After lunch Ms. Brandy asked Maggie to help her uncrate some new items that she’d recently purchased at an estate sale. Maggie thoroughly enjoyed the task. It was like discovering buried treasure.
She unpacked and polished a silver serving set, which Ms. Brandy then priced and set out to display on an antique sideboard. They added some new items to an already crowded china cabinet and even hung a small crystal chandelier over a Chippendale dining room set that occupied the front window display. Next they unboxed some Tiffany-style lamps which they temporarily set on the counter in the back. There was very little, if any, table top space left in the entire store.
“There’s an old steamer trunk still in the back of the truck,” Ms. Brandy explained. “We can put the lamps on it, if you could just help me get it. That sucker was heavier than I thought.”
“Oh, sure,” Maggie agreed as she followed Ms. Brandy to the back door.
It took the women several minutes to negotiate the heavy trunk from the bed of the truck onto a dolly.
“I’d thought it was empty, but there must still be something inside, as heavy as it is. Let’s see what we’ve got,” Ms. Brandy said as they settled the trunk in a corner of the shop. The lock on the front was secured and the key was missing. Maggie watched in wonder as Ms. Brandy proceeded to pick the lock.
“I’m not even going to ask where you learned that,” Maggie said playfully.
“It’s best you didn’t know,” Ms. Brandy confirmed. Once the lid of the trunk was popped the two women leaned forward to see what was inside.
The trunk was stuffed with old magazines, newspapers and photographs.
“We should sift through it,” Ms. Brandy said. “You never know what we may find.”
Maggie began sorting through the items in the trunk while Ms. Brandy greeted an arriving customer. She gingerly laid the yellowed newspaper clippings in a pile, glancing at the headlines as she did so. Some of the articles dated back to World War II referencing major world events like Pearl Harbor. Others were local interest pieces announcing spring cotillions and Harvest festivals.
Below the newspaper clippings were old photographs. Most were of soldiers with their loved ones. Maggie sorted through them slowly, admiring the pictures as she stacked them neatly. Then she came across a photo of two young women dressed in billowing southern belle dresses standing in front of Devereaux Manor. There was no mistaking the distinctive house.
“Whatcha got there?” Ms. Brandy asked looking over her shoulder.
“I believe it’s a photograph of Devereaux Manor. Do you know who this is standing in front of it?” Maggie asked as she handed the photo to Ms. Brandy.
“Well, let’s see,” Ms. Brandy said as she pulled her reading glasses down from the top of her head. “Oh! This is Agnes Devereaux and Marge Garrison just before the spring cotillion of ’53. Quite likely the last picture those two girls ever took together.”
“Agnes Devereaux?” Maggie asked excitedly “Which one?”
Ms. Brandy pointed to the girl on the right. Maggie studied her image closely as if she could divine something from the young girl’s image that would give her some insight into the old woman’s actions. She was a beautiful girl, dressed in a tulle gown with flouncing layers. Her dark hair was piled high on her head in a sophisticated chignon with artfully placed ringlets falling around her face. The most striking thing about her however was the utter desolation in her expression.
Maggie looked to the other girl in the photo. She was similarly dressed, although not nearly as pretty. Her face seemed a bit pinched, her features plain, but her expression at least was what you would expect to see on a young woman about to attend a debutant ball.
“Who did you say the other girl was?” Maggie asked.
“Marge Garrison, you know her as Marge Bouchard,” Ms. Brandy answered.
“Mrs. Bouchard?!” Maggie exclaimed “She and Ms. Devereaux were friends?”
“Not exactly,” Ms. Brandy said. “They were cousins and came from the wealthiest family in the area. Back then that practically made them royalty. Marge was actually a year older than Agnes but had missed her coming out season the year before due to being struck with the flu. Therefore the two were both being debuted in the same year. It was quite the scandal at the time. Marge needed desperately to find a suitor, but as you can see Agnes was a much prettier girl. The whole town was buzzing with gossip over which girl would land the best match.”
“How do you know all this?” Maggie asked, realizing that Ms. Brandy couldn’t have been more than a toddler at the time.
“What followed that night was the biggest scandal this little town has ever seen and the story was still being whispered about at my own cotillion fifteen years later,” Ms. Brandy explained. “That’s how I knew exactly when that photo was taken. That was the last year that cotillion was held at Devereaux Manor, and also the last time that anyone would see Agnes Devereaux.”
“What happened?”
19