Hats in the Attic

Good gracious, Aunt Pearl said with a sigh, Now there’s somethin’ I weren’t expectin’ to see.

And we thought we knew her, Aunt Vi agreed, Alice!  She called to my grandmother, still sorting and separating downstairs, Come see!

Miss Hilda had died a week earlier and according to island tradition, the women had been organizing and packing up every day since.   As they’d expected, the old house had been pristine, arranged with the military precision Hilda had so valued, every room spotlessly neat without the first trace of dust.  Every room, drawer, closet and corner was immaculate and symmetrically arranged.  Even the dustjackets on the books were shiny and new-looking, the utensil drawers carefully stacked and grouped, the contents of the cabinets looked as if they’d never been used.  Every window was streak-free, each area rug vacuumed within an inch of its life and resting perfectly straight over every polished floor.  Not a single framed picture hung a micro bit off kilter, not a single drape was uncreased.  The house resonated with discipline and order.  And then we got to the attic.

I crept around my two favorite aunts and stared in awe – the attic was a jumble of hatboxes in absolutely no order at all.  They were stacked randomly, piled here and there, lying half-opened all over the floor, hanging from pegs on the walls, perched haphazardly on clothes trees, most covered with a thick layer of dust. 

If that don’t beat all!  I heard my grandmother say from behind me, Looks like a whole hat factory exploded!

There were hats with feathers, hats with veils, hats with imitation fruit.  There were small hats in soft muted colors and huge hats with extravagant floppy brims.  There were summer hats and winter hats and spring and autumn hats.  There were demure hats and brazen hats, straw hats, felt hats, wedding hats, hats for every conceivable occasion or mood.  All were still in their colored wrapping paper with price tags attached.  Some boxes hadn’t even been opened.

They ain’t never been worn, Aunt Pearl declared in surprise, Not a single one!

‘Pears so, Nana agreed, Reckon there must be over a hunnerd of ‘em.

Closer to two, I ‘spect, Aunt Vi added.

There were, when all was said and done, two hundred and twenty-eight.  It took another two days to go through them all and it wasn’t until they’d all been dusted, carefully re-packaged and carried downstairs that the women were able to bring up mops and buckets and floor polish to restore the musty attic.  It was in the process of this final cleaning that Aunt Vi noticed – well, stumbled over, truth to tell – the trunk in a dark unexplored corner.   A steamer trunk it was, made of real leather with brass straps and handles, scarred and faded in some places and showing its age.  My imagination, always ready and willing to take flight, immediately turned to ships and shuffleboard and ladies in high button shoes, travel in the time of the Titanic, mystery, sorrow and secret treasures. 

Should we open it? Aunt Vi asked tentatively and I could see at once that she didn’t want to.  Aunt Pearl was looking thoughtful.

Likely just more hats,  Nana said briskly, Open her up, Viola.

Maybe there’s a body it!  I said a little excitedly and earned a hard glare from my grandmother while Aunt Vi took a fluttery step backward.   She looked from Pearl to Nana and shook her head almost violently.

Don’t be a goose, Vi, Aunt Pearl said a tad sharply, It’s just an old trunk!

Every house on the island has one just like it, Nana said reasonably, Mine’s full of bed linens and I know for a fact that Clara keeps souvenir pillows in her’s – she paid Uncle Len ten dollars to line it with cedar – and Miz McIntyre keeps her weddin’ dress in her’s.

Don’t care who keeps what where, Vi muttered with another backward step, I ain’t agonna open it.

Nana gave an exasperated groan.

Pearl, you’re closer, she scowled, Open the damn thing.

Aunt Pearl shrugged and walked to the trunk, knelt – a little painfully in deference to her arthritis – gripped the brass locks one in each hand and lifted.  The old relic opened easily.

So?  Nana asked impatiently.

Ain’t hats, Pearl said quietly, Surely ain’t hats.

The trunk was full of dresses – gowns, actually - floor length, silk and satin, trimmed with lace and velvet ribbons, some with puff sleeves, some with delicate cameos sewn into the low necklines, all with impossibly tiny waists and matching petticoats.  My wide-eyed Aunt Pearl lifted each one out with great care, smoothing the folds and hanging it gently on the wall pegs where the hats had been. There were five all told – a deep rich blue, a pale rose, a shockingly bright lavender, a subtle green, and at the very bottom, a cream colored with see-through sleeves, inlaid with rows of tiny pearls from shoulder to lace-edged hem. 

It was Aunt Vi who finally cut through the slack-jawed silence.

These are…..I don’t know….. she whispered reverently, they should be ….. mebbe in a museum or somewheres.

She spoke so softly I wasn’t sure I’d heard her at all but it was enough to break the spell and snap us all back to the moment.  Pearl and Vi gently folded each of the gowns and laid them back in the trunk, careful to keep them in the same order and lowering the lid as if it were made of glass.  No one spoke and we left the attic in single file without looking back.  A few days later, Nana made discreet arrangements to have the old trunk moved to our back bedroom for safekeeping – even so there was some talk – and she and the aunts divided up the hatboxes, each taking custody of as many as they could make room for.  Later in the summer, they gave away what they could and donated the rest to the Baptist Church jumble sale. 

The leather trunk sat undisturbed in the back bedroom all that summer and well into the next while the women argued and debated what ought to be done.  Nana wrote to museums and historical societies all over the province and even to a London-based auction house but there wasn’t any interest.  All attempts to locate Hilda’s family failed miserably – it was as if she’d dropped out of the sunny summer sky and floated to earth like a ramrod straight and iron willed Mary Poppins.  It was next to impossible to reconcile the magic dresses with the woman we’d all known and in time we were forced to accept that her secrets had died with her.

Then, in the mid 60’s, my grandmother happened across a story about The Museum of Costume in Britain and was sure she’d found a home for the trunk and its contents.  She wrote them and sent pictures and they wrote back saying they’d be delighted.   After some ten years of caretaking, Nana and the aunts anxiously shipped the old trunk – by ocean liner, no less, it just seemed appropriate they all agreed – to London.

We had no way of knowing for sure, but we all thought Miss Hilda would’ve been pleased.