Chapter Four
“And over here,” Lauryn explained as she carefully led Brant toward the aged building, “Is the old springhouse.” Brant had seemed very interested when Nana had suggested after breakfast that morning that Lauryn take him on a tour of the house and grounds of Connemara. Lauryn was very thankful that Patrick was off somewhere playing with a friend. His endless questioning and babbling at Brant had completely interfered with the endless questioning and babbling that Lauryn had planned to fire at him.
“Careful,” she warned, leading him cautiously. “It’s a little downhill right here.” As always, an odd anxiety rose in Lauryn as they approached the ancient springhouse. “The O’Hallerans used this water for everythin’ until my Paw Paw, my grandpa Kensington, had the well dug,” she explained. She wondered again why this place made her uncomfortable. The springhouse was a small building built over a natural spring. A little watermill and pond were on one outside wall. Steps leading through a short doorway at the adjoining wall led down into the spring water inside where a brick shelf walkway, built level with the base of the springhouse, made it possible to enter without going for a swim. There were windows, although barred, down low near the water to let in the sun to illuminate the room. Still, in Lauryn’s mind, it was as plain and unnerving a place as there ever was.
“You don’t like this place much, I take it,” Brant remarked.
Lauryn looked at him, surprised that he should have been able to sense her discomfort. “No. I don’t. It’s always made me nervous. It’s a bit better in spring and summer when the flowers are bloomin’ all around. But on an average day…I don’t care for it.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Well, for one thing, I guess it just made my stomach turn to come out here and see dead mice and things floatin’ around in the water. Yeck! To think folks use to drink out of here. There are always, always rats runnin’ around in there, too. And in the summer it’s a perfect place for skunks and everythin’ else to hide. I can’t tell you how many dead animals my brother Sean has fished out of this water! He, by the way, loves this place, I might add.” Lauryn shrugged. “Otherwise…I don’t know. I just don’t like it. For years, when I was younger, I used to think that maybe this is where Lauralynn was lost. But when I finally got up enough courage to go in there and look around, I’m sure it wasn’t. It would’ve been too easy a place to be found.”
“And besides, she’s not wet.”
“What?” Lauryn asked, momentarily puzzled by his comment.
“When I see her,” Brant explained. “She’s not wet. It seems like she’d be drenched and dripping in pond water if she’d drowned or died and fallen in there.”
Lauryn shivered at the vision created in her mind to accompany Brant’s description. Again she was amazed at how nonchalantly he talked about being haunted. And yet, somehow it comforted her to know she needn’t feel guilty for not having the courage to go swimming in that horrible place looking for Laura’s bones.
“Well,” Brant sighed, squeezing Lauryn’s shoulder, signaling he’d heard enough about the springhouse. “I think we can safely scratch this place off our list of ‘where to look for a skeleton.’”
Lauryn looked at him quickly. “I can’t believe how matter-of-factly you talk about it.”
“It’s what we’re looking for, isn’t it?” he reminded her.
“Well, yes but it’s seems so…so irreverent the way you put it.”
“I don’t mean for it to. It’s just that…we know where Laura is, Miss Kensington. She’s back in Castledale, Vermont, waiting for help. What we’re looking for is just what remains of the shell that housed her while she was here.”
He was right. Lauryn knew that. But it still seemed disrespectful to her way of thinking. Maybe that was one of the massive differences between a man’s perception and a woman’s.
“What else is out here that I can’t see?” Brant asked.
“Well, back over this way are the servants’ quarters,” Lauryn offered, leading him away from the springhouse and toward another building some distance from it.
“You mean, the ‘slaves’ quarters’,” Brant corrected.
“No. I mean, the ‘servants’ quarters’,” Lauryn repeated. “My great-granddaddy didn’t think slavery was right. For one thing he was Irish and had seen the way the Irish were treated. But mostly he simply recognized that people were people no matter what color their skin was.”
“Wise man. Especially for his time.”
“Yes. And he endured great ridicule and tribulation at times because of it. The family employed servants. Granted, most were black…but, at least they were free men and paid an honest wage. So…this is what remains of the servants’ house.” Lauryn reached out and pushed at the old door that led to the first floor of the small house. Stepping in, she startled and let out a squeal as a rat scurried across her path.
“I loathe rodents,” she mumbled. She stepped further in and Brant followed. “As you can see, it’s a very nice house. Plenty of privacy and fireplaces enough to warm it well.” Then she realized what she had said. Of course he couldn’t see it all! “Forgive me,” she began to apologize.
“Don’t be apologizing all the time for coining a phrase, Miss Kensington,” he grumbled. “I suppose it’d be stupid to ask you if you searched in here.”
“I did,” Lauryn affirmed. “Everywhere. I had even heard tales of there bein’ a secret hidin’ place in here like there was in Connemara House. But I never could find it. I knocked on every wall and stomped on every floorboard from center to circumference. No luck.”
“It sounds like you’ve been very thorough over the years,” Brant noted as they left the servants’ house.
“Oh, yes. I’ve crawled under the gazebo and endured the seven thousand and eighty-two spiders under there. Believe me when I tell you…that, if nothin’ else should be testimony of my dedication.”
“I imagine that it is,” he chuckled.
“I’ve knocked on every wooden panel in the house. Roamed around in that dark, damp, stinky old basement until I was sick to my stomach. I’ve wandered for hours along the creek bed, sat in the attic for days sortin’ through the old trunks. But my mama nearly had apoplexy when she caught me diggin’ a hole out by Henry near the old cemetery lookin’ for bones and such when I was twelve.” Brant burst into laughter, suddenly. “What?” Lauryn asked, smiling herself, for his amusement was quite…amusing.
“And you think I’m irreverent?” he chuckled. “What made you decide to dig then and there anyway? And who’s Henry?”
Lauryn shrugged. “Oh, Henry’s our statue. He’s pretty beat up these days. He’s been out there by the cemetery since the war. Actually, he never was finished. I think he was forgotten durin’ the fightin’ and…just never got finished. And why did I dig out there by him? Well, I was angry that day.” Lauryn explained, further, “Really frustrated with tryin’ to find Laura and not bein’ able to. So, I told the Captain that I was goin’ to find her if I had to dig up every foot of ground at Connemara! But Mama foiled my plans.”
Brant chuckled again and Lauryn couldn’t help but smile, pleased that she had caused him to do so.
“So, where’s the old cemetery?” he asked. “Is it the one where the Captain is buried? And is Henry sculpted after a real person? Someone in the family?”
“The cemetery is over just south of the house and the Captain is buried there. And Henry…well, my friend Penny and I named him that. I don’t know who he was gonna be. My great grandmother’s brother was chiselin’ away at him. Penny and I just called him Henry whenever…”
“Whenever what?” Brant prodded, curiously.
“Whenever we were outside playin’,” Lauryn stammered. She had no desire to go into further detail about Henry. Henry was a secret she shared with only Penny. Though, she suspected the Captain knew about Henry being the proxy for whatever boy Lauryn and her friend might want to dream about kissing when they were girls.
“We’ll go to where the Captain was buried next.” Lauryn led Brant there in silence and Brant said nothing, as well. It was as if they both were pondering the significance of where they were about to go and who was laid to rest there. And, who wasn’t.
Brant let go of Lauryn’s hand and hunkered down in front of the tombstone. Reaching out until his fingers met with the granite of the marker, he ran a thumb over his great-uncle’s name.
“I smell…flowers,” Brant mumbled.
“Pansies,” Lauryn explained, reaching down and pinching a large violet-and-yellow-faced winter blossom. “My great-grandmother planted them at his grave and they’ve bloomed year ‘round ever since. They’ve just kept reseeding themselves for fifty years. And they are unusually fragrant.” Taking Brant’s hand she placed the bloom in his grasp. He caressed its petals roughly with his fingers, drawing it to his nose and inhaling deeply of its fragrance.
Then he nodded and released the wasted flower to the ground in front of the tombstone. “Is there a marker?” he asked in a hushed tone.
“You mean…for Lauralynn?” Lauryn whispered. She felt, again, an overwhelming sympathy for the man who had so recently lost his sight. How desperately she wished he could see the beauty of the cemetery, the marker that lay next to the Captain’s headstone. Wished he could drink in the vision of the white arbor, engulfed in wisteria vines, arching protectively over the two grave markers. In the spring the wisteria that covered the arbor lattice would bloom, along with all the rest at Connemara, creating a perfect loveliness as it complimented the perpetual, and somewhat miraculous, profusion of pansies that grew on the Captain’s grave.
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “There’s a marker just next to the Captain’s…with her name and that she was…was lost.”
Brant inhaled deeply and was pensive for a moment.
“You know,” he began. “It was so strange to be a child when I met her and then to grow up into a man…and she stayed so young. One day I was ten…the next, it seemed, I was twenty…twenty-one…twenty-two. But she was still the same. Never aging. Always young and beautiful.”
“Did…did it change your perception of her?” Lauryn asked. “Your growin’ up and her not?” Her heart was hammering with a sort of anxiety that was becoming all too familiar, yet stranger than anything she’d ever known. Even though she had known this man less than twenty-four hours, his opinions, his thoughts were incredibly important to her. “I mean….did your feelings change toward her?”
Brant smiled and stood straight, still facing the tombstone. “I suppose so. When I was small, it was like she was a big sister. And then as I got older and, you know…” he stammered. “You know what I mean…I began viewing women differently, in general. I suppose I was sweet on her in a way.” Lauryn tried to ignore the heat rising to her face. The heat of jealousy. Jealousy, for pity’s sake! And over a ghost! And what right did she even have to be jealous? How ridiculous it was. “But then,” he continued. “I grew into a man and…and she seems like a young girl to me now.”
Lauryn grit her teeth in irritation. At the time of her disappearance, her death, Lauralynn was two years older than Lauryn was at that very moment. If Brant considered Lauralynn ‘a young girl’…then he must most certainly consider Lauryn one! Suddenly she felt small, inexperienced and immature. His next question caught her off guard because she was so preoccupied with her anxieties.
“What about you and the Captain? Was it about the same? Or did you always perceive him as you do now?” He turned toward her then, genuinely curious.
Lauryn shrugged her shoulders, a lump of thick embarrassment at her youthfulness stuck in her throat rendering her unable to answer for a moment. But then swallowing hard she said, “He…he was mostly like an uncle to me. A good friend. The best. I think my infatuation with him was over…long ago. I realized that his heart was elsewhere and all I ever wanted was for someone to…” she stopped abruptly having almost revealed too much.
“Someone to what?” he urged. She paused, trying to think of an answer to give him without telling him the complete truth. “Go on. What?”
“Just….just…” she stammered.
“Someone to love you like he loves her?” he finished.
“Well, yes,” she admitted.
Brant shook his head. “Not me,” he grumbled turning back to the tombstone. “I never want to be wandering around after I’m dead, alone and in agony.”
“So you’d rather wander around alone and in agony while you’re livin’?” Lauryn scolded. She didn’t like when people made love sound so miserable. Love was a beautiful thing! Something to dream of having. Something to make life worth the living. She couldn’t understand why some people only saw the pain. And yet, this man…again she thought how different his relationship with Lauralynn was than hers with the Captain. She had been lucky. He hadn’t.
“I suppose you think I’m a heartless devil,” he mumbled.
“No. I think you’re an injured soldier returned from the horrors of war and you’ve forgotten that love and loved ones are the very reason you went.”
He grinned then. “Not one to mince words, are you Miss Kensington?”
“Not with certain subjects,” she admitted.
“Well, good thing I rub you the wrong way. You wouldn’t want to condemn yourself to wandering around after a blind man for eternity.” He chuckled but Lauryn was furious.
“If you weren’t blind and could see it comin’ I’d slap you smack across your face!” She was angry with him. It was time to get over his self-pity, his defeated attitude and get on with his life. She was losing patience as well. However could she find out everything he might know to help her find Lauralynn if he was forever being distracted by his own pain?
“Well, why don’t you do it?” he growled at her. “Don’t treat me any different because I’m…”
And his words were halted as Lauryn did, indeed, slap him soundly. Soundly, but far less forcefully than she could have. He stood before her, mouth gaping open, stunned into silence.
“Now that I have your attention,” she began, rather horrified at her own actions. “If you’re gonna help me find your lost lady…then you’re gonna have to quit thinkin’ about yourself. There are others, even those who came home from the war, with much worse injuries and challenges in their lives than yours.”
He still looked more surprised than angry. “Admittedly,” he mumbled. “You better say your peace, or I know I’ll never have mine.” Was he implying that she talked too much? It didn’t matter. She was going to say what she must; else she’d always regret not doing so.
“Fine!” she began. “Be thankful you didn’t lose your sight and your arms. Be glad you’re healthy otherwise, that you didn’t die a horrible death from the mustard gasses. Be glad your eyes didn’t get poked right out altogether! At least, you still have hope.”
“How would you like to be saddled with me for the rest of your life?” he interrupted angrily. “I’m going home and my family…”
“No one will be saddled with you. And your family’s pain won’t be a grain of sand compared to what it would’ve been had you been lost.”
“Would you…Miss ‘love is so wonderful’,” Brant mocked, imitating her soft, southern accent. “Would you want to go through life with me? Like this? Would you go through eternity?”
“If I were in love with you, it wouldn’t matter.” It was out of her mouth before she could stop it. She had said something, out loud, that had been lurking in the corner of her mind since the moment she’d approached him on the train; that there was something about him that whispered to her soul and the loving part of her heart. “And besides, you won’t be blind for eternity,” she added in an effort to distract him from her first remark.
“How do you know?” Lauryn was relieved that Brant had chosen to go the route of whether or not blindness remained an affliction in the afterlife, as opposed to the fact that she had mentioned love again.
“Ever h
ear anyone tell of seein’ a blind ghost?” she asked plainly. He smiled and shook his head, his mood obviously having been lightened by her positiveness. “And besides,” she continued, “I asked the Captain once if people still carried their afflictions and deformities with them and he said they don’t when they’re at peace.”
“What if I don’t die peacefully? What if I’m lost like Laura?”
“Then I’ll find you.” Lauryn dropped her gaze to the ground, embarrassed at making such a promise to a man who was nearly a complete stranger. And she wondered how much merit it would hold anyway considering how long it was taking her to find Lauralynn.
“I think you just did,” he mumbled. Lauryn looked to him once more. He was again turned away from her, but there was a peacefulness, a profound humility to the set of his mouth. And something in Lauryn bloomed suddenly. Like a butterfly that had just taken to the breeze, her heart fluttered and she felt that her adventures in life were only just beginning.
Brant was very quiet for the remainder of the morning. He seemed pensive, thoughtfully withdrawn. It wasn’t until Sean, Mindy and Junie arrived at Connemara later that he appeared to be aware of something other than the echoing thoughts of his own mind.
Sean and Brant talked for hours about the war, politics, the economy, automobiles and other such subjects that interest men. Even after supper they visited. There seemed to be a lot in common between them and although Georgia smiled, delighted to see both men enjoying each other, Nana smiled understandingly each time her eyes met Lauryn’s. Yes, Nana understood Lauryn’s envy over Sean’s ability to capture Brant’s attention so completely and for such a long period of time.
But when evening had settled and Sean and his family had left Connemara for their own home, it was Lauryn that Brant asked to help him upstairs so he could retire. He accepted Georgia’s and Nana’s affectionate kisses on each of his cheeks and Patrick’s friendly handshake, bidding them a kind and grateful, “Good night.”
The Fragrance of Her Name Page 9