The majority of people invited to this house had undoubtedly been powerful politicians, millionaire entrepreneurs, and the darlings of society. Most of these honored guests had probably been dead for close to a hundred years now it suddenly occurred to me. The stillness of the room and lonely space before me seemed only to confirm this suspicion.
Some of the gentlemen who had dined and socialized here may well have been Civil War Veterans…
Somehow it almost seemed as if a person could still detect the faint aroma of exotic perfumes lingering within the air accompanied by the faint echos of evening laughter amidst courtship, young and old alike. I tried to envision my wife, attired in a flowing Victorian dress as we danced upon the floor now before me. My wife could have easily mixed within the crowd here, with social grace to spare….Somehow I didn’t believe that a truck driver from Alaska would have ever made the cut though. Yet again, here I was in tandem with the most beautiful woman in the world beside me…
I looked toward the large and elegant double sweeping staircases again.
Above the huge marble hearth which stood at the foot of both staircases, I now noticed a large oval-shaped, “Tintype portraiture” of an extremely beautiful girl with what looked like auburn hair. The girl, probably not much more than twenty years of age, was strikingly beautiful and wearing a formal dress elaborately decored with flowers. Brass buttons were fastened neatly to her neck and she appeared to be holding a bouquet of roses against her breasts. I also noticed a tintype pendant in the shape of a heart fastened around her neck. The pendant appeared to bear the portrait of a bearded man.
The girl held no trace of a smile and her large dark eyes seemed to bore right through the lens of the photographer’s camera. The over-size tintype was probably well over a hundred years old and the image of the girl within had a seemingly chilling effect upon the entire room.
Who could she have possibly been, I wondered?
– Jumping now, I was suddenly startled by the mad fluttering of wings and then the deep sounding bing-bong of a bell as several pigeons wildly took flight, some flying above my head as they flew out the open doorway where I stood. I quickly glanced to my left as I now observed Helen, still standing outside the doorway, as she pulled down on a large bronze lever which was obviously the doorbell. The deep bell sounded once more as Helen, again, pulled the large lever downward. Andrea and Kendall were now standing beside me, I noticed. Looking upward at the doorbell mechanism, from inside the house, I realized that the birds which had startled me had probably been nested within the doorbell itself, which was thirty feet above the dusty floor.
It suddenly dawned on me that, unlike other mansions which I’d seen on YouTube, there was no graffiti anywhere, there was no vandalism, and no trace of pilferage. It also didn’t look like a whole hoard of rockstar groupies had torn the place apart at any time either, which was strange because Danny Wickersham had been a real party animal during his younger days, I’d been told by Andrea and Helen.
“…THIS… was Danny’s pad, really?” I quietly asked Andrea incredulously.
“Apparently so, I knew nothing about this place, Tim” Andrea answered.
“This place is an unbelievable time capsule” I marveled.
“It’s incredible” Andrea affirmed.
In looking at the house, thus far, it was almost as if the occupants of the mansion had just one day failed to return home or simply walked out the front door and left everything behind, never to return. The heavily guarded oilfield property had obviously protected the house from all the would-be vandals and thieves for many decades now. The house also still seemed to be completely intact and sealed from the outside elements, giving testament to its superior construction and design.
Looking to my left, I could see a small square set of white tiles where a doorman would have once stood in anticipation of honored guests. The doorman had probably stood there for hours on end, tirelessly welcoming snobbish and influential guests that had rudely shoved their coats and hats at him with nothing more than a grunt or stoic nod in return for his efforts. A thankless job by anyone’s standards.
“…My, God, just look at this place,” Andrea said quietly in awe.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” Helen said, in awe herself now and roughly wedging herself between Andrea and me.
…Helen was wearing an “After-rain scent” perfume I noticed subconsciously.
“It wouldn’t appear that we’re in Texas either but we are,” Andrea said, gaping all around us.
“No cowboys in this place,” Kendall said.
“This place looks more like a Victorian castle during mid-century Europe,” Helen said.
“Who is that?” I asked Kendall; while nodding my head toward the large tintype above the hearth.
I suddenly realized that I’d been standing transfixed within the same spot, just inside the doorway, for three or four solid minutes now.
“Huh?” Kendall asked, slightly distracted herself by the room’s size and grandeur.
“Who’s the girl in the portrait?” Helen repeated my question.
“…No idea, whatsoever, but she scares the hell out of me already. She’s probably been dead for over three-quarters of a century or longer now which creeps me out even more,” Kendall said, shaking her head and glancing at the girl in the tintype.
Walking the sixty yards over to the huge hearth and looking upward at the girl I now realized that she had been a woman possessing a rare and natural beauty with large mystical dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a heart-shaped face. Her long thick blonde hair was parted in the middle and cascaded wildly downward in what appeared to be natural curls, she may well have been a strawberry blonde but it was hard to tell in the dust-covered black and white image. She had been an extremely delicate and petite woman, probably standing no more than five feet in height, I assumed from the small build and width of shoulders.
…Kendall was right though, the girl in the oversize tintype did scare the hell out of anyone looking at the portraiture. I now noticed scrolled gold leaf surrounding the oval of the concave tintype itself. Even the marble hearth and backboard on which the tintype had been permanently mounted were ornately decorated with masterful hand-carved scrolling vines and flowers. There was no engraved date or any other description associated with the portraiture.
“Obviously, the lady of the house. I wish she had smiled in the portrait,” I said looking upward at the spooky image.
“She may have had bad teeth which weren’t uncommon during the Victorian era,” Helen said roughly, now standing beside me and peering up at the tintype.
…I speculated that Helen was simply jealous of the girl’s divine beauty but I wisely remained silent and kept this speculation to myself…
“Judging by her clothes, what year do you think the photo was taken in, Helen?” Andrea asked; as she took my arm.