Cora led me through the foyer but turned in the opposite direction from that of my last visit. The hallway was long and narrow with high ceilings and seemed to go on forever. The walls were adorned with endless drawings and paintings, but I didn’t hesitate long enough to really look at any of them. The doors that dotted the passageway were all shut tight. I was curious and wanted to sneak a look in one of them but Cora was moving quickly, even with my suitcase in her hand. The hallway finally twisted to the right and ended in a narrow marble stairway that went down to a lower floor.
The weak lighting was obliterated only a few steps down. Cora quickly descended and disappeared into the darkness. The sounds of her shoes against the flooring became less distinct within seconds. I hesitated on the landing and was reminded briefly of that Poe story, The Pit and the Pendulum. Stay up here in a vast, well decorated mausoleum or descend down into the depths of the unknown?
I took those marble stairs one at a time, squinting to make out a shadow or an outline. I saw nothing. I had no idea which way Cora had gone. I put my arm out to the side until I felt a wall, rough and slightly damp. Claw-like fingers grabbed my elbow.
“I didn’t realize that you weren’t behind me,” she said. “Your room is just down here a little bit.”
She flicked a switch on the wall and the space became illuminated. We stood at the entrance of what looked to be a very narrow crude hallway. The walls were unfinished rough stone.
“These tunnels were originally air shafts to the root cellar when the house was built but they were much smaller then. They were opened up and made into tunnels during the mid-eighteen hundreds before the Civil War,” she said. “The abolitionist used to hide slaves down here. This house is full of passageways like this. My family did some renovations over the years, had that stairway put in, but most of the house remains intact.”
“Really?” I was genuinely interested. “It must have been fun growing up here; all these rooms and little places to hide.”
“Yes, I suppose,” she hesitated for a second, “When I was a girl I had spots where no one could find me. When my father…” Her voice trailed off to a whisper.
I had noticed that the passageway was becoming narrower and more confining as we moved along.
“Your father?” I encouraged her to finish.
“I mean my great-grandfather,” she continued, “Nathan Monroe, was involved in the abolitionist movement before the war and had these tunnels built. He took in people from all over. He was well known by the Underground Railroad at that time.”
I listened quietly to the history and tried to imagine what it would be like to live for days at a time within these cramped walls.
“You don’t have to come in and out of the house this way, of course,” she went on, “your rooms have an entrance to the outside, but to get to the main house you have to go through these tunnels.”
She stopped talking as we came to a small door. She took a set of keys out of her pocket and unlocked it. The door was heavy and the hinges creaked when she pushed it open. We stood at the bottom of a steep narrow staircase.
“It’s just up these stairs, here.”
She climbed to the top with ease and opened the adjoining door. When I reached the landing, my eyes widened with surprise. The room was spacious and comfortable. It was situated on the corner of the house; the stone had been cut away along the side wall to accommodate three large windows. There were floor to ceiling bookshelves and a display of art covering all available wall space. In the center was a brocade sofa and matching love seat in a soft creamy color. French doors opened out onto a small patio.
“Cora, this is beautiful.”
The corners of her mouth moved slightly. “I’ll show you the bedroom.”
I followed behind her. A large antique poster bed with canopy filled one side.
“This is so much more than I expected,” I said.
“These rooms were once a meeting place for my great-grandfather and his supporters. They would sit in here and plan strategies during the war. It also provided the colored people with a place to wash and toilet.”
I winced at her choice of words.
“As a girl,” she continued, “I used to come here…it was so quiet. Of course, this space was different then. No windows at all, all closed in so you couldn’t see it from the outside. It was just this room and a washroom. I redid them as guest quarters. Rebuilt it all, really. Opened it up. I don’t have a separate guest cottage, so this is it.”
I walked to the window and looked out at the garden in the back of the house. The small figure of a woman stood just within the edge of the woods. She was staring at the house.
“Cora, I think your friend is back.”
Cora walked over and looked out the window. She shook her head. “Don’t be frightened by her. She’s harmless enough. She grew up in that house right through the woods and tends to wander back here all the time. I’ve even found her walking about this house. Her brother, Harrison, is taking care of her for now, but she might require a full time nurse pretty soon. Her mind wanders so.” Cora’s head jerked suddenly to me. “Please don’t tell her about Nick. I want to tell her in my own way. She and Nick were very close and I’m not sure how she’ll react.”
“Of course,” I responded.
Cora walked through the living room and exited through the French doors. I stood by the window and watched as she crossed the large clearing to edge of the woods. Ginny stood in the same spot simply staring at the house. Cora approached her and the two began to talk. I was about to turn away when I heard the hint of an argument in the air. Ginny’s face was contorted in anger. Maybe she’s telling her about Nick, I thought. I couldn’t hear their words, but the tone carried to me. The conversation was becoming more heated, when Cora suddenly put one hand on the woman’s back and the other on her frail arm and rather roughly encouraged her back through the woods.