Ashton remembered this part of the road. Something dried her throat. "Slow down, driver. That's the turn ahead."
Herrington fastened the brass latch on the old leather case containing all the papers. He straightened his cravat as the barouche turned up the long lane. Through the cloudy black of the veil Ashton lowered over her eyes, she saw the raw yellow framing of the new Mont Royal.
Why — the house was huge!
All the better.
"I have the honor to present you with these documents," Favor Herrington said. "Bill of sale, closing statement, deed — and this, to which you'll want to pay special attention."
Ashton's lawyer had expected to find the buxom mulatto woman, to whom he was addressing his remarks. But he hadn't anticipated the presence of the man with powerful hands and weathered skin who limped out in his blue nightshirt as Madeline confronted the visitors on the shady lawn. Nor did Herrington know who the pert young woman with pale blond hair was. Perhaps the man's companion.
The barouche stood nearby. The two black men in livery patted and soothed the white horses. Charles warily watched the woman sitting motionless in the rear seat. She wore burgundy velvet and a heavy black veil. There was something forbidding about her. Something that reminded him of — what?
With a stunned expression, Madeline took the blue-covered document Herrington had presented last. "That is an eviction order," the lawyer said pleasantly. "Yesterday, at the Palmetto Bank, the mortgage on Mont Royal plantation was liquidated and title to the property was sold to my client." He indicated the veiled woman.
Madeline shot Charles a bewildered look. She turned over page after page of finely inscribed clauses. She found a name. "Mrs. W. P. Fenway. I don't know any Mrs. Fenway."
"Why, my dear, you most certainly do," said the woman in the barouche. She wore mauve gloves, and the little finger of each was elevated slightly. Her hands were graceful as floating birds as she lifted the veil.
"I never expected to lay eyes on you, Cousin Charles." Ashton stood on the coarse grass near the whitewashed house. Spite bubbled in her dark eyes. "Wherever have you been all these years? You look ever so much older."
He could say the same about her. Still, her beauty remained undimmed, almost perfect. Not much of a surprise in that. He could remember her long ago, avoiding the sunshine, fussing for hours, alone, before she appeared in a new party dress. Her looks had always counted for a lot. Evidently they still did. It was her eyes that gave away the changes wrought by time. The haughty, hard eyes. Where had she been? What had she seen and done?
"What do you want here?" Madeline asked, still recovering from the moment the rising veil had revealed the visitor's face.
"Mont Royal is all," Ashton said with a vicious flirt of her eyes. "It's my family's land. Main land. It isn't yours. Your husband, my brother, drove me off the property. I always swore I'd come back and do the same. Or worse."
"Ashton, for God's sake — Orry's been dead over four years."
"So I was informed. Pity." She stepped up on the worn pine stoop, peered inside the house. "How primitive. One of the first things I must do is install a Fenway piano in the new house. You find them in all the best parlors."
Willa caught her breath. "That's what I was trying to remember. Fenway pianos. Sam bought a Fenway for the theater last Christmas."
"Yes, that's my husband's company. And it's expanding ever so fast. Success breeds success, don't you agree?"
Madeline looked dazed. As Charles took the blue-covered document from her, she said, "God, what is happening?"
"Why, it couldn't be simpler, dear," Ashton trilled. "I have bought this entire place."
"From Cooper?" Madeline asked, disbelieving.
"Yes indeed, and you needn't sound so surprised, either. It's true that I made the purchase anonymously. I mean, I didn't appear for the closing, or at any other time, so my dear brother doesn't know that Mrs. Willard Fenway is also his not-so-loving sister. I suppose he'll be a mite exercised about the deception when he finds out. But I don't imagine he'll regret the sale. He got a fine price, and besides, I understand he's been very unhappy about your stewardship here — and your politics. You refused to behave like a respectable white woman. Instead, you flaunted your nigger school. Well, the only way Cooper could get out of his bargain with you was to sell. I'm told he also had another good reason for doing it. You helped his daughter run away and marry some carpetbagger. But then you and Orry always were a crazy, self-righteous pair. Mr. Dawkins says Charleston can't wait to see you gone. Neither can I."
In the silence, the hatred was almost palpable. Ashton swept her eyes across the exposed beams of the new house. "Willard and I have discussed a winter residence in a climate gentler than Chicago's. This should be ideal."
Willa unthinkingly dug her fingers into Charles's arm. She didn't understand all the circumstances behind the confrontation but she recognized its dire nature. There was noise from the foot of the slope leading down to the Ashley: Gus, chasing half a dozen geese kept by a freedman's wife.
Madeline took a long breath. "Ashton, I don't have any home but this one. I beg you —"
"Beg? How charming. How very quaint. It must be a new experience for you."
Rage colored Madeline's face suddenly. "You don't know what you've taken on, buying this plantation. Mont Royal isn't what it was when you lived here — a lazy, sheltered domain. It's a complex business. Part of a hard, complex world. We don't grow any more rice than we can eat. We're entirely dependent on the sawmill, and on the developers of the phosphate fields. Almost forty men live here. Free men, with families. They work so they can have homes, and schooling for their children. You don't want the responsibility for them —"
"Madeline, sweet, I've already bought Mont Royal. So all of this is just chatter."
"No. You've got to take care of those people."
"A bunch of niggers? Oh, fie," Ashton said, shrugging. "The black Republicans just stirred them up so they want what they aren't fit to have. My poor first husband James wasn't much, but he was right about the worthlessness of niggers. They'll get no special favors from me. They'll work all day for a cup and a crust or they can hike down the road and take their trashy litters of young with them."
"Ashton — please. Show a little humanity."
"Humanity?" she shrilled, no longer smiling. "Oh, I'm afraid not. My humanity went flying away the day your damn husband banished me from my birthplace. I swore I'd come back, and I have. Now it's you who's banished — and damned good riddance, too."
Silence again. Madeline stared at Charles, who raised the blue-covered eviction order, which he'd examined for the proper signatures of court officials. They were all there.
"There's no date on this," he said. "How long have we got?"
Sweet-eyed, Ashton purred, "Why, let's see. I do want to take possession before I return to Chicago, which I must do soon. My husband Willard's an older gentleman, you see. He counts on me for companionship. Of course I don't want to be uncharitable. I do consider myself a sensitive Christian person. Today is —" She sighed. "Mr. Herrington?"
"It's Friday, Mrs. Fenway. All day. Yes, ma'am."
"Then shall we say this same hour next Friday? I'll expect you and all your, ah, boarders to be packed for departure at that time, Madeline. 'Less, of course, you choose to stay and work for me like any other nigger."