same. After several moments had passed, she’d turn the cups back up and read their fortunes. For someone as sophisticated as my grandmother, I was enchanted by these “gypsy episodes,” as Uncle Everett referred to them. Although my grandmother had graduated from the Martha Washington Seminary for Girls, this facet of her Holston heritage remained with her till death.
“Ah, Shaula!” she’d say to my mother. “Here’s this tall handsome man again. See!” she would point in the cup. “And his beard. He has raised his hand to stroke it. And he’s looking right at you. And this door! He’s going to come to our very door.”
“Mom! One man in my life was enough. You’ve got to get a new line. I’m thirty-two years old now. Who would be interested in me?”
“Well, don’t laugh it off so quickly, my dear. You’re still young and beautiful. Hamilton’s dead. He’ll never return, God rest his soul,” she would stare remorsefully at me. “It’s time you thought about remarrying. Besides, Tommy needs a father, someone to look up to, not just a dead hero,” she’d glance at my father’s photograph on the mantle.
I would look up, too. There was my father, Captain Edmonds, in his uniform, but I scarcely knew him. He left for the war after Pearl Harbor, when I was barely four. His squad was blown to bits in August of 1942, somewhere in the jungles of Guadalcanal. A purple heart dangled from one corner of his picture frame. He was my grandmother’s oldest son. His loss deeply grieved her, but she rarely spoke of him. Sometimes at night, she would take his picture off the mantle, carry it upstairs to the landing, and place it on a mahogany stand between our two bedrooms. Nothing else was permitted to rest on that stand. Above it on the wall was a photograph of him in faded overalls, taken in front of the springhouse when he must have been a boy of my age. Sometimes my mother would leave our door open and slip out of bed at night and stare at his photo.
An uncomfortable maroon loveseat, a large, green silk-covered couch, stacked with green felt pillows with streaming gold braids, a deep black leather armchair, and a tall cherry chest of drawers (pushed against the wall opposite the front windows), constituted the living room’s main furniture. Small tables of walnut and oak, and end tables with inlaid silver filigree bands, completed the furnishings, except for the semi-circle of rockers that faced the hearth. A painting of my grandmother dominated the wall between the front windows. She is sitting in the loveseat. Her neck and back are very erect. A large diamond pendant glitters on her chest, just above a strikingly low-cut, silver gown. Her black hair is gently fluffed. The exquisite lines of her thin face, nose, and lips catch your eyes immediately. A genteel air commands her entire presence. Her hands rest on one another in her lap. Beneath her portrait for many years hung a deteriorating pink photograph of my grandfather Holman. Long strands of gray hair encircled his face and ears. A high white collar, wide cravat, and stylish unbuttoned black coat complemented his attire. His eyes were deep set, almost coal black, and stared out in defiance. Several links of a gold chain and watch poked visibly from a pocket. Someone stole his picture, but we never knew who the culprit was. My grandmother’s portrait still hangs in the living room, along with my father’s photo on the mantle. I have added a photograph of my mother, as well.
Other family members’ portraits and pictures were relegated to the hallway. After entering from the porch through the large, glass-paneled front door, one passed a dusty painting of my great-great grandfather on the left. It hung just passed a huge portmanteau. He sports a powdered wig, a lacy tie, and a black, smoking jacket. He holds, what appears to be, a deed in his clenched left fist. A brass nameplate heralds his title: Col. James Holman Edmonds. His chest is Atlas in size, his gaze: regal. Beside where the Colonel’s picture used to hang, still looms a life-size painting of my great-grandfather, Capt. Nathan Edmonds. He is decked out in a gray Confederate long coat, with a gold sash about his waist, and a polished sword at his side. A long white beard rests curled on his chest. In spite of his military bearing, there is a roguish gentleness about his face, a soft sophistication of aristocratic noblesse. Opposite their paintings were small portraits of their wives. The women wear white bonnets drawn about their chins, their faces pale and smileless. Except for the Captain’s portrait, the others hang today in my great-aunt’s house in town, which became a museum after her death. As I child, I would stare at these awesome and austere people, almost afraid of them, yet captivated by their determined countenances. Plus, there was Quilly, on her marble-top pedestal, to humble and charm them into submission. Beside her, stretched a crimson Napoleon couch that provided an enchanting anomaly to the petrifying demeanor of the old women. How I loved sitting on that couch, infatuated by Quilly’s beauty, while I swung my legs back-and-forth and made faces at those ponderous ancestors of old. I did have to admit, though, that my Uncle Everett had that identical look in his eye that Capt. Edmonds’ portrait made transparent. I wanted to be like both of them, especially like my Uncle Everett.
One entered the parlor through French doors, opposite the living room, at the base of the stairwell. The doors were constructed of heavy oak, stained a dark mahogany and sticky from years of sweaty fingerprints. One could roll up a finish of grimy goo with practically no difficulty. Once inside the room, its spacious depth and stacked rock fireplace, which was fitted with an iron stove, appealed immensely to visitors’ curiosities. The room contained wall-to-wall shelves of rare and coveted books, some reaching to the ceiling. A rickety ladder on metal rails offered access to the higher shelves, but anyone could reach the lower treasure of crumbly, leather-covered books. A magnificent new set of The Encyclopedia of Knowledge, consisting of forty volumes published in 1935, was wonderfully within my reach. How I enjoyed perusing each book on rainy days and soggy nights! The set was replete with pictures and photos of such far away places as India, China, Africa, the Eiffel Tower, walled German villages, and the mountains of Italy. I first learned to read from its pages, even before the first grade, thanks to the pictures and to my mother and grandmother’s patience—along with the captions beneath the glossy photographs. There was even a chapter on farming and a section on Abingdon, its Knobs, the Barter Theatre, tobacco auction barns, and Daniel Boone. The chapter opened with our own Col. James Holman Edmonds’ portrait and his exploits as one of the town’s founding giants.
Many tomes of jurisprudence, geology, state history, the Lost Cause, horticulture, plant diseases, medicine, and literature stared down at me. I would pull out books and run my hands over them and pretend I was reading these myriad works. No daydreamer had a better backdrop for flights of chrestomathic adventure.
It was on one of those rainy mornings that I heard a knock at the front door and ran to see who it was. We were expecting Uncle Everett, and I wanted him to tell me about the various cannons that were pictured in one of the military books. But as I looked through the glass, it wasn’t Uncle Everett at all, but a tall, ruddy-faced, elegant man, with a goatee and a gentleman’s bearing. “Mama!” I shouted. “Grandmother! It’s that man in the coffee cup! Hurry! Come quick!”
I could hear the swish of their skirts behind me, along with Pearl’s. My mother arrived first. “Oh, my goodness!” she clutched her throat. “It’s Marion Chappels.” She opened the door with excitement. “Mr. Chappels! What a pleasant surprise! Please, come in!”
“Thank you, Shaula, if I may, I shall,” he removed his hat before stepping in.
“Heavens!” exclaimed Grandmother. “I hope it’s good news.”
“I’m afraid it’s not. Is Everett about? I need his help.”
“No, but we expect him soon. At least, come on in by the fire, and have a glass of sherry, and tell us what’s happened.”
“That I’ll do,” he smiled, as Pearl took his hat and hung it on the portmanteau.
We hurried in the living room behind him, while grandmother poured him a glass of sherry.
“Well, what is it?” she asked as we sat crowded around him.
“It’s
