Catherine Lundoff - Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades - Lesbian Ghost Stories by Catherine Lundoff

Author:Catherine Lundoff
Language: fr
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781590211625
Publisher: Lethe Press
Published: 2008-05-15T05:00:00+00:00

Authentic

Jean Roberta

~

Government House looked as if it were not on speaking terms with the pawnshops, convenience stores, laundromats and rooming houses that surrounded it. The square brick structure, built in the Victorian Age, was now far from all current government offices, but it still stood firmly on a spacious lot that included benches, flower gardens and trees imposed on the windswept Canadian prairie.

Matt turned her collar up against the wind, waiting for the traffic light to change. She could have driven to Government House, but she chose to walk. She told herself that maintaining a certain level of fitness would make her more appealing to an eligible single dyke, if and when such a woman popped into her real life. And walking was an antidote to depression.

There was a tour being conducted when Matt strolled in as if she lived there. The walnut chairs in the entranceway, the Persian carpets on the floor, and the lace doilies on the furniture were all in the British imperial style of 1905, the year in which the first Lieutenant (left-tenant, a pronunciation that seemed appropriate) Governor had moved in with his wife, children, trunks and all. Matt was responsible for keeping the surroundings authentic. Her Master’s degree in history had earned her a job with the government archives. She had the last say on every piece of bric-a-brac that entered the premises.

The tour guide, a pretty university student dressed as a maid in starched white apron and cap, finished explaining the ground floor to her flock of tourists, then led them up the protesting wooden stairs to the second floor which held the bedrooms, including the servants’ quarters. Her high, simpering voice grated on Matt’s ears, and she hoped the girl didn’t expect fame on the stage or the screen. The job attracted student actors, and their love of costumes combined with their ignorance of the past usually made Matt want to slap them.

Her own faded jeans and denim jacket clashed with the decor, so she tried to stay out of sight until she could tiptoe up the stairs (trying to avoid the creaky boards) to her tiny office, a former storage room. It barely held a desk, a chair and a computer. With a sigh of relief, she turned on the light, dumped her backpack in a corner and closed the door.

Going on-line on the site where she was a kind of intellectual servant made Matt feel as if she were working. Sure, she told herself, hanging out in chat-rooms is a form of research. I might just meet someone who knows a few things about Edwardian china patterns.

Matt caught sight of herself in the decorative mirror on the opposite wall, a touch she originally felt would make her feel less claustrophobic in her little cell. Seeing her own thin-faced reflection now reminded her of how isolated she felt, how much like a woman of the past who had left civilization behind in the secret hope of discovering her own wildness in the untamed West.

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