As she drew back from the kiss she murmured, “Well, she knows, she just doesn’t know it’s me. Funny, I like Lulu. I call her most every morning. I guess she’s my best friend, but I don’t like her as your wife and I never did. I couldn’t get it, know what I mean? You can sometimes see a couple and know why they’re together. Like Harry and Fair when they were together. Or Susan and Ned—that’s a good pair—but I never felt the heat, I guess you’d say, between Lulu and you. I don’t really feel like I’m betraying her. I feel like I’m liberating her. She deserves the heat. She needs the right man for her—you’re the right man for me.”
He kissed her again and wished the clock weren’t ticking so loudly. “Ansley, I can’t live without you. You know that. I’ll never be as rich as Warren, but I’m not poor. I work hard.”
Her voice low, she brushed his cheek with her lips as she said, “And I want to make sure you don’t join the ranks of the nouveau pauvre. I don’t want your wife to take you to the cleaners. Give me a little time. I’ll think of something or someone.” She leapt out of her chair. “Oh, no!”
“What?” He hurried to her side.
Ansley pointed out the kitchen window. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker merrily raced to the stable. “Harry can’t be far behind, and she’s no dummy.”
“Damn!” Samson ran his hands through his thick hair.
“If you slip out the front door I’ll go out to the stable and head her off. Hurry!” She kissed him quickly. She could hear the heels of his shoes as he strode across the hardwood floors to the front door. Ansley headed for the back screen door.
Harry, much slower than her four-footed companions, had just reached the family cemetery on the hill. Ansley made it to the stable before Harry saw her.
“What’s she doing in Blair’s house?” Tucker asked.
Mrs. Murphy paused to observe Ansley. “High color. She’s het up about something and we know she’s not stealing the silver. She’s got too much of her own.”
“What if she’s a kleptomaniac?” Tucker cocked her head as Ansley walked toward them.
“Nah. But give her a sniff anyway.”
“Hi there, Mrs. Murphy. You too, Tucker,” Ansley called to the animals.
“Ansley, what are you up to?” Tucker asked as she poked her nose toward Ansley’s ankles.
Ansley waved at Harry, who waved back. She reached down to scratch Tucker’s big ears.
“Hi, how nice to find you here.” Harry diplomatically smiled.
“Warren sent me over to look at Blair’s spider-wheel tedder. Says he wants one and maybe Blair will sell it.”
A spider-wheel tedder turns hay for drying and can row up two swathes into one for baling. Three or four small metal wheels that resemble spiderwebs are pulled by a tractor.
“Thought you all rolled up your hay.”
“Warren says he’s tired of looking at huge rolls of shredded wheat in the fields and the middle of them is always wasted. He wants to go back to baling.”
“Be a while.” Harry noted the season.
Ansley lowered her voice. “He’s already planning Thanksgiving dinner for the family. I think it’s how the grief is taking him. You know, if he plans everything, then nothing can go wrong, he can control reality—although you’d think he would have had enough of that with his father.”
“It will take time.” Harry knew. She had lost both her parents some years before.
Mrs. Murphy, on her haunches, got up and trotted off toward the house. “She’s lying.”
“Got that right.” The dog followed, her ears sweeping back for a moment. “Let’s nose around.”
The two animals reached the back door. Tucker, nose straight to the ground, sniffed intently. Mrs. Murphy relied on her eyes as much as her nose.
Tucker picked up the scent easily. “Samson Coles.”
“So that’s it.” Mrs. Murphy walked between the tulips. She loved feeling the stems brush against her fur. “She must really be bored.”
27
The quiet at Eagle’s Rest proved unnerving. Ansley regretted saying how much she loathed the loud music the boys played. Although cacophonous, it was preferable to silence.
Seven in the evening usually meant each son was in his room studying. How Breton and Stuart could study with that wall of reverberating sound fascinated her. They used to compete in decibel levels with the various bands. Finally she settled that by declaring that during the first hour of study time, from six to seven, Stuart could play his music. Breton’s choice won out between seven and eight.
Both she and Warren policed what they called study hall. Breton and Stuart made good grades, but Ansley felt they needed to know how important their schoolwork was to their parents, hence the policing. She told them frequently, “We have our jobs to do, you have your schoolwork.”
Unable, at last, to bear the silence, Ansley climbed the curving stairway to the upstairs hall. She peeked in Breton’s room. She walked down to Stuart’s. Her older son sat at his desk. Breton, cross-legged, perched on Stuart’s bed. Breton’s eyes were red. Ansley knew not to call attention to that.
“Hey, guys.”
“Hi, Mom.” They replied in unison.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing.” Again in unison.
“Oh.” She paused. “Kind of funny not to have Big Daddy yelling about your music, huh?”
“Yeah,” Stuart agreed.
“He’s never coming back.” Breton had a catch in his breath. “I can’t believe he’s never coming back. At first it was like he was on vacation, you know?”
“I know,” Ansley commiserated.
Stuart sat upright, a change from his normal slouch. “Remember the times we used to recite our heritage?” He imitated his grandfather’s voice. “The first Randolph to set foot in the New World was a crony of Sir Walter Raleigh’s. He returned to the old country. His son, emboldened by stories of the New World, came over in 1632, and thus our line began on this side of the Atlantic. He brought his bride, Jemima Hessletine. Their firstborn, Nancy Randolph, died that winter of 1634, aged six months. The second born, Raleigh Randolph, survived. We descend from this son.”
Ansley, amazed, gasped. “Word for word.”
“Mom, we heard it, seems like every day.” Stuart half smiled.
“Yeah. Wish I could hear him again and—and I hate all that genealogy stuff.” Breton’s eyes welled up again. “Who cares?”
Ansley sat next to Breton, putting her arm around his shoulders. He seemed bigger the last time she hugged him. “Honey, when you get older, you’ll appreciate these things.”
“Why is it so important to everyone?” Breton asked innocently.
“To be wellborn is an advantage in this life. It opens many doors. Life’s hard enough as it is, Breton, so be thankful for the blessing.”
“Go to Montana,” Stuart advised. “No one cares there. Probably why Big Daddy never liked the West. He couldn’t lord it over everybody.”
Ansley sighed. “Wesley liked to be the biggest frog in the pond.”
“Mom, do you care about that bloodline stuff?” Breton turned to face his mother.
“Let’s just say I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”
They digested this, then Breton asked another question. “Mom, is it always like this when someone dies?”
“When it’s someone you love, it is.”
28
Medley Orion left Monticello in the dispersal after Thomas Jefferson’s death in 1826. Kimball burned up tank after tank of gas as he drove down the winding county roads in search of genealogies, slave records, anything that might give him a clue. A few references to Medley’s dressmaking skills surfaced in the well-preserved diaries of Tinton Venable.