Duxford Airfield (the band) Pt. 05

____________(5)___________

PROMINENT HOUSE 1890

"Stand well back now while I open this door, ladies, it must weigh a ton and it could fall," I said motioning them back and looking upward. I then quickly glanced all around me and planned my own route of escape, if the door did fall off its hinges.

The ladies, all three stepped off the marble steps and toward the yellow pick-up truck.

"Tim, please be careful," Andrea said, suddenly on edge.

"I plan to, honey," I said, as I carefully pushed against the one large cathedral door which housed the lock mechanism while simultaneously watching above me at both doors for any signs of hinge failure. I needn't have worried, the door which I was pushing against opened as easily and smoothly as if the hinges had been oiled last month, with only a slight squeaking sound. The other door remained solid as a rock when I tugged on it several times.

I quickly ducked my head around the doors and glanced upward at no less than eight large iron hinges on each door.

"These doors are three inches thick and solid oak. A Sherman tank couldn't blow these doors off," I said incredulously.

I now stood within the massive doorway and just gaped at the inner foyer which was the size of an entire trailer court. The room had the distinct smells of desert sand combined with that of a second-hand store yet I detected no stench or saw any sign of mold or rot anywhere. There was evidence of small animal tracks upon the dust-covered floor and some bird droppings but nothing to the extreme.

I gawked upward now, craning my neck as if looking up at a skyscraper.

The marble ceiling must have been seventy feet above me and was adorned with an extremely detailed latticework consisting of hand-carved angels and intricately scrolling vines. There was also a large oval-shaped skylight in the center of the ceiling, the size of a small swimming pool, which was undoubtedly a dome upon the mansion's roof. The skylight which I was now looking at was made from ornate iron webbing and multicolored glasswork which boasted intriqintricately detailed victorian artwork of angels. No light showed through, however, obviously because of decades of dust covering the upper portion of the glasswork.

The rest of the entire ceiling was an exotic mural of more angels brandishing harps and trumpets as they floated around the sun, stars, moon, and mystical-looking clouds. These were traditional angels in the form of erotic naked women with cherub wings. Within this exotic artwork, the sun and moon also had extremely detailed faces and appeared to be three-dimensional yet they were only painted upon the ceiling. It appeared that the mural was intended to represent Heaven in the afterlife.

Directly below the skylight and within the middle of the foyer sat an ornate, yet filthy, marble water fountain in the same shape as the skylight. The fountain boasted more elaborate scrollwork carved into it. I speculated that the fountain had probably held around fifteen hundred gallons of water and been an absolutely beautiful piece of functioning artwork, once filling the entire foyer with the tranquil sounds of cascading water. I assumed that it was now empty, and judging by the bird dropping on its sides, it had been for some time.

Also within the foyer, were dozens of large marble pillars that stood on the edge of the dusty linoleum floor which itself consisted of two-foot by two-foot tiles and were arranged in a black and cream-white pattern like an oversize chessboard.

The fifty or sixty ornate marble pillars, each seventy feet tall, stood neatly surrounding the entire open circumference of the foyer in a square orderly row similar to soldiers standing guard. Reaching the height of the marbled ceiling, these massive pillars also held up five consecutive floors of open balconies on all sides of the room.

Each set of pillars had a curved archway, atop each consecutive floor, that was adorned with intricate scrolls and a carved lion's head within the center of each archway. Each of these archways connected to the next adjoining pillar, and that pillar to the next archway, onward in an endless chain around the entire foyer.

The pillars and archways gave the large foyer a mesmerizing theatrical appearance that was completely overwhelming.

Each of the five balconies was also lined with a marble safety rail adjoined by hundreds upon hundreds of smaller hand-decorated marble pillars of their own.

The one exception to this array of archways and pillars was above the double cathedral doors themselves. instead of a lion's head in its center, this archway had a large, three-foot diameter, ornate clock with Roman numerals. The clock had stopped at 6:12. and appeared to have a slight blemish of some kind within the face of the clock. The concave glass, protecting the face, was also broken with a jagged hole and several cracks starting at the bottom left of the clock face.

...It almost looked like a shotgun shell had been fired at the clock...

At the far side of the foyer, just across from me and under one of the archways, I noticed an extremely large piano that looked to be the size of a small yacht. The piano's top was still open and it would almost appear as if a concert were planned for this very evening, aside from the thick layer of dust upon the fine wood finish. The piano's bench seat was where it should be yet it looked as if rodents had torn apart the ornate cushion and spread the stuffing within the immediate vicinity of the instrument.

...Glancing upward again, I noticed that four huge electrically powered chandeliers hung from long golden verticle shafts, the chandeliers themselves, were decorated elaborately in gold leaf and more angels. In looking up at these chandeliers I was unable to see any mechanical or cable mechanism in which to lower the massive chandeliers for lightbulb replacement yet I did not doubt that every single one of the bulbs had been fully functional when last in use.

At the far end of the room were two long and elegant sweeping marble staircases, east and west, meeting each other at their bottom steps. These grand staircases were probably each one-hundred and fifty feet long and the steps of these massive staircases were covered in green rug carpet. Both staircases descended gracefully to a large open hearth within the center rear wall of the large foyer. A person could literally drive a truck up these curved staircases, as huge as they were. These double staircases were artistically perfect and only added to the foyer's grandeur.

I knew from my own research on Victorian mansions that these staircases were intentionally designed to allow well-attired ladies a theatrical entrance into the open room with all eyes upon them. The owners of sea-going oceanliners had been quick to grasp this concept and soon began to incorporate grand staircases into the interiors of their ships, such as Cunard's Lusitania and Mauretania, and many others at the turn of the century.

Looking out into the open foyer again, I could almost see the ghosts of dozens upon dozens of young and extremely beautiful women in full Victorian dress gowns as they danced gracefully with well-attired gentlemen to a live orchestra of master musicians. Husbands had proudly danced with their wives while young single men in attendance had skillfully beckoned fair maidens to accompany them out onto the dance floor, right here at this very spot where I now stood. The age-old game of courtship had been alive and well long before the creation of Prominent House I knew, yet it was doubtful that it would ever reach this scale of elegance and sophistication ever again within a house this grand.

The majority of people invited to this house had undoubtedly been powerful politicians, millionaire entrepreneurs, and the darlings of society. Most of these honored guests had probably been dead for close to a hundred years now it suddenly occurred to me. The stillness of the room and lonely space before me seemed only to confirm this suspicion.

Some of the gentlemen who had dined and socialized here may well have been Civil War Veterans...

Somehow it almost seemed as if a person could still detect the faint aroma of exotic perfumes lingering within the air accompanied by the faint echos of evening laughter amidst courtship, young and old alike. I tried to envision my wife, attired in a flowing Victorian dress as we danced upon the floor now before me. My wife could have easily mixed within the crowd here, with social grace to spare....Somehow I didn't believe that a truck driver from Alaska would have ever made the cut though. Yet again, here I was in tandem with the most beautiful woman in the world beside me...

I looked toward the large and elegant double sweeping staircases again.

Above the huge marble hearth which stood at the foot of both staircases, I now noticed a large oval-shaped, "Tintype portraiture" of an extremely beautiful girl with what looked like auburn hair. The girl, probably not much more than twenty years of age, was strikingly beautiful and wearing a formal dress elaborately decored with flowers. Brass buttons were fastened neatly to her neck and she appeared to be holding a bouquet of roses against her breasts. I also noticed a tintype pendant in the shape of a heart fastened around her neck. The pendant appeared to bear the portrait of a bearded man.

The girl held no trace of a smile and her large dark eyes seemed to bore right through the lens of the photographer's camera. The over-size tintype was probably well over a hundred years old and the image of the girl within had a seemingly chilling effect upon the entire room.

Who could she have possibly been, I wondered?

- Jumping now, I was suddenly startled by the mad fluttering of wings and then the deep sounding bing-bong of a bell as several pigeons wildly took flight, some flying above my head as they flew out the open doorway where I stood. I quickly glanced to my left as I now observed Helen, still standing outside the doorway, as she pulled down on a large bronze lever which was obviously the doorbell. The deep bell sounded once more as Helen, again, pulled the large lever downward. Andrea and Kendall were now standing beside me, I noticed. Looking upward at the doorbell mechanism, from inside the house, I realized that the birds which had startled me had probably been nested within the doorbell itself, which was thirty feet above the dusty floor.

It suddenly dawned on me that, unlike other mansions which I'd seen on YouTube, there was no graffiti anywhere, there was no vandalism, and no trace of pilferage. It also didn't look like a whole hoard of rockstar groupies had torn the place apart at any time either, which was strange because Danny Wickersham had been a real party animal during his younger days, I'd been told by Andrea and Helen.

"...THIS... was Danny's pad, really?" I quietly asked Andrea incredulously.

"Apparently so, I knew nothing about this place, Tim" Andrea answered.

"This place is an unbelievable time capsule" I marveled.

"It's incredible" Andrea affirmed.

In looking at the house, thus far, it was almost as if the occupants of the mansion had just one day failed to return home or simply walked out the front door and left everything behind, never to return. The heavily guarded oilfield property had obviously protected the house from all the would-be vandals and thieves for many decades now. The house also still seemed to be completely intact and sealed from the outside elements, giving testament to its superior construction and design.

Looking to my left, I could see a small square set of white tiles where a doorman would have once stood in anticipation of honored guests. The doorman had probably stood there for hours on end, tirelessly welcoming snobbish and influential guests that had rudely shoved their coats and hats at him with nothing more than a grunt or stoic nod in return for his efforts. A thankless job by anyone's standards.

"...My, God, just look at this place," Andrea said quietly in awe.

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," Helen said, in awe herself now and roughly wedging herself between Andrea and me.

...Helen was wearing an "After-rain scent" perfume I noticed subconsciously.

"It wouldn't appear that we're in Texas either but we are," Andrea said, gaping all around us.

"No cowboys in this place," Kendall said.

"This place looks more like a Victorian castle during mid-century Europe," Helen said.

"Who is that?" I asked Kendall; while nodding my head toward the large tintype above the hearth.

I suddenly realized that I'd been standing transfixed within the same spot, just inside the doorway, for three or four solid minutes now.

"Huh?" Kendall asked, slightly distracted herself by the room's size and grandeur.

"Who's the girl in the portrait?" Helen repeated my question.

"...No idea, whatsoever, but she scares the hell out of me already. She's probably been dead for over three-quarters of a century or longer now which creeps me out even more," Kendall said, shaking her head and glancing at the girl in the tintype.

Walking the sixty yards over to the huge hearth and looking upward at the girl I now realized that she had been a woman possessing a rare and natural beauty with large mystical dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a heart-shaped face. Her long thick blonde hair was parted in the middle and cascaded wildly downward in what appeared to be natural curls, she may well have been a strawberry blonde but it was hard to tell in the dust-covered black and white image. She had been an extremely delicate and petite woman, probably standing no more than five feet in height, I assumed from the small build and width of shoulders.

...Kendall was right though, the girl in the oversize tintype did scare the hell out of anyone looking at the portraiture. I now noticed scrolled gold leaf surrounding the oval of the concave tintype itself. Even the marble hearth and backboard on which the tintype had been permanently mounted were ornately decorated with masterful hand-carved scrolling vines and flowers. There was no engraved date or any other description associated with the portraiture.

"Obviously, the lady of the house. I wish she had smiled in the portrait," I said looking upward at the spooky image.

"She may have had bad teeth which weren't uncommon during the Victorian era," Helen said roughly, now standing beside me and peering up at the tintype.

...I speculated that Helen was simply jealous of the girl's divine beauty but I wisely remained silent and kept this speculation to myself...

"Judging by her clothes, what year do you think the photo was taken in, Helen?" Andrea asked; as she took my arm.

"...I'd guess around nineteen-ten or so. The elaborate embroidery and high neckline suggest that; anyway. It's also before women really got into wearing fancy wide-brimmed hats....Yeah, nineteen-ten-ish, I think" Helen replied.

"That's what I was thinking too" Andrea affirmed.

"I wish we knew who she was," I said.

"My God, I just realized, she looks like Lovey, Tim" Andrea suddenly said, squeezing my arm slightly.

The girl in the one-hundred-year-old portraiture did have a striking resemblance to my mother, or more specifically, my Aunt Elsie.

"Do you think she's Swedish also?" Andrea asked me.

My mother had been Swedish.

"...Could be, but I would guess more mid-European. She may have been German or Polish, I think I would lean more toward that direction because of her petite size, but who knows? She's very fair-skinned so I would rule out any place with an extremely harsh climate" I said.

"It does almost look like she has a Texas suntan," Andrea said.

"Look at the pendant," I said, nodding agreement to Andrea's observation.

The heart-shaped pendant within the portraiture beheld a bearded man with praying hands.

"It's Jesus" Andrea answered.

"Must be" I replied speculatively.

"As a man, what does the photo say to you, Tim?" my wife asked, looking at me very intently.

...For a brief few seconds, I let myself be a single, unwedded man again as I studied the tintype closely.

"You've studied beautiful women, your whole life, Tim, speak freely," Andrea encouraged me.

I was silent for several more long seconds just studying the girl.

"(sigh) We're fortunate, because the portrait is so large and clear, for something taken so long ago.

I'm not a psychologist by any means but I do understand body language and human nature to some degree, Andrea, and this girl is saying a lot with her body language and demeanor.

...She's haunted by something from her past, I think. Her demeanor reminds me a lot of my ex-wife, Susan. Susan had issues from her past that haunted her...

Look at this girl's eyes, she's extremely intelligent and it wouldn't surprise me if she spoke one or more other languages fluently, which wasn't that uncommon at the turn of the century because many people had only recently immigrated to America during that time and she looks like she may have been an immigrant for some reason, to me.

I also see a woman that's been scorned, but I'm not exactly sure why I feel that way. She's probably somewhat of a religious fanatic but her faith may be all that's left between her and sanity. This is not the type of lady who trusts others easily, a person would have to EARN her trust over a very long period of time. I'd say she's a loner, probably with no more than one or possibly two friends whom she would die for; if need be...

She's a propper lady in the eyes of her peers but I also see a woman that has lived on the edge, probably through no fault of her own. If the photo had been taken today, I would say she's been around a rough crowd, maybe bikers. Her dress is buttoned completely to her throat yet her hair is wild, out of control really, and not conservative like other Victorian women I've seen photos of. The girl in this tintype indicates to me that she doesn't seem to care what others think of her.

...She's extremely frustrated somehow, maybe she felt that the elites of the Gilded Age were phony, maybe they hadn't accepted her into their social cliques...

She looks at men objectively, not for love but probably as some form of mental escape from reality, or maybe another motive such as revenge against an unfaithful husband. Sex for her; was most likely manic yet it held no emotional significance for her. She was probably addicted to the thrill of the chase with deep remorse following each time afterward. I believe that it was most likely, her, who decorated this house with all of the erotic angels. She probably saw love as a heavenly ideal yet not attainable within this life...

I believe that she probably felt isolated in this huge house and most likely had an addictive personality as a result of neglect or possibly some misfortune. Maybe she's just angry at men in general, this photo was taken toward the end of the Victorian era when women were expected to bear children and be admired as status symbols but not heard.

...They were also expected to tolerate their husbands' mistresses.

I see a woman that's extremely frustrated with life, in general. Men have gawked at this woman, her whole life, viewing her only as an exotic trophy to acquire. She was always greatly appreciated for her physical appearance but not for who she was as a person. Her idols would probably have been women such as Amelia Earhart and Annie Oakley. Her daily fantasies would be to emulate such women.

...Her eyes are veiled to a degree which tells me that she may have been guilt-ridden for some reason, possibly extramarital affairs. Or maybe she'd just never had her photo taken before and felt uncomfortable with the whole process but I find that hard to believe, as attractive as she is.