Fettigrew Hall - The Biography of a House

Fettigrew Hall - Chapter 1

Chapter 1       April 2009

Being there. That’s what travel was about. It wasn’t the getting there that she liked. That was too hard on the body and boring for the mind. If all went well, it wasn’t aggravating to the mind. And here she was, 30,000 feet above the ocean headed for Merry Olde England. A scary thought, entrusting your life to someone you had never even met and hanging in the air for hours until you finally reached your destination. Of course, Peter’s view had been different. There was nothing better, he thought, than sailing along above the earth, controlling that massive machinery. Best not to think of him right now.

Since the plane crash, she had spent most of her time doing all the legal things an executor of a will did. She had made notifications and funeral arrangements, collected insurance, paid off bills, distributed the few things Pete had left to friends and relatives. She had cried so much she was now empty. Sometimes she could hardly move, let alone breathe, for the darkness that seemed to overwhelm her. It was a crushing grief.

Just when things had been the best, Peter had died. The best of their lives remained. A few more years until retirement and then they would do everything they had planned and waited for. Peter was hailed as a hero when he brought the plane down with such skill that only five had died; Both he and the co-pilot, one flight attendant, who was not seated for some reason and two men who had been seated near the wing as the plane tumbled over, splintering that side of the plane. To her way of thinking, being a hero is meaningless if you are dead.

 Her own business, “The Ultimate Design” had always flourished. She had flair for interior design and had been fortunate to have connections to wealthy clients. Owing to her own family’s wealth, she was already doing well by the time Peter had come in to her life. She had designed for her clients and over years invested in a number of Victorian houses, which she had restored and then sold. She had made significant money doing this and gotten personal satisfaction in seeing a part of history survive for perhaps another hundred years.

 After his death, she had tried throwing herself into the business to take her mind off how desolate she felt. Although this had actually grown the business for her, there was no longer that spark that had always made her want to get to work in the morning. She had never had a business partner but her long time assistant had approached her about buying the business. Perhaps it had been a rash decision but she felt she would never get back the enthusiasm she’d had before. Everything she saw or did reminded her of her life with Peter. She felt she must move on and focus herself in another way.

 So look ahead to the future. This whole thing was insane, but why not? Why not do it all now? Since Peter had died, there was really nothing that interested her. She had always teased Pete that if anything ever happened to him, she would take his insurance money and spend a year in England. She had spent part of her youth there while her father worked at the embassy in London. She had fallen in love with the quaintness and the history there. And while she had been back several times, including two trips with Peter, there was never the time to see everything. Often she had dreamed of going back there to live. She felt like her heart was there. She didn’t believe in reincarnation, but there was always something to call her back. It was where she felt at home. Nothing else made her happy now or seemed worthwhile. At least maybe she could keep herself distracted enough to keep this terrible emptiness at bay.

Marc, Pete’s son from his first marriage, was doing well on his own with his friends and medical school. He really didn’t need her now. He was now settled and doing well. He had his own life in New York and he loved it there. She had raised him with Peter since the boy was four, his own mother being killed in an auto accident when he was two. Marc had always thought of her as his real mother. Peter and his first wife, Janet, had tried for many years to have a baby and he was ecstatic when Janet made him a father at the advanced age of 36.

She was 26 when she had met Peter. Talk about love at first sight! She couldn’t take her eyes off that rugged face and piercing blue eyes. Their 21 years together had been a haven from the storms of life. They were kindred spirits, never disagreeing, always happy to be together. Two more years of work and Pete would have retired. They had already been making plans for that day.

As winter dragged on, she tried to think of anything she could focus on and find some meaning in her life. One day while sorting through some books, she had found her favorite picture book of England. Now that was a place she had always been excited to be. It seemed her soul thrived when she could breathe that air. She remembered her joke with Pete about spending a year in England. That seemed to trigger more and more thoughts each day. She and Pete had done some research over the years about where they would visit after his retirement. They had planned a trip as soon as his retirement came. Remembering her fascination around the three sisters buried in Dunblane Cathedral, she thought it might be a place to go and do more research.

Dunblane was a very ancient medieval church, not on the normal tourist path. It contained a brass plaque on the floor commemorating the poisoning of three sisters in 1501. Their uncle, Walter Drummond, had been Dean of the Cathedral at that time and they were buried in front of the altar. A brass grave marking indicated that Margaret, the eldest daughter of John, First Lord of Drummond, had secretly married King James IV. Nobles who desired the king’s marriage to Princess Margaret of England had killed her along, with her sisters, Euphemia, who was the wife of the Second Lord Fleming, and Sybilla. She had tried over the years to find more information but anything she found was very sketchy. Perhaps she would look into this more thoroughly and write a book.

As the plane’s lights were dimmed, she felt sleepy. Instead of watching the movie, she decided to nap. Her mind cast back to her favorite house in England, a place she had often walked through again in her mind, thinking about what it would be like to actually live there.