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Winfield:
Living in the Shadow of the Woolworths by Monica Randall Rating: • (Read only
if your interest is strong) |
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Haunting Readers
have three books to choose from in Monica Randall’s offering, Winfield:
Living in the Shadow of the Woolworths. One book introduces us to the
great The
movers were late. When they finally pulled up to the entrance, they were
agitated and claimed to have passed the house by several times, thinking it
was an institution of some kind. It wasn't the first time that had happened,
and though I had mentioned to look for the stone arch beforehand, they were
probably thinking of McDonald's twin arches rather than a thirty-foot replica
of the Arc de Triomphe. It stood out, aberrant, on
an avenue of mostly split levels and a Victorian cottage or two. Moments
later I stood on the second-floor landing and watched as the two men carried
the heavy rosewood furnishings up the stairs. As I directed each piece into
its assigned room, I wondered if the ancient furnishings were happy to be
home again in the rooms where they belonged. It was a silly thought, but I
had always had a tendency to personify inanimate objects. "Welcome
home," I said under my breath, and smiled gratefully as the men trudged by
with their burdensome loads. The Empress Josephine room at the top
of the stairs was an exact replica of the original that Napoleon had designed
for his beloved empress at their country estate, Malmaison,
just outside of When the movers finally left, I opened
the glass doors of the terrace to let in some air. Everything outside was
still engulfed in a gray vaporous mist, and you
could no longer see the entrance gate, which was off to the left, or the I began to think about all the stories
and rumors I'd heard during the girls'-school years and before that. It all
seemed so long ago, and in that moment none of it mattered. Nothing was going
to cloud my being there—not that day or any other. I continued to watch as
the seagull flew and then vanished into the milky surreal whiteness that
engulfed everything as if to cleanse and make everything new again. Sunny may
have believed this was a sad and tragic place, but I was determined to make
it a happy one. "Mind over matter," I said out loud, as if the bird
now invisible could hear me. "Mind over matter," I repeated as the
new phone in my room began to ring. "How are you surviving moving
day?" the voice at the other end asked breathlessly. "Katia,
you're my first call." I said, happy to hear an old friend's voice.
"So how's it going?" she asked again. "Well, I've got one room down and
fifty-six to go," I said cheerfully. "You're crazy, you know. I give
you until dark before you freak out. You have to be a
little nuts to stay in that place alone," she said, popping what
sounded like bubblegum in her mouth. "Katia,
it's so beautiful here. I feel like I'm living in art, in esthetic overload.
You must come for the weekend and see for yourself. I'll have another room pulled
together for you by then." "Do you hear anything odd?"
she asked in her mischievous tone. "Just an occasional frog croaking
out by the pond," I answered. "Well, you know I'm here if
anything strange happens," she said. "Nothing strange is going to happen.
Thank you for calling." I said, eager to get
back to work on the room. "By the way, that's not the best
phone number for you numerologically. It would be
better to get a number with three fives in it. You should call and try to get
it changed," she said insistently. "Anything else?" "Well, come to think of it, you
should have waited until tomorrow before moving in," she said with her
usual dramatic zeal. "Too late now," I said. "Not really. You could always
spend the night in the car. But park outside the gate, at least until
midnight," she shot back in an amused tone, not expecting me to take the
suggestion seriously. "Think about the weekend," I
said, hanging up. Katia and I had
been friends for years. She was a numerologist, and one of the best astrologers
in The room felt damp and musty from
nearly a year of not being used, but within a few hours everything was
scrubbed clean, including the closets and a wall of glass shelves in the
adjoining dressing room. I carefully unpacked a box of antique perfume
bottles and arranged them on the now-gleaming shelves. I fussed over the
placement of table lamps, silk scarves, and knickknacks, and put a pair of
brass candelabras and a porcelain bust of a Victorian woman on top of the
mantel. I found some daffodils growing wild in the surrounding woods and put
them in a cut crystal vase to keep on the night table. When everything was
finished, I took out the old photographs and was amazed at how quickly the
room began to look the way it did in 1917. After making up the bed, and covering
it with an off-white, tufted satin bedspread, I sat back on it and studied
the room, then noticed for the first time that the main door off the hall was
missing. Back at the turn of the century, it was the custom for all the
country houses facing the sound to have two sets of doors. One was used only
during the summer months and was made of heavy oak, with open louvered slates
to allow the ocean breezes to flow through. It was sturdy enough, but it
hardly provided that sense of security one got from a real solid door, though
I noted it did have a brass handle that could be locked from the inside only.
The main doors had most likely all been removed during the showcase tours and
were probably being stored somewhere in the building. I made a note to go on
a search for the door in the morning. In the meantime I had no intention of
sleeping that first night, so it hardly mattered if the doors were locked or
not. I had waited so long for the opportunity to photograph Winfield at
night, and I had brought along half a dozen rolls of infrared film to
experiment with long time exposures. Years before, at the Strand Bookstore
in I didn't really believe you could
photograph ghosts, and the many pages in that
questionable book that alleged that those were real ghosts caught on film in
various castles and dungeons in far-off lands looked phony to me. But I was
always drawn to the odd and unusual and was going to photograph the house
anyway; if anything spooky turned up, all the
better. I shifted the camera a few times, but the only light in the hall was
from the ancient chandelier, which looked like an Oriental temple with bronze
sentries standing guard all around the sides. I worked my way down the hall in the
east wing, climbing over unpacked boxes and furniture I'd yet to sort out,
and I began taking shots of each of the rooms. I paused in front of the Marie
Antoinette room, which had always been locked before. There was a deathly
stillness about it that made me want to move on, and
it felt twenty degrees colder than any of the other rooms. Delicate wisps of
cobwebs obscured the tiny crystal pendants that hung from the chandelier, but
I didn't turn it on. Instead, I waited for gray, haunted things to appear in
the shadows, but there was nothing there. A cold, blue lunar light played on
the brooding faces of the marble angels that supported the mantel. I took a
shot of it in the dark, holding the exposure for a full two minutes. Then I
found myself counting out four minutes. Secretly I felt I was playing with
them, whatever they were. I was inviting them to dance with me, daring them
to make themselves known through a camera lens. I was open to anything; it
was only film. I thought about what they might look like, and childhood
taunts played back in my head: Come out, come out,
wherever you are. The silence made me leave that room and move
back into the hall. From the staircase landing there was a spectacular view
of the formal gardens below. The moon was shining like an auroral
sun, illuminating the stone pavilion with its labyrinth of interlacing boughs
of hanging foliage. If
you’re a fan of ghost stories, be sure to give Winfield
a try. If you’re into historic preservation, and want to read more about the
great old Steve
Hopkins, January 22, 2004 |
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ã 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the February 2004
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Winfield.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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