HAMPTON HOUSE (Fiction)

by Danna Shirley

She made her way through Cranson, down the main road to Hampton Lane. It was overgrown with brush and covered in weeds that scraped against the undercarriage of the car. She crept slowly through the thicket until she reached a broken down fence that surrounded a sagging porch and a drooping roof. The house sat back in a nest of trees so thick that sunlight could barely penetrate. She looked at the old place with pity. Time and weather had done its job. The weeds and briars scratched her legs as she approached. Each step was carefully tested until she made it to the landing and opened the front door. Her heart sank.

The downstairs seemed to have been untouched by human hands for several years. A musty smell attacked her nostrils and her nose crinkled at the unpleasant odor. Dust was everywhere. The furniture was worn and faded. The hard pine floors were basically in decent condition but could use a good buffing and shine. Two big picture windows were on the front and end of the room and a large stone fireplace with a deep mantle was on the third wall. Atop it sat two oil lamps and various knick knacks and above that a picture of the Good Shepherd holding a lamb. The room was furnished with well-worn odd pieces of floral patterned couches and chairs, a thread bare rug, and house plants that were long since dead.

She crossed the living room and up the stairs to the second floor. There was a bathroom to the right and a small bedroom on the left which had been dusted and vacuumed; the bed had clean sheets and fluffy pillows. A fan was circling overhead and the scent of a vanilla candle still hung in the air. God bless the person who had been expecting her.

She continued down the hall to find two more bedrooms, one with a twin bed and an old four-drawer dresser. The other was piled high with boxes, bags, suitcases, and furniture covered with sheets. An array of pictures hung helter-skelter on the walls as if on display in an art gallery. She lifted a sheet from a tall mystery and found an antique chifferobe. This room would be fun to investigate, she thought; it might even hold some real treasures.

A wave of a memory suddenly came to her. This hallway looked familiar and so did the bathroom. The clawfoot tub was tickling her mind as she tried to hold onto the vision and then it came to her. She had taken a bath in this tub as a little girl; had played in the water with plastic dishes and squirt bottles and rubber duckies. A woman had poured warm water over her head to rinse the shampoo from her long baby-fine hair. She had pretended to be in a fort as her eyes barely peered over the edge. A lady knelt beside the tub wearing an apron with blue flowers on it. Her mind’s eye could not go above the apron. There was no face above the blue flowers.

Even though Hampton House needed a deep cleaning and lots of repairs, it still had an undeniable charm. Who knows, maybe this was just what she needed to stimulate her hum-drum life. She would begin tomorrow with Pine Sol and polish.