell driveway the big house at Belle Haven finally appeared, no white-columned Greek revival antebellum mansion but an elegant replica of an English manor house of the late seventeenth century.

  “There—isn’t that something?” D’Arcy cried.

  The beautiful house was surrounded by deep green lawns, its three-story brick facade a dusty pink gemstone in the pale spring sunlight. It had been designed by the great Restoration architect, Imigo Jones, and had a double curving staircase from the ground floor to a single white door with original brass fixtures. The drive curved in front to allow horse-drawn coach passengers to disembark, and to both right and left of the house were formal gardens filled with flowers and hedges in bloom.

  They were silent for a long moment, then D’Arcy murmured softly, “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? It takes a damned fortune to keep it up, and the real money went long before Clarissa died. Went with Lee Tillson when he went back up-country.” She sighed. “That’s the curse of these old families out in the county like this—never have any money, just live down here and work and work, hoping something will come along somehow. Honk the horn, Sissy,” she ordered, “let somebody know we’re here.”

  “Beau’s gone,” the younger sister said. “I don’t see his jeep in the driveway. Belle Haven’s got a curse on it,” she said over her shoulder to Rachel. “When it was built some slave put a curse on it and said when it fell down all the Beaumonts “would die out.”

  “That’s not very likely,” her older sister said with asperity, reaching over to honk the horn herself. “Not with half of DeRenne County practically related to every Beaumont who ever lived here.”

  “Just Beau,” the younger sister said. “Just Beau’s family will die out.”

  Rachel was staring at the beautiful house, tempted to ask D’Arcy or Sissy to run inside and leave the envelope full of money. She couldn’t face Beaumont Tillson; that disaster she wanted to avoid at all costs.

  “I’m going to see Eulie,” Sissy cried, sliding out of the driver’s seat. “See y’all later.”

  D’Arcy gave a screech of aggravation. “Oh, shoot—we’ll never get to Charleston this way. Sissy, come back!” Then to Rachel, “Sissy always runs off to see Eulie the cook, they just love each other to death. It’s hard as hell to get her out of here when I want to leave.”

  D’Arcy’s beautiful brows drew together in a scowl as she got out of the car. “Uh-oh, look who’s here,” she said under her breath. Her eyes were fixed on a mud-splashed dark green pickup truck ahead in the driveway. Just as abruptly she tossed her golden head in a gesture of disdain. “C’mon, Rachel honey, you might as well get a good look inside while we’re here. Not many people get a chance to see Clarissa’s Folly, but half of Charleston would give an arm and a leg for a peep. I’ll have to say this about Clarissa, while she was at it she did a good job.” They mounted the steps to an exquisite eighteenth century portico. “Too bad she didn’t stay with old Mr. Redneck Tillson long enough to spend all his money and finish up the house. I swear, Beau ought to have this place declared a state historical site, but he never does anything about it. Too busy raising cattle and trying to keep his head above water.

  As they entered a dim hallway Rachel felt a rush of nostalgia for things ancient and beautiful; they matched her memories of the Goodbody mansion in Rittenhouse Square, built by her mother’s Quaker ancestors. Here was the same aura of elegant peace, of treasures protected for generations. The faint, airy scent of furniture wax, of wool and antique silk and linen and wood, of priceless hand-painted wallpaper and aging paint, was so evocative it was breathtaking. Bad as she felt—and she was trembling with nerves and fatigue—its beauty clutched at her.

  D’Arcy tugged at her arm. “Just look in here.”

  A paneled white door flung open revealed a formal parlor in pastel blue, gold, and white. The furnishings were eclectic, ranging from a Jacobean sideboard in oak holding Louis Quatorze gilt scon
ces and a collection of Staffordshire, to a pair of Sheraton chairs upholstered in faded sapphire velvet. “And in here,” D’Arcy said, opening sliding doors to reveal another room, “the library, but it’s really a study.”

  The room was masculine in feel. Crossed eighteenth century military sabers hung over the superb Adam mantel in white-painted wood above the brick fireplace at one end. The opposite wall was filled with framed diplomas of preceding generations from Yale and Harvard and the Citadel, Charleston’s famous military college known as the West Point of the South.

  The eighteenth century’s Age of Enlightenment’s reverence for balance and taste was reflected in age-mellowed rosewood wall paneling, and doors carved in a low relief of vines and trees. A handsome portrait of an early Carolina planter—perhaps a Beaumont ancestor in black satin. A Persian carpet with the rich red and deep blues of a true Hamadan covered that end of the room where a Victorian desk, incongruously enough, held an array of computer equipment.

  “Beau works here,” the blond woman explained. “Look.” Her hand touched some invisible part of the wall’s paneling and it swung back to reveal a tiny room with an Adam bed and a sweep of silk canopy drawn to a gilt crown suspended over it. An extravagantly decorated Viennese commode held a china washbasin and pitcher.

  “When the Beaumont men worked late on the rice crops they could sleep downstairs in here and not bother anybody,” D’Arcy said. “Beau doesn’t use it, he’s too damned big for that little sleigh bed. Clarissa didn’t like that little Maria Theresa commode either. I think that’s why she put it in the hideaway—that’s what they call this. But she didn’t make too many mistakes, honey, when she was buying things. She got rid of all that beat-up antebellum stuff most people hang on to. You know, they imported it from up North to begin with, and it was factory made even back in those days.

  They had come back out into the downstairs hall. Rachel passed a brass stand and quickly slipped the envelope with the money into it.

  “Hello, D’Arcy,” a woman’s husky voice said.

  Under the curving staircase there was a small door that apparently led to the back of the house. A woman was standing there as though she had just come out to see who it was. There was an impression of a bush of dark hair, sharp chin, white skin, and dark eyes that were not at all welcoming. The rest of the woman was sharp angles, elbows, legs, and seductive curves in tailored slacks and a green-knitted tank top that revealed her large breasts. The dim light caught the glitter of gold hoop earrings and an armful of clanking bracelets.

  “Hello, Darla Jean.” D’Arcy’s voice was cool. “Is my cousin Beau anywhere around?”

  The woman moved toward them, full of curiosity. “He’s gone to town to buy a pump. Who’s that with you?”

  “Rachel, this is Darla Jean.” D’Arcy’s soft voice held a distinct disapproving chill. “I guess you could say she just hangs around here, isn’t that what you do, Darla Jean? I declare, everytime I come here Darla Jean is just hanging around.” She took Rachel’s arm. “The dining room is a showplace, let’s go look at it. You know, Clarissa was dead set to put the house back the way it was in General Renee Beaumont’s time. General Renee fought with Francis Marion—you’ve heard of Marion the Swamp Fox during the Revolutionary War, haven’t you?” D’Arcy pointedly excluded the other woman as she moved away.

  Rachel glanced over her shoulder. She was painfully aware not only of Darla Jean’s avid stare, but the fact that at any moment Beau Tillson might return. “Isn’t it ... shouldn’t we be getting started?”

  But Darla Jean had followed them. “You run that farmers’ cooperative, don’t you? Ain’t you Miz Brinton?”

  At that moment Sissy appeared at the door under the stairs, carrying a plate with a plastic cover. “D’Arcy,” she announced, “look, Eulie’s given us some pecan pie! She just made pecan pie, D’Arcy!”

  “You can’t eat pecan pie,” D’Arcy shrieked, whirling on her. “Sissy, you know it’ll just raise hell with your spots!” She took advantage of the interruption to mutter in Rachel’s ear, “Dear Lord, let’s get out of here. I can’t stand it when Darla Jean’s around.”

  Outside, D’Arcy made a grimace of distaste. “She would have to be here this morning. He said he was going to get rid of her, but you can’t depend on a damned thing Beau says—he’s been saying that for months. Oh, where’s that girl?” D’Arcy went around the driver’s side of the big gleaming car and honked the horn several times. “You can’t get that brat sister of mine away from a place where there’s any food!”

  Rachel stood helplessly, aware only of noise and confusion and her aching head.

  “At least Darla Jean doesn’t have those two no-good brothers of hers hanging around,” D’Arcy went on, pressing down on the horn again. “I mean, they’re dirt. They say they’re stock-car racers up at Darlington, but they’re plain old moonshiners, honey. Murrells are trash, the whole tribe of them. And that means Darla Jean too. I bet Beau bought her those tacky clothes.”

  Rachel opened the door and slid into the backseat of the Lincoln, sinking against velvety soft gray cushions with a feeling that she could not stand any more of this terrible day.

  D’Arcy gave the horn a final earsplitting blast, then got into the driver’s seat. “Did you drop off your money all right? I don’t know why he keeps her around,” she grumbled. “I swear I don’t—slinking around like an old bitch dog warning everybody off her territory. But I tell you, she’s way out of Beau’s league, even if she does think she’s got squatter’s rights.”

  “Here,” Sissy said through the backseat window to Rachel as she thrust the plastic-covered plate at her. “Can you hold the pie, please? Eulie made sandwiches for us to eat going back. Watch your clothes, the plate’s sticky.”

  Rachel took the plate from the younger girl’s hands. Nothing made sense, as far as she was concerned, except that it was clear who Darla Jean was in Beau Tillson’s household. She was feeling sick. She turned her head away from the sudden warm, sugary smell of the pie she held.

  “It does look good, doesn’t it?” she murmured with an effort.

  Going to Charleston was not as mad as it seemed. Trying to persuade herself that she should ever come back to Draytonville was going to be much, much more difficult.

  Chapter Seven

  The Butler town house sat on Charleston’s curved esplanade known as the Battery—or as Rachel’s northern ears heard the drawling low-country speech, “the Bottry”—named for the pre-Civil War gun emplacements that had guarded the seaport city in the last century.

  From the widow’s walk on top of the Butlers’ wedding-cake style three-story house, excited members of the Butler and Drayton families had gathered on a warm spring day over a century ago to watch the bombardment of Ft. Sumter in Charleston harbor and the beginning of the great conflict which was to tear the union of states apart. The stair to the walk was no longer open, D’Arcy told Rachel regretfully, but every April twelfth it had been the custom for her father and some of his Charleston friends to commemorate the occasion with cocktails and war maps up there, an event that had only been suspended sometime in the mid 1970’s, when Rear Admiral Butler had assumed command of his Hawaii-based fleet.

  As children of the military, the Butler sisters had lived in many places around the world while their father pursued his distinguished career, but they were at home in Charleston now so that teenaged Sissy could attend the traditional Ashley Hall School for Girls. In fact the Butlers’ social life was, as D’Arcy pointed out, defined by not only tradition; but the city’s geography: their house stood in the select historic area of the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper rivers on the north and south, and by Prioleau and Calhoun Street on the east and west in the heart of Old Charleston. The famous Dock Street and Garden theaters were almost within walking distance, as well as several fine restaurants. A rather frenetic social schedule took the Butlers to the Charleston Yacht Club just south of Calhoun, the prestigious officers club at the nearb
y Charleston Navy Base, the St. Cecilia Society: Balls—where Sissy would make her debut in the coming year—volunteer fund-raising events for the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, the Opera Society, and Gian Carlo Menotti’s Festival of Two Worlds, which alternated between Spoleto, Italy, and the port city. For Sissy’s subdebutante agenda there were dances at the Citadel, the South Carolina military college.

  “It’s a rat race, honey,” D’Arcy confided to Rachel as they put Rachel’s things away in an antebellum walnut wardrobe in a guest bedroom on the second floor of the vast house. “If you’re going to keep up with Charleston society, you find your whole damned life is sacrificed to it. In the old days the only way you could drop out was if you were pregnant. But lordy, that was because you couldn’t even go out of the house and let yourself be seen in that ‘disgusting’ condition.”

  Rachel’s spacious bedroom, filled with graceful antebellum furnishings of the last century, opened out onto a large connecting veranda overlooking the Butlers’ back property, including old slave quarters that had been turned into a garage. The two women went outside to enjoy the beautiful spring day and the view of Charleston’s famous walled gardens.

  “I just love it here,” D’Arcy declared, resting her elbows on the veranda railing and looking down at the tops of lush bougainvillea vines and sago palms protected by the high walls. “Of course, Charleston is my home place. I’m a dyed in the wool rice eater, but even I have to admit it’s not the easiest place to know. It is the world’s most reclusive society, honey—nothing but old money here, and the cardinal sin is to show off too much of it and get your name in the papers. Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive are dirty words around here—Old Charlestonians wouldn’t be caught dead in such tacky places!”

  Rachel had to smile. “Neither would Old Philadelphians.”

  “Oh, sugar, I forgot, but then you know what I mean. Old money is awfully quiet. I think Charleston invented genteel snobbery. Some people spend all their lives trying to get on the St. Cecilia list, and even they have to come from places like Columbia or Richmond or something really Confederate. But you can be poor as a church mouse and still get into the St. Cecilia Ball if you’re a Drayton or a Pinckney or a Rhett. There’s always somebody in the old families who will put up the money for a poverty-stricken little cousin to make her debut.”