A Widow's Curse by Phillip Depoy

Author:Phillip Depoy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2007-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

Twelve

“Godfrey Barnsley,” Andrews began, “was penniless—for reasons you’ve just mentioned—when he came to America from England in 1823. But ten years later, he was one of the richest cotton magnates in the South.”

Andrews had run upstairs and retrieved his laptop, to which he was referring for exact information.

“So much for the curse.” I turned toward the espresso machine, at last making a cup for myself.

“So you would think. He married well, a young woman named Julia Scarborough, who was the daughter of a wealthy shipping merchant in Savannah. But she didn’t like the heat in Savannah, with its attendant threat of yellow fever and malaria on the Georgia coast, and talked our boy Godfrey into buying nearly four thousand acres of land in the solace of a higher elevation.”

“Near Adairsville, to be specific,” I assumed.

“Right. And he got the land at bargain basement prices because?”

“No idea.”

“Really. I thought you’d know this, Mr. I Remember Everything.”

“Wait. This would have been around—what, late 1830s?”

“Correct.” Andrews seemed to delight in my struggle to recall my history lessons.

“The Cherokee.” I sank back into the counter. “The Trail of Tears.”

“We have a winner.” Andrews set down his cup. “Godfrey acquired the land—Cherokee land, and sacred in the bargain—just after the tribe were taken from northwest Georgia.”

“I think I’m remembering this correctly.” I strained. “The Indian Removal Act barely passed the 1830 Congress. I think—I’m pretty sure Davy Crockett railed against it; might have destroyed his political career. It was clearly insane to relocate the Cherokee. They’d built roads and schools; they were farmers and cattle ranchers. Oh, and there was Sequoyah’s alphabet—”

“Do you want to show me how much you know,” Andrews interrupted, “or do you want to hear the story?”

“Sorry. But the Trail of Tears—it was one of the worst—”

“Right,” he broke in again, “but it was good for Godfrey and his family, and that’s all he thought of.”

“Good, you mean, because he got the land he wanted and didn’t have to deal with the real owners.”

“Or so it seemed.” He glanced at his screen. “By 1841, Barnsley had moved the family up here, added another six thousand acres to the estate, and started work on his mansion. And I do not use the term loosely. Here’s a letter from him that says the place had ‘six or seven different styles of windows, giving variety, yet harmonizing. All the walls are of brick. The campanile is three stories high. On the first floor is the drawing room, library, vestibule, hall, dining room, breakfast room, pantry, bathrooms, with the cistern above a large closet and a room-size safe.’ He used black-and-white Italian marble for the mantels, had everything handcrafted in Europe. Doors came from London cabinetmakers—cost a fortune.”

“But?” I knew there was a punch line.

“Wait, I’ll get to the but in a second.” He stared at his screen again. “He also acquired every known variety of rose for his garden, and the gardens were designed by somebody famous, or in the style of somebody famous.

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