by Bryan, JL
“And the Rylands were somehow involved with the Grolmans?”
“They are the reason this estate exists,” Darika said. “As you should hear shortly.”
A window popped up on the monitor facing Stacey and me, and it showed the two of us in real time, inside a video conferencing app. Stacey waved at her grainy digital self.
“Do we have to be on video?” I asked, not particularly thrilled with the idea of watching myself throughout the conversation.
“Not appearing would be rather rude on a video call,” Darika said.
“Are you going to be on the video?”
“Of course not, I’m just facilitating.” A plaintive, high-pitched bird call shrieked from Darika’s phone, and she checked it and sighed. “Wyatt just sent me a Look Now.” She went silent, fingers clacking at her phone.
“Oh! That reminds me, I need to Look Back at Jacob from earlier.” Stacey brought out her phone and launched the LookyLoon app, the black bird with the big red eye. She typed. Her phone let out a bird wail, too. Both of their phones continued to wail intermittently as they conversed over the app.
I was once again abandoned, with only my unflattering digital reflection for company. It stared back at me relentlessly from the large screen, which magnified my face much larger than nature intended, giving me an uncomfortably close look at my own pores while I waited.
Having kept my phone in my pocket, I was the only one paying attention when the new window popped up on the desktop monitor. A chunky, kindly-looking woman appeared, wearing a canary yellow blazer and sipping from a mug that was also canary yellow. Shelves of books filled the walls behind her.
“Hello? Can anyone hear me?” Dr. Haverford asked, as if starting a Ouija board session. A cat somewhere near her meowed in response.
“Hi, Dr. Haverford,” I said, jumping into it while Darika’s and Stacey’s attention gradually stumbled away from their phones and toward the new face and voice that had joined us. “I’m Ellie Jordan.”
Darika recovered and got involved—though remaining off-screen—and she introduced Dr. Haverford as “the foremost authority on the history of the Ryland family.”
“I’m afraid I’m all thumbs with computers,” the woman said apologetically. “But I understand meeting in person is cost-prohibitive. You can also read my book. I’m happy to send you one.”
I looked at Darika, who swung her index finger in a circle. I supposed that meant keep going or perhaps just roll with it.
“Yes, sorry, we don’t have a travel budget, I guess,” I said. “But I’d love a copy of your book.”
“It’s nothing special, really. If your focus is Satilla Island and the Grolmans, then it’s James and his daughter Evangeline you’ll want to know about.”
“I…suppose so,” I said.
“They were an unlikely pair, many said, but both had their peculiarities.”
“I'm sorry, who were the unlikely pair?”
“Hank Grolman and Evangeline Ryland, of course. Well, the Ryland family was opposed, obviously, with Mister Grolman’s background. The Rylands were a well-established, highly respected family. And Grolman was a rough one.” The cat on her end yowled again. “It's okay, Mr. Chonkers!” she said, in a babyish voice.
“What was Grolman's background?” I asked. “All I know is he was involved in the cattle industry.”
“He was born in Lower Saxony, near the Teutoburg Forest. His family were peasants employed in the stables of local aristocrats, as they had been for generations. Heinrich sought a better fate for himself than serving the beasts of wealthy men. He came to America as a young man in 1873 and found his horsemanship served him well out west. Are you familiar with his Wyoming days?”
“No, but I’m happy to learn,” I said.
“Wyoming was still just a territory with no official government. Some of the largest landowners formed vigilante associations to protect their property. Heinrich was an effective enforcer for a group called the Greater Cattlemen’s Association, hunting down cattle rustlers. He took his pay in land and cattle and amassed his first fortune. His second arrived when a coal patch was discovered on his land, just as the railroad companies were arriving in Wyoming hungry for it. That turn of fortune made Grolman a truly rich man. Soon he invested in banking and railroads.
“Later reports, and more than one lawsuit, claimed Grolman may have used aggressive strong-arm tactics in his Wyoming days, and he was even accused of running small but legitimate settlers out of their homes. But by then, Heinrich Grolman—or ‘Hank’ as he came to be known—could afford an iron shield of legal defenses against his past actions.
“The rumors, as well as his general roughness, blocked his attempts to rise to the highest levels of Eastern society. He purchased a Manhattan townhome and threw extravagant parties. It was during this era that he met Evangeline Ryland and determined to marry her, against her family’s wishes.”
“What were Evangeline’s wishes?” Stacey asked.
“Evangeline had always been the family wild card, mostly a disappointment, active in nightlife, even drinking and smoking in public. She was in her mid-thirties when they met, most likely at one of his Manhattan parties, nine years Heinrich’s junior, but she was rather old to be unmarried. Her younger sisters had long since married proper gentlemen of proper families, but Evangeline resisted and remained single.”
A fuzzy orange cat the size of a beach ball leaped onto the professor's desk, blocking our view as it sniffed the camera.
“It’s Mr. Chonkers!” Stacey gasped, as if meeting a major celebrity.
“That’s a naughty Mr. Chonkers!” Dr. Haverford gently removed him and set him down on the floor.
Stacey jotted a note and held it where only I could see.
Mr. Chonkers is so cute, she’d written.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Haverford said, back to a professional, adult tone again. “Where were we?”
“Evangeline was cruising toward spinsterdom,” Stacey said. “Old Maid City. Population one, obviously.”
“Yes. So, despite Evangeline being on the road to becoming a, well, a hopeless reclusive cat lady…” Haverford paused and cleared her throat. “Well, despite that and Mr. Grolman’s great wealth, the Rylands opposed the idea of their daughter marrying a man of such low and crude reputation. This led to Grolman’s attempt to polish himself up and join the Jekyll Island Club, where the Rylands were members along with the Morgans and Rockefellers and the other powerful families of the age. Grolman hoped to raise his social standing through membership and to spend time in Evangeline’s company on Jekyll each winter, when her family came down, until they could be married. His attempt to join the club was rejected. Senator Ryland almost certainly blocked it himself.
“In response—and this brings us to your restoration work—Mister Grolman purchased Satilla Island, considered too small and rough for development by most, and placed his enormous hunting lodge at its peak. On a clear day, you can see that lodge all the way from the southeastern beaches of Jekyll, with the sun rising behind it, lighting up that golden Bentheim stone imported all the way from Germany.”
“You mean this entire estate was built to impress his girlfriend’s family?” Stacey asked.
“Precisely. Mr. Chonkers!” Dr. Haverford gasped as the chubby kitty again leaped on the desk, strolling across the keyboard. “That’s a big no-no!”
“It’s Mr. Chonkers again!” Stacey whispered, smiling, until the lady put her cat away again.
“Now, where were we?” Dr. Haverford asked, looking flushed. “Again, I am sorry, I am not good with computers.”
“Well, Mr. Chonkers sure seems to love them!” Stacey beamed.
Dr. Haverford’s expression went hard and cold, like she did not appreciate others commenting on her cat. “Where were we?”
“He built the mansion to impress Evangeline’s family,” I said. “Did it work?”
“Not immediately, but it began to have its intended effect, gradually w
earing down the social resistance to their marriage. It helped that Hank Grolman held lavish parties on Satilla, inviting the sons of other northern families over from Jekyll and Cumberland. These were hunting parties, young men only. The only women allowed on the island were Grolman’s servants and Evangeline herself, who visited in defiance of her family’s wishes. Grolman’s hunting preserve was meant to imitate that of the aristocrats his family once served. His pack of boarhounds was specially bred for him. Hank and the boys hunted the island’s wild boar and white-tailed deer, as well as bears that swam over from the mainland, alligators, wild turkey and ducks, and imported game like quail and pheasant. I could name a number of prominent families whose sons attended Grolman’s parties, names that still stand for wealth and power today.”
“But what happened with Hank and Evangeline?” Stacey asked, on the edge of her seat like she was watching a romantic comedy, or perhaps a Shakespearean tragedy. “Did they end up together? Did her family keep them apart?”
“After three winters, the Ryland family relented. Evangeline was thirty-six and refused to show interest in other marriage prospects. Hank had indeed raised his profile sufficiently, or perhaps her family finally gave in. Hank and Evangeline were to be married on Satilla Island in a ceremony of lavish proportions with a thousand guests. The lodge was decorated with new gardens and statues for the occasion. It was to be the wedding of the century, held appropriately enough in June of 1899.”
The professor fell silent. Stacey looked from her, to me, to her again. “And? What happened?”
“Unfortunately, Evangeline’s daredevil streak extended to such activities as sailing in rough weather. She was a member of the New York Yacht Club and was training her younger brother Averill and two cousins to be her crew for the summer regattas, which she intended to win. Though devoted to leisure, she could be something of a taskmaster in her leisure activities, and insisted they train no matter the weather. It was also said she liked to watch the lightning strike the water. They were lost in a storm only a few weeks before her wedding. Everyone aboard drowned.”
“I knew there wouldn’t be a happy ending!” Stacey said. “There’s never a happy ending.”
I nodded quietly. Stories with happy endings don’t usually lead to haunted houses.
“After Evangeline’s death, Hank became a rather broken man, a hermit,” Haverford continued. “The parties died down and the walls went up, enclosing the island, blocking out the world from the estate he’d originally built as a shining showpiece to impress all who saw it. He became more reclusive until he died. He brought his brothers Garit and Otto over from Germany and put them in charge of his business affairs—centered in Chicago rather than Wyoming by this point—so he could spend his time brooding, walking the halls where his wedding was meant to be.”
I was jotting on my notepad. These were certainly the ingredients for a haunting. I hadn’t observed a brooding old man roaming the hallways, but a shadow figure had been observed in Hank’s old bedroom, frightening enough to run off the workers.
“Did Grolman hold costume parties at the lodge?” I asked.
“I’m sorry?” Haverford’s big smile faltered a little. She sipped her cheerful yellow mug. “My, this tea is growing cold already.”
“Masquerade parties,” I said. “Did they dress up in masks?”
“Not that I’m aware, no.”
“Are you sure? Not the guests? Or maybe the serving staff? I saw an…image of a woman in a maid’s dress and a fox mask. It was an interesting mask, too. It looked hand-crafted. I’d like to find out more about it.”
Haverford’s forehead wrinkled and her frown deepened, as though trying to recall something but coming up empty. “I’m sorry, I’m just not familiar with anything odd like that. His guests, as I said, were entirely male, particularly young men and bachelors of the finer families, largely to avoid any whiff of scandal that might interfere with his process of engagement to Evangeline, one assumes. He would have avoided the outlandish and the bizarre if he was trying to win favor with the Rylands.”
“Then Grolman never married anyone?” Stacey asked. “He just moped around here listening to The Cure? Or whatever they had in the early 1900s instead of The Cure?”
“Bartók, perhaps.” Haverford chuckled. “Yes, according to all reports, the heartbreak was permanent.”
“Did he die here?” I asked.
“Yes, on one of the hunting trails, in 1901. He’d roused himself for a rare hunt with some of the old boys’ club, but he was then fifty and had perhaps not kept himself in top form during the years of mourning. It’s said they were chasing the island’s largest beast at the time, a boar with tusks like swords. It had been slaughtering smaller animals and was believed maddened by disease. Grolman shot it, but when he went in to finish it with the blade, the boar had a moment of renewed vigor and defended itself. By the time the doctor arrived, Grolman had died of his injuries.”
“Did anyone else live here on Satilla after Heinrich died?”
“He preferred ‘Hank’ in his later years. And while his nieces and nephews did continue to visit to escape the New York winters, later generations lost interest in Satilla Island. The Great Depression shut down most of the estate, and it never truly opened again. They gradually laid off staff and closed down entire buildings, even shutting down hallways of the main lodge. The stables were emptied out. Finally, in 1955 the estate was given in trust to the state of Georgia, with the strict caveat that it be left as an undeveloped nature preserve, the buildings left to the wilderness. It was described as prone to flooding and storm damage, with rocky terrain unfit for commercial or residential purposes.”
“That’s quite a thing to say after you’ve built a giant mansion on the island,” I said.
“They were in the best position to know. They saw firsthand the expense and futility of fighting the constant damage of wind, water, and salt.”
“Well, I think it was nice of them to make it a nature preserve,” Stacey said. “I wonder what the family would think of the restoration happening now.”
Darika’s eyes widened and she leaned forward in her seat, shaking her head, doing a “cut” move across her throat while staring at Stacey.
“I doubt the Grolmans have even thought about that house in generations,” Haverford said with a wave of her hand as she sipped tea. “They gave it away so long ago.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “Do you know of any particular problem with the dogs?”
“Which dogs?” the professor asked.
“His hunting dogs. Grolman bred powerful hunting dogs, didn’t he?”
“He certainly had quality hunting dogs and fast horses for his hunting parties. As I said, Grolman was interested in imitating some of the aristocratic traditions he’d observed as a stable boy in Germany—and in surpassing them as well. The lodge is an example of that, clearly.”
“Did the dogs ever kill anyone?” I asked.
“Where would you get that notion?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I replied, thinking of the snarls and growls that had pursued and surrounded us. I shivered at the memory. The girl in the freaky fox mask had caught me at a bad time, too, and was haunting the back of my mind.
“I’m not aware of any such event,” Dr. Haverford said. “Bear in mind, however, that my primary interest is in the Ryland family, and my knowledge of the Grolmans beyond Evangeline’s death is less complete.”
“Could later generations of Grolmans have held those masquerade parties I was asking about?” I asked.
“I suppose. And I can’t vouch for all the dogs being well-behaved, either. I can only say that the house was, in essence, built as a monument to Hank Grolman’s affection for Evangeline Ryland, only to become a monument to his grief.”
“Wow,” Stacey said, taking in the room around us as if viewing the dead fox and boar with new eyes. “This estate was like the Taj Mahal, kinda. A monument to love.”
“If you d
on’t have any additional questions, I do have a class to teach,” she said. “Which I will be teaching in person, thank goodness. But I’ll have to drive there first. And Mr. Chonkers needs his pills before that.”
“I appreciate your time,” I said. “You’ve been a huge—”
“We’ll be in touch if we have additional questions,” Darika said.
“Is that you, Ms. Mahajan?” the professor asked. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“We greatly appreciate your help on such short notice,” Darika told her.
“And I appreciate your overly generous fee. Call back if you have any more questions. I’m at home reading most evenings.”
“Great,” I said. “Thank you again.”
The call ended. Unfortunately, this meant the window centered on my face expanded, once again swelling to fill far more space on the screen than my actual head took up in real life.
“Well?” Darika asked. “Does that speed anything along?”
“Yes, and no,” I said. “It’s hard to connect anything she said to the scale of the haunting here.”
“Yeah, this is easily like an eight or nine on the boo scale,” Stacey said. “Which goes up to, like, ten, I suppose. Or should we call it the boo-ometer? Like barometer?”
“Maybe some of the people Heinrich Grolman wronged during his career as a strong-arm vigilante for Big Cattle came back to haunt him,” I said.
“Like a Winchester House situation.” Stacey nodded sagely. “Haunted by the ghosts of people killed by the Winchester rifle.”
“Some of the road crew saw shadowy figures on horseback that appeared to stalk them before melting away into the woods around the cemetery,” Darika said. “And they quit after they saw it. That’s why the road hasn’t been repaired past the cemetery.”
“I don’t remember you mentioning those before,” I said.
“Honestly, I’ve heard so much that it all just runs together. We’re supposed to have multiple crews working in parallel on different aspects of the renovation. Instead, we’ve got ghost stories and contractors ghosting us.”
