Empires of Mice

Apart from being scared out of my wits, the things I remember most clearly about our adventure at the old Hatfield place are Ruthie’s allergy attack and the mice.

The grass was waist high and smelled of chaff dust and the narrow overgrown path was a tangle of hardened weeds and cindery branches. Every step we took seemed to crackle beneath our feet like a warning – it was a wonder, we thought when it was over, that neither of us had broken an ankle or worse – but we’d gotten through with just skinned knees and bruised elbows.  We weren’t more than a third of the way in when Ruthie’s hay fever surfaced violently and she began to sneeze loud enough and often enough to wake the dead. Her eyes and nose were running like faucets and her voice was so thick I could barely understand her but she was no quitter, my friend, Ruthie. She hacked away at the stubborn undergrowth, sneezed, hacked some more, sneezed some more and still kept up a steady, shocking stream of cussing. Later we would think it had a comical edge but at the time it just seemed like a really bad idea. Just as I was wondering if hay fever could kill you, we reached the clearing and came in sight of the old abandoned house. The upper story stain glass windows – all save one which was jagged and smashed - were still intact, the wraparound veranda still stood although it had crumbled in some places. The stable was in ruins but the wishing well was only a little worse for wear – it sat at the edge of a stone circled salt water pond – made fish-less by time and loneliness but still clear and cold. Ruthie immediately shed her shoes and overalls, scrambled over the fence and waded in clear to the deepest part, took a deep breath and went under. She came up a minute later, coughing and sputtering and looking like a drowned cat but less red-eyed and at least for the moment, sneeze-free. We sat quietly in the noon sun until she’d dried off.

The Hatfield sisters, Elizabeth, Emily and Eloise, had lived well in this once grand house on the other side of Brier Island. Heiresses to the family’s fish canning factory, all had grown up in a time of privilege and piano lessons. Eloise – the youngest and the only pretty one, some of the crueler tongues did say - was the only one to have married and leave the island. She returned after a year or so, divorced and childless and except for the usual village gossip, no one ever spoke of her time away. All three sisters lived as if she’d never left and they were in their seventies by the time the canning factory shut down. Much like the house itself, deprived of maintenance and care, they began to fall into disrepair.

Emily went first, Nana had told us, Had her a stroke, she did, and was stone dead by the time they got her to the ferry. Couple years later, Lizbeth took to wandering’ round after dark in nothin’ but her nightclothes. Hired man found her washed up in the cove jist after Labor Day.

And Eloise? Ruthie and I had asked breathlessly.

Nana frowned.

I don’t recollect how Eloise died, she’d said shortly, Go wash up for supper.

It was her no-more-questions tone and we knew better than to persist but that didn’t mean we were going to give up. After supper, we decided to walk to Sparrow’s.

Eloise Hatfield? the old man muttered as he filled his pipe and spilled a little tobacco onto his lap in the process. He brushed it off impatiently and gave us a dark look. Long time ago, he finally said, Leave it lie.

Is it a mystery, Sparrow? Ruthie said and gave him her best smile, Did she die of a broken heart?

Tell us, Sparrow! I begged.

In the match flare, the old man’s face was a blue-ish mask, not smiling but not scowling. There was the acrid smell of sulphur in the air and he leaned back in the rocking chair, his expression unreadable. Eager as I’d been, I suddenly wasn’t quite so curious.

Eloise Hatfield, he said thoughtfully, Ain’t thought of her in a dog’s age. Killed herself, so’s they say, jumped from a second story window and broke her fool neck. The sweet pipe smoke hung in the air like late evening fog but it didn’t conceal Ruthie’s disappointment.

Is that all? She asked suspiciously.

Ain’t it enough? Sparrow said a trifle snappishly but I noticed he wasn’t meeting her eyes.

My grandmother wouldn’t have dodged a suicide, I was sure of it.

Sparrow, I said quietly, trying to sound grown up and only mildly interested, What’s the rest?

The old man shifted in his chair, fussed with his pipe, finally sighed.

I reckon, he said reluctantly, there’s some who think she might’ve had some help outta that window.

Ruthie’s face lit up and I moved a little closer.

Now mind me, he continued, it weren’t nothin’ but talk but I ‘member there was a lot of it after Cap done told about the stranger come over on the ferry that afternoon. There were those that said it was Eloise’s old husband but the fact is there weren’t a soul who knew for positive and sure as shootin’ he was long gone by the time they found Eloise. 

You never interrupted Sparrow in the middle of a story so Ruthie and I waited. After another few minutes, he made a point of re-lighting his pipe, clenched it between his teeth and rocked silently.

It weren’t too long afore some folks was seein’ and hearin’ things at the Hatfield place, he resumed and before we could ask added, Lights and the like, a woman walkin’ when the moon was special bright. Screams and breakin’ glass sometimes. Ghost stories jist to keep the kids away from the place, I reckon. Most folks didn’t talk much about it bein’ afeared of soundin’ a mite crazy and then some cousin come from St. John or Grand Pre or somewheres and had the whole durn place fenced in and them No Trespassin’ signs put up. Ain’t likely anybody’s been there since and I ‘spect one of these days a good blizzard’ll bring the whole works down.

And that, hay fever or not, was the story that had brought Ruthie and I to the old Hatfield Place on a perfect late summer day. We wanted to hear or see a ghost in the worst way.

With the sun at our backs, we cautiously climbed the rickety veranda steps and peered into the mud-caked windows, hoping for Lord knew what and seeing only the forgotten furnishings covered with sheets and cobwebs. The front door, its lock rusted half-open from disuse, gave way easily and swung inward, its hinges giving a raspy but mild creak of protest. Everything was thickly layered with dust and smelled of mold and mildew. When a slight breeze followed us in, the crystal chandelier tinkled gently and showered us with a cloud of dirt and dead insects – we both cringed and very nearly panicked until we realized what had happened – then we laughed shakily and brushed ourselves off. It gave us a fresh dose of bravery and we slowly made our way toward the once elegant parlor. The double doors that led down to the ocean hung crookedly – we could almost see through the heavy but now ragged and sagging drapes – and the room was streaky with sunlight. An enormous and awkward shape in the corner proved to be a grand piano. While we stood speechless, a sudden scrabbling, scratchy noise came from it. Ruthie grabbed my hand so I wouldn’t run and a corner of the discolored old sheet moved revealing a small mouse. For a moment it watched us – I remember clearly its bright eyes and twitching whiskers – then it wiggled its way through and ran across the keys in a small puff of dust.

Jist a mouse, Ruthie reassured me with a tight squeeze of my hand, And he ain’t got much talent for music.

I wanted to laugh at this but found I could barely breathe. That was when we heard a rustling from the mantle and without any warning, a dove suddenly took flight and soared over our heads, through the arched entryway and up the curving staircase. For a second or two I was dead certain my heart would hammer its way out of my chest or worse, just stop altogether. Another mouse darted from behind a moldy drape and ran over my sneakered foot. I shrieked like a banshee.

Reckon they don’t get much company, Ruthie laughed although it sounded a little forced, C’mon, let’s see where she went!

I thought following the dove was a bad idea, a stupendously bad idea come to think of it, a death-defying, horrific idea that couldn’t help but end badly. I said so – loudly so that any lurking ghost would be sure to hear – but Ruthie was determined. She pushed, pulled, shoved and hauled me to the foot of the stairs and finally threatened to leave me if I didn’t follow. That idea was even worse and somehow I managed to overcome my paralysis, take a death grip on the slick bannister and with my heart in my throat, take one shaky step after another.

Keep up! Ruthie ordered when we reached the landing and she caught me looking over my shoulder, And don’t look back!

I didn’t dare ask why. I was too terrified I might see a band of mice on the stairs behind me.

Another few steps and we were on the second floor. I could hear doves cooing from the bedrooms and fancied if there had been two mice downstairs, there were likely to be entire mice families up here – legions of mice, I thought, maybe even empires of mice just like The Pied Piper of Hamlin – and where there were mice, there were owls. Just the thought brought a vision of being carried off by some monstrous winged thing with razor-sharp talons and yellow eyes.

Can we go now? I whispered to Ruthie and she hushed me with an exasperated look.

I want to see the window, she said stubbornly, then we’ll go. Stay here if you’re too scairt.
The prospect of being alone on the landing sent chills down my back – who knew if an owl might not carry off Ruthie – so cold with fear, but not willing to lose sight of her, I trailed after.

There wasn’t much left of the window Eloise had jumped from – or been pushed out of, I reminded myself grimly - and once we tore down the thumb tacked plastic sheet it was mostly dust-covered shards of broken glass and a long drop down. We could see the ocean through the trees and smell the salt air and as Ruthie propped her hands on the window frame and leaned out to get a better view, I was thinking it was eerily peaceful – for a crime scene – when there was a sudden chittering from behind me. I was prepared to see a mouse or a squirrel or a dove. I was not prepared to see a small fox with a plumed tail and bared teeth crouching in the doorway. I let out a small screech and it turned tail and quick as a flash was gone so fast I almost thought I imagined it.

A fox? Ruthie said doubtfully as she pulled from back from the shattered window, You sure?

Dammit to hell, ‘course I’m sure! I snapped at her, Reckon I know a fox when I see one! Now can we just go home?
To my relief, she nodded. We were halfway down the grand staircase when we heard the howl – long and plaintive like a wolf – then the unmistakable sound of a door slamming and finally a few discordant notes from the piano. It was – so some would later say when word got out – a defining moment in our childhood. Well, maybe so, but all’s I know is that Ruthie and I defined the fire out it and ran as if we could feel the devil’s own hot breath on our backs. We didn’t look back - I don't know what she was thinking but I was sure there would be a militia of mice lined up on the veranda - we didn’t stop ‘til we got to the already departing ferry and without a second of hesitation raced down the mesh coated slip and jumped for it. It earned us one of Cap’s sternest lectures about ferry safety and a warning that if ever we tried it again, he’d put us both over the side in no time flat.

And I might or might not have a mind to fish you out, he muttered, oughta know that seaweed's slick as gull shit, damn fool kids.

Somehow or other we managed to look repentant and he cuffed each of us – gently – and sent us into the tug for hot chocolate. We crossed the passage against the tide but were still home before the factory whistle blew. Sparrow, still in his rocking chair watching the world go by, gave us a smile and a quick salute.

Thinkin’ bout gettin’ me a cat, he hollered as we passed, Got me a passle of mice ‘round the place.

We cringed but only a little.