Page 33 of The Guests on South Battery
“Well,” Yvonne said patiently, “with Charleston Harbor leading right out to the Atlantic, having a house this near the water made illegal activities such as pirating and smuggling—and perhaps escaping to another country—a lot less complicated than if your house were farther inland.”
I sat up. “Like a tunnel or something?”
“Exactly,” Jack said. “And even when a house is leveled for whatever reason, and a new one is built over it, any tunnels and staircases leading to them might not have been destroyed.”
“But what does thatmean?” I persisted.
“Nothing yet,” Jack said. “It’s just a piece in a puzzle. It may mean absolutely nothing, but we won’t know until we put all the pieces on the table.”
He had the old spark in his eyes and it made me happy to see it, and grateful that he was the writer in the family and I was just the Realtor who saw dead people. Because I found it very difficult to get excited about houses that no longer existed, and even those that still did. Unless I was selling them.
Yvonne slid a manila folder toward us and opened it to reveal several photocopied papers. She picked up the top sheet and put it in front of us. “I did find this write-up from 1930 when the house was renovated by none other than Susan Pringle Frost, the mother of the preservation movement here in Charleston. It was featured inArchitecturemagazine and includes a floor plan you might find helpful.”
Jack tapped his fingers on the tabletop while he studied the drawing. I pretended to look at it, too, but without my reading glasses—securely tucked into my nightstand—all I could see were fuzzy black lines.
“And this here?” he asked, pointing to a square drawing of more fuzzy black lines.
“That’s the first floor, otherwise known as a basement and only used for storage of nonperishable items, since it was prone to flooding,” Yvonne pointed out.
“Or for temporary storage of pirated items until they could bedistributed elsewhere,” Jack added. “And if there was access to these storage areas during Prohibition, I’m sure they could have been used for contraband alcohol.”
“Without a doubt,” Yvonne said with her genteel smile as if we were talking about our favorite type of tea. “But from the documentation here, all access points from the house were sealed during the restoration, and the area filled in to reinforce the home’s foundation.”
Jack sat back, a look of disappointment on his face. “Well, there goes one story idea. I was hoping to go treasure-hunting—with Jayne’s permission, of course—in the bowels of the house. But it appears they don’t exist anymore.”
Yvonne slid the folder closer to him. “When one door closes, another one opens. Take this home—you never know what else you might find.”
Glad to have the mind-numbing talk about the house over with, I turned to Yvonne. “I know we can dig up more information on the Pinckneys in the archives, but I was wondering what you knew about them, being family. My mother was a school friend of Button’s, but they lost touch after she left Charleston in the early eighties and she just knows vague details. We’re really trying to figure out why Jayne Smith, who never met Button, has inherited her entire estate. There has to be a reason other than Miss Pinckney was a philanthropist who liked helping animals and orphans.”
Yvonne’s eyes sparkled behind her glasses. “Because, as our Jack has told us time and again, there is no such thing as coincidence.”
I smiled in agreement, but I wasn’t sure if I liked her use of the word “our.” Last time I’d checked, our marriage certificate listed only his name and mine. I gave myself a mental shake and wondered when I’d stop being so insecure about Jack. He’d pickedme, hadn’t he? Not that he’d really had a choice, seeing as I’d been expecting his babies. But he loved me. He told me that a dozen times a day. And not only was Yvonne old enough to be his grandmother, but I really liked her and I shouldn’t be having thoughts about asking for a meeting in the ladies’ room for a private chat about my man. I dug the heels of my hands intomy eyes, realizing those were the lyrics to a song I was too old to know about, much less remember.
“You okay, Mellie?” Jack rubbed his hand on my back as every nerve ending in my body responded with a snap to attention.
“Yes, just tired.” I gave Yvonne my biggest smile to show her I was truly sorry for my thoughts, making her regard me warily. “I was just hoping you could give us a little insider information about them. Maybe point Jack in a research direction we hadn’t considered.”
“I can certainly try,” she said. “Although when Rosalind died, I’m afraid I lost touch with her children. I just knew that Sumter had moved to New York, leaving his ex-wife in the house with poor Button.”
“Why poor Button?” I asked.
Yvonne was thoughtful. “I suppose because as the only girl, she was the one always left behind to be the caretaker. Rosalind, sadly, had an extended period of bad health and Button stayed at home to take care of her despite having aspirations of going to college. She wanted to be a veterinarian—she was always taking in strays, then enjoyed nursing them back to health. When Rosalind finally died, it was too late for Button to go back to school or meet a husband. All the men in her group were already married with families. And besides, she had Anna and Hasell to take care of. Sumter was traveling so much at the time for his work that it was really up to Button to make sure Anna and Hasell had what they needed.”
“Anna?” Jack asked.
“Sumter’s ex-wife. Poor thing. She doted on sweet Hasell, took such good care of her through her many illnesses. None of the doctors and specialists she saw was ever able to tell her what was making her little girl so sick, but Anna kept up a brave face and told anybody who would listen that whatever it was, she’d find a cure and make her better.” Yvonne was silent for a moment, gathering her composure. “Sadly, that never happened. Sweet Hasell died when she was only eleven years old. She was such a lovely child, too. Funny, smart. And so kind. She loved all the homeless animals Button brought into the house. She even worried that her mother was wearing herself out taking care of her.” Hereyes clouded for a moment. “That child wasn’t even cold before Sumter divorced Anna and moved to New York. It’s no wonder Anna couldn’t cope with life on her own. So Button took care of her until Anna died in 1993.”
Jack’s eyes were dark with thought. “I’m assuming Anna must have been around my mother’s age, but she was only about thirty-one when she died. Do you remember what happened?”
She looked stricken for a moment, and I had to remember that not only was she a true Charlestonian, which meant she’d been born with a natural reserve, but she was also from a time before the Kardashians and social media, which made nothing private. She delicately cleared her throat. “I’m not really sure. The immediate family closed ranks and there was never any discussion in public. The obituary only read that she’d died at home.”
A small shiver swept its way down my spine, like a cold finger slowly tracing its way down each notch of bone. “At home? As in the house on South Battery?”
Yvonne nodded, and I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering the presence of more than one spirit, one tugging on me to stay and the other telling me to go away. And then... nothing. Just the knowledge that someone, somethingwas there that I wasn’t being allowed to see.
Jack sat up, his elbows on the table. “Did you go to the funeral?”
“No. I didn’t even know when it was. It was over before I even knew that she’d died.”
