A Stranger in Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  “Is Blair finally letting you into their exclusive group?” Mrs. Miller took a long sip from her coffee mug. “Now that Alcott Manor has turned into something respectable?”

  “She brought it up. I guess we’ll see how that goes,” Jayne Ella said. She walked quickly toward the kitchen, leaving Mrs. Miller standing in the foyer.

  Jayne Ella reached the kitchen and lifted her tackle box of hairpins, brushes and styling products onto the largest table in the center of the room. Mrs. Miller’s shuffling footsteps echoed along the hallway in slow approach.

  She gripped the top lid and squeezed. With any luck Mrs. Miller would have a heart attack and keel over before she reached her.

  When Mrs. Miller finally shuffled into the room she said, “Why do you think they haven’t invited you to join their exclusive group before now? Hmm?”

  “I would guess it’s because we haven’t really had an opportunity to get to know one another. I’ve been busy with my salon, and the manor.”

  “No. They know enough about you, honey. They know you’re a wanna-be. That’s not hard to tell with that bottle-red hair of yours, the bright red lipstick and your too-tight clothes. You try too hard. Always did. I would hazard a guess that most of those women think you’re white trash.” Mrs. Miller pointed a crooked finger at her. “That’s why they’ve never invited you. And you shouldn’t join their group. They’ll chew you up first chance they get.”

  “I have my own salon. I’m a successful businesswoman.” Jayne Ella straightened her shoulders and tipped her chin upward.

  “I don’t think that’s why Blair came calling, honey.”

  “Listen. I’ve been very good to you over the years. I’ve let you keep your job—”

  “Oh, you let me keep my job. Yes, that’s one way to look at it, isn’t it?” Mrs. Miller shook her head and lowered herself into the straight back chair at the side of the room. “Tell me, what do you think your new friend Blair would say about that precious membership of yours if she knew you used to sleep with her husband?”

  “Mrs. Miller.” Jayne Ella lowered her voice and looked around the corner to make sure Peyton wasn’t around. “You and Austin have an agreement. Now as far as I know he’s making his monthly payment to you on time, and you do still have your job here at the manor—”

  “Did Austin ever mention to you that I have video as well as pictures? Or that I made copies?”

  Jayne Ella swallowed against a tight throat. “Yes. He did.”

  Mrs. Miller smiled as if she reflected on sweet memories. She dug into her right front patch pocket, placed three photos on the table. “These three are my favorite, I think. Here, take a look.”

  Panic shot from her heart to her head and back again. “Why are you carrying these around?”

  “Because I just like to remind you of the cards I hold.”

  Jayne Ella thought Mrs. Miller wanted to remind everyone that she held all the cards. “I’ve never forgotten that. Not for a moment.”

  “Look at them.” Mrs. Miller pointed to the photos.

  Jayne Ella’s first thought was that she looked so much younger then. It wasn’t just the years that had not yet passed, it was something else in her face that gave that impression. She had been happier then.

  In the first photo Austin held her face in his broad hands, his smile full of love and laughter. She held on to the sides of his arms—those strong arms that she thought were going to hold her forever. Her eyes were focused on his mouth and, most likely, whatever he was saying to her.

  In the next image, he had lifted her against the wall. It had been the back wall of the sunroom in the manor. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, his unzipped khaki pants hung low around his thighs.

  His bank had hosted their Christmas party on the great lawn that night with live music and festive food. The manor was enjoying yet another restoration attempt, one they thought would be successful. Half of the first floor was completely restored.

  Everyone was milling about. Mrs. Miller was supposed to be babysitting Peyton along with Ruby Lee. She was also supposed to be handing out the guests’ party gifts—local seashells that had been painted gold and turned into a Christmas ornament. She remembered Austin checking the area to make sure that no one was around. Somehow they missed Mrs. Miller and her camera.

  “You realize that if Blair Spencer saw these, she would use every last breath in her body to destroy Alcott Manor. And her father would, too.” She slipped the three photos into her tackle box of hairstyling supplies. “That would destroy our final chance to reopen the manor. And you’ll lose this job that you hold so dear. Not to mention that your leverage with Austin would be gone.”

  Mrs. Miller shook her head. “Austin would continue to pay. Blair might even pay. Because even if Blair knows about y’all’s affair, she won’t want that information public. Last thing either one of them wants is for photos like that to get out into the public eye.”

  Jayne Ella leaned in, her hands gripping the table hard. “Yes, Blair would pay to keep the photos quiet. But she’ll simultaneously destroy me and the manor. Think, Mrs. Miller. All she would have to do is tell Austin to move ahead with calling the loan. Which he would happily do. Which means you would lose your job. Did you ever hear the phrase ‘win the battle but lose the war’? I’m already playing with fire by partnering with her. I don’t know even why she reached out,” Jayne Ella said.

  Mrs. Miller’s expression was calm, as if she already knew the answer to the puzzle.

  “Why did you bring these pictures here today? What is it that you want?”

  “I’m concerned about that letter that Austin sent to you. He shouldn’t be messing with the loan on this place. I thought I might need to remind him of these.” Mrs. Miller nodded toward the photos.

  Her slight smile made Jayne Ella realize what she had done. “You called Blair, didn’t you?”

  Mrs. Miller shrugged. “I might have called her and mentioned how beautifully the manor turned out.”

  Jayne Ella pressed her fingertips to her forehead.

  “I also might have suggested that her society group could benefit from an association with such a prominent historical property. I knew you weren’t going to reach out to her. Someone needed to get her on our side. Plus, it’s a warning shot to Austin. He’s up to something. He wouldn’t have sent that letter if he didn’t know what his next move was going to be.” Mrs. Miller ran her tongue over the front of her teeth.

  Jayne Ella thought about how quickly their relationship shifted between being enemies and being allies. As much as she hated the fact that Mrs. Miller had the photos of her and Austin, she did like the fact that they had held Austin in line all these years.

  On more than one occasion Austin had suggested that he buy her and the rest of the Alcott family members out of the loan.

  “You can’t possibly make a go of this place,” he had often said to her. “It needs too much work, and getting it fixed up takes capital. That’s the one thing you don’t have enough of.”

  She then refused to sell, and he would walk away shaking his head. “You’ll come to me one day, begging me to buy this rat trap from you.”

  But the last time she turned down his offer, he’d said to her, “Maybe I’ll just find a way to take the manor from you.”

  “Concerns me, too. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking.” Pain shot through her mouth where she had unwittingly gnawed the inside of her cheek.

  11

  Peyton watched the wedding event company place 350 white folding chairs in rows on the great lawn for her wedding. Day after tomorrow was the rehearsal dinner, day after that she was marrying Ira Byrne.

  Ira was supposed to arrive soon and he would want to know all about the final wedding plans. Her stomach tightened. She hadn’t finished the plans.

  She looked at the tintype where her image had been a few hours earlier. Now it was missing from the photo, too.

  Jayne Ella paced along the outside of the chair for
mation with the determination of an army sergeant. Peyton figured her mother would do just about anything to make sure that this wedding went without a hitch. Ira’s mother was the same way.

  Peyton’s first almost wedding was enormous. The formal sanctuary at the First Baptist Church was filled to the rafters with guests, standing room only. That didn’t work out so well, and now she was superstitious. Last thing she wanted was a big wedding. But her mother and Ira’s kept adding guests to the list.

  Her mother hadn’t said it aloud, but Peyton knew that Jayne Ella looked at this wedding as just one more rung to climb in her quest to achieve a certain level of social standing. She would get all of her mother’s attention on this event, because it was useful to her. Love by way of usefulness, that was Jayne Ella’s style.

  “I wanted some shots of the empty seating for the website and the brochure. The florist and the photographer should be here any minute to stage this for me, then your wedding flowers will be put out fresh day after tomorrow. Why are you just sitting there staring at that tintype? You’re supposed to be helping me, this is your wedding.”

  “This was supposed to be a small wedding. I thought we only had about a hundred guests?” she asked.

  “We needed a bigger crowd for the photos so I expanded the list to include some family friends. We want to attract larger weddings and receptions, you know. Ira’s mother added a few more, too.”

  “How many?” Peyton asked.

  “A couple of hundred, I think? Maybe more.”

  “What?!” Peyton said.

  Jayne Ella ignored her and began a conversation with one of the event coordinators who gestured to the tent.

  After a few moments Jayne Ella called, “Come on, honey! Join me, this will be fun!”

  Peyton stared at the side porch of Alcott Manor, remembering the night before. Then, a flash of Mrs. Miller running her hand along the hallway.

  She startled at the slogan she had come up with for the manor—Where History Lives.

  History was alive within those walls.

  She looked at the tintype in her hand. Beau’s location had to have something to do with these tintypes. And the house. The manor always had a second dimension to it, as if it existed in two different eras.

  The nickel dropped and she stopped abruptly. Maybe it was the result of the authentic Alcott family clothing she put on while being in the manor? Had Beau done that? And how was it that she could see him in the tintypes?

  She glanced at her mother, who waved for her to come to the tent. Then she looked at the back porch. Mrs. Miller stood there like she waited for her. Something she and Mrs. Miller did yesterday catapulted her into the home’s memories.

  “It’s not the past,” Beau had said.

  What did that mean? Where was he, exactly? Where did she go last night in that house? How did she make it back and he didn’t?

  She walked toward Mrs. Miller, wondering what they had done yesterday that sent her into that other dimension within the manor. Was it the dress, the jewelry, making the tintype?

  She looked at the house. It looked back at her through its tall shuttered windows that missed nothing. As if the house dropped the idea inside of her head, she thought: All of those things combined and only while in the manor.

  She stopped. Placed a hand over her belly like she needed to protect vital organs. Started walking again. Her steps were long and deliberate.

  Her imagination spun like old film flying off the movie reel. She got there somehow. And she got back. If she did it again, would she be able to bring Beau with her?

  Her phone rang. It was her mother calling from the other side of the great lawn.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Work,” Peyton said. “I need to get started on the rest of the pictures.”

  Ira arrived at the far end of the wide wraparound porch. He leaned on the railing, then waved when he saw her. His smile was so vibrant it could have powered ten cities.

  Guilt seized her heart.

  She walked toward him, remembering everything they had planned for their life together. She wondered if she was seeing Beau now so she could make peace with her past. Begin her new life with Ira with a clean slate.

  “Hey,” she said when they met about halfway between the ocean and the house.

  He hugged and kissed her. “Everything okay? You seem distracted.”

  “Oh, I’m fine. Just a lot going on.”

  “This is quite a place you have here,” he said. “You didn’t tell me that it was all this. He gestured toward the great lawn and the manor and the expansive view of the ocean.

  Peyton remembered the rusted chain link fence that used to line the property when the manor was in ruins. “It hasn’t always been this beautiful. It has an interesting past.”

  “I remember you telling me that. No sign of it now.” He threaded her arm through his and walked them toward the rows of white chairs that faced the ocean. He exaggerated his steps as if they were taking a practice walk down the aisle. He gazed at her as if she were the only woman in the world and took one deliberate step toward the altar, then another. She desperately wanted to stop the procession and tell him what had happened the night before, but she couldn’t find the words.

  “So this is where we’re getting married.” He pulled her close and kissed her. “My family is going to love this. It’s the perfect place to blend your history with our future.”

  With Ira on a tour of the property with Jayne Ella, Peyton went to the ballroom to prepare for the next set of photos that Mrs. Miller would take. Her heart thrummed with nerves. Indeed, her past and her future were colliding.

  Before Ira had proposed, before they had even become serious about one another, she signed up for counseling. She asked the therapist if it was normal that she thought of Beau so often.

  “It’s not entirely out of the realm of normal,” the therapist said. “Especially if Beau was the man you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with. But I think we need to work on letting go.”

  Now she had seen him again, and her heart wouldn’t settle. She ran her hand along the different dresses that hung on the mannequins and she cautioned herself. Strongly. What if she wasn’t able to come back?

  She selected a dress and jewelry and thought about how she was going to do her hair for the photo. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered under her breath.

  Ira was nearby, on the property even. They loved each other and they were about to get married. So why did she want to risk her life in the manor and potentially ruin her future with Ira?

  Because it was Beau, because he had been stuck in her family home for almost a decade and she might be the only one who could bring him home.

  She fastened the necklace and slipped into the dress. What if it didn’t work, she wondered. What if last night repeated itself—where she saw Beau but only she made it home again? Could she still be with Ira knowing that Beau was alive?

  She remembered Beau’s daddy pulling her aside on the night of the wedding social between their two families.

  “You’re not right for my boy,” he’d said. He sipped his scotch and then shook the ice in the bottom of the glass. “Now I’m sorry about telling you this at the eleventh hour. But he could have a very bright future ahead of him with our family bank. Not traveling around with that camera of his. That’s a dead end for him. Now if you search your heart, I think you’ll find that you’re not really cut out to be a banker’s wife. He needs someone who will be his anchor, guide him in more practical paths. Set him free, sweetheart. You’ll both be happier for it, I promise.”

  Heat rushed through her, gathered in her gut. Electricity sparked in her palms, and she curled her hands into fists. She gritted her teeth so she wouldn’t speak the words she wanted to say. She had been raised to be polite, respectful and to bite her tongue. Though she didn’t want to, that still seemed like the right thing to do toward the man she knew would be her father-in-law.

&n
bsp; She never had the chance to tell Beau what his father had said. She wondered if Beau would have changed his mind about staying in Charleston if she had told him.

  She placed the two tintypes on the side table, the glass plates rattling against the marble top. Her image had been there that morning, in the corner of the shot with Bertha Mae. Now it was gone. She had left the manor’s memory world and then her image faded.

  She grabbed the other tintype. Beau was gone. Had he moved to another tintype?

  She rifled through the box of tintypes, searching for one that would hold Beau’s image. When she was halfway through the second box she found it. A wedding reception on the back lawn. Beau stood under a white tent, sipping a glass of champagne and engaged in a conversation with a beautiful young girl.

  Unexpected jealousy burned a hole through her heart.

  She pulled two dresses from the racks—one red, one orange and golden yellow with black lace trim. They each came with petticoats beneath that the museum must have had made so they would hang right while on display. She chose the golden yellow gown and made her way toward the downstairs bathroom to change.

  Once she was buttoned into the dress or mostly so, she pinned and curled her hair the way her mother had the day before. Her mind pinged between Beau and the love they once had, and the new life she had made with Ira. It was like watching a tennis match where no real winner was possible.

  When she made her way back to the ballroom, the bottom step of the grand staircase came into view. She stopped. A cold chill shivered down her arms. Blurred images flashed too quickly: She sat there, as a young girl, crying.

  “Peyton,” she remembered someone calling to her while she sat on the bottom step of the grand staircase. “Peyton, honey. You sit right there and don’t move.” She had never heard another person in that snippet of her memory before. And that voice, she knew whose it was.

  “Good morning, Peyton.”

  Peyton startled at the sound of Mrs. Miller’s voice.