The Strangers on Montagu Street (31 page)

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Authors: Karen White

Tags: #Romance, #Psychological, #Contemporary, #Fiction

BOOK: The Strangers on Montagu Street
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General Lee raced around the corner, his friend in hot pursuit, before making an abrupt turn and pouncing on the spectral dog, tumbling with him in a large ball of fur.
The teenage daughter I’d spotted before looked over with interest. I just smiled, trying to figure out what she thought she was seeing.
Small tremors erupted in the earth beneath my feet, the soil crumbling as it was sucked downward. I looked around, suddenly remembering the devastating earthquake of 1886. But nothing else seemed to be moving. I glanced down at my shoes and saw them sinking, the shifting earth already covering the toes.
I cried out, trying to lift my feet, but they seemed glued to the dark, crumbling earth, as if something from beneath the soil held on tightly. Emanating as a small stain at the base of the mausoleum, a dark shadow stretched and grew, spreading like black ink up the brick wall, undulating like a cobra under a flute’s spell. My feet remained immobile as my skin chilled, the sun suddenly disappearing behind a thick cloud.
Go away!
The voice boomed in my ear, and I turned to the mother and daughter to see whether they’d heard it, too. But they remained focused on the grave in front of them, the daughter snapping photos as the mother jotted down something in a notebook, both seemingly unaware that the earth had begun to open and something vile and dark had found me.
“I am stronger than you,” I tried to shout, but the words were barely louder than a whisper. “I am stronger than you,” I said, loud enough this time that the mother and daughter turned in my direction. The flash of the camera had the dual effect of creating moving balls of light inside my field of vision as well as releasing my feet from the hold of whatever had imprisoned them.
“Are you all right?” the mother asked, pulling me up from where I’d apparently been kneeling in the dirt.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine,” I said, brushing off my knees. I looked down at the carved groove in the grassy dirt. “I guess I didn’t see the little dip here.”
They both looked at me as if waiting for me to explain whom I’d been speaking to. I was saved by the appearance of General Lee, who bounded from around the corner and ran straight toward me. I grabbed his leash even though he showed no further inclination to bolt.
The girl was staring at the photo she’d taken, waiting for the image to form.
“Thank you,” I said, more than ready to leave. General Lee had other ideas as he sat and stared up at my would-be rescuers.
“What a cute dog,” the mother said, bending down to scratch him behind the ears. “What kind is he?”
Resigned to stay for a few more minutes, I said, “I sort of inherited him, so I’m not positive, but other people have said he’s at least half Havanese—one of those nonshedding dogs. Not sure what the other half is.”
“He’s just adorable. And so sweet, too.”
“Mom! I think I see a shadow. And a face!” the girl said, her voice rising with excitement.
I tugged on the leash. “Come on, General Lee. Let’s go.”
The girl thrust the photo at me. “Look! Do you see the eyes and the mouth? It’s definitely a face. And it looks like he’s leaning down to you to say something in your ear.”
Reluctantly, I looked at the photograph. It was, indeed, a face, and one I recognized as the man I’d seen in the turret in the house on Montagu Street. I forced my voice to sound normal. “It’s more like a blob to me, but I guess with a little imagination I suppose it could be made out to be a face.”
They both looked at me with identical puckered frowns, as if not sure whether I was dim-witted or just blind. “I’ve got to go now. Thanks again.” Not wanting to get into a power struggle with my dog, I reached down and picked him up, tucking him under my arm like a furry football, and walked quickly out of the cemetery gates.
I looked back once, wondering whether they’d also seen the clear form of a woman with long light-colored hair whose hazy figure could be seen standing between me and the dark shadow. I’d felt her presence, I recalled now, before the girl and her mother had appeared, and had felt the calming presence as if my own mother had stood beside me waiting to do battle for me.
I set down the dog and sped up my pace, eager to put as much distance as I could between me and the cemetery, and wondering the whole time why Bonnie had been there, and why the haunting melody of a song I’d never heard before reverberated in the air around me.
CHAPTER 19
 
I
hurried up the stairs of the Fireproof Building on Meeting Street, where the library for the South Carolina Historical Society was located. Nola clomped up the stairs behind me, her slow pace indicative of her lack of enthusiasm about our errand. But it had been nearly two weeks since I’d seen or spoken to Jack, so out of desperation I’d finally taken matters into my own hands and volunteered to drive Nola to Jack’s loft for their twice-weekly visit instead of letting her walk. I had an appointment with Yvonne Craig first to find out whether she’d been able to discover anything about the Manigault family, and hopefully to glean information on Jack.
We ascended the circular stone staircase and found Yvonne in one of the book-filled rooms, seated at an oval dark wood table with several stacks of books and notepads on the table beside her. She glanced at her watch as we approached, a broad smile on her face. “Five minutes early to the second. I beat Jack by two minutes.”
I stopped in front of the table. “What do you mean, you ‘beat Jack’?”
“We’ve a running bet to see how early you’re going to be for each appointment. If I win, I get a red velvet cupcake from Cupcake on King. If Jack wins, I have to buy him a handmade cigar from Lianos Dos Palmas.”
I frowned for a moment before remembering my manners. “Yvonne, I’d like you to meet Jack’s daughter, Nola. Nola, this is Mrs. Craig, a good friend of your father’s.”
Yvonne’s smile brightened as she stood, her cheeks matching her pale pink twinset, a strand of pearls mixing with the beaded chain that held her reading glasses around her neck. She wore a round button pinned to her sweater that read, LIBRARIANS: THE ORIGINAL SEARCH ENGINE. “Oh, yes. Jack has told me all about you. From the way he talks, I expected you to be floating ten inches off the ground and glowing with light.” She beamed as she held out her hands to Nola. “My goodness, but aren’t you the spitting image of your father! Won’t he have a time of it, turning all of those boys away when you’re a little older.” She winked at me before turning back to Nola. “Lovely name, by the way. Very unusual. My parents used to call me Nola when I was a little girl as a kind of nickname. Could never figure out where they got ‘Nola’ from ‘Yvonne.’”
I watched Nola’s face register surprise, and then turn bright pink as she tried to suppress a laugh. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Craig,” she finally managed.
“I like your pin, Yvonne.”
Sitting down again, she touched the pin reverently and looked up at us, smiling. “Jack gave it to me.”
I raised my eyebrows expectantly. “He’s been here?”
Her face fell. “Not recently, no. He did stop by several weeks ago to ask a few questions about the Manigaults, but it wasn’t for his next book. I’ve been waiting for him to come in again with his long list of questions and theories—as soon as he’s through with one book he’s usually ready to start researching the next.”
I sat down next to Yvonne as Nola took a seat across the table and immediately took out her phone and began texting. I was glad that Alston had introduced her to some of her friends and Ashley Hall schoolmates, but the incessant texting was nothing short of irritating. I sent her “the look” and she immediately muted the sound of the clacking keys. I was surprised that nobody had yet to be killed by somebody annoyed enough by that clicky little sound that reminded me too much of Chinese water torture.
Turning to Yvonne, I said, “He’s taking a little break right now between projects. I’m sure he’ll be back in the saddle in no time.” I sent her a reassuring smile.
Lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, she said, “I know he wanted to write that book about your family being wreckers and all of that business with the sunken ship and skeleton they found out in the harbor. Maybe he’s working on that, since he already has everything he needs to write it.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “He, um, he told you that?”
She shook her head. “Not exactly. But when he was here a while back with that Rebecca person, she kept telling him what a good book it would make. As much as I hate to agree with her, she’s right. Of course, it’s your family and your personal history. Don’t know how much you want the rest of the world to know about it.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
I wasn’t sure whether Yvonne knew the entire story of how my ancestor had swapped places with Rose Prioleau and assumed her identity, a secret that was still unknown to everyone except for my parents, Jack, and me. And Rebecca. A book detailing all the sordid particulars of how the real Rose Prioleau’s body found itself at the bottom of Charleston Harbor would be devastating at best, and humiliating at worst, to not just me, but to my entire family.
I placed my hands flat on the scarred wood surface of the table and forced a smile. “Yes, well, he hasn’t mentioned anything to me. So,” I said, eager to change the subject, “what have you been able to discover about Julia Manigault’s family?”
Yvonne began taking folders out of a box on the table, each one labeled with brightly colored Post-it notes. “Quite a bit, actually. A very prominent family, as you probably know, but not closely related to the Manigaults in your own family tree.”
“That’s a relief.”
She looked up and paused, as if waiting for me to elaborate, before turning back to sorting the folders when I didn’t. “At your request, I didn’t delve any farther back than Harold and Anne, although there is a lot of information dating back to much earlier, of course. The first Manigaults were Huguenots, but you’re not interested in all that.” I sensed a note of disappointment in her voice.
She opened a folder and slid it over to me. “I took the liberty of photocopying several newspaper clippings and articles referencing the family.”
Yvonne had already organized everything in chronological order, with pertinent facts highlighted in pale blue. I made a mental note to send her a box of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting from Cupcake, and/or my firstborn. The woman was amazing, and so much like me, at least in the organizational category, it was almost scary.
A pink-tipped finger pointed at one of the pages. “Harold was born by the coast in Georgetown County on the family’s old rice plantation on the Santee River—Belle Meade—but was the youngest of three sons. Went to USC in Columbia, then to Charleston for medical school. Inherited a great deal of money when his father died, invested it in railroads and property, and was a wealthy man by the time he married Anne Ward of Florence, South Carolina. Built her that house on Montagu Street as a wedding present.”
Nola paused in her texting. “She got a
house
for a wedding present?”
Yvonne nodded. “Yes, dear. That was something wealthy people did back then. Sometimes it was a way to keep property in a family, and sometimes it was just to sweeten the deal, as they would say nowadays.”
Nola raised her eyebrows, then went back to her texting.
“What about William? Did you find out anything about him?”
With a patient smile, Yvonne slid a photocopied clipping from the stack inside the folder. A grainy and yellowed photograph of a young man with blond hair and a slender build circa the mid-thirties stared out of the photograph. I felt Nola lean across the table. “That’s him, Mellie. That’s the boy doll.”
I nodded, half with acknowledgment and half with relief that it wasn’t the face I’d seen in the window. I turned to Yvonne to explain. “Amelia Trenholm, Jack’s mother, gave Nola a dollhouse and it appears to have been made for and given to Julia Manigault for her birthday when she was ten. It’s an exact replica of the house on Montagu Street, and came with dolls resembling family members, including the family dog.”
Her brow puckered. “A dollhouse? That doesn’t sound right.” She pulled the folder closer to her and began paging through it, finally pulling several pages out and sliding them in front of me. “Julia Manigault was an avid equestrian. She competed against boys her age in boys-only events and usually won. She was also an expert marksman and accompanied her uncle and cousins on hunts, even at an early age.”
I visually scanned the pages, examining the numerous pictures of a younger Julia astride a horse or holding a shotgun or a dead bird, and some of all three. I looked up and met Yvonne’s eyes. “She was a tomboy.”
“Exactly. There’s even an article in there about how she wasn’t allowed to make her debut at St. Cecilia’s because she’d been seen wearing trousers in public. Apparently, young Julia was raised at her uncle’s plantation with his five sons. Her mother was what they used to term ‘delicate,’ which now probably would just mean she needed a little Valium to cope with life. Julia wasn’t brought back to Charleston until she was about ten.”
“So why would her father have given her a dollhouse if that’s obviously not where her interests lie?”

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