Part 22

      I smile to myself, knowing just how pretty that little girl was. I wonder if she grew up to be just as beautiful? Though a part of me has always found the sweetness inherent in the innocent beauty of a child far nicer to look at, than the made-up, rather pretentious beauty of a young woman. I shake my head a little, coming back to the conversation.
      “Well, anyway, the children were kept pretty isolated, and their father avoided people whenever he could manage it. Cora, though, was the biggest social butterfly to have ever landed in the town at that point. She headed up every sort of committee she could find. If she could have held any kind of political office, I'm sure she would have. I think she actually found her husband's reclusive tendencies to be a pleasure at times. It allowed her much more freedom to run her own affairs than she might otherwise have had had. Wives were sometimes allowed to govern their domestic domains, but I think she had a lot more power than most managed to get. She was a very independent sort... and I really think that's why she married that man – not for the money so much as for the lack of interest he'd take in managing her life.”
      John snorts. “Pure conjecture. You women and your gossip.”
      “Well, I think it makes all kinds of sense, so you leave my theories be,” Mary huffs, then winks at me. “Kimber can make what she will of it. There's really not all that much actual evidence to go on about people's personalities, conjecture and intuition are all we've really got.”
      “And, of course, rational conclusions drawn from evidence.”
      “Who's telling the story here!”
      “No-one. You're gossiping.”
      “Well. Back to the story then. Not that there's really much left... The family spent ten, fifteen years in the town. Cora was active socially, and constantly gave tours of the garden, hosting all sorts of events there. The children were quietly tutored as far as we know – there's really no information on them. Mr. Mason---”
      “Do we know what his first name was, John?” Susan cuts in. “I've only ever seen his name given as 'Mr. Mason'.”
      John furrows his brows, thinking. “You know... I'm not sure that we do. I know I don't, though I would think it would be given in the article about the house burning down. I seem to recall that there's no obituary for him in the paper at all. I thought that was strange at first, but then once I heard that the rest of the family moved away almost the minute the house burned down... well, I can't imagine anyone else in town was fond enough of the man to have tried to write anything about him.”
      “He doesn't have a grave in one of the cemeteries, does he?” I put in, curious. “I mean, I know when the original college building burned down not long before all this, even though they weren't sure of the girls' remains, they still got a monument in the cemetery, all listed together.”
      John shakes his head. “No, he doesn't. None of the Mason family are buried here – for as important a family as they were for that short time, they really didn't leave their name attached to anything here. I'd imagine that there weren't any remains left in identifiable shape after the fire, it was an especially severe one. House burned right down to the foundation. Being so far out of town, no-one even saw the smoke and thought to go look, until the house was nearly all gone. Mrs. Mason and the children were found on the road heading toward town, and said they didn't know how it started, but that the servants had all left, and Mrs. Mason said her husband had been in the library, where she'd seen the roof collapse before she saw him leave the house. He was such an odd character, and Mrs. Mason such an upstanding citizen, that nobody ever questioned her story. They all assumed he just let himself die in the fire – rumor suggested he might even have started it, for whatever reasons of his own.”
      “Mrs. Mason didn't give any more explanation of it?”
      John shakes his head. “They really did leave town the day after the house burned down – she said they were going out to stay with her people, somewhere up north, though I guess the kids scattered when they grew up.”
      I nod, remembering what the map-guy had told me about the estate's ownership.
      “I think that's about it,” Mary says, tapping her fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Anything else you two want to add?”
      Susan and John look at each other, John shrugs, and Susan shakes her head. “No, I think you've pretty well covered it,” John concludes.
      I smile warmly at all three of them. “I can't thank you enough, that was so much more information than I thought I was going to be able to get!”
      Mary laughs at this. “Oh, Kimber, little old towns like this don't forget their histories... We may not have the grand landmarks that big cities have, but the stories, we hold near and dear. I think those are the real treasures anyway.”
      John chuckles at this. “We're also a small enough town that our entire history pretty much fits into one office, with a handful of filing cabinets.”
      “It certainly does not,” Susan retorts. “I should know, I'm the one that's cleared the cobwebs and swept the dust away from all those archival bins we store in the basement. And I clean in the museum every other day. And---”
      “I was joking, Susan!” John laughs, reaching across the table to pat her hand. “Still, we are a small enough town, that it's actually possible for a body to know pretty much all the history worth knowing.”
      Mary nods at this. “True. Although,” she adds, turning to me. “You should still stop by our office in the town hall some afternoon – you can take a look for yourself at the newspaper articles about the fire, as well as what photos we have. They're all on microfilm here at the library of course, but I find those machines absolutely awful to read on.”
      I nod, relief showing clearly on my face, I'm sure. I'm so glad to hear an actual librarian admit this! “I definitely will! I'd especially love to see the photos... to see how the gardens used to look.” And so, to verify that what I've been seeing is every bit as real as all my senses can tell me that it is. But for now, I shake the hands everyone's offering me, and say goodnight.

      There's a lot running through my head when I get home. I spread my drawings and sketches around me, lost in thought. Most of what I've just learned isn't too far off from what I would have guessed anyway... I still wish I could have learned more, but I suppose there's only so much written record that survives a hundred years. Especially with the fire having destroyed anything the Masons had actually owned... I suddenly realize that I still haven't explored the site the house once stood on. There's so much garden to see, and, well, the visions or whatever they are keep distracting me. I wonder if there's some reason for that... no, I'm sure it's just coincidence. Next time I'm there, I'll look for the ruins of the house. I had only that one fleeting glimpse of it when I saw the fountain, but that was enough to give me an idea of where it stood at least, though I couldn't make out much of what it looked like.
      I'm having trouble reconciling Cora's character in my head, though. That sad, wistful young woman I saw sitting on the bench, the honeysuckle blossom held so tenderly in her fingertips... and then this bold, independent, somewhat domineering woman who ran the town's social life. Did I see her in her one moment of vulnerability? Or was she not the proto-feminist that's so easily extrapolated from her social résumé? Maybe her involvement in all these things was a less-bossy one than everyone thinks... Maybe it was just one of those things, where everyone knew she could handle the tasks competently, and she couldn't say no? Nodding to myself, I re-trace a few lines in the sketch I've done of her under the honeysuckle trellis. That explanation fits much better with the woman I saw... And her husband being what he was, I'm sure she would have taken every chance at getting out of the house, or having other people around – even Evelyn knew that her father had to “be respeckable” when there were guests. I can easily imagine Cora making sure there were guests around as often as possible, if his temper was as bad as I've heard – and seen.
      Evelyn... Avery, her brother, I still know nothing about. Is he the older one, or the younger one? No, he has to be the older one – his father wouldn't have called for him if he was the bed-ridden child. And Evelyn said he was prone to arguing with their father, I can't imagine someone younger than Evelyn doing anything as rational as argue. Throw tantrums, yes, but not argue. I wonder what the third child's name is... and if there's any way I can find out? Did doctors keep records back then? Or would the Masons have had a private physician for the boy?
      “Aaaaargh!!!” I drop my face into my hands and shake my head, laughing ruefully. Every question I answer, I get a good dozen more... and I know full well that most of them are hopeless, in terms of actual, normal research. The visions are my only hope for real information... and is it actually real information? Even if it is, they've been totally unpredictable so far. The last two have been much longer than the first ones were, and the one of Evelyn was so long, so clear, so involved... will she remember me, if I see her again?
      Sighing, I turn to my loose sketches of the young couple I saw at the fountain. Those are the real mysteries... no records at all of them, not even their names. The only, absolutely only, thing that is left of them, is their garden, and my fleeting vision of them... I want so badly to know what brought them here, why he would create such an elaborate little Eden for her, only to leave it again without a word... I can imagine secreting themselves away from the world, like an extended honeymoon, living only for each other. At least for a little while. But I can't imagine two people living in total seclusion forever... and that could explain them abandoning the place, but, why not just make contact with the town? Go out shopping, go to whatever festivals the town held back then, go make some friends? Why leave a place so beautiful as this once was? They must have loved it dearly, to have put so much effort into every detail of it, the way I can see that they did...