Monarch Manor

by Maureen Leurck

  And underneath the paragraph was a photo of Amelia and John—the same little boy who looked just like Will. In this photo, he sat on his mother’s lap and his face held the hint of a smile. He was dressed in a white sailor outfit, and it gave him the appearance of a cherub. I smiled back at him and whispered, “John. So that was your name.”

  My eyes scanned the last two sentences again, and I brought a hand to my mouth as I allowed the information to sink in. Disabled (deaf) son.

  He didn’t just look like Will; he had struggles and challenges as well. And Amelia had to deal with some of the same things that I did, I imagined.

  And they died together.

  I typed in another search, trying to determine what happened and why it was labeled bizarre, but I came up empty.

  I exhaled slowly and closed my eyes, feeling as though a hand had reached across the decades to show me the photograph, to tell me about this family. My family. I had a sense that I was being pulled into something that I wouldn’t be able to resist, shown a path just waiting for my footprints. It couldn’t all be a coincidence—or at least, that’s what I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe there was meaning in the pictures, in reading what happened to them. I wanted to believe there was meaning in everything in my life, in everything that I experienced. That nothing was random, that there were no coincidences.

  I held on to that feeling with the thinnest of ghost fingers, willing myself to grasp tighter on to Amelia and John, and to what really happened, and to rescue them from the veil of the past.

  CHAPTER 5

  AMELIA

  “This one is a petunia,” Amelia said and signed at the same time before she held out a brilliant purple flower. She leaned in close to smell it and gestured for John to do the same.

  His blond head leaned toward the flower, his long, dark eyelashes closing as he inhaled the sweet scent. A smile broke across his face as he leaned away, first looking at her and then bending down to smell the flower again.

  John and Amelia had dressed after breakfast, putting on clothes that her mother would decide were appropriate enough to leave them alone, and took a morning walk down to the gardens in between the house and the piers. The gardens were John’s favorite place to play when they visited the estate in the summers, and Amelia always thought it was because they were a place he could observe and take in the scenery, rather than having to exhaust himself with interactions. It was a place they could both have a break, but in a way that would appear proper to the rest of the family. It was a place where she could exhale, if only for a brief moment, before everything began in earnest.

  Back toward the house, just off the stairs that led to the porch, a maid placed freshly cut blooms in the dipping well, a stone water bowl that kept the flowers fresh until they were ready to be brought inside. Amelia was about to point out the rows of pink roses near the white picket fence that bordered the garden, when they heard a scream come from the docks.

  Amelia snapped her head toward the lake, where she saw her sister Jane standing on the grass, alone, pointing toward the Monarch Princesses, with pale pink ribbons and streamers bearing the couple’s monogram, to match the color of the roses that would decorate the aisles and dinner tables.

  Jane screamed again, pointing toward the yacht, and Amelia grabbed John’s hand and began to walk across the yard to where her sister stood, her heart pounding. If anything was wrong with the boat, the entire evening would change. She reached Jane and grabbed her elbow to keep her from falling to the ground.

  “What happened?” Amelia said as she pulled Jane upright.

  Jane’s eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed, and her chin trembled as she pointed toward the steam yacht. “The ribbons. Can’t you see?”

  Amelia looked back at the ship, the caretakers now watching Jane in confusion. Amelia shook her head and her sister began to cry. “The ribbons. The pink color is all wrong. They won’t match the flowers.”

  Amelia exhaled, relaxing her shoulders, and shook her head. Screaming over nothing, Jane’s special talent. Their older sister, Eleanor, was usually the one to deal with her. Eleanor was supposed to arrive last night from New York, but she had been delayed due to some business concern of her husband’s. It seemed he always found a way to cut their visits short or start them late.

  Amelia pulled her sister’s shoulders toward her. “Look at me.” Jane’s eyes lifted, a glazed look moving over them. “The only person who will notice anything like that would be you, and I think they look wonderful. This is not what you should worry about; you should be thinking about how later today you are getting married. Now go inside and lie down, before it is time to style your hair and put on that beautiful gown.”

  Jane rolled her eyes and gave her sister a frown. “Of course you wouldn’t notice that, Amelia. You have never noticed anything of the sort. I’m the one with the problems.” She looked down at John and her gaze softened in sympathy, but she walked away before she could muster an apology.

  Amelia wished, just once, that her sister would look at her, ask her how she was doing, what she felt, how she could help. That she could feel the closeness from when they were children, when their lives were whispered secrets and silly stories. Now the secrets remained unsaid and the stories untold.

  Amelia looked down and saw that John’s gaze was fixed on the arrival of another steam yacht carrying members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, who had been brought in for the wedding. She patted him on the shoulder and gave one final glance to the Monarch Princesses, where the workers were now busy with the decorations once more. She held her breath as it listed from side to side in the waves, the workers trying to balance on the large decks, like a seesaw tottering back and forth. She knew what he was thinking as he looked out on the water, at the way the waves lapped against the shore, at the unsteadiness of the boat.

  Back toward the house, past the tennis courts, she heard the rumble of a motorcar engine coming to life in the garage, likely a staff member waiting to be driven into town for a last-minute supply. The roads around the lake were still unpredictable and nearly impassable during bad weather, but all the estates had garages and cars, despite the fact that most people traveled from the train station to their estates by yacht.

  John took his eyes away from the water and pointed back toward the gardens. Amelia nodded, holding his hand as they walked across the green lawn.

  “Oh, look!” Amelia said as she spotted a monarch butterfly on a stem of milkweed. Her father had the landscape designer plant milkweed across the gardens, specifically to attract the monarch butterflies that her mother had always loved. Her mother told her how in the first spring in Chicago, after she came to America from Ireland, she saw a monarch butterfly and followed it for blocks. She was so intent on following it that she bumped straight into a man on the street, Conrad Hoppe, her future husband. Mary always said that monarch butterflies were the reason she had everything she did.

  Amelia crouched down, not caring how her knees sank into the dirt, and pulled John close to her chest. She held a finger out near the butterfly, and John did the same. The monarch rested on the plant, its wings slowly opening and closing like the blinking of an eye. She was about to pull her finger away in disappointment when it lazily lifted off the branch, coming near them, before settling down on John’s finger.

  She made a noise of excitement but held still so as not to scare it away, and John’s face lit up as he studied the orange-and-black wings on his finger. It stayed there for a moment, opening and closing its wings, before it flew away again. They watched it flit away, disappearing somewhere in the maple trees on the edge of the property.

  “Remember how they start off as caterpillars?” she signed to John, and he nodded. She had pulled out a book on the lifespan of the monarch earlier that year, a book that she had from childhood.

  She continued but didn’t sign. “Then they build a great big house called a cocoon, where they rest, and then they emerge as a beautiful butterfly, ready to fly al
l over the flowers. They’re free.” She swallowed back the tears threatening to form.

  She pulled John close to her and wished she could form a monarch cocoon around both of them, wishing that there was some way to set him free from all that limited him and they could fly away together like the butterflies, needing only their wings to escape.

  It felt as though everything could be a danger, even the lake she loved so much as a child. She used to spend her summers with her fingertips trailing through the water, her skin always slick from swimming or fishing. Having John made her fearful of everything, on his behalf, and when she looked out on the water she couldn’t help but think of the water in the middle and how it was so dark and so cold.

  And how she wasn’t sure if she could protect him from it.

  Especially not that night.

  CHAPTER 6

  ERIN

  I didn’t sleep much in the nights that followed my discovery about John and his accident. Each time I closed my eyes, I would dream of the accident, of John’s head bobbing up and down on the surface of the lake, cold and afraid. It always morphed into Will treading water, waving his arms for me, as I desperately tried to swim to him. I never once reached him.

  In the middle of the night, after the dream happened again, I shook Luke awake and told him about it.

  He looked at me, rubbing his eyes slowly, before he said, “You should look into it if it’s bothering you that much. Do some research. Find out more about the family.”

  “But how?” My mother hadn’t found the aforementioned family tree in her house, and my grandmother’s house wasn’t sharing any more secrets. “I guess I could go to the library or something like that before I meet my mom in Powers Lake. Or I think there’s a history museum in Lake Geneva. Maybe they would know something?”

  He slowly nodded until it was clear I was satisfied, and then collapsed back down onto his pillow and immediately began snoring.

  * * *

  The bright orange OPEN sign on the Geneva Lake Museum cheered my heart as I drove up to Wisconsin the next day. Inside, a serious-looking man with gray hair and glasses stood off to the side of a display case of toys from the 1950s. At first, I thought he was in his fifties, but as I got closer, I realized he was likely my age but just had an old-fashioned air that dated him.

  “How can I help you?” he said. His name tag read: GERRY.

  I was suddenly nervous, and my hands flitted around as I said, “I’m looking for information about the Hoppe family, from back at the turn of the century.”

  His brows knitted together as a look of confusion passed across his face. “What kind of information?”

  I put my purse up on the glass display case and then quickly shoved it off when I saw his look of alarm. “Well, I’m looking for information on their old estate: Monarch Manor. Apparently, the Hoppes are distant relatives. I found these pictures tucked away in an old box, and I was curious about them.” I reached into my exiled handbag and pulled out the photo of the Hoppe family.

  Gerry leaned forward and slowly whistled, a smile spreading across his face, one that made him finally look his age. “Oh yes. The Hoppe family. I don’t think I’ve seen this photograph of them before.” He leaned forward and hovered a finger over the photo. “And this is the family estate, which you know, I’m sure.”

  I nodded. “Do you have any idea where it was located around the lake? I couldn’t find any information on where it was. Or . . . is?” I said, my voice raising an octave.

  He nodded. “Of course.” He turned and pointed to a map of Lake Geneva, with markers around the lake bearing labels of estates. Just north of Williams Bay, he pointed to a small dot.

  “Monarch Manor! There it is.” I leaned closer. “So it’s still there?”

  He gave me a half smile. “Some of it is. I’m afraid it doesn’t look anything like your picture anymore. It has suffered years of neglect, and is due to be razed by the village soon. Such a shame. It likely could have been saved a few years ago, but now . . .” He shook his head slowly and frowned.

  “Of course. I had hoped for different news, but that makes sense.” My shoulders sagged.

  “It’s fortunate that anything is still there, to be quite honest. Many of the houses from that time were ravaged by fire at one point or another. Oftentimes, when a house caught fire during that era, the only goal would be to save the furniture and the architectural plans, and let the rest go.”

  He took a moment to study the photo with interest, before he looked up at me with his soft gray eyes. “What a treasure to have found this. Now you said you wanted some more information on the family? Your family?” Another giddy smile passed across his face, the decay of Monarch Manor out of his mind again, and he practically skipped off to find some archival materials when I nodded. I wondered what it would be like to love what you did that much, to get so much joy from things that other people likely found horribly boring.

  He set a leather-bound book on the case in front of me with such force it made me wonder why I had to remove my purse. He opened the book and it cracked, groaning from the effort at having to share information after what was likely years of silence. He pointed to a photo of a grand Queen Anne home, with sweeping lake views and a beautiful sun porch with intricate carvings. On the front yard was a scattering of tables and chairs, all in white, with women in elaborate dresses and hats seated at each one. The photo was taken from too far away to recognize any of the faces.

  “So here is your house, Monarch Manor, in 1915,” he said. “This would have been one of Mary Hoppe’s famous tea parties, held by the Lake Geneva Garden Club, of which she was a prominent member.” He pointed to a row of terrace flowers, set just off the lakeshore. “And these were the gardens that were so loved by Mary and her daughters, designed by renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen. And of course, they were designed to attract the monarch butterflies that gave the estate its moniker.”

  “It’s just beautiful. I wish I could have seen it,” I said, and he made a sympathetic noise.

  “And here is another photo of the family, this one of Mary and Conrad Hoppe with their grandchildren.” He pointed to a plastic-covered photo of the couple surrounded by three small children. The girls again wore sailor dresses and huge white bows in their hair, and the one boy—John—wore a boy sailor outfit with white socks and saddle shoes. His light hair flopped into his eyes, which were wide, and he seemed to look right through the camera.

  “John, right?” I said, and Gerry nodded. “What can you tell me about him?”

  He shook his head. “Very sad story. He was deaf.” He paused for emphasis and seemed disappointed when he realized I already knew. “And he and his mother disappeared tragically.” He again paused, irritation flashing across his face when I didn’t react.

  He stood up straighter and cleared his throat. “They disappeared from their steam yacht during a storm on the night of Jane Hoppe’s wedding, on May 28, 1923.” He flashed me a small smile when my eyebrows lifted. “Jane Hoppe was Amelia’s sister, so it was her nephew and sister who vanished on the night of her wedding.

  “Like I said, very tragic, especially since the boy was so young. Mr. and Mrs. Hoppe, Amelia’s parents, never quite got over it, or so the story goes. Additionally, Mr. Hoppe lost everything during Prohibition, since the family had invested in breweries. The family just collapsed.” He sighed and glanced at the photo of Monarch Manor. “Like the house, I suppose. Even the yacht, which was dismantled sometime in the 1930s.”

  “I read something that labeled the accident as ‘bizarre.’ Why is that?”

  His eyes sparked with excitement as he leaned forward conspiratorially. “Well, there were rumors that something nefarious happened with the accident. Some on board swore they saw Amelia jump off the boat, and pull the boy overboard with her. A murder-suicide. There were whispers that she couldn’t handle life anymore after her husband died.”

  My eyes wide, I turned this piece of information over in my head, lettin
g it trickle across my previous assumptions. I couldn’t imagine that was true. The mother I saw in the photograph couldn’t have done that. I felt it deep inside. He cleared his throat and continued, “Of course, there were also rumors that she was spotted leaving town that night, after the accident. Unsubstantiated, of course.”

  I took a quick step back, stumbling over my purse and knocking the contents onto the floor. I crouched down and cleaned up an embarrassing number of tampons and quarters.

  “It’s quite a good bedtime story, isn’t it?” Gerry said with a smile. He glanced at a clock on the wall. “I’m due to give a lecture at George Williams College shortly, but please let me know if you would like to chat further. Very few people are as interested in these kinds of forgotten events as I am,” he said with a wink.

  I thanked him for his help as he nearly pushed me outside and locked the door behind me. I drove to Powers Lake, thoughts of Amelia and the terrible rumors never far from my mind.

  * * *

  Luke was already waiting in the foyer when I walked in the door later. Both kids had their shoes on.

  “We’re going out to dinner at Take Five,” he said firmly, and took a step toward the front door behind me.

  “What? No—I can’t. I’m exhausted.” I rubbed my forehead and bent down in front of the twins. “Do you guys want to order a pizza?” I stopped myself before I could add again.

  Will ignored me and studied the diamond patterns in the red foyer rug, but Charlotte pulled her white headband down over her forehead with a frown.

  “No. I want to get French fries and play on all the games like Daddy promised.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  I sighed and looked up at Luke. I shook my head as I slowly stood. “You promised?” My head began to pound as I thought of trying to keep Will quiet and sitting down long enough to eat a meal. “I don’t know if I have the energy.”

  No one said anything, a standoff. After a moment, I sighed, my white flag waving. “Fine. Let’s go.”