The Upstairs Lady

Note: This is the final post of the series, The House on High Street; Living in an Antique Colonial House. All the posts in the series are indexed here.

While we lived in our old house our town started having an annual Old Home Day--a time when current and former residents of the town could get together and picnic and play games. The parade went right down High Street in front of our house, so we always had an excellent view. 

During one of those first years a tour of the old homes in the town was offered, narrated by a man who had lived there all his life. I loved his stories--he told of two sisters, living at a crossroad in two houses right across from each other. Somehow there was a family argument and the women vowed never to speak again. They lived in those houses for the rest of their lives with never a word spoken between them. 

I was especially delighted when our little tour bus stopped in front of our house. The tour guide told of a woman living in the house during the 19th century who, for health reasons or for some more esoteric motivation, never came downstairs. She simply lived upstairs for all of her life [just as Mrs. B lived only downstairs much later], which probably made things quite difficult for her family.   She kept her friends, however, and they would come to visit her in the summer and picnic on the front lawn, sending delicacies up to her via a basket and rope as she sat in a chair by the window, joining in on the conversation. 

I like to picture her in what became, well over a century later, my bedroom. It had a sweet little white fireplace with a small crane just the size for a tea kettle. The floor was painted a lovely apple green that made me feel cheerful every time I looked at it, and the walls were papered with a delicate floral design. There were three windows that let in lots of light through the old wavy glass--two looking out onto the High Street, and one facing out over the garden and our sledding hill.