Chapter Twenty-One #2
Hanging on a hook in the office was the gown he’d been wanting for Harper.
Boldly he stepped into the office to look closer.
The stunning, simply cut gown had pearls delicately beaded over Thai silk.
A sheer bolero jacket of the same fabric buttoned at the neck and had an edged Peter Pan collar.
The dress was very French. Very haute couture. Very Harper.
He picked it up, carried the dress to the fitting room in the back of the salon, and knocked gently.
Kate opened the door. Her eyes widened when she saw the dress in his hand. “That’s one of my new designs.”
“Can you show this to Harper?”
“I suppose.” Kate’s face was troubled. “It’s a sample, so it’s small and I don’t know if it can be altered.
All that beadwork. But”—her eyes brightened—“it is a fit to flare. And Harper is small, even with her baby bump. It might work. What’s the point of being the owner if I can’t do as I think is best for my bride? ”
Harper came to the door to see what all the discussion was about. When she saw the dress in Atticus’s hand, her face lit up. “Oh, I love it! I absolutely love it. That’s my dress!”
Several hours later, Atticus opened the door to Sea Breeze for Carson and Harper, then followed them single file indoors. The house was redolent with curry. His mouth watered as he followed the girls into the kitchen.
“Oh, Granny James!” Harper exclaimed. Immediately she launched into a vivid description of the dream dress that Atticus had found her, gesticulating wildly and pulling out her phone to flip through the dozens of pictures she’d taken.
“She’s one happy bride,” Carson remarked dully.
Atticus looked at her face. She was putting on a brave smile, but he wasn’t fooled. He’d known Carson wouldn’t find her dress at the salon today. What she was looking for couldn’t be found in any bridal salon.
“I’m going to go to my room for a while,” Carson told him. “I’m pretty tired. Stay for dinner, won’t you? It’s curry. Granny James is mad for it. She’s British, you know. Curry is mother’s milk to them. See you, then.” Carson turned and walked away down the hall.
When he was alone, Atticus turned and left the house to walk across the gravel drive to the cottage.
Pansies filled pots by the door, cheerful and colorful.
Two rockers sat side by side on the porch.
Between them a book lay half-open on a small wooden table.
Someone was home, he thought. He knocked gently on the door.
A moment later he heard footfalls and the door swung open.
“Atticus!” Marietta exclaimed, delight brightening her blue eyes. Her hair was pinned in a twist, as usual, and she was dressed for dinner with a blue linen tunic over tan pants. “Do come in. What a surprise.”
“Am I interrupting?”
“No, not at all. Girard likes to come over for a cocktail before dinner, so he might be by soon. You are joining us for dinner, aren’t you? Imogene has made curry.”
“I smelled it in the house and I can’t wait.”
“Can I offer you a drink?” Then, remembering, she added easily, “I have iced tea. I make it myself. With simple syrup, of course.”
“I’d love some.” He eyed the platter of cheeses laid out and his stomach growled.
While Marietta went to fetch his drink, Atticus moved toward the cheese and helped himself to a thick slice of Camembert on a cracker.
Chewing, he looked around the cottage. So this was the prize these two grandmothers were fighting for.
It was nice enough, spare but cozy with its white-painted walls and white furniture.
But hardly worth World War III. Over the fireplace he recognized the large, colorful painting dominating the wall as a Jonathan Green. Atticus was impressed.
“Here we are.” Marietta walked toward him with a glass of iced tea. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
He slid into a thick upholstered chair near the fireplace. Marietta poured herself a cocktail from the crystal pitcher. She came to join him in the chair opposite his.
“It’s a lovely space.”
“It is, isn’t it? Lowcountry on the outside, Santorini on the inside.
” They shared a brief laugh. “The girls helped me decorate it after Lucille passed. It was very different when she lived here, chock-full of knickknacks. I probably would have left things the way they were, but those girls . . .” She shook her head.
“Put them together and they’re a force of nature. ”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
“Are you?” she asked cautiously. She didn’t press the point.
“I feel freer out here in my little cottage, detached from all the belongings I cared for all those years. Possessions can be a burden, you know. They distract from what’s important in life.
Here I live like a monk. With certain privileges .
. .” She hoisted her drink in the air. She laughed.
“But I can walk across the drive to the big house and see everything in place, only now Harper has to tend to them. Big houses, like young children, belong to the young. It all takes so much energy.” She took a sip from her drink.
“But I do go on. You’ve come here for a reason. I’m all ears.”
“Actually, I did want to talk to you about something. Do you know I went to LulaKate with Carson and Harper today?”
“No, I didn’t.” She clapped her hands together and laughed. “My goodness, dear, I’m afraid I just can’t picture you amidst all that lace and silk. Although, better you than me, I’m afraid. I made a rather poor showing in front of my granddaughters.”
“They told me about that. We all make mistakes, Marietta. I wouldn’t worry yourself over it. And the good news is, Harper’s found a new dress.”
“She isn’t keeping the other one? But didn’t she buy it already?”
“She’s going to sell it. Besides, I don’t think that’s an issue for her. She’s inside telling Imogene all about it. I’m sure you’ll get all the details over dinner.”
“That’s very good news. And Carson?”
Atticus paused. “Carson didn’t find anything there.”
Disappointment flooded Marietta’s features. “I swanny, she’s tried on every dress in the city!”
Atticus placed his palms together. “It wasn’t that Carson couldn’t find a dress.
She couldn’t find a dress that was meaningful to her.
” He glanced up to see if Marietta understood.
Her blue eyes were bright. “Beneath Carson’s confident exterior lurks the heart of a frightened woman.
I saw it in the way her hand trembled when she fingered the gowns in the salon.
Heard it in the cavalier way she said she’d wear any old dress, as though it didn’t matter.
Felt it when I’d looked into her eyes at the salon and realized she was holding on by her nails. Marietta, what is she so afraid of?”
“Commitment. Loss of independence,” Mamaw answered simply with a wave of her hand.
She sighed, slumped deep into the chair’s cushions, and looked at her hands.
“I realize now I turned a blind eye when she was young and living in Los Angeles with her father. Edward and I sent monthly checks, but it was all, shall we say, convenient for Edward and me to live in ignorance on the opposite coast.” A sparkle of hard-won wisdom flashed in her eyes.
“I suspect . . . no, I know that’s why I’m trying to make amends now.
” She stopped for a moment, lost in her thoughts.
Then she brightened and said with more cheer, “Last summer, though, Carson made great strides. She faced her alcoholism and joined AA, she went back to work, and she became engaged to Blake.”
“Big commitments.”
“Exactly. The wedding plans are going smoothly enough.” Marietta smiled. “The Legare Waring House is a well-oiled machine at events. Yet, I don’t see any of the excitement or joy one expects in a bride when planning a wedding.”
“Fear has a way of numbing a person.”
Marietta brought her hand to her cheek. “Yes, of course. I see that now.” She looked to Atticus. “What can we do to help her?”
Atticus told Marietta how, in a flash of insight at the salon, he’d understood that Carson, more than Harper, needed to wear something that had meaning to her. A dress filled with memories. One that would remind her of someone dear to her.
He moved forward on his seat and rubbed his palms together. Their eyes met. “I was wondering . . . hoping, really . . . Marietta, do you still have your wedding gown?”
Atticus knocked on Carson’s bedroom door.
“Come in.”
Carson was lying on her side on her four-poster bed flipping through a magazine.
Her shoes were off and her dress was high on her long thighs.
A slim circle of light poured out from her bedside lamp.
The large, airy room had broad windows dressed with plantation shutters.
Seeing Atticus, she sat up quickly and pulled her skirt down over her knees.
“Sorry. I thought it was one of my sisters.”
“I didn’t mean to bother you, Carson, but I have a message. Your grandmother Marietta would like to see you. In the cottage.”
“Now?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “As she put it, lickety-split.”
Mamaw had telephoned Girard and headed him off, telling him she’d meet him at the house for dinner. She wanted some privacy with Carson.
She was atwitter. So much so she didn’t feel the shame she knew she ought to for being such a horrible grandmother not to have seen Carson’s dilemma from the beginning.
She, who thought she knew her granddaughters so well.
It took Atticus, a young man who had known them for such a short time, to identify the problem.
Such a perspicacious man her grandson was, she thought with pride.
And such a fool he had for a grandmother.