“Shipping is a dangerous business, especially back in that time. When Captain Harrison was in his late fifties, he decided to retire from the sea and planned to enjoy his later years with his wife.
Unfortunately, his ship was lost on his final voyage, and he never made it home.” “That’s awful,” I said.
Rebecca ran a hand lovingly over the table’s beautiful wood. “Mrs. Harrison lived into her nineties and never remarried. She was twenty years younger than her husband, so it was a long widowhood. The story that was passed down through the family was that she set a place for the Captain every night, just in case fate brought him home to her.” She looked at me conspiratorially. “And according to family legend, it did. But not in the way she expected.”
“Oh?”
Rebecca gave me an impish grin. “According to family legend, Mrs. Harrison was walking down by the Battery and spotted something bobbing in the water next to the sea wall. She had a servant fish it out.”
Flotsam wasn’t unusual down by the harbor, but most of the time it consisted of obvious trash.
“The item turned out to be an oilskin pouch that had been sealed with wax. Inside were papers from Captain Harrison himself, along with a fine silver chain necklace. An unfinished letter in the pouch in the captain’s handwriting indicated that the necklace was a gift for her, and that he looked forward to being home as soon as they completed this last trip, and that he would bring her a fresh pineapple to celebrate.”
There was a reason so many houses in the Charleston area used carvings of pineapples in their decorations. Once upon a time, the fruit had been quite rare, and many a sea captain brought them home as highly desirable gifts.
Rebecca shook her head. “Of course, his ship never made it home, but somehow, the sea brought her his last gift and letter.”
“What a great story!” I said, although as a historian, I had my doubts about its authenticity.
“Oh, that’s not the end of it,” Rebecca said. “The story says that great-great Grandma Harrison put the chain around her neck and went home with the letter. She was giddy with excitement, and told the servants that the Captain was coming home that night.” “The poor old dear,” I murmured.
“In fact, she told the servants to serve dinner for two, and then leave her uninterrupted, because she and the Captain had a lot of catching up to do,” Rebecca said with a gleam in her eye.
My scalp began to prickle. “What happened?”
“According to the story, they found her dead at the table later that evening, slumped in her dining chair. But listen to this: the servants said that the food had been eaten at both place settings and that the room smelled of Bay Rum and pipe smoke, as it did when the Captain was in port.” She met my gaze.
“And there was a fresh pineapple in the middle of the table.”
I eyed the table once more. With all these stories, I’m more surprised that the inn wasn’t haunted before this. Both the house and the furnishings are prime spook material. So the real question is – why now? What set off the haunting?
“Their second son, Benjamin, also went into the shipping business with his brother, and was also lost at sea,” Rebecca added. “Good story, huh?”
“Very good.” I paused. “What about the linens from our shop?” I asked.
Rebecca crossed the room and opened the door beneath the huge sideboard. She took out a folded tablecloth and unfurled it over the dining table.
“I fell in love with this as soon as Debra showed it to me,” Rebecca said wistfully. “For its age, it’s in excellent condition, and the embroidery is just beautiful,” she said, caressing the old stitches between her thumb and finger. The stitching was as white as the cloth itself, but it formed a complicated tracery border that was a work of art.
“We only use it for show,” Rebecca said. “I don’t serve meals on it, because I’m afraid of stains. But I enjoyed putting it out at other times, until she showed up.” “She?”
Rebecca hesitated. “Actually, people have seen two old women in this room, but not at the same time.
One of them seems angry about something, and the other one has a darkness about her that has made people uneasy.”
Grumpy old lady ghosts, I thought. “No idea who they are?”
“I think one of them might be Mrs. Harrison,” Rebecca said. “I’ve only glimpsed her once or twice, but the way she had her hair made me think of an old photograph I saw as a child.” She looked sheepish. “Of course, there were probably thousands of women in her day who wore their hair like that. I could be wrong.”
“But no clue as to why one is angry and the other is out of sorts?”
Rebecca shrugged. “No idea. But one night, I heard a sound like china breaking, and when I came downstairs to see if something had fallen, there was nothing broken, but the doors to the sideboard were open, and I’m certain I had shut them before going to bed.”
I followed her to the very modern kitchen, where she poured us each a cup of coffee and we settled down at the breakfast nook.
“You’re sure there weren’t any sightings of ghosts or strange happenings before you bought the items from Trifles and Folly?” I asked, sipping and savoring my coffee.
Rebecca shook her head. “After everything I’ve told you, you’d think we’d have had a spook-a-palooza here, right?” She made a face. “Truth is, I used to envy the inns that claimed to be haunted. They always get mentioned more in the tourist brochures, and between the ghost tours and the annual Halloween Haunt write-up in the Post and Courier, it seemed to be good for business.”
“If that’s the case, why change it?” I asked. “You’ve got some great stories to tell, and Andrews Carriage Rides would probably be thrilled to have some fresh tales.” Some of our ghosts are famous enough to be celebrities in their own right. A new story with evidence to back it up could be valuable marketing.
Rebecca sipped her coffee, staring into the liquid like she might see an answer in the swirl of her cream. “I thought so too, at first…” She shivered.
“Tell me,” I urged, reaching out to touch her arm.
“The ‘sad’ bedroom upstairs certainly isn’t good for business, or staff turnover,” she said with a grim smile. “The mirror room is unsettling, and the spirit in that room has a habit of playing pranks that have gone from funny to creepy.”
“Oh?”
Her dark hair bobbed as she nodded. “At first, it was just little things like moving a guest’s glasses or sliding a key from one side of the dresser to another. Then later, items went missing, even when no one had been in the room.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t a member of staff playing a prank?”
Rebecca shook her head. “It’s usually just me and one assistant who helps out in busy times, plus a part-time cook and the cleaning lady. At the times guests reported the incidents, there was no one here but me.”
“Could the guest have staged it themselves for attention – or a refund?”
“I don’t think so,” Rebecca replied. “The guests didn’t ask for their money back. Two of the others asked for a change of room. But they were all really spooked by it. I don’t think they were acting.”
“What else?”
“The ghosts have gotten more vocal,” she said with a sigh. “We’ve heard children in the hallway when there weren’t any kids staying here, and a woman’s voice when the room was empty.”
“Anything else?”
Rebecca met my gaze. “I’m worried, Cassidy. In the last week, the activity’s gotten worse. Doors slamming and locking. Damage to the flower beds outside. That incident on the stairs. And in the mirror room, I found one of the feather pillows ripped to shreds.” She shivered. “These aren’t the fun type of ghosts.”