In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [76]
“Ahh, my home.” Dorothea’s sigh was as fluttery as a spring breeze. “The Jefferson House was famous, y’know, once upon a time. Of course my daddy wanted to rename it Duval House, but Mama told him the Duvals were only nouveaux riches, and of course the Jeffersons had been there forever, so the house remained as it was.
“But by now it was like the garden: a wreck. There was no money left, y’see, to keep up the place, and what bit there was I spent on drink. I was a true southern rebel,” Dorothea added, with an impish smirk. “Always did things my own way, even when I knew it wasn’t right. Hot damn, there wouldn’t have been enough money to set the place to rights anyways. Not nearly enough. And besides, there was only me left to care.”
She fished behind her under the cushion, tugged out the bottle of Southern Comfort, and reached for the glass.
“Mamzelle, please.” Camelia was on his feet. “Allow me.” He took the bottle and poured her a stiff shot. “A Yankee with nice manners,” she said. “I didn’t know such a thing existed.” She gave him an amused glance.
“A Sicilian Yankee, ma’am,” Camelia corrected her, “and my grandfather believed in the old way of doing things. Honesty, courtesy, and respect for your elders.”
“Did he now.” She thought about that as she took a good slug of the liquor. “I only wish my southern parents had done the same for me,” she added with that wicked little grin.
“Well, anyhow, the house was like the garden, and myself. A wreck. Theo and I walked together through those once-elegant rooms, stuffed with all that dark old furniture, full of woodworm by now, and the fraying Oriental rugs and the foggy mirrors, and the silk curtains so brittle with age, they crumbled at a touch. We stood in the library and he stared at all those books. Thousands of them there were, and all covered, like the rest of the house, with a few decades’ worth of dust. ‘All that knowledge,’ he said in an awed voice.”
Mamzelle sighed and took another sip of the bourbon. “I saw such a look of yearning on his face, and knew he was as thirsty for learning as I was for the booze.
“And he was a gentleman, too. Never even mentioned the empty bourbon bottles stashed everyplace. ‘Drink,’ I told him. ‘That’s what ladies do, when they get old and are alone.’
“I took him into the kitchen. I can see him now, heading toward that fire in the grate like a homing pigeon, holding out his hands to the warmth, and sniffing the fresh coffee brewing on the stove. Then it dawned on him. ‘This is your place, ain’t it?’ he said.
“I told him the home had been in the Jefferson family for more than a couple of hundred years. Not the Duvals. They were just upstart Creoles. From Louisiana, y’know,” she added, as though it made a great difference, which Mel, the southerner, knew it did to Dorothea.
“Trading with France had made the Duvals rich, but it never gave them any class.” Mamzelle gave a disparaging sniff. “Still, Mama fell for those dark good looks and that Frenchified New Orleans accent. She insisted on marrying Monsieur Paul Duval, even though her father was set against it and threatened to cut her out of his will. But of course the Duvals had more money than the Jeffersons by then, so the threat was an empty one. She married him anyway, and I was the result.
“There were no siblings to hamper my being spoiled rotten. A little princess, I was. And my parents thought I was too good to marry. They wanted me all to themselves, and I was happy to oblige.
“Until they died and left me, the spinster Mademoiselle Jefferson Duval, all alone in her mansion. With only bourbon to warm her heart and her bed, instead of a man.”
Camelia watched as Mel bent to kiss Dorothea’s hand. He caught the glitter of tears on her cheek and knew she was touched by the old woman’s loneliness.
“You must be tired.” Mel wiped away the tear with her hand and managed a sniffly little smile. “Look, Mamzelle Dorothea, we’ve brought you some pastries,