Blood from a Stone PART 2
An excerpt from an unfinished novel by John RC Potter. Read part 1 here.
Will walked toward the manor house in a spry manner despite his age. However, instead of stopping at the gate to the front door, the old man continued walking along the walkway that ran in front of the house and then to the side. Turning his head slightly, Will yelled back to Dan, “We’ll leave the house to last. We need to see the outside first.” Dan followed obediently, fascinated both by the atmosphere of the property and by the old man who was its caretaker and resident historian. Will continued along the path and began walking on the grass-filled laneway that ran behind the house. “I want to show you the carriage house,” Will stated. “There’s a sad story there!”
At the double doors to the stone-block carriage house, the old man snapped back the metal clasp that held the unlocked doors in place and then began to swing one of the heavy doors open. Dan took the other door in his hands and swung it back. The two men walked inside the building, which Dan knew would have once housed carriages and later automobiles. Now, however, there were no vehicles in sight, just a ponycart that was set against a far wall. The ceiling was high, and in the center of the building, a massive beam traversed the width of the carriage-house from one side to the other. Along the side walls, there were two paned windows, now coated with years of accumulated dust. At the far end of the building, near the pony cart, narrow stairs ascended to a loft above.
“It still gives me a shiver to come in here,” Will muttered, and more to himself, it seemed, than to Dan. “He did it right there,” the old man said, pointing a crooked finger to a spot below the beam in the middle of the carriage-house.
“I don’t follow,” Dan said, momentarily confused. “Who did what?”
The old man turned to look at Dan with eyes that seemed to be peering back at some distant place in time. Finally, looking back at the beam above them, Will spoke. “Old Man Lacroix, that’s who I’m talking about.” The old man fumbled in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, extracted one, and lit the cigarette almost lovingly. After a deep drag of the cigarette, followed by a seemingly enjoyable cough, the old man continued with his story. “He hung himself from that beam, way back in 1900.” The old man turned to peer at Dan, his eyes watery but bright. Looking around, Will said to the young man, “If you bring those two old chairs in the corner over here, we’ll have a sit-down and I’ll tell you about it.”
Dan spied a pair of dusty, ornate wooden chairs in the corner to the side of the double doors and brought them to where the old man was standing. Dan took a piece of notepaper from his notebook and began to attempt to wipe the dust from the seat. The old man snorted rather derisively at this action, and ignoring the somewhat cleaner chair that Dan proffered, he sat himself down on the other one. “A little dust never hurt anyone!” he exclaimed, chuckling to himself. Bemused, Dan sat down, his notebook perched on his lap.
The old man looked reflective once more, and then casting his gaze upward at the beam above them, he continued with his story. “I was only five years old, but I remember Mr. Lacroix, the father. He was not that old when he died, only sixty, but with me being a child, he seemed old to me.” The old man peered out the open double doors of the carriage house and looked toward the imposing back perspective of the manor house, with its many empty windows that Dan thought looked like so many blank and vacant eyes. “He was a good-looking feller. Moustache, beard, solid jaw, blackish-white hair, and a full head of it! But for whatever reason, he decided to kill himself.”
“Did anyone ever know why?” Dan asked, his voice low.
“Why does anyone ever take his own life?” Will responded. “He had a prosperous tobacco farm, lands on both sides of the county road, he had the manor house that was considered one of the finest homes this side of London. He had a wife and four children, the youngest being Jared, who was only ten years old. It was a mystery… he never left a note or any clues. He just did it.”
“Who found him?”
“It was Miss Victoria,” the old man answered. “Maybe that is part of the reason she was such a hard woman in later years.” Will shook his head slightly, seemingly reaching back into the past. “It was my mother who heard her screaming for help. ‘For the love of God someone help me!’ she was crying, or so my mother told me. When my mother was an old woman and her mind wandered a bit, she would often recall that day and want to talk about it, as if bringing it up would give it some meaning.” Will took a sharp intake of breath, and in a voice cracking with emotion he said, “And it made her cry every time. It made her sad to remember that day.” The old man stopped talking, wiping at his eyes brusquely.
“You don’t have to tell me this story, Will if you don’t want to,” Dan said quietly, touching the old man’s shoulder.
The old man gave a smile then and an appreciative nod to Dan. “I want to talk about it,” he said quietly. “Rather than think about it because… well, sometimes I remember it and think about my mother’s reactions to it, and how it must have been for Miss Victoria to find her father hanging there from that beam, and how it must have been for the family to deal with his death.” Will fumbled in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. Peering at the packet he gave a snort and said, “Down to two cigarettes in this pack. I have been smoking too much today. It must be all these memories, all these stories.”
As the old man began to take out a cigarette from the pack, Dan asked, “Do you mind if I have one?” The old man looked surprised. “Well sure,” he answered, “but I thought you weren’t a smoker. I don’t want to be a bad influence.”
“I guess you could call me a closet smoker,” Dan responded with a brief laugh. “Once in a while, I used to have a cigarette, although it has been quite a few years since then. But right now, I feel like having one.” Dan took the cigarette that Will offered to him, and the old man then lit first Dan’s cigarette and then his own, a grin on his weathered face.
The old man took a deep puff on the cigarette and resumed his story. “It was a sunny and hot day in high summer. The Aylmer Fair was on that weekend in August – an annual event – and, as usual, the family went to see the exhibits and have some fun. Well, at least most of the family went that day.” Will paused, seemingly lost in his reverie, and then continued in a low voice. “There were no automobiles here back then. They went in the horse and buggy. In those days there were several people working for the Lacroix family. One was an old feller named Wat Watson, who looked after the horses and drove the buggy when the family went to town. He took Mrs. Lacroix and the children to Aylmer that day.” The old man paused reflectively. “They had two young gals who worked as maids, who lived in the house in the back part, in the servant’s rooms. Elsa and Berna, that was their names, if memory serves. They had the day off too, owing to the Fair being a popular event. Those gals had gone off early in the day with two local lads who were wooing them. My mother was the cook and in later years she was the cleaner too. But at that time, she was just the cook. We lived in the hired help’s house, where I still am now.”
“And your father?” Dan inquired.
“Never mentioned him, now did I!” the old man retorted. Softening slightly, the old man continued, “My mother never married. She got pregnant young, when she worked here, and Mr. Lacroix was ever so kind to her. He set her up in the hired help house. It had been empty. Before I was born my mother had lived in the big house. When she became pregnant with me, Mr. Lacroix moved her to the cottage, where I was born.” The old man abruptly changed the subject. “Anyway, I was telling you about the day that Old Man Lacroix hung himself.”
“Yes, please continue,” Dan instructed, extinguishing the cigarette under the heel of his shoe, noticing that it was almost down to the filter.
“Let me see now…where was I?” the old man ruminated. “Oh yes…I remember now. You see, there was no one at home except for Mr. Lacroix, who had been having some black and moody spells for quite some time. My mother said that he sometimes got depressed and in a mood. That day Miss Victoria decided against going to the Fair because she was feeling poorly. She was devoted to her father, the apple of his eye, they used to say. My mother was in the house preparing dinner for when the family returned.” The old man paused and peered at Dan through his bushy eyebrows. “I was only five, and I was playing in the front of the house. I kind a remember the day, or maybe I only recall my mother’s stories about what happened. It is hard to say now. But my mother certainly recounted the events to me when I was older. It stayed with her, always. It had a real effect on her.”
“How did the daughter, Victoria, come to find her father?”
“Well, like I said her father meant the world to Miss Victoria. Maybe she really was ill that day, or maybe she suspected her father was about to do something, but anyway she stayed home. Took to her bed,” Will said, throwing the cigarette butt to the floor and stepping on it with the heel of his boot. “Anyway, it must have been on late in the afternoon because my mother was preparing dinner. When she was older – I think I was about fifteen when she told me the story in its entirety – my mother would like to go over the details, as if she just could not make head nor tails of what happened and only talking about it would maybe give a clue. She told me she was in the kitchen and had prepared the meal and then set it in the old wood-burning stove to keep it warm. Then she had to go to our place to do the washing and took me with her. She had been at our house for about an hour, had been doing the washing – by hand of course in those days – on the back stoop of our place. It had been a hot and humid summer’s day, she said, clear and bright, but then later in the afternoon it had turned windy. The wind must have been from the west because she heard nary a thing out there on the stoop. But when the washing was done, she took me back to the big house to set the dinner table before the others came back from the Fair.” The old man stopped talking, his eyes cast down at the floor of the carriage house.
“And then?” Dan prompted, spellbound.
The old man continued. “It was when she was coming down the hill, by the family plot, that she heard Miss Victoria crying out, ‘For the love of God someone help me!’ It came clearer to her as she neared the big house. My mother said she left me at the front of the house and ran up the steps. She thought the cry was coming from inside, but she ran clear through the house to the back, into the kitchen. The voice was clearer there. She said she ran out through the summer kitchen to the open verandah that we can see from here,” Will said, glancing back to the house behind them.
Dan's eyes followed the direction of the old man’s gaze, imagining Will’s mother in the distance on the verandah behind them. “My mother had bad eyesight, needed glasses for years and finally took a pair when she was older. She said these big double doors were open, she could see that, but she could not see from the verandah inside the carriage house here. But she knew Miss Victoria’s voice was coming from inside this here building. Miss Victoria must have seen her, then, because she yelled out to my mother, ‘Mrs. Jordan! Amy! Help me! It’s father!’ Well, my mother took off in a flash and ran down that there incline and here to the carriage house. My mother said that for as long as she lived, she would remember that sight. It made her blood run cold.” The old man began rummaging around in his pocket, pulled out the cigarette pack, saw that it was empty, and after bunching up into a ball, threw it to the floor.
“Please go on,” Dan instructed.
“Mr. Lacroix had hung himself from that beam right there, my mother said. She told me that when she came through these doors, she saw him hanging there, his face purple and bloated, tongue hanging out of his mouth, obviously dead to this world. She said that Miss Victoria must have found him like that, maybe an hour earlier, and she stood there under him, supporting his weight for all that time, holding him up, thinking and wishing that he were still alive. That little gal had her arms around his legs and was trying to keep him high, to keep him alive, not knowing – not wanting to know – that he was already dead. She had stood there all that time, an hour or so that must have seemed a lifetime, with her arms wrapped around his lower body. My mother said that sweat and tears were running down Miss Victoria’s face.”
The old man shook his head sadly and then looked Dan square in the eye. “My mother noticed a stain on Miss Victoria’s dress, and a puddle of liquid at her feet, and realized the poor lass had relieved herself, due to standing there holding her father all that time. My mother told me that the poor young Miss said to her, ‘I couldn’t hold it in, I had to go. But I had to hold father. I couldn’t leave him.’ My mother then went up to Miss Victoria and pried her arms away. She said to her, ‘He’s gone, Miss Victoria. Your father is gone.’ It took all my mother’s strength to pry that girl’s arms from her father’s body. But she did it; then my mother led her away, back to the house. Took off those soiled clothes and put her to bed. She said Miss Victoria’s ankles were a sight – black and blue from standing all that time holding up her father’s dead body. Mother said Miss Victoria was crying like a baby. She made the young gal a hot toddy, and forced her to drink it so that she could sleep.”
“What happened then?”
The old man spat on the ground with gusto. “Well, the family came back from the Fair, and of course, the doctor and then the coroner were called right away. As you can imagine, it was a turbulent time. Mrs. Lacroix was a rock through it all. She seemed to gather strength through difficult times. But as my mother always said, Adelaide Lacroix was a cold fish. Maybe that is how Miss Victoria got her personality. They were a lot alike.”
Dan reflected on the story, and then asked suddenly, “Okay, so Mr. Lacroix came into the carriage house that summer day, eighty years ago, put a rope over the beam and hung himself. But that beam is quite high; he would have had to stand on something to do it.”
The old man peered meditatively at Dan, then with a faint smile on his face he replied, “Well, Mr. Lacroix was a tall man, for one thing. But of course, he had to stand on something to throw the rope over the beam, and then hang himself.” The old man stood up and looked first at his own chair, and then peered over Dan’s shoulder at the top edge of the back of the chair on which the young man was sitting. “I always know by the spot of paint,” he murmured.
“Pardon? I don’t understand,” Dan said.
“That there chair you be sitting on now,” the old man intoned. “It was that self-same chair he stood on to do it. I always know because there is a spot of red paint on the top of that chair,” Will continued. “You see, these chairs were at one time in the study, and then years ago, back before all this happened, they were put out here.” The old man, standing, looked down at Dan, “Yep. That chair you are sitting on is the one Old Man Lacroix stood on to hang himself.” Dan rose slowly and looked back at the chair. There was a drop of red paint on the top slat of the dusty and weathered old chair. Despite himself, Dan shivered.
“What’s the matter?” the old man asked. “Someone walk over your grave?” Giving a rather devious chuckle, Will turned abruptly and began walking out of the carriage house. “Come on, son,” he called out, “time to have a look-see at the property, and after that, the house itself!”
Looking back at the chair, deep in thought, Dan followed Will Jordan out of the carriage house.
************************************************************************
Will rambled along the laneway that ran from the carriage house, and then followed a path that led up an incline. Dan followed closely behind; his mind full of the story told to him by the old man. At the top of the small hill, behind the carriage house, and at the rear of the grounds of Erie Manor, there was a vine-covered arbour. The old man stopped and paused under the arbour, and the young man did the same. Dan could see that the path led down the hill to a large pond, and further in the distance on the other side of the path, there was the old barn. From the vantage point of the house, it was possible to see the water glistening in the distance, and Dan knew it was this pond he had seen from the laneway near the house. At the bottom of the laneway, at the water’s edge, he could see a decrepit dock, and further along the pond, on the crest of a small hill, an old gazebo in a state of ruin. It appeared to be in the process of being dismantled.
“We used to swim off that dock and out to that big, flat rock in the middle of the pond,” Will said, pointing down the hill with a crooked finger. “It was great fun. One spring – it was 1910 as I recall - there was a young buck who came as hired help. That happened a lot hereabouts back then, young men looking for work and just dropping in at farms to ask for a job on the land or in the barn. Anyway, that young lad was a Turk but spoke some English. He got on like fire with young Jared and with Miss Evangeline. They were good friends, but it drove Miss Victoria plain crazy that her brother and sister were being so friendly with the hired help, and a foreigner at that! But despite her telling them not to be friends with the Turk, they still were. I think Miss Evangeline was sweet on the young man, and maybe he was on her.”
Will peered down at the water and ruminated reflectively. “In those days you didn’t associate with someone outside your station in life. No doubt it was barely tolerated by old Mrs. Lacroix and Miss Victoria that I was friendly with Miss Evangeline and Jared and played with them sometimes.” The old man paused and continued to stare at the pond as if he were viewing a scene from the past. “Anyway, they were like three peas in a pod – Miss Evie, Jared, and the Turkish lad – and used to go swimming in the evening, after the young man – Emre or Emir or something like that was his name – was finished the day’s work. Sometimes I would swim with them too. Anyway, as with anything that spoke of fun around here, that too up and ended.”
“What happened?”
The old man continued, looking up at Dan. “I don’t rightly know. I have my thoughts about it.” Will shook his head slowly. “Maybe that young man got too friendly with young Jared and Miss Evie. Perhaps Miss Victoria somehow got rid of him.”
“What do you mean?” Dan asked, riveted by the story.
“Well, one day during that summer – near the end as I recall – the young Turk was here,” the old man said slowly and evenly, “and the next day he wasn’t. Right strange if you ask me.”
The old man turned and placed his hand on Dan’s arm, his grip firm and insistent. “I found something last week when I began to tear down that old gazebo. It was a special place for the children when they were young. They had parties down there and danced, and picnics in the summer. When that young Turk was here for a time, young Jared and Miss Evangeline were always making a point of sitting in the gazebo and talking to him. Back then there was wisteria covering the gazebo, and they could sit down there, and no one could see them.”
“What did you find?” Dan asked, interested.
“It was just an old stone, but a right nice one,” the old man replied. “It had writing on it – etched into it – and the writing was in a foreign language.”
Thinking of the young man who had worked for the family those many years ago, Dan said, “Maybe it was in Turkish. Maybe the young man wrote something on it.”
“But the script was not letters…it was like symbols. What do you call that type of writing?” the old man said, scratching his head.
“Hieroglyphics?”
“That’s it! That is what it looked like to me,” said the old man. Pointing down the hill to the gazebo, Will continued, “You see, I knew that in the next good windstorm, that old gazebo could come down, so one of my projects was to tear it down myself. I thought I would use the wood for my fireplace this winter. As caretaker of this property, I know what I can do and what I cannot. Anyway, I took an axe and worked on the posts on this side, and then used the tractor to begin pulling the old heap of sticks down. Lo and behold, when I hooked the chain to the main post holding up the gazebo and then gave it a pull, the post came out slick as anything, but so did that particular stone.” The old man paused for effect. “And when I jumped off the tractor and walked back to the gazebo, I noticed the stone had writing on it.”
“You were tearing down the gazebo by yourself,” Dan asked, incredulous. “Don’t you have some help here for jobs like that?”
“Well, there’s a local lad who helps me some,” the old man replied. “But truth be told, he is about as useless as tits on a bull.” The old man gave a chuckle at his witticism. “And anyway, I like working by myself.”
“Where’s the stone now?” Dan asked.
“I left it down at the gazebo,” the old man responded. “Let’s go down and take a look see.” The old man ambled down the incline, with Dan following closely behind him. Will stopped at the entrance to the half-standing gazebo, and then bending over the step that led up into it, he brushed aside some wood and weeds and extracted a sizable stone from the floor. “Right pretty now, ain’t it?” the old man said.
The stone was a faint reddish pink in colour, with flecks of silvery grey throughout. It was rounded and worn on the bottom and flat on the top. The old man took out his handkerchief, spat on it vigorously, and gave the stone a dusting. On the flat side, words were etched in a foreign language, faded by time, and covered by a layer of dust and dirt.
“I think it’s in Arabic, or a similar script” Dan suggested, peering at the stone. He took it from the old man, examining it closely. “It appears to have been done with a chisel or something similar.”
“Well now,” the old man ruminated. “I wonder who wrote on the rock, and I wonder who buried it under the gazebo.” The old man looked at Dan. “What do you think it means? Do you think it has anything to do with the Turkish lad?”
“I don’t know, possibly it does, but I don’t think this is Turkish. I am not sure what Turkish letters look like, but I have an idea modern Turkish is different from old Turkish,” Dan responded. “What do you think?”
“I wish I knew,” the old man said. “I was only 15 years old when that Turkish lad was living and working here, but it was a strange time. There was something going on around here. It was in the air.” Will looked behind him and back up at the empty house. “It was a difficult year for the family, 1910. Mrs. Lacroix passed away in the spring; then after that summer, things were never quite the same afterwards. It was like the Lacroix family began to come apart at the seams. You would have thought Mr. Lacroix’s death in 1900 would have been the turning point. But it seemed to be worse after the spring and summer of 1910 when the Turk was here and then left unexpectedly.” The old man stopped suddenly, and he grabbed Dan’s arm. “Do you suppose you could have someone look at this here stone and get it translated? I sure would like to know what it says. I mean, it may be nothing. Then again, it may be something.”
“Sure, I can take it with me. I know some people who work in languages at The University of Western Ontario. They could help me.”
“Good, then you’ll take it with you. I knew there was a reason you came along today, son. It was meant to be.” The old man gazed up at Dan, his eyes blurry but containing an intensity. “It has been itching at me a long time, what done took place in this family all those years ago, and I would like to know some answers before my days are done. And then if the writing on that stone is anything important, I can write to Miss Evangeline over there in France.”
A thought occurred to Dan. “Will, before I leave today would you be willing to give me Miss Lacroix’s address in France? I would like to write to her and introduce myself and tell her I have come to Erie Manor and would like to do an article on it. Perhaps my editor would give approval for a series of articles on old houses in southwestern Ontario, and I could use Erie Manor for the first one.”
“Of course. Before you leave remind me and I will give you the address. Now bring that stone and come with me,” Will instructed. “I am leaving the best for last. Now we will see the house.” The old man began to walk up the hill, his hand placed on the small of his back as he walked. Dan noticed Will’s step was not as spry as it had been earlier, and the thought crossed his mind that the old man was not as well as he would like one to think.
************************************************************************
At the front gate to the house, Dan set down the stone. He followed the old man up the walkway and onto the steps of Erie Manor. The writer in Dan was instantly met by a feeling of nostalgia for a bygone time when life was simpler, and people were less complicated. At the same time, Dan perceived a sense of sadness and decay about the house, even from the perspective of its exterior, that he suspected went far deeper than the fact the house was empty and making slow but inevitable progress toward its own demise.
The old man rummaged around in the depths of a pocket of his overalls, finally extracting the ring of keys he had used earlier to enter the family burial plot. “I just love this old house,” Will exclaimed, “I take a real pride in it.” With a flourish, the old man unlocked and opened the heavy double front doors and went inside.
Dan followed, and this is what he saw: on his immediate left, open double doors made of walnut led into a book-lined study, and the room was noted for its floor-to-ceiling windows and heavy purple draperies. On the right side, Dan could see another set of walnut doors that opened into a living room, or what probably would once have been called the parlour. It too had large double doors that gave entry, and as with the study, the doors were open, giving Dan the impression that the house was ready and awaiting the family to return at any moment. French doors were visible in both the study and the parlour and apparently led out onto the verandah that ran around the house on each side from the front. A grandfather clock stood along the wall below the stairs, and the tick-tock resonated in the empty hallway. Straight ahead there was a beautiful staircase with an ornate walnut banister. Dan peered up at the stairway as it ascended and then curved around. At the top, hanging from the ceiling of the second floor, was a gorgeous brass light fixture that had many arms, and at the end of each, there was an exquisite globe. Despite its stunning beauty, to Dan, the light fixture had the appearance of an octopus with arms reaching out to clasp and capture anyone who came too close. Beyond the large entrance corridor, Dan could see another hall that receded into the distance.
“What do you think, son”,” the old man asked, nodding his head appreciatively. “Not too shabby, now is it!”
“It is simply amazing,” Dan replied. “They don’t build houses like this anymore.”
“You can say that again,” Will stated emphatically. “This house was built to last.” The old man began to walk further into the entrance hall and looked around himself at a place he knew with familiarity and love. “If these walls could talk!”
Dan looked at the old man speculatively. “If they could, what do you suppose they would say?”
The old man looked at Dan suddenly. “What’s that you say?”
“If this house could talk,” Dan responded, “just what do you think it would say? What stories could it tell?”
The old man looked intently at Dan, and then he walked to the bottom of the stairs and lovingly ran a gnarled hand over the newel post and the onyx angel that adorned it. Looking back at the young man, Will asked, “If there are stories to tell about this house – about the family that lived here – do you think those stories should be told, Dan? I mean, all the family is dead but for Miss Evangeline. Nonetheless, does anyone have the right to put pen to paper and write stories about a family, if that family can’t say whether or not they want their stories told?”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
The old man smiled ruefully and shook his head. “I don’t rightly know. You see, my boy, part of me wants to know more about this family that I was almost a part of, but part of me thinks a body should let sleeping dogs lie.”
Dan walked closer to the old man. “Will, I am a stranger to you. Okay, I work at The London Free Press, and yes, I happened to come up to this house because its name, Erie Manor, created an interest for me when I saw the sign over the main gate. Granted, you met me and think I am a decent person.” Dan raised his shoulders in a question at this point. “But why have you taken me into your confidence today, and why have you taken me on this tour? What do you want me to do with the stories you have told me? Do you want me to write about Erie Manor, or don’t you? Frankly, I am a little confused.”
The old man walked to a plush chair in the hallway – once a brilliant plum colour, Dan suspected, but now faded by age and time – and he sat down slowly, seeming to grit his teeth as if he were in pain. Will looked up at Dan, and then ran his hand over his chiselled jaw. “I’ll be damned if I know, son,” he responded, his voice low and hoarse. The old man began to cough at that moment, and he was beset by a rattling deep in his lungs that he did his best to clear. A moment later, the old man began to speak again.
“I’m an old man, and I have been on the edge of this family all my life. Not really of the family, but certainly as part and parcel as any of them. My mother worked her whole life for the Lacroix’s. She was devoted to Mr. Lacroix.” The old man looked up at Dan, a fire in his eye. “You are listening and thinking I am talking about a story, and these people may seem just like characters to you, and maybe you think I am just an entertaining old coot. But these people lived and breathed, just like you; and they had hopes and dreams, and they loved and maybe hated too at times. Now they are all gone, except for Miss Evie, and for the life of me, I wonder if that is all there is to it. Like I said before…ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and all that.” The old man paused and wiped his hand across his rheumy eyes.
Dan looked at the old man, and although he wanted to put a hand on Will’s shoulder, he refrained from doing so. “Will, I of course did not know the family, but I can assure you I don’t think of them as characters in a story. But they interest me, of course. And to be honest, you are an entertaining old coot!”
The old man looked up at Dan suddenly, and then he burst into a hearty fit of laughter. “Well, I’ll be damned, Daniel Farnsworth, you do shoot from the hip and have a wit, and I like that in a man!” The old man looked around himself, and then began to fumble in his pockets. “God, but what I wouldn’t do for a smoke just now.” Suddenly, a strained look came across the old man’s face, and he pressed one hand over a place on his upper thigh. “Must be my rheumatism kicking in,” he said. Looking up at a picture on the wall across from where he sat, Will exclaimed, “You’ve heard talk about the family, now you can meet them! Take down that there picture – it’ll be heavy, so be careful – and bring it over to me. Sit down here beside me and I will tell you who’s who in the family photo.”
Dan did as he had been instructed. He lifted the heavy wooden frame off the wall and brought it over to where the old man sat. Dan then sat in the chair next to Will, and together they peered at the family photo. The photo had been taken when the father was still alive. “Mr. Lacroix is in this family photograph.”
“Like I told you, he hung himself in 1900, so it would not have been later than that year,” the old man responded. “Turn the picture over. Sometimes Mrs. Lacroix wrote dates on the back.” Dan turned the photo over and in the bottom corner written in a beautiful but faded copperplate on the thick parchment was the year, 1899.
“Hhhmm…that would have been the year before Old Man Lacroix died,” Will said quietly. Dan looked at the family. He had often seen photos in books and in the archive files of the newspaper from the turn of the century, and the people always looked the same. In those photographs everyone appeared profoundly serious and extremely formal: touched by the patina of the photograph – either grayish or yellowish – they somehow did not seem to be real people. Now Dan could see past the formality of the poses and could journey through the years that lay between the sitting of the photograph and his viewing of it over eight decades later. Dan saw not characters, but people, a family that had lived and breathed; a family that may well have had its own demons, a family that had no doubt suffered.
“They were a handsome family, don’t you think?” asked Will.
Dan nodded in agreement. He stared intently at the photograph, wanting the silent posers to reach out to him and tell a story. The father, Mr. Lacroix, sat in an ornate armchair. Although Mr. Lacroix was sitting in the picture, Dan could see that he had been a tall man. He had a thick moustache and a beard, and although the picture was of course not in colour, Dan could see the man had a full head of dark hair, flecked with white. In his younger days, Henri Lacroix would have been a very handsome man, Dan suspected.
“The old man was blond when he was young, and then his hair darkened when he was older,” Will stated. “The two youngest took after him, the oldest two gals took after their mother in looks.”
Dan looked back at the framed photograph in his hands. Mrs. Lacroix sat primly beside her husband, in an elaborate dress that would have been the style of the day. Adelaide Lacroix would have been shorter than her husband by several inches but appeared quite tall for a woman; where her husband appeared well-fed, she was thin and her face, although attractive, looked pinched and severe. In fact, Mrs. Lacroix’s face appeared very pale in contrast to her dark hair, and although there were streaks of white in her hair that she wore up in a bun, it only made her face more distinctive. The youngest child, Jared, stood between the parents and looked out very solemnly at the camera. Remembering the family tombstone, Dan surmised Jared would have been nine or ten years old at the time. Jared had been a very handsome boy, with blond hair, rather long in the fashion of the day for young boys.
The three sisters stood behind the parents and their brother, and they too stared seriously at the photographer. Dan thought the tallest girl must be the eldest, Victoria. She would have been about twenty-five years old, Dan calculated, and was the tallest of the sisters. Victoria looked very much like Mrs. Lacroix, and even at that young age had acquired the same slightly peevish look her mother wore on her face. Nonetheless, Victoria Lacroix was an attractive young woman. Beside Victoria, in the middle, was Helena. Like her older sister, Helena was dark-haired, but unlike her sister, she wore it in a loose bun. Helena was rather attractive, but Dan thought one would not notice her if the older sister were in anywhere in the vicinity.
Then Dan’s eyes moved across to the third and shortest of the sisters. This then was the youngest sister and the only surviving member of the family. Miss Evangeline, as Will Jordan, referred to her. She and her brother were very much alike, and they obviously resembled their father. The youngest daughter had a heart-shaped face and had her hair in soft curls. Evangeline would have been only a few years older than her brother but looked even younger and more innocent as she peered out at the world. Then Dan noticed a feature that broke the symmetry and beauty of the young girl’s face.
“Evangeline would have been very pretty, except for that hare-lip,” Dan murmured.
“What do you mean? Are you blind, boy?” the old man snorted. “Why Miss Evangeline was the most beautiful of the three of them. When she smiled, the whole world smiled with her!” The old man abruptly grabbed the heavy picture from Dan, and then stood up and marched over to the wall and hung the picture back on its hook. Turning around with an energy borne of anger, he continued with his tirade. “Can’t you see beauty when it’s staring you in the face? I tell you, that Miss Evie was the most beautiful of those girls, and the best of the family. She was a saint, an angel.” The old man paused to take a breath. “She still is, I am sure. Haven’t seen her for twenty-five years, but she will still be the generous, kind soul she always was, I know that!”
Dan looked reflectively at the old man. Will’s face looked grey of a sudden, and his breathing seemed more erratic. “I am sure Evangeline was – is! – a beautiful person, in all ways, Will.” Dan paused, then stood up and went over to the old man. “Are you sure you want to take me on a tour of the house? I mean, I can come back another time.”
The old man took a deep breath. “No… that would be foolish. No time like the present. But tell you what. I think it best if I just take a sit down out on the front verandah, and you can mosey around the house at your leisure. How does that suit you?”
“I think that would be just fine,” Dan replied. With that, the old man walked out to the front verandah and slowly lowered himself onto a wooden rocking chair. Dan peered at Will for a few moments and then turned back to look at the entrance hall and the stairway that led upstairs. The house was heavy with dust, age, and memories. Dan had an eerie feeling as he mounted the stairs and began to ascend. Dan felt as if he were walking in a museum, or in a sacred place, a burial ground. However, his interest was piqued; he was hooked. Dan wanted to view the house in its entirety, to better come to know and understand the family that had lived there so many years before, even if his search for answers ended up being fruitless.
************************************************************************
It was almost an hour later when Dan emerged from the house. He had seen the spacious and grand dining room and had imagined family dinners there at the turn of the century. He had entered the salon, with its plush chairs, mirrors and paintings, the room dominated by a beautiful piano; Dan could almost picture one of the Lacroix daughters playing a classical piece. Dan walked into the large kitchen and of all the rooms he was most entranced with it because it was as perfectly preserved as it had been in the early years of the century. It seemed as if he could almost smell homemade tomato sauce, baked pies, and aromas of a bygone era.
The young man looked in the summer kitchen at the back of the house, and then walked upstairs and visited the large and airy family bedrooms at the front, as well as the small and cramped servants’ quarters at the rear of the house on the second floor. The attic was crammed full of boxes and old furniture, and other debris left over from lives long since vanished.
Dan then climbed the stairs at the front of the house – above the sun porch that was over the verandah at the front of Erie Manor – and mounted the winding, narrow stairs that led to the widow’s walk. From that lofty vantage point, Dan could see Port Burwell in the distance, and the top of Will Jordan’s little cottage in the clearing of trees; and to the back of the house, he could spy the large pond glistening in the distance. But of all the vistas, the one that commanded Dan’s attention and took hold of his imagination the most was the view to the south, to Lake Erie. Even at this distance, the water looked dark and dangerous and deep.
It was when he was coming down the stairs from the widow’s walk that Dan realized how long he had been exploring the house. He looked at his watch and with a start discovered he had arrived at Erie Manor almost two hours before. He knew he should be on his way. When Dan walked out of the house, Will was sitting in the rocking chair on the verandah, smoking a cigarette with a look of undeniable pleasure on his weathered, old face. “I thought you were out of cigarettes,” Dan said with a smile.
The old man grinned conspiratorially. “I was,” he replied, “but when you took so long nosing around in there, I scooted home and got myself another pack!”
“In that case,” Dan said, “can I have one for the road?”
“You bet ya!” the old man said with a chuckle, handing Dan a cigarette along with a box of matches.
Dan lit the cigarette and felt an immediate buzz of nicotine. It was a feeling that bordered on pleasurable on the one hand, and slightly nauseous on the other. He knew he would not take to smoking as a habit, but he liked sharing this companionable moment by having a cigarette with the old man.
“Sit yourself down, Dan,” the old man said, pointing to a wooden chair across from him. Dan sat down, glad for the chance to rest. He took a deep drag of the cigarette and then coughed. “If I don’t watch out, I’ll start sounding as wheezy as you do,” he exclaimed.
The old man retorted with a laugh, “These old lungs are almost as good as the day God gave them to me.” After a moment, the old man peered at Dan, an inquisitive look in his eyes. “What be you thinking? About this place, I mean. Would anyone want to read a story about an old place like this one?”
Dan paused reflectively. “Any story is only as good as its storyteller. I think everyone has a story to tell. This house is a fine setting for a story, and you have told me a few things about the family. A real writer could fashion a story just from what you’ve told me.”
“But ain’t you a real writer? You work for the London Free Press, and all.”
“All you’ve given me is the setting for a story,” Dan replied, “and the skeleton.”
“What do you mean, a skeleton?”
“The skeleton of a story,” Dan said, taking a last drag of the cigarette. “Where should I put this out?”
“Just throw it out on the walkway. I’ll sweep it up later,” Will replied. “Oh, there’s something I want to give you.” The old man put his hand in his pocket and drew out a piece of paper. “You asked for Miss Evangeline’s address in France. When you were poking around in the house, I wrote it down. Couldn’t rightly remember it all, so I looked in my address book back at my place when I went for more cigarettes.” Will handed a piece of paper to Dan, who unfolded the paper and looked at the address.
Refolding the paper again, Dan put it in his shirt pocket. “If I write to Miss Lacroix, do you think she will write back? Don’t you think she will find it strange if I write to her?”
The old man sat back in the rocking chair, his eyes looking out over the verandah and to a point in the distance. “She’ll write back to you. When you get to be old like me and Miss Evangeline, you are happy for attention from anyone. And I think she will be pleased you have been to the house, and that you have met me. You can ask her if it is fine to write a piece on the house for your newspaper.” The old man looked at Dan, his eyes thoughtful. “I imagine Miss Evangeline’s mind turns to this house on many an occasion. When you are old, your mind turns to the past.”
“Yes, I can well imagine it does,” Dan stated. “I will write to Miss Lacroix and ask her if I can do an article on Erie Manor for the newspaper, and hopefully my editor will be interested in my proposal.” He smiled reflectively and continued, “Regardless, perhaps I will also end up writing a story, using Erie Manor as the setting. We will see what the future holds.” The young man rose to his feet. “I best be on my way. I don’t want to wear out my welcome!”
“You don’t have to worry about that, son,” Will said solemnly. “You have brightened an old man’s day.” He rather gingerly got up from the chair. “Don’t forget that stone, it is by the front gate there. And if you can find out the meaning of them there scratches on the rock, you let me know.” The old man went to the front door and locked it, and to Dan, the sound of the lock clicking into place had a sense of finality about it.
The two men walked down the steps and to the front gate. Dan stooped down and picked up the heavy stone in his hands. In comfortable silence, the two men walked down the winding laneway until they reached Dan’s car. The young man opened the rear door and placed the stone on the floor. Closing the door, Dan turned back to the old man. He held out his hand, and the old man extended his as well. With a firm grip, Will grasped Dan’s proffered hand. It seemed as if the old man did not want the young man to leave. Finally, Will released Dan’s hand.
“I think that I will stop in Port Burwell for lunch on the way back to London,” Dan said, and then continuing with a wide smile, “I think I hear my stomach growling!” Opening the driver’s door of his car, Dan paused for a moment and then asked the question again that he had put to the old man earlier. “Will, why did you take me into your confidence?”
“I don’t rightly know, lad”, Will stated, looking Dan square in the eye, “but I sure am glad that I did. I have a feeling.”
Final goodbyes were said, and Dan got in his car and drove down the laneway, on his way back to London. The old man watched the car recede in the distance until it finally disappeared from his sight over the crest of a hill.
*
John RC Potter is an international educator. He was born in the small town of Clinton in Canada but is currently living in Istanbul, Turkey. John completed his Honours Bachelor of Arts (English & Drama), degree as well as his Master of Education degree, at the University of Western Ontario (London, Canada). When in high school in Clinton, John had the opportunity to interview the Nobel Prize-winning author, Alice Munro, who resided in his hometown. It inspired John to begin creative writing. Due to the demands of work during the intervening years as a teacher, principal, and college counsellor, his creative writing endeavours have been irregular. He had poems and stories previously (Bosphorus Review of Books, Literary Yard, Down in the Dirt, The National Library of Poetry, Jabberwocky); most recently in July 2022 his creative non-fiction story, ‘In Search of Alice Munro’ was published in BROB.