Hidden Riches

photos framed on the mantel, she thought. Crowds of them jockeying for position, celebrating the births and passage of generations. There should be an old Seth Thomas deep in their center, gently ticking off the time.
    Where were the heavy candlesticks with their tapers burned low? she wondered, almost desperately. Where were the deep-cushioned chairs with petit point footstools tilted toward the fire?
    A fire would take away the chill, she thought, rubbing her arms absently as she wandered out again and down the hall. It was much colder than it needed to be.
    She found a library, stripped of books; another parlor with a view of a cobbled patio that begged for flower boxes; the dining room, vast and empty but for another chandelier, and finally the kitchen, with its charming hearth and brick oven.
    Here’s where the warmth should center, she thought, with the sun streaming through the window over the sink and bread baking fragrantly. But she found no warmth there, only the cold, echoing silence of a house untenanted and unwanted.
    “It’s a pretty view from here,” she said for no other reason than to fill the void. There should be a sandbox in the yard, she thought, linking her tensed fingers together. A swing hanging from the thick bough of the big maple.
    “We weren’t allowed in here.”
    “Excuse me?” She turned back from the window, certain she’d misunderstood.
    “We weren’t allowed in here,” he repeated, and his eyes were on her as if the pecan cupboards and rosy countertops didn’t exist. “Only the servants. Their wing was through there.” He gestured but didn’t look toward a side door. “Along with the laundry and utility rooms. The kitchen was off limits.”
    She wanted to laugh and accuse him of making it up. But she could see quite clearly that he was telling the truth. “What if you had a desperate craving for some cookies?”
    “One didn’t eat between meals. The cook, after all, was paid to produce them, and we were expected to do them justice—at eight A.M., one P.M. and seven in the evening. I used to come in here at night, just for the principle of it.” Now he did look around, his eyes flat and blank. “I still feel like a trespasser in here.”
    “Jed—”
    “You should see the rest of it.” He turned and walked out.
    Yes, he wanted her to see it, he thought grimly. Every stone, every curve of molding, every inch of paint. And once she had, once he had walked through with her, he hoped never to walk through the door again.
    She caught up with him at the base of the stairs, where he was waiting for her. “Jed, this isn’t necessary.”
    “Let’s go upstairs.” He took her arm, ignoring her hesitation.
    He remembered how it had smelled here—the air heavy with beeswax and funereal flowers, the expensive clashes of his mother’s and sister’s perfumes, the sting of cigar smoke from one of his father’s Havanas.
    He remembered, too, when it hadn’t been silent. When there were voices raised forever in anger and accusation, or lowered in disgust. How the servants had kept their eyes downcast, their ears closed and their hands busy.
    He remembered being sixteen, and being innocently attracted to one of the new maids. When his mother had come across them harmlessly flirting in the upstairs hall—right here, he thought—she had dismissed the girl on the spot.
    “My mother’s room.” Jed inclined his head toward a doorway. “My father’s was down the hall. As you can see, there were several rooms between.”
    She wanted to sigh and tell him she’d had enough, but knew it wasn’t enough for him. “Where was yours?”
    “There.”
    Dora moved down the hall and peeked into the room. It was large and airy, bright with afternoon light. The windows overlooked the rear lawn and the tidy privet hedge that marched along the verge of the property. Dora sat on the narrow window seat and looked out.
    She knew there were always ghosts in old houses. A building couldn’t stand for two hundred years and not carry some memories of those who had walked in it. These ghosts were Jed’s, and he was violently possessive about them. What good would it do, she wondered, to tell him how easy it would be to exorcise them?
    It only needed people. Someone to run laughing down the steps or to curl up dreaming by a fire. It only needed children slamming doors and racing in the halls.
    “There used to be a chestnut tree out there. I’d go out that way at night, hitch a ride and