Chapter Three #2
the poet Percy Shelley were staying with Lord Byron and a few others at a villa in Switzerland.”
“Shelley was married to someone else at the time,” Chang added, raising his eyebrows.
Eng shot him a look but went on. “Anyway. The weather was dreadful all summer, cold and stormy, and they were trapped indoors.
One evening, Byron proposed they each write a ghost story. A few of them tried. Most lost interest. But Mary kept going, and
wrote this.”
“Ah. It’s a ghost story.”
“Of sorts. An allegory, I suppose.”
He ran his thumb along the edge of the cover, as if weighing whether to say more. But he didn’t, and I was too shy to press.
“Well,” I said, sliding the book back onto the shelf. “I’ll add it to my list.”
Making a quilt is a choreographed dance. Every young woman at the party knew the steps. We’d learned at our mothers’ and grandmothers’
sides, and now slipped easily into our places at the long table.
It had been decided in advance that we’d create a Wild Goose Chase pattern, composed of alternating strips of triangles and
squares. Some women arrived with bags of fabric scraps already cut and pieced, and emptied them onto the table. After sorting
by color, we began sewing shapes into blocks to add to the growing design.
As we stitched and chatted, Eng and Chang moved around the room. One carried a pitcher of bourbon punch, the other lemonade,
refilling glasses with practiced ease. Chang was animated, quick with a joke. Eng, in his own home, seemed to have stepped
into a more self-assured version of himself. They bantered about the quilt’s emerging pattern, teasing us about our crooked
seams and questionable color choices.
“So how do you boys like Wilkes County?” Flora Wadkins asked.
I cringed. Whether the twins knew it or not, boys was a slight.
Chang gave her a smooth smile. “We like it very much.”
Yes, he knew.
“You have certainly made yourselves at home.”
“We have a knack for that.”
“We didn’t do it alone,” Eng said. “We borrowed some men from local farms.” Everyone at the table understood what that meant:
slaves hired out by their owners. It was common practice.
“And . . . your condition doesn’t appear to be the impediment one might expect,” ventured June Ogden.
The women around the table exchanged glances, discomfort tinged with curiosity.
“Indeed, there are advantages,” Chang said.
“Such as?”
“Well . . .” He poured a ribbon of bourbon punch into his glass and took a sip. “Neither of us has ever been lonely.”
“Surely you must tire of each other.”
“When we’re tired, we go to sleep,” he said.
Eng set down his lemonade and leaned forward. “You know, ladies, there’s an old Greek myth about twins. In the beginning,
humans had four hands, four legs, and two faces. They were so powerful that the gods felt threatened, so Zeus split them in
half.”
The table was quiet. It wasn’t every day a man quoted Greek mythology at a quilting bee.
“Since then, humans have sought their missing part. Their soulmate.” He inclined his head to his brother. “Most people seek
that in a romantic partner. Chang and I were born with ours.”
“So you’ve no need for wives, then,” Flora said tartly.
“Close as we are,” Eng said, “my brother holds little physical appeal for me.”
There were a few awkward laughs. Flora had dredged up the unspoken. The unspeakable.
Chang leaned over the quilting frame. “Speaking of which, my brother would like to marry. If any fair young lady will have
him, we’ll hold a wedding soon.”
“Not so,” Eng said, waving a hand. “It is Chang who hopes to marry. He simply says it’s me to gauge the room.”
Chang tapped his lip. “Now and then, I admit, I do wish I could leave him behind. He tends to monopolize conversation with
the girl I like best.”
The ladies gasped and tittered.
Eng shook his head. “To be fair, I’ll let my brother choose first. The next will be no less a choice to me.”
“It’s true,” Chang said. “My brother would woo a lady at the drop of a hat if he thought the plainest girl in town would say
yes.”
“What was it Shakespeare said?” Eng asked. “ ‘Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye.’ ”
It was shocking. Outrageous. We could hardly believe our ears—and yet, it was funny. The brothers knew how to charm and disarm,
how to walk the line between self-deprecation and spectacle. I glanced at Addie, and she raised an eyebrow. We both saw it
for what it was: a practiced performance, calibrated to keep the audience slightly off balance.
Even so, however playful, their intentions were clear. They intended to settle down.
So was even my beautiful sister interchangeable to them? And was I the plainest girl in town?
“More bourbon, anyone?” Chang asked.
Later in the afternoon, while some ladies lingered at the quilting table and others gathered around the buffet, Eng and Chang
settled onto a bench on the back porch and opened a velvet-lined case containing two silver flutes. They lifted the instruments
to their lips and began to play.
I was accustomed to fiddle and piano, but I’d never heard a flute, let alone two. The brothers played with lighthearted precision,
weaving lightly through a complex rondo. Laughter and applause rippled through the room. Mina Greenbow leaned forward, intent;
Flora Wadkins swayed to the rhythm. Old Mrs. Crawford was beaming, hands clasped as if in prayer.
After finishing the song, the brothers began an old Irish folk tune.
I’d heard it before, but now it sounded different—haunting, plaintive, like a brook winding down a mountain.
I watched Eng sway slightly, keeping time with one foot as he cradled the flute in his narrow hands, his fingers moving nimbly across its surface until the final note faded into silence.
As the party began to thin, Addie and I stood on the porch, taking in the kitchen outbuilding, a storehouse, and a half-finished
stable. Beyond them lay an orchard, a pond, and fields in every direction. In the distance, the smooth granite face of Stone
Mountain caught the late sun.
“Lovely view, isn’t it?” Chang’s voice.
I turned. The twins were standing just a few steps away. “It is.”
“And it was a lovely party,” Addie added. “Smart of you to come away with a quilt at the end.”
“We’re no fools,” said Eng.
The light was shifting. Sunlight melted on the surface of the pond like butter in a skillet. A flock of birds rose from the
orchard, scattering across the sky.
“Except . . .” Chang said, his gaze fixed on my sister, “I think I might be a fool for you, Miss Adelaide.”
She laughed lightly. “Oh, are you, Chang? I thought Flora Wadkins was the girl you like best.”
“That was harmless teasing. Flora Wadkins doesn’t hold a candle.” He stepped a little closer. “Let us meet again so I can
prove my devotion.”
“And mine to you, Miss Sallie,” Eng said to me.
I gave him a look. “I thought you were sweet on my sister. Or for that matter, anyone who will have you.”
“As Chang said, that was part of the act,” he said. “And as for your sister: Why should I waste my affections that way? It
would be like water down a drain.”
“Well, that’s true,” I said.
Addie nodded in agreement.
“Whereas you, Sallie,” Eng continued. “You are a basin I long to fill.”
It was such an absurd image that I couldn’t help laughing. “I am not a basin, Eng.”
“A vase, then. Or an urn. Whatever vessel you may be, you are undoubtedly sturdy and well made.”
Chang groaned, putting a hand to his forehead. “Eng. You must stop talking before you ruin our chances entirely.”
Addie laughed. “I agree, that’s quite enough.”
Chang leaned across his brother to address me. “Listen to me, Sallie. My brother is awkward. But in case it’s not obvious,
he is growing fond of you.”
I gave him a look.
“Do you not believe me?”
“I think your brother ought to speak for himself.”
“I think he’s trying.” Chang gave me a smile. “Back to my request. Are you girls ever allowed out without a chaperone?”
“No,” I said at the same time that Addie said, “Yes.”
“Papa would never—” I started.
“Papa’s busy with the harvest. And Mama won’t notice.”
“We know your area fairly well,” Chang said. “We considered some land near your father’s estate. As I recall, there’s a derelict
property a few miles away.”
“The Thompson farm,” Addie said. The couple who lived there lost all their children to typhus and abandoned it years ago.
Addie and I used to explore its crumbling rooms.
“That seems like a suitable place to meet,” Chang said. “Two days from now? Midday?”
“We can’t—”
“We’ll be there,” Addie said.