This Side of Glory Read Online Free

received the land that was now Ardeith Plantation from George the Third of England as a reward for his soldiering in the French and Indian War. The woman opposite was Philip’s wife. They had both come down the river on flatboats in the days when steam was nothing but a vapor that came out of a kettle-spout. The woman in the Empire dress had married into the Larne family about the time of the Louisiana Purchase. The Civil War pair were Kester’s grandparents. The young man had been killed during the war, but the girl had lived to be an old lady; Kester could remember her from his childhood. Oh yes, there were other pictures. He’d be glad to show them to her sometime, and the rest of the house if she wanted to see it. It was very large, with many rooms that no longer served any purpose but to wear out brooms. Originally there had been thirty besides the servants’ quarters, though some of them had been cut up to make bathrooms and closets. Eleanor went through a doorway at one side of the hall. This room was a library. On the bookshelves modern novels stood alongside bound volumes of Putnam’s Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book, old treatises on cotton-growing, and romances with astonishing names.
    “The Curse of Clifton,” she read aloud, and chuckled. “The Ladies’ Parlor Annual, 1841 —I’ve heard of those annuals but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one before. And who’s this alphabetical author, Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth?”
    “She wrote what they used to call sensation stories, mostly devoted to howling storms and people stabbing each other with jeweled daggers.” Kester shook his head. “My family had its good qualities, Miss Eleanor, but they did indulge in some deplorable literature.”
    Eleanor took down a volume of Godey’s and turned the leaves, smiling at the stilted phrases that caught her eye and the burdensome gowns of the fashion plates. “There’s something very attractive about those times,” she remarked. “People seem to have been so sure of themselves. I suppose life was simpler then.”
    Kester grinned. “I used to read voraciously in here,” he said to her. “I’ve skimmed through dozens of volumes a century or two centuries old, and every one of them laments the simplicity of the age just past and sighs over the complexities of the present.”
    “Then you don’t think nineteenth-century life was easier than ours?”
    “The period that included the American Civil War, the Sepoy Rebellion and the siege of Paris? No ma’am, I don’t. We think olden times were simple because we know how grandpa’s problems were solved, and any problem is simple when you can look up the answer in the back of the book.”
    They laughed together. Eleanor replaced the volume of Godey’s and looked around the library again. On the center table was an enormous Bible fastened with metal clasps. She asked him to open it for her. The Bible fell open of itself in the middle, where the pages had been left blank for family records, and here were lines in many handwritings, in inks browned with time, recording the births and marriages and deaths of the Larnes. Eleanor read here and there as she turned the pages.
    “Died, at Ardeith Plantation, September 23, 1810, Philip Larne, native of the colony of South Carolina… .
    “Married, at Dalroy, Louisiana, April 4, 1833, Sebastian Larne and Frances Durham…
    “Married, at Silverwood Plantation, Louisiana, December 6, 1859, Denis Larne and Ann Sheramy… .
    “Married, at Dalroy, Louisiana, March 21, 1884, Denis Larne II and Lysiane St. Clair.”
    “They were your parents?” she asked him.
    Kester nodded. He seemed amused at her interest, but rather pleased by it too, as though he had taken his home for granted and enjoyed seeing a newcomer’s pleasure in it. Eleanor turned the pages again. She came to the records of the births, and near the end she read,
    “Born, at Ardeith Plantation, February 18, 1885, Kester Denis Larne, son of Denis Larne II