Authors: A Light on the Veranda
Ciji Ware
| A Light on the Veranda |
| Ciji Ware |
| Sourcebooks, Inc. (2012) |
Copyright
Copyright © 2001, 2012 by Ciji Ware
Cover and internal design © 2012 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Susan Zucker
Cover images © Susan Fox/Trevillion; Mosaikphotography/iStockphoto.com
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
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FAX: (630) 961-2168
Originally published in 2001 by the Ballantine Publishing Group
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ware, Ciji.
A light on the veranda / by Ciji Ware.
p. cm.
1. Natchez (Miss.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3573.A7435L54 2012
813’.54—dc23
2011050592
Contents
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
This novel is dedicated to
MICHAEL LLEWELLYN, novelist, journalist, and friend beyond price who led me to the Town That Time Forgot in Mississippi and shared all he’d learned,
MARY LOU ENGLAND, book lover, bookseller, and book angel, whose knowledge of Natchez, generosity of spirit, and grace under pressure informed this novel from first page to last,
DEBORAH HENSON-CONANT, brilliant jazz harpist and blithe spirit who could have founded the Aphrodite Jazz Ensemble if she’d wanted to,
RON and LANI RICHES of Monmouth Plantation, and the late ROBERT PULLY, of Governor Holmes House, supporters of the arts and innkeepers
extraordinaires
who helped make Natchez the wonderful place it is.
Everything is vibrational in nature
We respond to things we cannot hear.
—Jim Oliver, composer
Harmonic
Resonance
Chapter 1
March 14
Daphne Whitaker Duvallon always suspected that jilted fiancés could spell trouble, and—in certain circumstances—might even be downright dangerous.
Of course, nobody thought that on the night the classical harpist ditched Jack Ebert
at
the
altar
in front of five hundred wedding guests at Saint Louis Cathedral in the heart of New Orleans’s French Quarter. Most folks thought that Jack took the public humiliation remarkably well. However, from that candlelit evening onwards, any unbiased observer would say that Daphne’s life became the female version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
Even so, how could she have known that an entirely
new
path would emerge from the supernova her life had become, or that the orbit of nature photographer Simon Chandler Hopkins was destined to intersect her own? Looking back, she realized that surely the stars must have shifted in the heavens the instant she retrieved that fateful voice mail message one raw, rain-filled night in New York.
“Hey there, Botticelli angel girl! How y’all doing up there in Yankee land?”
Daphne pictured her older brother clasping an amber bottle of Dixie beer in one hand and his cell phone in the other, perfectly at ease chatting to his sister’s voice mail in faraway Manhattan.
“It’s a lovely spring evening here in New Orleans, and I just wanted you to know that your only sibling’s still
very
much a man in love. So guess what, darlin’? Corlis and I are finally going to do the deed! Kingsbury Duvallon is—at last—getting married. Next week, in fact.”
Next
week?
The mere mention of a wedding—
any
wedding, even her beloved brother’s—made Daphne’s heart pound erratically and her breath come in short gasps. It had been just over two years since she’d fled back to New York after her eleventh-hour bailout of her own Christmastime marriage extravaganza—a hundred-thousand-dollar event replete with nine bridesmaids; three flower girls; twin-boy ring bearers; acres of roses and pine boughs, supplied at cost from Flowers by Duvallon; seven limousines, supplied gratis from the Ebert-Petrella chain of funeral homes; not to mention sixty-six tall, ivory tapers affixed one to a pew at twenty dollars a pop and the stillborn reception at the posh New Orleans Country Club. And of course, who could forget the television crew in the church balcony sent by WWEZ-TV to cover the “wedding of the season”?
Was it any wonder, Daphne thought, that King’s reference to nuptials involving her family in New Orleans made her feel as if she might slip off her kitchen bar stool in a dead faint? She scanned her minuscule, fifth-floor walk-up and wondered if her cordless landline phone would still work if she stuck her head out of the window to get some cool, northeastern air.
“To make up for such short notice,” her brother continued carefully, sounding as if he could imagine her discomfort when she heard word of this impending family gathering, “you’ll probably be mighty pleased to hear that we’re
not
tying the knot in the great state of Louisiana.”
“Amen,” she murmured, closing her eyes and offering up a prayer of thanks to whatever voodoo gods were handling her case. She leaned her elbows against the kitchen counter for support and held onto the phone receiver like a life preserver. Someone in the next apartment slammed a door and yelled a curse in Spanish that was immediately answered with a string of Anglo-Saxon epithets. Five stories below, car brakes screeched and horns honked furiously. “Manhattan cab drivers,” she muttered.