mad as everything. She said he was making fun of the family, and Mr. Ross kept insisting he thought it was a lovely shield, very appropriate, probably the very name Tarrant came from tarantula, and that made her madder still." She chuckled, then slowly the laughter died away. "And not two weeks later, he was lying dead in his grave in St. Michael's. Just a boy."
Annie felt a prickle of horror: Ross Tarrant, having fun with his heritage and so soon to sacrifice himself for his family's honor.
"The Family." Annie shivered though the swath of sunlight spilling from the east window touched her with warmth. She drank more of the strong, hot, chicory-flavored coffee. "Tell me about the Judge."
"Mr. Augustus." If there was no great warmth in Lucy Jane's voice, there was ungrudging respect. The Judge apparently had earned great respect. Had anyone ever loved him? "He came to dinner every Sunday with his parents when I first came to Tarrant House. After his folks died, that's when Mr. Augustus and Mrs. Amanda moved in with their two little boys. Mr. Ross was born there. He was such a beautiful baby, blond curls and blue eyes, and always happy. Mr. Augustus was real strict with the boys. He expected them to do just so. I know it's a fact—I raised three boys and a girl—you have to expect a lot from children if they're to grow up right. But somehow, the Judge expected—" Her eyes were troubled. "—my heart told me he expected more than mortal boys could give. Even Mr. Ross. I don't know if I can rightly explain. I always thought the Judge never saw them—Milam and Whitney and Ross—as flesh-and-blood people. He saw them as . . . Tarrants."
"What else would you expect?" Annie asked.
The older woman nodded impatiently. "Yes. But they were Milam and Whitney and Ross, too. They had to pick their
own way. That's it," she said firmly, "that's where it all went wrong. He never could see any way to be but the way the Judge believed a Tarrant should be—someone important and proper, the kind of men Chastain would look up to. That was real important to the Judge, to be looked up to."
Annie thought of the photograph of the Judge on the bench. The photographer, of course, had stood in the well of the courtroom, shooting up.
A stern judge. A demanding father.
"You see," Lucy Jane reflected, "Mr. Whitney, he couldn't quite do the things the Judge wanted and so he got in the habit of getting his friends to do his schoolwork for him. And his mamma, she protected him when the school found out and called. Miz Amanda never told the Judge. And once, when Mr. Whitney was in law school, there was trouble about a paper. I know his mamma went and talked to the dean and it all worked out. I think it was the next year that Mr. Harmon —that was Miz Amanda's daddy—he gave a big scholarship to the school." Lucy Jane's smile was dry. "You know how folks can work things around in their minds sometimes to where what happened didn't happen quite the way it was thought and so everything turns out all right."
Annie knew. It wasn't only beauty that depended upon the eye of the beholder. Funny how money could magically alter circumstances.
"Then when Mr. Whitney married, he picked a girl he thought the Judge would like, 'cause she cared so much about the old times and families and who married who. Miz Charlotte"—the cool, thoughtful eyes betrayed no emotion—"she cares more for dead-and-gone people than she does people here today. That's why Miss Harriet ran away. Miz Charlotte never would pay the child any mind. And Mr. Whitney, he was too busy with horses and golf and cards to notice. And when Miss Harriet acted up worse and worse, they just packed her off to school, and one day, when the school wrote and said she'd run away from there, Miz Charlotte was so busy with one of her history groups, she hardly took it in. Mr. Whitney sent Miss Harriet money when she took up living out in California eventhough Miz Charlotte said they shouldn't have anything to do with her until she started acting like a Tarrant should."
Would the Judge have been pleased with his daughter-in-law's total acceptance of Tarrant mores? Had he been pleased long years ago?
"How did Mrs. Charlotte and the Judge get along?" Annie pictured two faces, the lean, harsh, ascetic face of the man on the bench, the earnest, self-satisfied face of Charlotte.
Lucy Jane gave a mirthless chuckle. "Thing about the Judge, he was no fool. Ever. He saw through Miz Charlotte easy as pie, the way she simpered up to him, always wanting to talk about the Family and how much it meant to her and Mr. Whitney. The Judge, he knew Mr. Whitney didn't care a fig about the family. All Mr. Whitney ever wanted was to get along."
"And Milam?" Annie asked.
"Mr. Milam. He's a case, he is." But there was no admiring tone in her voice as there had been for Ross. "Lucky thing for him the Judge didn't live to see how he's turned out." She rose gracefully and brought the coffeepot to refill Annie's cup. "Course, it's plain as the nose on your face what Mr. Milam's up to. He wants to make people mad. Every time somebody here in town gets huffy over the way Mr. Milam acts or dresses, Mr. Milam's pleased as punch. One more time he's thumbing his nose at his daddy. If all he wanted was to be an artist and live like some artists do, he could pack up and go where folks like that is a dime a dozen. But that isn't what Mr. Milam wants." She sipped her coffee. "Even after all these years, Mr. Milam's angry with the Judge." She looked at the mantel and another set of photographs. "Sometimes young people get jealous when they see people in big houses having everything, but I always told my children that living in a big house can be a hard row to hoe."
Annie was struck not only by her wisdom but by the undercurrent of sympathy in Lucy Jane's voice. Annie was willing to bet few persons exhibited such charity toward Milam Tarrant, who seemed to have a genius for raising hackles.