Twice Young

TWICE YOUNG

By Jo Ann Simon

Copyright 2015 by Jo Ann Simon

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by Jo Ann Simon

Smashwords Edition

Other novels by best selling author Jo Ann Simon

Love Once In Passing *

Love Once Again*

Beloved Captain*

Hold Fast To Love

Twice Young*

And for Young Adults as Joanna Campbell

The Thoroughbred Series*

*all available from Amazon Kindle.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BACK TO TOP

CHAPTER ONE

Rika Olmstead lost her footing on the fourth riser. She winced as her back connected with the wooden floor at the foot of the stairs and stared up at the cracked plaster ceiling of the front hall with gritted teeth. Damn, I shouldn't have worn these no-grip shoes.

She cautiously lifted herself on her elbows to gaze at the spilled contents of the chest-sized trunk she’d just carried down from the attic of the old house. Gradually easing into a sitting position, she rubbed her lower back and cursed the passage of time. She still thought of herself as twenty or even thirty years younger than she was, but her stiffening joints told her otherwise. She’d turned fifty-five that year and hated to acknowledge that she’d become that old so fast—even if she didn’t look it or feel it on most occasions.

Her body was still slim and basically fit, although not nearly as fit as she’d been twenty years ago. She still had the high cheekbones that delineated her face, yet she could no longer ignore the forces of age and gravity on the muscles around her neck and chin. Every time she looked in a mirror, she compulsively pushed up that slightly sagging flesh and thought about a chin lift.

But she was embarking on a new adventure, she reminded herself. She’d just uprooted herself from her publishing industry career in New York and daringly moved to Midcoast Maine, where she’d bought a large old house with views of Penobscot Bay and in need of much repair—perhaps even more than she’d estimated. The ten room house, which must have been a thing of beauty when constructed in the early 1800’s, had fallen on hard times in the last fifty years. The house had been split into apartments, with flimsy partitions built to break up formerly graceful rooms, turning the house into a hodge-podge. The partitions had all been removed now and carted away, and Rika had begun restoration, doing what work she could herself and hiring a small construction firm that specialized in quality repairs and restoration, but there still remained a lot to be done.

She put her mind to business and crawled across the floor to begin gathering up and replacing the contents of the chest. She’d found it in a corner of the attic under a pile of miscellaneous junk which couldn't have been disturbed in decades. Only the chest had seemed salvageable. It appeared that none of the recent tenants had ever ventured into the attics.

The spilled contents looked to be instruments of some kind—maybe for drafting—and the chest seemed older than she’d thought. It was of quality construction with dove-tailed joints and woven rope handles at either end. She was glad to see that the wood hadn't splintered, only the lid had sprung open. As she quickly gathered the instruments and started putting them back in the chest, she noticed the bottom was filled with books. She closed the lid and decided to take the chest into the kitchen to examine more closely.

Before she could try to move it, the carpentry foreman, Myron Philbrick, called from one of the rooms off the hallway.

Hey, Rika, can you take a look at this? Tell me if this is what you want.

Be there in a sec. Rising, she pushed the chest across the floor to the side of the hall, then went to investigate. She walked to the room to the right of the front hall, which must have been the original parlor, and looked over to Myron, a taciturn but amiable Mainer. What's up? she asked.

He pointed to the walls. We've got it all stripped down to the original plaster, but you can see it's in pretty rough shape.

Rika frowned as she examined the multiple cracks and flaws in the original lath and plaster walls. Yeah, they're pretty bad, aren't they? What do you think? Beyond patching?

I'd say so. I know you wanted to try to save them and blow in insulation from the outside, but I'd recommend ripping these old walls out, putting in a good layer of insulation, then sheetrock with a skim coat of plaster.

Rika considered. Okay, let's do that... More efficient in the long run. Will it look authentic to the house?

Myron nodded. Yup. Make it look like it's hand plastered. At Rika's nod, he added, I'll get the guys right on in. In the next room, we'll have a different set of problems...

She followed Myron into the room behind the parlor, which she intended to use as a study. Here, under the secondary interior walls, they'd found the original wood paneling which Rika intended to restore. The house was of typical Federal-style construction, two story, rectangular in shape with a kitchen wing to one side and six rooms above—one of which had been converted into two full bathrooms. She would be updating both and had already started on the one that adjoined her bedroom.

Her mind abuzz with restoration details, it was an hour before Fredricka got back to the chest. She hefted it up by its rope handles and carried it from the front hall to the kitchen wing.

The kitchen was the only fully restored room in the house. When she’d first bought the house, the kitchen bore all the evidence of a 1950’s remodel—fiber-boarded ceiling and walls, linoleum flooring, white metal cabinets shoved in wherever there was space, Formica countertops, round florescent ceiling lights.

When she’d stripped out the fifties’ additions, she'd discovered the huge original cooking fireplace, with a brick oven at the back. Removing the fiber board and sheetrock on the kitchen walls and ceiling revealed the massive post-and-beam framework of the house, the beams all hand hewn and as strong as they’d been when the house had been built. Beneath the linoleum was the original wide-board pine floor. She’d been astounded as she’d looked around the stripped-out kitchen, and felt she was suddenly two hundred years in the past.

So many signs and clues in the rest of the house spoke of its nearly two-hundred-year-old history. She knew the full restoration could take many months, so she always gravitated to the restored kitchen when she wanted to relax and think. She felt a certain peace there, especially on chilly evenings when she had a fire blazing on the hearth. One of the first things she’d done after buying the house was to have the ancient chimneys repaired and relined so that she felt safe lighting fires in the numerous fireplaces, but the one in the original kitchen was the biggest and the coziest.

She set the chest down on the long rectangular table positioned between the two twelve-over-twelve windows that looked out on Penobscot Bay. She'd finished the rest of the kitchen with period cabinets, polished slate countertops, and brass wall fixtures and chandelier. It felt very homey and welcoming.

She sat at the table, a table which she’d spent a fortune to buy—no doubt leaving the antique dealer rejoicing—and contradicting her ingrained habit of economy. Economy, after all, had allowed her to raise her two children in the high-priced suburbs outside of New York City, while she’d commuted to her job as a fiction editor with a full editorial staff beneath her, in Manhattan. Still, she’d left that all behind when her idea of publishing had conflicted with the new corporate owners’ profits-first philosophy—quantity over quality.

When she'd first spotted the chest, she’d known it had to be old, but now as she wiped the top clean, she realized it was probably older than she'd suspected. She was relieved to see that the only thing broken in the fall was the brass keyhole lock on the front of the chest.

Carefully, she lifted the lid and started removing the contents. First were the instruments that had spilled on the floor, then she saw an object she recognized from a visit to a local maritime museum—a sextant used in maritime navigation. Now the other instruments made more sense as the tools used in plotting navigational charts. They looked pristine, but she couldn't be sure until she'd consulted an expert.

Beneath those were a stack of books, which she carefully lifted and set on the table. Opening one, she discovered a log book from the late 1700's covering a voyage out of Port of London, England. She leafed through the others, detailing other voyages. At the bottom was a cloth-bound journal, embossed with the name 'Christian Cunningham.'

A strange tingle went up her spine. The name meant nothing to her, but could this be one of the original owners of the property? Perhaps this journal would tell her more about the history of the house. The little she’d found thus far told her that the house had been built in the early 1800’s, but not by whom or exactly when. There were no such things as building permits in those days along the coast of Maine. The ownership records contained in the deed search when she’d bought the property only went back to the early twentieth century—all that was required by law—so the first hundred years of the house’s history were still a mystery to her.

What was the earlier history of the house and its owners? She felt comfortable here. She felt nothing unsettling; not that she expected ghosts—at least she’d never seen one—but she had experienced sensations in certain houses she’d been in, even those built in more modern times. The sensations usually took the form of dread and acute uneasiness or, in the worst cases, a pervading ill will that triggered an instinctive impulse to flee; a sense that something, or someone, was behind her with a knife poised to strike her back. Her daughter, Kirsten, had felt the same sensations in certain houses they’d visited. They’d never shared those feelings with each other, until one day when they’d both rushed for the door and fled the house they were visiting, their dog rushing out ahead of them.

Fredricka hadn’t felt anything like that in this house—no sense of evil—but she had sensed a terrible sadness of something lost or left incomplete. Perhaps someone who had lost a child, and the essence of their mourning remained imbedded in the house.

She opened the journal, uncertain of what she might read, but curiosity got the better of her.

Personal Journal of the Honorable Christian Charles Cunningham, she read, upon his embarkation from London aboard the cargo vessel, Amelia, bound for the isle of Bermuda off the south-east coast of the newly formed United States, then to West Indian ports further South thereafter, this 12th day of April, the year of Our Lord 1798.The words were written in a fine hand, although Fredricka had to read slowly and the letter s was written to appear like f.

I leave with both great sadness and anger that because of my father’s intervention my plans of marriage have ended. The woman whom I desired to wed, and whom I know shared that desire, has been wed to my elder brother, my father’s heir.

Rika’s reading of the journal was abruptly interrupted by loud and determined knocks on her back door. She rose from the table, closed the journal, and, from some protective impulse, tucked it in the nearest kitchen drawer before going to answer the door.

Her daughter, Kirsten, was standing there with a big smile. Hi, Mom!

Kirsten! What are you doing here? When we talked a couple of days ago you didn't say anything about coming up! It's a long drive from New York.

I wanted to surprise you.

Well, you've sure done that! Come in... Where're Hugh and my gorgeous granddaughter?

Right behind me. Hugh's getting the baby out of the car seat. Kirsten stepped inside and gazed around the kitchen. Looks good, Mom.

The only room finished. I wanted to have more done before I invited you up—at least another bedroom livable.

Her blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter laughed at her. Like Hugh and I care about luxury living. We brought our air mattresses, figuring we’d have to camp out in one of the bedrooms.

Yeah, said her son-in-law, following his wife through the door, decided we could rough it for a couple of days. Hugh was about five-ten, light-brown-haired, pleasant looking, but nothing like the Adonis Fredricka had imagined for her daughter’s husband. But he was Kirsten's choice, and in his arms was an eleven-month-old cherub—her granddaughter, Althea. The baby was more asleep than awake, but Fredricka took her into her arms and cuddled her as Hugh went out to the car to retrieve her travel bed and the rest of their gear.

Fredricka dropped a kiss on her granddaughter’s baby-soft forehead. Althea’s fluffy hair was still pale blond, but Fredricka suspected it would soon be replaced by darker blond or brown, a combination her mother’s and father’s coloring. Fredricka herself was a brown-eyed blond, a result of her half-Scandinavian/half-Czech ancestry, yet Kirsten had inherited the bright blue eyes of her father, Nathaniel (Nate) Olmstead. She didn’t want to think about him just now, especially since his middle name had been Cunning gham, apparently the same as the journal's author and possibly her house’s original owner—strange coincident that!

Her fair-haired son, Skip, had also inherited his father’s looks, but in a different way. He’d inherited his father’s muscular build and long-fingered hands, but his eyes were a greenish hazel, not blue, and his hair was a darker blond.

As Hugh brought in the rest of their luggage, Fredricka led him and her daughter out to the front hall and up the central staircase to the bedroom next to her own. The room had been partially refurbished. The walls had been repaired but still needed painting, the windows replaced with thermo-paned ones that looked identical to the originals, and the old wood flooring had been sanded but not yet varnished. But the room was unfurnished, and echoed slightly.

The fireplace works and is safe, Fredricka told them, and there’s a pile of split wood in the shed, although I don’t think you’ll need it in June. The nights are still cool, but the upstairs can get stuffy. You can open the window if it gets too warm.

Rika's granddaughter, still in her arms, wiggled to get free. She glanced at her daughter and son-in-law. Okay if I let her down on the bare floor?

Both her daughter and son-in-law laughed, lifted the bottom of their daughter's dress and pointed to the small padded guards around her knees. The latest in baby care, Hugh said. This is all a part of my business.

Fredricka turned to him. I thought you were an engineer.

Yes, and I’m now working on engineering for people safety—and babies in particular, since I have one.

Fredricka patted his shoulder. Come down as soon as you’re settled and have lunch.

Don’t worry about making lunch, Mom. We picked up some of the ‘best subs on the Coast,’ as advertised at the Bayside General Store. The sandwiches are in the cooler I left in the kitchen.

"They are the best subs on the Coast, Fredricka stated. See you downstairs!"

After a boisterous lunch, with Althea touring the kitchen in her baby walker, Fredricka took her daughter and son-in-law on a tour of the house. Althea rested in a baby pack across her father’s chest, squealing and protesting at the confinement.

Fredricka told her daughter, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s walking in another month and talking a blue streak, too.

I feel the same. She started saying ‘mama’ and ‘papa’ when she was about six months old. It kind of amazes both Hugh and me.

Fredricka smiled at her daughter. Don’t be too surprised. You were always quick to learn, too. It made me proud that you were several weeks or months ahead developmentally than my friends’ children. Of course, my friends didn’t like the comparison to their own children, so I didn’t talk about it much. But Althea is very much your child. Be proud of her and don’t ever try to hold her back like my mother did me.

Hey, what’s all this mother/daughter stuff going on here? Hugh interrupted with a laugh. Do I get included on this house tour?

Of course, Fredricka said with a genuine smile. From what I’ve learned so far—and there’s a lot more I have to discover—this house was built sometime between 1800 and 1810. They didn’t have very accurate records back then, and a lot of documents were misplaced or lost to fires, which were a lot more common in those days. This is a pretty typical New England Colonial house of the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. Fredricka led them through the part of the house they hadn’t seen. She crossed the front hall, and opened a door into a room that occupied the western front corner of the house, which she'd guessed was the original dining room. There was still evidence of the partitions built when the great house was divided into apartments sometime in the 1940’s or 50’s, although the partitions themselves had been taken down.

When Rika had ordered the carpenters to strip the room back to its original features, the workers had discovered a blocked-over fireplace in the room, as well as wood-paneled half-walls, and—beneath layers of linoleum—a maple floor with intricate patterns of other hardwoods.

She led them across the hall to the former parlor where workmen were starting to rip out the old plaster and insulate. Even Fredericka had to admit the room looked an absolute mess with plaster dust flying.

Wow! Hugh said. Are you seriously determined to restore this? It’s going to cost a fortune.

Not if I do a lot of the work myself, Fredricka answered. I’ve already set aside a hundred thousand for restoration.

That much? Hugh interrupted. I can see this house turning into a bottomless pit.

But I like it, and it's going to be gorgeous when it's restored. Anyway, this room was probably a study or library. When I pulled off the sheetrock, I found these gorgeous wood panels and bookshelves behind. There were even books still on the shelves.

She heard her son-in-law mutter in the background, You actually want to live in this mausoleum alone?

Her daughter’s enthusiastic voice overrode his mutters. What did you do with the books? she asked. You didn’t throw them away.

Rika glanced over at her daughter. Of course I didn't. I sent them to an old book expert, but I haven’t heard back from him yet. He’s in Boston.

Her daughter, the history major, smiled.

Did you think I would do any differently? Fredricka teased. Okay, through these restored doors is a room I think was used as a small sitting room or sun room. You see what a beautiful view there is of the bay. She led them through a comfortably sized room, now strewn with excess building supplies, to another set of doors. These lead to the back hall, and through that door, she pointed to the left of the hall, are the kitchen pantries possible servant's rooms. I haven't touched any of them yet.

Nicely disguised, I see, so no one noticed the servants, Hugh said cuttingly.

How can you say that, Hugh, Kirsten said, when you know nothing about the history of this house, and Mom’s only begun to tap into it?

Hugh shrugged and walked further down the hall, his lack of interest showing. Kirsten clasped Rika’s arm and whispered into her ear. Mom, I feel something here—like we used to do—not threatening, but sad and masculine. I think Hugh might feel something, too, but he doesn’t understand it, and he’s taking it out on the improvements you’ve made.

Fredricka nodded her head. Yes, I’ve felt it, too. Maybe Hugh would feel more comfortable in a B&B?

Would you feel hurt if we took a room in town tomorrow? Kirsten asked. It’s close enough that I could come over every day.

Fredricka put an arm around her daughter’s shoulder. No, I won’t be upset. But do spend the night here tonight. I need to pick your brains about how I should go about researching the history of this house. Now that you're here, I sure could use your help. She hugged her daughter closer. I love you.

Love you, too, Mom.

CHAPTER TWO

=

Later that night, after Kirsten and her family had settled in, they all had a dinner Fredricka had cooked over the kitchen fireplace. She'd been practicing, intrigued at the thought of experiencing a real touch of history, although she'd be the first to admit that she wouldn't want to have to cook over a fire all the time. She'd kept it simple, with potatoes and vegetable cooked in cast-iron pots resting on trivets nestled in the coals, and a trussed chicken roasted on a rotating spit she'd found in an antique shop. The chicken had the flavor and moistness she could never have achieved in a conventional oven. She laughed when her daughter exclaimed over her new-learned expertise.

Believe me, I don't cook for myself like this every day. I thought I'd try you two as guinea pigs tonight. Glad you liked it.

Interesting, Hugh said. But I prefer the mod-cons.

Thanks for going to the effort, Mom, Kirsten added. I'd like to try my hand sometime.

Anytime. So how long are you going to be here?

A few days anyway...maybe a week...

They exchanged news until Kirsten and Hugh couldn't hide their yawns. The baby was already asleep on Kirsten's lap. You two go on up, Rika told them. You must be exhausted from the drive. I've put out extra towels in the bathroom. If you need anything else, let me know.

We'll be fine, Mom. Kirsten yawned again. Sorry to fade out so early.

Don't be silly. I'll see you in the morning. 'Night.

’Night, they called and headed for the stairs.

As tired as she was, Rika was too mentally charged to sleep yet. It was such a surprise to have them visit. And selfishly, she wanted to read more of the Hon. Christian Cunningham’s journal.

She added another log to the fire, took the journal from the drawer, and set it in front of her on the kitchen table. She turned to the page where she had left off.

So I leave for parts unknown, understanding in my heart and mind that there is no place for me in or near my ancestral home. I cannot feel any calling for the military or the clergy. I could not abide remaining in residence near the newly wedded couple, or bear to face them during the London Season. I fully realize I must make a new life for myself—

Nor can I abide asking for a Captaincy on one of my father’s merchant fleet ships, for which I’ve been trained. Of course, my family’s ownership is hidden in blind trusts and secrecy. Whoa to any aristocratic family dirtying their hands in trade. I have spent many months during school holidays and after leaving Oxford on my father’s company ships, not treated as a noble son, but as one of the crew, working myself up through the ranks. The