Wondering if I could learn more from this photo, I removed it from the mantel.
They looked comfortable together; she, seated with an unfamiliar elegance, a serene smile on her lips, her eyes sparkling, hands clasped firmly on her lap; he, towering behind her with one hand resting on her shoulder, as if proclaiming “she’s mine”.
This young Agatha Harris was slightly slimmer than her older version. While Aunt Aggie’s mind might have suffered from old age, her body hadn’t. Perhaps it was the active life she’d led during her years alone at Three Deer Point that had kept her from becoming stooped and unsteady. She, with the help of Marie’s mother, Whispering Pine, had performed all the heavy work; chopping firewood, tending a flourishing maple sugar operation, maintaining a large vegetable garden and keeping Three Deer Point in good repair, not an easy task, as I was discovering.
Her hair was dark in this picture, not the grey of her later years. No doubt it was the deep auburn I remembered from my childhood. A colour I used to wish I had, not the fiery red I was born with. But it was the smoothness of the skin on her hands and her arms in the photo that I noticed most. With not a blemish to mar the milky whiteness, it was in sharp contrast to the disfigured hands and arms I knew. I’d once asked Aunt Aggie about the angry scars she hid beneath long sleeves. She’d replied they were from a fire a long time ago and then, more as an afterthought, had added, in another life.
I’d assumed she meant when she was a child. I’d even thought the scars had kept her from marrying, but clearly this photo showed that the accident had occurred after the marriage. Perhaps her husband was the kind of man who couldn’t bear disfigurement and had left her.
But then I was assuming it was he who’d left. Maybe it was Aunt Aggie who, unlike me, had had the smarts to call a halt to a relationship that was growing worse by the day. And then again, maybe death had intervened. Death, however, seemed unlikely, for I doubted Aunt Aggie would have hidden her widowhood. In her day, being a widow would have carried a certain cachet, unlike the stigma of shame that would have been associated with a failed marriage.
And who was this ramrod-stiff stranger with dark hair, neatly clipped mustache and pince-nez clamped on the end of his nose? His pale eyes and the shape of his brow seemed familiar, but I couldn’t recall from where. I tried removing the spot of dirt to get a better view of his face but discovered it was under the glass.
The photograph itself didn’t provide any clues. I assumed it had been taken sometime around World War I. My aunt’s gown was of that period. And the setting of the photograph was no different from any I’d seen from that time; the standard chair, this one intricately carved, a small spindly table with a large bouquet of flowers in a Chinese vase, an oriental carpet on the floor and heavy tasseled drapes in the background. Clearly this wasn’t a poor man’s wedding, unless the photographer had provided these props. But then, my great-aunt wasn’t poor nor, judging from his confident demeanor, was the bridegroom.
I tried to remove the picture from the silver frame to see if there was anything written on the back, but the clasps were tarnished shut, and I was reluctant to force them open in case I damaged the photo.
Since this photograph wasn’t going to tell me anything further, I decided to phone my mother, who still hadn’t returned my earlier call regarding Whispers Island. This time I reached her.
“Are you calling to tell me you’ve finally come to your senses?” were Mother’s opening words, before I had a chance to say more than hello.
“Forget it, Mother, we’re not getting into that now. Just tell me if Aunt Aggie ever owned Whispers Island.”
“How should I know? I don’t even know where Whispers Island is.”
So I told her about the gold mine and the threat it posed to Echo Lake.
“Thank God, now you’ll return to where you belong.”
“Mother, stop it, I am where I belong.” I should’ve known she wouldn’t be sympathetic. She hated Three Deer Point and anything to do with Aunt Aggie.
“Just like Agatha Harris to waste her money on a slab of useless rock. But if there’s gold on it, you’ll be rich, dear.”
I ignored her last comment, as I did with most of her asides, but perked up my ears at the inference. “Then you think she owned it?”
“Heavens, how would I know that?”
“Family records, something she said, anything.”
“Of course not, first I’ve heard of it.”
“Okay, what about her marriage?”
“Married? Agatha Harris? What a ridiculous idea. I told you living alone would make you go queer, just like it did Agatha. Why don’t you—”
I interrupted her with a description of the picture and the wedding clothes.
“But, dear, that can’t be. She never married him.”
“Never married who, mother?”
“That dreadful man.”
“What dreadful man?”
“Why, the one who wouldn’t marry her.”
“Stop! Start from the beginning.”
It turned out that Aunt Aggie hadn’t led such a spinsterish life, at least in her youth. The daughter of a wealthy man, she had been pursued by a variety of suitors, including a few fortune hunters. It hadn’t taken long for one of these men to capture the heart of Agatha Harris.
Unfortunately, as far as Great-grandpa Joe was concerned, this potential suitor had three marks against him: he was more handsome than John Barrymore, he could charm the bloomers off a nun—Great-grandpa Joe’s words, not my mother’s, so she said—and although he seemed to have money, refused to divulge its source. Great-grandpa Joe forbade him to court his daughter. The upshot was a planned elopement, which was only prevented by a last-minute betrayal by Agatha’s maid, who’d decided her employment was more certain with Harris senior than with this would-be husband.
Mother then told me what I’d already discovered. Great-grandpa Joe had taken Agatha on a grand tour of Europe, in part to take her mind off her troubles and, more specifically, to introduce her to eligible suitors. But it seemed he wasn’t very successful, and this was the point where Mother’s story became a bit hazy.
“I don’t know for certain, dear,” Mother said, “but there was something about a wedding. I think it was meant to take place shortly after Agatha returned home. But the man never turned up at the church. At least, that’s what your grandfather told me. ‘Left her in the lurch,’ were his words. Your Great-grandpa Joe refused to talk about it. And of course, I didn’t dare ask Agatha.”
“What a terrible thing to happen to Aunt Aggie. I don’t blame her for keeping it a secret,” I said. “But Mother, this picture suggests the marriage did take place. Maybe he left her in the lurch after the wedding. Any idea who the man was?”
“I’m not certain, but I think it was the man she’d tried to elope with.”
“Do you know anything more about him? His name? Where he came from?”
“How could I? You know how the Harrises were. Hide anything unpleasant. You’re no different. Just like your father, never telling me anything.”
“Forget the commentary. Just tell me what more you know, if anything.”
“It was only by accident that I found out about the earlier scandal. I came across an old letter from Great-grandpa Joe to your grandfather. Poor Agatha, I suppose I shouldn’t have been so hard on her, but she was such a difficult person to like. And I know it comes from living alone all those years. Margaret, I don’t—”
“Now that you mention old letters,