The House on Tradd Street

by Karen White

  “A few. Nothing that suited him, though,” I said, remembering Marc’s brief interest in the properties we’d seen.

  “Just let me know if he ever decides to buy. I’d bet money that he doesn’t.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I said, lifting my chin.

  “Yeah, I guess we will,” said Jack, stabbing his putty knife into the mantel.

  We were quiet for a while before I remembered what I’d been meaning to ask. “How’s your book coming along?”

  “Slowly. Very slowly, thank you. I’ve been doing lots of research on the Vanderhorst family, which is very interesting if not very illuminating. Real Charleston blue bloods—they’ve been here since it was still called Charles Towne. Sent their men to fight in every war since the Revolution. But nothing new that we didn’t already know about the disappearance of Louisa Vanderhorst in nineteen thirty. Although I did find proof that Robert Vanderhorst and your grandfather were great friends and attended law school together. I believe Gus was Robert’s best man at his wedding.”

  “I know—Mrs. Houlihan showed me the photograph. It’s in a frame in the upstairs drawing room if you want to see it. Not that it means anything, of course, except I have Grandfather Gus to thank for the predicament I’m in. If he’d been a stranger to Mr. Vanderhorst, this never would have happened.”

  Jack raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  I plucked a flake of paint out of my hair, where it had landed. “Did you find anything interesting in the pile of papers in the desk in the attic?”

  “Still going through them. I did find out that the state ended up owning Magnolia Ridge because of failure to pay the taxes on the property. The interesting part is that Mr. Vanderhorst was still a wealthy man, even through the Depression—which is an interesting fact on its own—but he chose not to pay the taxes. Like he just didn’t care about it anymore after his wife died.”

  “Like he probably didn’t care about this place anymore, either, judging by the condition of the kitchen and plumbing. I don’t think they’ve changed since the twenties.”

  Jack snorted. “Judging by the ice-cold shower I took this morning, I’d have to say you’re right. Speaking of showers, you left your bra hanging on the curtain rod. I left it there but tried not to get any water on it.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek to hide my embarrassment. At least he wasn’t making any jokes about how small it was. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I thought it was a slingshot at first until I saw the two little cups.”

  “That’s enough, Jack.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, making a studious effort to concentrate on the job of chipping away old paint.

  We worked for another hour or so, our conversation meandering everywhere from current events to the ridiculous so that I was almost enjoying myself until I realized that together we had collectively removed the paint from an area totaling that of a dinner plate. Jack plunked his putty knife down, and wiped his forehead with his hand. The new and functioning central air wasn’t being installed until the following week, so we had fans lined up on the floor, but they did nothing except move the sweat around your skin. “I have an idea. I’ll be right back.”

  He returned about five minutes later, holding a heat gun. “I got it from your dad. He’s been taking some classes at the Home Depot, and they told him this would help with some of the projects here. Sophie took one look at it and told him to put it away, so you’ll have to promise me that Sophie won’t find out about this. She would rather we lose all ten digits on our hands than stoop to using modern methods, but I figure it’s your house, right?”

  Without a second thought, I dropped my knife. “Close the door and lock it.”

  Jack shut the door quietly, turning the key in the lock until it clicked. “If she knocks, we can pretend we’ve been wrestling naked.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “In that case, I think I’d rather she know that we cheated.”

  He grinned and walked over to the mantel. “And look—here’s an outlet right next to the fireplace. Surely this was meant to be.” He plugged the heat gun in and turned it on, listening to the satisfying whir of the little motor. “What would you do without me?” he asked.

  “Pour a can of kerosene around the house and light a match.”

  “It’s a good thing I’m here, then.”

  “Whatever,” I said as I watched the thick latex paint peel and curl under the heat gun. “I’m still going to need to manually scrape out the paint from around those danged leaves.”

  “Yep. But that’s where the fun comes in.”

  I rolled my eyes, but only halfheartedly. I would never admit this to him, but seeing art carved by hand by an artist more than one hundred years ago come to life again with the removal of all those layers of paint had been almost gratifying. Not as gratifying as selling this house for a huge amount of money would be but still gratifying.

  I halfheartedly returned to the more intricate parts of the design with the jeweler’s knife, while Jack had the mentally daunting task of swiping the heat gun over the painted surfaces and watching the paint curl and peel. He focused on the spot where the fireplace was attached to the wall and where the thick paint had built up so that there was no separation between the two surfaces. He was squatting near the bottom and brushing off the peeled paint with a clean paint brush when he flicked the heat gun off. “What’s this?” he asked.

  I squatted down next to him and peered into the now exposed crack between the wall and the mantel and saw what appeared to be a rectangular scrap of fabric. “Hang on,” I said as I crossed the room to where an old radio with long antennas sat on the floor, unplugged to make room for the fans, and brought it back to the fireplace. Using one of the antennas, I stuck it in the small crack and dragged the scrap toward the edge, where Jack used a fingernail to pry it from its prison.

  “It looks like a cross-stitch sampler,” he said. Flattening it on his knee, we saw that it was very old linen, yellowed and brittle but surprisingly intact considering its age, the silk thread faded yet the colors still identifiable. In the middle was stitched an incredibly accurate representation of the house we were now standing in, and surrounding it were intricately worked lawn scenes with animals, trees, potted plants, and a great assortment of sampler motifs as if the stitcher had decided to include every motif that she had learned.

  The words Emily Vanderhorst, age 13 years, 1849 were delicately worked with pale yellow thread into the bottom of the sampler and encircled in an undulating vine, with little bees buzzing around bee-hives flanking the verse above the name. I read the verse out loud: “ ‘Do not resort to ghosts and spirits, nor make yourselves unclean by seeking them out. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19:31.’ ”

  I met Jack’s eyes over the sampler. With a raised eyebrow, he said, “I thought they were supposed to put generic Bible quotes on their samplers.”

  I nodded, my eyes drawn back to the stitch work, almost as if I would miss something if I looked away. “They usually do. How odd that this one is so . . . so different.”

  I could feel Jack looking at me. “It’s almost like she’s writing it as punishment, isn’t it? Like a teacher making a student write ‘I will not talk in class’ one hundred times on the blackboard. Like poor Emily here was made to stitch this Bible quote so she’d remember it.”

  My voice stuck in my throat.

  “It makes me think that maybe Emily said something about seeing a ghost and her parents got angry.” Jack paused. “You know they say that some houses are like beacons to those spirits who haven’t passed on.”

  I thought of Louisa and her scent of roses, and the menacing figure with the putrid smell I’d seen in the window and felt on my back. I also recalled the fleeting glimpse of an old gentleman in a Confederate uniform, the boy in the swing, and a teenage girl who walked gracefully across the upstairs hallway, disappearing into a d
oorway that didn’t exist anymore. And the woman who sought after Jack and all the voices I could hear whispering to me if I stopped and paid attention. I read somewhere once that renovations disturbed old spirits, making them come out of hiding to see what was going on or to voice their displeasure. Or just maybe these spirits had been here all along, waiting for someone like me to come and look.

  “Really?” I answered, my voice not sounding like my own.

  “And some people are, too. Beacons, I mean.”

  “Is that so?” I asked, keeping my eyes focused on the scrap of yellowed linen. “I’ve never heard that before.” I swallowed. “You know, Jack, I think you’re reading too much into it. Maybe Emily was just . . . different.” Gently, I picked up the fabric scrap. “I wonder what it was doing behind the mantel. Maybe her mother had propped it up there to display, and then it accidentally fell behind it and was forgotten.”

  “Or maybe,” Jack added, “her mother accidentally on purpose lost it.”

  I finally looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “When I was a little boy, I had a favorite book that I made my mother read to me at bedtime at least sixteen times each night. It had lots of different characters, so when she read it, she had to make up all those voices. It must have been exhausting for her.” He looked down at the sampler for a moment, smiling to himself. “Anyway, one day the book just vanished. She helped me look and look for that book, but we never did find it. It was only a couple of years ago that she finally confessed to me that she hid it in the bottom of her cedar chest, where I would never find it, because she thought she might go mad if she ever had to read it again. She only saved it so that I could give it to my own child so that I might also be forced to read it ad nauseum.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I can see your mother doing that.” I stared down at the fabric, sober suddenly. “Maybe Emily’s mother thought Emily had been punished enough, so she got rid of it.” Standing, I held the sampler up to the light, illuminating the intricate stitches.

  “It’s like holding a piece of history in your hands, isn’t it?” asked Jack.

  I stilled, hearing the voice of an old man saying almost the exact same words—words that I remembered even now despite the fact that when I’d first heard them they’d held no meaning for me. This house is more than brick, mortar and lumber. It’s a connection to the past and those who have gone before us. It’s memories and belonging. It’s a home that on the inside has seen the birth of children and the death of the old folks and the changing of the world from the outside. It’s a piece of history you can hold in your hands.

  I lowered my arms, feeling as if I had seen another ghost. Averting my eyes, I said, “I’ll go show it to Sophie and ask her about finding somebody to frame it. Then I can hang it in the foyer—those old-house buyers always love that kitschy nostalgic stuff in their houses.”

  I was halfway to the door when somebody knocked. I stopped. “Who is it?”

  “It’s just your dad.”

  I exchanged a look of relief with Jack, then unlocked the door. My dad stood on the other side, holding up another heat gun. I smiled when I saw it and nearly pulled my dad into the room, locking the door behind him.

  “I figured you could use two. How many fireplaces do you have in this house? Three?”

  “Six,” I said, taking the heat gun from him. “This will certainly come in handy. Thank you.”

  He eyed the locked door behind him. “Am I outside my bounds asking why the door is locked?”

  The question was directed at me, but Jack answered. “No, sir. Can’t say we’ll be honest in our answer, but you can certainly ask.”

  My dad nodded his head. “Uh-huh. You’re hiding from Sophie, aren’t you? Not that I blame you. She’s already spoken to me several times about using nonorganic fertilizers in the garden. She doesn’t want anything used that wasn’t available at the time the house was built.”

  “Which leaves you with water and horse manure, basically,” said Jack.

  “Yep, that would be correct.”

  The two of them laughed as I studied my dad, his face and arms bronzed from working outside in the garden, his gaze steady. I held myself very still, not wanting to go backward or forward, but stay there where we were. It was all I had really ever wanted since I was a child, and now that I saw it, I was afraid to move on. Afraid it wouldn’t last. I turned away. “I’ve got to show this to Sophie. I’ll see you later.”

  “Actually, Melanie, let me come out with you. I want to show you something I found in the garden.”

  “What—like an unidentified shrub? You’re asking the wrong person.”

  He sent me a lopsided grin. “Yeah, I know. I never did quite get around to teaching you about gardening, did I?”

  “No, Dad, you didn’t.” I saw the hesitation in his eyes and stopped. A truce, then, I thought. For now.

  “It’s actually the fountain. I cleared away all the weeds from the base, and I found something interesting carved into it. Nothing like any of the architectural elements I’ve been studying in my night class at the college.” He glanced up at me and shrugged. “Just something Sophie suggested I do to help with the restoration. Anyway, I wanted you to look at, see if it means anything to you.” He glanced behind me to Jack. “I’d like you to take a look, too.”

  “I’m right behind you,” Jack said as he hid the heat guns beneath a chair, then followed us out.

  The garden had undergone a complete transformation. Shrubs and beds that had not been part of the original design had been removed, and brick pavers replaced with old bricks to create winding paths throughout. Bright patches of noisette roses and camellias crept along the edge of the house and peered out from new beds filled with lush greens and freshly tilled earth.

  I felt guilty because I’d not spent the time in the garden to see what my father had been working on so hard. It had never occurred to me that he could have accomplished anything so beautiful. So vibrant. “It’s wonderful, Dad. It’s right out of a gardening magazine.”

  He tucked in his chin, like a bashful child. “I’m glad you like it, Melanie. I’ve had a lot of fun with it. But look over here—this is what I wanted you to see.”

  I felt a movement at the far side of the garden and slid my gaze to the old oak tree. The woman was there again and the boy sat next to her, the swing still. They both looked at me expectantly.

  “Are you all right?” Jack had stopped on the path next to me.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I said, jerking my gaze away. “Just admiring the tree, that’s all.”

  He nodded and waited for me to move down the path before following me. I sucked in a breath when we caught up to my father, amazed that this could be the same garden I’d seen on my first visit. No water came from the fountain still—and wouldn’t until we could figure out all the plumbing issues in the house—but the cherub had been sandblasted clean and now was a smooth ivory, covered only in sunlight and shadow. The Louisa rosebushes hung heavy with giant scarlet blooms, dotting the border behind the fountain like drops of blood on a white handkerchief.

  My dad knelt down in front of the fountain and pulled back a covering of spider grass. With the other hand he pointed to a slightly raised panel in the stone that encircled the entire base of the fountain. Carved into the middle of the panel was the Roman numeral XLIII. Moving around the base, he pointed out two different numerals, XXIV and XLI, each one spread out from the others.

  Jack stared at the last number for a minute. “That’s forty-three, twenty-four, and forty-one. Does that mean anything to anybody?”

  “I have no idea,” my dad said. “But maybe as we continue with the restoration, it’ll come to us.”

  Jack began walking around the fountain, pushing back the grass as he walked and studying the numbers until he’d completed the circle. He turned to me. “Was the fountain original to the house?”

  “No. Sophie had to do the research for the BAR application and found out that the fountain wasn
’t put in until nineteen thirty-one.” Our eyes met, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing—that it was put in a year after Louisa’s disappearance.

  “Guess I’ve got some researching to do,” said Jack. “Let’s order takeout and go through those papers I found in the attic. Maybe one of them can point us in the right direction.”

  With some satisfaction, I said, “I can’t. I’m going to dinner with Marc.”

  Jack nodded, his lips thin. “Maybe he’ll finally kiss you.”

  My dad brushed his hands together and coughed. “Look, I’ve got to go back to that organic nursery and get more fertilizer. Let me know if you find anything.”

  “Will do,” said Jack. I said goodbye and watched as my dad crossed one of the brick walkways and left the garden.

  “So, you have another date with Marc Longo tonight.”

  “Yes, just dinner. I’m bringing a few listings with me to show him to see if he’d like me to make an appointment.”

  “And he can’t do this during normal working hours.”

  Jack’s tone and mood confused me. If I were vain, I’d assume he was jealous. But his irrational dislike of Marc, coupled with his conviction that Marc was out for something else, was just confusing, if not just a little bit more than insulting. I straightened my shoulders. “He’s a very busy man. Evenings are more low-key for him.”

  “I’m sure they are,” said Jack. “As are weekends on the Isle of Palms.”

  “Exactly,” I said, my voice lacking conviction. I had half hoped that more than just business would have occurred, but Marc had been the consummate gentleman, considerate of all my comforts and needs and, unfortunately, my privacy. I’d like to think that he was genuinely concerned about my need for rest and relaxation, and that he considered me a lady, but still. And I was attracted to him. He was dark and mysterious and had a wry sense of humor. But whenever I looked up into his brown eyes, I found myself wanting to see bright blue ones instead.

  “I’ll be here when you get back, going through those papers, if you want to stop in. I’ll let you know if the phone rings and nobody’s there.”