Maidenstone Lighthouse

by Sally Smith O'rourke

  Stunned by the eerie sight before me, I felt my mouth go dry. The blood was pounding in my temples as I slowly sat up and stared, half-expecting her slender form to vanish among the deep, lurking shadows beside the wardrobe.

  But she remained standing precisely where she was, one bare white arm raised nearly to her cheek, slender fingers clutching the transparent fabric of the intricately patterned lace curtain.

  Despite the dim lighting, I seemed to see her with exceptional clarity. A luxuriant cascade of raven hair interwoven with narrow strands of pink satin ribbon fell down her back to below the waist. A chain of cunningly hand-sewn rosebuds decorating the bodice of her dress precisely matched the shade of the ribbon in her hair.

  As I continued to stare at the apparition before me I realized that the garment she wore was not a dress at all but an elaborate nightgown, such as a new bride might wear to her wedding bed. And though her face was completely hidden from my view, I somehow knew that she was beautiful, and too young to have died.

  Several more seconds passed and still she had not moved. I hardly dared to breathe as a frantic argument raged within my head. The logical part of my brain was insisting that there must be some perfectly rational explanation for what I was seeing. But my foolish emotional side—the part of me that regularly conjured up all of those impossible daydream fantasies of Bobby’s miraculous return—said I was looking at a spirit.

  I didn’t know then whether I even believed in such things. But one can scarcely dabble in the antiques business for very long without being regaled with ghost stories.

  I recalled having heard somewhere that the dead most often return to places where in life they underwent some profound emotional trauma. So it crossed my mind that the spectre at the window might possibly be my aunt Ellen. Though she had lived her life as a spinster, I knew she had once been engaged to marry. But her fiancé, a handsome local yachtsman, had died in a tragic sailing accident before they could be wed.

  Had poor Aunt Ellen secretly watched and waited for her lost lover from this very room? In her grief and distraction over her loss had she donned her lovely bridal nightgown and crept up to this lonely turret room night after night? Stood by that very window, peering out into the darkness and longing to see his boat slipping safely into the harbor below?

  And now that she was free at last from the prison of her time-ravaged Earthly flesh, had Aunt Ellen returned to resume her lonely nighttime vigil? Was she somehow trapped on this Earthly plane, unable to cross over to the other side until her long-lost lover sailed home to Freedman’s Cove to claim her for his bride?

  Even as those wildly romantic thoughts were racing through my mind, there was a soft swirl of motion at the window. And I found myself looking into the sad, luminous eyes of the lovely young woman in the long white gown.

  But it was not Aunt Ellen.

  I gasped and clapped a hand to my mouth at the sudden realization that I had seen her face before, the unforgettable face of the girl in the old photo album, my disgraced female ancestor whose name Aunt Ellen had refused to reveal to me three years before.

  “Who…Who are you?” My voice was high and tremulous and I felt as if I might faint at any second.

  The apparition at the window wavered like smoke and then she very slowly dissolved before my eyes. The soft oval of her face lingered before the window for just a moment longer than her body.

  Then it too was gone.

  I sat there for a very long time, staring at the spot where she had been. Then I switched on the bedside reading lamp, instantly filling the room with soft yellow light. I swung my feet out from under the covers and crossed the chilly floor to the window, just as the beacon from the lighthouse swept past.

  Positioning myself where the ghostly figure had stood, I lifted the lacy curtain and peered out into the darkness, hoping to discover what had drawn her to that particular window. But there was nothing to be seen except the shadowy forms of the maples in the yard being stripped naked by the howling wind. That and the pale finger of the lighthouse on Maidenstone Island and the black sea beyond.

  Returning to the snug comfort of my bed I turned off the bedside light and gazed at the window. As the soft blue glow of the fairy lamp once more suffused the room I lay propped against my pillows, trying to make some sense of what I had just seen. To my great surprise, I was more exhilarated than frightened by the eerie experience. Because, unless my eyes had deceived me and I really was losing my mind, I felt that the sad spectre at my window proved there was something beyond this Earthly life.

  In my grief-stricken state that was a great source of comfort at that moment. It implied that Bobby, too, might still exist somewhere, in some peaceful afterlife that I could only dimly imagine. And I was filled with an overwhelming sense of hope that my lost love and I would be reunited again someday, somewhere.

  With those soothing thoughts caressing my exhausted brain I fell into a deep, untroubled sleep, the first I had experienced without pills since the day the nervous young man from the oil company had stepped into my office with the news that my lover was gone.

  I dreamed again of Bobby as he had looked on that very first day with the sunlight glowing in his golden hair. And I imagined I felt the gentle weight of his hard body on mine as we made love for the very first time.

  Chapter 8

  I awoke late, feeling better than I had in months. The storm had departed on the west wind and now the brassy ball of the autumn sun shone on a white-capped sea. I told myself I should get up and take care of getting the rest of my luggage in from the car and see about laying in a proper supply of groceries.

  But I lingered in bed for a while instead, reluctant to leave the warmth of my snug refuge. Although the sky outside was bright and free of clouds I knew from long experience that the October sunlight on this stark New England coast is deceptive. It would be briskly cold outside and the whole house would be chilled until I went downstairs and figured out the controls on the newly installed central heating system.

  So I just lay there, putting off the inevitable and thinking about my strange experience of the night before. Though I clearly remembered awakening and seeing the beautiful young woman at my window, in the harsh light of day I could not be absolutely certain that she had not been just another character in one of my frequent dreams.

  After all, my practical side argued, I had once seen a picture of the same girl in Aunt Ellen’s album. So it was probably entirely possible that my troubled mind had merely projected that melancholy face onto an imaginary figure in the shadows of my room.

  At least I’m sure that would have been my shrink Laura’s explanation for the strange experience.

  “Well, to hell with Laura,” my romantic self muttered aloud as I finally threw back the covers and got up to face the new day. “She’s my ghost and I’m going to keep her.”

  I looked around with a start as a sudden gust of wind sighed through the eaves beneath the turret roof with a sound remarkably like feminine laughter. A tiny thrill ran up my spine as I contemplated the startling possibility that the sad apparition might really have been there at my window.

  With that comforting thought in mind I briefly considered going straight up into the attic and digging out the old albums in an attempt to discover the true identity of my ghostly visitor. Then my practical side took control once more, arguing that if I was ever going to recover from my loss, steeping myself in ghost stories was probably not the best way to begin.

  So I chalked up my vision of the lovely spirit to sheer exhaustion fired by my overly charged emotions and went downstairs in search of the thermostat.

  It was nearly noon by the time I had breakfasted and transferred my clothes from the Volvo to the new-old wardrobe in the bedroom. But despite the fact that winter was just around the corner, once the morning chill had dissipated the air was warm and summery. So I walked back outside to survey the condition of the house—I was still having trouble thinking of it as my house—and grounds.r />
  The front yard was littered with fallen leaves and badly in need of raking, but I noted with approval that the grass and flower beds showed signs of having been well tended. The white wrought iron fence bordering the front walk had recently been given a coat of fresh paint and the house itself appeared to be in generally good repair as well.

  Making a note to compliment Tom Barnwell on the excellent job his maintenance people had been doing in keeping up the property for me, I walked down the drive to the arched rose trellis that marked the entry to the backyard and the narrow strip of beach beyond.

  The deeply shaded lawn behind the house had always been one of my favorite places when I was a child. And now as I passed beneath the trellis the familiar loamy smell of earth from Aunt Ellen’s large garden plot filled my nostrils and a new wave of nostalgia swept over me.

  Except for the bare trees in the yard, it seemed as if I had played there only yesterday.

  The sturdy Adirondack furniture that graced the back lawn in summer had been put away for the season. But the white-painted bench where I had subjected several generations of overworked Barbies to countless “dream dates” and daring career choices still encircled the trunk of the enormous oak that dominates the yard. And I was thrilled to see the wide wooden swing still hanging from its stout chains beneath a sagging limb.

  Brushing a scattering of bright leaves from the seat, I lowered myself into the creaking old swing, pushed off with both feet and closed my eyes. Suddenly I was twelve years old again and it was almost lunchtime. At that moment, I felt sure that if I opened my eyes and looked up at the house Aunt Ellen would come bustling out onto the big screened porch behind the kitchen, wiping her hands on her blue-checked apron and setting out tuna sandwiches and lemonade.

  After a moment I did open my eyes. But the interior of the porch was obscured in silent shadows. Sadly, I would never again hear Aunt Ellen’s voice chiding me to leave my silly dolls and come up to lunch before she fed my share of tuna to the cats who prowled the edges of the wood.

  I was filled then with a profound sense of longing for the dear old soul who had, at a time in life when most women her age had long since finished with child-rearing, taken on the daunting task of mothering a willful and sometimes troublesome little girl every summer.

  Fighting back a tear, I stood and walked down to the old carriage house beside the garden and peered in through a dusty side window. As I had suspected, the missing lawn furniture was neatly stacked inside. Behind the furniture stood a large, shapeless mound of bulky objects draped in tattered canvas tarps.

  I was about to turn away when, at the lower edge of the nearest tarp, something glittered in a stray shaft of sunlight. I experienced a thrill of anticipation as I realized what might be hidden there. And then I was grinning and racing around to the front of the outbuilding, wondering if the most forbidden object of my teenage desire could actually have survived in storage for all of these years.

  Larger than a modern double garage, the carriage house was never subjected to such pedestrian use during my lifetime. Aunt Ellen had not owned a car, which she contemptuously referred to as a “contraption,” preferring either to walk or call the town’s only taxi whenever she needed to go somewhere.

  The carriage house had served only two functions: half of the dirt-floored space was reserved for odds and ends that were too good to throw away and too large to fit into the basement, the other serving as the potting shed for the considerable back garden that had kept us supplied with fresh squashes, wonderful tomatoes and crisp salad greens every summer.

  As a child, I had always marveled at the mystical order of the carriage house. Because every spring the front half magically emptied of lawn furniture, porch rockers, window screens and awnings, just in time to provide exactly the right amount of space for Aunt Ellen’s gardening needs. Then, in autumn, when the space was no longer needed for gardening, it somehow filled up again with all the unused trappings of summertime.

  Now it was autumn and the interior was crowded. So I was forced to climb between the lawn furniture and a long, unpainted table littered with rusting hand tools, stacks of clay pots and glass jelly jars filled with seeds, in order to reach the items permanently stored under the tarps in back.

  From my vantage point within the dimly lit room, the shiny surface I had glimpsed through the window was no longer visible. I stood uncertainly before a shrouded pile of discarded objects, trying to decide where to look first, and fighting off creepy visions of accidentally disturbing a nest of spiders.

  Finally, my excitement overcoming my fear, I grabbed the edge of the nearest tarp and flung it aside, raising a huge cloud of dust and revealing the outline of a monstrously warped Edwardian china cabinet with a broken door.

  Sneezing and flapping one hand at the cloud of sparkling motes that filled the air, I squeezed past the broken cabinet.

  And there it was.

  Except for two flat tires and a sprinkling of rust on the chrome spoked wheels, it was exactly as I had left it more than a decade earlier.

  I cannot begin to describe the happy memories that came flooding into my mind as I stood there covered in grime and grinned down at that forlorn little machine. For it was a small miracle that my aunt had even kept the despised object after I had reached adulthood and gone away.

  “Well-bred young ladies do not race about the shore on motorcycles!”

  I can still see the two bright spots of color on Aunt Ellen’s cheeks and hear the barely disguised horror in her voice as she stared down at the full-color brochure I had placed in her lap. It was the summer I had turned sixteen and the poor old dear was trapped, a prisoner in her favorite parlor chair with her left leg in a heavy cast as the result of a tumble down the cellar steps the week before.

  “It is not a motorcycle, Auntie. It’s a moped,” I had argued with teenage fervor, determinedly keeping my cool and deliberately neglecting to mention that I had picked out the fastest machine of its type. For this particular moped, a Vespa capable of carrying a passenger behind the rider, had a far more powerful engine than many small motorcycles.

  “Now that I have to do all of the shopping,” I pointed out with what I was certain was devastating logic, “it’ll save tons of money on cab fares. And we won’t have to wait all day for Ed Griner’s smelly old taxi to show up when we really need something fast, like your medicine.”

  Unimpressed by my pitch, Aunt Ellen thrust the glossy dealer’s brochure back at me without even bothering to read about the moped’s fantastic gas mileage, roomy saddlebags and optional shopping basket. “Out of the question!” she’d snapped, clamping her jaw firmly shut. “Besides, you have your bicycle.”

  “But this is practically the same thing as a bicycle,” I countered, stubbornly pushing the brochure back at her. “See, it even has pedals. It’s cheaper than a used car and I can pay for it myself and make extra college money by delivering prescriptions for Mr. Wall at the pharmacy.”

  Being the frugal maiden lady that she was Aunt Ellen had been unable to stop herself from actually looking at the brochure for the first time then, pursing her thin lips in disapproval while grudgingly conceding the irrefutable financial point. And, in truth, except for its gaudy chrome muffler and fat, knobby tires, the jaunty little Italian moped that I’d set my heart on did bear a passing resemblance to a bicycle, albeit a somewhat muscle-bound one.

  “It’s so hard pedaling up hills with groceries on my bike I can hardly carry anything at all.” I had jumped seamlessly ahead to my next point, cheerfully disregarding the fact that most of Freedman’s Cove is generally about as hilly as the Salt Flats of Utah.

  “Well…” Aunt Ellen said, adjusting her little square spectacles to squint at the slickly printed photo on the brochure cover.

  I could tell she was weakening so I moved in for the kill, raising my most powerful argument. “And I’ll feel much safer on this than the bicycle, when I have to go out after dark,” I said, stabbing my finger at a block o
f bold copy describing in detail the Vespa’s bright magneto-powered headlight and lunch-box-sized taillight.

  “You shall be absolutely forbidden to ride that awful motorized contraption after dark!” she had firmly declared, thumping her plaster-encased leg for emphasis. “Why I never even heard of such a thing!”

  “Yes, Auntie,” I had replied, meekly leaning over to kiss her pale cheek and trying to suppress my shriek of joy. For not only had I won, but she had caved in with far less persuading than I had expected.

  “I suppose,” Aunt Ellen had murmured in final defeat, “the young women are more liberated now than they were in my day.” She emitted a long sigh and her thin fingers fretted with the pile of needlework in her lap.

  “You know how I feel about motorized contraptions,” her voice trailed away, and I knew she was thinking of my mother, “so promise me that you’ll be careful, Susan,” Aunt Ellen had whispered.

  Of course I had promised.

  And though I frequently did ride it after dark and was probably no more careful on the speedy little motorbike than any other sixteen-year-old experiencing her first intoxicating taste of genuine freedom, I was nevertheless careful enough to avoid ever wrecking the precious Vespa. And, except for the occasional skinned knee, I never did any serious damage to myself, either.

  Chapter 9

  The unexpected discovery of my beloved old moped in the carriage house sent all my other plans for the day straight out the window. Because, having been reminded of the delicious feel of the wind in my face and the freedom to roam wherever I chose, including remote spots that no car or even jeep could possibly go, I became determined to get the Vespa running again.

  Of course, I’m now a responsible adult. So at first I very sensibly decided just to get the moped outside and clean it up a little. Then, perhaps in a few days or a week, I told myself, I would put it into the back of the Volvo and take it to a motorcycle dealer in Newport, who might be able to replace the ruined tires and restore the engine to running order.