Jase relaxed. “I’ll wait till tomorrow, then.”
Like father, like daughter. Maybe Laurel could work the same miracles with Lolly that Reverend Ed had with him. His relationship with Girl Child had become particularly fractious lately. Maxie said it was because she was fifteen, but he’d been worried enough to consult a psychologist, who basically told him the same thing—that Lolly was testing her limits and asserting an adulthood she hadn’t quite reached yet, that everything would be up and down for a while, but they’d both survive if he kept his cool. But it was damn hard for him to keep his cool when she wouldn’t let him keep her safe.
*
Laurel was trying to gently hustle her guest up the stairs, but it was slow going. Lolly’s eyes were overbright, and she’d gotten her second wind.
“Oh, wow! Awesome! That mirror in the foyer, and the chandelier! Like something out of Phantom of the Opera!”
Laurel couldn’t help but glance up, even though she’d walked under the same light fixture every day of her life.
“And the grain of the wood!” Lolly caressed the banister. “Killer! Is it walnut?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Your house is like a museum—or a royal palace! Aunt Maxie and I made a tour of European castles last summer.” She did a three-sixty survey of the foyer, then looked at Laurel, two steps above her. “Everything’s so old and beautiful! And these paintings…” She gestured at the ascending display of deceased Kinkaids. “You must get a total charge out of living here!” Her glance swept up the stairway. “How many bedrooms do you have?”
That one Laurel knew the answer to. “Ten in all, but the ones on the third floor have been closed off for ages. There are four on the second floor—two smaller ones and two large suites. I use one of the smaller ones, and I’m putting you in the one across the hall.”
Lolly indicated the gilt-framed portrait on the wall beside her. “Are these your grandparents?”
“No, they’re my parents.” It was her favorite picture of Mama and Daddy. Somehow the artist had done a better job of capturing Daddy’s intrinsic goodness and Mama’s gentle warmth than any photographer ever had.
“Dad talks about your father a lot, you know. He says Reverend Ed was the kindest, wisest person he’s ever known.”
Laurel tried to smile.
Lolly moved on past Grampa Dabney and Gramma Lorena’s portrait, barely glanced at the picture of Grampa and his brother as children, then stopped at a pair of large oils. “Who are these people?”
“The stern-looking woman with the four little girls is my great-grandfather’s first wife, Adeline Quisenberry, and the stern-looking woman in the painting one jump up from them, the one with the two boys clinging to her skirts, is his second wife, my great-grandmother, Ida Mae Benton.”
Lolly stifled a yawn, nodded, and moved up several steps to study a large, dramatic painting of four dark-haired women in low-cut gowns.
Pendleton Swaim had been interested in that picture too, Laurel remembered. He’d even made a quick sketch of it three years ago during the garden club’s historic homes tour. No telling how he’d use the information.
Lolly gestured toward the painting. “Who are they? They’re so pretty.”
“They’re the little girls all grown up. Gramma said they were wild and that the oldest, Great-Aunt Barbara, ran off to Italy with the architect who designed the house, but I don’t know about the others.”
Lolly squinted at the picture as if trying to bring it into better focus. “They’re all wearing necklaces with animal things hanging from them.”
Laurel nodded. “Their father gave them the necklaces when he was in what Gramma called his ‘Chinese phase.’ The animals represent the year each girl was born in.”
“Cool. I’m a rabbit.”
They’d almost reached second-floor landing, but there was one more portrait to go. Laurel made a grand gesture of introduction. “Lolly, I present to you my great-grandfather, Erasmus Galileo Kinkaid.” She nodded her head in his direction, and he twinkled back, the cheeky devil.
Lolly’s eyes lit up with renewed interest. “Hey, he’s sexy!” Her brow clouded over. “He didn’t own slaves, though, did he?”
Laurel shook her head. “Not Erasmus. He didn’t arrive in Texas till sometime in the late 1860s, but his wives’ families had cotton plantations before the Civil War.”
Truth to tell, she’d always been a little uneasy around the black kids in school whose last names were Benton or Quisenberry. Emancipated slaves often took the surnames of their former masters, and the fact that the Bentons were so light that some of them had “passed” made her want to ask her mother questions she was pretty sure Mama didn’t want to answer.
Lolly turned to her with a frown. “But why isn’t your portrait here?