Angel of the Morning
For most of his adult life, Luke Sexton had been a taphophile. No, he didn't suffer from a rare blood disease or any other bodily ailment. A taphophile, you see, is defined as someone who likes to visit cemeteries to view or photograph the headstones and statuary. In the psychiatric world, however, the word has a much darker connotation, referring specifically to someone who has a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries.
Luke preferred the former definition since his interest in such places was artistic in nature. His was not a morbid fascination with the dead. He enjoyed taking pictures of the elaborate granite, marble and bronze headstones that marked the final resting places of the more affluent departed and appreciated the sense of history and ancestry of the older plots.
As an interior design consultant for a nation-wide retailer, he traveled across the country on a fairly regular basis. While on these business trips, he spent some of his free time touring cemeteries and photographing memorial stones and statues. The walls of his Boston condominium were decorated with framed enlargements of pictures he'd taken at Cambridge's Mt. Auburn Cemetery, New York's Union Cemetery, Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery and Chicago's Resurrection Cemetery.
It was while he was redecorating a store in Savannah that he drove out to the Georgia countryside to visit a large cemetery that dated back to the early eighteenth century, a time when America was still a collection of British colonies. Although the newest subdivisions of the memorial park consisted of modern graves uniformly marked with small in-ground plaques and discreet retractable flower vases, there were also sections containing older graves with far more character.
People in past generations treated the dead more reverently. Our great-grandparents were sent off in style with hand-carved granite head- and sometimes footstones, as well as marble statuary to beautify the surroundings. Modern man, used to fast food service and assembly line manufacturing, either cremated the dead or put them in the ground with the most basic, unimaginative memorials to mark their final resting spots.
For the most part, the dearly departed's entire existence is now summed up with names and dates. There are no longer any moving epitaphs, no weatherproof framed photographs of the deceased. Burial has become impersonal, sterile. That was why Luke liked to frequent the older sections of cemeteries during his travels.
With his trusty Nikon strapped around his neck, the young interior designer walked past the well-groomed modern areas of the cemetery and headed for the less visited, older graves. As could be expected, there were many burial plots adorned with American flags, representing the brave men who fell in Vietnam, Korea, World War II, the Spanish-American War and the war to end all wars: the First World War. In an even older section were graves marked with Confederate flags. These were the gallant men who gave their lives for the "glorious cause," which proved to be a lost cause for the South.
In the oldest part of the cemetery were graves with headstones that were so worn down with time that their inscriptions were barely legible. Like elderly people, these markers no longer stood upright but were bent over, some leaning forward or back, others listing to the right or left. These stone tablets marked the burial sites of the men and women who left England and settled in the New World, a good number of them patriots who fought for independence, but Luke suspected there were a few Tories buried amongst them, perhaps still stubbornly clinging to their allegiance to King George.
Luke had been wandering in the cemetery for nearly two hours when he noticed the batteries in his Nikon were low.
I suppose it's time to return to Savannah, he thought with disappointment.
After reading one last epitaph, he turned to go. With his peripheral vision, he spied the most exquisite statue in the cemetery: a full-size angel, which stood beside the wrought iron gate that separated the Colonial Era graves from those of the Civil War Era. The taphophile quickly snapped a picture—thankfully, his camera battery was not completely dead—and then headed toward the gate to get a better look at the statue.
* * *
"Excuse me, Ma'am," Luke politely called to the volunteer who sat at the main desk of the local historical society.
"Can I help you, young man?" the woman asked with a welcoming smile.
"I was wondering if you might have any information about the large cemetery at the edge of town."
"We certainly do," she replied amiably. "Is there something in particular you'd like to know about it?"
"I'm interested in finding out about a statue there, one probably done in the early 1800s."
The woman smiled, able to accurately guess which statue interested him.
"You must be referring to the Angel of the Morning."
"Is that what it's called?"
The woman chuckled softly.
"No. That's just an affectionate nickname the statue got during the Sixties—the Nineteen Sixties, that is. I don't suppose you remember the old song by Merrilee Rush?"
Luke shook his head.
"The sculptor named it Angel in Mourning, but someone at our local newspaper mistakenly wrote a caption beneath a photograph of the statue, identifying it as the Angel of the Morning, the title of Miss Rush's song. We all had a good laugh over the mistake, and the newspaper printed a retraction, but the name stuck."
"I take it the statue is well-known in your town."
"Oh, yes. It was done by Aubrey Whitson, our native son."
"I'm sorry. I don't know that much about art. Is Aubrey Whitson famous?"
"He was one of the best sculptors of his day. He might have become as well known as Rodin had he not died in the war."
Luke knew from past experience that to most people in the Deep South, the war meant only one conflict: the American Civil War.
"What a shame," he remarked. "If that angel is any indication of the man's talent, his death was a loss to the art world."
"Would you like to see photographs of some of Whitson's other works?"
"I'd love to."
Luke was surprised to see that the sculptor's other pieces were much more abstract in nature, their subjects more symbolic. While Whitson was clearly a fine sculptor and an artistic genius, none of his other works affected Luke as deeply as did the Angel in Mourning. But then Luke was not an art lover per se; he was a young man under the spell of taphophilia.
"I don't suppose you'd be interested in learning more about Whitson's life?" the volunteer asked.
Although such was not his original intention, Luke suddenly wanted to know more about the sculptor and his work. Hopefully, such information might shed light on his inspiration for sculpting the Angel in Mourning statue.
"I would. Are there any newspaper clippings here?"
"Yes, and there's also a biography, written by Joline Brainard, the local high school art teacher. She's one of the descendents of the Whitson family, and while she was researching her family tree, she came up with the idea to write a book on the sculptor. It's only a self-published volume, but it does contain a good deal of information on Whitson's life and his work."
Luke accompanied the woman into a small room that was once the back parlor of the old Victorian home that housed the historical society and which now served as the society's gift store. Among old maps, framed antique photographs, hand-sewn quilts and a few locally made arts and crafts were a handful of books including the biography of Aubrey Whitson. Luke paid the woman fifteen dollars for the book and added an extra five as a donation to the historical buildings preservation fund. Then he thanked the volunteer for her help and returned to his hotel in Savannah.
* * *
As Luke Sexton read his way through Aubrey Whitson's biography, it was clear that Joline Brainard was a teacher, not a writer. The book read more like a dull history lecture than an engaging story of an artist's life. There was little of interest in the emotionless, dry facts about the sculptor's early years as the son of one of Georgia's wealthiest cotton planters, his privileged education and the start of his promising art career. Luke found the book about as entertaining as reading an encyclopedia entry. He was about to give up when the biography suddenly became interesting.
At age thirty, Whitson, who had already achieved a good deal of critical acclaim and financial success as an artist, met and fell in love with a seventeen-year-old girl from Atlanta. Up until that time, the sculptor had been engrossed in his art and had no time for romantic entanglements. When he met the pretty young belle, whom Ms. Brainard had likened to the literary coquette Scarlett O'Hara, he was instantly smitten. After more than a year pursuing the woman of his dreams, Aubrey won the hand of the lovely Mariette DuBois.
Although the art teacher had done her best to depict the sculptor's wife as a bubbly, vivacious and fun-loving woman, Luke could read between the lines. Ms. Brainard clearly was of the opinion that Mariette had been a vain, foolish and selfish girl who didn't appreciate the good man who wanted to share his life with her.
Such a star-crossed relationship is doomed to end tragically, Luke predicted as he continued reading the biography.
To his surprise, the capricious young woman evidently had a change of heart at some point, for she eventually left the gay social life of Savannah behind and settled down on her husband's plantation. However, their domestic bliss did not last. Just weeks before hostilities between the North and South broke out, Mariette ran away with a young lover. Aubrey Whitson was devastated. In his grief over the loss of the woman he adored, he sculpted her likeness in the form of an angel.
Luke caught his breath. The Angel in Mourning statue had been cast in Mariette DuBois Whitson's likeness!
Was she really that beautiful? he wondered. Or did Aubrey Whitson let his infatuation with his pretty wife cloud his mind and make him exaggerate her loveliness?
The ending chapters of the book were as tedious as those at the beginning. Most of them dealt with the artist's experiences during the Civil War. After the First Battle of Manassas, Aubrey enlisted in the Confederate Army. He fought at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, only to be killed at Gettysburg. His remains were later brought back to Georgia and interred in the family burial plot on the grounds of Whitson Hall, his once-glorious cotton plantation, which had fallen into a state of disrepair during the war.
Luke closed the book and put it on the bedside table. He had an overwhelming desire to see the Angel in Mourning statue again, so he got into his rental car and drove back to the cemetery. He went directly to the Civil War Era section where Aubrey Whitson's statue stood beside the dilapidated wrought iron gate. Luke stared up at the delicate features and the graceful form of the Angel in Mourning and was mesmerized by the subject's beauty.
"No woman could be so perfect," he said with a sigh.
He stayed in the cemetery, not taking his eyes off Mariette's likeness, until dusk heralded the coming of night. It was only when the sun began to set that he bid the Angel of Mourning a silent farewell and returned to Savannah.
* * *
During the next several weeks Luke Sexton gave little thought to either the sculptor or his cemetery angel. The interior designer was under a deadline and worked ten-hour days, six times a week. On Sundays he liked to sleep late, read the newspapers and go out to breakfast. Afterward, he would frequently go to the movies.
On one warm Sunday afternoon in May, he went to a theater to see the latest Jack Nicholson film. While standing in line to purchase his ticket, he glimpsed a familiar face standing in line behind him.
"Excuse me, but aren't you Joline Brainard, the author of the biography on Aubrey Whitson?"
The teacher's smile was genuine. Not only did she enjoy being recognized, but it was also the first time anyone had referred to her as an author.
"Yes, I am."
"I just finished reading your book, and I was fascinated by the story of the sculptor and his wife."
"Thank you. I've always been interested in my family history, Aubrey Whitson in particular."
"I can see why. I saw a sample of his work, the Angel in Mourning statue."
"Ah, yes. It's a beautiful piece."
"I can't help thinking that the artist must have exaggerated a bit, though. Surely no mortal woman could be so beautiful."
"On the contrary. I've seen Mariette's portrait," Joline informed him. "That statue is an exceptional likeness."
"Portrait?"
Luke's curiosity was piqued.
"Yes, her portrait at Whitson Hall."
"The family plantation? You mean it survived the war?"
"Yes. It was completely renovated a few years back. It's a bed and breakfast now."
Luke glanced at the movie poster hanging on the wall just to the right of the ticket booth. He hadn't really wanted to see the Jack Nicholson movie that badly. He could always wait for it to come out on DVD.
* * *
With the help of his rental car's GPS system, Luke found Whitson Hall with little difficulty, and he was fortunate that there was a vacancy at the B and B. Not wanting to call attention to himself, especially since he was checking in without luggage, he didn't inquire of the desk clerk the whereabouts of Mariette's portrait. He would, instead, nose around the common rooms, and if he didn't find the painting, he would ask one of the kitchen or housekeeping staff where it was located.
Luke had already searched in the sun room, the dining room, the coffee shop and the fitness room before entering the library. He knew as soon as he crossed the threshold and his eyes fell on the enchanting face that the woman in the portrait above a Chippendale Gainsborough chair was Mariette DuBois Whitson. Luke stood open-mouthed before the portrait, staring up at the unrivaled features.
"You look like a statue standing there."
Luke turned and saw an old black woman smiling at him.
"I was just admiring the portrait."
"I noticed," the woman laughed. "You and every red-blooded man who steps into this room has the same reaction."
"She's lovely," Luke remarked, thinking his comment was a gross understatement.
"It's rumored she was the prettiest gal in all Georgia before the war."
"I don't suppose you know what eventually happened to her?" Luke asked hopefully.
"It's a fair assumption to say she died. Where and when, though, nobody around here knows, and she won't tell. In fact, she doesn't say much of anything."
"I don't follow you."
"Mariette's ghost has been haunting this place for more than a century."
Luke looked at the old woman, wondering if she was joking. She didn't appear to be.
"She walks the halls of the house and the stone paths in the garden. I've seen her myself on more than one occasion."
"Why do you suppose Mariette haunts the house and grounds of the plantation?"
The old woman shrugged.
"People say she ran away with another man. Maybe she came back after the war searching for her husband, unaware that he was killed at Gettysburg. Could be her ghost is looking for him still."
"You seem to know a lot about the history of this place."
"I ought to," she laughed. "I've lived here all my life, just like my mother and her mother before her. My great-grandmother Lucretia was Mariette's lady's maid when she lived in Atlanta. She came here when Mariette married Mr. Whitson, and she stayed on after her mistress left and after Mr. Whitson died."
"And what about once the war was over? Surely, she was free to go wherever she wanted to then. Why didn't she head north?"
"This was her home. In a way, this plantation is as much my family's heritage as it is the Whitson family's."
* * *
To Luke's disappointment, all was quiet that night. No ghostly form walked the halls of the grand house. On the positive side, the dinner was worthy of a five-star restaurant, and the room was clean and comfortable. He woke up early the following morning, ordered waffles with fresh fruit for breakfast and phoned the store to tell the manager he would be in later that afternoon.
While he was eating his waffles, he spied another portrait, much smaller than the one of Mariette, on the wall above the sideboard. The young black woman in the painting was striking. Her skin was a rich chocolate in color and her eyes ....
Luke suddenly rose from the table and went to stand before the portrait. Yes, the eyes were the same gray-blue as Mariette's. The up-tilted nose, the high cheekbones, the chin .... There was no doubt in his mind that the woman in the portrait, most likely Lucretia, the lady's maid from Atlanta, was Mariette's half sister, the issue of Papa DuBois and one of his slaves.
"That's my great-grandmother," the old black woman said when she came out of the kitchen carrying a pot of coffee.
The nametag on her cotton dress identified her as Loretta.
"She's lovely."
"I guess you can see the likeness between her and her mistress."
"It's hard to miss," Luke admitted. "There's a strong resemblance between them. If not for the skin color, they might be twins. One is as beautiful as the other."
Loretta opened her mouth as though she were about to speak, but then apparently thought better of it and walked away. Luke was instantly intrigued and followed her into the kitchen.
"Did you want some more coffee, young man?" she asked.
"No, I want you to tell me about your great-grandmother and her sister."
"I really shouldn't," she confessed. "It would be gossiping, and the good lord frowns on a gossip. Besides, the old stories passed down in our family might be just that: stories. There's no proof they're true."
"I don't care. I'd like to hear them anyway."
Since there were no guests waiting in the dining room, Loretta poured them both a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.
"After Mariette's mother died in childbirth, her father took my great-great-grandmother as his mistress. He was a kind man, and he raised Lucretia in the house beside his white children, except, of course, she was raised to be a servant."
There was no resentment in the old woman's words. After all, the past was the past and couldn't be changed.
"It's the generally held belief that when Aubrey Whitson went to Atlanta, he fell in love with Mariette at first sight, but as my grandmother told it, it was Lucretia he desired, not her white half sister. He supposedly offered Mr. DuBois a substantial amount of money for the slave, but the father wouldn't sell his own daughter. So in order to possess Lucretia, Aubrey had to marry Mariette."
"Do you think Mariette knew about her husband's feelings toward her sister?"
"I don't see how she couldn't. After they were married, Master Aubrey put his wife in a house in Savannah and brought Lucretia back to Whitson Hall with him. Mariette stayed away for some time, but then she came here hoping to have a child with her husband."
"And did she?"
"No. Less than a month after her arrival at Whitson Hall, Mariette disappeared."
"I read that she ran away with another man."
"That's what Master Aubrey wanted people to believe."
"You mean she didn't?"
"My grandmother didn't think so."
"What happened to Mariette then?"
"No one knows—no one that's still alive, anyway."
* * *
After a final look at both Lucretia's and Mariette's portraits, Luke checked out of the bed and breakfast, got into his rental car and headed toward Savannah. On the long drive back, he thought about the tragic lives of Aubrey, Mariette and Lucretia. He wondered if either of the women had loved the sculptor, or if they were both bound to him by the laws of the mid-nineteenth century male-dominated society.
Well, it's obvious Mariette didn't love him. If she did, she wouldn't have run away—or did she?
A sudden, terrible thought came to him. If Whitson married the young girl only to gain possession of her slave, he would have been delighted when she ran off with another man. Then why the Angel in Mourning? If Aubrey hadn't been devastated by losing his wife, why then did he recreate her image in a statue?
Maybe Mariette never left Whitson Hall.
Luke looked at the digital clock on the rental car's dashboard. It was close to noon already, and he had a lot of work waiting for him at the store. Still, he took the next exit on the highway, turned around and headed toward the cemetery, determined to find out if his suspicions were correct.
* * *
He felt the now familiar sense of wonder as he approached the dilapidated wrought iron fence that separated the Colonial Era graves from those of the Civil War Era. There it was: the Angel in Mourning. After having seen her portrait for himself, Luke knew that Whitson had not exaggerated Mariette's features. It was more than a good likeness; it was a perfect match.
Luke turned toward the fence but momentarily stopped. What if he was wrong? He searched his heart, and knew he wasn't. With a trembling hand, he pulled one of the wrought iron pickets from the aging fence, took a stance and with a swing that would have made Babe Ruth envious struck the extended right arm of the statue. The arm cracked midway between the wrist and elbow, and the hand fell to the ground, revealing Mariette's radius and ulna bones.
It was just as Luke had feared: Aubrey Whitson had murdered his young wife and concealed her body inside the Angel in Mourning statue.
* * *
No charges were brought against Luke for his destruction of the cemetery statue since he had uncovered Mariette's remains and shed light on her disappearance. After the medical examiner scrutinized the bones, they were sent to Whitson Hall for burial. Ironically, her grave was placed between those of her husband and her half sister, keeping them apart even in death.
"I don't think you'll be seeing any more ghosts walking the halls of this old house," Luke told Loretta when he stopped at the bed and breakfast before moving on to his next assignment in Philadelphia.
"One good thing will come out of this whole ugly mess. Once word of the murder spreads, my business is bound to improve."
Luke looked at Loretta with surprise.
"Your business? I thought you were ...."
His voice trailed off with embarrassment.
"You thought I was just an employee here, right?" she laughed. "Hell, I own this place. When Sherman marched through Georgia, he damn near destroyed the house, and with Master Aubrey dead, there was no one left: just a sister who lived in Macon with her husband. So when the place came up for sale, my great-grandmother Lucretia bought it with money she got from her white father."
"That's as it ought to be: a descendent of Aubrey Whitson owning Whitson Hall. It's strange that Joline Brainard didn't mention your great-grandmother in her book, or the child she bore—your grandmother."
"Some white folks still don't like to admit to having black branches on their family tree."
"I'm sure the art teacher is furious with me," Luke said. "I've shown her favorite Whitson family member to be a scoundrel and a murderer."
"Don't go fretting about that Joline Brainard. She's already outlining another book: a combination historical romance and murder mystery."
"I certainly hope her new book will be more interesting than the last one," Luke said with a groan.
Then he kissed the old woman on the cheek and bid her goodbye. With a final look at the portrait of Mariette DuBois, Luke Sexton headed out the door and down the veranda steps to his rental car. As he drove away, he thought he saw a shadow-like form hovering over Mariette's grave, waving a hand in his direction. It was a fitting expression of gratitude for a taphophile.
I call this statue "Pest at Any Time of the Day."
