The Book of James (27 page)

Avenue, which ran through the middle of town. Samantha fol-

lowed behind me, although she voiced her objections loudly.

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ELLEN J. GREEN

When we reached the front door, I turned to her. “Hey, Sam,

if you real y want to go shopping, it’s okay. There’s tons of stores—

just meet me back here in an hour?”

Her face brightened. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“No. You’d only distract me. I have a lot of questions, and I

know you’d be bored to death. Just make sure you’re back here in

an hour, because I want to go get lunch.”

“I promise.” She started to turn and leave.

“Oh, wait.” I reached in my purse and handed her the letters

from Nick’s father that I’d taken from the box. “Look at these

for me and tell me what you think. See if you can read anything

between the lines that I didn’t? I’ve read them over and over, but I want your eyes.”

She took them from me. “Right now? You want me to read

them right now?”

I laughed. “No, right now you’re going shopping. Later on is

fine.”“’Kay.” She shoved them in her purse and scampered away.

The building, which was real y an old house, was nearly empty.

Neatly folded pamphlets were displayed for perusal. I picked one up and looked at it. All sorts of information about the Revolutionary War, the history of Chestnut Hil , the evolution of the community.

I saw a few old photographs of houses, but I didn’t see Cora’s house anywhere in the literature.

I looked around for a staff person but didn’t see anyone. I

walked from room to room, checking out the exhibits. Final y, a

woman came out from one of the back rooms. She looked to be in

her early seventies, with skin the color of black coffee. She walked slightly bent over. Her hair was whitish-gray and was curled neatly around her head. Her gold wire-rimmed glasses sat on the end of

her nose. She smiled at me, and I noticed she had very few wrin-

kles on her face, just laugh lines and a few crow’s-feet. I smiled back.

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“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Yes. I’m looking for some very specific information on a

house in this area. The Monroe mansion?”

She interlaced her fingers in front of her. “What would you like

to know?” Her voice was cracked and frail.

“Do you have any old pictures of it, or a layout?”

“We have some albums in the back that aren’t out. Let me go

look. Have a seat.” She motioned to a table in the corner. I took a seat in a stuffed chair nearby and waited. I read the same pamphlet four times before she came out carrying a big book in her arms.

I jumped up and took it from her. She pulled the other chair up

to mine and sat down and began to thumb through the pictures.

“That house is the only one in Chestnut Hill that’s still owned

by the same family that built it.” Her stiff fingers moved slowly through the book in her lap. “And it has a history to it. I’ll tell you.”

“A history?”

Her eyes stopped perusing the book and focused on mine.

“Yes. It was built in 1837 by Nathan Monroe. The Monroes were

one of the most prominent families in the area. They had some

big parties there at that house—the social events of the year. Some say even President Tyler himself visited there when he was in

Philadelphia.”

She tapped her finger against the page. “Nathan Monroe was a

good man. He helped many a slave reach freedom by giving them

a place to stay on their way up north. I’ve never been in the house myself, but they say there are tunnels underneath that were used

to hide those slaves. It’s a shame that Mrs. Whitfield won’t allow us to open it up from time to time and let people see it. She’s the one that owns it now.”

She was silent for a moment. “Nathan Monroe had a son the

year before the house was built, name was Jonathan.” She hesitated.

“Are you sure you want to hear all this?”

“Yes, very much.”

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“Wel , stop me if I go on too long. Some say Jonathan wasn’t

right, but he inherited everything when his father died in 1857. He was only twenty years old. Knew nothing about business. Spent

a lot of money, but didn’t know how to make it. Had big parties,

drank too much. His mother tried to stop him, but women in

those days were beholden to whoever held all the money. Wel ,

by then the war was brewing, and Jonathan had spent a good deal

of money and was looking for a way to make more.” She leaned

in toward me. “Not all of what I’m telling you is known fact. It’s just the stories handed down.” I nodded. “Some say he was in a

fix. He’d been allowing the abolitionists to use the house the way they always had when his father was alive, although I don’t think he real y cared about it one way or the other. So, when he’d spent up all the money he’d gotten from his father, he did what he could to make some more.”

“And what was that?”

“Slaves coming from the South only moved in groups of three

or four. It was dangerous. And they were worth some good money,

reward money, if they were turned in.” I closed my eyes. I had a

feeling I knew where this story was going. “Jonathan Monroe got

lucky. There was some bad weather during the winter of ’60. A

group of fourteen adults and six children holed up in his tunnels, waiting to move on to New York. He turned them all in.”

Her eyes were sad, and I wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t start

to cry. “Collected almost seven thousand dol ars off the backs

of those people. They were all sent back down south. Seven

thousand dol ars was a fortune in those days. So he had drink-

ing money for a while longer.” She clasped her hands in her lap.

“Some say the abolitionists took revenge. You see, they weren’t al the peace-loving people that we think of today. The Quakers gave

them that reputation. But there were others, John Brown and the

like, who weren’t above using any tactic for the cause, and they

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didn’t like what Jonathan Monroe did one little bit.” She sighed

and sat back. “So they set the house on fire.”

“They burned the house down?”

She shook her head. “Wel , they tried, but only a section in

back burned. It was caught in time, put out before it spread too

much. If it were wood instead of stone, the whole thing might have gone. Jonathan didn’t have the money to fix it, so it stayed that way for another . . . oh, hundred years or so. A symbol of his acts, right out there for everyone to see and talk about.”

“A hundred years?”

She nodded. “More. Didn’t get fixed until the 1980s.”

Cora had told me she’d redone the guest room. She didn’t tell

me it had almost burned down.

“Jonathan’s granddaughter final y fixed it. Now, some say

it wasn’t the abolitionists that burned the place at al . Some say that the night Jonathan Monroe sold those slaves back to the

Southerners, a curse was put on the family by a . . .” She looked at me. “Wel , it’s sil y real y. Curses and such, and I don’t believe it. But bad things have happened to that family ever since. So it makes you wonder.”

“What bad things?”

“The fire. Jonathan ended up dying broke. He only had one

child, when he was in his sixties. People didn’t think he’d ever have any children at al . His son—ah, what was his name? Edward—was

born around the turn of the century. Jonathan left him nothing

but the house and shame. Edward grew up angry at the world. A

miserable man. No more parties took place in that house, I can

tell you. He was a miser. Shut up most of the house, saved every

penny. Scraped and scratched, determined to make back the fam-

ily fortune. And he did. Bartered a piece of land from another

man who owed him. Some scrappy acres near Scranton. No one

saw the sense in wantin’ that till he sold the mineral rights to the Lackawanna Coal Company. Had a steady bit of money coming

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ELLEN J. GREEN

in from that. He and another fellow, Whitfield, invested in copper mines out west, iron ores, and then the stock market. Dumped his

stocks right before the market crashed.” She stopped and took a

breath. “The two of them were both the same. Good businessmen

and smart.”

It had to be Cora’s father she was talking about. My interest

was piqued.

“But let me get back to what I was saying. Edward Monroe took

a wife in the forties and wanted children. Lost both his wife and second child in childbirth after the war. He married his daughter off to Whitfield’s son. Kept the money all together, you know.” She started looking through the pictures again as she talked. “But the curse struck again.”

“How so?”

“Wel , they say that Edward’s daughter is odd. I’ve never met

her. She never goes out, won’t let the community anywhere near

the house. And then there’s what happened to the child . . .”

I shook myself and looked at her. “What are you talking

about?”

“A little boy disappeared from behind those gates. In the

spring of . . .” She was deep in thought, and then she looked up and shrugged. “Can’t remember the exact date. People were all abuzz.

It wasn’t well publicized at first. The family wanted it quiet. But eventual y it hit the papers.”

I sat up straight. “Her child? Or someone else’s? And how

young?”

She pressed her fingertips to her forehead, trying to access

information in the back of her brain. Then she looked up. “I’m not sure. The story always was that it was a youngster that vanished. A small one. I’m much better at the older history. I grew up here and knew just about everything, but I moved away for thirty years, so my facts might have slipped up. But you can find out. Go look it up in the papers at the library.”

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“I wouldn’t even know what date to start with,” I muttered.

She scratched her head, thinking hard. “It was after I left, but

before my sister died, so I’d say in the mideighties. Start there, and when you find out, come back and tell me.”

I nodded. “And what exactly was the curse they say was put on

the house? I’m just curious.”

I felt her parchment-like hand on mine. “That something bad

would happen to every generation that grew up in that house. And

it has.”

“Who put this curse on the house?”

She patted my hand. “It’s just a story. People talk and make

these things up. Here, you can look through this if you want.” She handed me the book and stood up. “I’m going to the back to take

care of a few things. Now if you find out anything, you come back and let me know?”

She made her way slowly out of the room.

Cora shivered as she paced back and forth across the dining-room

terrace. Her arms were folded across her chest. It was getting cold outside. Winter was coming.

When she was a child, the winters were always the hardest. It

was so cold in the house, she would wake up in the morning with

her muscles tense and sore from holding them rigid all night to

keep warm. Her mother would wrap a warm brick in paper for

her to take to bed at night. She said they did it all the time before people had central heating in their homes. It did help, but it cooled off during the night and was nothing more than a cold rock by the time the sun came through the window.

“If you want to talk, you have to slow down a little,” Harrison

said. He’d been standing by the door watching her for nearly

twenty minutes.

She shook her head and kept pacing. “Too much is happening,

and I have to think. Help me think, Harry. What are we going to

do about this?”

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He took her arm. “The past fifteen years have been the best

of my life by far, Cora. Things have been so peaceful. Can we just forget all this?”

She stopped abruptly and stared at him. “You’re serious? Nick

carried the third piece of the puzzle with him. And I shouldn’t

wonder if he passed it on?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She began walking again, this

time faster. “The longer he was away from here, the more danger-

ous things were. And . . .” She stopped and pointed at him. “The

longer he knew her, the more chance—”

Harrison grabbed her forceful y by the arms. “I’ve heard this

already, too many times.”

She looked up at him. He was still handsome, distinguished.

“This is all your fault, Harry. Damn it. What now? What now?” She broke free and stepped to the edge of the terrace. The wind blew

hard, pushing her slightly off balance. She wanted to do some-

thing. She stopped and picked up a small branch that had fallen

and threw it out into the yard.

He was yelling at her. “You get out of control, you do the oppo-

site of what I tell you to do, things spiral . . . and then you want me to fix it?”

“No, no. I’m going to fix it myself. I have an idea. I’m put-

ting an end to this—” She stopped and looked around. She’d heard

something. A different male voice. Her hands clasped tightly to

her ears. “God, no. No.”

“Get a grip on yourself,” Harrison said.

The voice was there again, and the image in her head grew

clearer. The flashbacks were becoming more frequent, uncontrol-

lable. Her father was walking in front of her. He was headed to the woods, clasping a knife in his right hand. She could see his back so clearly, his dark pants and yellow-white shirt. His brown-gray hair was so vivid she could reach out and touch it. She was eleven.