Specter~Chapter 16
They decided that Sam would only reveal himself to her at night, when she was alone in the estate. He assured her he was always nearby so she could talk to him and he'd hear her. Quinn seemed to come to terms with what was going on, even though she still wasn't quite sure how it came to be her with Lucinda's spirit. As she got to know Sam better, as Quinn, she found herself falling in love with him, much like Lucinda had. She wondered if at some point if her soul and Lucinda's spirit would combine. She wondered how she could be with Sam...there would be no marriage, no children, only seeing him at night. Was it possible to have a ghostly boyfriend?
She talked to Santana about a month into their internships.
"It sucks here!" Santana wailed. "It's hot, stinky, I'm learning next to nothing about being an actress except to smoke every meal..."
"I thought that was what models did?" Quinn asked.
"Ugh, they all do it! And I like to eat! And all the men are gay!"
Quinn couldn't help giggling. "How about the condo they put you in?"
Santana snorted. "It's a bug-infested studio apartment in a building full of condos...just one window air conditioner...and I have to share the bathroom with three other girls!"
Quinn made a face, though Santana couldn't see that. "How 'bout you, Quinny? Have you met any lobster fisherman yet?"
Quinn laughed again. "No, no lobster fisherman, really no men at all...just doing a lot of research..."
Should I tell her I made love to a ghost?
Santana grunted. "How boring! Any ghosts? Do you still think the place is haunted? Did you ever open that trunk?"
"Yes, we inspected the trunk. No, I don't believe the estate is haunted," Quinn lied. "There were some very interesting people who lived here in the town, though, like this one young couple, Lucinda and Sam...tragic love story...he died at sea and she came to live here, never married..."
"Um, Quinn, didn't that happen a lot to those people back then?" Santana asked, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
"I s'pose...it's just sad to see the lady's diary and know she loved him until the day she died..."
"You're getting too attached! Do I need to come rescue you?"
"No! Of course not! And I'm not getting too attached...sheesh..."
You are attached...always have been...she thought.
"Well, I'm glad someone's having an interesting time with their internship!" Santana said, then laughed. "Call me if you need me, Blondie...or come see me some weekend..."
"I'll try to get away...there's so much to do here," Quinn said, dreamily.
She ended her call with Santana and relaxed on the balcony of her room with a cosmopolitan, thinking of the nights she had been spending with Sam. Some nights it was passionate with him, an urgent need to be with one another; other nights, they simply talked through their kissing, getting to know one another again.
Sam had been thinking about those nights, as well, wondering when she would notice he was more faint to her, that she was not able to feel him like she had been, maybe not even hear him...when her kiss would no longer bring him alive to her.
"If we lose the ability to communicate, I'm not sure I'll know what to do," Sam told Finn one day as they floated above Quinn as she walked to town.
"Has she noticed anything different?"
Sam shook his head. "I don't think so."
He watched her walk down the road to Battenfield. "She looks just like she did the day I told her I'd be going on the Lizzy Dean…" Sam said, watching her. She wore a navy blue sundress and white broad-rimmed straw hat. "She asked me not to go." Sadness filled his voice.
"Are you going to tell her?" Finn asked him.
"I dunno yet…"
xxxxx
That night, Sam kissed Quinn gently, enjoying every second on her lips.
"I wish we could walk down the streets of Battenfield hand-in-hand," she mumbled.
"Me too…"
"Could you take me to the church meadow? You know…"
He smiled a bit against her mouth. "Yes, I know…I'll take you there…"
They kissed some more.
"I wish I could have your baby," she whispered.
He stopped what he was doing but didn't move his lips from hers.
"I wanted to be a father…what I would've given to be the father of your children," he said quietly to her. "I wanted to take care of you…I thought I was doing the right thing."
"You did what you did for us…I hated watching you go, though," she said, tearing up a bit, recalling the day she waved goodbye to him from the pier.
"It was such hard work, but I loved it. Knowing I was doing something to get me closer to marrying you was all I could think about," he told her.
"I found the picture taken in Portland of the crew, did you know that? It was auctioned off and Artie bought it for me. He told me I didn't have to repay him but I did," she said.
He smiled at her. "You're speaking as if you're Lucindy, yet you're Quinn."
"Her memories are flooding my memory now…sometimes I feel more like Lucinda than I do Quinn," she said, picking up the kissing again.
"I love you both equally," he murmured.
"Love me now…" she said, pulling him against her.
xxxxx
Sam painstakingly wrote down directions to the meadow Quinn wanted to see. He left them on the desk in her bedroom.
From Main Street, go to Harrison, turn left.
Go to Parson Briggs lane, turn right.
Go to church at end of lane, the old Battenfield Methodist.
Meadow is behind it...find largest oak behind church, then go about 50 paces north.
Love, Sam
She read the note he had left her, in his chicken-scratch handwriting (penmanship was never his strong suit), and smiled.
"I'll go soon to the meadow," she said to the open space of the bedroom, knowing he was nearby and listening.
xxxxx
For the rest of the week, Quinn and Emma worked hard on finishing the boxes in the basement. They wanted to spend the month of August preparing the rooms on the second floor for display. The boxes of the people who died during the period of time the estate served as a home for the destitute were most times nearly empty. By far, anything of historical significance to the estate was found amongst the boxes of the people who died early on. After the final box had been tallied, their database contained 152 names. They studied the data and found some interesting details.
The original home was finished by 1865; Arthur Abrams moved in shortly after discharge from his duties in the Civil War. He lived there alone but not for long. His first resident would be Rachel Berry, followed by Lucinda Fabbrae. It was assumed that it would not appear proper for Miss Berry to be living in a bachelor gent's home, alone, with said bachelor, so Miss Fabbrae moved in shortly after her mother passed, purportedly as a chaperone. Artie had additions built in 1870 (to the second floor), 1888 (the entire third floor and reinforcement of the foundation), and finally in 1902 (the fourth floor) to accommodate others who needed a place to live. Artie never charged anyone to live there but did expect people to help, if able, with a small garden, preparing meals, cleaning, etc. Anything they found written about Artie by his former residents was always that he was a very friendly man, willing to help anyone, worked hard but laughed and smiled a lot. Most people noticed the relationship between him and Rachel and tolerated her, considering her the mistress of the estate.
They also noticed that Artie liked to throw parties...galas, as he termed them...and it seemed to Emma and Quinn that oftentimes Rachel Berry acted as hostess of these galas. A lot of times there'd be dramatic readings or short plays performed, always starring Rachel Berry, and Artie encouraged it. It seemed to be an idyllic place to live out your final years, Emma and Quinn surmised, Artie provided what was needed, the residents took care of the residence, and there did not seem to be many issues crop up.
The first person to die there died shortly after the fourth floor was added in 1888. It was then that Artie decided to have a physician live on the premises to care for the elderly. The estate had no cemetery; that was one thing Artie did not want on his land. The last resident passed away in the year 1934. Quinn and Emma found that Arthur Abrams and Rachel Berry died on the same day, September 1, 1918, both eighty-two years old. They had not yet figured out the significance of that except that Rachel's last diary entry had mentioned not wanting to live out her final days alone and in misery. It was said that Arthur Abrams died peacefully in his sleep so it was a mystery of what happened. Quinn found it odd that it was also Lucinda's date of death, albeit two years later.
Emma showed Quinn the other rooms on the second floor, the ones that needed to be staged as resident's rooms. They had decided to stage a room for Rachel Berry, Lucinda Fabbrae, Kurt Hummel, and Blaine Anderson since, through documentation, they knew which rooms those four had lived in and they had items still in good repair that could be used for display, such as clothing. These rooms were on the other side of the second floor of the estate, above the front and back salons. Emma entered one of the rooms and Quinn nearly shrieked…there were several dress forms in there, faceless white mannequins.
Emma couldn't help but laugh at Quinn's reaction. "These are for the rooms, so we can 'dress' them in any period clothing we found." They moved two dress forms to Rachel's room, two dress forms to Lucinda's room, and one dress form each to Kurt and Blaine's rooms.
Rachel's room was located right next to the office. Lucinda's room had been at the corner of the second floor, next to Rachel's room; they shared a bathroom. The room was L-shaped. Of all the guest rooms, they had the two largest rooms aside from Arthur's suite. Kurt's room had been directly over the front salon, and Blaine's room across the hall from him. There was already furniture in the rooms; they just needed to add personal effects. They brought up the boxes of items and Lucinda's trunk from the basement.
Quinn felt a sense of familiarity in Lucinda's room…she knew she would. She offered to set up the room, and Emma said she'd do Rachel's, then they could check each other's work to make changes. Quinn took one of the dress forms for Lucinda's room and began rearranging the furniture. She instinctively knew where to move everything and it didn't even bother her that she had that feeling.
She chose to use two dress forms, one for the most dated outfit in Lucinda's trunk, the navy blue dress, apron, and white bonnet, and one for a more modern fancy outfit, dating around 1910. Quinn thought it appeared to be a tea dress, a chiffon of an ombre lavender in color with a white muslin bodice. She set out the Brownie camera and a few pictures, books, and jewelry…not the silver ring though. Emma told her that the room would be roped off somewhat, where the public could step up to within a couple feet of the bookshelves and clothing, not close enough to touch anything. Quinn felt very at home in the room. She set a comfortable-appearing arm chair close to the fireplace and thought what a cozy spot that had been. The thoughts weren't bothering her anymore either. She saw the first part of the L-shaped room as a sitting room, then the back half, where the bathroom entrance was, as the sleeping quarters.
A week after working on their respective rooms, Emma stopped in to see Quinn's work and found Quinn sitting in the arm chair.
"Wow…" Emma said, stepping in and taking in the entire room. "You look like you belong here."
Quinn smiled. "Do you like how I set it up?"
"Looks great…it's like you knew where everything should go…so feng shui! Come see Rachel's room!"
Quinn followed Emma down the hall a bit to Rachel's room. They decided to leave the bathroom shut off since it was not a working bathroom. Quinn was speechless at the sight of Rachel's bedroom. There was a large Persian rug on the floor and a beautiful Tiffany lamp in the corner, the lampshade in blues and greens. She had a four-poster bed, dressed in beautiful white sheers and a white comforter. Her fireplace was on the shared wall between her room and the office. Emma had chosen mainly the more modern clothing left in Rachel's belongings to use on the dress forms. Emma also had had three posters from plays Rachel had performed in framed and put on display in the room.
"It looks perfect," Quinn said. Rachel would've loved those posters framed like that, she thought.
"Thank you! I wanted to showcase her talents," Emma said. "Now, are you ready to set up the fellas' rooms?"
"Very much so!"
The last week of her internship would entail staging the men's rooms. Quinn knew the name of Kurt Hummel from her research at the library, knowing he was Finn Hudson's stepbrother. She recalled seeing a B Anderson noted on the class photo in Lucinda's belongings and they had found a box of items noted to be Blaine Anderson's in the basement. She had ventured back to the Battenfield Public Library and researched Blaine Anderson. From what she could tell, he showed up in Battenfield around the time the class photo had been taken. On the 1860 census, he was listed as living at the Hummel residence as a "boarder." He seemed to be involved somehow in the theater with Rachel and Kurt, but Quinn couldn't figure out how. In later years, he took over the Hummel repair business, though he repaired early automobiles, not wagons, and was listed as a "boarder" at the Abrams estate from 1870 until he died in 1920. Kurt had worked as the costume designer for the theater in Battenfield. In the handful of pictures they had found, it seemed these two gentlemen always posed side by side.
"They seemed to be lifelong companions, bachelors for life," Emma mused.
Kurt still had set pieces used in long-ago plays in his belongings so they used those in his room. His room had more of a flair than Blaine's; Blaine's room was more run-of-the-mill for a man of that time. They used jewel tones in blues and greens for Kurt's room for the comforter and drapes and dark blues and browns in Blaine's room. Both had queen-sized beds, two arm chairs, a desk, and a dresser. Their two rooms were the only two in that hallway plus a bathroom they shared on Kurt's side of the hall and a linen closet on Blaine's side of the hall.
"Mr. Abrams did take care of those he liked, didn't he?" Quinn wondered aloud, looking about the spacious rooms for the men.
"He did…such a wonderful generous man," Emma agreed.
Kurt and Blaine felt indebted to Artie for letting them live together, how they wanted to, without prying eyes, Quinn thought and shook her head at the thought.
"Well, I think we did it, Quinn!" Emma said happily, putting her arm around Quinn's shoulders as they walked down the hall to the main part of the second floor, then down to the grand foyer. "This has been a wonderful summer, getting to know you and work together on this project."
"It has been a truly unique summer," Quinn said, smiling, looking up at the chandelier. A breeze caused some of the teardrop crystals to tinkle together. "Truly unique…" she whispered.