Ciji Ware by A Light on the Veranda Read Free Book Online Page B

blouse. Untidy wisps of dark hair threaded with silver drifted alongside her lined cheeks. Maddy looked as if she’d set out for the Piggly Wiggly without once glancing into a mirror.
    Despite Madeline Whitaker’s disheveled appearance, however, the tall, erect woman exuded a wonderful presence , Daphne thought, smiling into her cousin’s warm, amber-colored eyes. Maddy radiated an aura that said here was a person who had known better days, when life was not burdened with cares and tragedy. Yet, she carried all that had befallen her with remarkable dignity and grace.
    “Look how absolutely gorgeous you are!” Daphne’s first harp teacher crowed, extending hands that sported fingertip calluses that were equally as thick as Daphne’s. “I’ll just bet people in New York mistake you for… you know! That fabulous actress with the halo of blond curls who looks and talks like an angel …” She shook her head in frustration. “ You know the one I’m talkin’ about… Michelle somebody.”
    “Michelle Pfeiffer?” Daphne offered obligingly, thinking to herself that it had been a long time since Maddy had been to the movies.
    “ Yes! Exactly. You’ve heard people say that to you before, haven’t you, darlin’? She’s an angel on screen—and so are you ! Now, what can I get you for breakfast? Bacon? Eggs? Pain perdu? ” she offered, referring to a wonderful Southern version of French toast.
    “No thanks, Maddy. I’ve had your delicious coffee and some toast. But let me help you put all this away before I head for First Pres. I have a ten o’clock rehearsal with the organist.”
    “Don’t be silly,” Maddy said, with an airy wave of her arm. “I’ll do it later. Let’s get you a second cup of coffee and sit down a spell. How was your trip down from New York?”
    Daphne thought briefly of the career disaster awaiting her return to Manhattan, as well as of the unwelcome sight of Jack Ebert at the New Orleans airport and the near mishap with her harp, but decided not to mention either disturbing event. Instead she said, “As you probably noticed when you got home last night, I was totally pooped after I got here and went straight up to bed.”
    “Well, good. You deserve it, workin’ as hard as you do up there. Was your bed all right, sugar?” Maddy asked, suddenly anxious.
    “I slept like a stone most of the night,” Daphne reassured her quickly, adding, “But you know… the oddest thing happened.” She hesitated, and then continued. “About three o’clock in the morning, I could have sworn I heard a harp playing. It wasn’t you, was it?”
    Madeline, coffeepot in hand, paused midway to Daphne’s cup and gazed at her houseguest speculatively, but all she said was “Really?”
    “At least that’s what I thought I heard. I came downstairs, but… well… no one was in the parlor.” She held out her coffee cup. “It must have been some wacky dream.”
    “Maybe you heard the family ghost playin’ the harp,” Maddy said matter-of-factly, pouring a dark brown stream of coffee from the spout of the chipped, enamelware pot.
    “Oh, c’mon.” Daphne laughed. “I’m not a tourist, remember, and you’re not on house tour duty this morning.”
    “Tease ’bout it, if you want to, but surely I told you, when you were a little girl, ’bout my family’s harp-playin’ specter? You never heard the story when you were stayin’ here?”
    “No, never. Who’s it supposed to be?” Daphne said, taking a sip from her cup.
    “Well,” Maddy said with enthusiasm, seating herself across the kitchen table from her younger cousin, “according to family lore, your namesake—”
    “ My namesake! I thought you said this was a Clayton family deal.”
    “Daphne Drake Whitaker Clayton. You’d have to look at the family genealogy chart to keep it all straight ’cause we’ve had cousins marryin’ cousins and I don’t rightly know what all. But way, way back in the mists of time, Daphne Drake