Read Online The Splendour Falls by Unknown, Rosemary Clement-Moore - Free Book Online

meant ‘she’, but if ‘what to do with her’ was anything other than ‘let her stay with you’, we were going to have a problem.
    The front door was framed by stained glass on either side and a fan-shaped window above. The lights in the foyer shone through, bright and cheery. Igrabbed the door handle, and after a glance at Paula for permission – she nodded almost solemnly – I pushed it open. The warm, humid air rushed in, and cool air rushed out, as if the house were sighing in welcome.
    The entry hall stretched up two storeys, panelled in dark, rich wood. Directly in front of me was a staircase, covered in a patterned runner in jewel tones that had become muted with time and wear. I could sense age in the patina of the banister where countless hands had polished it on their way up or down. I didn’t have to close my eyes to picture little Confederate children sliding down the oak railing or high-buttoned shoes treading the carpet.
    Again, the detail of the sensations put a knot of tension behind my rib cage. I was as relieved as I was startled when Rhys wheeled my suitcases in with an anachronistic bump over the threshold.
    He parked the smaller one near a hallway that led further into the house. ‘I’ll take that to the sunroom after I carry yours upstairs.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said again, including my gratitude for the distraction. It was fervent enough that he glanced at me oddly. To cover, I explained, ‘I know it’s heavy.’
    Smiling slightly, he echoed my earlier reassurance. ‘ I’ll live.’
    I watched him start up the stairs, managing the case with impressively little effort. Then I realized I was staring – in a completely normal, noncrazy way, but nevertheless a little inappropriately – and turned my gaze towards Paula.
    She stood beside a small desk, checking messageson a nice, modern phone. Like my bright pink luggage, it looked a bit out of place in the foyer full of old panelling and antique furniture.
    â€˜How old is this house?’ I asked.
    â€˜Honey,’ said Paula with a ring of pride, ‘this house has been in your family for nearly two hundred years.’
    â€˜Seriously?’ I cast an eye over the chandelier, dangling like an earring from the high ceiling. Through an arched doorway I could see a formal parlour, looking like a museum of bric-a-brac.
    Paula straightened a guest register on the desk. ‘The Colonel – that’s one of your distinguished ancestors – would be rolling in his grave if he knew I was turning this place into a business. But you can’t live on history and a family name, now, can you?’
    â€˜I guess not,’ I said absently.
    My head felt jam-packed – with the trip and the house and Paula and especially Rhys. But the big question elbowing aside all the rest was, how had Dad not mentioned any of this? I tuned out Mother all the time, and I’d obviously ignored everything anyone said about this trip. But I had always listened to Dad. This was kind of a big thing to leave out of descriptions of your childhood.
    â€˜You’ll have to explore the gardens when it’s daylight,’ Paula said, seeming oblivious to my distraction. ‘See where your dad got his green thumb.’
    She gestured to a painting on the wall. I resettled Gigi on my shoulder and went closer. It was a landscape of the house – white, colonnaded, antebellum – set in avery formal geometric garden. Both the painting’s style and its perspective were primitive. My eye was drawn to the intricate structure of the gardens at the front and sides of the house, and the orderly rows of a vegetable plot in the back, near outbuildings that might have housed the kitchen and servants. Slaves, I realized, with a guilty twist in my stomach. There was a date on the painting – BLUESTONE HILL, ALABAMA, 1856.
    Was this Old South legacy what my dad wanted to distance