“What a charming office,” I said.
“It was similarly furnished when I inherited the shop from a distant relative. I always liked the quaintness, but I expect Owen will redo everything once he takes over. That’ll be hard for me. I’m old and I don’t like change, but it’s only fitting the shop be returned to the Dowling side of the family. Owen isn’t really my nephew, you see, more like a cousin several times removed. But he’s always thought of me as his great-aunt and I’ve never been one to stand on ceremony.”
“I understand Dowling Curiosities has been at this location for a very long time,” I said.
“Well over fifty years. I was surprised to find myself in my cousin’s will, but our family is nothing if not eccentric and more than a little complex. You’ve no doubt noticed that I have a different last name than Ezra’s.” She motioned to one of the chairs and she took the settee, propping her walking cane nearby and smoothing wrinkles from the smock she wore over her dress. “William Kroll was Louvenia and Ezra’s father. After he died, my mother married Harold Toombs, a weak opportunist who left her shortly after Mott and I were born. It was a difficult delivery and our poor mother had many months of recovery. Harold couldn’t or wouldn’t accept the responsibility for our care so he packed his bags and took off.”
“That must have been hard on everyone.”
“Mother never got over his abandonment. When she died a few years later, Louvenia swore it was from nursing a broken heart for so long. In truth, she succumbed to pneumonia. Tea?”
“Yes, thank you.”
While Nelda busied herself with the teapot and cups, I removed the stereoscope from my bag and placed it on the coffee table.
She paused, eyes filling with emotion before she reached for it. “May I?”
“Of course.”
She turned the stereoscope over, searching for the inscription. “Ah, there it is.” She ran a finger over the tiny metal plate. “I gave this viewer to Mott on our thirteenth birthday. My cousin found it on one of her excursions and engraved it in this very shop. And now here it is back, after having been lost for so many years.”
“I’m happy to return it to its rightful place,” I said.
“That’s very generous of you. The shop will reimburse you for your troubles, of course.”
“No need. The viewer belongs here with you. But I do wonder how it came to be in the cellar of a house on Rutledge Avenue.”
A frown flitted across Nelda’s wizened brow. “I’ve no idea. It just disappeared one day. I never knew what happened to it.”
“And this, as well?” I laid the stereogram on the table facing her.
She picked up the card and studied the dual photographs for the longest time before pressing the images to her heart. “I remember the day these were taken. Ezra had just come from the Colony where he’d been working in one of the gardens and Mott and I begged him to have his picture made with us. We adored him so. But he was always camera shy, especially after he returned from the war.”
“Who took the photographs?”
“Louvenia. Mott showed her how to position the frames at slightly different angles to create a 3-D image just the way Rose had taught her. Mott was always a quick study. She became as obsessed with photography as Rose. Both were in love with stereoscopy. They claimed you could see things in the three-dimensional imagery that couldn’t be glimpsed with the naked eye.”
“That’s Rose in the upstairs window, isn’t it?”
Nelda slipped the card in the holder and lifted the stereoscope to the light. “Why, yes it is. Watching over us as always. Funny, I never noticed her there before.” She returned the viewer to the table and handed me a cup of tea. “You can see why I was so startled by the resemblance.”
“Yes, it’s uncanny, as you said. How did you come to know Rose? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t mind. I like talking about her. She just turned up in town one day. It seemed peculiar at the time. She had no friends or family in Isola, not even a job at first. Later, I came to suspect that she and Ezra had crossed paths in the past. She moved into a cottage he owned not far from the Colony.”
“Why didn’t she live in the Colony?”
“It takes a very special mind-set to adapt to communal living. Rose was much too private. Instead of paying rent, she made arrangements to tutor Mott and me. We had to miss a lot of school because of our health, you see. And there were other reasons...emotional reasons why we lagged behind. But Rose was a wonderful teacher. In no time at all, she had us doing work that was well above our grade level. Ezra was very proud of us all, especially Mott. The two of them were always so close. Sugar?” She offered the small bowl of glistening cubes, but I declined.
“I’m fine, thank you. The tea is wonderful just as it is.”
She smiled, pleased by the compliment. “The secret is just a hint of cloves.”