like Ernest, an oddball who sniffed out the weakness of character in her and preyed upon it. At least she didn’t, as she heard that a couple of ladies in town did, go down to Sneed’s Hardware and troll for some of the hot workmen who came in and out all morning, or go up to Home Barn in Memphis, the new place for guys to hook up with bored housewives hobby-shopping for lamps and pillows. Anyway, it wasn’t her business.
They’d grown up so differently, Charles Byrd Thornton and Mary Byrd D’Abruzzi. She wasn’t sure if those differences had eased or afflicted their union, but it kept things interesting. On his mother’s side, Charles’s family, the Byrds, went right back to the seventeenth century when they’d arrived in Virginia from London to what would become Richmond with little but some family expertise in goldsmithing, and no gold—and with the intention of establishing themselves as aristocrats. Who would have been around to challenge the notion? The Indians with whom they traded furs? Of course, that pretense was abandoned by the Revolution. Charles’s great-great-great grandmother was a daughter of William Byrd II, who’d founded Richmond and built himself a beautiful house with the James River lapping at its front door. A fortune was made in tobacco farming and shipping, and in establishing Richmond as a port and commercial center.
Not a lot was known, or talked about, anyway, of the less illustrious Thorntons, Charles’s father’s people, but like all white Southerners, they knew, or made up, something . A Thornton had come over to escape some unpleasantness in Warwickshire, England, and had built a log cabin and settled a tiny place called Coldfield in the mountains in the northwestern part of Virginia. His progeny became talented gunsmiths working in the Harpers Ferry Arsenal, where one of them supposedly designed the Harpers Ferry Rifle, a sort of magic wand to disappear Indians, Tories, and other frontier resistance, although the arsenal superintendent there, an associate of George Washington, took all the credit for the invention. Subsequent Thorntons worked there, too, and after John Brown’s bloody foray and then when the Confederate army claimed Harpers Ferry, they were only too happy to remove themselves and the arsenal’s machinery to Richmond, where they developed the Richmond Rifle, a copy of Harpers Ferry Model 1855, which proved somewhat less successful at beating back and disappearing Union troops. After the devastation of Richmond, and there not being enough money or business to go around, some of each family—Byrds and Thorntons—had gone west to Mississippi to start over, trading in their farms and ships and guns for law and medical degrees and academic appointments.
Charles, like Mann, had been sent back to Virginia for prep school—Woodberry Forest was a good choice for smart, bad boys from Mississippi—and college at Washington and Lee.
By Byrd and Thornton standards, Mary Byrd D’Abruzzi—she’d never taken her stepfather’s name, Rhinehart—was a latecomer to Virginia. All four of her grandparents were right off the boat from Italy at the turn of the century, settling first in Norfolk, where her D’Abruzzi grandfather had worked selling fish, then pots and pans, before moving on to Richmond. There, he’d gone to work for the Velatis, an old Italian family that had been making caramel candy since before the Civil War. He’d done well enough with that that he started a little business repairing, then making, shoes. His pièce de résistance was the D’Abruzzi Boot, a heavy-duty but light leather brogan that was cured and softened with olive oil, making it very comfortable to wear, and the rich, rustic color of walnut pesto. The grids of fine steel cleats on the soles made them tough and durable, and in the 1960s and ’70s, “Bruzzi Boots” became popular not only with workmen but with trust-fund hippie kids who wanted to create the illusion of work with
They’d grown up so differently, Charles Byrd Thornton and Mary Byrd D’Abruzzi. She wasn’t sure if those differences had eased or afflicted their union, but it kept things interesting. On his mother’s side, Charles’s family, the Byrds, went right back to the seventeenth century when they’d arrived in Virginia from London to what would become Richmond with little but some family expertise in goldsmithing, and no gold—and with the intention of establishing themselves as aristocrats. Who would have been around to challenge the notion? The Indians with whom they traded furs? Of course, that pretense was abandoned by the Revolution. Charles’s great-great-great grandmother was a daughter of William Byrd II, who’d founded Richmond and built himself a beautiful house with the James River lapping at its front door. A fortune was made in tobacco farming and shipping, and in establishing Richmond as a port and commercial center.
Not a lot was known, or talked about, anyway, of the less illustrious Thorntons, Charles’s father’s people, but like all white Southerners, they knew, or made up, something . A Thornton had come over to escape some unpleasantness in Warwickshire, England, and had built a log cabin and settled a tiny place called Coldfield in the mountains in the northwestern part of Virginia. His progeny became talented gunsmiths working in the Harpers Ferry Arsenal, where one of them supposedly designed the Harpers Ferry Rifle, a sort of magic wand to disappear Indians, Tories, and other frontier resistance, although the arsenal superintendent there, an associate of George Washington, took all the credit for the invention. Subsequent Thorntons worked there, too, and after John Brown’s bloody foray and then when the Confederate army claimed Harpers Ferry, they were only too happy to remove themselves and the arsenal’s machinery to Richmond, where they developed the Richmond Rifle, a copy of Harpers Ferry Model 1855, which proved somewhat less successful at beating back and disappearing Union troops. After the devastation of Richmond, and there not being enough money or business to go around, some of each family—Byrds and Thorntons—had gone west to Mississippi to start over, trading in their farms and ships and guns for law and medical degrees and academic appointments.
Charles, like Mann, had been sent back to Virginia for prep school—Woodberry Forest was a good choice for smart, bad boys from Mississippi—and college at Washington and Lee.
By Byrd and Thornton standards, Mary Byrd D’Abruzzi—she’d never taken her stepfather’s name, Rhinehart—was a latecomer to Virginia. All four of her grandparents were right off the boat from Italy at the turn of the century, settling first in Norfolk, where her D’Abruzzi grandfather had worked selling fish, then pots and pans, before moving on to Richmond. There, he’d gone to work for the Velatis, an old Italian family that had been making caramel candy since before the Civil War. He’d done well enough with that that he started a little business repairing, then making, shoes. His pièce de résistance was the D’Abruzzi Boot, a heavy-duty but light leather brogan that was cured and softened with olive oil, making it very comfortable to wear, and the rich, rustic color of walnut pesto. The grids of fine steel cleats on the soles made them tough and durable, and in the 1960s and ’70s, “Bruzzi Boots” became popular not only with workmen but with trust-fund hippie kids who wanted to create the illusion of work with
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