Windswept (13 page)

She allowed herself a shiver of revulsion at the thought and turned her attention back to where it belonged, on the box in front of her.

***

At dinner Tuesday evening, Davis worked hard at making Barrett more comfortable with him. In any negotiation, you had to understand the other party, their wants and needs, so he started there.

“Tell me, why did you go into history?” he asked after she told him her progress for the day.

“I had a couple of really great history profs as an undergraduate,” she answered. “They made history come alive. It’s not fiction. It’s the story of real human beings. Doing my kind of history gets me right down to the personal level. Some of these people were absolutely extraordinary human beings without being ‘great men’ like Washington or Lincoln. They accomplished so much just by living, dealing with day-to-day life.”

She laughed. “Of course, there are a goodly number of outright villains too. I love the research, finding out about all these people, trying to decipher them and their motives and actions. I like the teaching, too. The writing is always a challenge, trying to explain how I arrived at my interpretations and convincing others to agree with them. What I am definitely not fond of, however, is the academic politics, but it goes with the territory.”

“Is it difficult--the politics I mean?” Davis was intrigued. “I know about regular politics and office politics, but very little about academia.”

“It can get vicious, especially in the liberal arts where the pie of grants and budgets is so small, compared with the hard sciences and engineering. The tenure process can be rigorous.” A bleak look crossed her gaze.

“You mentioned tenure when we first spoke. Where do you stand?”

“I expect the History Department, the Dean, and the university will make a decision about me the year after this coming one. That’s one of the reasons the Windswept papers are so important to me. There are at least a couple of articles in them and maybe a book. Getting them published would help my cause immeasurably.”

“And you’re determined to be tenured.” He understood drive in a career. He had plenty of his own.

“Yes. It’s next to impossible to get anywhere in the profession without it.” Her determination was almost palpable.

“Here’s to Windswept, then.” Davis raised his glass and she joined him in the toast.

Later as he sat in his office, Davis listened to the rapid click-clack of the keyboard coming from the next room. The woman typed at warp speed. He smiled to himself before turning his attention to his e-mail.

A couple of minutes later, the phone rang. He picked it up. “Hel . . ,” he started to say, but the caller interrupted.

“Davis, it’s Lloyd,” said his cousin.

Damn
. “What do you want?” Davis asked.

“Is that professor going through the papers? Has she found anything yet?”

Davis almost sighed, but kept his disgust out of his voice. “You’re worrying for nothing. She’s found lots of information, but nothing incriminating or even remotely scandalous.”

“Well, she will. My mama is all upset about this. She’s positive Grandmama told her some awful story was in those boxes. Lies. Scandal. You have to let me look at those papers.”

“No, I don’t, Lloyd.” He kept his voice calm and reasonable; he didn’t want to give his cousin the slightest reason to pitch a fit and ruin his own good spirits. “You know the papers belong to me, not to the family as a whole. I’m following Granddaddy’s wishes, according to his will and what he told me before he died. Dr. Browning is cataloging the collection and then she will write articles and books based on what she finds in them.”

“What? Articles and books?” Lloyd yelped. “Hellfire, Davis! You never said she was going to write something about the family. I thought she was just doing an inventory.”

“Yes, she’s going to write academic articles, you know, real history, with footnotes.”

“No, she can’t! You don’t know what kind of woman she is, what she’ll write about us. I found out . . .”

“Calm down, Lloyd,” Davis interrupted. “She’ll write good, honest history.” He kept his voice low but he was rapidly losing his willingness to continue the conversation. Lloyd was breathing so hard into his ear that he couldn’t hear Barrett’s typing any more.

“But, but we’ll be ruined!”

Davis shook his head. As usual, Lloyd was getting himself all wound up for no reason. At times like these, he really felt for Grace, Lloyd’s wife. She was a nice woman and Davis wondered how his cousin had managed to attract and hold her. True love, he guessed, and marveled how Lloyd could be the beneficiary of such feelings. Davis himself had certainly never felt--or received--them.

Lloyd must be hell to live with, he surmised and not for the first time. He decided to do what he could for Grace to lessen her husband’s anxiety, at least for the evening. He spoke with the tone of command and certainty he used with worried clients. “Now, listen to me, Lloyd. You know I have the family’s best interests at heart. Do you really think I would allow publication of anything that might remotely hurt the family?”

“Well . . .” Lloyd’s voice was ragged, but he seemed to be listening.

“Do you?” He kept his volume low and soothing.

“No, I guess not,” Lloyd finally said.

“Now, you tell Aunt Cecilia she can stop worrying.”

“Okay, but . . .”

“I’ll talk with you the next time I come over there. Tell Grace hello for me.”

“Okay,” Lloyd said, but still sounded skeptical.

Davis hung up, leaned back in his chair and rubbed his right forefinger over his mustache. He might have a real problem with Lloyd. He hoped he had said enough to calm the man down, but he knew his cousin. Lloyd would go back to his mother, and she’d get him all worked up again. Aunt Cecilia was certainly a piece of work. For now, however, let calm prevail on Lloyd’s home front. He turned back to his report on the upcoming merger.

In the outer office, silence reigned as Barrett sat stunned, fingers poised over the keyboard. What had she just heard? She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but she had stopped typing to pull up the next stack of letters and Davis’s conversation had come through loud and clear. He may speak softly, but his voice carried.

Lloyd must be the cousin she had met, Lloyd Walker, son of Cecilia. He had seemed a little hostile toward her at their first and only meeting, and when she had asked Edgar about him, the old man had told her not to worry about Lloyd. He’d said something about this particular grandson not “cottoning to outsiders.”

But what had Davis told Lloyd?
“You know I have the family’s best interests at heart. Do you really think I would allow publication of anything that might remotely hurt the family?”

What did his statement mean? Did what he told his cousin mean he would try to limit what she wrote?

No, she told herself. Davis would not do that. He was a man of his word, and he would honor their agreement--the same one she had had with his grandfather. She was to have full and complete control of the contents of her articles or books.

Lloyd must think some scandal lurked in the papers. She couldn’t imagine what it could be. Evidence of collaboration with the Yankees? Confirmation of political shenanigans during Reconstruction or after? Proof of a secret murder, like how Scarlett had killed the Yankee marauder in
Gone With The Wind
? How ridiculous would that be?

The cousin must simply be one of those people who worried over nothing. She could ignore his anxiety. After all, he was in Louisiana and she was here with the papers. She scoffed at herself for even thinking Davis would censor her conclusions or stop her publications.

Barrett turned back to the papers and worked through the stack on her desk. At nine o’clock, she decided she’d done enough for the day. She stuck her head in Davis’s door, but he was on the phone again, so she just waved and went upstairs to bed.

***

In St. Gregoryville, after hanging up the phone, Lloyd leaned forward and put his head into his hands. Yesterday had been bad enough. There he’d been, enjoying himself at the family barbeque and crawfish boil on a fine Memorial Day, when his mother had interrupted his meal with more tales of possible malicious gossip and of even worse actual--but unspecified--deeds sure to ruin the family forever.

His wife, bless her heart, had coaxed his mother away so he could eat in peace, but he had lost his appetite. Grace had helped him restore his equilibrium--Thank God, some aspect of his life was working right--but this morning his mother had called and it had taken him half an hour to calm her down.

Hellfire, the way she kept dropping little hints and innuendoes about doom with never any facts to back them up made him furious. He’d finally given her an ultimatum: give him some facts and proof, and he might be able to do something with Davis. Otherwise, drop the subject altogether.

Then this afternoon had brought a phone call from one of those professors who had been sniffing around Windswept before Granddaddy passed away.

Horace Glover. Lloyd had actually read one of his books about the military campaigns in Virginia because he’d mentioned Edgar Jr. Glover seemed like a nice enough fellow and his book had the facts correct. However, the professor had related a tale Lloyd had not liked at all. According to the professor, he had approached Granddaddy about the papers with a request to look for correspondence and what-have-you from Edgar Jr. Granddaddy had snubbed him--oh, Glover hadn’t said it in so many words, but Lloyd had been left with the distinct impression Granddaddy had been less than courteous in turning down the request.

That wasn’t so bad, but then Glover had explained how he taught at the same university with the uppity Browning woman. What he told Lloyd about her, how inexperienced she was, how she was one of those “feminist” types, always looking to stick it to men, especially for the way they treated women in the past, how he was sure no good would come out of her digging around in the Jamison history--well, all the professor’s statements on top of his mother’s frenzy had caused him to finally call Davis.

And Davis had not even given him the time to make his case. His damn cousin had just blown him off with platitudes. Davis was just like Granddaddy. Neither of them gave a shit about the family.

What was he going to do to halt this pending catastrophe, Lloyd pondered as he turned off the light in his study and headed toward the family room where Grace was watching television. He brightened as he looked at her. She’d help him take his mind off his troubles.

Chapter Nine

Thursday afternoon Davis had just adjourned a meeting on the investment he was about to authorize and walked into Peggy Murphy’s office when she answered the phone. She listened, then said, “Just a moment, please. I’ll see if he’s available.” She pressed the hold button and looked up at Davis. “There’s a Horace Glover asking to speak to you. He says he’s a professor at the same university as Dr. Browning.”

Davis frowned. “Glover? I don’t know him.” He thought a minute. “Granddaddy never mentioned him, and neither has Barrett.”

“Shall I simply say you’re not available?” Peggy asked.

“No, I’ll take the call.” He walked into his office, put his folders and legal pad on the desk, and sat down. This was just what he didn’t want, to be bothered by historians or anybody else about those papers. He’d made it clear to Barrett, and she’d agreed, but she’d also warned him she’d spoken of the papers to members of her history department. This must be one of them. He made a bet with himself about what the fellow wanted and punched the button to activate the speaker phone.

“This is Davis Jamison,” he said.

“Mr. Jamison, my name is Horace Glover. I’m a colleague of Barrett Browning.”

The man’s voice boomed out of the phone. Davis winced and hit the volume button a couple of times. “What can I do for you, Dr. Glover?”

“I understand Barrett is preparing a catalogue of the papers from your family plantation.”

Davis said nothing.

Glover must have expected him not to respond because the professor just rolled on. “I’m a military historian, Mr. Jamison. You may have read my latest book,
Manassas Marauders
, in which I related some of the heroic service of your great-great grandfather, Colonel Edgar John Jamison, Jr.”

Glover paused, clearly expecting an answer, probably a complimentary one, but Davis decided to be truthful--and blunt. “No, I don’t read much history.”

“Ah.” The flat statement stopped the professor’s flow, but he rallied quickly. “Well, be that as it may, I’m turning my attention to the campaigns on the western side of the Confederacy, in which, as you undoubtedly know, Colonel Jamison played an important part. I talked with your grandfather about a year before his death concerning the collection, specifically regarding Colonel Jamison.”

“Yes?” Davis said in a non-committal manner. He’d won his internal bet; Glover wanted access to the papers.

“I was doubly sorry to hear of your grandfather’s passing. First, because he was such a fine man, and second, because I looked forward to working with him on the papers. Did he tell you he had promised I could search them for correspondence and other documents relating to Colonel Jamison’s military career?”

Davis frowned at the ingratiating quality in Glover’s voice and at his out-and-out lie. Promise? The only mention Edgar had made about anybody other than Barrett was to complain about “some damn fool professors” who were hounding him for access. He’d said the only promise he made was to himself to give them a kick in the ass off his property. Davis kept his voice placid as he answered, “No, sir, he said nothing to me about anyone except Dr. Browning.”

Glover hesitated, then said, “That is unfortunate. Edgar and I spoke several times about the collection. Are you certain he left no notes or letters about our agreement?”

You know he didn’t, Davis thought, but said only, “No notes, no conversations.”

“Well then. Given my discussions with your grandfather, when may I peruse the collection for items about Colonel Jamison’s career, specifically after he transferred from the eastern theater? He played a prominent role in the subject of my next book, and I certainly want to do his memory justice.” His tone implied Davis would certainly agree.