“Get out of the carriage. We’ll walk the rest of the way,” Eugene said. “I want you to see the view.” The light was green; moved by a wish to see its shimmer on her hand, Miriam turned her palm up into it. The light was tender, a veil on the waving corn, and beyond to a line of sweet gum trees, and beyond to a low rising hill, and beyond … To walk there, to keep on walking in an unswerving line through the corn, past elm and hickory, up the hill, to keep on walking, keep going— “You’re not even looking at the house,” Eugene said. Obediently, she turned. There it stood, much as it had been described, perhaps even more imposing than she had imagined. Its brick was rosy. Twenty-two Doric columns upheld the gallery. On the left lay a long camellia garden. The oleander hedges were a mass of pink. “Beautiful,” she said, adding, since one was expected to produce more than a single word of praise, “Beau Jardin. It’s well named.” “That beech is a treasure. A hundred fifty years old.
