The Phipps Mansion
Sterling Lloyd stared at his partner with disbelief and exclaimed, "I can't understand why you, one of the most sought-after interior decorators in New York, would want to move to such a god-awful place like Serene Cove."
Erica Childress gave him an exasperated look.
"It's Serenity Cove, not Serene Cove, and it's not a god-awful place. It's a quaint, charming little New England seaside village."
"Quaint? Ugh! I hate that word! It conjures up pathetic images of lighthouses peeking through the fog, seagulls circling above a rocky beach, the putrid smell of fish and yokels wearing overalls and flannel shirts."
"Cut it out!" Erica said with a laugh as she swatted him with a magazine.
"Seriously, though, why move to New England when you have a thriving business right here in Manhattan?"
"I'm not giving up my business. On the contrary, I'm expanding. You'll be in charge of the New York office, and I'll devote my time to opening an office in Boston."
"And what about your personal life? What will you do for entertainment: go to Red Sox games? Or perhaps heave tea into the harbor?"
"New York isn't the only place with culture, you know. Besides, I'm getting bored with going to the theater, the opera and the symphony. As much as I love all the city has to offer, I'd like to try something new for a change."
Sterling raised his eyebrows and asked, "This sudden dissatisfaction with the performing arts wouldn't have anything to do with your breaking up with a certain concert pianist, would it?"
Erica dropped the playful banter and became serious.
"I'd be lying if I said the move had nothing to do with my failed relationship."
"You don't have to travel to the ends of the earth just because you're temporarily without a man."
"Ends of the earth? The last time I looked at a map, Massachusetts was on the same continent as New York. Indeed, Serenity Cove is only a four-hour drive from here. Look, I know you think I'm making a big mistake, but my mind is made up. That old house has been in my family for generations. Now that my grandmother has died and left it to me, I want to live there—for now, anyway. I want to learn more about my family and the town in which I was born. My parents moved to New York when I was only three, and I never got to research my roots."
"I'll give you six months to do your Alex Haley thing. I'm sure after that you'll be eager to head back to civilization."
Erica did not argue any further since she half-suspected her business partner was right.
* * *
When the interior designer pulled off the highway onto Oceanview Avenue, her first sight of Serenity Cove took her breath away. It was as though a Currier and Ives painting had come to life before her eyes. Although she usually preferred modern architecture, she was swept up in the beauty of all the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century homes that dotted the town's tree-lined roads.
Erica turned onto Main Street and headed toward the Common. She parked her Mercedes in front of the local coffee shop and went inside for a cup of mocha latte. The young man behind the counter of the coffee bar took note of her chic clothing and contemporary hairstyle and immediately concluded she was a New Yorker. When Erica spoke, her accent confirmed his assumption.
"Are you visiting Serenity Cove or just passing through?" he asked politely.
"Neither. I'm going to live here."
The boy grinned and welcomed her.
"It's nice to have new blood in the community."
"I'm old blood actually. My family has lived here since the eighteenth century. Perhaps you knew my grandmother, Myrna Childress?"
Recognition lit up the young man's face.
"You're Erica Childress, the decorator."
"Yes, I am," she admitted, surprised that the teenager knew of her. "I suppose my grandmother spoke of me."
"No. I heard about you from my father. He's an architect in Boston. He admires your work. Although most people around here prefer more traditional styles—colonial, early American, Victorian—I prefer neoclassical myself: the Massachusetts State House, Faneuil Hall, New York's Pennsylvania Station and the Altes Museum in Berlin. Sorry, I didn't mean to go on like that."
"That's okay," Erica said, mentally chastising herself for wrongly presuming that small-town young men would only be interested in sports, cars, girls and video games.
It seems she had a lot to learn about the people in Serenity Cove and not just the members of her own family.
After leaving the coffee shop, Erica drove to Maple Tree Road where she finally saw the Phipps Mansion for the first time. Built in the late 1760s, the Georgian colonial had a symmetrical façade of two stories, three gables and a roof balustrade. Charming though the exterior was, it was not until she opened the front door and walked inside that Erica fell in love with the house.
"No wonder my grandmother refused to leave," she remarked as she tried to take in all the features of the dwelling at once.
First, she critically examined the living room. The lacquered oriental furniture and the 1940s and '50s bric-a-brac looked oddly out of place in the old building. As she walked from room to room, upstairs and down, she envisioned the house filled with antiques by Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton, although such décor was a drastic departure from her previous personal tastes.
"I'm going to make this place look like 1760—inside and out," she decided.
Thus, her plans to open a new office in Boston were put on the back burner. For the time being, at least, her number one priority would be to renovate and redecorate her own home.
* * *
Once Erica had her belongings unpacked and put away, she began making the rounds of the antique shops and flea markets. Although she found many excellent pieces from the time period she was hoping to recreate, they were not exactly what she was looking for. After a month of searching, all she had purchased were a bonnet top highboy, a bed warmer, a claw leg tilt top table and a pair of silver candlesticks made by Paul Revere himself. However, Erica was not one to be discouraged easily. New England had as many antique stores as Central Park had pigeons, and she was not averse to traveling to Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont in her quest for the perfect wing chair or settle.
Meanwhile, Sterling Lloyd phoned daily with questions about the business and unsolicited advice for her to return to the Big Apple. Erica had never been one to delegate tasks, preferring to do most of the work herself; yet now that the restoration of her home took up most of her time, she was more than willing to have Sterling take on more responsibility.
"You handle it, okay?" she told him one day when he phoned to ask about preparing an estimate for one of Broadway's most successful producers. "I haven't got time to write up an estimate now. I've got to get to an estate sale in Rockport. It's a formality anyway. He can afford whatever we charge. Just make sure Jacqui does the design. She's worked with him before, and she knows his tastes."
Home to many artists, Rockport, Massachusetts, has more galleries than gas stations. With its New England architecture and seaside charm, it is a popular tourist area. Erica Childress got out of her car and looked at her watch. The sale would not start for some time, so she decided to browse through the shops on Bear Skin Neck.
"Excuse me, aren't you Erica Childress?"
She turned to see an extremely handsome man who looked vaguely familiar.
"Do I know you?"
"I'm Mark Galbraith. I believe you met my son, Randy, who works at the coffee shop."
"Oh, yes. You're the architect from Boston."
"What brings you up to Rockport—if you don't mind my asking? Are you looking for artwork for a client?"
"Actually, I'm here for an estate sale."
"No kidding? That's why I'm here," he said, smiling at the coincidence. "It looks like we're both too early. Would you like to have some lunch while we wait?"
Over soup and salad at a local bistro, Erica and Mark learned they had more in common than an interest in antiques. They had similar tastes in movies, music, books and art, and neither had a particularly busy social life at the present time.
"I don't go out much anymore," Mark confessed. "Not since my wife died five years ago. In all honesty, I'm usually asleep by eleven o'clock every night."
"I know what you mean. I work fourteen hours a day and don't have the energy to go out afterward."
Mark glanced at his watch and, noticing that the estate sale was due to begin in less than fifteen minutes, he called for the check. Their conversation continued later over dinner, after which Mark helped Erica carry her newly purchased items into her house.
"Interesting décor," he joked. "A unique blend of Oriental and early American. It has a sort of east meets west atmosphere."
"I plan on doing a complete renovation, but I've yet to find all the pieces I need."
"I'd love to see the place when it's done. This old house has always been one of my favorites."
"Why is that? There are dozens of other houses in the village with a similar architectural style."
"But none have the scandalous history that this one does. Did you know Judge Nathaniel Phipps, the original owner, was a Tory during the American Revolution?"
Erica shook her head as she poured out two cups of coffee.
"His neighbors—all ardent patriots—broke into the house one night, intent on dragging him outside and lynching him."
"Did they succeed?"
"No. They found him sick in bed. Since he was dying anyway, they decided to let nature take its course."
"How considerate of them," Erica remarked sarcastically.
"You have to understand that in their eyes, he was a notorious traitor, endangering their lives, their families and their homes."
Erica was about to fire back another witticism when one of the books on the living room bookcase fell to the floor.
"That's odd," she said as she picked up the volume and placed it back on the shelf. "I wonder what made the book fall like that."
"The shelf must be at least two hundred years old. The wood is probably warped," Mark suggested.
"Or maybe the place is haunted by old Judge Phipps," Erica laughed.
"In New York City ghosts may be a laughing matter, but here in Serenity Cove, we take them more seriously."
* * *
Despite the discordant note on which the evening ended, Erica and Mark saw each other again the following weekend. Only this time there was no talk of Revolutionary War traitors, death or ghosts. It was an ordinary date—dinner and a movie—and both enjoyed themselves immensely. That first date led to a second and then a third. Soon the interior decorator from Manhattan and the Boston architect were spending every weekend together, with the blessing of Randy, Mark's son, of course.
Not only was Erica's love life sailing along smoothly, but she was also making steady progress with the renovations to the house. Her dogged determination to find just the right furniture and objet d'art was paying off.
"The place looks fantastic!" young Randy declared when he and his father were invited to the Phipps Mansion one Sunday for dinner. "When I walked into the living room, it felt as though I had stepped back in time."
"Thanks," Erica said, "but something about this room bothers me. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something's not right."
Mark, who considered himself something of an expert on old homes, stared at the living room, mentally comparing it with others he had seen from the same period. Erica was right. Something was missing.
"A fireplace!" he suddenly declared with certainty. "Back in the late eighteenth century all the buildings were heated by fireplaces, yet this room doesn't have one."
Erica and Mark both turned toward the large, floor-to-ceiling bookcase.
"I'd be willing to bet someone built that bookshelf where the fireplace originally stood," the architect suggested.
Erica nodded and a smile lit up her face.
"That's it. First thing Monday morning, I'm going to call the contractor and have him take that bookshelf out and put a fireplace back in."
* * *
When Erica walked into the living room and saw the renovated fireplace for the first time, a flood of alien emotions hit her. There were so many disparate feelings—love, hate, pride, joy, anger, fear—that she had difficulty sorting them out.
"Are you all right?" the contractor asked when he noticed her ashen face.
He took her by the arm and led her to a nearby chair.
"Sit down. Would you like me to get you a glass of water?"
Yet as quick as the onslaught of emotions had been, the bizarre episode was over in a matter of moments, and Erica was left shaken and emotionally drained.
"I'm fine," she assured the concerned contractor. "I guess I've been working too hard trying to restore this place."
"Take your time. The house has been here for close to three centuries. It's not going anywhere."
The designer thanked the man for his kindness and his hard work and offered to make him lunch. He declined, saying he had another job in Gloucester that he wanted to complete before nightfall. Erica was secretly grateful that he turned down her offer, for she was still upset by her peculiar experience.
* * *
With the addition of the fireplace to the living room, Erica's twenty-month-long restoration of the Phipps Mansion was complete. Exhausted, the young decorator lay in her four-poster bed in the master suite, trying to decide what she would do next.
I suppose I'll go back to work, she thought without much enthusiasm.
She had told Sterling when she first decided to move to Serenity Cove that she would extend her interior design business to Boston. The time had come for her to begin implementing that plan.
Erica closed her eyes and thought about the long meetings with real estate agents, marketing firms, local suppliers, employment candidates and potential customers. The task would be daunting. Thankfully, she could always rely on Sterling for help. The hardest part would be to lure him away from New York for a few days or possibly a couple of weeks.
"I know," she said, her spirit suddenly brightening. "I'll throw a dinner party to show off the newly restored and redecorated mansion."
Her partner, she knew, was a man who could never resist a party.
* * *
Sterling arrived in Serenity Cove on a cold, wintry February morning. The sky was the color of slate, and snow clouds threatened to unleash their fury on the unsuspecting towns along the coast. When he at last saw Phipps Mansion, the native New Yorker understood Erica's failure to open the Boston office sooner.
"What an undertaking this must have been!" he exclaimed, eyeing all the design details in the old house. "My dear, you've outdone yourself. This place is fabulous!"
"Why don't I show you to the guest room? And after you've settled in, I'll give you the grand tour."
"I'm not exaggerating," Sterling claimed as his partner took him through the last of the rooms. "You did a magnificent job."
When they finished the tour, Erica drove her guest into town and showed him around Serenity Cove.
"Okay, so it's not Crabwell Corners after all," he conceded. "It does have a certain charm, but it's still a far cry from Manhattan. Don't you think that after a while you'll tire of Shaker shingles, slate roofs, center chimneys, working shutters and cobblestones?"
"Before I answer that question, you'll have to meet Mark Galbraith."
Sterling's jaw dropped.
"Who's Mark Galbraith? You never mentioned him before. Please don't tell me you've gone and fallen for one of the locals!"
Erica smiled mischievously.
"Aren't you the sly one? So, what is this guy, a farmer? A fisherman? No—wait. Don't tell me. He owns an antique store, one of those places that charge an enormous sum of money to the tourists from New York and New Jersey."
"Wrong. He's an architect, and he works in Boston, not Serenity Cove."
"An architect, huh? Not bad."
"Yes. Now let's go to McCarthy's Pub and get some lunch, and I'll tell you all about him."
* * *
Although the flamboyant decorator from New York had little in common with the more reserved architect from Serenity Cove, the two men got along surprisingly well during dinner. The party Erica had originally planned was downsized due to the snow that continued to fall throughout the day. Understandably, many of those on the guest list did not want to venture out in the storm, not even for a free meal. Nevertheless, the three of them—Erica, Sterling and Mark—did justice to the delicious dinner, which a local caterer had prepared.
"I'm going to have a refrigerator full of leftovers," Erica exclaimed when she saw the amount of food that still remained when they were done eating.
"I'll take some of it off your hands if you're looking to get rid of it," Mark offered. "Randy is a typical teenage boy who'll eat anything that doesn't run away from him."
After Erica cleared the dining room table, she suggested they have their coffee and dessert in the living room in front of the fire. But when she entered the room, she experienced the same barrage of emotions she had encountered the day the contractor finished work on the fireplace. Only this time, the feelings did not vanish in a few moments.
As they drank their coffee and ate their cake, the two men both began to exhibit strange behavior. Mark started rubbing his temples as though he were suffering from a throbbing headache, and Sterling began pulling at his collar as if he were having difficulty breathing. Erica herself was stirring her coffee without stopping, while she tried to fight off the disturbing emotions that plagued her.
For close to an hour, Erica, Sterling and Mark were engrossed in their odd rituals—temple rubbing, collar pulling and coffee stirring—when suddenly the fire began to die down. Mark stopped rubbing his temple and got up to put another log on. He did not stop at one, however. He added a second, a third and a fourth.
"What are you trying to do, burn the house down?" Sterling asked irritably. "It's already so hot in here I can feel my blood boil."
Mark turned on him, eyes burning with fury.
"It's not the fire making your blood boil, you young scoundrel! It's my wife."
Erica put her coffee cup down and began shouting at Mark and waving her spoon at him.
"What right have you got to criticize either of us, old man?"
"Harlot!" Mark spat. "How dare you speak to your husband that way?"
He made a threatening move toward her, but Sterling jumped to her defense.
"You traitorous, bastard!" he cried, raising his fist menacingly.
"Traitor? Who's the traitor here? You, John and Sam Adams, Hancock, Revere and the rest of you Sons of Liberty rabble-rousers—that's who!"
The logs in the fireplace blazed furiously, spitting sparks out onto the hearth. One errant ember made it as far as the living room rug. In the heat of the argument—a bizarre reenactment of one that had occurred more than two centuries earlier in that very same room—no one noticed the small flame that was slowly spreading and gathering momentum.
"You were the one providing information to the Redcoats," Sterling accused Mark, who was possessed by the spirit of Judge Nathaniel Phipps.
"I'm a British subject, loyal to the king, and proud of it!" his adversary shouted defiantly.
"Yes and thanks to you, several good men sympathetic to the patriot's cause were captured," Erica cried.
"And they'll hang if they're convicted of treason," Sterling added.
"A simple hanging is too good for the likes of them. They ought to be sent back to England to be drawn and quartered."
Sterling could contain his rage no longer. He lunged at Mark, and the two men fell to the ground. It was then that Erica broke free of the spell cast upon her.
"The carpet is on fire," she screamed.
The two men continued to fight, but Erica ran to the hall closet and took out the fire extinguisher she kept there. She went back to the living room, put out the burning rug and then sprayed the fiercely blazing logs in the fireplace. Only after the flames died out did Sterling and Mark regain their senses.
"What the hell just happened?" Sterling asked, looking to Erica for answers.
"I don't know, but I believe we were possessed by the spirits of Judge Phipps, his wife, Jemima, and some unknown American patriot."
Mark touched the bruise on his chin and winced in pain.
"For an interior decorator, you pack quite a punch."
Sterling laughed, but he was clearly still upset.
"I wanted to kill you," he admitted.
"Not Mark," Erica corrected him. "You wanted to kill Judge Phipps. And you weren't alone. Practically the entire town wanted him dead."
"That's true," Mark said, searching the fragments of memories the judge's spirit had left behind. "But one man above all the others hated him and not solely for political reasons. This other man was in love with Jemima Phipps. When he found out the judge was giving the British information about patriots who ran the blockade or smuggled goods from the neighboring colonies into Massachusetts, he confronted Phipps. They fought, and the patriot slammed the judge's head on the stone hearth of the fireplace. Phipps, who was badly injured, became unconscious and soon lapsed into a coma. Terrified for her lover's safety, Jemima called on the local Sons of Liberty for help. They came to the house and carried the judge up to his bed. Then they spread the word that he was a Tory, but because he was on his deathbed—presumably from natural causes—they wouldn't harm him."
"So, the people of Serenity Cove never had any intentions of lynching him?" Erica asked.
"They may have considered tar and feathering, but they had no intention of killing him."
"I wonder ...," Erica said, staring at the fireplace, deep in contemplation.
"You wonder what?" Sterling prompted.
"I wonder if restoring the fireplace caused the judge's restless soul to return to this house."
"I don't doubt it," Sterling remarked. "After all, Phipps received his fatal blow right there."
"I believe this fireplace was haunted long before you moved into the house," Mark theorized. "Not long after Judge Phipps left this world, Jemima joined him. And do you know how she died?"
Erica and Sterling shook their heads.
"A spark from the fireplace leaped out onto her skirt, causing it to catch fire. The poor woman burned to death as a result."
"How horrible!" Erica exclaimed. "No wonder someone sealed up the fireplace and covered it with that bookshelf."
"Do you know what happened to the other fellow?" Sterling asked.
"No. I doubt we'll be able to find out anything for sure since we don't even know his name."
Erica suddenly caught her breath and pointed to the fireplace hearth. There, in the layer of smoky residue that had settled when she extinguished the fire, someone or something had written STANTON DAVENPORT.
"I guess we now know the identity of Jemima's lover," Sterling said.
* * *
Erica, Sterling and Mark left the Serenity Cove Historical Society and headed directly toward McCarthy's Pub since all three were in need of liquid fortification.
"What a strange coincidence!" Erica exclaimed.
"It's unbelievable!" Sterling added.
Erica tried to comprehend the enormity of the situation.
"But all three of us? What are the odds that we would come together—and in that very house?"
Mark then voiced his opinion.
"When you think about it, it's not really that fantastic. My family has been here in Serenity Cove since the first Galbraith came over from the old country. So, the fact that my ancestor was Judge Phipps's brother is not surprising. Erica, your family, too, has been in this town for close to three hundred years. Is it so hard to fathom that your ancestor was Jemima's nephew or that he bought the mansion after his aunt died?"
"I suppose not," Erica admitted. "That you and I should be connected to Judge Phipps and his wife is not that great a coincidence. But Sterling! That he is a direct descendant of Stanton Davenport, Jemima's lover and the judge's murderer, is incredible."
"Why? After Jemima's death, Stanton went south to join the Continental Army. When the Revolutionary War was over, he settled in New York. He had no reason to return to Serenity Cove since he had no family or property there—only painful memories."
It all seemed so simple and logical when Mark explained it, but then he was a pragmatist while Erica remained a romantic who preferred to believe that fate, karma or Divine Providence had sent her, Mark and Sterling to the Phipps Mansion to learn the truth about the judge's death.
* * *
The strange events that occurred in the living room of the Phipps Mansion profoundly affected Erica's life. After the paranormal experience, she gave up every intention of opening an office in Boston. In fact, she sold her interest in the interior design business to her partner, Sterling Lloyd. Within a few months of the sale, she married Mark Galbraith, and the two of them, along with Mark's son, Randy, moved to a house in Salem's historic McIntire District.
The restored Phipps Mansion was turned into a museum, where every guide was warned that the fireplace in the living room was not to be lit since a fire might dredge up the spirits of the three people whose personal drama had been reenacted by their descendants. All proceeds from the museum's guided tours were donated to the Serenity Cove Historical Society, along with all royalties Erica received from the book she subsequently wrote about her experiences at the mansion.
"The whole truth is there," she told Mark when he asked why she had bothered to write a book that was sure to be viewed with skepticism. "I've told the story of Judge Nathaniel Phipps, his wife, Jemima, and her lover, Stanton Davenport. It's up to the readers whether or not they choose to believe it."
Once the book was completed, Erica was able to forget her foray into the world of the supernatural and devote her time to redecorating the Salem home and building a life with Mark and Randy.
This story was inspired by events that allegedly occurred in the Ropes Mansion in Salem, Massachusetts. Judge Nathaniel Ropes was a Tory and was spared being lynched at the hands of his patriot neighbors by the fact that he was on his deathbed. His wife, Abigail, died when her nightgown caught fire as she passed too close to the fireplace. Stanton Davenport is a fictional character, and there is nothing I've read that suggested Abigail Ropes had a lover.
Sorry, Salem, but I don't believe these were the original andirons for the fireplace in our parlor.
