The House on Seventh Street

by Karen Vorbeck Williams

  That night, she lay in bed with the moon and stars shining in through her window—a new moon so thin it looked as if it would break. When she closed her eyes, the fear came back—Seth in the driveway working on her tire. She felt guilty for thinking the way she had about Seth and opened her eyes to distract herself from her thoughts. She turned her back to the window and watched the swaying shadows on the wall until her eyes closed and she felt herself fall down the basement stairs. Soon, she was pumping her brakes, her tires screaming around turns.

  To distract herself from the instant replay, she decided to lie there and go over her packing list. In the morning, she should pack Juliana’s story and some of Whitaker’s letters. She wanted to look at them again on the plane. She turned her thoughts to her upcoming trip, her house on a hill with a view of the ocean, and finally welcomed the strange little creatures—the phantasmata—that came to her just before sleep.

  BEFORE SHE LEFT for the airport, she searched for the story but could not find it. Winna looked at the clock. The last time she remembered having it was the night she went to dinner at Emily’s and figured she had left it in the car. Dragging her suitcase and photo equipment outside, she loaded them into the trunk. Of all her possessions, her state-of-the-art digital camera was the most precious and she did not want to leave it behind. It was getting late. The notebook was not in the car. There was no time to search the house again. I must have left it at Emily’s, she thought.

  Winna’s plane touched down in Boston where a rental car waited for her at the airport. On the drive north to Portsmouth and New Castle, she drank in the verdant lushness of the New England forest. After Grand Junction’s dry barren alkali flats and boxy adobe houses, its stark red-rock mesas and open blue skies, New England seemed almost too green and gentle. She drove past moist wetlands full of waving cattails, loosestrife, and grasses, tangled woodlands, green meadows sprinkled with midsummer wildflowers, and church steeples set amid the architecture of a civilized past.

  Aptly named, Portsmouth lay at the mouth of a seaport—where the Piscataqua River formed the border between New Hampshire and Maine. An old town, it had been settled more than three hundred and seventy-five years ago. Winna had always loved its vibrant river port with fishing boats and ships from afar. Reshaped for shoppers and tourists, the town offered history, good restaurants, and innovative shops.

  She had shopped and dined in downtown Portsmouth almost weekly, but her house was to the east on the island of New Castle. Thinking of John, who had agreed to keep an eye on the Seventh Street house while she was gone, she headed out of town, crossing Goat Island Bridge. The road took her through what there was of a little town: the post office, the Congregational church, and the town hall. Driving toward the east coast of the island, she passed a wetland, expensive houses, and a field edged by a stone wall. From there she could see her little white farm house sitting on top of a knoll in the midst of an overgrown lawn. Though surrounded by open space, the nineteenth-century house stood above the lighthouse and the beach on no more land than its own sweeping lawn. The vision brought instantaneous regret. Why didn’t I ask John to come? Winna wanted him to see her home, to rest with her on the big porch overlooking the island and out to sea.

  Inside, she visited every room—the front parlor with a view of the sea, the dining room with the pumpkin pine floors and the welcoming fireplace, the kitchen where a breakfast nook looked over the neighbor’s field at the back of the house—and pulled up the windows to let in the ocean air.

  With her half of everything from the divorce, she had purchased the rundown house and it became her haven, the place she retreated to nurse her wounds. Walt kept the house in town where they had raised their daughter.

  For a time, Winna had taken refuge there, a veteran of thirty-five years of marriage to a workaholic philanderer. Maybe he was neither. Maybe he just lost interest in me.

  Why do I do that—make excuses for him as if I deserved to be tossed away? Where Walt was concerned, questioning her worth was a habit.

  She opened the door to her study, painted a soft buttery yellow, a color that warmed her like a pool of sunlight. The yellow paint had been inspired by her favorite rose. In a moment of infatuation, she had taken it to the paint store to have the color matched. Winna had spent the past few years in this room planning workshops, marketing photos, filling orders, building frames, cutting mats, and following up with contacts in Boston and New York where she had clients and exhibitions to fill. Here, she had lived in a world of her own making.

  Her photographs made the real world go away—beautiful pictures where nothing hurt—still life, sunrises over the sea, woodlands she had walked through in all seasons. Dark images where she cried and shouted at Walt in a way she could not to his face—her wedding gown glowing in the light of a window, Emily’s old doll abandoned on the floor, candles burning on a table set for one, empty chairs, broken windows. She’d done a whole show for a Boston gallery on images of broken glass. It had received critical acclaim.

  In that room, she forgot that her husband had left her for a sexy lawyer. Actually, Winna had thought at the time, I don’t know how sexy she is, but she is smart and well respected in Portsmouth. I am sure she has to be sexier than me, the wife.

  Winna began her photography career right out of college working for a successful Boston photographer—mostly in the darkroom. Sometimes he sent her off on jobs too small for his big talent.

  She and Walt moved to Portsmouth when Walt had been invited to join a prominent law firm there. After years of trying not to get pregnant, Emily was conceived soon after they had settled. Everything seemed perfect. While Walt climbed the ladder at Barton Connor and Jessup, Winna stayed home with the baby.

  After they moved into their dream house with all the latest appliances and her closet full of beautiful clothes, she did laundry every day and ironed with The Guiding Light for company. She made peanut butter sandwiches for Emily, changed sheets once a week, mopped floors, and scrubbed toilets. One day she picked up The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.

  Winna laughed at the memory and wondered if she still had the book somewhere in her library. The book that blew midcentury womanhood off the map had been like a cold shower for Winna. What a blow—here she was doing the job her mother had done, but with all this new information. Friedan had dissected the feminine mystique. Generations of women had choked to death on something Winna didn’t have to swallow anymore. She didn’t have to wonder about her senseless dissatisfaction in the face of all she had or her restlessness or why she had asked herself, is this all there is to life? She didn’t have to bury herself because another woman had written that Winna hadn’t made up these feelings. She was no longer alone.

  She had a talk with Walt—many talks—and he agreed that they could afford some help. She could go back to work part-time. He even pointed out to her that she was the one who had wanted to quit work and stay at home. By the time Emily was five years old and in kindergarten, Winna had held her first exhibition and was landing photography jobs in Boston.

  The phone on her desk rang and she answered a call from Emily.

  “Perfect timing. I just walked in the door.”

  “How was your flight?”

  “Fine, once I got to Denver and boarded a real plane. Right now I’m standing in my study feeling a little haunted.”

  “That house can’t possibly be as haunted as your grandmother’s house. Mom, you never called me back.”

  “Oh, my goodness, I’m sorry. I must have lost my mind. How did your meeting go?”

  “It’s next week.” Emily chuckled. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Yes, do. I’m excited for you.” Winna paused as something came to mind. “By the way, did I leave the notebook with Juliana’s story at your house?”

  “No, I haven’t seen it. Maybe you left it in the car.”

  “I looked. It must be in the house somewhere.”

  “Look, Mom, while you are out there you shoul
d drive down to Newport and see what you can find.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you know, that’s where Dolph went to make a name for himself. You could check the library for old newspapers. Maybe there’s a story about him or his benefactor.”

  “Do you think he was lying or exaggerating in his letters?”

  “All we have is his word for it. What if he was just trying to impress Juliana? On your way back, you could stop in Providence and see where he went to college. I wish I were with you. It would be fun.”

  “Me too. I’ll think about it.”

  “Whatever you do, do it quick and come home. We miss you already.”

  “Thanks, honey.” Winna kissed the receiver goodbye.

  Looking around at her workroom, she felt the urgency of the task at hand. She wanted to leave the house furnished until it sold. Winna had hardly begun to think about what it would be like to work in the West and what that kind of shift would mean in her career. LA and San Francisco didn’t rule out New York and Boston. Photographing the West would mean a different life: travel, rising before dawn, stopping before nine o’clock, then out with the camera again from four until dark. It would mean watching the skies, waiting for clouds and storms, camping in the open again. She had never spent a lot of time photographing vast landscapes and this would be her chance. On the plane, she had even envisioned buying a small van in which she could sleep if she had to. She thought of asking Seth to build a platform on top. From the roof, she could set up a tripod and work unencumbered.

  Walking back through the house, she visited every room again and made a grocery list. I think Emily’s right. I’ll drive down to Newport. I’ll eat out tonight and leave in the morning. She left her grocery list on the counter and grabbed the car keys.

  34

  SWAMPED WITH TOURIST buses and Sunday drivers, Bellevue Avenue looked elegant as ever to Winna, who had visited Newport a few times over the years. The wide tree-lined avenue’s architectural treasures began with an old summer cottage whose design had been perfected by Stanford White. Many of the mansions were built of stone—some of marble—making them look like European manor houses and small palaces. At the far end the boulevard ran into Ocean Avenue, where enormous old summer estates still weathered the storms off the wild Atlantic coastline.

  Winna had no idea which of the mansions had belonged to William Ailesbury. She saw no sign for Ailesbury Court, like those trumpeting The Breakers or Marble House, and she didn’t remember anything from Dolph’s letters that would give her a clue.

  She checked into a Bellevue Avenue bed and breakfast and drove to the library.

  WITH STACKS OF old histories neatly collected beside her on a long library table, Winna settled in, reading and taking notes. Easily sidetracked, she found herself wandering off to stories on the early congregations of Baptists, Quakers, and Jews who found tolerance in Newport, on shipbuilding, and the trade in Negro slaves. She reminded herself that she was looking in the wrong century and delved into a book on the Gilded Age in Newport. There, she found a description of a typical garden party under a tent on a lawn where the hostess served a traditional English afternoon tea: biscuits, cake, little sandwiches, cold birds, ham, ices, punch, and champagne. The chapter went on to say that sometimes the guests used the lawns for tennis, archery, and croquet. If the hostess had hired musicians, they danced outside on the lawn to the music of a piano and violin.

  The wealthy could afford distinguished performers and brought them into their homes to entertain with poetry readings, chamber ensembles of classical and light music, magic lantern shows, storytelling, travel lectures, mesmerism, and psychic phenomena including séances.

  With nothing to guide her, Winna had already formed an impression of what Whitaker looked like. Her poet had sandy-colored hair cut at the shoulders and a beard. He was tall and slim—almost too thin for her taste. His hands were graceful with long slender fingers and he had a habit of running them through his long hair, scraping it back off his forehead. His eyes were blue and intense—maybe even a little cold—but his lips were full like Oscar Wilde’s. A contradiction. His mouth didn’t go with his eyes. Every time she thought of him, this image came to mind.

  In a book written in 1920, she found information on the development of Newport as a fashionable resort for the very rich, including details about the construction of the palatial mansions. Another book enlightened her on the summer pleasures of society folk, their clothing and food, the yachts, lawn tennis, galas, balls, and salons. Here, she encountered the first mention of Mrs. William Ailesbury, Dolph’s patron saint, Rose. She was real. Dolph did not invent her.

  When she realized that she hadn’t looked at old newspapers yet, she abandoned her library table and headed to the microfilm room. Her search began with rolls spanning the years 1912-1914, concentrating on the late spring and summer months, when she knew the mansions were in use. She came across numerous stories about weddings, fantastic lawn parties, balls, and famous visitors. Most astonishing were the exceedingly short visits some families made to their luxurious summer homes, staying only a few weeks before sailing off to Europe.

  Suddenly, she found herself sympathetic toward the man who might be her real grandfather. What a bewildering world Whitaker had entered. Coming from a small town out West, he had been invited into the seductively beautiful realm of the industrialists and their families. He was in love with Juliana, but what could he offer her? He’d finally seen real wealth and understood at last what Juliana wanted.

  Winna pictured the lean poet alone, standing on a lawn that swept down to the cliff above the bay. The mansion shone like a palace at his back. Was he lonely? Did Dolph stand in Mrs. Ailesbury’s salon before a room full of notables terrified or confident of his gift? A handsome stranger reciting poetry, painting a world they had never seen. The glitterati present had never heard of Grand Junction. Did his spoken images evoke the raw beauty of the Western landscape, the cruel wilderness, the heedless deserts and mesas? His words must have aroused and amazed his audience. She wanted to find his poems. Had he been published?

  Winna left her machine and approached the young librarian behind a desk near the entrance.

  “I have the name of a poet from the nineteen-teens. Can you tell me if you have a book of his poems—or if his work might be in an anthology somewhere?”

  “Yes, I can,” she said, sitting down at a computer. “The name?”

  “Adolph Whitaker.” The sound of his name as it left her mouth startled her. Like she had just revealed a secret she had promised not to tell.

  The young woman’s fingers tapped the keyboard. Her eyes darted across the monitor—more clicking keys, more eye movements. Winna waited impatiently.

  Finally, the librarian sighed and looked up at her. “There’s nothing here—nothing comes up under that name.”

  Disappointed, Winna returned to the microfilm and her search through old newspapers. Maybe Whitaker had died before he was published. A story written in June of 1914 about a lawn party caught her attention. The hostess delighted her guests with what looked like a fleet of ancient Egyptian vessels floating off shore. The woman had hired a New York set designer to create the scene. Winna laughed at such ridiculous excess, then spotted a story about Mrs. William Ailesbury’s Sunday afternoon salon. The names of prominent guests were listed and so was the entertainment—“the promising young poet, Mr. A. Graham Whitaker who read his epic poem Canyons of the Idols to the delight of his hostess and all her guests.”

  Winna wanted to jump to her feet and cheer. Instead, a headline at the top of the next page caught her eye. A short story, discreetly written to protect the victims from publicity, followed.

  Bellevue Avenue Robbery

  Newport police filed a report this morning, saying a significant quantity of jewelry was stolen from a Bellevue Avenue residence late Sunday afternoon. According to a police source, the robbery took place during a large gathering of notables and artists. Many guests had come
from New York, Boston, and as far away as London, England, and Paris, France. Police would not confirm whether or not they had a suspect or disclose the value of the articles stolen. This is the third such robbery this year.

  If her memory served her right, in 1914 Whitaker appeared at numerous soirees given by several Newport hostesses in June and July. Winna’s stomach filled up with butterflies. Was Whitaker a thief? Is that where Juliana got the jewels?

  She hurried back to the librarian’s desk. “I’m sorry. I think I gave you the wrong name. Would you look for A. Graham Whitaker, please? It’s getting late. I’ll check back with you in a few minutes.” She pointed toward the door. “I’m in there looking at microfilm.”

  With sudden certainty, Winna knew that Whitaker had committed that burglary and possibly others. She looked for more news of housebreaks, scanning page after page of print until the librarian told her she had not found her poet and was ready to lock up for the night.

  LONG AGO, BENEFIT Street had been settled on College Hill in Providence. From the historical markers on the eighteenth-century clapboard houses built right at the edge of the sidewalks, Winna deduced that it must have been one of the oldest surviving residential streets in town. On the uphill side of the street, more substantial nineteenth-century houses faced a city view and at their backs lay hidden walled gardens and lawns. All were more sedate, older than anything she had seen in Newport. With the eerie feeling that her feet now walked the same cobblestones traveled by Whitaker, she took a walk with her camera.

  Dolph’s letters were written from a house on this street. She remembered his description of the neighborhood, of the small room on the third floor where he lived. He wrote of looking through a porthole window at Nightingale House, a mansion of classic proportions and historical significance, which he rapturously described to Juliana.

  Her search for the house led her south. The farther she walked, the fewer students she passed on the sidewalk. Wondering what Dolph had worn to school, she felt certain it was not dreadlocks, army pants, and sandals. Near the end of the street, she found a row of three-story houses that looked like they would have been there in 1910 when Dolph set off for college.