Ciji Ware (23 page)

“Maybe she got tired of waitin’ for us, son, and went back to the house? Didn’t she say she might?” Bailey Gibbs suggested.

Daphne struggled to stand up, her head throbbing with the beginning of a headache. Her legs felt like pins and needles, and she wondered how long she’d been—what? Dreaming? Seeing visions of the past like some deranged person?

Her heart pounded at the sight of Sim appearing through the trees in exactly the same fashion that another Simon Hopkins had materialized on horseback in these very woods. It was just like the first day they had met, when the photographer, dressed in khaki slacks and a vest, mysteriously morphed into a man wearing eighteenth-century riding attire.

“Here!” she cried, startled by how weak her voice sounded. Her gaze was drawn back to the water splashing against the rock upstream, and for an instant, she imagined she saw a body in a frock coat floating facedown in the stream. Startled, she turned abruptly and saw Sim and Dr. Gibbs standing near the log where they had left her—how many minutes ago? she wondered. Both wore perplexed expressions.

“Here I am!” she shouted in a stronger voice. “Down here! Hold on… I-I’ll be right there!”

She made her way through the horsetail rushes to the spot where the two men stood. Sim took in the sight of her muddy tennis shoes, and said mildly, “You were definitely the one who needed boots. Look at your shoes!”

Daphne flushed and glanced from Sim to Dr. Gibbs. “I-I wanted to see if there were any fish downstream,” she fibbed. “I thought it might be interesting if any had gotten past the old trap.”

Dr. Gibbs looked at her strangely. “How did you know about those traps?” He turned to Sim, and explained, “Generations of folks from these parts have been setting underwater traps to catch bass and catfish in that hole, but Caroline demanded I take them out a while back. Said fish had as much right as birds to move freely on the earth.” He smiled mistily. “She became a complete vegetarian at the end.” He gave a guilty grimace. “I’ve been a backslider since she passed. Can’t resist a piece of Leila’s wonderful fried chicken once in a while.” Then Dr. Gibbs stared, gimlet-eyed, at Daphne. “But seriously, young lady… who told you about those fish traps?”

Daphne felt another flush of color fan up her throat. “I-I… I think Cousin Marcus might have mentioned them… when he talked about his family’s old place at Devon Oaks,” she ventured lamely.

“Daphne?” Sim asked, gazing at her intently. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look…”

“I’m fine,” she protested. “I think the sunshine made me sleepy.” She looked from Sim to her host and offered brightly, “Well! What’s the word from the back forty?”

***

Leila had mint juleps waiting for them on the rear veranda when they returned to the house.

“The sun’s well over the yardarm,” Dr. Gibbs declared firmly, “and this blessed woman knows to have these at-the-ready when I come in each afternoon.”

“Oh, Lord, Doctor G.,” Leila declared, waving a tea towel with a pleased smile for her employer of thirty years. “If you think flattery’ll get me to make you a second julep, you sure are in for a mighty big disappointment.
One
a day for you, sir… just like your vitamins.” Then she turned on her heel and marched inside the house.

The rims of their tulip-shaped glasses were encrusted with sugar crystals and a large stem of tangy mint nestled among the ice cubes. Immediately, Daphne excused herself and retired to the powder room to splash water on her face. When she returned, some of the ice had melted and she sipped just enough julep to be polite. In her queasy state, she didn’t trust herself to imbibe an ounce of hard liquor.

“Look what Bailey just dug out of an old file,” Sim exclaimed.

Dr. Gibbs and Sim had resumed their places in the white chairs overlooking the wide expanse of lawn leading toward the bird sanctuary. The elderly physician handed Daphne a yellowed, late-1920s newspaper clipping with a drawing that depicted a series of plantation houses, including one whose caption read “Hopkins House.” The story headline proclaimed “Ghosts Along the Mississippi.”

She took the article from Bailey, and as she skimmed the newsprint, her hand began to tremble. The body of the piece described the now-demolished structures in more detail, lamenting their loss to the architectural landscape of the Natchez region.

“It was bothering me all the time we were on our walk,” Gibbs declared, excitement evident in his voice. “Hopkins… Hopkins… I kept saying to m’self down there in the woods. And now, look at
this
.” He smiled slyly at Sim. “Are you sure, son, you don’t have Southern roots? Obviously a family named Hopkins once lived in Adams County—right down the Trace from the old Whitaker place and all the rest of us.”

Daphne remembered the Hopkins men—in frock coats with linen at their throats—riding through the woods on a cold January day.

Okay
, she lectured herself sternly.
So
a
family
named
Hopkins
once
had
a
plantation
around
here.

Hopkins was a fairly common name. This article wasn’t proof-positive that she was turning into some lunatic-fringe psychic medium, was it?

Daphne struggled to regain her composure while Sim and Dr. Gibbs made plans for Sim to return to the bird sanctuary to photograph later that week. Then the two visitors thanked the doctor and said good-bye. Within minutes, Sim was steering his car down the wooded drive and onto the Natchez Trace Parkway, heading for town.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Sim said, breaking a few moments’ silence. Daphne turned to study his handsome profile as the heavy foliage whizzed by the driver’s side window. “I hope all our tramping around in the woods didn’t seem as if we’d abandoned you to the wilds.”

“Oh, no. Absolutely not,” Daphne hastened to assure him. In fact, she’d loved the afternoon, except for the disturbing interlude by the side of Whitaker Creek. “I adored visiting this part of the Trace. After all, maybe we
both
have roots here.”

Sim glanced across the car’s interior and smiled, shaking his head. “Well, if we do, nobody in California ever told me about it. If there’s any connection, it must be way, way back. My father told me once that some ancestor of ours followed Lewis and Clark’s trail to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but no one’s ever said anything about any Hopkins having lived in the Deep South, sorry to say.” He chuckled and turned up the air-conditioning a notch. “I’d sure like to lay claim to that beautiful old house Bailey showed us in the clipping, wouldn’t you? Too bad it got flattened by a tornado.” Then he laughed. “Lucky you, though. You can stake a claim to—what house was it?”

“Devon Oaks Plantation,” Daphne said quietly.

“That’s right… Devon Oaks. And don’t forget Bluff House,” he said, a ghost of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

Sim left the parkway and wound his way on a smaller two-way street toward Monmouth. He glanced at her, and said suddenly, “Would you ever be interested in seeing a portfolio of my work?”

Sim almost seemed diffident about his offer. This quite pleased and amazed Daphne as she figured Simon Chandler Hopkins was considered tops in his field of nature writing and photography.

“I’d love to see the kinds of images you capture, sometime.”

“Great! How about right now? And then I can take you to dinner. The Monmouth chef is doing crawfish soup and some fabulous catfish with mango chutney—according to the menu they slipped under my door this morning.”

Oh, boy. What did she do now?

Daphne was wildly curious to see Sim’s work. Furthermore, there was no denying that attraction was pulling them together like a pair of fifty-ton magnets. But was it such a good idea for her to spend another evening in the company of the compelling Dr. H.?

Oh
hell
…
the
guy’s only asking me to have dinner. Chill out, Daphne!

“Sure,” she said finally. “I’d love to see your photographs. But after supper, I’ve got to get back to Maddy’s and find out which days Willis McGee wants to rehearse this week.”

“Deal,” Sim said, making a turn into the hotel’s sweeping driveway.

On this, Daphne’s third visit to Monmouth, she was in a far more cheerful frame of mind to appreciate the magnificence of Sim’s accommodations. The massive four-poster bed and the dark mahogany dresser and armoire made her feel as if she’d landed in a remake of
Gone
with
the
Wind.
Simon shrugged off his khaki vest and poured her a glass of water from the bottle of Evian on a silver tray placed on the coffee table.

“Cheers,” he said, clinking cut-crystal glasses. “You know,” he added, casting a penetrating glance in her direction, “you still look a little pale. Truly, are you feeling okay?”

“I look pale? I’m fine,” she insisted, taking a sip. “Honestly.” Feeling suddenly self-conscious to be in a man’s hotel room, Daphne avoided the big bed and sat on the settee. “Now… let’s have a look at those photographs,” she requested brightly.

Sim opened the armoire and withdrew a black leather portfolio the size of a film poster. He swiftly unzipped the case and removed several large-format books—one with a majestic bald eagle gracing the cover, another with a flamboyant parrot perched amid thick, green jungle foliage, and a third with a fierce-looking owl deep in its lair, glaring into Sim’s camera lens.

The photographer then reached back inside the portfolio and withdrew two large pieces of museum-quality white mounting board, between which lay a series of photographic enlargements separated by thin sheets of archival paper. He sat down next to her on the settee and handed her the top image.

“These are from my book on the world’s waterfowl,” he said with quiet pride. “We still have the captions to write and the editing to do, but with any luck, it will come out in time for the Christmas season.”

“I’m taking a wild stab at this,” she said, laughing, as he held up the first photograph. “Puffins?”

“Good! Puffins they are, photographed on the coast of Cornwall, England. And these?” he queried with a roguish smile.

“Easy. Penguins. In the Antarctic?”

“Clever lass. And what about this one?”

“Ducks, of course. Mallards. Am I right?”

Sim cocked his head and held the photograph at arm’s length. “Mallards,” he confirmed, his playful mood shifting slightly. “I hadn’t photographed them for ten years, but my publisher wanted them in the book, so last autumn I went to an area around Sacramento I know and sat in a duck blind in the cold rain for about four days.”

“Yikes!” Daphne said. “And I think it’s hard practicing a Bach cantata for a few hours straight.”

One by one, Sim displayed his latest prints that captured creatures in their nests, in the air, and roaming their habitats. When Daphne had thoroughly examined the last photograph, she said quietly, “These are absolutely wonderful, Sim. You have a marvelous eye.” She pointed to the books that lay on the coffee table. “And you wrote the text as well,” she marveled. “You must be one of those amazing right brain/left brain people.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Sim said modestly, and then they lapsed into companionable silence while Daphne picked up the picture of the puffin and studied it closely. Meanwhile, Sim refilled her water glass. After a moment he asked, “Tell me more about how harps came into your life. Did your cousin Madeline launch you on your career as a musician?”

“That she did, but it was my mother who cracked the whip,” Daphne said ruefully, continuing to stare at Sim’s photograph. “Not that she could read a note of music herself, of course, but for some reason she felt I should.” She glanced at Sim. “According to her, ‘there’s nothin’ prettier than a young lady sittin’ at a harp playin’
Swan
Lake
,’” she pronounced in her best approximation of her mother’s heavy Southern accent.

“And now you’re a rising young star,” Sim offered gallantly.

“Oh… not quite that,” Daphne replied, with a modest shake of her head.

“That’s what Lani Riches told me. She said you play with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra.”

Daphne merely nodded, tempted to blurt out the professional dilemma facing her when she returned to New York. The mere thought of Manhattan and all the problems awaiting her there suddenly threw a pall on their conversation.

“Actually, I’m thinking about options other than the Oberlin,” she said carefully, “and I’m glad I have some time off to figure it all out.”

Sim began to wag a finger, musing, “You know something? I actually think I
attended
a concert of yours once. In Boston… about a year ago.”

“I played that concert,” she confirmed, startled by the thought that the two of them had inhabited the same space before, “I was the harpist you couldn’t see because they stuck me in the back next to the timpanists.”