Vera turned the page, and swallowed. Here was the photo she remembered of the four Bennett daughters. The middle woman wore a high-necked shirtwaist blouse with a black ribbon around her neck, pinned with a cameo. Trembling, she rose from the table, and asked the volunteer to photocopy the picture for her. Vera drove home too fast, her mind full of questions.
Heavy rain the next morning meant no garden work, so she decided to spend a few hours poking around the attic. There might be clues in one of the trunks or wardrobes. She pulled the cord of a bare light bulb, creating a pool of light in the middle of the open room. Shadows danced on the walls. Outdoors, a sullen wind lashed rain on the old roof. The attic smelled of ancient mouse urine and a slight sour odour came from an old milk separator in a corner.
Vera pulled out a cotton high-necked shirtwaist with leg-of-mutton sleeves from a trunk. The fabric still smelled faintly of perspiration. An ankle-length skirt of fine wool lay folded beneath the shirtwaist. Both items appeared to be about her size. Faded velvet ribbons lay in a jumble on one of the trunk’s papered shelves.
Suddenly inspired, she went downstairs and returned with the cameo in its box. She removed her tee-shirt and jeans, put on the shirtwaist and skirt, and tied a black ribbon around her neck. Vera twirled slowly, feeling the skirt brush the floor, imagining what it was like for whoever wore these clothes more than a century ago.
Nestled in its cotton wool bed, the cameo profile glowed rosy. It was warm. Vera picked it up, and tried to fasten it to the ribbon. She fumbled with the pin, missed the clasp, and poked the sharp tip under her fingernail. She cried out at the sudden pain, and the cameo tumbled onto the open trunk shelf. Blood welled up under her nail. A drop fell on the cameo’s profile. She squeezed the finger in her other hand to stop the bleeding. Her heart pounded, and her face flushed.
A few minutes later, the blood stanched, Vera noticed a cheval mirror next to a jumble of bedroom furniture. It would be better to look in the mirror while she pinned on the cameo. She drew the mirror on its casters towards the light, and tipped it slightly to see herself full-length.
She tugged loose her ponytail, fastened the elastic just behind the top of her head and puffed her hair out around her face, mimicking the pompadour hairdos of the early 1900s. Her cheeks were still pink. Did they wear make-up in 1905? She smiled coquettishly at her reflection, imagining a young Lucy Bennett getting ready for a dance at the Spicer home, wondering if Malcolm Wilbur might be there.
Vera retrieved the cameo, and adjusted the mirror slightly so she could see to fasten the clasp. The light bulb swayed—probably a draft from a loose shingle. Something fuzzy obscured the image of the light bulb in the mirror. Puzzled, she looked more closely. In the mirror, she saw the hairdo, the black ribbon pinned with a cameo, but the face that looked back was not hers. It was a woman with fair hair and green eyes. She stared at Vera, her eyes wide. Vera stood frozen. The image slowly faded.
The light bulb swung from the rafter. It dimmed, and then flickered. The wind howled. She glanced through the window. Along the driveway, the old Lombardy poplars bent at a sharp angle in the driving rain. The barn door had lost one hinge and hung half-open. A sudden gust of wind banged it back against the barn wall. In the dim outline of the barn interior was a tall-wheeled shape. From here it looked like a buggy.
Vera pushed the mirror away from her, hurriedly pulled off the old clothing, and got dressed in her jeans and tee-shirt.
“I’m imagining things,” she told herself. “Too much time on my hands. Wouldn’t it be great to get that job at the Spicer Inn! I’d be busy and around lots of people. Maybe I could earn enough that Arnold wouldn’t have to work so far away.”
She slipped the cameo into her jeans pocket, and ran downstairs to find a kerosene lantern, candles and matches, in case the power went out.
In the evening, Arnold called to say he would not be coming home this weekend. Bad weather meant he had lost a day’s pay, so he would work Saturday to make up the time. Vera sighed. Maybe she was alone too much. Arnold was a rock. He would reassure her that she wasn’t going crazy. He had an analytical mind, and would surely come up with a reasonable explanation for the strange events that had gone on in the house.
She spent the rest of the day fiercely cleaning and making whole-wheat bread. House chores were a form of meditation, she thought. Nobody needs to think while vacuuming. By late afternoon, she was tired and ready for a break. Another solitary meal and a quick phone call to Norbert were the only markers in her day. Norbert had nothing new to offer about the cameo, but said he’d ask around the village about whatever happened to Lucy and Evelyn Wilbur.
The next morning brought some good news. Mary Reid, owner of the Spicer Inn, called to offer her a waitress job starting in a week.
“We’ve had a lot of reservations for the fall, and we need more staff,” she said. “As usual, it’s retired people who like to travel when it’s not so busy on the highways and the weather’s still nice. Even got bookings by some people in Germany. I was impressed that you’d taken German at university. They’ll love having someone to serve them in their own language. The fall visitors tend to tip generously,” she continued. “So even though we don’t pay much, you’ll still do well.”
Vera accepted the job offer gladly. The extra money would help a lot. Maybe in a few years, she and Arnold could fix up the Bennett house and open a bed-and-breakfast. She hurried to call Norbert.
“Why, that’s wonderful news, Vera. I’ve heard good things about Mary Reid. Runs a tight ship, but she’s good to her staff. Most of them have been with her for years. Jobs are hard to find around here, especially ones that last long enough to get employment insurance in the winter.”
Norbert had some news for her as well.
“I’ve asked around the village about Lucy and Evelyn Wilbur. Folks remember they had relatives in the Boston States, William’s younger brother, Wesley, and his family. Wesley Bennett would be Lucy’s uncle. His widow, Lily, and two of the boys spent a summer here back in the early ‘20s.”
Norbert learned that the Boston Bennetts suffered the same devastation from the Spanish Flu as their cousins in Nova Scotia. As it had in Canada, the epidemic occurred in waves, racing through the population for several months, dying down, and then starting up again.
“The flu broke out just weeks after the boys came back from the Great War,” he said. “Spread with the troop trains carrying all those discharged soldiers home. All the shipping traffic in and out of the Port of Boston—that carried the flu as well,” Norbert said with a sigh. He paused a moment before continuing.
“I remember in the Halifax paper, they had stories about what happened in Boston. You know, there was a lot of back-and-forth traffic between Boston and Nova Scotia, going back to the early days.”
Wesley Bennett was born in Canada, a few years after his parents and brother, William, emigrated from England. As an adult, Wesley moved to the outskirts of Boston, where he lived with his wife Lily and six children, two daughters and four sons. Only Lily and two boys were left after the flu hit. With the help of employees who survived the epidemic, they managed to carry on the family import-export business. Local people remembered Lily and her sons coming to Nova Scotia to spend a summer with Lucy and Evelyn, in the early 1920s.
“That’s all I learned,” Norbert finished. “The house was empty much of the time afterwards, though I do remember Evelyn spending a few summers here.”
After making plans with Norbert for a visit the following week, Vera hung up the phone.
She suddenly had an idea. While going through a trunk in the attic, she had found a bundle of letters with Boston postmarks. Taking a small lamp, she climbed the worn attic stairs, and opened the trunk which held the letters. They bore cancellations dating from the early 1900s to 1923. She pulled out a letter from Mrs. Lily Bennett dated February 1919.
My dear Lucy,
We received your telegram with its terrible news. I am so sorry for you
r trouble. It is devastating to lose your dear sisters and both your parents so suddenly. We are still in shock after losing Wesley, my two precious girls and two of our dear boys, all just in a few months. It has shaken my trust in God. How could He want to take Papa and four innocent little children to Him? Everyone in Boston is asking these questions. So many are suffering.
In our city, we saw such sights as you could hardly imagine. The streets were silent. No one dared go out for fear of contamination. The telephone exchanges are closed, since so many operators are sick or have died. Theatres, workplaces, restaurants—all closed. The churches have even limited funerals to 15 minutes, since there are so many every day, and also out of fear of contagion.
Dear Lucy, try to have faith that we will get through this awful epidemic. We can only hope to see our loved ones again in a better place.
Our house feels lonely now, without the children’s laughter and Wesley’s cheerful, “Hello!” when he arrives home from work. Do give a thought to come to us for a long visit, perhaps even to stay permanently. It would do my heart good.
Wishing you comfort in your sorrow,
Your loving aunt, Lily Bennett.
The last letter was dated 1923 and postmarked Boston. In it, Lucy Wilbur wrote to her cousin in Parrsboro, with directions to advertise the house for rent to long-term tenants.
Vera slowly put the letter down, and re-tied the ribbon around the bundle. She hoped the two widows had been able to comfort each other.
Later, she carried out her usual evening ritual. She wiped down the table, the counter tops and stove, rinsed and wrung out the cloth, and left it to hang on the stove door handle. Vera wondered how many women before her had repeated the same familiar chores. The house dated to the mid-nineteenth century, so it could be six or seven generations. In her mind’s eye, she saw a parade of women who had lived in this house, birthed their children, laughed and loved much, cared for the ill and dying, mourned their dead, and grew old themselves.
She glanced at the window above the sink, and noticed a full moon shining through broken clouds. Maybe Lucy Wilbur had stood at this counter-top, perhaps in the same clothing she herself had tried on. Dreamily, she pulled the cameo from her pocket, and held it up to her throat. In the window, an image formed. Someone was standing behind her. She whirled around.
Between her and the stairs stood a woman, her eyes wide in horror. The woman raised a hand across her mouth. Her breath came in shallow gasps. She stared uncomprehendingly at Vera. She looked as if…she’d seen a ghost.
Vera stared back. The woman wore a high-necked shirtwaist and a long wool skirt. Her fair hair was pulled back from her face with little tendrils escaping around her ears. A black velvet band circled her neck. Pinned to it was a rose cameo. Its twin pulsed in Vera’s grasp, scorching her fingers. It slipped from her hand, clattered across the floor, and tumbled into a gap by the wall.
Instinctively, Vera flung her apron over her face to shield her eyes from the apparition. She stood rigidly for several minutes. Slowly, she dropped her apron. The woman was gone. The clock struck 11 p.m. The house was quiet. There was no sign of the cameo.
~~~***~~~
The House on the Hill
Janet Doleman
On a cool, late April night, while the moon shone weakly through a veil of clouds, seven of us crowded into the confines of a ’67 Ford station wagon with worn upholstery, an intermittent heater and a stubborn clutch. Phil, the sole holder of a driver’s license in the group, managed to get his father’s car on Friday nights. Along with one other boy, Eddie, were five girls: me (Janey), Rosemary, Maria, Eliza, and Patty, Phil’s younger sister. All of us were forbidden to date solo, or to drive in cars with boys, or attend unsupervised parties. The exceptions to the “boys” rule were Phil, who was the Baptist minister’s son, and Eddie, whose dad was the new CO of the nearby Air Force base, and thereby approved as suitable company. Our parents believed that both boys’ every action was safely approved and monitored by the respective fathers, and any untoward behaviour was sniffed out and duly dealt with. Our collective parents appeared to have agreed upon an acceptable code of conduct for their assorted offspring, and seemed to possess a telepathic knowledge of our actions and whereabouts. We called it telepathic but we knew that the old busybodies of the village, like Mrs. Dawse, made it their life’s goal to know everyone else’s business. There was no escaping.
Except for us. We deemed ourselves under the radar as long as we didn’t blab to our parents or, heaven forbid, to our younger siblings. They took it as their family duty to report every action to our parents, unless, of course, they held back juicy tidbits to use as blackmail for their own advantage.
On this chilly April night, safe, stalwart Phil, eager as the rest of us for an adventure at the end of a dull week of school and homework, parked the car at the head of the beach road on the landward side of the island, doused the headlights, and left us in near darkness, illuminated slightly by the moon’s glow.
The beach curved in an outward arc towards the mainland, its tip pointing at the rocky causeway connecting the island to the mainland. That was where our village strung out along both sides of a two-lane road, bordered by the railway tracks along the shoreline on one side and woods on the other.
“Are we going to check out the parking lot?” piped up Eddie. “Or maybe we can jump the dunes?”
The dunes were our version of a playground, especially on nights like this, with each of us feeling the need for freedom from restrictions, when we could act childishly without being criticized by anyone outside our circle.
“I don’t know,” said Maria. “It’s too dark to see the path.” Maria often dampened our enthusiasm with expressions of caution and restraint.
Adventure in our world was tempered by the fear of getting caught if we dared to commit a rash act. Stealing property, breaking windows, or inadvertently hurting someone was declared off-limits. Borrowing property, on the other hand, was acceptable, as long as the said item was restored to its former owner and location at the end of the night.
Rosemary spoke up. “We could sneak up on Bud Smith and Marilyn and give them a good scare. I think they’ve gone parking down by the dunes tonight.”
Tucked behind the sand dunes at the end of the gravelled road, lay a sandy clearing big enough to hold half a dozen cars. On a sunny day, it would be filled with mothers unloading their assorted children, folding chairs, picnic baskets and beach toys for an afternoon on the beach. It was nearly empty after five o’clock, except after dark on weekends, which was a popular time for couples to park at the end farthest from the lone street lamp, the feeble glow unable to reach into a car’s interior.
That end of the lot could be treacherous for cars whose tires would spin helplessly, digging deeper into the sand. This was common knowledge in the area. Even so, the risk of becoming marooned with no one to help push the car out if it got stuck was tempered by the promise of privacy for parking couples.
“How do we scare them? And what with?” asked Eliza who could be counted on to equip our “team”. We had forgotten to establish a plan that night, much to Eliza’s disappointment.
“Why don’t we get a barrel of fish bait over at Long Wharf, creep up to the car, and dump it over the windshield?” offered Eddie.
Our little community gained its livelihood from the fishing industry of Cape Sable Island and surrounding villages, hence the prolific presence of boats, fishing gear, and barrel upon barrel of smelly, disgusting fish bait. Usually, we did not dare go near wharves or wharf buildings, under threat of grounding from our parents, who warned us repeatedly with stories of young children drowning off the end of wharves. We respected their experience and directives after hearing those tragic tales.
Rosemary, ever practical, dismissed this idea. “Those barrels are too heavy, and smelly. Besides, we’d have to heave one in the back of the car to get it here, and the stink would be inside for weeks and maybe months. Can you imagine Rev. Bob co
ming to church smelling like fish?”
Living where we did, especially when the wind changed before a nor’easter, meant we were familiar with the horrible smell associated with rotting fish entrails.
“We don’t even know if their car is parked there,” added Patty. “One of us should sneak down to check the parking lot.”
“Eddie?” we all said together.
“I know, okay, okay, I’ll do it. It’s always me who gets the go-fer jobs,” grumbled Eddie good-naturedly. Eddie, slight for his age but extremely agile, was routinely expected to scale fences and sneak into backyards on behalf of the group.
On a knoll high above the beach stood the old Robertson house. Cradled by overgrown spruce and wildly unkempt alder bushes, its peaked roof was split by the sharp point of a dormer, and un-curtained windows stared blankly over the bay and sandy shoreline. In the daylight, the paint-peeling storm door with its single eye of a diamond-shaped pane was barred against intruders either human or weather-related. The house stood benignly amongst the grasses and overgrown bushes. Tonight, its presence was obscured by darkness. We were aware of the house but were not thinking about it particularly.
Stories of ghostly sightings at the old Robertson house had been absorbed into local lore. Some said it once belonged to a sea captain engaged in trading between the Boston states, the West Indies and the colony of Newfoundland. He sailed away for four or five years at a time leaving his wife to fend for herself and her children. When news arrived that his ship was lost at sea, the widow packed up her family and fled the island for her relatives on the mainland. Locals said they used to see a light from the upstairs window long after the family left. It was speculated that the sea captain had returned, not dead after all, but back to claim his wife and family. Grieved that he could not find them, it was rumoured that he took up residence on the top floor, although no one ever saw him during the day.
Out of the Mist Page 10