“Really! Well, I’d like to hear about it,” she said eagerly. “Is it something nice and juicy?” she asked as her smile broadened.
“No. It’s nothing like that,” he answered and wished he hadn’t said anything.
“What would you say it is?” she asked as they ate their salads.
Sometimes this old woman could be very exasperating. “The Martins,” he said slowly, “are fine people. Just plain, simple ...”
“I know who they are,” she interrupted. “He’s done some work for me here a couple of times.”
“Oh. Well, their daughter, Addie is the problem, or it’s she, who has the problem.” He really didn’t want to discuss this with Wilhelmina Stone. But there was the check that lay heavily in his inside coat pocket.
She waited while he tried to figure out exactly how to put it. “To tell you the truth, Miss Willy, the girl thinks she is possessed.”
“Possessed!”
“That’s not the way she thinks of it, or describes it according to Della, but it’s the only way I can explain it to you.”
“Well, how does she describe it? Tell me. This sounds interesting.”
“She claims to have the mind and memory of another person, a little girl about the age of six or seven living inside her mind and memory. She sees scenes of people and places that she knows doesn’t really exist, at least not in the present, and she’s beginning to do and say things that are not Addie’s doings.
“Well! How long have you been keeping this from me?”
“I only learned of it yesterday when Della came to see me. She asked for my help. Of course I tried to convince Della that it was all in Addie’s imagination. That it’s just a playback from her reading or television viewing, which is what I really thought it was.”
“But now, you aren’t so sure. Right?”
“The girl is really being tormented by it, according to her mother. I haven’t talked to Addie yet. Della is very upset and worried. She’s afraid the little girl might take over Addie’s mind completely.” He was very uncomfortable having betrayed Della’s confidences, but at least, it would go no farther than the woman before him. He could be sure of that. Maybe it was fair exchange for the check, he thought.
“How long has this being going on with the girl?”
“Apparently as far back as Addie can remember. There’s always been snatches of things remembered that she knew had nothing to do with her life. Della says that even as a small child, Addie would ask where toys were that she didn’t have, thinking that Della had put them away. But Della didn’t know about the problem at that time. It all came out in the open when Ben took Addie with him to a rental house over on South Street that had to be cleaned up and gotten ready for new tenants.”
The look on Miss Willy’s face suddenly changed from one of amused interest to surprise, and something more, Morris thought. But what was it? Fear? Surely not. She had stopped eating, and sat there holding her fork – just waiting. He tried not to let her see that he had noticed, as he continued.
“Something about this house frightened Addie so badly that she became hysterical. She refused to go inside the house. Of course, she’d never been in the house before, but the strange part is…” Wilhelmina was listening intently, hanging onto his every word. How interesting. He wished he knew what was behind her sudden change. He explained slowly, “Addie could describe the inside of that house down to the original wallpaper in the living room, and a stairway that had long been boarded up.”
Wilhelmina let out a small gasp that Morris pretended not to notice. What on earth? He wondered. If the red headed man, incident wasn’t baffling enough - now this? The woman looked like she had seen a ghost. This was getting most interesting. When she made no comment, he continued. “Ben seems to have found an old photograph of a man and a woman with a little girl in that house. Now Addie is claiming it’s a picture of the little girl who lives inside her.”
“She – she has a photograph?” the woman asked weakly, breathlessly. The color had completely drained from her face.
Morris was becoming concerned. What can of worms had he opened? He could no longer ignore the effect this was having on Miss Willy. “Yes, she does, Miss Willy, but this seems to be upsetting you. I think we should change the subject.” They had finished their salad course, but Wilhelmina had completely forgotten about the meal.
“No!” she exclaimed quickly, nervously. “Why – why should I be upset?” She drew a deep, shaky breath and pretended to pick at a piece of lettuce on her plate. “Nonsense!” she said. “It’s – it’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard lately, better than television, or any book. Tell me more about her.”
Morris didn’t know which ‘her’ she meant – Addie or the little girl inside Addie? And he didn’t think he should continue the subject. She wasn’t fooling him, but when at Stonegate, you did as Wilhelmina said do. “I really don’t know much more,” he continued. “As I said, I haven’t talked to Addie yet. Her mother has just related to me the things that Addie has told her. However, Addie remembers the night the old courthouse burned. She claims to have been standing on the porch of the house on South Street, that I told you about, and watching the red glow in the sky from the fire. There apparently was a woman in the child’s life that she didn’t like at all, and somebody named ‘Nicki’. Other than that ...”
Wilhelmina had bowed her head, still toying with a bit of food on her plate as Morris talked, now she gasped loudly and began to tremble, almost violently.
“Miss Willy!” Morris exclaimed as she grabbed the crystal bell to summon Hayes.
“I’m not feeling well,” she murmured.
Hayes appeared at her side as she slumped in her chair.
Morris jumped up, and the two men caught her as she toppled sideways.
Alarmed, Morris picked her up in his arms and carried her to a sofa in the living room, and gently laid her down. “Prop her feet up on the arm,” he ordered Hayes. “Get me some ammonia and a cold wet cloth.” Morris propped pillows under her hips and thighs as Hayes hurried to the kitchen. He began to rub her arms, and silently called himself all kinds of a fool. He didn’t know what was going on here, but he certainly knew better than to have pressed the matter, regardless of what she insisted on.
Hayes returned with the ammonia, followed by Mattie with a basin of cold water and a cloth. “I think we’d better call Dr. Bradley,” he instructed Hayes as Wilhelmina moaned. “Miss Willy!” Morris called.
“Wha – what happened?” she mumbled.
“You fainted, Miss Willy,” Morris answered. “You just lie still. Hayes is calling the doctor.”
“No!” she exclaimed weakly. “I don’t want him. Just get me to my bed. I need to go to my room,” she begged, almost whimpering.
Hayes, having heard from the hall, appeared in the doorway. “She doesn’t want the doctor?”
“She says no,” Morris answered. “Help me get her to her room,” he ordered as he begun to gather Miss Willy up in his arms. He carried her up the long, gracefully curving, marble stairway. Hayes was in the lead with Mattie following and muttering all manner of solicitous things about Miss Willy’s health. Both men ignored her as Miss Willy lay silent in Morris’ arms, her eyes closed.
Hayes opened the second door on the left at the top of the stairs and rushed to the bed to prepare it, him on one side and Mattie on the other. Morris laid her gently on the turned back bed, and Mattie began to remove her shoes, talking soothingly to her. Morris raised up, and he saw it.
On the opposite wall was a life size portrait of the red haired man he had seen twice. The man who bore a striking resemblance to Addie Martin.
Chapter Fifteen
Addie stood astride her bike on the sidewalk on Forrest Lane, looking intently at the photograph as though it could tell her something, something she needed badly to know. But she didn’t know what. She took a tissue from her jacket pocket and wiped off the smudges of lipstick that remained on the picture
. She thought of the red haired man that Brother Morris had told her mother of seeing standing close by her at the Log House Restaurant. She didn’t want to meet him, yet, if he was her father, she thought she might like to, especially since they looked so much alike. She supposed she should start keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings. Her mother had been very sincere in not wanting her to have any contact with him. But why was he here? Why had he been watching her? And what kind of a person could speak words into another person’s mind? No. Her mother was right. She needed to start being watchful of her surroundings. She didn’t think she wanted to meet such a person even if he was her father.
Replacing the picture in her pocket, she looked around. There certainly wasn’t anything to be afraid of on this quiet street. Except for a lady up ahead walking a small dog on a leash, she seemed to be the only other person about.
She wondered if the people who lived behind the walls of these beautiful homes ever had problems, especially ones for which there seemed to be no solution? She had always thought of them as being blessed above other people with smooth, well ordered lives. But then, there was Donnie. He lived in one of them, and he sure had problems.
Riding slowly and forgetting about time, she wondered if everybody was at church? There were no cooking smells as there was in her neighborhood at this time on a Sunday morning – smells of bacon frying, sausage cooking and coffee brewing. Most of their neighbors slept late on Sunday morning. Few of them attended church.
She was about to cross another driveway indention in the sidewalk when she was startled by a car horn blowing. She stopped quickly and looked back. The Johnson’s Furniture Store truck was approaching. Donnie leaned out the driver’s window. “Come up on the porch. I’ve got some news for you,” he called as he turned in the driveway just in front of her.
Addie felt that exciting tingle in her arms again at the sight of him. She turned her bike into the double driveway that led to a two story white frame house with dark green shutters, and a wide porch that stretched all the way across the front of the house. It was enclosed by a white, carved railing, and she could see white wicker furniture and green ferns in wicker planters. She followed the truck and parked her bike behind it.
Donnie and an elderly silver haired man with a kindly, smiling face, wearing dark blue pants held up by suspenders over a light blue shirt, got out of the truck.
“Where are you going?” Donnie asked.
“Just riding, but home eventually. I went to Sunday School, but decided not to stay.”
Donnie looked at her questioningly.
“Evelyn Ann Mobley,” she answered.
“Oh,” he said. “Addie, this is my grandfather. Gramps, this is the girl I told you about, Addie Martin.”
Addie extended her hand, and Gramps took it in both of his. “You’re a mighty pretty young lady,” he said staring at her as though he couldn’t believe what he saw, “and I’m mighty pleased to meet you.”
“I’m happy to meet you too,” she said wondering why he was staring at her that way?
“I don’t believe it,” he said, still holding her hand. “I see it, but I don’t believe it. You’re the spitting image of him.”
“Who,” Addie asked, but was afraid that she knew.
“Why – Julian Dane! His own daughter didn’t look anything like him. Little Vicki looked like her mother, God rest her soul, but you couldn’t look more like the man if he had spit you out of his mouth!” he exclaimed in wonder.
Addie took her hand back and reached into her pocket and withdrew the picture. “Is this Julian Dane?”
Mr. Whitefield gasped. “Where did you get this?”
“You know this picture?” she asked excitedly.
“Know it! I should say so. I was there when it was taken.”
Addie’s heart leaped for joy. Finally, she would have a name for the presence who shared her life. She would learn something about her, hopefully something that would help her discover why the little girl was inside her, or what she wanted from her? Maybe, just maybe, something that would enable her to one day be rid of her.
“It was taken on Miss Meleah’s thirtieth birthday,” Gramps said. “I had delivered the groceries with the salt for the ice cream. Wild Willy took the picture.” He had taken the picture from Addie and was looking at it like it was a treasure he had found.
Addie smiled gratefully at Donnie, who was grinning broadly. She had never wanted to hug anyone so badly in her whole life. “Wild Willy? Who was that, Mr. Whitefield?”
“Why don’t you call me Gramps. And come up on the porch and sit a spell. Donnie says you have a lot of questions that need answers.”
Addie followed them onto the porch and took a seat beside Gramps on the wicker settee, while Donnie pulled up a big wicker chair close to them.
“Wild Willy,” Gramps said when he was seated. “You mean you’ve never heard Wilhelmina Stone called Wild Willy?” That’s what she was known as back then, and for good reason too. When she was behind the wheel of one of them cars of hers, she had the right-of-way, and you’d better know it if you valued your life. She was the same with horses.” He looked down at the picture, as Addie looked surprised.
What would Miss Willy have to do with these people? She wondered. “Gramps, can you tell me anything about those people?”
Still looking at the picture, he said, “The Danes were fine folks. I never did know where he came from – somewhere overseas. He had a heavy accent, but Miss Meleah just talked a little English. Her father worked for our government in England, and the little girl, Vicki, spoke a little like her, having been born in England you know. The best I recall, this was the last delivery I ever made to the log house.
Addie, hanging on to every word, asked, “Why, Gramps?”
“We had to move to Nashville. My mother, God rest her soul, had to be put in the T.B. Hospital there. I always looked forward to my Monday and Thursday deliveries to the Danes. Miss Meleah would have cookies and hot chocolate ready when I got there, and little Vickie and me, we’d have us a tea party. That’s what she called it. She was a lonely child. Wanted me to deliver groceries everyday so she could have a tea party.” He handed the picture back to Addie.
Vicki. So that was her name, Addie thought. Vicki, short for Victoria. Victoria Dane.
Donnie said, “Gramps treated me to breakfast at the Log House. He wanted to see what they had done to it. He recognized the doll and doll buggy, and that little rocking chair right away. I was going to call you.”
“Yep. Miss Meleah used to sit in that very chair by that fireplace and knit little things for that baby. It was born right after we moved from here.” He said it as though the birth of the baby was a bad thing. But that baby would have been her father, according to her mother.
“What about the baby, Gramps? She asked him.
“Miss Meleah died when it was born,” he answered sorrowfully.
“Oh, no! Oh, how sad,” Addie said, and waited for him to explain – if there was an explanation. And she recalled the scene that had been played in her memory when she and Donnie had eaten at the Log House. Had that been the time of the baby’s birth? Gramps sat with his hands clasped between his spread knees and was silent, thoughtfully silent. He had to tell her more. He couldn’t stop there, she thought. “Do you know anything about the family after you moved? Is there anything more you can tell me, Gramps?”
Gramps was looking down at the wooden, gray painted porch. “Donnie told me that it was very important to you to know all that I could tell you about Julian Dane and his family.” He was now looking at Addie in a searching manner. “I don’t know why, and if you didn’t look the very image of him, I wouldn’t say another word. “Too many folks had their own opinion of how Miss Meleah died.” He was silent for a few moments, as Addie sat anxiously waiting. Then he continued.
“Like I said, we’d already moved from here when that baby was born, and Miss Meleah died, but my mother’s sister, Aunt Sarah was Hiram Stone
’s secretary at the bank. She lived alone, and mother, being sickly most of her life – well, she didn’t get out much – just stayed in cleaning the house and cooking. Aunt Sarah would come by and take supper with us on her way home from work. She always wanted to pay us, but of course mother wouldn’t let her, so she brought me shiny new coins from the bank each day. Sometimes they were gold. I’ve saved them all these years, and now they’re going to come in real handy.” He looked at Donnie with a knowing smile and winked, and Addie noticed that his eyes were blue like Donnie’s.
“Aunt Sarah would tell us all the news, and gossip, while we ate supper. Mother sure looked forward to her daily visits. And after we moved away, she wrote mother twice a week, regularly. Mother waited for Aunt Sarah’s letters, but she would save them until dad and me came for a visit. Then she’d read them aloud.” He looked at Addie seriously. “All the rest that I can tell you is from them letters, and I was never one for second hand news,” he said.
“Please, Gramps. This is so very important to me.”
He hesitated a moment, then said, “Yep. You sure look like it might be.” He looked off in the distance, and said, “Well, you see, Wilhelmina Stone had become very good friends of the Danes. They lived in the log house across the river from Stonegate. She was at their house almost constantly. That blue roadster of hers was always flying across that old wooden bridge and up that hill.
Her driving was so wild that Miss Meleah wouldn’t let little Vicki go riding with ‘Aunt Willy’, as she called her, no matter how much she begged. Well, one of the first letters mother got from her sister was about that baby.” He paused, and Addie wondered why he had to keep referring to it as ‘that baby’ as if something was wrong with it.
“It came around the last of March,” he continued. “There was a lot of rain that spring, and it had rained inches, in just a matter of hours the day it was born, according to Aunt Sarah. The river was already swollen from so much rain. And an old wooden bridge crossed the river about where the bridge is now. When Miss Meleah went into labor, Julian Dane left in the pouring down rain to fetch the doctor, leaving Miss Meleah in the care of Wilhelmina Stone. Well, like I said, the river was already out of its banks, and when Dane and the doctor got back to the bridge, it was floating down river. This was just before dark.”
The Daughters of Julian Dane Page 15
