Mr. Ascot slid out of the limo and faced Summer on solid ground. He wasn't much taller than she, perhaps 5'10" to her 5'6".
“Why don’t you call me Blaine?”
Blaine? It figured. There was nothing normal about this day.
“What kind of name is ‘Blaine’?”
He laughed. “What kind of name is ‘Summer’? May I call you Summer?”
“Oh certainly, Blaine. By all means, do call me Summer, and tell me that I’m having a nightmare…another nightmare…my second of the day.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The heat and humidity didn’t seem to affect Blaine in the least, while Summer, on the other hand, was a wet and soppy rag. Her hair fell limp while the armpits of her jacket turned dark with sweat. Meanwhile, Blaine stood cool as a cucumber, the grotesque arms of the dreadful tree fountain reaching out to him as he stood between her and the murky pond. It gave her the willies to see the tree rising like a bad omen behind him. The heat is getting to me.
“I think I have to find someplace cool to sit down, Mr. – uh, Blaine.”
“Let’s go inside. It should be nice and cool in there.”
He held her elbow as they made their way up the left side of the wide stairway to the portico. Already it was cooler in the shade. Summer turned to look out over her land and the beautiful oak-lined drive. The contrast between the dark portico and the bright acreage beyond created a stunning vision — a vision destroyed by the horrid tree fountain, the horrid, grotesque tree reaching out for what, she didn’t know.
“I don’t understand why anyone would want such an ugly fountain. Certainly it scared off any travelers or guests back in the old days.”
“There’s a story to that fountain and I think the one to tell you about it is Jesse.”
“Who’s Jesse?”
“Jesse works for me as paralegal, but she also has roots in Tanglewood Plantation. She’s waiting inside.” He opened the great door to the manor house, and Summer’s spirits brightened a bit. The entrance hall was immense and still held an ambiance of what it must have been in its days of grandeur. The wooden floors needed work to bring back sheen, as did the double stairway leading to the second floor, but just the expanse and charm of the room alone spoke volumes of its past.
Blaine led her into another room. “The parlor,’ he said.
Summer was surprised at the modern décor of Aunt Ada’s parlor. The atrocious fountain in the driveway gave her the impression that the rest of the house would follow suit. Aunt Ada may have ignored the outside toward the end of her life, but the parlor was warm and inviting. A deep brown leather sofa sat on a Persian area rug facing the width of a white marble-mantled fireplace. Flanked by matching armchairs on either side, the fireplace setting signified the epitome of comfort and hospitality. Even in the oppressive heat, Summer wished it were winter outside so she could enjoy a crackling fire.
“Jesse!” Blaine called “Jesse!" he called again, with no reply. "Have a seat, Summer, and I’ll see if she’s in the kitchen.”
Alone in the parlor, Summer was drawn to the fireplace mantle and a display of photographs. She was surprised to find sitting amongst the other photos, the photo of her father riding the pony. Next to his image, was a tintype of a young soldier in a confederate uniform, posed and unsmiling. She moved closer for a better look at his face, most of which was hidden beneath a kepi-cap. His eyes, dark and intense, stared out under the brim of the cap. There was something about him…something nagged at her. He was familiar, somehow.
A second tintype caught her eye; a middle-aged woman sitting in a high-backed chair. Her light hair was parted in the middle and pulled back into a bun. A small bow closed the tightly fitted bodice at her neck, while loose-fitted sleeves gathered at her wrists, baring hands neatly folded in the lap of her full skirt. The sternness of her eyes gave Summer the creeps. It was no wonder the black woman standing behind her looked miserable. They must be slaves, she thought, and looked closer. The older woman was very dark, her hair hidden beneath a bandana. The camera caught the weariness in her face, the sad melancholy eyes.
The younger woman, perhaps in her late teens, was not nearly as dark of skin. Soft black curls outlined her pretty face. Summer was struck by the contrast of the trio; the white, fair-haired woman appeared stern and foreboding, the older black woman was tired and resigned, while the younger woman held a spark in her eyes that was missing in the others. Not resigned to her destiny. Summer was captivated by the pretty young woman with the sparkle. Again, she felt something very familiar about her just as she had with the soldier. Her eyes returned to the soldier, and back to the young woman in the tintype. Her eyes darted back and forth, from one photo to the other, until a chill ran through her. “Evaline,” she whispered, not having a clue why.
“How did you know her name?”
Summer jumped at the sound of the voice behind her. She turned to find a tall black woman standing with a tray of drinks in her hands.
“Did your Aunt Ada tell you about Evaline?”
“No…uh, I don’t know why I said that name. It just came to mind. I…I don't understand.
“The woman in the foreground is Elizabeth Woodfield your great-great-whatever- grandmother, and Charles Woodsfield’s wife, mistress of the house. The two women standing behind her are my great-great-whatever grandmother, Ruth, and her niece, Evaline. Are you sure you never heard of Evaline?”
“I’m positive.” How did I know her name?
“How strange.” Jesse muttered, and looked at the tray in her hands. “Iced tea?” she asked, and set the tray down on the coffee table in front of the fireplace. “I’m sorry if I startled you. I’m Jesse Williams. Blaine’s in the kitchen, on the phone—as usual. But that’ll give us a moment to get to know each other.”
Summer sat on a side chair and took a sip of her tea—then a gulp. She was parched. How did I know the woman’s name was Evaline? That was a bothersome question. This is such a strange day. She looked at Jesse, still standing at the fireplace. French manicured toenails peeked out from beneath the hems of her white slacks. Her lime green silk shirt was unbuttoned—enough to show a hint of cleavage— and the color was a nice compliment to her mahogany skin. Jesse wore her hair cropped short, exposing small ears adorned with gold and pearl earrings. She was stunning.
“Your people were slaves on Tanglewood Plantation?” Try as she might, Summer could not picture Jesse in the rice paddies of Tanglewood.
“Yes, indeed. Joseph, my ancestor, was bought by Charles Woodfield in 1825 and brought to Tanglewood—only it wasn’t called Tanglewood then, it was called Magnolia.”
Summer was surprised at this comment. In all the years her parents spoke of Tanglewood, they never mentioned it having a different name.
“Did you notice the fountain in front?” Jesse asked.
“Did I? How could anyone not see the fountain? It’s grotesque!”
Blaine appeared in the parlor doorway. “Jesse, I told Summer you would fill her in on the fountain story but first, let’s give her the grand tour of her new home.”
The tour of the first floor, aside from the parlor, consisted of a library, old, dusty, and sure to intrigue both the historian and antique collector. One wall was covered floor to ceiling with books, and some looking quite antiquated from the condition of the spines. An old, ornate desk – obviously from a prior century — sat alone in front of a tall rectangular window, one corner of a catawampus outside shutter visible through its pane.
From the library, they moved across a hallway into the kitchen. Summer noticed the porcelain sink was dingy, with dark stains encircling the drain. A short, white refrigerator sat against one wall. Jesse stopped at the large, wooden table in the center of the room.
"This table was here at Tanglewood before the War between the States. It was in the original kitchen, which was a separate building."
"The Woodfield's didn't cook in here?"
"The Woodfield's didn't cook at all," Jesse snapped. "They had slaves to do the cooking."
Summer felt her face flush, but was determined not to let Jesse William's attitude get to her. She had enough aggravation for one day without a hotheaded slave descendant giving her a royal headache. They passed through a door in the kitchen and entered the dining room.
"Cooking was a fire hazzard in those days." Jesse continued, apparently over her flash of anger. "It was a lot cheaper to rebuild a kitchen than an entire mansion!”
The late afternoon sun filtered in through the long rectangular window of the dining room casting a mystical ambiance to the four portraits which hung on its walls. In the first portrait, Summer recognized the fair haired, middle-aged stern-faced woman from the tintype on the mantle. “That's Elizabeth, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and next to her is her husband, Charles Edmund Woodfield.” Jesse nodded to the next painting of a white-haired gentleman. Directly across the room were two other portraits, one of four children, and the other of the young black woman from the tintype on the mantle.
“These are the Woodfield children; John, Margaret, Edmund and Susannah. Who do you come down from, John or Edmund?”
“Why, I don’t know.” She wasn't aware of them until this moment.
“It had to be one or the other for you to have the surname of Woodfield.”
Summer was now the ignorant heiress hauteur. Whom did she descend from? Funny, her father never mentioned it, and now the only other person who might know the answer was gone. In fact, it now appeared that Jesse and Blaine knew more about her heritage than she did!
“My father’s name was Michael, and his father’s name was Ryan, I believe. But that’s all I know.” At least I know something.
She looked closely at John and Edmund Woodfield in the portrait, but they shed no light on the mystery. It was strange feeling, standing in a room with her ancestors and not knowing which one was solely responsible for her existence.
“And this one…” Jesse put her hand on the bottom of the heavy frame hanging next to the Woodfield children. “This is Evaline.”
Summer was again mesmerized by the light-skinned slave girl, this time adrift in a sea of grass, the image of a stately and impressive Tanglewood Plantation manor house faint in the background. Evaline’s scoop-necked white blouse rested suggestively on mocha-colored shoulders, while her skirt blew gently in a breeze frozen forever in time. A teasing smile curled the corners of her lips.
“I don’t get it. How does Evaline rate a place on the dining room wall? Wasn’t she just a slave?”
“Yes,” Jesse answered curtly. “Evaline was a slave, but she was also the daughter of Charles Woodfield and the slave woman, Jamaica.”
“Wow.” Summer raised her eyebrows and glanced at Blaine, who had been quiet throughout the downstairs tour. “I wonder how Elizabeth felt about that portrait hanging in her home.”
“My understanding is that the portrait was painted after Elizabeth died and Evaline disappeared,” he answered.
“Evaline disappeared? When? How?” Summer was disappointed at losing the mysterious Evaline so soon. "And how did Elizabeth die?"
"Elizabeth had an accident. She fell down the stairs and broke her neck." Blaine said.
"Oh, my. What an end for the mistress of the manor!"
“Evaline disappeared the night the Yankees burned the fountain. She was eighteen years old.” Jesse said.
"Burned the fountain?"
"Look closely at the painting—in the background. You can see the fountain there, in front of the double stairway entrance, but it doesn't look like the fountain out front."
Summer stood on tiptoe, balancing with her palms against the wall. Sure enough, far in the background was the fountain. It looked like a tree – but not the hideous monstrosity out front. "What is it?"
"It's a magnolia tree". Jesse answered. "Charles Woodfield had it made in Italy and shipped here. My grandmother remembers her grandmother telling of what a beautiful fountain it was, right down to the bronze magnolia blossoms. Of course that was long before the Yankees came and Charles Woodfield lost everything."
“Maybe Evaline ran off? What year would that have been?”
"It was 1864. Charles Woodfield wrote the date in the family bible."
“Maybe Evaline went north. After all, she was a free woman after the war, wasn’t she?” This sounded perfectly reasonable to Summer.
“I don’t think it was as cut and dried as that.” Jesse snapped. "Evaline disappeared before the end of the war, and freed slaves didn’t just up and head north. They didn’t have money, didn’t have work, and had no roots except for the plantation they were born on or sold to. Most of them couldn’t read or write. It wasn’t an easy world for a free black.” Jesse’s dark eyes grew darker.
Summer’s knowledge of the history of slavery and freed blacks was limited, and she felt intimidated by Jesse Williams, who not only knew a tremendous amount about the Woodfield family, but also had strong feelings about slavery issues. Since it was Summer’s people who enslaved Jesse’s, she somehow felt that Jesse was putting the responsibility of slavery on her shoulders. Unfair! Summer came to Georgia to be the lady of Tanglewood Plantation, nothing else, and here she was in a dusty old dining room surrounded by paintings of people she didn’t know, but should know, and on the cusp of a debate on freed slaves with the slave descendant her own ancestor’s slaves!
“How about we head upstairs?” Blaine saved the moment.
The grand staircase creaked as they made their way to the second floor. Aunt Ada's bedroom was impeccably furnished and feminine, not to mention huge. Brocade drapes fell lavishly on either side of an immense doorway that opened up onto a veranda.
"This was actually a ballroom before the demise of slavery." Jesse said, opening one of the tall doors for a peek of the veranda.
A thick and fluffy bedspread covered an elaborate four-posted full-sized bed. The dressing table, Jesse said, was an antique. It was Elizabeth’s own dressing table, as was the dresser and the four-poster. Obviously, the furniture was well cared for the past 150 years or more. Summer could not recall a bedroom as beautiful as this one.
Built into one corner of the immense bedroom was a modern bathroom, the fixtures old fashioned, and the tub clawed, complimenting the ambiance of the bedroom.
"There were no closets built in the old days, or indoor plumbing either. One of the later Woodfields added the bathroom, and this large closet." She opened a door, exposing a closet with empty hangers. "Not a walk-in, but it sufficed"
The other three bedrooms would have been a shock had it not been for the fountain and dilapidated slave cabins to foretell the true state of Tanglewood. Dust and cobwebs found good company in each other, as the rooms obviously had not been cared for, for quite some time. The windowsills of all three rooms were rotted and splintering, and looked as if they hadn’t been painted or opened in years…maybe decades? A few of the panes were missing and patched with clear vinyl and duct tape. Wallpaper peeled from walls. The wood planking on the floor was warped in some places and missing in others. These rooms had little in common with Aunt Ada’s lavish bedroom and bath. It was as if Aunt Ada’s rooms were misplaced—as if they belonged elsewhere in a fine mansion, but were placed here as a rude joke. It seemed a personal affront to Summer, whose dreams of grandeur were so abruptly destroyed that day.
The third floor held a nursery and two other rooms.
“All the Woodfield children spent their early years in the nursery before moving down to the second floor.” Jesse said. She opened a door adjoining the nursery. “This was Ruth’s room. She cared for the Woodfield children. She was also Jamaica’s sister.”
“So you and Evaline are related?”
“Distant cousins.”
Crossing Ruth’s room, Jesse opened yet another door. “And this was Evaline’s room. Charles Woodfield insisted Evaline be raised in the house.”
“Where was Jamaica?”
“Jamaica was a house slave, until Miss Elizabeth realized Charles Woodfield visited Jamaica’s bed more than her own. After Evaline was born and weaned, Elizabeth forced Charles to send Jamaica to the rice fields.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Oh, Evaline’s story is folk-lore in my family, passed down through the generations. She was half white, the master’s favored child, and she was beautiful—too good a story to let go.”
Another door in Evaline’s room led to the attic. Blaine opened it to a cloud of musty dust.
“Achoo!” Summer sneezed. “Achoo! Sorry. I'm allergic to dust.”
Blaine closed the door quickly. “Guess we’d better not take you up there. That’s the attic, by the way. It’s full of neat old stuff if you ever want to take a look. It’s a real history lesson in itself.”
“You’ve been up there?”
“After Ada’s death, I had a peek.”
Summer followed Blaine and Jesse back to Ruth's room. "This always fascinated me." Blaine opened a door to a narrow circular stairway. "This is the servant's stairway. Think your nose can take it?"
Summer peeked into the dark abyss—a tubular stairwell that faded downward into blackness."Why the heck would anyone build stairs like this?"
"For the slaves to travel." Jesse answered. "They weren't allowed to use the master's stairway. They traveled this stairway night and day, sick or well, winter or summer, at their master's beck and call."
With that remark, Summer was determined to walk the stairway, dust or no dust. "After you," she gestured to Blaine, who took a small flashlight from his pocket. Following his lead, the trio cast ghostly shadows against the tight walls as they slowly made their way down the narrow tube. The journey was slow, as the small treads were narrow, and footing unsure in the darkness. Summer hadn't realized she was claustrophobic until this moment, as her heartbeat quickened and her breath came in short gasps. She fought hard the urge to push Blaine aside and race to the landing. Instead, she focused on his head below her on the stairway. At the second story landing, she regained her composure to some degree, with a narrow slit of light coming from beneath a door. One more floor, she repeated silently until, at last, Blaine opened a door, which entered into the kitchen.
The manor house was impressive in history and size, but she felt overwhelmed by its deteriorating condition. Aunt Ada utilized very few rooms leaving most of the mansion to ruin. Summer did not have the funds or the desire to revitalize an aged plantation house. Did Aunt Ada leave money too? If so, Blaine hadn’t mentioned it. She only knew Tanglewood was hers, but was there something else? Why hadn’t Blaine read her the will?
Returning to her seat in the parlor, she took a sip of her tea and fought the urge to cry. She hadn’t felt so alone since her parents were killed. The day grew long and she grew weary. She came to Georgia with such anticipation. She came as the only surviving Woodfield, and now she had family—dead family, none-the-less, but they seemed alive, now that she had learned a small fraction of their story; her great, great, great grandfather lusted after a slave woman. Her great, great, great, great grandmother banished the slave woman out of the house and to the rice paddies. Jesse Williams was as tied up in this story as she was, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that Jesse held her in contempt.
“I hope there’s a hotel in town. I can’t stay here tonight," she blurted. "This day has been a disaster for me and I don’t think I can stay here alone.”
“We didn’t think you would want to.” Blaine said. “Jesse is prepared to spend the night. Bluebell doesn’t have a hotel that I would recommend. We've stocked the kitchen, so you won't run out of food for quite a while. The linens are clean, and we even had a prepared meal sent up for tonight. But, if you’re determined to not stay here at all, we can take you back to Savannah.”
Summer glanced at Jesse, hoping to find encouragement either way. After all, the poor woman had to disrupt her own life to babysit the new heiress. Jesse's face registered a blank--except for a slight look of impatience..
“Well, I can’t see you driving me all the way back to Savannah. If Jesse doesn’t mind, then I guess I can stay the night. I don’t know what I’m going to do about tomorrow night or all the nights after that.”
“I don’t’ understand,” Blaine said. “Aren’t you interested in Tanglewood?”
“I was interested before I saw what a dilapidated mess it is. I was interested when I thought there might be some kind of social life in Bluebell—might as well call it Deadbell, for all the charm it has.” Summer was fired up, and couldn’t stop. She stood out of her chair. “What am I supposed to do with this place? I don’t have the kind of money it takes to bring it back to livable condition. Did Aunt Ada leave money to maintain it? Why haven’t you read me the will?”
“I thought we could do that tomorrow. You seemed so excited about Tanglewood over the phone. I thought you’d like to see it first, before we got into the paperwork.”
Summer envisioned herself the lady of the manor house, the new gem of Bluebell society, the sole owner of Tanglewood Plantation. What a fool she was to think she would waltz right in and charm the local society. What society? What did she have now but a broken down over-sized house with an ugly fountain out front and a bunch of dead ancestors staring at her? The horrid fountain may as well be reaching out to choke the life out of her, for all the anxieties she felt at this moment.
Blaine stood and put a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you get some rest tonight? You’re right. It has been a long day and things always look different in the morning. It’s an old cliché, but true.”
With her outburst over, she was embarrassed. This always happened to her. She always opened her big mouth before thinking, and always ended up insulting someone or making a fool of herself. “I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting this…this wreck.”
Blaine sighed. “I’m really sorry you feel that way about Tanglewood. It does have its charm, if you’d give it a chance.”
He was obviously disappointed, but Summer couldn't help the way she felt. This was not at all what she expected!
He headed for the door with Jesse following, and Summer fell in behind the two, employer and employee. Master and slave. Good grief, what made me think of that?
A full moon cast a spell of silver on the fields of tall grass and weeds, as she and Jesse stood in the great entrance hall doorway of Tanglewood Plantation. They silently watched the limo pull around the circle driveway and disappear into the silvery folds of Spanish moss, eerily visible in the moonlight. Summer could not avoid the wretched tree fountain, which looked more gnarled and menacing in the moon's glow than it did that afternoon.
As she and Jesse turned to reenter the house, a moan—a sad, pitiful moan—drew their attention, and they turned to the fountain again. They never spoke of it—the fact that they both, simultaneously at that moment, reached for the door and slammed it shut against the night.
