“Oh, that’s just the floorboards creaking. You know how these old houses are,” I assured him.
“Yeah, right.”
I didn’t tell them anything more about the ghosts. Pete was there to do some work for me, and I didn’t want him fleeing the house in the middle of the night.
Pete worked on our little private sleeping area downstairs. I wanted to move the kitchen from inside the house, next to our bedroom where Arland had built it, back outside to the original kitchen wing behind the house. That would give Jim and me two private rooms along with our private bathroom and restore the integrity of the house. The rest of the downstairs was on tour all day, every day. While Pete worked on the kitchen, Joanie followed me around from dawn until dusk.
“Joanie, you have to go back to California. You can’t stay here,” I told her one day.
“Yes, I can. Please, let me stay. I can work here. I can be a maid . . . anything,” she offered.
“Joanie, I have a maid. Besides, there is no room for you here. All the bedrooms upstairs are for the overnight guests,” I replied.
“Then when you have guests, I will come down here and stay with you,” she pleaded.
“No, Joanie.”
“Please? Please? I can give the tours. Just give me a try.”
Now I knew I had her. There was no way that Joanie was capable of handling the tours. In addition to her behavioral problems, Joanie was somewhat developmentally disadvantaged, and although she was pretty, with her brown hair falling down in soft curls, her tiny blue eyes and somewhat dwarfed body made her look just the slightest bit crazy.
“I’ll tell you what, Joanie,” I offered. “Tomorrow afternoon the Mississippi Queen riverboat will be in St. Francisville, and they will be sending seven buses, and with Elaine in school, we are shorthanded. If you learn the tour, word for word, and can recite it to me perfectly tomorrow morning, you can give one of the boat tours, and you can stay on here as a tour guide.”
“Thank you, thank you,” she gushed. I knew she wouldn’t be thanking me the next day, because there was absolutely no way she could learn the entire tour in one day. Although I felt a little guilty for setting her up to fail, I thought it was the perfect plan to convince her she had to leave.
She worked on memorizing that tour all day and half the night, carrying the note cards around with her, and following Jim whenever a tour group arrived. The next morning, before breakfast, I was smugly waiting for her in the foyer.
“Are you ready?” I asked, knowing there was no way she possibly could be.
The girl gave an absolutely eloquent tour, explaining the history and the furniture without faltering! I was flabbergasted. When she finished she stood there proud of herself, grinning from ear to ear.
“How did I do?” She beamed.
“Joanie, you did great,” I replied honestly.
“So can I stay? Can I stay?”
She looked at me so eagerly, so trustingly. I had promised her, after all, and she had worked hard. I never thought anyone could learn the entire tour in just one day, particularly Joanie. It had taken me much longer.
“Please? You told me I could.”
“Okay, Joanie, you can stay,” I reluctantly agreed.
Several days later Pete left, and Joanie stayed on. It would prove to be a fateful decision.
CHAPTER 27
The next logical stop on the quest for any tidbit of historical information about the Myrtles was the local newspaper, the St. Francisville Democrat. It was housed in an old brick warehouse in the historic district downtown, camouflaged beneath a dense layer of creeping English ivy.
The front door was wide open as I approached. When no one answered my greetings, I ventured inside, making my way through several rooms that contained nothing but piles and piles of yellowed, frayed newspapers stacked haphazardly on shelves, racks, desks, and the floor, looking for someone to help me. The place felt rather spooky.
Outside, behind the ancient structure, I saw a girl dressed very casually (especially for St. Francisville) in short cutoff jeans and a halter top, hoisting bundles of newspapers into a car.
“Hey,” she offered. “My name is Carolyn. I’m the editor of the Democrat. Can I help you?”
“Hi. I’m Frances Kermeen. I’m looking for any information I can find about the Myrtles Plantation.”
“Oh, you’re the new owner,” she said. “You’re from California,” she added, smiling. “I’m from California, too!”
We chatted for just a few minutes, until she said she had to leave. “I’ve got to get these newspapers to the stands,” she explained. “You are welcome to browse around for as long as you like. The newspapers start in the early 1800s, though there is a gap of a few years during the War.”
I could not believe that they let people thumb through actual newspapers that were nearly two hundred years old!
“A few of the newspapers may be missing or out of order, but most of them are all here,” she said, showing me the semblance of a filing system. “Make yourself at home,” she added, before she left.
“Come see us!” I called after her.
“I definitely will,” she shouted over her shoulder.
I was overwhelmed and overjoyed by the astounding wealth of information in front of me! I took Carolyn up on her offer and became a frequent visitor at the overpopulated newspaper morgue. I’d plop myself down on the floor and pour through an entire year of newspapers in one sitting, scouring each page for any tidbit of information about the town, and especially about the people at the Myrtles. It offered quite a unique glimpse into antebellum life in St. Francisville.
I was also delighted to learn that Jim and I were not the only Californians in town. (I had come to learn that being from California was almost on a par with being a Yankee.) After graduating Cal Poly with a degree in journalism, Carolyn scoured the journalism employment boards, seeking out any entry-level editorial position, and found that the St. Francisville Democrat was looking for an editor. Not even knowing where St. Francisville was, she applied for the job, and as the Democrat’s was one of few responses she received, she crammed all her belongings into her old VW and drove out. She hadn’t even been in St. Francisville for an entire year yet.
With her casual California attitude, Carolyn was a bit of an oddity in town. Unlike previous editors of the Democrat, who dressed up “appropriately,” when Carolyn covered a local event, be it a wedding, tea, or town council meeting, she showed up in her standard uniform of cutoffs and sandals.
Carolyn was petite and very pretty, with short dark curls framing her dainty, feminine features, though she always looked slightly disheveled. After our first encounter she started hanging around at the Myrtles, spending most of her time drinking beer with Jim and his buddies. Not being a big drinker, I usually just ignored them. Before arriving in Louisiana I seldom imbibed, and I disliked the bitter taste of beer. Jim, on the other hand, drank beer nearly every day.
A few times Carolyn came over in the morning, and she and Jim would start drinking well before noon. There were times when I grimaced in embarrassment as tourists or overnight guests came out through the back of the house to witness the two of them sprawled on the lawn in the hot sun, half-drunk. I had never seen Jim act this way before, and I was puzzled about what had gotten into him.
“Can’t you guys find somewhere else to hang out?” I asked Jim one day when a large bus tour concluded and exited outside to the sight of the inebriated duo sitting out by the pond, beer bottles strewn on the lawn, in full view of the house. “It’s really not cool,” I added.
Jim’s behavior only became worse. One night I went to bed early, as I often did, leaving Jim out in the tavern with our guests. It wasn’t until morning that I realized that he had not come to bed all night. I was really concerned and upset. Where could he be?
Ruth Reed called a short time later. “I’m sorry to bother you so early,” Ruth apologized. “I had my police scanner on and they reported that a yel
low pickup truck with California plates had run off the road into a ditch on the road leading to the ferry, and I was wondering if it was yours?”
“No, it’s not mine,” I quickly protested, full of shame. The lie came out before I had a chance to catch myself. Because we mostly used the truck to haul things around at the plantation and not on the road, we hadn’t bothered to change the license plates. How many yellow pickup trucks with California plates could there be in St. Francisville?
“Okay. Well, I just wanted to make sure everything was okay,” Ruth replied.
“Oh, Ruth, thank you so much for your concern, but everything is fine,” I fibbed. I hated to lie, and I suspect that she knew that I was lying, but there was nothing else I could say. I hoped that she believed me.
There were always women hanging around Jim; after all, he led tours for busloads of tourists, mostly female, so if I worried about Jim cheating on me it could drive me crazy. I had stood there and watched as women brazenly flirted with him right in front of me. Even at his age, Jim was a good-looking man, and he had been blessed with a naturally toned, muscular physique without ever having to work at it. Of course, I’m sure that the fact that he owned a plantation made him all the more attractive to some women.
“Ahhll maaah la-ife aah’ve dreamed of livin’ in a plantation home,” I overheard a girl tell him once, stroking his hand and gazing directly into his eyes, totally oblivious to me.
Most of the money we used to buy the plantation was the money that I had made restoring homes. When we bought the place, because of the crazy Napoleonic laws in Louisiana, my parents urged us to have a lawyer draw up a marriage contract. It had never crossed my mind, but then we learned that if Jim died his children could legally kick me out of the Myrtles. Even though I was sure his kids never would evict me from my own home, we had the lawyer draw up the contract. Wouldn’t this flirtatious young hussy be surprised to learn that even if she “stole” Jim from me, she would never become the mistress of the plantation.
Occasionally obnoxious tourists presumed that because they had paid for a tour, they had the right to ask any questions they wanted.
“So, what does your husband do?” They would ask.
“He gives tours and tends bar,” I would reply.
“No, what did he do before?” they would persist.
“He worked with computers,” I would reply, not volunteering any information.
“Oh, so the Myrtles was in your family?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
The next question, which always followed, would slay me.
“So . . . what does your daddy do?”
It had never occurred to them that the “family money” had come from my own hard work and toil, from my ingenuity, and not from my husband or my father.
So if these sweet young things had any notions at all about taking my place at the Myrtles, it wasn’t going to happen. Carolyn, on the other hand, was another story. I watched as she and Jim became fast friends. She came over nearly every day now, and stayed until late at night. I worried about their togetherness, but Jim would assure me that she was just “one of the guys.” So when Ruth Reed called and told me where the truck had been found, it touched upon my deepest fear. The road leading to the Mississippi River ferryboat was just below Carolyn’s house.
My first instinct after Ruth’s call was to get in my car and drive over to Carolyn’s house, to see if Jim was there and confront them. But we had a house full of guests, and a big breakfast to prepare.
By the time the meal had been served, Jim still wasn’t home. Not knowing whether to be worried sick, embarrassed, or furious, and feeling all those emotions at once, I felt fearful yet determined to make the call I knew I had to make. My fingers trembling, I dialed her number.
“Hello,” Carolyn answered. She hadn’t left for work.
“Hi, Carolyn. This is Frances. Can I speak to Jim?” I spoke, holding my breath until I heard her response.
“Sure, hold on.”
So he was at her house! My heart sank.
“Hi,” Jim offered, a few seconds later. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” So nonchalant, as if nothing was out of the ordinary! Was that all he could say to me after being at Carolyn’s house all night?
“Ruth Reed called this morning and told me that she heard on the police scanner that our truck was in the ditch down by the river,” I reported, calmly. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”
“Oh, yeah, it did run off the road. I was headed for the Oyster Bar down by the river, and I got stuck in the mud. I couldn’t get the durn thing started. It was pretty late and I didn’t want to bother you, so I just spent the night in the truck. This morning I walked down here to Carolyn’s house to use the phone,” Jim recounted. Without missing a beat, he added, “Carolyn said she would bring me home when she went to work, so I’ve just been waiting around for her to get ready.”
“Never mind, I will come and get you,” I retorted.
The pain in the pit of my stomach grew worse, spreading up into my throat, as I drove to Carolyn’s to retrieve my husband. My body instinctively recoiled as Jim greeted me with a kiss, behaving as if nothing unusual had transpired. I tried to stifle the awful feelings I was having. I loved Jim so much, and I wanted to live happily ever after with him more than anything. For that to be possible, I had to believe that what he had told me about where he spent the night was true.
I swallowed hard, straightened my shoulders, and went about arranging to have the truck towed to the station to be repaired, never mentioning the incident again.
CHAPTER 28
Hampton was coming for dinner! We had kept in touch regularly since the first time we met, when he came up to visit John L. I had told Jim all about Hamp, and I couldn’t wait for them to finally meet. Hamp had even agreed to spend the night—as long as he could sleep downstairs in the French bedroom next to us.
Hamp was full of information about the house. There were so many things I wanted to know about Sarah Bradford Woodruff, and Hamp seemed to possess so many answers.
“How do you know so much about the house?” I asked him one day. He explained that from the first time he saw the Myrtles he felt a passion for it, and from that moment on he tried to learn as much as he could. But it was more than that, he said. He felt that he had been compelled to find answers; that something needed to be learned, or revealed; and furthermore, that something, or someone, was urging him on.
I remembered that from the first time Jim and I visited, I too had felt a pressing need to learn everything I could about the house. Knowing the house had affected Hamp in the same way, I couldn’t help but wonder if my connection to Hamp was somehow more than just a chance meeting, if our common passion was more than a mere coincidence. When we met, we both felt such an intense connection, like we’d known each other before. Had we? I began to believe that meeting Hamp had been “fated,” that we had been drawn together, maybe even by the house itself, to continue this quest to know more and more about the Myrtles. If that was true, what was the purpose?
As much as Hamp loved the house, I could tell he was also a little fearful of being here. Here was this big, strapping giant actually afraid. Hoping to loosen him up, after dinner I poured him a healthy Jack Daniels, and Jim, Charles, Hamp, Joanie, and myself settled down into the cushy goose sofas in the gentlemen’s parlor.
“So, Jim, Frances told me that you saw the two little girls,” Hamp said to Jim.
I had been so relieved that Jim had finally seen a ghost. It had been hard all those months when he hadn’t wanted to discuss it, and I had felt that he hadn’t believed me. Now he was just as interested in answers as I was, and I could finally talk to him about my experiences and my fears without feeling that he didn’t take me seriously.
Jim recounted his sighting of the two little girls and the incident with the lights. “What do you make of it?” he asked Hamp.
“It sounds like you saw the two little girls who wer
e poisoned,” Hamp answered. “That’s great,” he added. “Some people never see ghosts.”
“Lucky me,” Jim moaned. “But you see them all the time,” he added. “How do you do that?”
“Well, not all the time, thank God.” Hamp smiled. “Sometimes I used to come over and Mr. Celestine and I would sit and wait for hours and hours and never see a thing. Unfortunately, they don’t come out on demand,” he added, still grinning.
“But you can talk to them, and they talk back,” Charles said. “How did you learn to do that?”
“When I was a little boy, I knew I was different, but it used to scare my parents, so I tried to hide it. I found out when I was a little older that my grandmother had it, too. She used to call it ‘the curse,’ ’cause she always knew when someone was going to die. People avoided her because of it. After she passed away, this old black Baptist preacher took me under his wing. He was some kind of voodoo priest, too. A lot of black people around here still practice voodoo, did you know that?” Hamp digressed.
“Anyway, he told me he could ‘see’ the ‘gift’ in my eyes, and he wanted to help me develop my ‘gift.’ He used to invite me over to his small shanty, where we would sit for hours in a dark room lit only by a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, at a wobbly wooden table, drinking cup after cup of bitter black chicory coffee. I was about twelve at the time. He showed me so many things. He would say, ‘Look out the window up at the sky. I’m going to make the clouds move.’ And he did. He taught me everything I know about the spirit world, how to contact them, how to make things happen. Voodoo things. But Baptist things, too. He had a strong faith in God. He was something, all right, a beautiful human being. I miss him a lot. He also taught me how to protect myself from the evil spirits.”
I couldn’t help wondering: If Hamp was so connected to the spirit world, why would he be afraid of the Myrtles? Usually he was my spiritual rock and protector, but every once in a while, although he would deny it, I saw fear in his eyes. If someone like him was scared, what was I doing in this place? What did he know, that he wouldn’t share, that made him so fearful?
The Myrtles Plantation Page 12
