Out of the Mist (2 page)

I cast a look outside before turning. The
temperature has dropped, and the sky is filled with clouds pregnant
with rain. I snap pictures of the veranda from every angle, and
also take a few of the small chair.

“
Sure,” I reply and chase
after her.

“
All the bedrooms are
upstairs. We can get to those afterwards,” Edith tells me. “I’m
sure you have some interest in the nursery and children’s
rooms.

“
How did Mr. Fisher die?”
I ask.

Edith pauses in the hall, and turns towards
me. “He jumped from the second floor of this house. One of the
maids, Evelyn Brylar, found him the next morning. She was his
mistress.”

I scribble some notes as
she shares this information. On our way to the ballroom, we pass
the great hall. It’s large enough to have served as an
entertainment space. I snap pictures of the elaborate mouldings and
frames.

“
The Fishers entertained
here frequently,” mentions Edith.

I pause to look at a collection of dolls
lined up on a settee. I feel distressed at the sight of all these
toys. How lamentable it must have been after the death of their
owners.

“
How did the first three
children pass away?” I ask.

We enter the ballroom. I raise my camera to
begin snapping photos. I feel like I’m eight again, watching Beauty
and the Beast dance on the screen. Edith walks past me, and lays a
hand on the mantel.

“
The firstborn was a boy,
Wilfred, named after his father,” she begins.

She runs her finger through the dust, then
blows on it.

“
Mr. Fisher kept journals.
Wilfred, Jr., seemed exceptional, if perhaps a bit spoiled. His
mother doted on him,” she says. “She waited eight years to finally
have a child. Who could blame her? In his journal, Mr. Fisher
described feeling jealous of his son. He began his affair with
Evelyn Brylar shortly after the boy turned a year old.”

The dragging noise upstairs starts again.
“How old was Wilfred Junior when he died?” I ask, and stare at the
ceiling in puzzlement.

She walks towards a painting lying on the
floor. She picks it up and leans it against the wall.

“
He was six. He was
playing with the family dog by the brook, just about a hundred
yards from the house. According to the reports, Mr. Fisher told the
authorities he heard his son scream and he ran towards his voice.
At the brook, he found the child lying face down in the shallow
water. It is said the water barely reached his knees.”

I inhale deeply and tighten my scarf. It’s
cold. The dragging noise starts again.

“
Did anyone see how it
happened?”

“
No. Mr. Fisher was the
only one who saw anything,” she replies. “Let’s go upstairs. I’ll
show you the nursery and bedrooms. Most of the children’s furniture
is still intact.”

I put my camera back in my shoulder bag, and
write down some more information. “That should be interesting.
Thank you.”

Each step creaks under our
weight. Everything upstairs is covered in a layer of dust. We walk
into an open area furnished with four chairs decoratively placed
around a wooden centre table. Short hallways lead into the main
bedroom, two guest rooms, two children’s bedrooms, and the
nursery.

“
What happened to the
girls?” I ask Edith.

She opens a wooden
chest
,
and coughs
as a result of escaping dust.

“
The second born,
Elizabeth, died six months after her brother. She was five years
old. Elizabeth and Leslie shared this room here, the one to the
left.”

I follow her into the
girls’ room as she continues. “Mr. Fisher built a playhouse for the
children behind the mansion. One of the maids saw Elizabeth
running towards it.”

I take my camera out again, and capture the
girls’ room. It is painted and decorated completely in white.

“
The maid said she seemed
fine at the time,” she adds.

I snap pictures of the
toys and furniture. The doll house Mr. Fisher built sits by the
windows. It’s a masterpiece of intricately detailed
rooms.

“
What happened to
her?”

“
Mr. Fisher found her dead
at the bottom of the playhouse, with Belladonna berries in her
hand. The doctors said she’d eaten a fatal amount.”

“
That’s
terrible!”

“
It is, but you see the
berries she ate, they didn’t grow on the property. Someone must
have given them to her. During the week of Elizabeth’s death, two
other girls in the area about the same age died of
poisoning.”

There’s a painting of the girls sitting on a
dresser. They look to be about three and four.

“
Elizabeth and Leslie were
11 months apart. It is said they were more like twins than
sisters,” says Edith.

They look strikingly
alike. They both have shoulder-length blonde hair and
dimples.

“
They do look more like
twins than sisters. Leslie must have been devastated after her
sister’s death.”

“
She was. She got sick
shortly after. She spent the next two weeks in bed.”

“
Is that how she died? Was
it from the sickness?”

The town suffered an epidemic of influenza
during the mid-1890s. It would have been a likely cause of
death.

“
No, she died in the barn,
where the family kept horses. She enjoyed spending time with them
and feeding them apples. The authorities couldn’t understand how,
but the horses got out and she was trampled,” she says. “After the
first two children died, they watched the family more closely. But
sadly, there were also many children’s deaths in the town. They
didn’t have any official suspects.”

The feeling of sadness again overwhelms
me.

“
Let me show you the
nursery,” she says.

The same dragging sound is back, except this
time it is close. My curiosity gets the best of me this time. The
noise is coming from the sitting area. I quickly head out of the
girls’ room and into the hall. It’s dark, and at the end of the
short hallway from the girls’ room, I run into an object. I hit the
ground with a thump, knocking the wind out of me. Edith runs
over.

“
Are you okay?” she asks,
a twinge of panic in her voice.

“
I ran into this chair.” I
mumble the obvious.

She turns around, and picks up a wooden
chair and stands it back upright. I recognize it from the sitting
area.

“
This wasn’t here when we
went in the girls’ room,” she says.

“
I didn’t see a chair
either,” I say, rubbing my left knee.

I notice dragging marks on the floor. They
lead to where the chair was. “Look, Edith. The chair was dragged
here. Look! Look at the tracks!”

Surprised, she studies the chair more
closely. “It must be teenagers playing tricks. We get a call or two
every month of kids hanging around here,” she quickly rationalizes.
“Are you okay to walk, or should I call for help?”

Short of a few bruises, I’m okay. My ego
seems to have taken the worst of it. I take the chair and follow
the dragging marks in the dust. They bring me back to the seating
area. I put it back in its place with more force than
necessary.

“
You mentioned we should
see the nursery next,” I tell Edith, redirecting us to the task at
hand.

“
It’s on the other side of
the sitting area, down another short hallway,” she
replies.

I follow Edith into the hall, and cast a
spiteful look at the chair. Perplexed, I search the ground for an
additional pair of footprints but find only mine and Edith’s.

The nursery looks different from the other
rooms. It is soft, cheerful and unassuming. It doesn’t have the
same air of formality. It’s lovely.

“
This is where Mrs. Fisher
hanged herself,” announces Edith, pointing at the doorway. “It
happened six weeks after she lost her fourth child.”

I shudder visibly. “Who found her?”

“
One of the maids, Evelyn.
The same one who found Mr. Fisher.” She pauses. “Evelyn Brylar was
my great-grandmother.” Her tone is guarded, and piques my
curiosity.

“
Did Evelyn pass on any
accounts of the incidents?”

“
Some. She kept
correspondence of that time. Several of the richer families in
Chatham were dealing with the death of one or more of their own
children,” she says. “However, she didn’t write about her own
suspicions, but mostly about her own children, whom she missed
terribly. She thought the Fishers were cruel to send her children
away.”

How lamentable is this house’s history.

“
She was the maid who had
an affair with Mr. Fisher, wasn’t she?” I ask.

“
Yes, she was 22 when the
affair began. She bore three of his children, who were sent away to
be cared for by relatives of hers. It would have been unseemly to
have the children in the same house as Mrs. Fisher.”

I feel disgusted. What a bleak story this
research assignment was turning out to be.

“
How long after Leslie did
the fourth child, Mary, die?”

“
Only three weeks. During
that month, five of the town’s children died. All of them were from
affluent families. They all died from what appeared to be
accidents. No witnesses were ever found, and no one was charged.
Mr. Fisher was the only suspect they had. When he was interviewed,
there were some inconsistencies in his statement. His whereabouts
couldn’t be explained during the death of some of the
children.

“
Every child who died also
had some connections to the Fishers. Some of the families were
friends and some were associates of Mr. Fisher. They were all from
the richer families. Though many believed him guilty, no tangible
evidence was ever found.”

I visibly jump when I hear the dragging
sound start again.

“
They’re back!” I whisper
to Edith.

This time, I mean to see
what is going on. I quietly tiptoe out of the nursery, and into the
small hall. At the end of the hall, the same chair is
there.

“
Those darn kids!” I
mutter.

Dragging marks are visible leading to the
chair. I look for footprints, or a sign that would lead me to the
culprits, but see nothing.

“
Let’s leave the chair
there, and move on to the main bedroom,” says Edith. “If we don’t
play their game, they will get bored and move along.”

Fine plan! In the lavishly decorated
bedroom, I snap dozens of pictures, and secretly wish my bedroom
looked like this.

“
Is this where Mr. Fisher
committed suicide?” I ask Edith.

“
Yes, from this window
over here,” she says, as she leads me to the far wall. “When
questioned, Evelyn stated that Mr. Fisher was drinking wine all
evening, becoming increasingly loud and destructive, breaking
pieces of art and furniture. Three empty wine bottles were found in
this room the next morning. He was an odd sort of fellow, some
said. Many were convinced Chatham had a serial killer, and that it
was Mr. Fisher.”

An entire family dead
within 18 months….
I peer down from the
window. His body would have landed in the middle of the driveway,
for all to see.

“
Were the authorities sure
it was suicide? I mean, he wasn’t pushed?”

“
After the death of the
children and his wife, Mr. Fisher retreated into isolation. He
spent days in the dark, writing and muttering to himself. He left a
letter on his bed before jumping. I have copies if you wish to see
them. After his death, no other children died. Many thought that
was proof enough of his guilt.”

The dragging sound is back, but this time we
ignore it. It stops close by, probably at the entrance of the short
hall to the master bedroom. I snap a few pictures of the window and
of the view. It is quiet in the hall.

“
What about Mrs. Fisher?
How did she die?”

“
It happened right over
there,” she says as she points at the entrance to the nursery. “She
hanged herself in the doorway. She jumped off a chair.”

I feel a warm and tingly feeling throughout
my body. I’m about to reply when I hear a sudden bang, as if
something fell. We leave the master bedroom, to find the chair
lying on its side at the entrance to the short hall.

“
Which chair did Mrs.
Fisher use?” I ask.

Edith stares at the fallen
chair, and colour drains from her face. “I… I believe it was that
one,” she says, her voice trembling. “The chair… was lying on its
side. Evelyn Brylar found her as well. She described it in a letter
to her sister. The chair was on the floor, just like it is
now.”

My mind races for a rational
explanation.

“
It must be a
coincidence,” I assure her. “There are only three other chairs to
choose from, after all.”

I can see Edith is struggling to explain the
incident. She clears her throat and regains some of her
composure.

“
Would you like to see the
outer buildings? There is also the old oak tree at the back of the
property.”

“
I think I’ve seen
everything I needed, Edith. Thank you for the offer, but my paper
will focus mainly on the inside of the mansion,” I say,
deliberately ignoring the chair.