The Girl on the Porch

The eerie quiet of seldom visited tombs surrounded her before she finished locking the bedroom door. After it clicked, she turned around and faced the dimly lit hallway, feeling the silence that pervaded the turn-of-the-century seaside mansion. The only sound she heard came from her pants rustling softly as she stepped along the carpeted hallway toward the staircase. Two books lay tucked under her arm, and she carried a little snack container of raw vegetables and creamy dip in her hand.

The dark undercuts of the closed bedroom doors she passed suggested other guests might have rented them but had gone out for the evening. She descended the open staircase that zigged to a large landing, then zagged down to a smaller one. A lamp table sat there with a display of brochures. These described things to do in the historic town, along with schedules of events.

Jordon proceeded down the last two steps into the sitting room with its ornate sofas and furnishings. She crossed it to the main entry door, where she stepped onto the wide wrap-around porch.

The abrupt change in conditions startled her. Seconds ago, calm had prevailed, but now a windy jolt buffeted her cheeks and rattled the “Guests Welcome” sign in the short front yard. Water dripped from the awning and drizzle plopped into puddles along the one-way street.

Still, it was pleasant on the cozy porch, and Jordon had her choice of a half dozen wicker chairs. She chose a rocker next to another softly lit lamp table and placed her books and snack container on it. She settled into the chair cushions, letting her thoughts drift.

Gaslights glimmered along the narrow street and merged with the amber glow from curtained windows of other ornate homes. The lamps cast a sheen of luminescence on wet sidewalks and puddles that danced when raindrops pelted them.

Her thoughts turned to tomorrow’s activities. Perhaps she’d take a walking tour of some of the other restored historic homes, and afterward maybe a trolley or horse-drawn carriage to another part of town. She brushed aside a stray hair from her cheek, and her earrings jingled softly. Long and dangly, they seemed perfectly suited to the Victorian setting.

Jordon had found her way to this small town by the sea earlier that morning. She needed a few days to relax from her work as a laboratory technician in Philadelphia. She chose New Jersey’s southern tip on the spur of the moment, where she hoped to enjoy the late summer sunshine on the beach and explore historic Cape May.

A middle-aged woman named Doris and her husband owned the bed-and-breakfast inn she selected. They lived minutes away in the countryside but rented ten bedrooms to visitors. Each was uniquely decorated with historic furnishings, marble-topped wooden dressers, walnut armoires, fancy bedsteads, paddle ceiling fans, and layered drapes. Guests could eat breakfast out on the porch if they wished.

Guests could also wander about the common living areas, which mostly included the sitting room and the small parlor just beyond it. The smaller room contained a carved wooden bookcase built into the wall from floor to ceiling. Tightly packed with books, guests could borrow any of them at will.

The stormy weather had arrived earlier in the afternoon out of a sky made for sunbathing on the beach—bright and balmy, with a gentle surf fronting a riot of colorful pop-up umbrellas. Poseidon’s mood seemed to suddenly change when dark, angry clouds appeared on the horizon and quickly overtook the town, chasing beach goers and street strollers alike inside.

While rocking on the porch, Jordon remembered the pamphlet table she had passed on the staircase landing, and decided to see if any had a schedule of additional house tours. She left her belongings on the porch and went back inside. 

At the landing, she picked up several brochures, then returned to the porch. Within a few minutes, she realized they offered little, so she again rose and returned the pamphlets to their original place.

Empty-handed and back on the porch once again, she picked up one of the books she’d brought—a hardcover novel, which she had retrieved from her luggage. It was about the sixteen-year-old girl Griet, who inspired the Dutch painter Vermeer to create one of his most famous paintings. The cover jacket depicted the girl’s portrait with a blue-banded headscarf, questioning glance, and a pearl earring, reflecting the book’s title-"Girl with a Pearl Earring." Jordon opened it to the bookmark that showed where she had stopped reading earlier that afternoon. 

But after a few minutes, a heavy gust of wind against the awning broke her concentration. She put the novel down and opened the other book instead. It presented a history of Victorian clothing styles, and she soon became absorbed with its descriptions and pictures of bygone fashions.

After a while, she lost interest in that also. On a night made for mystery, Jordon felt in the mood for something that suited the prevailing scene. She remembered a suspense novel she had noted earlier that day on a shelf in the parlor. It was a paperback version of a Victoria Holt book that she had never read. It involved a young European woman named Kate Collison of the Victorian Era who had a traumatic romance. The book, titled "The Demon Lover," seemed perfect with its “one dark and rainy night” meme filled with suspense and mystery. She put her fashion book down on top of the Griet book and left her chair yet again—this time to the parlor.

She crossed to the opposite end of the sitting room and entered, noticing how packed it was with antique furniture and collectibles.

A tray on a table held a decanter of sherry and colored goblets for guests who wanted a nightcap. None of the glasses, though, had been used. A vintage chandelier cast weak light onto an upright piano, small fireplace, several loveseat sofas, and floor lamps with fringed shades.

Jordon stepped toward the library niche where she had seen the Holt book earlier that day. The shelves provided a clear view into the sitting room, but since coming back to the inn before the storm, she had seen no one in the house. She spotted the Holt book within seconds amid the ranks of paperbacks and hardcover books. After pulling it off the shelf, an obvious gap appeared in the solid wall of titles. Grasped securely in her palm, the paperback went out the parlor, through the sitting room, and onto the porch.

The rain beat more rapidly, thumping to its own beat on the canvas awning, while breezy gusts tore petals off the hydrangea bushes beyond the porch railing. The dreary conditions faded into the background as Jordon became absorbed in her romantic mystery story.

After a few chapters, she yawned, deciding it was time for bed. Wanting to return the overly dramatic book to the library before heading upstairs, she rose again from the rocking chair and soon stood in front of the bookshelves. Jordon removed the Victoria Holt paperback from the clutch of items she held to her chest. She raised the book so she could place it back in the open hole where she had removed it less than an hour before.

Her arm abruptly halted in mid-upswing. She frowned…something was off. No longer was there any gap where it should have been—where she had pulled out the Holt book. A solid wall of books stared at her, just as there had been when she first came in seeking The Demon Lover. Jordon frowned in befuddlement.

She glanced at the other shelves, thinking the opening was elsewhere, but it wasn’t—no gaps anywhere in the book wall. In fact, the Holt shelf was tight with upright books, so the space hadn’t filled by the adjacent books tipping together and closing the gap.

Jordon’s analytical mind tried to convince her that another guest must have come downstairs while she was out on the porch. Perhaps they had returned a different book to the Holt novel’s empty place.

But when Jordon glanced again at the book that now occupied the previous gap, her pulse raced. A moment before, she was merely confused, but now apprehension turned her frowny face into a blank stare. Her skin erupted in goosebumps, though the room was quite warm.

She could clearly see the title there on the binding of the book filling the earlier gap. It glared at her––Girl with a Pearl Earring. Jordon instinctively dipped her head and glimpsed the items she held against her chest. Her snack container and book of period clothing were there. She also still held the Holt novel in her right hand, because she had no space to insert it.

The one thing that did not lay in her arm was the book about Griet. Someone else’s copy must be there, she thought. But a moment later she knew the impossible had occurred. It wasn’t another guest’s copy; it was in fact hers. She realized it the instant she pulled the book from the shelf and saw her own bookmark sticking out the top.

Jordon replaced the Vermeer novel with The Demon Lover and placed her hardcover in the crook of her arm with the other things. But she had no clue why that same book was not there when she just came into the parlor. She would not have left it on the porch a few moments ago.

Jordon wondered if somehow she could have put it on the shelf herself. If so, it could only have happened when she initially borrowed the Holt book an hour before, or when she returned it just then. She knew neither happened; she was not easily distracted as those scenarios suggested, or she would not have lasted long in the medical lab where she worked the past four years. Multi-tasking and precision were second nature to her.

She certainly left the Vermeer book on the porch when she went for the pamphlet, and it was still there when came back after returning it. When she went to the parlor for the Holt novel, she laid the fashion book on top of the Girl with a Pearl Earring. Jordon’s hands were empty when she left the porch each time, except when she just returned the Holt book. Yet somehow Griet had gotten onto the shelf.

Puzzled and out of explanations, she left the parlor with her belongings and returned to the bedroom. She set the "Girl with a Peal Earring" on the marble-topped dresser along with her own earrings. After returning from the bathroom, she double locked the bedroom door. On her way to bed, she noticed her earrings were not visible on the marble top. They probably rolled off. Too tired to search then, Jordon would do it when the light was better in the morning. She tucked herself under the covers and lay awake awhile, listening to the wind moan and rain pound against the windows before drifting into uneasy sleep.

By the next morning, the sky had cleared. Jordon spent another pleasant day at the beach. She found a spot beyond the high tide line near a jetty, where she could sit and watch the gulls squabbling, fishermen casting, and kids scrambling over the rocks. Thoughts of last night’s wayward book floated away as the tide retreated.

The next morning Jordon’s holiday time was at an end, and she needed to settle the bill. After loading her suitcase into the car, she stood with Doris in front of the hutch in the sitting room. As Jordon took the receipt a question came to mind. “Is there any history of strange happenings in the house?

Doris answered with a quizzical look. “Well, there was…I mean once…why do you ask?” she finally replied.

“Something odd occurred the other night that I can’t explain.”

“Oh,” She responded without inflection, “What was it that happened?”

After Jordon summarized the puzzling book substitution, the innkeeper nodded. “It was probably Bridget.”

“Bridget…is she one of the maids?" Jordon didn’t see her at all the other night.”

“Yes,” the owner replied, “…or at least we think she was.”

“Was?” Jordon’s eyebrows raised.

“She has always been sensed on the third floor, in the Wicker Room. It is definitely a female presence, but completely non-threatening.”

Jordon looked for signs the woman was joking, but did not see any. Doris continued matter-of-factly. “The third floor was always the servant’s quarters in earlier times, and we surmise that the presence might be the ghost of one of the young maids, but we do not really know. We have tried to research the house over the years but can find nothing more definite about who lived here or if anything untoward ever occurred.”

Jordon’s eyes blinked rapidly a few times. “Hmm…that’s very interesting. But how did you “sense” this…entity?”

“We do know that many of the servant girls were Irish immigrants, and some years ago my husband started calling the spirit ‘Bridget’ for that reason.”

One last question lingered for Jordon. “What occurred to suggest there actually was this—’presence’?”

The older woman hesitated, but then replied, “Numerous events have happened over the years, especially instances where women guests mentioned they had removed earrings before going to bed and laid them on top of a dresser in the Wicker Room. In the morning however they’d find them missing.”

Jordon's throat felt dry.

"The guests would invariably ask us to let them know if we found them when the room was made-up, but we never located any of them in the beds, on the floor or around the furnishings. Yet, the earrings would always mysteriously reappear in exactly the same place by the next evening. These disappearances occurred at different times with different guests.” 

The paper receipt in Jordon's hand crinkled when her hand twitched. She remembered finding her own earrings that very morning in a side drawer of the dresser after breakfast. She had thought a maid had found them and put them there. 

The innkeeper added, “Several other guests claimed they had seen an apparition of a young woman in the Wicker Room. One guest came in unexpectedly and said she distinctly saw the ghostly form sitting on the edge of the bed. Nothing ominous occurred and the form faded within a few moments.” 

The firm grip on Jordon’s tangible, rational world loosened a smidge thinking about a ghostly young woman in maid attire sitting on her bed last night.

On her way to the causeway outside of town, Jordon hit the brakes hard when another thought popped into her head. She had realized then that Vermeer’s painting of Griet on the cover of the "Girl with A Pearl Earring," showed the girl in fact wearing a large pearl earring.

Her journey home would take several hours, with plenty of time for sorting things out. So many questions needed answers. She wondered while sitting on the porch the other night, if she was truly alone? Might there have been another girl out there as well, one she could not see because she was not real—at least not in Jordon’s world. If so, who was this spirit-girl and what was she all about? Did she have some fixation with earrings and with putting things away in an orderly fashion? And when she felt the need for a breath of fresh air, did she just slip onto the front porch, recognize an earring on a book cover, then “carry” it to the library? 

Jordon shuddered as she imagined this spirit-girl with her out on the porch watching her. Maybe her lifeless eyes looked into Jordon’s, and then noticed the earrings she was wearing. Perhaps she came over, her diaphanous hand brushing against Jordon’s ear as she examined her jewelry. She might have noticed the Vermeer book lying on the table and was compelled to look closer. She might have just hovered there patiently waiting for Jordon to get up and go for a brochure on the landing, so she could examine her book. What if Griet’s pearl was not impressive to her, so she took the book to the library?

As the miles rolled behind her, the world of science with all its causes and effects, physical laws, and predictability clashed with the inexplicable events and the paranormal experiences others claimed existed. Jordon knew a few things for sure…this entire strange event involved earrings, books, young women, and an old Victorian house.

And there was something peculiar about all the women involved. All were single at the time of the event with European ancestries. There was Jordon, a flesh and blood girl of European ancestry. Then there was Griet, the Dutch girl—also European. She and Jordon both wore dangling earrings.

What about Bridget, the potentially Irish girl with an apparent transcendent attraction to earrings from another dimension? But she wasn’t real in the conventional sense, though perhaps she or someone like her had been long ago. 

Another young woman, a fictional one, played a role in the mysterious happenings…the imagined Kate Collison—"The Demon Lover" protagonist from France. Her appearance was brief. After sitting on a shelf for who knows how long, she gets a few minutes of leave to travel to the porch and back, only to find her accustomed space occupied by another young woman—innocent Griet wearing a simple pearl earring.

What, if anything, is to be made of it all—a living girl, a spirit girl, a portrait of a once-living girl and a fictional girl all may have had a brief visit together one dark and stormy night on the front porch of an old mansion in a mysterious small town by the sea.

©Joel Everett Harding, 2023