The Brand Inheritance by Dorothy Fletcher

Author:Dorothy Fletcher [Fletcher, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-7193-0
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 1973-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The bus arrived at a quarter after two. “You want to put in a word or two?” John asked Margo, but she quickly declined. “You know the tour, you can’t have forgotten it,” he said, but she told him she would only be self conscious and spoil the whole thing.

“Well, then, some other tour day,” he said, and they went outside to welcome the waiting guests, about thirty of them. It gives one pause, she thought, and there was a quiet pride in her, that the history of this house was part of her own. John, in navy suit with cornflower-blue shirt and gold cufflinks, was very much the grand seigneur, and looking very handsome. The younger girls in the group exchanged glances which could only mean, Isn’t he groovy?

His voice, dark and deep and well-modulated, carried well, so that even those in the back were able to hear, and Margo was reminded of such day tours in foreign cities. “Everyone can hear, I hope? This is the Piazza Navona, one of the most beautiful squares in R-r-r-ome …”

“And now you see, ladies and gentlemens, zee Tour Eiffel, erected for zee Paris Exposition of 1889, voila …”

She stifled a smile and followed. John said, “In this room is the tester bed where John Quincy Adams slept. Note the Deerfield blinds at the windows. In 1794 the chimneys were rebuilt, the new roof raised on the house in 1799.”

He pointed out highboys — ”from the Phillips house in Boston” — the vertical sheathing and fine paneling in the lower hall, the lustre ware and Lowestoft in the dining room.

“These pewter plates on the mantel,” he said, “have long histories. The one on the right was brought to Salem, Massachusetts, from England, with the advance guard of the Phillips family in 1630. The other two were imported by Nathaniel Brand about 1750.”

He led them out to the back veranda. “This was called the stoop. Just where Nathaniel Brand got the idea for this typical southern adjunct to a plantation house is a conundrum, for it is known that he never spent any time south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

“He must have known Southern people,” a tourist suggested.

“He must and did,” John said, smiling. “It’s, of course, the only explanation.”

The tour took an hour and a half. When they had all gone off in the chartered bus, John asked Margo if he had performed creditably. She said yes, more than that, and congratulated him. “After all, I’ve heard it just about forever,” he reminded her, and went back to his office. She stayed there, remembering what she had just heard and whom she had first heard it from, her Aunt Victoria. Sighing, she lit a cigarette on the back veranda and looked out over the green meadow past the gardens and dreamed.

Pompey came out and asked her what she wanted to drink. Iced coffee, Gatorade, maybe something stronger?

“Nothing now,” she said, thanking him, and alone again, looked across the meadow and the gardens

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