“Hey, La La, not so fast,” Ed said. “We’ve got to take this slowly. These things are really old and if you’re not careful, you might damage something.”
Lara danced away from the trunk. “I’m sorry. I’m just so excited.” She picked up the cloth and held it up. “What is it?”
Tess studied it. “It looks like a tablecloth. Women in earlier times used to make all the linen for their household. One of your great, great grandmothers might have made this.”
The girl lay it reverently over the table in the room. She smoothed it out. “Is it crocheted?”
Tess had no idea, but Ed came over and said, “Yeah. That looks like the lace doilies Mum used to make.” He folded it up.
Inside the trunk were clothes, dresses, and suits, which were placed on the table. Then came household items; a mantel clock, its arms showing it stopped at two thirty-five, a porcelain tea set with a delicate rose pattern which had been wrapped in paper, and several books, including a family bible.
Ed carefully turned the pages. “It’s from the early nineteen hundreds,” he said. “I think this last child might have been my grandpop.” He turned to Tess. “Mum was going through the ancestry before she died.” He passed the book to her.
The front pages comprised a list of Stokes births, deaths, and marriages, and the first names on the marriage list were Reginald and Lilian. The people who started it all. Perhaps they’d received the bible as a wedding gift. The pen colour changed as more entries were added, and at times the scrawled handwriting was hard to read, but it traced every single Stokes who had lived at the Ridge up until his grandfather. “This is amazing.” She glanced at Ed. “This is the Ridge’s history.”
He grinned. “We should scan it, put it up on social media, and frame it at the reception. Guests would get a real kick out of it.”
Faith nodded. “Amy will know exactly what to do.”
Lara was looking through the other books. “There’s no journal here,” she said. “Some of them are novels, and there’s a numbers book.”
Tess frowned. “Numbers?”
Lara handed it to her.
A ledger of some sort dated from the 1880s. Perhaps it related to stock and supplies for the station. She flicked through the pages to find some context, but couldn’t.
“Anything else in there?” Lara asked.
“Nope, it’s empty,” Ed said.
“What about a false bottom?” Faith asked, and Lara laughed in delight.
Ed snatched a tape measure from the drawer, and measured the interior of the trunk and then the exterior. “It’s the same.”
Tess smiled at Lara’s pout, and then searched the novels in case one had a piece of paper slid inside. Nothing.
Ed photographed everything with his phone before he replaced them. “In case we need to find something again,” he explained. “I’ll type up an index.”
Tess warmed. He had the mind of an archivist. So sexy.
The other key fit the lock of the remaining trunk. This was full of clothes; christening gowns, baby blankets, and wedding dresses. Again they measured the trunk and found no false bottom.
Lara sighed. “I was sure there would be a map or something.”
“There are still the suitcases,” Faith told her.
“Yeah, but they’re not so old.”
They went through the cases and found more sentimental items; trophies, certificates, photographs, as well as a few bowls and some more clothes. But the final suitcase revealed a treasure trove of books. Tess’s heart rate increased. Not books—journals.
Lara whooped and grabbed the top one, flicking it open. “It’s from 1945. Charlotte Stokes.”
World War Two era. Several generations after the Retribution had been wrecked.
“Our great grandmother,” Ed said. “She was a tough old bird, by all reports. Dad was scared of her.”
It would be interesting to read her view of the Ridge, and her stories relating to the war. Would they have been affected here, so far away from the danger?
