Chapter 4 #2
“Not so vacant,” Arlo said with a guilty smile. “When I was in college, the students dared each other to spend Halloween night at the Roost. Rumor had it that the ghost of Saint Helga was likely to show up.”
Alice straightened. The legend of Saint Helga had been linked with Reid’s Roost for centuries, although the origin of the story was lost to time.
Most people thought the legend was pure myth.
After all, there was no Saint Helga in any Christian denomination, nor was there any trace of a woman named Helga associated with Virginia at the time the Roost was built.
And yet, sometime in the earliest years of the colony of Virginia, legends of Saint Helga began to be associated with the Roost. The gorgeous stretch of water behind the Roost had been called Saint Helga’s Spring as far back as anyone could remember.
Even a census map from 1720 labeled the body of water after the mysterious Helga.
“Did you ever take the dare and spend the night at the Roost?” Greg McGarity asked.
“Once,” Arlo admitted. “No Saint Helga or any other ghosts. We got nothing but mosquito bites, a stiff back, and a hangover. It was a thoroughly miserable experience from start to finish.”
“Lightweight,” General Epstein muttered beneath his breath, then began to describe what it was like to bivouac in the swamps of Vietnam.
“Please,” Alice said before the conversation went completely off-kilter.
“I’d like to talk about how we can save the Roost.” She sent an uneasy glance at Daisy.
Did she even know what her husband had done?
Daisy filed her nails with an emery board and didn’t appear to be listening, so Alice continued.
“The man who is developing the golf course wants to demolish the Roost, an irreplaceable cultural treasure, to build an amphitheater. I’d like your help saving it.”
Arlo’s eyes widened as he looked at Daisy. “Did you know about this?”
“That’s my husband’s business, darlin’. I have enough on my hands managing the hotel in town to bother myself with sweaty golf courses.”
“If the Tuckers want to sell the place, it’s within their right to do so,” Greg said. “I saw Kyle Tucker out at the yacht club last week, and he’s gangbusters about building that amphitheater. He says it will make a fortune.”
Alice squared her shoulders and met his gaze. “Yes, but they’ll have to demolish the Roost to make it happen. I’d like the board to grant a permanent stay on development.”
“That’s a tall order,” General Epstein said.
“I don’t like barging onto private property and telling owners what they can’t do with their land.
Maybe we can get a brief stay on development to give the historians time to make their case, but any longer could throw the construction schedule into a tailspin. ”
“A temporary stay, then.” At the very least, she needed a few weeks to get inside the house and solve the historical mystery she suspected still lurked somewhere on that property.
“Daisy?” Arlo asked. “What do you think?”
Daisy lowered the emery board. “I think Kyle ought to be able to do whatever he wants with that house.”
“But there is history on that land that pre-dates the Tuckers,” Alice said. “I need time to study it.”
Greg remained unmoved. “Historians and archaeologists have already combed over every square inch of the Roost. Anything of historic interest has already been discovered and documented. It’s not right to stand in the way of progress to save a decrepit building that probably should have been condemned decades ago.
It’s unfit for occupancy and a public menace. ”
The tide was turning against her, and she was ready to play her trump card.
“I’ve learned something new in England that proves that Saint Helga may be more than just a legend,” Alice said.
“When I was in London, I combed through old records, looking for things of interest in this part of Virginia. I found a letter from 1672 that alludes to a woman named Helga. Take a look.”
She had copies of the letter and distributed them to the others in the room. The spidery, cursive handwriting from the seventeenth century was notoriously difficult to decipher, so Alice read the important passage aloud:
Helga has sailed for Jamestown as she still has hope to conceive a child. The woman is a saint, but I fear we will never see her again. Virginia is a dangerous land.
Alice remembered the afternoon in the British Library when she first saw this letter.
It was two weeks after she’d gotten fired from the Emma movie set and she’d been anxious, depressed, and desperate to save her failing academic career.
Hoping to uncover some overlooked detail from Virginia’s early history, she stayed glued to the chair, spending hours trolling through old records in their early American history collections.
The holdings consisted of a mishmash of official dispatches, property surveys, land grants, court cases, and letters.
Each day she nearly went cross-eyed while squinting at the hazy microfilm screen and struggling to read the spindly handwriting from long ago.
The name Helga jumped out at her. The Nordic name was not completely unknown in England, where the northern counties had been heavily settled by Vikings in the ninth century.
Nordic names such as Helga, Erik, or Garth still popped up among the Norse descendants, so she couldn’t automatically assume this Helga on her way to Virginia had any association with the lovely body of water behind Reid’s Roost.
But there was a tiny clue on the letter that clinched it for Alice. She held back a smile as she watched the others in the room read the letter, their faces unimpressed.
“This is all you have?” Greg asked, holding up the piece of paper.
“Look at the mark at the end of the sentence,” Alice said. The mark looked a little like a circle of palm fronds and was about the size of a thumbnail. Apparently it didn’t resonate with anyone except Arlo. He put on his reading glasses and held the paper close, squinting at the mark.
“I’ve seen this before,” he said.
Alice nodded. “That’s the mark carved into the lintel stone over the hearth at the Roost.”
“What’s a lintel stone?” Greg asked, a clue that maybe he shouldn’t be president of a historic preservation board.
Alice supplied the answer. “The lintel stone is a long slab of rock that spans the top of the fireplace in the main room out at the Roost. It supports the chimney above it.”
“And this same squiggly mark is carved into the stone at the Roost?” Greg asked.
“Exactly the same!” Alice said. “It’s a little doodle at the top right of the stone.
Most people think it was a simple decoration or a bit of graffiti.
I think the Helga referenced in this letter somehow made her way to Virginia and may have even lived at the Roost. I think she is the source of the legend of Saint Helga’s Spring. ”
General Epstein tossed the paper onto the coffee table. “Women don’t really believe that nonsense, do they?”
According to the legend, women who had difficulty conceiving a child should head down to the spring located behind the Roost at dawn.
They were to stand on the rickety old pier that stretched into the water, and recite the Lord’s Prayer five times while facing the sunrise.
Over the years, hundreds of women claimed to have conceived a child after visiting the spring.
“I have a cousin who tried for years to have a baby and nothing worked,” Daisy said. “She went to see the sunrise over Saint Helga’s Spring, and sure enough, she got pregnant the next month.”
The men in the room all looked mildly amused, but this was serious business for Alice .
. . not because she believed the legend, but because her career could depend on discovering its origin.
Her best chance of winning tenure had ended disastrously in London, but finding the source behind the legend of Saint Helga could be her salvation.
It meant she could publish her findings in an academic journal and prove her scholarly merit to the college.
“This letter was written in 1672,” Alice said.
“That’s thirty-three years before the Tuckers bought the Roost in 1705.
I think that building is older than any of us know, and Helga was a real person.
I need time to study the Roost with new eyes, and without Jack Latimer ruining the property.
He’s left trash all over the place that’s attracting rodents and pests.
I’d like him evicted until I can complete my study. ”
Daisy pursed her lips, looking interested for the first time. “It’s private property, Alice. Jack and my husband have a business arrangement to let him stay there for free. We don’t have any grounds to meddle with that.”
Alice’s salvation came from an unlikely source.
Greg McGarity’s knowledge of real estate law was deep, and his voice was laden with concern.
“I’m not sure the Tuckers have the authority to let anyone live there.
The Roost isn’t fit for habitation and it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
According to Arlo, college kids dare each other to break into the place every Halloween.
What if one of them tries to light a fire and burns the place down?
The Roost is a temptation to vagrants and college kids, and the county could get sued for ignoring the danger it represents. ”
Arlo straightened in his chair, adjusting his spectacles. “I suppose we could use the condition of the building as a means of getting him out in the short term. That will give us time to complete an inspection and search for anything of historic interest.”
Relief threaded through Alice’s spine. Reason and respect for history had won the day, at least in the short term. “So are we agreed?” she asked. “We’ll apply for emergency protection and keep the structure safe until I can determine if the building warrants landmark status.”
“We need to have a vote,” Daisy pointed out. She had gone back to filing her nails, and her expression was inscrutable.
Greg called for a vote. “All in favor of applying for an eviction while Professor Chadwick investigates the Roost for historic landmark status, raise their hand.”
Alice shot her hand into the air. So did the three men. Daisy continued filing her nails, the rasp a little louder than before. It was the only sound of her displeasure, and Alice feared their friendship might take a hit.
And yet, she’d won a chance to solve a mystery and hopefully save her career.