“Which one? She has so many.” Lucinda’s frosted pageboy shimmied as she tossed her head. Little droplets spun off the blunt ends of her hair.
“Monticello.”
“Oh, yes. Samson was in Richmond, so he couldn’t attend. Ansley and Warren Randolph were there. Wesley too. Carys, Eppes, oh, I can’t remember.” Lucinda displayed little enthusiasm for the topic.
Miranda puffed in the back door. “I’ve got lunch.” She saw Larry and Lucinda. “Hello there. I’m buying water wings if this keeps up.”
“You’ve already got angel wings.” Larry beamed.
“Hush, now.” Mrs. H. blushed.
“What’d she do?” Mrs. Murphy wanted to know.
“What’d she do?” Lucinda echoed the cat.
“She’s been visiting the terminally ill children down at the hospital and she’s organized her church folks to join in.”
“Larry, I do it because I want to be useful. Don’t fuss over me.” Mrs. Hogendobber meant it, but being human, she also enjoyed the approval.
A loud meow at the back diverted the slightly overweight lady’s attention, and she opened the door. A wet, definitely overweight Pewter straggled in. The cat and human oddly mirrored each other.
“Fat mouse! Fat mouse!” Mrs. Murphy taunted the gray cat.
“What does that man do over there? Force-feed her?” Lucinda stared at the cat.
“It’s all her own work.” Mrs. Murphy’s meow carried her dry wit.
“Shut up. If I had as many acres to run around as you do, I’d be slender too,” Pewter spat out.
“You’d sit in a trance in front of the refrigerator door, waiting for it to open. Open Sesame.” The tiger’s voice was musical.
“You two are being ugly.” Tucker padded over to the front door and sniffed Lucinda’s umbrella. She smelled the faint hint of oregano on the handle. Lucinda must have been cooking before she headed to the P.O.
Lucinda sauntered over to her postbox, opened it with the round brass key, and pulled out envelopes. She sorted them at the ledge along one side of the front room. The flutter of mail hitting the wastebasket drew Larry’s attention.
Mrs. Hogendobber also observed Lucinda’s filing system. “You’re smart, Lucinda. Don’t even open the envelopes.”
“I have enough bills to pay. I’m not going to answer a form letter appealing for money. If a charity wants money, they can damn well ask me in person.” She gathered up what was left of her mail, picked up her umbrella, and pushed open the door. She forgot to say good-bye.
“She’s not doing too good, is she?” Harry blurted out.
Larry shook his head. “I can sometimes heal the body. Can’t do much for the heart.”
“She’s not the first woman whose husband has had an affair. I ought to know.” Harry watched Lucinda Coles open her car door, hop in while holding the umbrella out, then shake the umbrella, throw it over the back seat of the Grand Wagoneer, slam the door, and drive off.
“She’s from another generation, Mary Minor Haristeen. ‘Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for God will judge the immoral and adulterous.’ Hebrews 13:4.”
“I’m going to let you girls fight this one out.” Larry slapped his porkpie hat back on his head and left. What he knew that he didn’t tell them was with whom Samson Coles was carrying on his affair.
“Miranda, are you implying that my generation does not honor the vows of marriage? That just frosts me!” Harry shoved a mail cart. It clattered across the floor, the canvas swaying a bit.
“I said no such thing, Missy. Now, you just calm yourself. She’s older than you by a good fifteen years. A woman in middle age has fears you can’t understand but you will—you will. Lucinda Payne was raised to be an ornament. She lives in a world of charities, luncheons with the girls, and black-tie fund-raisers. You work. You expect to work, and if you marry again your life isn’t going to change but so much. Of course you honored your marriage vows. The pity is that Fair Haristeen didn’t.”
“I kept remembering what Susan used to say about Ned. He’d make her so mad she’d say, ‘Divorce, never. Murder, yes.’ There were a few vile moments when I wonder how I managed not to kill Fair. They passed. I don’t think he could help it. We married too young.”
“Too young? You married Fair the summer he graduated from Auburn Veterinary College. In my day you would have been an old maid at that age. You were twenty-four, as I recall.”
“Memory like a wizard.” Harry smiled, then sighed. “I guess I know what you mean about Lucinda. It’s sad really.”
“For her it’s a tragedy.”
“Humans take marriage too seriously.” Pewter licked her paw and began smoothing down her fur. “My mother used to say, ‘Don’t worry about tomcats. There’s one coming around every corner like a streetcar.’ ”
“Your mother lived to a ripe old age, so she must have known something,” Mrs. Murphy recalled.
“Maybe Lucinda should go to a therapist or something,” Harry thought out loud.
“She ought to try her minister first.” Mrs. Hogendobber walked over to the window and watched the huge raindrops splash on the brick walkway.
“You know what I can’t figure?” Harry joined her.
“What?”
“Who in the world would want Samson Coles?”
6
The steady rain played havoc with Kimball’s work. His staff stretched a bright blue plastic sheet onto four poles which helped keep off the worst of the rain, but it trickled down into the earthen pit as they had cut down a good five feet.
A young German woman, Heike Holtz, carefully brushed away the soil. Her knees were mud-soaked, her hands also, but she didn’t care. She’d come to America specifically to work with Kimball Haynes. Her long-range goal was to return to Germany and begin similar excavations and reconstruction at Sans Souci. Since this beautiful palace was in Potsdam, in the former East Germany, she suffered few illusions about raising money or generating interest for the task. But she was sure that sooner or later her countrymen would try to save what they could before it fell down about their ears. As an archaeologist, she deplored the Russians’ callous disregard for the majority of the fabulous architecture under their control. At least they had preserved the Kremlin. As to how they treated her people, she wisely kept silent. Americans, so fortunate for the most part, would never understand that kind of systematic oppression.
“Heike, go on and take a break. You’ve been in this chill since early this morning.” Kimball’s light blue eyes radiated sympathy.
She spoke in an engaging accent, musical and very seductive. She didn’t need the accent. Heike was a knockout. “No, no, Professor Haynes. I’m learning too much to leave.”
He patted her on the back. “You’re going to be here for a year, and Heike, if the gods smile down upon me, I think I can get you an appointment at the university so you can stay longer than that. You’re good.”
She bent her head closer to her task, too shy to accept the praise by looking him in the eye. “Thank you.”
“Go on, take a break.”
“This will sound bizarre,” she accented the bi heavily, “but I feel something.”
“I’m sure you do,” he laughed. “Chilblains.”
He stepped out of the hearth where Heike was working. The fireplace had been one of the wooden fireplaces which caught fire. Charred bits studded one layer of earth, and they were just now getting below that. Whoever cleaned up after the fire removed as much ash as they could. Two other students worked also.