Not A Ghost Of A Chance

By JoEllen Conger

Seventeen year old Lorna Heather Beckman is orphaned when her papa, Dr. Louis Beckman, dies suddenly without telling her where he's hidden the family fortune. Desperate to make ends meet, Lorna spies a flyer advertising a fortuneteller. Can the fortuneteller tell her where her papa hid the treasure inside their five-story gingerbread house?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613092774

Book preview

One

Papa’s Memorial

Seventeen year old Lorna Heather Beckman had lost her dream about her eighteenth birthday celebration coming up on September 11, 1924, in the small town of Latamer Flats, North Carolina. Twirling a Kewpie-doll curl around and around her left ear, Lorna sat staring out the kitchen window. She didn’t really see the busy street scene beyond, where grown-ups were headed for their places of employment and flivvers were beginning to take over the street scenes. Four and six team-drawn buggies and carriages, or men mounted on horseback, were becoming fewer. With her thoughts drifting, her freshly poured cup of coffee began to cant dangerously.

Latamer Flat’s morning newspaper lay face up on the kitchen table in front of her...unopened. Outside of a full-sized two column photograph and report of the passing of Latamer Flat’s well-known Dr. Louis Beckman, there was no other news that had any meaning to Lorna. Papa’s sudden passing had stunned her. The reporter’s gushing review of Papa’s memorial was the only news that had caught her eye.

Lorna shook her head, sighing deeply. What can we possibly do, Hannah? I’m still considered a juvenile. There is no way I can just sign the checks to pay the bills... nor do I have a clue where Papa might have hidden the treasure. From time to time, he would just show up with a gold coin or a gem. Where in the world could he have taken them to cash them in?

The bank? A coin merchant? Honey, I don’t know. He never confided it to me, Hannah McBride, the housekeeper, said as she stood at the range, scrambling eggs. If we ask the banker, Mr. Thatcher, surely he would know.

I’ve never liked him. Whenever he visited Papa, he always seemed so darn sneaky, but would he share that information with us...with me? I’m still considered a minor.

Your papa thought his banker a practical man, so I have to wonder why he still hid the chest somewhere here in the house. Whatever his reason for doing that will always be a mystery, Hannah recalled, as she slipped a breakfast plate onto the table in front of Lorna, motioning for her to eat while the food was still hot.

Twenty-four years Lorna’s senior, the widowed Hannah Mc Bride had been hired by Dr. Beckman as his fulltime housekeeper and nursemaid for the infant, Lorna, when her mother had not survived the difficult childbirth. The doctor had just returned from one of his voyages with a newborn wrapped in a man’s wool sweater. He had placed an ad in the Latamer Flat’s weekly newspaper and, of the women responding, he had hired Hannah to take on the house and infant.

Lorna startled as Hannah’s hand flashed out suddenly to steady the teenager’s steaming coffee cup from spilling and burning her, or worse yet...staining the imported cork flooring. But of course, the teenager never gave the expensive finish a second thought. She had not been born when it had been installed. Hannah held the cup another moment, waiting for Lorna to become consciously aware of the here-and-now.

Oh no! Lorna exclaimed. Her eyes suddenly widened and she glanced down at her dress, expecting to find her skirt splashed.

Shhh, shhh, Hannah crooned. Not to worry, Miss Lorna. Your dress is fine. I have no idea at all why your father allows you to drink coffee. If you don’t hurry, sweetheart, you’ll be late for school. She guessed that Lorna had simply lost herself for the moment, and with good reason. Her papa had passed away so suddenly. As soon as Lorna became aware of her surroundings, Hannah released her hold of the cup.

We’ll think of something, Miss Lorna, even if we must turn the place into a boarding house. Now don’t you fret none. That’s my job, Hannah assured her charge. She didn’t want to frighten the girl any further. Hannah couldn’t imagine just what she might be driven to do. Their financial situation was dire.

At the first of each month the master of the house had always given her an envelope containing enough cash to meet that month’s expenses. Now that he was gone, where in the world would she find the funds for each month’s expenses? Dr. Beckman had never given Hannah any more money than a month’s worth at a time. And she had tried to save up a bit when she could.

I’ve made an appointment with Mr. Theodore Billings, your papa’s solicitor...just as soon as he returns from his Caribbean cruise...somehow, I’m thinking a solicitor should have a trick or two up his sleeve. I sure hope he’ll be able to help us out of this problem. In the meantime I have saved a bit of cash. We’ll use that until then. Take this for your lunch today. She took coins from her apron pocket, pressed them into Lorna’s palm and curling the girl’s fingers firmly about them.

Glancing over her coffee, Lorna frowned. Somehow I feel selfish using your money, Hannah. You don’t have to do this, you know! When she saw Hannah’s resolve, Lorna stuck the money into the pocket of her dress.

"Now that’s for your lunch, Hannah insisted. Don’t be frittering it away in the Sweets Shop."

Yes’um, Lorna responded, finishing her coffee in a gulp. How in the world are we supposed to keep this house running without enough money to pay all the bills? We’ll be sitting here in the dark or by candlelight, ‘till the candles run out, if I can’t find Papa’s secret stash, Lorna fretted. If that banker knows of it, I’m sure he’d be here searching for it, himself.

Now stop this fretting, Lorna dear. We’ll start by informing the rest of the staff not to return. And...it isn’t nice to talk about our betters.

Lorna snorted in disgust.

It’s time that you accept what you have...not who you could be if you had it. We’ll get by somehow on what little I have, until the banker finds the solicitor, Billings.

Lorna rolled her eyes. "Hannah, this is America. They are referred to as lawyers, not solicitors. I can’t keep taking your money. It makes me feel terrible. Like I’m some sort of bloodsucking freeloader."

Tsk, tsk...Well, it comes out even enough. You’re the one who owns the house now, from top to bottom....all five floors. Without it we’d get wet standing out in the rain. They both chuckled at this old joke. Be grateful for the roof over our heads, even if the house is too large.

Being only an adolescent, Lorna had never familiarized herself with the family’s financial responsibilities, thus had no comprehension of her family’s money situation, nor comprehended the payments due the employees now under her hire. Her father had always given her a generous allowance. She had never wanted for anything.

HANNAH REALIZED LORNA was still in a state of shock concerning her father’s sudden passing. Nor did she comprehend all the loose ends her papa had left behind. Louis had come home from the monthly check up on the clothing mill’s employees and merely gone into his home office, sat at his desk, laid his head down...and as easy as that, he was gone. Lorna had found him there when she had gone to call him to dinner.

Things had been different back in 1907. Back when Hannah had only been sixteen, she had been smitten with Dr. Beckman’s good looks and his telling of wild anecdotes. Over the years she had become overseer of the estate’s staff, while masterminding the upkeep and dietary scheduling of those who lived under the roof of the five-storied gingerbread house.

Hannah had given them all a two-week bereavement leave. With Beckman’s recent passing, Hannah feared all her responsibilities might be changed to that of some business conservator, because the teenager had never been given access to the bank account. Hannah had no idea how she was going to pay the bills. As yet the lawyer had not returned her phone calls.

Lorna had yet to realize that without her papa’s signature, she hadn’t enough funds to keep even Hannah on hire, let alone the others. The only other income her papa had ever mentioned, whether true or not, had been a mysterious stash in an old wooden sea chest filled with gold coins and gems, a treasure secretly hidden... somewhere within the house, it was believed, but where? Either hidden up in the cluttered attic, or down in the doctor’s lab centered in the basement, or possibly somewhere in-between, or so he had led her to believe. Or had he just been spinning her another fanciful yarn? He had always teased her about the whereabouts of the mysterious pirate’s chest, yet never taken her into his confidence.

The only money Beckman had ever doled out to Hannah other than her monthly allowance was an occasional Spanish coin on her birthday, to invest in her own savings, which were meager...her musical collection of records, her only indulgence.

Hanna couldn’t help but fret. Who had ever expected him to just up and die without having taken care of these legal technicalities? Had he expected to live forever? What a shame to leave his daughter’s care unaccounted for.

Just knowing he hadn’t expected to die so suddenly didn’t help her extract any funds from the bank account to pay the bills. By law, the teenager was just as penniless as a homeless person. Perhaps he saw himself as her only provider.

Although Hannah had been a substitute mother to Lorna all those years, Dr. Beckman had never seen fit to marry her. In fact, it probably had never occurred to him. The two women were in the same thin pot of soup. Penniless. Hannah shook her head. Dr. Louis Beckman had often been a forgetful man.

LORNA TRIED TO SMILE, but her face refused to comply. She was going to miss her papa fiercely. Hannah patted her ice cold hands. Lorna’s brain could not stop fretting. What if Papa could only come back from the dead long enough to tell me where he has hidden the treasure? If there actually is a stash somewhere. How come he never trusted me well enough to tell me where it is hidden? He always seemed to love surprising me. And yet he usually treated me like some small child...expecting me to jump up and down for joy.

Lorna shivered when she envisioned herself living in one of the town’s homeless shelters. Hannah hadn’t realized that she had actually given it some thought. Without any money, they would lose the house. They would wind up in one of those homeless shelters built on filled-in Latamer’s marshes that had bedrooms with rows of multi-bunks like a military bunkhouse. She pictured her small suitcase being stashed beneath her narrow cot.

When she and the other church ladies had visited the homeless facility, she had been completely unimpressed. Silently, she had suspected that the blankets, donated by the Ladies' Guild, were as thin as the donated towels.

The limited number of available showerheads at the homeless shelter’s women’s wing were open to the rafters...and the shower-gel dispensers were screwed directly onto the stall walls. Many of the upside-down dispensers were empty. Folded towels, ragged and thin as they were, were stacked neatly inside reused wooden orange crates serving as cabinets.

HANNAH GLANCED AT HER charge shivering. You haven’t eaten a bite, she accused.

But I had a coffee when I first got up, Lorna replied testily.

Shaking her head, Hannah took up the coffee pot and fixed herself a coffee with sugar and cream. She tested its temperature then drank carefully. She took a bite from her own plate of scrambled eggs and hash-browns. Okay, young lady, eat up, or you’ll be late for school.

Lorna figured she’d never ever be hungry again. She jumped up and grabbed several bites off her plate before setting it in the sink. I’ll come straight home after school, she promised. Then grabbing up her stack of books, she raced out the door. The vision of her father’s body sliding down out of his desk chair onto the floor, arms and legs all loose, was still a vivid nightmare burning in her mind.

Hannah simply sighed. She rose from the table and, using the phone fastened to the kitchen wall, she bumped the receiver up and down several times to attract the operator’s attention. She couldn’t put this off any longer.

Number please, said the operator.

Give me... She swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d procrastinated so long, probably everyone in Latamer County already knew that Dr. Louis Beckman was dead. Give me the mortuary, Mabel.

Yes-um, Mabel answered, already connecting the jack and ringing the mortuary’s number. I’m sorry to hear of your loss.

There were no secrets in a small town like Latamer Flats. Since Louis hadn’t planned on any holiday celebration, she had given the entire staff time off. With the staff all released for the bereavement leave, there were only the two of them left living in the house, just she and Lorna.

Jasper, the dark-skinned Khoisan orphan Hannah had rescued from the streets, chose to sleep in the barn, and tended to the horses. He had stayed. He had nowhere else to go. Hannah figured the next thing that could happen would be that strangers, who had heard the story about the treasure, would be sneaking into the house in the middle of the night in their effort at locating the hidden sea chest. It had been the talk of the town for years, and it made her reluctant to plan Dr. Beckman’s memorial.

At the hairdresser’s, she had overheard that Louis’s mother, whom she’d never met, was a tough ol’ bird who thought too well of herself. She’d let the solicitor... umm... lawyer handle that part of the announcements. Old Mrs. Beckman had not been widowed long. Shortly after Louis’ father had passed, she had remarried and taken over the reins of her new husband’s affairs. Hannah wondered whether Louis’ mother was an executor of Louis’ accounts, as well.

Everybody in town will be at his funeral. First of all, we’ll start by selling all the horses, Hannah thought. That will help us get by for a time. And we’ll sell the doctor’s collection of coaches. When was the last time Lorna had ridden any of the horses anyway?

HANNAH SUDDENLY PROPOSED to Lorna, Maybe we need to get ourselves a big dog.

The girl sat back in her chair. Why?

To guard the house at night, girl. Neither one of us lives on the main floor. What do you think of that? Hannah didn’t want to say to keep the hordes out...who might be creeping about inside the house after dark, seeking out the mysterious sea chest on their own.

THE WHOLE TOWN GATHERED at the memorial for the only doctor the town had ever known. Hannah stood before her neighbors, her business contacts, and members of her local church, and didn’t know where to start eulogizing Dr. Louis Beckman, father to the princess of the household. She stood there, her mouth as blank as her mind. He was a man of high adventure, a wild card in the deck...but how could she say the simple words that broke her heart... He’s gone, she croaked. And that’s all there is to it. She gazed about the room, expecting to spot Louis’ mother, but if the woman was anywhere in the room, she didn’t recognize her.

Amen, murmured the well-wishers.

Lorna, whose mouth was just as void of words as Hannah’s, couldn’t find the right words to express her sense of loss. She stood at the podium, her mouth hanging agape, staring at the congregation.

A good man down, murmured the minister. Gathering Lorna in the crook of his arm, he led Louis’ only daughter into the dimly lit vestibule, offering her a cool lemonade.

The rest of the service went on without her as she watched the banker, Theodore Billings, from the corner of her teary eyes, with her suspicions growing as to his intent. He was grinning as he spoke from the podium, rubbing his hands together in glee and liberally praising her papa’s generous community involvement.

And that was the end of that.

Two

The Wayward Wind

Already late for the school’s first class of the day, Lorna stepped down from the Latamer Transit bus, her books tied together with a leather strap. A wayward wind blew scattered papers and leaves down the street toward her. They skipped and jumped as they came nearer. Mesmerized, she watched the tumble of leaves coming nearer and nearer as the bus pulled away from the curb in a puff of fumes.

As the summersault greeted her, a scrap of paper stuck to her stockings. Lorna reached down to brush the tangle away, but the artwork on the scrap of paper caught her eye. She retrieved it before the wayward breeze could continue on its way...sticking the piece of paper into her pocket before she bolted across the street to hurry down the front walk toward the high school principal’s office.

It had taken Hannah a number of rounds of applying her powder puff to Lorna’s blotchy nose before finally covering the tell-tale bright red splotches she’d made crying. It had never occurred to Lorna to simply stay home. There was an important test she felt she must take, in order to maintain her grade average. However, there was no hiding the sense of loss that remained in her eyes.

Hannah had done what she could to comfort the teenager, but Lorna was too bereft to settle down. She couldn’t stop crying. All she could comprehend was that she had inherited the five story house, including a great deal of money...which she, as an orphan, couldn’t touch until she finally reached the legal age of twenty-one. That was four years away.

When you sell the livestock, Hannah, don’t put the money in the bank, or we won’t have money to spend. Open a new account somewhere, she had decided.

But what about now? She wanted to ask Wenthrup Thatcher how she could manage keeping the house running without access to the estate. What will happen to all the employees coming back after their leave? Will people actually wait for me to become an heiress? I can’t touch the settlement for another five years! How in the world shall I cover all our expenses during this period? The thought of selling off some of Papa’s things occurred to her. But she found the thought repugnant. It was bad enough selling off the horses. She shuddered, rolling her eyes.

THE LAWYER, THEODORE Billings, and missus, who had been summoned back from their intended lengthy vacation, had cut their trip short to return from their vacation to call an estate reading to be held at the gingerbread house. The banker, Thatcher, had arrived at the house for the reading of the Will and Testament smack on time. He had laid his briefcase with the accounting books on top of Dr. Beckman’s desk. Standing there alongside the lawyer, while everyone else had taken a seat, he cleared his throat, his lips pulled back in a jeering smile when he noted that Lorna was only a minor. His little pig-eyes glared at her over the top of his Nu Vue half-glasses which pinched his aristocratic nose, as though she had deliberately planned to be under-aged just to annoy him.

She had no idea what was coming next. He began to detail the estates’ full responsibilities, which Lorna had trouble comprehending. As he continued his report, he spread the accounting books out on top of the desk, detailing the estate’s financial obligations...and