As I drove out to the mansion, I called Carroll on speakerphone. She answered with a grunt, clearly engrossed in something else.
“Hi, Carroll. I just wanted to let you know I’m heading to the mansion to meet up with Bethany. She has something there to show me.”
“Hmm, okay,” she said, half listening. Then a pause. “Wait, what? Are you back to work there already? And what is she showing you?”
“I don’t exactly know. But give me a call in about an hour, okay? Just in case.”
“Huh. I don’t know if I like this, Hamilton. That house has not felt like the safest place lately. But … sure. I’ll call you in a little bit.” She hung up just as I arrived at the mansion’s front gate, rolling down my window to punch in the security code. When I arrived at the entrance, Bethany was sitting on the front steps, appearing to enjoy the blazing summer afternoon. She stood up when she saw me and didn’t waste any time on pleasantries.
“Kate. Thank you for stopping by. I know it’s kind of weird that I called. How much do you know about the layout of the second floor?”
“Uh, not that much? I’ve been up there, but I don’t have a blueprint or anything. There are, what, six bedrooms?” And what would have been a nursery off one of those, I thought sadly, but I didn’t say that out loud. Seeing Bethany again, I remembered her kindness, and the ordinary, human interactions we’d had in our first meetings. Some of my uncertainty melted away. I dashed off a quick text to Josh in the carriage house and decided to let Bethany show me whatever it was she had thought was so important. After all, it was nice to spend time with people who got excited about Victorian architecture the way I did.
“Did Henry and Mary have separate bedrooms?” I asked. I unlocked the front door as we talked, and Bethany walked in ahead of me and began climbing the grand staircase. I followed, wondering where this conversation could be going.
“I think so. That was more of a thing back then. You can tell which is which by the décor. But maybe your research person can confirm that. Definitely not my specialty.”
When we reached the second floor, I paused to admire the light coming in through the window and highlighting the old William Morris wallpaper. No expense spared, even in the nonpublic spaces. “So, you started working at the top of the house?”
“Yes and no. I checked out the main lines in the basement and made some educated guesses about where they led. There aren’t many on this floor. People didn’t have stuff like hair dryers to plug in back then.”
“What about irons, in the days before permanent press?”
“Oh yeah, lots of ironing. But not like how we do it now. You had to heat an iron on a small stove that had a flange around the exterior to hold the irons while they heated. They cooled pretty quickly, so you needed to keep a lot of irons going, and switch them out every couple of minutes.”
“Oh, like ‘too many irons in the fire’?”
“Right, I guess so.”
I could see Bethany was now itching to show me whatever she had found, but this talk of historical ironing had piqued my interest, so I pressed on, following a thread of thought.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, go ahead.” Her eyes darted back and forth as if making sure no one else was present, but to her credit, she stayed engaged in the conversation.
“There are several different ways we can go with this house. Would you rather see this place as a shining example of the ultimate in luxury in its day, or should it demonstrate how day-to-day life actually worked for regular people—servants included? Like your clothes irons, for example. I’ll bet most people have never seen that setup. I definitely haven’t.”
“This place’ll be open to the public?” Bethany asked. I nodded. “And when you go on with the town renovation, will there be other examples in the town about how ordinary people lived?”
“I haven’t gotten that far. Up until now, we’ve been focusing on this house, and the factory in town, which Henry Barton also built. But eventually, yes. We’ll have shops and craftspeople demonstrating different facets of public life a hundred-plus years ago.”
“That sounds cool. I definitely think it’s important to show how people without a lot of money lived—servants, even slaves. Were there ever any enslaved people here?”
“I don’t think so, no. But Carroll can look at that in her research.”
Bethany’s eyes swept around the space we stood in, with its high ceilings and gilt finishes. “I’d say, exhibit this place as the best of the best. It’s rare to see a house as fancy as this, old or new. You definitely want to give a sense of real life for real people—who were mostly not millionaire factory owners—but this rich stuff is really compelling to visitors, you know? It’s a total time capsule in here. And it’s cool to look at it from a design perspective, for sure. As long as you find a balance—like, don’t pretend servants didn’t live here at all. But I think it makes sense to show off the house, let it be impressive. And you want to have great big parties for donors here, right?” Bethany grinned.
“Exactly. Good wine, canapés—the whole deal.” I smiled back at her. “And I want to do other programming here too. Kids’ stuff, activities, camps. Maybe your nieces could come join in sometime?”
“That’d be nice,” Bethany said.
“So … what was it you wanted to show me up here?”
“Oh, right.” She cast a glance down the grand staircase before turning and leading me down the hall. Surely no one was within a mile of us, except for Josh out in the carriage house, but she obviously wanted to make sure our talk would not be overheard. “This way. It’s in Mary’s bedroom.”
Bethany led me past the main bedroom, a large room filled with ornate mahogany furniture and lots of velvet. I’d been in these rooms before, but had never really stopped to sit and think about the lives that took place in them. The kitchen and all its attendant problems had been my sole focus thus far. The room Bethany brought me to was lighter and airier than Henry’s bedroom. It wasn’t pink, in the contemporary style designating feminine things, but rather a warm ivory, with small dashes of color here and there—subtle floral motifs woven into the fabrics, a butterfly mounted under glass—and a good deal of lace. It was delicate and airy, the kind of space that makes one take a calming deep breath. Large windows at one end let in the afternoon sun; they were festooned with lace curtains, only slightly dusty now. A crystal pendant hung from a ribbon in the center window, refracting shards of rainbow light when I set it gently swinging. I looked around the room and realized the only light fixtures I could see were a pair of sconces mounted high on the wall over the bed.
“So, not much electricity in here,” I said to Bethany. She too seemed to be momentarily entranced by the slow motion of the pendant, and snapped back to attention as I spoke.
“Nah, they didn’t need much,” she said.
“So what am I looking for here?” I asked.
“Help me pull the bed out from the wall.” She hiked up the legs of her work pants slightly and squatted to lift the heavy wood frame, moving it carefully so as not to damage the floor. I gave her a puzzled look but followed suit to the best of my ability. It took the two of us to budge the sturdy bed more than a couple of inches away from the wall. When we had moved it far enough to see behind it, Bethany spoke again.
“I was looking to see how they fed the wires into this room for the reading lights over the bed here. There was a place where they joined the incoming wires, where someone had cut a box into the floor by removing part of a floorboard—but when I saw that, I stopped.” She was pointing down at a hole in the floor, with a piece of floorboard that functioned as a lid lying beside it. I didn’t immediately know what I was supposed to learn from this. A fine detail of wiring she wanted me to understand? A potential problem in our work plan? She crouched down on one side of the bed, beckoning me to do the same on the other. “Take a look.”
On my hands and knees, I stretched my head as far as I could into the narrow space behind the bed and peered into the void in the floor, which looked about eight inches deep and over a foot wide—the width of a single old-style wooden floorboard. I could see a couple of wires feeding into the space, but they disappeared under a row of … books? I stared for a moment, and then I realized what they could be. “Diaries?” I whispered to Bethany. She nodded at me from the other side of the bed frame.
“Yeah. I pulled one out to check, but I put it back right away—it’s not my business, and I thought you’d want to see them first. Of course, they could just be a description of the weather every day, for all I know.”
Please, no. I need some proof of life in this place! Judging by the size of the pile, it appeared Mary might have written in these small leather-bound books for many years. She’d taken care to hide them out of sight, although who she might have been hiding them from, I couldn’t say. Maybe she simply valued her privacy. I reached out, almost afraid to touch them. Would they crumble in my hand? “I think I need a box,” I said.
“Coming right up,” Bethany said, rising from her crouch. She went out into the hall and returned with a sturdy cardboard box that might once have held a pair of boots. We slid the bed out a bit farther from the wall so that I could get a better angle, and then we formed a short line: I gently retrieved each book—luckily not crumbling—and handed it to Bethany, who laid it carefully in the box. By the time we were done, twenty volumes were neatly lined up together. From what little I’d seen, the pages were anything but blank—Mary had apparently been an avid writer.
I crawled out of my narrow space and stood up. Bethany placed the box of books in the center of the ivory bedspread, and we both gazed reverently at the contents of the old shoebox. I noticed Bethany was shifting her weight from foot to foot, glancing out the window now and then. It occurred to me now that she hadn’t been acting shifty—she was nervous. But why?
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, fine. Just … I don’t know. Since the whole thing with Steve, I just don’t feel great. Kinda scared, you know? And then the guy even died, which is terrible, but still—you’d think I wouldn’t feel like somebody was coming to get me if that person actually died, right? But I don’t really feel safe.”
“I’m so sorry. Maybe you could talk to a professional about this? Of course I want you to stay on the team, but it’s hard to work—heck, it’s hard just to live—if you keep feeling this way.”
“That’s probably a good idea. I’m on my wife’s insurance—I’ll see if I can find someone.”
We were silent again, both looking at the slowly spinning crystal in the window and the golden light on the hills beyond it.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“For finding these. For telling me about them. This house has been feeling kind of haunted—even before Steve died—and this might put a little light back into the space. I hope so anyway. And Carroll will be thrilled! These might be Mary’s firsthand accounts of life in the manor house, maybe even before Henry decided to improve on it. Original sources are always important. I can’t wait to take a look at them.”
“Good,” Bethany said. “If they’re anyone’s, they’re yours. You totally have first rights.”
“Look, can I ask you not to mention these to anyone else? Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I think they’re kind of personal—private, you know? I want to look through them before I make them public knowledge. There might even be a book about it—maybe one that complements a similar book on Henry’s work in Asheboro. I know I’m getting way ahead of myself, and of course I’m not a writer, but I’d kind of like to be alone with Mary, if that makes sense.”
“Sure, no problem. That’s why I was trying to keep it on the down low too, asking you to meet me before Morgan came back. I hope that doesn’t seem wrong—I definitely trust Morgan, but I thought this might be just for you, for now.”
“I appreciate your discretion. But I will share them with Carroll, and maybe Josh, although I’m not sure he’d have the right touch for a woman’s story.”
“I can’t wait to hear what you find out. I don’t usually get such an interesting story with the jobs I do.”
“I hope the final result will make us all proud,” I said, looking around the sunlit room and thinking of all the work we had to do before that result would be a reality. One step at a time, Kate. I picked up the box of diaries and left, but I couldn’t erase the grin on my face. And now I knew how I’d spend the rest of my day: hunkered down at the bed-and-breakfast reading Mary’s diaries! I descended the stairs, with Bethany following behind. If Carroll had the time today, we could start reading together—and not let anyone interrupt us. My eyes glazed over with pleasure just thinking about it. I turned to face Bethany when we had both stepped out onto the front porch.
“I’ll get in touch with Morgan about starting up work again. But … will you look into finding someone to talk to?”
“Sure, I’ll try.”
“Let me know if you have any trouble. Lisbeth used to be a social worker before she had the kids, and she might have some local connections. I know you’re a contractor, and we didn’t offer you any benefits, but we can figure something out. I want you to be okay and feel good working in this house.”
“Thanks, Kate. I’ll let you know. And I do want to get back on the job.” She looked up at the pale blue paint of the porch ceiling and seemed to say something quietly to herself. Then she turned on her heel and descended the stairs, climbed into her truck, and drove off.