Plantation Read Free Page B

I thought I was that would be wrung out to dry. Most importantly, I was to discover who we all truly were.
    Over the years, as much as I would vehemently deny my passion for the ACE Basin of South Carolina, its pull on me was an all-powerful force. The ACE is Eden. It’s where the Ashepoo, Comba-hee, and Edisto Rivers join at St. Helena’s Sound. The ACE is home to more species of birds, fish, flowers, and shrubs than you could name. Every inch of it wiggles in song; its beauty is stupefying.
    No, once the ACE has you under its spell, you are hers for life.
    You could turn me around, blindfolded, in the handbag department of Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue and I could point my finger to the Edisto River the same way a compass needle always points north. I was nothing more than an extension of her waters.
    A displaced tributary.
    So tonight we were all here in the Bagnal Funeral Home in Walterboro with Mother’s body. There must have been three hundred people who came and went over the hours that I sat with Trip, Frances Mae, Millie, and Mother’s closest friends.
    People told stories of Mother’s crazy theme parties that celebrated Cleopatra’s birthday or some little-known Aztec holiday.
    There was the time she dressed herself as a goddess and floated down the Edisto on our pontoon—decorated with billowing white bunting—to celebrate The Birth of Venus . Trip and I were 6
    D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k youngsters at the time and humiliated beyond words. I hated her then.
    After Daddy died, Trip and I were parceled off to boarding schools; then came the parade of her lovers. She was quiet about her relationships at first, but once she was comfortable with her new way of living, the tempo quickened and the fireworks began.
    It was then Mother discovered Rod McKuen poetry and found her G-spot in an article in Cosmopolitan magazine. There was no stopping her. Back then I despised her flamboyance with every part of me.
    Lately, I had completely changed my mind. If Mother was shockingly indiscreet, so what? Everyone adored her. You had to admit that she enjoyed her liberation. She was Miss Lavinia, the ACE Basin version of Auntie Mame. What a gal!
    I looked among the crowd for Rev. Charles Moore and spotted him talking to Richard. At least she’d had the good judgment not to sleep with the minister, even though he probably would have gladly hopped in the sack with her. Endowment campaigns did strange things to people. Well, I thought, maybe she’s left him something in her will. God knows, he lobbied hard enough for a bequest.
    So many people came for Mother, to offer their love and sympathy. It was remarkable. But even though they were all courtesy and protocol on the outside, I knew there was a strong undercur-rent. The unspoken gossip was nearly tangible—the wanting to know, Who would inherit the plantation? What of her renowned fortunes? How much was there? Would Frances Mae be the new queen of Tall Pines? Would I, the errant daughter who’d married that odious Brit, a Jewish man, and a shrink, come to my senses and renounce him? It was a situation I was sure was driving the Lowcountry gentry nearly mad from not knowing.
    Situations were what my family called times of indecisiveness and trouble that led to sullied reputations. Situations were best dealt with quickly and as quietly as possible. Between Mother’s legendary P l a n t a t i o n
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    soirees and love affairs, Frances Mae’s greed, and my reappearance on the scene, we had enough jaws working overtime to keep the ears of Charleston, Colleton, and Dorchester Counties burning indefinitely.
    All the while I shook hands and thanked people for coming, I fantasized that even there, in the funeral home, money was changing hands. Bets were being placed. Until the rumors became facts, gallons of mint juleps would be consumed all over the Lowcountry. The practiced and polished sweet tongues of prediction would wag! The social wizards would convene and