"Oh, Max." Annie's voice broke. "We have to find her."
11:15 A.M., SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1970
Chapter 13.
Charlotte gazed complacently at the gilt framed oval mirror that hung in the hallway near the door to the study. Such a lovely mirror, though the glass now was smoky with age. There was a story that a handsome British officer had given it to the mistress, Mary Tarrant. She'd accepted with many pretty protestations of appreciation and accepted from him also a pass through the British lines, which she used to smuggle quinine to her husband in a prisoner-of-war camp. Sometimes Charlotte felt that she glimpsed another face there, brown hair peeping from beneath a dainty lace cap, high cheekbones, and a generous mouth. Charlotte smiled at her fancy and nodded in satisfaction at her own reflection, her hair drawn back in a smooth chignon, just the trace of pale pink lipstick, no other makeup. The Judge admired restraint. Charlotte's glance swept the hallway, the glistening heart pine flooring, the Chinese print wallpaper, the magnificent mahogany stairway, the marble bust of Homer on a black oak pedestal. The bust of Homer had been brought home from Athens when Nathaniel and Rachel honeymooned there. She brushed her finger over the cool stone. Tarrant House. She belonged here. She and the Judge held the same values. Not like Julia. Julia didn't understand the importance of family. Julia didn't appreciate continuity, the thrill of pouring tea from a china service brought from London for Christmas in 1762. Julia didn't deserve to be mistress of Tarrant House. With a final approving look—the pale-blue chambray of her dress was perfect—Charlotte turned toward the study.
The wail of the sirens and the ring of the telephone registered at almost the same time in Annie's sleep-numbed consciousness. She fought to wake from the bone-deep sleep of mental and emotional exhaustion.
The telephone shrilled again. The siren's cry became a shriek.
Annie came flailing out of bed and banged her knee intc the chaise longue. Max rolled out from his side and knocked over a chair.
Max flicked the light switch just as Annie's pawing hands found the telephone.
She knew before she lifted the receiver that something terrible had happened. Good news doesn't come over the telephone in the middle of the night.
"Come at once." There was both anger and chagrin in Miss Dora's pronouncement. "A fire at Tarrant House." And the connection was broken.
Annie stumbled over a fire hose.
"Lady, get out of the way!"
"This way, Annie." Max held her elbow. They backtracked, skirting the far side of the two fire engines, then cut across the street to the west side of Tarrant House.
Flames danced against the night sky. Smoke billowed high. "Max!" Annie strained to see. "It doesn't look like it's the house. It's behind the house."
When they reached the garages, the site of the fire was clear. Straight ahead, past an herb garden and a huge rose trellis and a garden shed was yet another structure and it was afire.
Whitney and Charlotte Tarrant stood beside the garages. Whitney gripped his wife's arm tightly. "Charlotte, you can't go in. You can't! God, look at it—"
Flames wreathed the wooden structure. Sparks swirled upward, creating whirling plumes of light. Flames leapt and danced as boards crashed. Smoke eddied, darker than the night.
Annie could feel the heat from the flames.
"It's a total loss." Whitney coughed as a wave of smoke swept them.
In the fitful light from the leaping flames and the backwash of light spilling from the house, Charlotte's face was dead-white and stricken. She was too distraught to realize that the tasseled tie of her peach-silk robe dragged on the ground and that her silk gown gaped.
"The papers, the family papers," she cried, her voice hoarse with despair. "The records! Whitney, do something! They must save the papers. The diaries." She struggled to be free. "Let's tell them George might be in there," she said feverishly. "Then they'll have to go in, won't they? We could say those are the servants' quarters. They were once. How will they know any different?"
"Don't be absurd, Charlotte." Whitney shook her. "George?" asked Annie.
"The gardener," Max explained. "His father was the butler—"
Miss Dora joined them, looking more witchlike than ever in the wavering firelight. "And Sam's father before him and his father—they used to live there. Charlotte remodeled the whole shebang, turned it into the Tarrant House Museum." The old lady pointed with her cane. "Slave quarters once. Call 'em dependencies now." A dry wheeze might have been sardonic laughter. "Pretty words don't make pretty deeds." Miss Dora's silver hair shimmered in the glow from the flames. She stared at the fire-engulfed structure, her wizened face grim and thoughtful.
Whitney turned and glared at the three of them. His gaze fastened on Annie and Max. "This is private property—"
Miss Dora waggled her cane. "Here at my request, Whitney."
A wall collapsed. Sparks spewed skyward.
"The papers," Charlotte moaned. She sagged against her husband. "Oh, God." It was a heartbroken wail. "My thimble collection."
"The papers." Miss Dora's voice was speculative. "Inclusive, weren't they, Charlotte?"
Charlotte half-turned. "Oh, Aunt Dora, it's a tragedy, a tragedy! Mary's diaries, the letters she received from her husband from the English prison, the records of the baptisms and burials, gone, all gone."
"But more than that," Miss Dora mused. "You saved everything from this century, too, didn't you, because someday, God forbid, they'll be writing about us. All of Augustus's papers. And I suspect, Amanda's too."
Charlotte's eyes flared. Whitney's head jerked toward the old woman.
In the silence that fell on the small group, the sound of the fire intruded, the crackle, hiss, and roar, the brusque calls of the firemen, the thump of their running feet, the crash of falling timbers.
Miss Dora looked from Charlotte to Whitney, then toward the flickering flames. "A murderer moved in the quiet of this night to search out and destroy. But I shall prevail."
Annie didn't know which was most ominous, the voracious