The Girl On Legare Street (29 page)

Avoiding my gaze, my mother smiled brightly at Jack. “Thanks so much, but I need to get back home. But you and Mellie will certainly be able to figure things out without me.”

“You can’t go alone, Mother. I’ll come with you.”

“I’ll call your father. He’ll come.”

I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or not.

She continued. “I’ll be fine. You two go on.”

It was clear she was trying to push me together with Jack, but I was equally sure that he wasn’t too thrilled with the arrangement either.

As if the situation were settled, she returned to her car and opened the driver’s-side door. Before she got in, she said, “One more thing, Mellie.” She paused. “We made the ghost mad today. We showed her that together we’re stronger than she is. She’s going to try even harder now to separate us, to diminish our power. We need to find out who she is soon.”

“Or what?”

She shook her head, the wind loosening the French twist and blowing her hair around her face, making her look vulnerable. “I don’t want to find out.”

She got in her car and with a brief wave, headed out of the drive.

Without a word, Jack opened the passenger-side door and indicated for me to get in. As he slid behind the steering wheel, he sent a glance in my direction. “Glad to see you didn’t come back for more of a sampling of Mr. McGowan’s brandy.” His lips turned up at a memory he apparently didn’t see the need to share with me.

About half an hour outside Ulmer, we pulled into a roadside restaurant advertising fried chicken, fried okra, and fried pie—my three favorite food groups—and settled into a booth in the corner. The restaurant smelled of stale smoke and grease, and an underlying aroma of beer and late nights that emanated from the bar and lit jukebox. I surreptitiously pulled out an antibacterial wipe from my purse and rubbed down the plastic red-and-white-checked tablecloth before pulling out a clean one to wipe my hands and vinyl booth cushion, seemingly held together by short strips of duct tape. I offered a wipe to Jack but he declined with a raised eyebrow and slow shake of his head.

The waitress came and took our orders and then, unnerved by Jack’s pervading silent perusal of me, I pulled out a notepad from my purse. I drew two columns and as many rows as would fit on the page, then began filling in everything I’d learned since my mother first returned to Charleston and told me that I was in danger. Everything I still had questions about I put in the right column. Everything I had answers to I put in the left column. By the time I was finished, I’d run out of room in the right column and I had only two items in the left column: Meredith Prioleau wrote the journal and presumably the same Meredith Prioleau was listed as having lived at Thirty-three Legare Street and was reported as missing following the earthquake of 1886.

I held my pen poised above the pad, then looked up at Jack, wondering why he hadn’t added anything or at least said something annoying. He was still shaking his head.

“What’s the matter?”

His eyes met mine. After a moment he said, “You.”

“Me?”

Again, he contemplated me in silence. “Yeah, I’m wondering what in the hell I’m doing here with you.”

I hid my hurt with a frosty smile. “I assume because Rebecca isn’t returning your phone calls and you didn’t have anybody else to harass. Besides, I thought you were looking for research material for your next book. I know you’d never help me for purely altruistic reasons.” I stared pointedly at him, hoping to remind him of the first time we’d sat in a similar restaurant eating barbecue shrimp while he lied to me and told me he was interested in everything but the diamonds that were hidden in my house.

Jack leaned forward, his eyes flashing, but he seemed to hold himself back from saying what he wanted to—something he might regret. Instead, he signaled for the waitress. “Make our order to go, please.”

The waitress dropped the check on the table and as Jack reached for it, I placed my hand on his arm. “Are you still angry with me for the stupid things I said to you the night of the house tour? I already apologized for that, didn’t I? And I truly am sorry. I thought we were friends again, Jack. Have I done something else to make you mad?”

The waitress reappeared with three grease-stained bags of food and a cardboard container with our two Cokes. Jack took one of the Cokes out and left it on the table before grabbing the bags. “The car only has one cup holder,” he said in explanation before standing and moving toward the door.

I grabbed the remaining drink and followed him outside into a night that smelled of rain.

We drove the entire way back to Charleston in silence, without even the radio. I didn’t dare open one of the bags despite the tantalizing aroma and my grumbling stomach, which I’m sure Jack heard over the roaring of the engine.

The sky opened up with a torrential downpour somewhere between Ruffin and Osborn, precluding me from speaking. I was miserable, wanting him to talk to me but dreading what he might say. I was afraid of him not being in my life anymore, but terrified of what he’d need me to do to keep him there.

My foot began to keep rhythm with the fast pounding of the windshield wipers until Jack put a hand on my leg to get it to stop. His touch was electric, sending little fires through my bloodstream as it traveled up my leg and back—like mercury in a thermometer—before settling somewhere in the pit of my stomach.

He must have felt it, too, because he let go quickly and returned to staring ahead in silence as he drove through the pelting rain.

We pulled up to the curb on Legare Street in front of the house, relief flooding me when I saw that the outdoor lights were on along with the majority of lights inside. I wondered fleetingly if my mother had done that for me, or for herself.

I turned to Jack. “Thanks for the ride. Do you by any chance have an umbrella?”

He turned to me with a slight smile that barely resembled the ones I’d grown so used to that I now missed them. “No. Actually, I don’t. Never figured I’d melt.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” I said under my breath. I thought of my hair, my suede jacket, and my Kate Spade pumps and frowned. Eyeing the large paper bags with the now-cold fried food, I said, “I don’t suppose you’d let me take the food out and use the bags for cover.”

He was looking at me with an odd light in his eyes. His voice was so soft that it was hard to hear over the splatting of rain against the car roof. “Go ahead and get wet, Mellie. Do something unscheduled and unexpected for a change.”

“If you’d just let me use one of those bags . . .”

He didn’t let me finish my sentence. Instead he took my head in his hands and crushed his lips to mine. I was so shocked at first that I didn’t move. And then I felt his hands in my hair, and the roughness of his chin, and the way his lips fit mine as if they were supposed to be together. I closed my eyes and I think I sighed as I pressed back and gave in to the fire that had begun to lick at the base of my spine.

I jerked back, suddenly remembering whom I was with, and who I was, and that I had a reason for not kissing Jack but with only a fuzzy recollection as to exactly what that might be. Panicking, I grabbed the door handle and hurtled out into the pouring rain, slamming the door before running for the front gate. I managed to unlatch it and had reached the top step before Jack caught up to me.

He pulled me into his arms and pressed me against the front door so that I felt the entire hard length of his body against mine, and I shivered despite the heat that seemed to resonate through every limb. Those same limbs no longer seemed able to support me, and I reached my arms around Jack’s neck, allowing him to press me into the door so I wouldn’t fall.

His lips were hard and insistent and I found myself opening to him, losing myself in the strength and warmth that was Jack. I closed my eyes, tasting rain and skin and Jack, seeing behind my eyelids a kaleidoscope of colors I hadn’t known existed.

Then, inexplicably, he stopped and pulled back, his eyes dark and unreadable. We were both breathing heavily and I was perilously close to asking him to do it again.

“And that, Melanie Middleton, wasn’t an almost kiss.That was the real thing.” He turned the doorknob, and pushed open the door, revealing Sophie, Chad, and both of my parents standing in the foyer—suddenly trying to pretend they’d been doing anything other than listening.

Like Rhett Butler dumping Scarlett O’Hara at Ashley’s birthday party, Jack made a formal bow—which managed not to look ridiculous even though he was dripping wet—said his good-byes, and left without another word.

I woke up hearing someone calling my name, the smell of gunpowder, and the sound of clinking metal floating in the air like an afterthought.

“Wilhelm?” I called out softly.

My door crept open as an icy finger of air stole into the room.

I slid out of bed, careful not to disturb General Lee, and walked out into the hallway, my sock-clad feet padding softly on the wooden floor.

I saw a shimmer of light at the bottom of the stairs, and paused as I watched Wilhelm’s progression toward the kitchen. I ducked back into my room to retrieve the flashlight I now kept on my nightstand and then, without giving myself time to rethink my actions, I hurried down the stairs, following him into the darkened kitchen.

“Wilhelm?” I shivered, the pervading chill in the room permeating the flannel of my nightgown. I turned my flashlight on and scanned the kitchen, taking in the closed door to the back staircase and the gaping hole behind the fireplace.

Cautiously, I moved forward, shining my flashlight into the secret room. I caught a flash of curling gold hair under a Hessian’s tricorn hat, then climbed into the fireplace and through the small opening, shining my flashlight on the beamed ceiling on the carved words.

“Gefangener des Herzens,”
I said. I looked sideways at Wilhelm and saw that he was smiling. “What’s so funny?’

Your accent. It is really quite bad
.

I almost made the mistake of looking directly at him, but managed to sigh heavily. “Prisoner of the heart,” I said. “What does it mean?”

That is not why I brought you in here.

I kept my eyes focused on the beam. “Then why? I’ve already looked in the chest. It’s empty.”

You have not looked everywhere.

“I don’t know what you mean. Where haven’t I looked?”

He walked slowly to the corner of the room, his boots thudding softly against the dirt floor.
Here.You have not looked here.

I moved my flashlight to the corner, the light shining through him, and illuminating nothing but brick wall and dirt floor. “There’s nothing there,” I said, feeling impatient.

Look harder.

I stepped closer, moving the flashlight in an arc, catching more of the bricks and dirt and his shiny black boots but nothing else. Frustrated, I repeated, “There’s nothing here.”

“Wilhelm.”

I moved the flashlight back to the opening, watching as my mother crawled through it. From the corner of my eye, I spotted the soldier placing his hat against his chest and bowing.
Ginnette.

She came to stand next to me. “Did you ask him what he meant by ‘prisoner of the heart’?” Her warm hand found mine and I realized she wasn’t wearing her gloves. In unison we both turned toward him and for the first time in my life, I saw him in solid form; I could see the blue of his eyes and the pink, ridged scar on his temple. I could even see the repaired hole on his jacket sleeve and the cleft in his chin. My mother squeezed my hand and I knew she noticed, too.

Our gazes met and he seemed as surprised as me that he was still there. And then he looked at my mother and his expression softened.
It has been too long.

A soft smile illuminated her face. “Tell us, Wilhelm. Why are you a prisoner of the heart?”

I cannot tell you. It is my shame.

I stepped toward him, still holding my mother’s hand. “We could never pass judgment on you. You’re our protector, and you’ve saved me more than once. I can only feel gratitude toward you.”

Because you do not know.

“What was her name?” my mother asked. “The girl who held your heart captive.”

Look harder. In the corner.

“We will. But first we need to know her name.”

I could feel his spirit wanting to leave, but my mother and I held him in place, unwilling to let him go until we had an answer.

“Tell us her name, Wilhelm. Is it the girl who wrote the journal?”

He smiled.
Meredith. No. It was not Meredith. I saved her when she was a baby.

“Then who was she?” I asked.

“If you tell us, we can help you find forgiveness. Help you move on from this place,” my mother added.

His eyes emptied of light.
I am destined to protect the women in your family. Meredith showed me how. And now it is my penance.

“For what?” I asked.

His sigh echoed in the cold, empty room, settling in our ears and our hearts.
For my betrayal. For allowing her to die.

“How did she die?” I asked.

She drowned. I did not know she was on the ship. I did not know to save her.

“Who?” My mother’s voice was barely a whisper.

Catherine.

We exchanged glances and when we looked back at Wilhelm, he was gone.

“Who is Catherine?” Ginnette asked.

I closed my eyes, trying to see the Prioleau family tree in my mind, knowing that Catherine was one of the names on the earlier part of the tree. I’d studied it so many times that I nearly had it memorized. “She was Joshua’s daughter. I remember her because she died so young, nineteen or twenty, I think. And also because it was on my birthday, July fifteenth. She lived here right after the Prioleaus purchased the house in 1781. Right around the time the British troops abandoned the city, which lends credence to Rebecca’s assumption that Wilhelm chose to stay behind in Charleston. Maybe he was in love with Catherine and he willingly remained for her.”

“He wouldn’t have been a prisoner if he stayed here willingly. Maybe Wilhelm was here in secret and her father found out, or he knew all along, and forced Wilhelm to stay as an unpaid worker in return for keeping him hidden, and for room and board. And Wilhelm did it, but only because he loved Catherine.”

“But she died. Because of him,” I said slowly. “She was on a ship that sank, and he was there but didn’t save her because he didn’t know she was on it.”
They were wreckers, Mellie. Your illustrious ancestors started out as wreckers.
Jack’s words taunted me, but I couldn’t—wouldn’t—jump to conclusions without some kind of proof.

Our gazes met for a moment and I watched as her eyes widened. “We both saw him, and he was solid. He was stronger and we were giving him that strength because we were together and wanting him here. We’re an amazing team, Mellie.”

Before I could decide if I agreed or should resent what she said, she tugged on my hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

“To where?”

“To turn on the lights. I don’t want to be stuck in here in the dark just in case you know who decides to pay us a visit. I doubt that she will because we’re both here, but I’d like to be safe. I don’t think Wilhelm would be able to return so soon; it would have taken most of his strength to appear that solid for as long as he did.”

She stopped to allow me to exit through the opening first, then followed me. I waited with my eyes focused on the closed door leading to the back stairs until she flipped on the light. Our gazes locked again. “How did you know I was down here?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Mother’s intuition, I suppose. I awoke and knew somehow that you weren’t in your room. I went downstairs and followed the sound of your voice.”

As she spoke, I looked around at the mess in the kitchen, the workers’ tools strewn over the floor as they awaited my decision as to what to do next. My gaze rested on a shovel that lay on the floor with the pile of removed bricks.

I walked over to it and picked it up. “We need to go back in there.”

“What for?”

“Wilhelm keeps telling me that there’s something in that room. And tonight, when he first brought me in there, before we asked him about Catherine, he told me that I need to look harder. He kept indicating the far right corner. Maybe there’s something buried under the dirt.”

Ginnette pursed her lips, unsure. “Can we wait until daylight?”

“Could you sleep knowing that a possible answer to the thousands of questions we keep asking ourselves is just as far as a quick dig in the floor?”

She took a deep breath. “You’re right.” She moved toward the opening and flipped on her flashlight. “I’ll hold the light while you dig.”

For the second time that night, I climbed through the opening. While my mother held the flashlight, I began digging in the hard, compacted earth. It was made more difficult by the fact that I couldn’t stand completely upright, and by the back pain I experienced from the first jarring blow of trying to dig the shovel vertically into hard ground.

Getting the hang of it, I began to scrape the ground with the shovel, lifting off one thin layer of dirt at a time. My mother suggested calling Jack for help, but my reaction was the same as hers when I suggested we call my father instead. So I slowly dug a shallow hole in the corner of the hidden room until my neck and lower back were nearly numb.

I was unaware of the passage of time, but when I didn’t think I could take one more pass at the impacted earth, the tip of the shovel nicked something solid. I glanced at the glare of light behind which I knew my mother watched. “Come closer and shine it down here.”

She did as I asked and we both knelt on the cold dirt, staring down at whatever it was that I’d hit.

“It looks like bone china. Maybe a handle of some sort.”

I nodded. “I was about to say the same thing. But I’m afraid I’ll break it if I continue digging it out with the shovel.” I sat back on my haunches, dropping the shovel and rubbing my face. “I’m going to go grab one of the hammers and one of your grapefruit spoons. I can use the claw back of the hammer to dig around the perimeter of the china piece, while you use the grapefruit spoon for the close-up work.”

She frowned. “Sophie was just telling me how valuable the family silver I found in the attic is. I wonder what she’d say.”

“I wasn’t planning on telling her,” I said, raising my eyebrows meaningfully. Standing again, but remembering to keep my neck bent, I said, “I’ll be right back.”

My mother stood at the opening waiting for me to grab the items, and then we returned to the shallow hole in the corner. We placed both of our flashlights on the ground, their beams illuminating our workspace. We worked for almost an hour, digging out a spoonful at a time, uncovering a delicate china teacup. By the time we realized we’d loosened the dirt around it enough to be able to pull it out from its prison, our anticipation was almost palpable.

Sinking back on my haunches, I turned to my mother. “I suppose you don’t want to be the one to touch it first.”

She shook her head. “Not yet, anyway.”

I nodded, then slowly sank both of my hands into the shallow hole and lifted out the blue-and-white china teacup. Looking over our discovery to my mother, I smiled. “It’s intact. I think it might be Delft.”

She leaned over to see it better. “Hold it down here, Mellie, so I can shine my flashlight into the bottom. I think there’s something written on the inside of the cup.”

I lowered the cup so that it rested on the ground, but kept my hands on it to steady it. Our heads nearly touched as she shone the arc of light into the cup, allowing us to see the bottom.

An imprint of an old-fashioned triple-masted schooner, once used as fast-moving cargo ships, filled the bottom of the cup. Printed in a semicircle under the picture of the ship were the words “Ida Belle.”

Our gazes met over the cup. “What do you think this means?” I asked.

“All I can say for sure is that this was most likely from a china set made for and probably used aboard a ship called the
Ida Belle
. And it means something to Wilhelm, and he wants us to know what it is.” She paused for a moment. “We can summon him, Mellie. And ask him.”

I shook my head. “He’ll fight it. He’s ashamed to tell us, but he’s given us enough clues to figure it out ourselves. And it will take too much of our strength to summon him now.”

“You feel it, too?”

I nodded. “Ever since we started digging, I feel as if she’s been watching us, feeding us hatred. She’s waiting. Waiting to make her move. We need to be ready.”

“Yes.” I watched as a shudder racked her body. “It’s cold in here. Let’s take the teacup and get some sleep. I’ll leave the connected door open between our rooms.”

She didn’t ask or make it a suggestion, because she seemed to know that I’d want it opened just as much as I would be too embarrassed to acknowledge it. “All right,” I said, walking past her with the teacup held gingerly in my hands. “If it makes you feel better.”

She didn’t say anything but I thought I saw her smile as I stepped through the opening into the kitchen, feeling her close behind me.

The doorbell rang the next morning around eight o’clock. I’d already been up and dressed, organized my closet, and done an unsuccessful Internet search for the
Ida Belle
, so I rushed down the stairs to reach the door before it awakened my mother.

My father stood on the front step with a bouquet of pink roses and something else tucked under his arm. “Good morning, Melanie. I brought something for you, and I figured I should bring something for your mother, too.”