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<br><br>Two days later, I’m still thinking of this phantom girl and Emily decides a change of scenery is in order.

 She drags me off to the Antique Barn in town.

The place is massive—two floors packed with antiques and assorted regional memorabilia.

She’s looking for a big picture for the wall above her couch and I’m just browsing and killing time.

<br><br>Then I see her. 

The same girl from my photo is staring at me from a painted portrait hanging on the wall.

I can’t believe it, but it’s her.

In this old portrait,  her hair is parted in the middle and pulled back in a bun—and she’s dressed in the style of the 1890’s with a dark blue dress and a high collar up to her chin.

But it's her, minus the makeup and slightly dishevelled hair that drives me wild.

“Do you like it?” the owner asks.

“How much?”

“Two hundred dollars—it’s an original oil from the 1880’s.”

<br><br>I may want the picture, but what I really want is information about the girl

“Can you tell me about the provenance?”

“Sure—that’s easy. She’s Victoria Warren, the only daughter of Winslow’s first mayor. The family moved here from Toronto in 1878 and Victoria never adjusted to small town life—she was very private.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died of Diphtheria in 1892 and is buried in the town cemetery. She was a great beauty, but somewhat of a recluse—she wrote poetry.”

“Really?”

“Yep—a page from one of her books of poems is pasted to the back of the portrait. She was a very sad young woman they say.”

“Can I see the poem?”

<br><br>He removed the portrait from the wall and turned it face down on a nearby oak hutch.

The poem was written to her dream lover—in florid, nineteenth century style of course—except for two lines that riveted my attention:

My dreams you have stilled with paper and lens / Still darkness retains my anguished face.

The expression on her face was the same as in the photos—sad and haunted.

<br><br>“You found her?”

Emily had come up behind me and was peering over my shoulder.

I nodded.

She looked at me wide eyed and questioning.

“I don’t understand this,” I said and I had to sit down on a nearby bench. My legs felt weak and I was trembling.

She just kept staring at the portrait, slowly shaking her head.

 

<br><br>I bought the portrait and hung it on my wall. I stare at it a lot.

I framed the other two photos of Victoria, in modern dress and now all three pictures make a curious vignette.

I have no explanation for the mystery—although, in ways, it’s begun to change me.

I’m softer now, less cynical. I’m now writing romances and even poetry. Emily likes both—says they bring out a sensitive side of me.

<br><br>I also bought the old Warren house in town—it just seemed the natural thing to do.

Emily loves it too. We’ll sit together for hours in the front room, listening to snow ticking against the windowpane and basking in the warmth of the fireplace.

Thoreau says you can always see a face in the fire—I do.

Sometimes it’s Victoria’s—sometimes it’s Emily’s.

We’re a threesome—a peculiar lover’s triangle—with one member unfortunately deceased.

 





<br><br><center>© 2017, John J Geddes. All rights reserved</center>

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