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The von Artle Legacy
©1984 by C. D. Moulton
Smashwords Edition
© 2010
all rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
The von Artle Legacy
is based on a true story
Contents
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Author’s Afterword
About the Author
CD was born in Lakeland, Florida, and lived much of his life in Florida, though he has lived in various other places, such as San Francisco, California, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and many other places for short periods of time in his 11 years of traveling in import/export and research. He traveled more when he was a rock guitarist.
He has been everything from a longshoreman to a high steel worker, from an auto salvage yard manager to a bar owner, from a concession stand operator to a commercial fisherman.
CD now resides in Bonita Springs, Florida, where he pursues his research into orchid culture and his favorite pastime: beach bum.
Since published CD has moved to Bocas del Toro, Panamá
The von Artle Legacy
The house wasn't hard to find. It was merely difficult to reach.
Madelaine looked at the almost-ancient structure she'd inherited from her uncle, Frederich Ricard von Artle, just last month and saw possibilities. True, it was old and weathered, but was also built of heart pine and cedar with cypress decking in the verandah that went around three sides. The old tin roof didn't show any rust, but it was also manufactured back when they put the heavy zinc galvanizing on thick enough to last centuries instead of only until it was off the wholesaler's lot.
Em, as everyone called Madelaine White, knew the sheeting was actually steel, not tin. She also knew the house sitting there on its little island had weathered some hellacious hurricanes since it was built by her great grandfather, Erich von Artle in 1887 – 1888.
Inheriting that place came at just the right time. Tom had lost his job as a computer technician more than two years ago, their savings were gone and now the company she'd worked for, four years of near-minimum wage, was no longer in business. There simply were no jobs in that part of Michigan anymore. The GM plant was closing down, which would throw thousands more onto the unemployed lists.
The place was going to need a lot of work, but she was sure it was solid. That roof wouldn't leak before 2050 – and then only if the house was hit by twenty more major hurricanes! The wood was bleached and weathered, but there was no rot in the cypress and cedar and the pitch in the heart pine would have hardened like carbon steel over the years.
She remembered the one time she'd seen the place. She'd fallen in love with it then. May of 1972. She had been four. Her father had come to south Florida to visit Uncle Fred and he'd brought them out to the house by boat. They spent a full day exploring the sixteen acre island surrounded by the dense red mangroves.
That was the only time in her life she'd met Uncle Fred. He was a recluse who lived in a large mansion in Paradise Shores in Naples. He'd tried mightily to be a gracious host, but her father had let his envy of the old millionaire show. The result was that they'd never come back.
Uncle Fred left her the island place because he had no other relatives and because she'd made a statement at the time that had both deeply amused and impressed him. She remembered the reading of the will last month: ...And to my niece, Madelaine Louise von Artle, I leave Orchid Isle and all the fixtures thereon. This I leave to Madelaine alone with no connection to any other living person and stipulate that she alone shall control and own said property. It shall not pass to her parents or guardians in any way or part. She may not dispose of said property for a period of twenty five years after my death. There is a trust fund to pay for any needed repairs or taxes, the bulk of which shall revert to her on the event of the first day of her twenty sixth year of ownership of Orchid Isle.
This separate stipulation eventuates because of my one and only meeting with her when she was four or five years of age. I remember when she and my stupidly overly-proud brother and her mother visited Naples in the Year of Our Lord, 1972. We had taken a leisurely boat cruise of the area, thence had stopped early on Orchid Isle. We had been on the island for perhaps four hours when I explained the strange history of the place and why it was supposed to be haunted.
I told Madelaine specifically that there were reputed to be ghosts on Orchid Isle and remember vividly how she, in her very wise manner (So very strange in such a small person), looked at me with wide, all-knowing eyes and said, "Well of COURSE there are, Uncle Freddy! But they're very FRIENDLY ghosts!"
"I bequeath Orchid Isle, its added properties and trusts and its friendly ghosts to Madelaine.
Should Madelaine predecease me the properties shall revert in enduring trust to the State of Florida to be utilized as a permanent natural historical preserve.
The house was once beautiful and soon would be again. The money in the trust would amply pay for repairs, though Em had been informed by the lawyers that there was a separate legal codicil to the will that made it very plain the place could be restored, not modified except for the addition of some modern plumbing and electricity – and that within strict limits.
She and Tom had saved about four thousand dollars. Their only expenses from that would be food. Everything else was taken care of. The island could be made to produce a great variety of fresh vegetables and there was seafood for the taking in the clear surrounding waters.
Tom broke her out of her reverie with his warm amused tone.
"It looks a bit bleak, but it also looks about as solid as anyplace I ever saw! I hope the trust lets us fix up this road. Even our Jeep had all it could do to get out here. I just KNEW those rotten bridges were going to dump us into the swamp!"
"They're not swamps, Hon. They're reed flats," she corrected. "Shall we go on in? Our new home awaits!"
He grinned. "And your friendly ghosts?"
She laughed lightly at him. "They're excited at the thought of company. They remember me, but they'll have to wait and see about YOU!"
They drove carefully on to the house, parked the Jeep in front on the path – it could hardly be called a drive – and marched up bravely to open the big carved mahogany doors Great Grandfather Erich von Artle had imported from Honduras.
Em giggled and yelled, "Yoo-hoo! We're here!"
The sun reflecting in through the front windows seemed to pick up little eddies of dust kicked up when the door was flung open, reflecting back like little fogs. Two of them, one on each side of the door.
"Oh, Tom! Look! They've come to welcome us!" Em cried. "They do almost look like silhouettes of two people, don't they?"
Em was delighted by the effect and could understand how with stories of ghosts inhabiting the house people could imagine they had actually seen spirits there.
"A bit too much," Tom agreed. "I'm just glad they're of the friendly type. They've kept the place awfully clean for a house no one's lived in for a hundred years."
"Oh, silly! Grams and Gramps lived here. Dad and Uncle Fred lived here for twelve years when they were small. That was fifty or so years ago."
"Didn't your grandparents on your father's side die sort of mysteriously somehow?" Tom asked.
"They did disappear sort of...." Em replied. "They were living here then. They went out in the gulf and a storm wrecked their boat. They were found three days later. That was when Daddy was fourteen. Uncle Fred was in his late teens. Uncle Karl and Aunt Wilma raised Dad, but Uncle Fred went out on his own and got rich on his wits.
"Karl and Wilma weren't really uncle and aunt. They were more close family friends.
"Uncle Fred inherited this place because he was the eldest son. That was the way they did things then. Dad got nothing and Uncle Fred was trying to get a start. Dad seemed to resent Fred all his life because Fred made millions while Dad barely got by.
"Uncle Fred was right about Dad in that one way, you know. He always was stupidly over-proud. He offered to help a few times, but Dad yelled about not taking any charity from the likes of him. I never could understand why he was that way. Uncle Fred did really want to help. He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. He married a woman in Montana and they fought for years. They hardly ever lived together, then she died of some kind of cholera or something a year before the war. He never considered remarrying.
"I'm the end of the von Artle line! I fully expect you to do something about that! – In fact, you already have. We're going to have a new family in our new home! I didn't tell you because we couldn't afford it before, but I'm about a month pregnant!
"Somehow, I wanted to wait to tell you after we got here."
Tom grabbed her and spun her around, dancing across the solid oak floor. Em felt a kind of approval coming from the very fabric of their new/old house. A family would be welcomed here!
"You've already been there to check the place over?" Donald Seaman, the attorney handling the estate asked when Em and Tom came in the morning after their arrival in Naples. "Do you find it habitable?
"I'm sure you'll find it wiser to rent some place nearby until you are able to do extensive work on Orchid Isle. The house has been uninhabited for sixty four years."
"I thought it was only about fifty," Tom said. "We didn't see anything that would keep us from moving right in."
"We can clean up the kitchen and one other room today and move in tomorrow," Em said emphatically. "The house is solid and in excellent condition. What we need is access to the trust so we can start bringing the place up to date. We also have to get the bridges repaired."
"Is that trail in there the county's or ours – or what?" Tom asked. "We have to know if the trust does that kind of repair work."
"The trust handles all repairs, landscaping and other stipulated modernization of the property, within bounds," Seaman replied. "Your property extends for one hundred feet to each side of the causeway – which means virtually nothing so far as your holdings are concerned, but means you can draw funds to update the roadway and bridges. Within that distance is mainly mangroves and reeds, which no one may legally own.
"You may repair the bridges, for instance, with wooden planks and posts and you may bring in new oyster shell and limerock for the roadtop, but you may NOT pave the roadtop or build concrete bridges. Certainly no McAdam paving. Perhaps bricks, but that would prove prohibitively expensive. There are some very severe limits to what you may do to modernize."
"Oh, we don't want to change anything like that!" Em declared positively. "We'll want it to be as much like the original place as we can. We do want a gas stove and oven, running water and some electricity."
"You may put in a well and put in plumbing, but only to the existing baths and kitchen," Seaman instructed. "You may put in electricity to the well pump, the kitchen and baths, the parlor and the master bedroom, hall and stairway, but only minimally for sockets. Lights may be put in only so long as all fixtures closely resemble those available around eighteen ninety.
"You may expand the baths. You will find they are but small chambers where various bowls and ... so forth were used. The old mirrors will have become useless by now.
"You will find water that is fit for washing, but not for drinking there. Lots of sulfur in it so you may wish to have drinking water delivered or you may purchase it at any local supermarket. Conditioning it from a well will prove awfully expensive and not very satisfactory. An RO unit would do well, but you would have to hide it somehow.
"Mr. von Artle was not unreasonable. Chandeliers and fixtures that look much like those that held candles or gas jets of the period may be employed with electrical bulbs. You may even place hidden florescent tubes in the kitchen and baths.
"Remember, HIDDEN!
"Television or other entertainment equipment may be placed if it is installed in cabinets fitting the period. There is a fixed stipulation that all furniture must be constructed of real wood. No plastics or composites. The funds will more than cover the very best.
"Gas heating may be installed in the fireplaces where they are already built in such as the artificial logs that closely resemble real wood. You will find other fireplaces in each bedroom, the parlor and the kitchen.
"The kitchen may be modernized far more than any other room. I don't believe there are any gas stoves and ovens that look like the old woodburner already installed there."
"I can convert that old stove to gas," Tom said. "It will be maybe a little less efficient than the newer ones, but you won't see the difference unless you look inside."
"Yes. Very well. I can employ a crew to repair the roadway and bridges immediately if you so desire," Seaman said. "I'm sure you'll want to make a schedule for the various repair crews to work where it will interfere least with your daily lives."
"I'm going to do most of it myself," Tom replied. "I'll need a crew of professional house painters for the exterior work, but everything else I'll do myself. I'll have to have one room where I can put my computers. They're how I make my living."
"Oh," Seaman replied. "We may run into a bit of a problem with computers. There's simply no way to make a computer look like something from the turn of the century."
"What about the servant's cabin?" Em asked. "It's not part of the house and I don't see it mentioned at all in the will except to be listed as a separate dwelling on the property. Couldn't we restore it on the outside just like it was and put the computers inside?"
Seaman looked over the will for a few minutes, then said it was technically a violation, but the fact that the building was only mentioned as being there but not given specific limitations might well allow it.
"I'll guarantee to restore the exterior to the way it was in eighteen ninety and can bury the electrical and come in through the floor," Tom said. "There won't be any way to tell it's got anything inside.
"I've been wondering about something ever since Em and I were there yesterday: Why isn't there any vandalism out there? There aren't even any broken windows!"
"The place is virtually inaccessible," Seaman replied. "Mr. von Artle went out there occasionally by motorboat, I believe, and repaired the place himself. The road out is passable in a four wheel drive Jeep and the water access is someplace I've never been able to find. I fish out there quite often and I've looked for it.
"Very few people will brave those mangroves. The only way that anyone knows there's even a house out there is to see it from a distance where the widow's walk which sticks up above the trees may be glimpsed."
"You mean you can't see it from the bay?" Tom asked.
"No. I rather imagine you can see the rooftip from the taller condominiums on the barrier islands, but all you can see from anywhere in the water are the mangroves and a few tall pines and palms inside of them. If anyone were on the widow's walk they would be visible from the bay. They'd then appear to be walking on the trees themselves. If you're not specifically looking for the widow's walk you won't even see that. It looks like any other mangrove point. Those large water oaks out there are not visible except from the island itself.
"You will find several varieties of native orchids in the oaks around the house, which is how the island's name was derived."
"Ha!" Tom exclaimed. "With today's color-matching computers, I'll take some mangrove leaves to any paint store and get the exact color of them for the widow's walk. Then no one will see it even if they're looking for it."
"Well now! Get the road done right away, will you?" Em decided as she stood. "We'll get things together and move out tomorrow morning. We'll spend today fixing up the kitchen and a bedroom.
"I remember where the channel comes in. It's easy to find from the island, but you have to know where to come in from the bay.
"I can't wait to get started! I feel so like I've come HOME out there!"
"There's some kind of huge red brick lined tank or room under the verandah!" Tom exclaimed. "Maybe it's some sort of storm basement?"
"Why ever did you go under there?" Em asked.
"I thought I saw something run under there right through the lattice so I looked and saw the bricks," Tom replied. "We have a lot to learn about the place.
"Wouldn't the basement entrance be under the kitchen?"
There was a strange scratchy metallic sound from the end of the verandah. They'd been there less than half a day and were hearing a lot of unusual sounds. This time a large racoon came strolling casually out of an old screened door that had been covered with a sheet of corrugated metal. The sound was when the animal pushed the bottom of the sheet out to exit.
"What's in there?" Em asked. "We'll have to make a new door."
She went to pull the metal aside and look in. "Oh, look Tom! There's already a well! There's a pitcher pump in here. It's some sort of storeroom. Shelves."
She went in and worked the crank on the iron pump a few times. Rusty red water gushed up for a few cranks, then fresh, clear water. She carefully tasted it.
"No sulfur. It's pure!" she said. "Wait a minute! There's a sort of lid ... Tom! There's water just about three feet down! It's some kind of tank, not a basement!"
"It'll be contaminated I suppose," Tom replied. "We'll have to have it tested. I wonder where it comes from? The water?"
"Rainwater off the roof," Em decided. "We'll find there are gutters that drain right into there."
They went around the house to find there were, indeed, copper pipes coming from copper guttering and running into the square brick chamber. Tom slid the heavy slate sheet off the top of the chamber and said, "It's a big sand filter. Then the water runs across ... look at this, Em! It's GENIUS! The water runs onto a big piece of fine brass screening. It's on a weighted arm so it flips over when leaves or crud builds up, dumps the stuff off the side and flips back up. The water runs into that sand, then into the tank.
"I'll bet you it's pure as any water you can find, but we'll have it checked. We boil any we use until we do. We'll have to check for lead in it. Copper's usually soldered.
"There's one thing about this place that's beginning to bother me."
"Why did a racoon just happen to come out of there immediately after you just happened to have thought you saw something running under the house?" Em asked.
"That's the third weird coincidence we've had already!" Tom agreed. "That brick on the servant's cottage step just happened to be slid out of place enough to see? We didn't have to break the lock on that door because the key just happened to be hidden behind that particular loose brick? You just happened to slip on the stair and grab for the rail at that particular spot and push the loose step out before you stepped on it carrying that weight?
"Too many things just happen."
"And we checked the stair and found that and another weak step just a couple of steps higher," Em argued. "Two dangerous things found before either of us got hurt.
"We should have looked for any bad steps before we started working up there. That was simple common sense. We've gotta learn to check everything.
"The keys were always hidden in those kinds of places in these old houses. Your crawling around under there probably disturbed the racoon so it left its sleeping spot.
"On the other hand I'm glad our ghosts are friendly!"
"I'm beginning to wonder if maybe there ARE ghosts!" Tom said, smiling at her. "What's for lunch?"
"I was surprised all this fine old furniture's still so solid after sixty years!" Em said as they laid out their sleeping bags on the floor of the master bedroom. "You can see the difference in the way things were made a few years ago. Today's stuff would be splinters in half those years.
"I'm sure we can put in box springs and new mattresses. We just won't say anything and do it.
"That chair really is comfortable.
"I'm tired, but I'm also still excited! This place is perfect for us!
"I wonder why there are no mosquitos in here. There are plenty outside. The screens are all still in good shape and the windows don't stick bad.
"It's cool up here. The seabreeze blows right through with the windows open and the ones in back open."
"The screens are all copper and the windows are recessed so they don't get too much to damage them," Tom replied. "The place was built right with good materials. Things fit then. The wood was properly cured so it didn't warp or swell so they still fit. We can use wax to loosen the tight windows. Dad taught me that.
"Who the hell is that?!" He looked at his watch. "It's after ten o'clock!"
They heard footsteps coming up the oak staircase. Tom took the gasolene lantern to the door to look out onto the landing, but no one was there.
"It's an old house making noises I guess," Tom decided as he nervously went back to crawl into his sleeping bag. "Ghosts only haunt places where there's a reason – if there ARE ghosts! I don't know of any reason any ghosts would be here. Merely old isn't enough.
"Goodnight."
"Mmmm. G'night," Em replied as they heard footsteps on the roof directly overhead. Tom sat bolt upright.
"On the widow's walk," Em decided. "Probably your racoon's up there. Go to sleep."
A few minutes later they heard sounds of someone descending the staircase. Tom knew he wasn't going to get any sleep that night. Em softly mumbled, "G'night!" to the sound and went to sleep almost immediately.
"The road's being started already!" Em announced when Tom came down for breakfast. "I didn't wake you up because you don't look like you slept very well."
"I didn't get any sleep at all until almost dawn," Tom cried. "You wouldn't believe the noises in this place!
"How do you know about the road? I can't hear or see anything from out there."
"I went up on the widow's walk to watch the sunrise and saw them unloading a big bulldozer," Em explained. "You can see that little clearing just before the first bridge.
"It's cold cereal, bacon and eggs and coffee. This old camper stove only has two burners and isn't too hot.
"What this morning? We can go after stuff whenever the road's finished. Today we'll have to make do around here."
"I've got some burners and copper tubing so I'll work on the stove. I can convert to gas without changing anything outside, but we'll have to get an old stove and slide the oven in whole. There's a lot of room. Four burners – and I'll tack a hinge and catch on that flap under the top to hide the knobs. I'm good at that kind of stuff."
"I'm going down to the dock," Em announced. "You want fish for lunch?"
"You think you can catch any?" Tom asked.
"Mangrove snapper and sheepshead used to be thick around the dock," she answered.
"How would you know?" Tom was looking at her strangely.
"We fed them when I was here. There were thousands of them. We threw them bread," she explained.
"You'll use bread for bait?"
"Fiddlers!" Em replied brightly. "They're all over down by the water."
Tom had used small crabs for bait when he visited family in Louisiana so that was logical enough, but he was worried. Em was remembering too many things a four year old wouldn't have noticed about a place she only visited once. She knew too much about the inside of the house – where she'd never been. She'd told him they never came inside the day they were there.
He shrugged and went to the Jeep to rummage through for the box of stove parts. He'd tried to think of as many things they'd need in such an old place while they were still up in Michigan where he could get the stuff cheap from friends.
The stove conversion went very quickly. He hooked it up and tested the whole thing for pressure leaks, then put the small tank from the barbecue on the regulator valve and went in to light the burners and adjust them. The twenty five pound tank wouldn't last too long, but he had two new hundred-pounders in storage. If he hooked everything up himself no one would have to come out there to inspect it. He'd have to put it out of sight for when the electrical inspectors did come out, but planned on that anyhow.
Just before noon he heard and felt a heavy measured pounding. He had no idea what it might be until he remembered the road work. Em wasn't back yet so he went up the steep ladder to the widow's walk, noting the solid brass hinges and bolt that would never rust or stick.
He could see just a bit before the first bridge. There was a bright yellow bulldozer to one side along with two huge trucks full of limestone. There was a heavy crane affair that used a piledriver to sink thick posts in the narrow channels for the new bridge. He could see the old wood in a pile and a truck pulled up after a few minutes with new wood.
He watched as the new lumber was dumped to one side, then the bulldozer used some forks on the bottom of the blade to dump the old wood into the truck and it drove off. He heard Em yell and looked to see her coming across the yard with a bowl of fish filets so he went down to show her how to work the stove, noting they'd have to use the gas match to light it. He didn't want to put in a pilot light because the things used too much gas. When they had the electric in he'd put in a sparker.
The fish was delicious. Em made old-fashioned hush-puppies and pork-and-beans to go with them.
It started to cloud up about four, but they were working in the parlor and didn't mind. There was no sign of a leak anywhere, but Tom would check the attic if it rained hard.
The ladder to the widow's walk started at the attic landing. He'd only glanced in before to see some furniture and boxes.
"I think I'll run up to the roof to see how the road's going," Em said. "I'll have to hurry or I'll get wet!" She went into the hall. There was a sudden crash of thunder that made Tom jump. He was used to hearing thunderstorms approach from a great distance, not the Florida way where it wasn't there, then it was. Em on the roof made him nervous.
Not with lightning!
She agreed. She came back in to say she'd wait.
They had the kitchen, master bedroom and parlor cleaned when they turned in that night. There was quite a display of lightning after five o'clock and it was still going. Their attic had no leaks. The house was rock-solid.
The shadows in the old place played tricks in the lightning flashes. Tom and Em were both startled several times working in the parlor when reflections off the walls made it look like there were two people standing by the fireplace watching them work. Tom became more and more jumpy, but Em laughed at him. She pointed out that the two windows across the room were probably throwing shadows on the faded-ivory wall with the dark beam up the middle. It was the positioning of the fancy plates on the wall holders that made it look like a man and woman.
There was a flash while they were eating supper and Tom saw the same two silhouettes in the kitchen by the door to the dining room. He didn't say anything to her. He didn't want Em to start getting scared. He was sure there was an obvious explanation. A nice, calm, easy, logical explanation – like the one about the two windows and the plates.
They turned in early. They were both tired and wanted an early start in the morning. Neither of them disliked thunderstorms and the noise didn't bother them. During the lulls in the storm Tom again heard someone ascending the staircase. He looked at the florescent dial of the clock. It was 10:03.
Em heard the footsteps up on the widow's walk and looked a bit confused, but then grinned and relaxed almost immediately. When a few minutes later they heard someone going down the stairs she again called, "Good night!" and went to sleep.
Tom surprised himself by dropping off soon, himself.
He'd decided the house was, indeed, haunted – but they were friendly enough ghosts. They'd helped them several times and the place did have a welcoming, warm feeling about it.
But why were there ghosts in a house where no horrible murder took place? Wasn't there always some kind of story like that?
"They sure are building the bridge fast!" Em remarked the next morning as she and Tom stood on the widow's walk to watch the crew arrive.
"Yeah. I watched them driving the base support posts yesterday," Tom replied. "They sink right down at first. That's that sort of dull thud. Then they hit rock or something and you can feel it all the way out here. The posts start to splinter at the top so they stop and saw them off. They put those cross pieces on later. Now all they have to do is lay the timbers, then do the stretch to the other bridge. The way they're going I'd say four more days.
"We have enough food, don't we?"
"Plenty! We can catch plenty of food, as I've proved!" she answered.
They went downstairs to eat breakfast, decided to work on the dining room next, then to finish the downstairs before working on anything more upstairs. They were almost finished with the dining room by noon. The place was in perfect repair, really, and didn't take much time. Em took pride in polishing the big oak table and chairs to a bright shine.
"We'll never use this room I suppose," she said when she was through and inspecting Tom's handiwork with polishing the big buffet and dish cabinet. "I want to keep it exactly like this!
"Do you know what a good antique dealer would say about this room!?"
"I don't know the value of this stuff, but we're looking at a BUNCH of money," Tom agreed. "I also think we should keep it like it is. Everything fits the place perfectly.
"You'll have to make some new cushion covers for the chairs. It seems to be those all-colored feather designs."
"Paisley. I can duplicate it, but I don't know how it's put on."
"There's a wooden piece," Tom explained. "It's the shape to sit right in there. You stuff a little cotton on it then cover it and tack the fabric underneath, then put the whole thing on with screws."
"You sure know a lot about this stuff!" she replied.
"I've made computer disks of all kinds of home repair crap. It's the modern way to avoid reading books. Bring it to screen. I retain a lot – and I have a full set of disks to work from."
"When you get your computer room done out there," Em declared.
She checked the room one more time and said she'd buy a big rag rug like the ruined one under the table. They'd have to wait for electricity to re-finish the hardwood floors because they'd need a power sander.
"We have the kitchen, dining room and parlor done down here," she said. "There's another room off the end of the parlor. Two, actually."
"There are? I didn't see them," Tom said.
"Uh-huh. I saw the doors. Out by the verandah. I saw the windows, too. We haven't checked out a lot of the house yet."
They went to the doors and opened the left one. There was a rolltop desk, a table with a big brass planter on it and a long benchlike shelf along the back wall with a rack of various sized cubbyholes above and below it. There was a black dress form in the corner and a treadle sewing machine.
"Tim! It's a real sewing room! I can't believe it!" Em cried. "Isn't it beautiful?"
"You always said you weren't the domestic type," Tom pointed out, grinning.
"That was ages ago – before I got pregnant!" she shot back.
They laughed and straightened the room a bit. Em decided she would splurge and buy a big pot of African violets for the brass planter.
"I can buy all kinds of cloth, too. We'll tell Seaman it's for restoring the sewing room. I can make all kinds of things, like the seatcovers in the dining room.
"Do you have all that stuff in your computers? Sewing stuff, I mean."
"It's all on disks. I can print it out for you," he promised.
There was an oil painting of an attractive woman sitting on a swing on the back wall. Em cleaned it first, saying she thought it was her grandmother or great grandmother.
"There's a date under the signature," Tom pointed out. "It's ... eighteen fifty nine. There's something else. The initials ... J. R. vS. There's ... Dusseldorf!
"My god! It's an original Josef Ricard von Steuben! My god!"
"What does that mean?" Em asked.
"I did a compendium of his portraits," Tom explained. "This one wasn't in it. He's not as famous as Van Dyke or Rembrandt, but he's damned expensive. His paintings, all portraits, bring six figures."
"Well, this is one that stays right where it is! It's my great grandmother! She doesn't get listed in any fancy art catalogue somewhere."
"I know. We're disgustingly wealthy art collectors all of a sudden," Tom said. "It's all for us. We'll keep it in the family.
"This means we have to make and register wills so our brats are automatically co-owners of all this art. We'll make out a new rights-of-survivor deed for everything here on the island as soon as you deliver. I put that legal stuff on disk, too. I'm certain Florida recognizes rights-of-survivor deeds."
They would check over all the pictures in the place the next day and make a careful list of everything in the house. Em would use the Polaroid to make a permanent record and Tom would scan it all onto disk in full color. They'd wait to be surprised with the other downstairs room in the morning.
It was getting late when they finished the room so they went to the widow's walk to see the road was finished almost to the second bridge. They could see it only in spots through the trees, but the white of the limerock showed plainly.
"Doesn't all that lime get slushy-ish in the rain?" Em asked.
"They put in a deep limerock base, then a foot or so of oyster shell," Tom answered. "It will form a base like concrete and the oyster sheds the water right through."
They had dinner, then sat together to chat and to make plans before turning in. It was raining again, but this time only a light, steady fall. The lightning was much less, but was still beautiful as it made its own patterns through the clouds. At ten o'clock Tom was listening. At three minutes past the footsteps came up. The place was definitely haunted!
It was a nice feeling, though. Someone was watching out for them.
Tom joined Em in the "Good night!" this time. She smiled at him and joined him in his sleeping bag.
"With the road completed we can have the painters come in," Em said. "That library awaits me and you can start work on your computer house as soon as you finish the wiring."
The room on the other side of the parlor was, indeed, a den and library. There were hundreds of very valuable old books in shelves around three sides. They'd spent a whole day fixing the bright comfortable room up, but hadn't taken the time to read anything in there. The particular document they discovered that immediately took their interest was the chronicle of the original owners. Em wanted to read that one first!
Tom had much of the wiring in place and had installed the breaker box. He'd gone into town the day before to contract for a buried line to be brought out along the new road. He'd bought a pump for the tank and had taken samples to the bio laboratory in Naples for a complete analysis.
They'd had a busy six days. The road was finished Monday about two o'clock and he'd signed the satisfaction papers so Seaman could pay for it.
They proceeded.
The wiring had been hardest. The old heart pine walls were, as he knew they would be, hard as steel. That wood simply couldn't be drilled so he'd put the sockets in flush with the oak floors. That delighted Seaman because throw rugs could hide any not in use.
Tom ordered a TV, VCR, stereo disk player, tape deck and full range radio cabinet made to hold the units he had in storage. It would look like a big old-fashioned trophy case until you slid the face open to reveal the technology inside. It was to be made of white oak to match the existing parlor furniture.
He bought two hundred feet of copper tubing to run gas to the fireplaces along with gas logs to put in each. He bought enough other tubing to run water to all the baths and the kitchen.
The bath between the master bedroom and the bedroom next to it would be expanded into the enormous closet beside it. The smaller bedroom would be turned into a nursery. Seaman agreed reluctantly to allow cast fiberglass tub/shower stalls to be put in the two upstairs baths, but the downstairs must have only a toilet and lavatory.
While Tom took care of all that Em went to the Fabric Mart to order all kinds of material. She explained to Seaman how they had to recover all the chairs, loveseats, sofas and hassocks and that she wanted to make new drapes and curtains, bedcovers and everything else to fit with the time period demanded by the will.
He caved in and arranged for her to spend whatever it took – after Tom pointed out the will listed a number of things they couldn't dispose of, but there were several works of art in the house that could bring upwards of three quarters of a million dollars. The first editions in the library weren't mentioned in the will. Indeed, the LIBRARY wasn't mentioned.
They agreed to keep the art if other sources of funds were forthcoming. They didn't mention they wouldn't sell any of the art or books under any condition short of imminent starvation.
The painters came the next day to begin cleaning the exterior for paint and a good white was selected. True to his word Tom took mangrove leaves to a paint store and had the computer mix him a gallon exactly that color for the widow's walk. He had the wooden parts of the mostly-red-brick servant's house done at the same time to match the main dwelling. They went together to the electric company, who said they'd have to get approval from the county before it could be hooked up, but they'd handle running the underground line to the box.
Seaman called the county inspection department, got a permit and told them to go inspect it.
Tom was a craftsman. He'd used a printout of the rules as he worked so it all passed without question. He could later run the line to the computer house from the master box and not have that done separately. What the county didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
Fixing the interior would be a matter of time. They had plenty of that. Tom rented a trailer to bring all the stuff from the storage unit and they put their own box springs and mattress on the master bedroom bed.
At exactly 10:03 every night they heard the steps. Every night they wished their friendly ghosts goodnight when they descended the stairs a few minutes later.
Tom finally was going to start on his computer house, but had postponed the project one week. He rented a sander instead and refinished the floors in the house. He would carefully sand down the wood and clean it, then Em would take a roller around the base while he did the next room, then he'd spray the special wood sealer and varnish. They managed two rooms a day, sleeping in the parlor two nights to allow the bedroom to dry thoroughly before moving the furniture back in.
They could see the base of the stairs from the parlor. When the steps came down they watched. Em thought she saw a sort of indistinct fog, but Tom saw nothing.
They did find the steps proceeded from the stairs to the front door and heard the big door open and close. Tom thought he heard someone calling from down by the dock, but it could have been the wind.
The basic work was done in a bit more than a month. Em would start sewing. Tom would work in his computer house. The exterior was done and he'd done the floors while he had the equipment. He buried an electric line first thing to be able to use the power sander. Now he could begin to finish that project.
Em went to the library/den first. She was being eaten up with curiosity. She wanted to see if there was some explanation of the ghosts there. They'd decided there were definitely two, a man and a woman. It only remained to learn WHY they were there.
Other than those ghosts the place was serene, peaceful and completely normal.
Tom sighed deeply. He checked over the wiring carefully, then used the soldering iron to add just a bit to the main ground to the box. He'd never understand how that connector worked loose, but it wasn't going to happen again!
It couldn't hurt the servant's house and wasn't really dangerous so far as fires went, but computers could be ruined by surges and fluctuations.
Em said she'd be in the library researching the history of the place today so he wouldn't see her again until noon. The master connection box was in and solid. Now the wiring could go directly to the surge protectors and power storage cells, then the delays, then the automatic alternator that would be in the pantry room. If the power went off he'd stay in business for forty eight hours before he'd even have to stop to refuel the system. He liked to leave certain of the comps on all the time, particularly those to the modems. The telephone lines were in and they had a big old wall unit hanging in the kitchen of the main house. The real phone was inside the old crank box, which opened on hinges. It was a portable and he had a unit in the bedroom to go with the pocket unit he could carry when he worked outside.
Not that they expected any calls. It was mostly for the modem.
He'd had the installers run the line to the servant's quarters through the electric conduit pipe. Everything was underground. The phone at the main house was about perfect, but the box at the servant's – he'd have to call it the comp house now – seemed to have some bugs. He had the equipment so he'd find the problem before he went on-line. His network would begin on the first. It was arranged.
Tom stepped inside to pull up the wire connectors. He decided he'd solder everything – just for insurance. There was too much of that loose connector type of problem at the comp house.
Funny. Everything at the main house went perfectly. Better than that at times, like they had outside help. The opposite was true in the comp house. He felt welcomed in the main house and resented there.
Odd. It must be the heavy shade over the comp house. He'd climb up and saw off a couple of the overhanging branches in the big old oak and brighten it up.
How in hell could he get a shock!? The damned box didn't have the breakers closed yet! It was OFF!
Tom went out to check the master box. A toggle was on. Thomas Harold White did NOT make that kind of mistake and damned well knew it!
Maybe all their ghosts weren't so friendly.
He snapped the toggle breakers out of the bottom. He generally only made sure the switches were off. He'd take them entirely off the line. Maybe a ghost could somehow throw a toggle switch, but one damned well couldn't move the whole breaker.
"That wasn't funny if that was your purpose!" he said aloud, then went back inside to find the flame on the gas soldering iron all the way up.
"You could burn down your own little house, hotshot!" he said and went on with the work.
Just before noon he heard the switch to the alternator click, but he hadn't put the new plugs in so it wouldn't hurt anything.
"If you're just experimenting with stuff you've never seen, knock it off!" he demanded. "You can wait a few days to see how it works. If you're trying to piss me off I'll get a priest out here and do a little exorcism! Think about THAT one!"
He went to the main house for lunch.
Em went into the library/den and looked around at the rows of comfortable old books. She'd get the big ledger first and read how the place was built and about all the things that were added since. She'd even go so far as to continue the account with what they were doing. Tom had shown her where Uncle Fred had done that and the book still had some pages to go.
She smelled pipe smoke! It was a good rich blend with a nice spicy-sweet odor. She generally didn't like tobacco smells, but that one was nice.
There hadn't been any tobacco used in that room for at least fifty years. Strange, but she accepted it was probably her ghosts showing her how life was when they were living there. Em was sure she liked her ghosts. They'd be fast friends. She just knew it.
There was a light Tom had put in, but she was sure it would be more comfortable to sit somewhere else to read than at the desk. The big chair looked comfortable, but leaning over a desk for hours was hard on the back.
The curtain blew slightly upward by the side window, catching her eye. There was a big stuffed chair there with a little table to the side. It would be perfect if she drew the curtain aside.
How could the curtain blow? There was no window open to cause a draft.
"What a good idea!" she said. "Thank you! I'll open the window for air."
She tied the curtain to the side, noting the decay in the aged faded fabric. She'd make curtains of the same kind of material and put in new ones. Her first sewing project.
The window opened easily. She could hear birds in the oaks and a gull screeching on the bay. There was a faraway sound of an outboard. She snuggled down in the chair and opened the book.
The year of Our Lord, 1885/March 4:
Contracted for preparation and fill for road to the homestead property.
Crew Cost: twenty one dollars fifty cents - quite expensive, but worth the cost for best work.
Materials cost: sixty five dollars. Everything is very expensive here. I have added the cost of eighteen dollars to have all posts and timbers on my bridges heavily coated with pitch. It will cost far less over an extended length of time to protect the timbers, particularly those in the water. John Hopkins has assured me his new idea of soaking the base posts in a solution of blue vitriol for three days then drying them out before adding the pitch will ensure they remain solid for as much as fifteen years!
Project completed April 16. Payment in full made this date.
Em giggled. A road half a mile long with two wooden bridges for $104.50. Nobody would even drive out to look at it for that now.
The year of Our Lord, 1885/April 19:
Contracted for skilled house builders to come from Mobile Ala. to build the house. Have engaged engineering firm of Glaston, Pitts, and Morris to make plan of buildings, as I am a firm believer in pre-preparing. Most here are built on an "as-you-go" basis. Good house builders will cost more than a thousand dollars ($1,150) including transportation, but the von Artles have unlimited funds at our disposal. Could have spent as much as four thousand five hundred dollars, so feel this is a bargain.
Timber for dwellings and bricks are contracted for. Materials will cost eight hundred twenty dollars for the main house and two hundred for the separate quarters. Expensive, but all materials will be the finest to be purchased.
As expenses are high but remain somewhat less than anticipated I will put screening in all windows. This will add a full hundred dollars to my costs, but is worth every penny.
Em grinned. The house and road cost $2474.50. The taxes were almost that much now. Screening the place with plastic would cost three times what he'd paid for copper.
The year of Our Lord, 1885/April 22:
Mr. Pitts has shown me how to collect rainwater for use under the house itself. A pump may be installed in the out-pantry so one need not even go outside the house for fresh, pure water. These people are brilliant. It will prove necessary to purchase eave guttering and brick for the tank and sealing materials but, as I have over thirty thousand dollars, expense is no object. My funds are virtually unlimited, and this is to be my home and that of my progeny. I have ordered the necessary materials at a cost of more than six hundred dollars. Mr. Pitts will immediately have a crew come in to construct the holding tank. It will be entirely underneath the structure, so must be completed before the major construction begins in less than a month.
Construction and materials will add nine hundred more dollars to my costs.
I invent things at times and have an idea to maintain the water clean and detritus removed. It will be screening and a counter weighted arm before the filter. I believe it can be made to work very well.
Getting scandalously expensive! Em thought. You're throwing money away at an alarming rate! Three thousand four hundred fifty bucks already! Outrageous!
She giggled again.
Father Erich, you should have learned how to separate your thoughts in English. There are a lot of "Throw papa down the stairs his hat" sentences in this, but it's warm and human and I love you.
Money was worth something back then when thirty thousand dollars was as much as unlimited funds.
The year of Our Lord, 1885/May 1:
It is Mayday. Henrietta is fast teaching me what expensive is about. This modern world begins to frighten me. Today my lessons in what suddenly building a home entails have stricken me to the heart. It is well that I so love and understand Henrietta and the way women think or I might cast in my lot with the local gentry who are here covertly to escape from the law in other places.
Today I have found the huge costs of furnishing a house, having contracted a cabinet-maker to build what we will need.
It is going to cost me more than $2,000 to have only the parlor, library, dining room, kitchen, and four bedrooms furnished - and that with bare necessities. I understand that oak is expensive wood and that cedar is hard to work with, but a thousand dollars for LABOR?
It is well my funds are vast. I can indulge my dear Henrietta in this. I am a lucky man. It is done.
That little book stand in the hall's worth double what you paid for all this furniture in any decent antique shop, Em thought. Am I glad you indulged Great Grandmother Henrietta!
"What you paid for all this furniture in any decent antique shop?" You've got me doing it you old rascal!
The year of Our Lord, 1885/May 12:
They finally completed the tank on this day. The builder's crew from Mobile arrives tomorrow and there are large piles of bricks and timbers on the island. On the morrow, my permanent home will rise above that ugly brick tank.
It finally begins.
Your permanent home? Em thought, then asked aloud, "Is it you and Mother Henrietta here, Father Erich?"
There was no response – was there? Was there a feeling of "No?"
How could that be?
The year of Our Lord, 1885/May 13:
The house is under way! It is past the hour of dinner and the foremen of the builders, a Mr. Gladstone, assures me the timbers are cut to a finer precision than he is used to finding. They are aged and cured to perfection. They are already sized to almost perfect dimensions. The under joists across the tank are in place as are the outer support posts (I paid Mr. Hopkins $20 to soak all support posts that may be in contact with the ground in his blue vitriol solution, a process in which Mr. Gladstone shows extraordinary interest) and the end framing. Mr. Gladstone has no less than six carpenters and is proceeding at a truly amazing pace.
I have decided to place in the near area by the deeper channel running to the southeast of the island a wharf (Throw mama from the train a kiss? Now I'll see every one of those! Em thought). I have contracted to have a fine skiff constructed to tie there. Mr. Gladstone agrees to place a pair of pitched timbers to drag the boat from the water with a spike wheel to remove buildup of barnacles and other wild saltwater growth as a future labor. (A spike wheel to remove barnacles, or to remove the boat from the water? Em silently wondered.)
I am almost giddy with excitement about the place. It is a dream realized. I am in a new country, in a new kind of place.
I am assured the plants growing in the big oaks are orchids, miniatures of the exotic varieties grown by Mr. Charlesworth and the firm of Black and Flory in England and even the famous von Rothchilds in Germany and France (as well as in Britain. It is a large family). Those worthies have imported from the Far East and the Amazon Continent of South America close cousins to the plants growing wild and rampant on my own little paradise!
I have registered the new house as Orchid House, an indulgence of my beloved Henrietta, and the Postal Address is to be Orchid House on Orchid Isle.
The cost of the skiff will be twenty dollars. I have the timbers for the wharf and boat-removal ramp. The dockpost are extras from the bridges and are treated with the process earlier described. Mr. Gladstone will charge no extra for constructing the wharf as the timbers are so well-cut as to render his estimate of time to build the house greatly exaggerated.
Perfection does exist. I have found it!
Em heard Tom come in so went to cook lunch. She had no idea how much time had passed until that moment.
"Did you know the original von Artles came here with virtually unlimited funds?" Em joked as she cooked the pork chops. "Thirty whole thousand dollars!"
"Hmmm!" Tom replied. "It cost the trust thirty two five to fix the road and bridges. Some of the base posts were the originals and all the cross members were. The foreman of the crew couldn't believe it!"
"They were treated with blue vitriol, dried and coated with pitch," Em informed haughtily. "Only the finest!
"What's blue vitriol?"
"Copper sulfate," Tom answered. "They didn't do that back then, did they? They use copper napthanate now."