Charleston Read online

  Instead of entering the front doorway to the piazza, she turned the handle of the heavy wrought-iron garden gate and pushed it open. The garden’s lawn was surrounded by a wide border of densely planted China pinks and white and pale lavender heliotropes. Her mother had written that she had found two lead eighteenth-century plant labels and was going to fill the borders with these historic plants. Eliza walked to the back of the garden toward the kitchen house where she had kept a vegetable and fruit garden—figs, oranges, tomatoes, squash, lettuce. She had loved going each spring just after Easter with her mother to Cross Seed Company to pick out packets of seeds and small plants in cardboard containers.

  Eliza set her bag down and lifted a tea olive branch, heavy with dark waxy leaves and small white flowers, to her face. She inhaled the sweet softness of the white blossoms. The scent made her feel more alive, and she broke off a small stem. She had wondered what it would feel like to be back. She didn’t know if planning to stay for two weeks had been the right decision. She had worked hard to construct detours around parts of her memory that included Henry. She had work she needed to finish, and she had convinced herself that coming back to a place that didn’t have any of the distractions of London would give her the freedom to complete everything. But she slightly suspected that she was daring herself to come back—to prove to herself that all that had happened between her and Henry didn’t matter anymore. And besides, looking at her life in London from so far away might help her decide what to do next. Or maybe it was just as simple as missing her father and wanting to be as close to him as possible. She didn’t believe in spirits or ghosts, but she always felt his presence in this house. She wished he could have known everything she had been doing these past years. The screen door of the back porch was unlatched.

  “Hello? Mom? Sara?”

  “Eliza.” Her mother’s voice was punctuated by the sharp taps of her high heels on the hardwood floor in the front hall. She came through the dining room with her arms open and hugged and kissed her daughter. She wore a simple silk champagne-colored evening gown. “Oh my, I do wish you had let us pick you up from the airport. How was your flight? You look exhausted.” She called up to the third floor, “Sara, Eliza’s here.” She paused. “Oh dear, I hope she heard me. We’re going off in a few minutes, we’re late as it is. Ben phoned and said everything was in good order.” Eliza’s mother checked her watch. “The guests are going to arrive before we do. Sara!”

  “Is Cornelia here?”

  “No, dear, she only comes now on Mondays and Thursdays. She wanted to come and wait for you, but I told her you weren’t getting in until quite late and everything would be rushed. Do you need any help deciding what you are going to wear?”

  “I brought the dress we found on the King’s Road when you visited.”

  “The black one?”

  Eliza nodded.

  “Oh, that will look lovely, but I do love you in color. It must be wrinkled in that case.”

  “No, I’m sure it’s fine, I wrapped it in tissue paper. If it needs ironing, I can do it myself.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Oh dear, where is Sara?” She turned and looked up the stairs. “Sara!”

  “I’ll run up,” Eliza said.

  “You don’t mind my rushing off?”

  “No, not at all,” Eliza said. “I’m desperate to take a hot bath.” But what she really wanted was the house to be quiet again.

  “I hope your room isn’t too hot. I put a fan up there this morning. We’ll see you tonight. Don’t be too late. Oh, Eliza, it’s so good to have you home.”

  Eliza was already halfway up the first flight of stairs when her mother called to her. “Eliza, I almost forgot. Henry came by and dropped off a note for you. It’s in the tray on the hall table.”

  She heard her mother pass through the dining room into the kitchen. She turned and walked slowly back down the stairs. A small cream envelope with her name written in the center lay on the silver tray. Eliza recognized the distinctive rhythm of Henry’s handwriting, somewhere between printing and script. He always started his letters from the bottom, never the top—so that each word seemed weighted to the line. She looked at the letter, turned it over several times, but did not open it, and then began walking up the stairs, testing herself.

  Sara’s room was across the hall from Eliza’s on the third floor. She knocked on Sara’s door. “Sara?”

  “Eliza.” Sara opened the door and greeted Eliza with a hug and a kiss. “Oh, Eliza, it’s so sweet of you to come back for this. I’m so nervous. How do I look?” Sara held her arms out to the side of her white strapless ball gown and twisted left then right.

  “Beautiful,” Eliza said.

  “Do I have on too much mascara?”

  Eliza leaned toward Sara and looked closely. “No, you look great, just be sure you don’t rub your eyes.”

  “What time is it?”

  Eliza checked her watch. “Quarter past six.”

  Sara fanned her hands in front of her face. “I was supposed to be there by six for photographs. I know I am going to trip in these heels.”

  “Keep your eyes up, don’t look down, that’s the trick. And take them off to go down these stairs.”

  “Good idea,” Sara said as she leaned down to take off her shoes. She gathered her dress in one hand, shoes in the other, and proceeded down the stairs.

  Eliza heard her mother and Sara call good-bye and the front door slam shut. Eliza returned downstairs to retrieve her suitcase. She paused at the entrance to the front parlor. Everything was just as it had been when she left—the same pale wall colors, the same silk curtains, the same fabrics on chairs and sofas in the same positions. The air held a scent of lavender. She walked across the hall to the dining room. She liked seeing all of the familiar objects—the tall long-case clock that had belonged to her great-grandfather, the portraits of family members, her grandmother’s silver service, her father’s framed and ordered collection of early southern maps. She stopped to look at the eighteenth-century thermometer that hung on the wall. On a silver plate written in perfect script were various marks on the right-hand side of the scale. Across from 212 was WATER BOILS. She continued reading vertically down. SPIRITS BOIL 176 degrees, FEVER HEAT 112, BLOOD HEAT 98, SUM. HEAT 76, TEMPERATE 55, FREEZING 32. She had never considered, until now, why anyone would need to know at what temperature spirits boil.

  Eliza carried her suitcase slowly up the two flights of stairs and opened the door to her room. It overlooked the garden, and the pale peach color of the walls made it feel as if the sun were always shining there. She walked to the window and looked down on the tops of the magnolia and live oaks in the garden below. The view always made her feel as if she were in the safest tree house in the world. She had chosen her flat in South Kensington because the bedroom looked out onto a beautiful and ancient sycamore and had reminded her of her bedroom back home. She wandered around her room, touching all the things she loved. The mirrored glass box where she kept all the treasures she and her father had found—shark teeth from the banks of Pinckney Island; an arrowhead from the Combahee River; shards of Indian pottery from an excavation site at Willtown Bluff; three Victorian glass marbles, a small bone cat that must have been from a little girl’s bracelet, an old shoe buckle, all found in their garden—and two silver dollars her father had given her when she had lost her two front teeth.

  Eliza opened her closet—her clothes were as she had left them—nothing had been touched. She had always been expected to return. She looked up at her bedroom ceiling, where her father had drawn a colored map in blues and greens of all of the waterways and rivers and islands around Charleston. She always wondered if he would have been happier as an artist rather than as an architect. She guessed the demands of supporting a family had pushed him toward architecture. She could still hear his voice telling her bedtime stories about his travels to places on the map. She had taken journeys that could not have bee
n imagined by the map that lay above her. She remembered a line Jamie had quoted from a novel about a journey being defined as a gesture inscribed in space. And now she wondered about those words. Were journeys gestures, or were they something else?

  Eliza sat on the edge of her bed and slid Henry’s note from its envelope.

  Dear Eliza,

  I’ll pick you up at seven.

  —Henry

  How unlike the playful notes he had, over a decade ago, tucked into pockets of her jackets or jeans. He had referred to himself differently each time with such soubriquets as the “keeper of the flame” or “your most devoted and obedient servant.” Now he was just Henry. What is he doing? she thought. Had her mother known Henry was coming?

  Eliza suddenly wished that she had several hours to herself before she saw Henry. She kicked off her shoes and pushed herself up to draw a bath. She filled an empty glass with water and placed the tea olive blossom in it. She undressed and sank slowly in the hot bathwater. She listened through the raised windows to the breeze in the laurel oak that almost sounded like a slow kind of applause. She could hear the distant sounds of the city, the drawl of a carriage tour guide punctuated by the clips of the hoofs of a horse pulling a wagon, voices of a brigade of children—loud and shrill—passing by on bicycles. She reached down and checked her watch, which lay on top of her discarded clothes—6:40. She slipped lower into the hot water and considered where she was. When she had first met Jamie he asked her where home was, and she had paused before answering. “Charleston,” she had said, possibly more in default than in affirmation. Eliza had thought from time to time about her pause. Would Charleston always be home to her even if she never returned? Would it always be home to her even if she didn’t want it to be?

  At 6:45 she pushed herself out of the bath and wrapped a towel around herself. She opened her suitcase and lifted the tissue paper she had wrapped around her dress to keep it from getting wrinkled. She laid her dress on her bed. She thought she could get by without running an iron over it. She hadn’t given what to wear to this party much thought. She had fallen in love with the simple black dress with the tight waist and slashed neckline that she had found in a vintage clothing stall on the King’s Road the last time her mother had come to visit. The stall keeper pronounced it a Pauline Trigère 1956, but Eliza didn’t need to believe him to love the dress. She pulled her hair back in a tight ponytail and walked down to the first-floor parlor to check her appearance in the French gilt pier mirror that had belonged to her grandmother. She looked pale and tired. If only she could have had one day of rest before she saw Henry, before she saw anyone really. She knew she would be able to slip back into this world without missing a beat, but she would be noticed. One of the reasons she had never considered coming back to Charleston was that she had wanted to be in places where things did change. And maybe that was one of the reasons she had fallen for Jamie, nothing was ever the same with him. In fact, she used to joke that one of the guiding principles of his life was the “Baring Law of No Repetition.” But Eliza knew, too, that one of the reasons she had not come back was Henry. The bells of St. Michael’s began to ring, the long-case clock followed a beat later. God, he would be here any minute.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AT 7:09 ELIZA HEARD THE IRON GARDEN GATE CREAK OPEN.

  “Eliza?” Henry called through the screen door of the kitchen. He braced his hand against the architrave, as if to prevent himself from falling in. He wore a dilapidated white dinner jacket so warped that the front hem was at least three inches longer than the back.

  “How did you know I didn’t have a date?” Her words came as much as a surprise to her as to Henry.

  “How about a kiss hello first?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to sound like that.”

  Henry leaned forward and kissed her. “God, Eliza.” She took a step back.

  Henry moved away and leaned against the architrave. He held his hands behind his back. “It was very simple. I conspired with your mother. Actually I dropped by to see her and told her I had seen you at a wedding in England and that you said you were coming back for Sara’s party and would she please put you with me for the evening.”

  “How did you know I wouldn’t come with Jamie?”

  “I took a chance. I was fearless. I met with your mother and spread my heart out as evidence in the case, and she conceded. So look, you know, you did promise me that you would call when you got to Charleston. I can absolve you of your guilt for not having called—you’ve been here”—Henry pushed the sleeve of his jacket up and checked his watch—“what? A couple of hours?—by coming with me. And I have saved you from the clutches of Edward McGee or one of those, shall we say, corpulent Bennett boys.”

  “My mother wouldn’t have put me with any of them.”

  Henry put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Maybe not, but not many bachelors—eligible or otherwise—are left.” He smiled at Eliza. “I’m one of the few. Furthermore and most importantly, I’ve come out of retirement for you. I don’t go to debutante parties anymore. I haven’t gone to one in—God”—he ran his left hand through his hair—“I don’t know—since the last time you cooked for me.”

  “Henry, I’ve never cooked for you.”

  “Really, you sure? Not even breakfast after some party or . . .” He was trying to lead her down an avenue she did not want to visit.

  “Okay, Eliza.” Henry raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’ll stop. You may have forgotten me, but I can still read your looks. You know we could stay here if you . . .”

  “I have to go.”

  “Yes, of course.” He held his arm for her. “You can ditch me once we get there. You look great by the way. That doesn’t look like a Charleston dress.”

  “It’s not,” she said as she pulled the kitchen door shut and turned the lock.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “Looks like your same old white dinner jacket.”

  “It is.”

  When they reached the street, Henry asked, “Which way? Right or left?”

  “Right is probably shorter,” Eliza said.

  “Then left it is,” Henry said and moved Eliza to his left side so he would be between her and the street.

  They walked down Church Street to White Point Gardens. Henry paused and surveyed the large rectangular park canopied by rows of live oak trees. “Let’s walk around the park once before we go. I want to hear what you’ve been doing in London. Studying or working?”

  “Henry, I should . . .”

  “We’ll walk quickly.” He put his arm behind her to sweep her forward.

  An ancient black Lincoln Continental motored by.

  “Was that Edward McGee?” Eliza asked.

  Henry nodded. “Dressed in black tie, but never without his ‘traveler.’” Henry referred to the large plastic cup, filled most certainly with bourbon and ice, that Edward always had, after 5:00 P.M., balanced between the windshield and dashboard. “I hope you are beginning to appreciate what a savior I am.”

  “Is he still living in Ansonborough?”

  “Everything is pretty much as it was when you left. Edward’s still searching for distinction in imaginary causes, Larry’s still looking after him, and when Larry goes on one of his drinking binges, Edward’s lawn goes uncut for weeks, and some neighbor complains to the city, and then Edward takes up arms—nothing has changed. So, tell me, in London, studying or working?”

  “Both actually.”

  “Both? That’s a lot, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve just finished a fellowship at the Courtauld, and I’ve been working as an assistant to my adviser. He’s writing a companion to the catalogue raisonné of Magritte.”

  “Man with the bowler hat and briefcase.”

  “In the clouds. That’s the one.”

  “That’s fantastic, that’s impressive.”

  “Yeah, it’s been great. When I first started, I was a bit of a glorified secretary. Gra
dually he started relying on me to do everything—typing up his notes, making corrections in the text, writing letters to collectors for permission to photograph their paintings.”

  “I bet you know where all Magritte’s paintings are.”

  “Actually, I do.”

  “Fair to assume none are in Charleston?”

  “Fair to assume.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “I need to finish work on Magritte by mid-June. My adviser has asked me to write an essay on Tennessee Williams and Pierre Bonnard for a book he is editing. That will take some time. But after that, I haven’t decided. I have an offer to continue on at the Courtauld, but I’ve been thinking about applying to a Ph.D. program in art history in the States. I’ve also been doing some work for one of the contemporary art galleries in London—Jasper Marlowe. They offered me a full-time position, but I’m . . .”

  Henry stopped to point out a flock of pelicans sitting in a row along a low horizontal branch of a live oak. “Look, Eliza, I’ve never seen that, have you?”

  She stopped and looked away.

  “Oh no,” he said. “What have I done now?”

  “Why don’t I think you’re listening to me?”

  “I am, I promise, Eliza, I’m just thrilled to see you.”

  “What did I just say?”

  “You’ve been telling me all about Magritte and an essay you’re planning to write on Tennessee Williams and Pierre Bonnard, and after all that, what you’re thinking about doing—continuing on at the Courtauld or applying to a Ph.D. program in the U.S., or accepting a full-time position at a contemporary art gallery in London.” He hesitated, snapped his fingers, and pointed at Eliza. “Jasper Marlowe.” Henry paused. “A little apology,” he said. “Just a little bit. In honor of this remarkable retinue of pelicans.”