***
In another place, I mightn’t have noticed the corner of white amidst the wood of the post. The hour was late and I’d eaten lightly of the casserole the housekeeper had left in her quarters. Electricity hadn’t been restored to the house prior to my arrival; I’d chuckled enough over the pleasant gleam of hurricane lamps, ornate fixtures and antiquated appliances throughout the house.
The beam of my flashlight had passed over the bottom of the post as I’d been crossing the hallway. Upon seeing it I was struck singularly by my own childhood penchant for leaving small notes of my presence in places we had once inhabited. Had I done so here once? I couldn’t recall.
Curiosity got the better of me. I plucked the paper free, surprised to find it a short letter of neat handwriting once revealed by the light of my flashlight. The writer had a careful hand, letters were uniform, nearly perfect sweeping across the page. I carried it upstairs to better read within the comfort of the bedroom I’d fixed up for myself off the landing. The Master bedroom I hadn’t dared touch as it had still had some of the heavy baroque furnishings from my uncle’s time.
The room I’d fixed up for my brief stay had long blue curtains hung from the large four-poster bed. A small bedside table with a cracked marble top served to hold a candleholder that emitted flickering light once it had been lit. I hadn’t yet forgotten my experience earlier in the day, the soft whistle of cheer that had occupied my lips in the daylight had faded to silence by late evening.
I was a city girl born and bred; the doors and windows were bolted fast. In my mind the need for security eclipsed the soft thread of curiosity. What words did the letter contain? The house had been in my family for generations. What ancestor had walked these halls, leaving behind a fanciful record of their past deeds?
I smiled at my romanticism, donning a soft cotton robe, clambering atop the freshly made bed. The paper crackled as I slid my finger beneath it. At first glance the paper appeared old, coated with a thin layer of dust that coated my fingertips. I was amused to see the date postmarked some thirty years in the future.
June 10 2045
I’ve fallen in love with someone. They don’t know who I am, or my name. They don’t even know I exist or will exist...,
I turned the paper over, there was more written along the crease.
I’ve placed this note in a place where that person may find it. This house..., I ran my hand over the railing feeling the warmth of the ancient wood. The stairs are deep and the walls dark with age. I’ve always been in awe of this house where she lived.
The house had been shuttered from prying eyes for many years. Only members of the immediate family were allowed within the domicile. Had the writer of the missive been a member of the family? Or perhaps a visitor…, had they loved in secret a member of my family? My wonderings would never cease despite my exhaustion. I left the missive on my bedside table and fell into a sleep warmed by recollections of happier times.
In the morning I awoke to the rush and pound of the surf against the rocks below. Sunlight streamed through the curtains I’d closed the night before and the letter I’d discovered in the bannister railing had vanished. This occurrence was unusual for I wouldn’t have believed the housekeeper of deliberately touching my things, unless she knew of the letter’s import and sought to hide something from me.
My suspicions were raised, although my mind warned against ill-conceived conspiracies. I sought her out in the herb garden below to question her. “A letter, Miss?” She knelt in the loamy earth; a cool sea wind tousled our hair. “I haven’t seen no such thing. Was it important, Miss?”
“I see...no, no, it wasn’t. Only something of curiosity.” I started to walk away back to the house when she called after me. “Strange things have always been associated with this family,” she nodded as I turned back, shading my brow with my hand.
“And this house.”
Far beyond her, past the low white picket fence where the sea grass meandered to a low stubble against barren rock, I seemed to see someone standing there for an instant. A figure who gazed out mournfully toward the sea -- a passing cloud obscured the sun and the path out to the cliff’s edge darkened. No one stood there.
I shook my head to rid it of fancy and returned to the house intent on exploring. I had not gone in very far when a notion occurred to me. It was a silly thought and one that was entirely frivolous in execution. I went to the stair and bent low, inserting my searching fingers into the open seam of woodwork. Smooth paper rustled at the touch. I slipped it out feeling my heart race.
As before, I closed off my bedroom door seeking privacy in the room I’d fast begun to feel as my own. Kicking off my tennis shoes, I curled up surrounded by frilly pillows, the missive lying across my lap. There had been nothing else there yesterday of that I was certain. Someone was coming and going through the house, someone neither of us had seen, the housekeeper and I.
June 12 2045
I first glimpsed Cartier mansion above on the hillside rounding the corner at Triumph’s Bluff. It was the eleventh of August. The tower and crenellated roofline belonged to another age. I was transfixed by the sight. Maybe mother was as well. I don’t remember much from that day, only the house; the glare of another’s car lights bouncing over the windshield. Mother screamed somewhere in memory, glass shattered and I was left alone to face life.
It’s strange to remember even now my tears, streaming down my face. The driver of the other vehicle crawled from the wreckage of her pickup truck; she crawled across the thick green-tinted windshield glass. It must’ve hurt. She was cut and bleeding a deep true red grasping the frame of my passenger’s side window.
Even now I wonder how she knew my name:
“Cameron.”
I laid aside the letter unable to read on. The experience had undoubtedly been traumatic. The road was familiar to me as the one I’d taken from the village to the estate above. The road was winding, steep with the cliff wall against one side and at points, a sheer drop beyond the guardrail. It was nearly impossible to allow someone to pass if coming at opposite directions. A collision was nearly unavoidable. I shivered despite the warmth of the day.
What were they doing coming up that winding road to the house?
Who were they?
Would I ever know?
At least...now, I had a name for my more than strange writer.
Cameron.
In the afternoon, I wandered through the fallen wrought iron fencing enclosing a small graveyard to the east of the house. The peak of the cliff rose in rocky splendor ahead. Nestled in the grasses, the chipped and crumbling stones of my ancestors lied buried. I picked through them, bending occasionally to brush the inscriptions free of clinging moss.
For over two centuries, members of my family had been buried here. Would I choose when the time came to be interred in the rocky soil? Or somewhere far away surrounded by strangers? Death was a strange thing. It came to the Cartier family in spurts after long stretches of life. My own mother had been buried in Kensal Green beside my father but my uncle had chosen his place beside his forefathers. His was easily the largest of the monuments, the last of the titled Lords, Henri Cartier. The name conjured images of a portly man clad in grey and black suits. He walked with a limp and wielded a tortoiseshell cane from Victorian times. The sound of his footsteps came back to me then, the same cadence, rolling gently on broken seashells. There was a much different footstep beyond the cemetery gate, limp, dragging. I looked up startled for I’d thought I was very much alone. “Who’s there?” I called sharply and the long grasses rustled in reply.
Nothing but the wind, you silly goose! My thoughts cried. Still, I wandered and wondered. The house was mine to do with as I pleased. If there were spirits earthbound, then I wasn’t afraid. I’d lived a life dictated by others, mother, my husband, bound by rigid traditions; I hadn’t truly begun to live until now.
I thought of my freedoms with the keys jiggling in my jean pocket, stri
ding down the grassy slope to the old red pickup parked on the natural curb. I could drive anywhere I wanted, returning at all hours of the night. I was beholden to no one, not a man who demanded my being home before his return from work nor a meaningless job. The summer was mine and if I lived frugally, I could live happy.