Hers the Kingdom Read Online Free Page B

days is of a flurry of activity, of high excitement and movement and tension. I had started my notebooks the year before; until then, the entries had been

predictable, routine, and monotonous. That one week accounted for more pages than the whole of the preceding year.
         Willa and Owen spoke together for the first time, alone, on the evening of his arrival. It had not been planned. She came upon him standing in the dining room, looking at the portrait of Grandmother that hung on the south wall and was always a bit askew. We seldom used the formal dining room, so it was still Grandmother's room. Willa watched Owen for a moment and she thought: He looks as if he belongs here.
         "She was twenty-six when that was painted," Willa finally said.
         He turned, considered her. "I thought for a moment it was you," he said, "until I saw that it was painted by Thomas Sully." When she didn't respond, he went on, "My family knew the artist—he painted my grandaunt's portrait. She was, as I remember, wearing that same green gown and the same dreamlike expression."
         "Do I remind you of your aunt, too?" Willa asked.
         "Not at all," Owen answered. "My aunt was perfectly cube-shaped, quite as wide as she was tall. But Thomas Sully made her look romantic. After he painted her portrait, the story goes, she went around with a pained look on her face, and it took a time for those around her to understand that she was trying to duplicate the dreamy, wistful smile Sully had given her."
         "I know," Willa laughed, "I always felt that this portrait did Grandmother more harm than good. It became her imagined self. I assure you, she was not that romantic-looking woman you see before you."
         "No?" Owen asked.
         "Grandmother was a Randolph of Virginia," she went on, "always."
         "What do you mean, 'always'?" he wanted to know.
         "Just that she was never content here on the prairie. I doubt that she was ever content after she left Virginia. She talked about the past continually. Family, tradition, that was what she cared about."
         "And you don't?" he asked, carefully.
         Willa looked at him for a long moment. Then she exhaled loudly and said, "One of her ancestors was John Randolph of Roanoke. He is supposed to have said, 'I am an aristocrat; I love liberty; I hate equality.'"
         Now it was Owen Reade's turn to wait, and he did.
         Finally she went on, "I don't believe in aristocracy. And I don't see how you can love liberty and hate equality. And I think perhaps I should go back out and enter this room again and start this conversation afresh."
         "What would you say?" he wanted to know.
         "I would say, 'Well now, Mr. Reade, how was your journey from Denver?'"
         "Liberty, equality, and other radical notions interest me a great deal more," Owen answered, teasing her.
         "What other radical notions?" Willa asked, beginning to laugh one of her trilling laughs that spilled out and over. "I have no radical notions. Please, please, let us talk about the weather . . . or Yosemite, you must have been there . . . or Yellowstone." She was laughing and Owen Reade liked it, you could see.
         "At least," he said, "you do look like your grandmother, amazingly so."
         "She was," Willa said quite seriously, "five feet and ten inches tall and she weighed one hundred fifteen pounds when that portrait was painted. In that way, we are exactly alike. Were, I should say. She has been dead for five years now, as perhaps you know."
         He nodded. "Miss Emma told me a great deal about every member of your family—except for your grandmother. She spoke of your grandfather with great reverence, and of course she is extremely fond of your father and mother. I could tell that not so much by what she said—she says little enough—but by the way her eyes shine when she speaks of either of them. I take it your mother and your aunt were great friends,