I set down my luggage and turned back to Rebecca. “The room is beautiful. Can you show me around the rest of the B&B, please? Then let’s talk about what’s been going on.”
Rebecca smiled, but I could tell she had a lot on her mind. I tried to set her at ease. “I always love to hear stories about old homes like this,” I said warmly. “And if you know the stories of any of the pieces that aren’t from our shop, please fill me in!”
“Most of the furniture in this room came from my grandma’s house near Savannah,” Rebecca replied.
“Everything except the lamp, which is from Trifles and Folly.”
“Your grandmother had good taste,” I said.
Rebecca’s smile grew reflective. “She got a lot of the furniture from her mother and grandmother, so it’s authentic Victorian. When I was a little girl, I loved sleeping in the big brass bed.”
“The linens look period, too,” I said. Later, I would risk touching pieces, when I was alone. But Rebecca didn’t know much about my talent, and I didn’t want to give her an impromptu demonstration.
“Oh yes,” she agreed. “Though the table cloth Debra bought from you is in the dining room. The bedspread was also my grandmother’s, as are the pillow shams. But the pillows and sheets are all brand new!”
I wanted nothing more than to cozy into that inviting bed with a good book and a cup of tea, but relaxing would have to wait. “It all goes together perfectly. Do you have a different theme for each room?”
That was Rebecca’s cue to lead me back into the hallway. She handed me a key on a pretty keychain, and I recognized the fob as the handle from an ornate silver plated fork or spoon. Lovely.
“The house itself was built in the 1850s as a wedding present from James Harrison to his bride, Clarissa,” Rebecca told me as we walked down the narrow, dimly-lit hall. “The light fixtures were originally for gaslights, although of course, everything was remodeled for electric years ago.” The wall sconces had bulbs that replicated the warm glow of gas, which made the hallway a little eerie.
“The Harrisons raised their family in this house,” Rebecca continued. “They had three sons and a daughter, all of the sons rose to prominence.” She frowned. “Unfortunately, they also lost two infants, something that was far too common back then.”
“Did the house stay in the family?” I prompted. Mindful of the haunting, I was listening to validate the tragedies Mrs. Morrissey had mentioned, events that might have primed the house for paranormal activity if the right catalyst was introduced.
Rebecca paused with her hand on the molded brass door knob to one of the other guestrooms. “It did, for a while,” she replied. “The oldest of the Harrison sons, Joseph, took over the family shipping company, and brought his new wife here. The other two sons eventually purchased homes nearby.”
“And the daughter?”
“Arabella Harrison did not fare as well as her brothers, I’m afraid,” Rebecca said. “She had what they called back then a ‘delicate nervous condition’. Today, I guess we’d say she was given to bouts of depression or worse. She died young.”
“Did she pass away here in the house?” I asked. “I’m looking for clues about what might be going on,”
I said apologetically, feeling like a ghoul.
“Actually, she did die in the house,” Rebecca said. “From consumption – the old name for tuberculosis.” I shivered. “Do you know where she died?”
Rebecca shook her head. “I’ve never found anything that says exactly. Family letters just say that she spent most of her time in the garden, and that she died ‘in bed’.” She pushed open the door and turned on the light to the second guest room.
“We do have guests in this room, so I can’t let you do more than look.” As if she could guess my thoughts, she added, “None of the items we bought from you are in this room, and neither this room nor your room have had any problems.”
From the doorway, I peered into the room. It had a masculine feel, with a dark walnut bedroom set that had all the Victorian ornamentation. The bed’s high headboard nearly reached the ceiling. There was a huge armoire, a comfy chair and ottoman, and brass lamps with brass shades that reminded me of ones I’d seen in big city libraries. The dresser was the same dark walnut, with a white marble counter and an ornate mirror that must have been almost eight feet tall, crested with a carved medallion. Small antique pieces gave the room a lived-in look: old tintype photos in silver frames, a watercolor of a dog on the wall behind the chair, and white antimacassars on the backs of the chairs.
Two duffle bags lay to one side. Obviously, the other guests hadn’t unpacked, either. I wondered if I would run into them later on. The web site said that guests were invited to gather nightly for cocktails.
“I’ll show you the other two rooms,” Rebecca said, as we stepped back from the doorway and she locked it up again. We turned toward the opposite side of the hallway, where the doorways were staggered so that one room wasn’t directly across from another.
These doors weren’t locked. The first room was shadowed, and although I knew that, outside, dusk had fallen, something about the darkened room made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Rebecca turned on the light, but the faux gaslight glow didn’t dispel the feeling that something was not quite right.
“This room was the first place we got reports of problems,” Rebecca said. She nodded toward the large oval mirror with a broad bronze ribbon-like frame. I was certain it came from our shop.
“What happened?” I asked.
Rebecca looked chagrinned. “Guests said they felt uncomfortable in the room, as if they were being watched. A few reported waking up to see a shadow moving across the wall.”
Shadow men, again.
“Could it be car headlights from the street?” I asked. “That’s given me a start now and again.”
“Not up here,” Rebecca replied. “The angle’s wrong.” She sighed. “This is one of the places guests and cleaning staff have reported cold spots and small items moving around on their own.”
“Were there problems before you bought the mirror?”
She shook her head. “We brought all the pieces from Trifles and Folly in at the same time, so it’s hard to say whether it’s all of them, or just some of them.” Rebecca gestured toward the room. “You can see why I don’t want to return the pieces. They’re just perfect for the décor – if we can get them to stop scaring the guests.”
The furniture in this room was oak, with a bed, dresser and old-fashioned washstand. The bed still had the very tall headboard and footboard, but lacked the ornamentation of the last room’s furnishings.
Other than the troublesome mirror, there was an oil portrait of a pretty young woman, and a seascape that seemed a bit moody and dramatic for a bedroom. A Chinese Foo dog statue and a pewter lamp sat on the nightstand. The room had the requisite overstuffed chair, and also boasted a small fireplace.
“Do the fireplaces work?” I asked.
Rebecca nodded. “Several of them were bricked over before we bought the property, and the contractor advised against opening those back up. But the ones you see all work, and in the winter, guests like to cozy up to a fire even though as you know, it never gets all that cold here.”
I was glad when we left the room. I wondered whether my imagination was running away with me or whether I really was picking up the vibe from the mirror, but there was no way I would have been comfortable sleeping there.