Lauretta laughed ironically. “And I—I who am your mother—am I not to be pitied at all?”

“I tried to think of it this way: you and Mama were sisters. The same flesh and blood, so to say. I settled that you bore me for her when she could not.”

“I call that most accommodating of me!” Lauretta declared furiously.

“I dare say it was, madam. And having performed that sisterly function, you then—and I do not blame you—abandoned the child you had borne.”

“That is heartless of you to say!”

“I am sorry that you feel it so, madam, but that is no real concern of mine.”

“Would you have preferred me to take you along?”

“When you eloped with Uncle Bonard, you mean?”

“For God’s sake, stop calling everyone Uncle and Aunt! That Southern custom is too absurd! Uncle Floyd! Aunt Pauline! Uncle Ezra!”

“It cannot be denied, ma’am, that Uncle Bonard was my uncle—twice my uncle, you might say, since he was married to my father’s sister before he became the supposed husband of my mother’s sister. If that doesn’t make him my uncle, then nothing could. And you are my Aunt Lauretta.”

“Was not my leaving you here with your father doing you a better service than taking you along with me?”

“Leaving me was certainly doing me the better service,” Rachel agreed. “But you must not pretend that my welfare weighed heavily in your decision. A squalling brat in the arms must surely take away something of the romance of an elopement.”

Lauretta yet strove to keep a shred of command and dignity. “Your best welfare and my own requirements happened to coincide.”

“How happy then for both of us.” Rachel stood. “And that surely makes us quits. I shall leave you now, ma’am, with your feelings—and I shall attend to my own, whose concern is somewhat different at the moment.”

“You will not,” Lauretta began hopefully, “you will not tell your—tell Sarah of this conversation?”

“I think it best not, don’t you?” Rachel said.

Lauretta did not answer.

Rachel left the grounds near the house and walked into the fields and woods, thinking her thoughts. When she returned late in the afternoon, she found Sarah alone at her desk in the office. She came up behind her and put her arms around her. Turning in surprise, Sarah’s wrinkled neck creased the more deeply, but the lines of her face smoothed away in the smile she turned on Rachel. Dropping to her knees Rachel managed to say only, “Mama, I love you!” before she broke into a fit of weeping, her head on Sarah’s knees. Sarah stroked her head and hugged and rocked her, and her own tears when they fell on the girl’s head were like a happy benediction. “My child, my dear child!”

14

“Go to the glade, go to the glade—”