descendants.” I mentioned Roberta Small and, whereas he hadn’t been quite as interested in the older history, Mallard’s eyes brightened at hearing about his distant relatives. He wanted to know at exactly what fork in the tree they diverged and determined to make contact with her.
We finished tea and, finally, he led me to a little addition in the rear of the property that was used as a storage room and at first glance appeared to be a treasure trove of antiques and family history. For a moment I felt like I was on one of the television shows in which an antiques dealer tells the homeowner what everything is worth. Then I focused. As cool as all of this old stuff was, vases, sideboards, silver plate, and other furnishings would not enlighten me as to anything about Anne Gracechurch. But even my untrained eye spotted the neoclassical chair with its frayed and rotting seat cushion. Maybe he had kept papers and correspondence from the first half of the nineteenth century.
“Why do you keep it all?” I asked, navigating my way through narrow and sometimes nonexistent aisles. “Clearly most of this furniture is of no use to you.”
He shrugged. “Sally wanted everything new but, maybe someday one of the kids wants a bit of our history. When I die, they can decide what they want to do with it all.” He led me to a trunk in the corner. “You might want to start here.” He unearthed two chairs that were in relatively good shape and sat down. I knelt on the floor at first as I opened the trunk, which itself, judging from the Art Nouveau motifs etched into the cracked leather, was at least a hundred years old.
Excitement thrummed through me as I pushed the lid up. The stacks of loose papers and leather-bound books nearly had me doing cartwheels (which I can’t actually do very well). Something of value would be in here, surely.
Two hours later, after a brief break to meet Sally, and after Bruce had long since decided he didn’t need to watch over me, I’d made it through two-thirds of the first trunk, which was filled with ledgers and correspondence, none of which were older than 1914.
Four hours after that, with one more brief break to eat the very lovely and generous luncheon Sally prepared, I’d made it through two more trunks, one of which was crammed with moth-eaten linens and another with more ledgers and correspondence, and I was elbows deep in a third. Already, I’d set aside one promising book of household accounts and a packet of letters that actually were addressed to Anne. By the date on the first, I had hopes that it was the same Anne. Currently fascinating me were photo albums that went back in time to the nineteenth century. So far, the oldest I’d found dated from 1886, twenty-five years after Anne Gracechurch had passed away, but there were still three more inches of depth to riffle through.
Which were mostly filled with a random assortment of color photographs from the late twentieth century. Whoever had last packed away this box had not attempted to do so chronologically.
Another layer down, wrapped in tissue, I found what I was pretty sure was a daguerreotype. And on the back, it said Reginald and Anne 1857. I flipped it around to stare at the semidecomposed image of what I thought to be a husband and wife. Not just any husband and wife.
I took out my phone, quickly snapped several photos of the front and back, and e-mailed them off to my advisor. Regardless of anything else, this was a definite find. I’d never before seen so much as a portrait of Anne, and in front of me was an image of the woman in whose life I’d become immersed.
She looked matronly and stern in the picture. In fact, they both looked overly serious, but I knew that was likely due to having to stand still for a longer period of time than necessary for our modern instant snapshots. She would also have been about sixty-one when it was taken. I tried to imagine her daily life based on this photo and the letters of hers
We finished tea and, finally, he led me to a little addition in the rear of the property that was used as a storage room and at first glance appeared to be a treasure trove of antiques and family history. For a moment I felt like I was on one of the television shows in which an antiques dealer tells the homeowner what everything is worth. Then I focused. As cool as all of this old stuff was, vases, sideboards, silver plate, and other furnishings would not enlighten me as to anything about Anne Gracechurch. But even my untrained eye spotted the neoclassical chair with its frayed and rotting seat cushion. Maybe he had kept papers and correspondence from the first half of the nineteenth century.
“Why do you keep it all?” I asked, navigating my way through narrow and sometimes nonexistent aisles. “Clearly most of this furniture is of no use to you.”
He shrugged. “Sally wanted everything new but, maybe someday one of the kids wants a bit of our history. When I die, they can decide what they want to do with it all.” He led me to a trunk in the corner. “You might want to start here.” He unearthed two chairs that were in relatively good shape and sat down. I knelt on the floor at first as I opened the trunk, which itself, judging from the Art Nouveau motifs etched into the cracked leather, was at least a hundred years old.
Excitement thrummed through me as I pushed the lid up. The stacks of loose papers and leather-bound books nearly had me doing cartwheels (which I can’t actually do very well). Something of value would be in here, surely.
Two hours later, after a brief break to meet Sally, and after Bruce had long since decided he didn’t need to watch over me, I’d made it through two-thirds of the first trunk, which was filled with ledgers and correspondence, none of which were older than 1914.
Four hours after that, with one more brief break to eat the very lovely and generous luncheon Sally prepared, I’d made it through two more trunks, one of which was crammed with moth-eaten linens and another with more ledgers and correspondence, and I was elbows deep in a third. Already, I’d set aside one promising book of household accounts and a packet of letters that actually were addressed to Anne. By the date on the first, I had hopes that it was the same Anne. Currently fascinating me were photo albums that went back in time to the nineteenth century. So far, the oldest I’d found dated from 1886, twenty-five years after Anne Gracechurch had passed away, but there were still three more inches of depth to riffle through.
Which were mostly filled with a random assortment of color photographs from the late twentieth century. Whoever had last packed away this box had not attempted to do so chronologically.
Another layer down, wrapped in tissue, I found what I was pretty sure was a daguerreotype. And on the back, it said Reginald and Anne 1857. I flipped it around to stare at the semidecomposed image of what I thought to be a husband and wife. Not just any husband and wife.
I took out my phone, quickly snapped several photos of the front and back, and e-mailed them off to my advisor. Regardless of anything else, this was a definite find. I’d never before seen so much as a portrait of Anne, and in front of me was an image of the woman in whose life I’d become immersed.
She looked matronly and stern in the picture. In fact, they both looked overly serious, but I knew that was likely due to having to stand still for a longer period of time than necessary for our modern instant snapshots. She would also have been about sixty-one when it was taken. I tried to imagine her daily life based on this photo and the letters of hers
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