Ms. Valeria was studying her tea while Hester launched into a recitation about how long the Lees had been here and how much Valeria knew about all that rich and immensely interesting history. She was speaking almost as if her daughter were either somewhere else or an item being offered for sale at an auction. I took it all on board, slowly recognizing that Hester was, in a way, shopping her daughter to the new bachelor in the neighborhood. I almost laughed when I figured it out, until I caught a subtle warning glance from Valeria. I realized then that I really was a player in a carefully staged scene and that Valeria expected me to do my duty and humor the old lady. Patience Johnson had retired to the main hallway, where she sat in a hall chair, hands crossed in her lap, the servant in waiting. How does she do it? I wondered.
"I look forward to learning a great deal from Ms. Valeria," I said when Hester finally ran out of steam. "Carol Pollard has warned me that the restoration project will take some time, years probably."
"Do you already know what you want to do with the house?"
"Well, safety issues first, wiring, plumbing, that sort of thing. Then a repaint inside, especially those ceilings with all the occult artwork. I want to restore it to contemporary livability without hurting the historical aspects. Like I said, it'll take years, probably."
Hester nodded slowly. Suddenly she looked preoccupied.
"It took more than a few years to get it to where it is," Valeria said, rejoining the conversation at last. "Some of them more difficult than others."
"Yes, I can imagine," I said. "One of the first things I wish to do is to restore that cemetery up by the river bridge. I think those folks deserve a little more respect than an empty field."
"Rubbish," declared Hester. "They failed in their duty. They allowed some Georgia riffraff to steal the Confederate government's historical legacy. They did not fire a single shot. They are buried exactly as they should be, as discards, to be summarily forgotten."
"Mother," Valeria said gently, "Oak Grove will be Mr. Richter's to do with as he sees fit. We must trust in his good judgment now."
Hester gave me a semistony look. "I would hope that good judgment is indeed the governing rule," she said. "The weight of Lee family history will be sitting squarely on your shoulders, young man."
"Really."
"Yes, really. In my opinion, you will hold that property in trust, and if the need arises, the Lees in this county can make your ownership of it a tenuous matter indeed."
"In trust? I thought it was going to be in fee simple absolute. At least that's what the deed's going to say."
There was a moment of strained silence. Hester fixed me with a stare that would have done an eagle proud.
"A deed, sir," she said slowly, "is only as good as the provenance of the title. The title to that property is a matter of complex history."
"I don't doubt that, Ms. Hester," I said. "That's why I'm having an attorney do a complex title search, all the way back to just before the carpetbagger era."
"Yes," she said. "So we understand. Whatley Lee, if I'm not mistaken?"
"Right."
"He is a cousin, sir."
"A good title search lawyer, I'm told. An officer of the court, and a man of principle. Is that the Whatley Lee we're talking about?"
"Without doubt, Mr. Richter," she said, putting down her teacup. She seemed suddenly tired of all the subtext. I wasn't backing down, and I think she'd decided to try another tack at another time. Valeria, looking concerned now, switched the conversation over to the farmland across the street and what might be done with it. I asked Hester how she rented out her lands, and off we went, veering quite nicely away from the contentious subject of how the new guy was going to behave, or not. At precisely thirty minutes, the call was over.
"It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Richter," Hester said. "Please do proceed conservatively in your endeavors to restore Oak Grove. Some parts of that estate would be better left alone. Not everything that happened there brought honor to the families involved."
I stood up and replaced my teacup and saucer on the tray as gently as I could, hoping they didn't notice that most of the tea was still on board. "A pleasure and an honor to meet you, Ms. Hester," I said, with a bow of my head. "Please be assured that I will not do anything over there to cause either the neighbors or the history to be distressed."
"Ms. Valeria will see you to the door, then, Mr. Richter," she said and then looked away and sipped her tea.
Dismissed, soldier.
We walked toward Mrs. Johnson, who had moved to the massive front door and opened it. She was standing to one side, staring into the middle distance, which I guessed was supposed to make her invisible.
"Thank you ever so much for joining us, Mr. Richter," Valeria said when we reached the door. I was struck again by her complete poise and extraordinary posture, as if nothing could ever shake her. I considered coming out of character to ask her what the hell that had all been about, but with Mrs. Johnson right there, I just murmured some more inane your-obedient-servant pleasantries and took my leave. The door shut behind me like a vault door, softly but with definite authority.
As I walked back to the stone cottage I marveled at how easily I had slipped into their stilted ways of speech and all the overdone formality. Ms. Hester had seemed to be sincerely in character, but I wondered if Valeria might not be on some soothing substance. Laudanum came to mind.
The mutts seemed glad to see me when I got back from high tea. Kitty's nose was still swollen, but Frick's had come down to a small furry clot. Frack thought they were both cowards to have left the barn with the cat still alive. Frack, on the other hand, had not met said cat.
I made a drink to wash the thin taste of tea out of my mouth and went out onto the porch overlooking the pond to watch the sun go down. There were decisions to be made. I really didn't feel like running. I'd bought this place to get out of the city and start a new phase in my life, however undefined that might be. I was looking forward to doing something different, and also something that would result in a tangible achievement, something beyond the usually hollow victory over assorted bad guys. Now here came some sumbitch with a lethal grudge, two powerful Dobermans, and a desire to play Most Dangerous Game.
So far he'd held the initiative, and if he'd taken the time to train two attack dogs, he'd also taken the time to plan this thing out. The one physical factor that was new to both of us was Glory's End. He couldn't know that ground any better than I did. Great. I guessed that we'd flounder around out there on seven hundred acres until we collided.
An evening breeze stirred all the willows around the pond. They looked like a circle of pale green hula dancers out there as the shadows lengthened over Laurel Grove. I heard an engine start up behind the big house, run for a minute, and then shut down. Cubby must have achieved a victory over whatever it was plaguing the tractor.
I made my decision: Screw it. I wouldn't run. I'd get Tony and Pardee to come out here and camp out in the cottage with me, while Horace put his nose to the ground. Tomorrow I would go out to the county airfield and hire a plane. If my stalker was serious about getting it on out here, I didn't have time to scout all of Glory's End on foot, but from a small plane, I could assemble a collage of aerial pictures in an hour or so. Now I needed to make a list-weapons, survival gear, personal protection vests, tactical comms, and perhaps some even bigger perspective pictures from Google Earth.
"C'mon, fuzz balls," I said. "Don't just lie there and shed. We've got work to do."
From four thousand feet, Glory's End still looked like a green rectangle with three large ripples in it. The one on the western edge was the ridge above the old rail line where the major kept his morning coffee camp. The ridge in the middle contained the house and outbuildings, and the last one, on the eastern side, overlooked croplands on both sides as well as the flooded quarry. The Dan River showed a slate color on the northern edge, and the Laurel Grove plantation extended along the two-lane, overlapping my property by a few miles on each side. I could see the millpond but not the cottage.