Old Haunt
by Amber Averay
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It was all the same, and yet so different. If by the sweep of the broom she could have brushed aside the dust and cobwebs of decades, it would have been exactly as she recalled. The once glossy floorboards were now coated with fuzzy layer of sticky grime, the great windows scaled with filth. Grey webs wove like works of art through the rafters and beams, and strands of spiders’ silk glistened as silver in the murky light.
When she’d lived here as a child, Hazel’s parents would have had the servants whipped for allowing the place to fall into such a state, but luckily the maids and footmen and the rest of the staff were conscientious workers who ensured every inch gleamed.
When her father died, leaving Mother and Hazel with mountains of debt and no way to repay it, Mother had been forced to release the servants and sell many items of value that Hazel had taken for granted throughout her life. Things she’d never before noticed were suddenly being sold and their absence upset her, angered her, for even though she’d not been aware of them before she felt their lack now, and it seemed her world was slowly vanishing with each passing moment.
Mother had kept precious little, but what she’d retained had been of sentimental value rather than monetary. Some photos of Hazel with her parents – minus the solid silver frames – with the grand house rearing majestically in the background. A simple pair of earrings, teardrop shaped ice opals in fine gold, that were worth almost nothing but were the first gift from Father to Mother many years ago. The first baby tooth Hazel had ever lost, and the tiny pair of booties given the newborn child by her doting grandmother. Everything else had to be sold to cover the costs incurred by Edgar Hamilton.
Mother and Hazel had lived together in a tiny cabin-type place after that, eating meals that were either burned beyond taste or too raw to consume safely. Mother had tried her hand at many jobs, desperate to return to some semblance of the grandeur they’d so enjoyed before Edgar’s death. But she was skilled at so very little, so none of her positions lasted long – and all were given to her from a sense of pity, people not wanting the guilt of letting a young widow and her child starve.
If there was one thing Meredith had taught her daughter, it was to never succumb to despair and misery. Despite Meredith’s lack of skills and abilities, she never gave up fighting for a better life for them; never gave up on the need to keep them alive and fed, warm, safe. The woman was indomitable, and Hazel admired nobody more.
Now a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother herself, her own parents both long since passed, Hazel had worked hard all her life to ensure her family had a comfortable existence and was relaxing into the peaceful ease of the senior citizen. It was by sheer accident that she’d picked up a newspaper at the doctor’s office and read that her old family home was to be bulldozed. The twinge of memories that were never far away became an overwhelming flood of recollections, and she suddenly decided she must see the old place before it was demolished.
Now that she was here, the veils of time were peeling aside and she could almost see the ghosts of her young self bouncing in the parlour, a bundle of excitement awaiting Father’s return from work. Her governess hadn’t been able to calm her, and Hazel could hear the echo of the woman’s voice reaching from the distant past to scold the child to better behaviour. It was as if she were standing nearby, and Hazel actually turned as if to respond. Other than an odd shimmer to the air, she was alone.
She moved with small steps through to where the kitchen used to be an endless source of noise, gossip, laughter, delicious aromas and Cook booming orders at her staff while elbow-deep in dough which she kneaded and battered and massaged with such skill that she was able to coax tall loaves of bread and fluffy pastries and buttery biscuits.
She closed her eyes, and the sounds of her childhood filled her ears: the familiar bustle of servants, the clanging of pots and pans, sizzle of frying eggs and meats, the crackle and spit of the flames in the kitchen hearth… Her nose twitched, and a smile danced upon Hazel’s lips. She could almost smell the pies in the oven, the mouthwatering scent of Cook’s roast duck with vegetables and thick meaty gravy, bread sauce, fresh cob loaf, yellow butter, creamy milk… Tears sprang to her eyes, and she cursed herself for a foolish old woman. Her imagination was strong, exceptionally so, if she could smell the old scents of the kitchen, hear the voices that used to fill it – why, it was almost as if she could feel the warmth of the fire heating her chilled hands!
Returning to the sitting room Hazel stood in silence, her pale eyes sweeping the place where she used to sit so proudly at her mother’s side and listen to Father read from one of his books, sipping from her own little crystal goblet while her parents enjoyed a rich wine from gold-edged flutes.
At the edge of her hearing there was a slight sound, like the rustle of old paper being turned, and Hazel instinctively looked to where her father used to sit by the fire, pipe between his teeth, and share with her incredible adventures of pirates and giants and dragons hoarding immense treasures.
On his high-backed chair, barely visible to her old eyes, her father smiled at her and drew on his tobacco. ‘If you wish to hear tonight’s story, Hazel, you must sit and be still.’ How she’d missed his voice, deep and warm and tender despite its ability to command with but one word.
To her right, Mother stepped through the doorway followed by Nora, her personal servant, bearing a silver tray upon which balanced the wine flutes and tiny crystal goblet. ‘Come, Hazel, my dear, sit by me.’ Mother sat, smoothing her skirt, and patted the seat beside her. Without thinking, Hazel drifted to where her parents waited, their images becoming clearer with each step closer. Mother smiled that little smile of hers, conspiratorial, as if they between them shared a secret that was utterly delicious and naughty, and Hazel returned it mischievously and settled herself beside her parent.
The seat was as sturdy and uncomfortable as a thinly-padded chair could be, and yet Hazel revelled in the comfortable familiarity of it. Mother’s perfume – jasmine, always jasmine – wafted about her, and she cuddled into Meredith’s side, for once not caring if she was scolded for it. ‘Read, Father, read!’ she giggled, her high-pitched voice as girly as it had been decades ago before age and cigarettes and throat cancer had ravaged her.
‘Right, my girl, listen, and well, for we are to begin on an incredible journey…’
In the hearth the crackling golden fire gnawed on the wood Albert had added to it moments before, and in no time Hazel’s small feet were toasty warm and she lost herself to her father’s voice, the worlds he brought so vividly to life, and the reassuring closeness of her mother.
Later, when Hazel’s eldest son Edwin finished his phone call and went in search of his mother, he found her on the grime-laced floor, cold, a small smile playing about her lips and her sightless eyes staring into a world he could not see.
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