“She will have to come in, you know. Go tell her that Mrs. Raven is ready to see her.”
He went back to the brougham, opened the back door, and relayed the message just as it had been given him. A gloved hand emerged and rested upon his arm as he helped a tiny, heavily veiled woman in black from the carriage. She was followed by a younger lady, wearing a hat with a soft veil wound about its brim. The driver, Charles Farnham, accompanied them to the front door, where the older woman made a peremptory motion for him to return to the carriage. When he looked back, the pair had disappeared into the house.
Farnham was uneasy. It was not just that the expensive brougham was attracting attention in an unsavory neighborhood; it was the appearance of the woman who had opened the door. There was something evil about her. More than an hour passed, and his two passengers were still inside the house. He was tempted to go up and ring the bell to be certain that they were all right, but he didn’t really dare, not yet. Restlessly he pulled out a cigarette. What were they doing inside that house all this time? He watched a fine, light drizzle of rain beginning to spatter the shiny black of the carriage.
It was getting dark and still the lights hadn’t gone on inside. Why didn’t the Raven woman light a lamp? He had almost gathered up his courage to check and see if madam and her niece were all right when the front door opened. Miss Margaret came out first and her aunt, Sarah Winchester, followed. Mrs. Winchester turned back toward the darkness of the doorway to speak to someone he assumed was Mrs. Raven. Since the death of William Wirt Winchester, son of Oliver Winchester, the “rifle king,” Mrs. Winchester’s sole companion had been Margaret.
This was the first of many trips Farnham was to make during the winter of 1884 from the Winchester mansion in Hartford, Connecticut, to the shabby street in Boston. Sometimes Margaret would accompany her aunt; on other occasions Sarah Pardee Winchester would go alone. She never seemed herself after a trip to the Witch’s Palace, as Farnham had begun to call the mustard-colored house in his own mind. After the last visit, Mrs. Winchester appeared extremely frightened. She clutched Margaret’s arm and talked hysterically.
“Do you know what she says, Margaret? She says the money William left me has a curse on it!”
“Why would she say that?”
“She says the spirits of all those men and women that were killed by the Winchester are haunting my fortune and that they mean to harm me.”
“But there were lots of people killed by the rifle,” Margaret protested reasonably. “Soldiers, Indians . . .”
“Oh! Don’t say the word Indians. According to Mrs. Raven they will be the worst haunters, and there is just one way to keep them from getting me!”
“And what way is that, Auntie?”
“She says it can be done only by my getting a larger house that will attract good spirits. The good spirits will keep the evil ones away and the house must be fixed up according to their wishes.”
“But how will you know their wishes, Auntie?”
“Mrs. Raven will guide me as to what to do.”
Farnham, who was doing his best to hear the conversation, shook his head. People said her husband had left her twenty million dollars. It was hard for him even to imagine how much money that was. But despite her wealth, he had begun to feel sorry for Mrs. Winchester. Poor woman, the death of her husband must have affected her mind.
On their last trip to the house in Boston, just as they were about to get into the carriage, something huge and white flew past them and Mrs. Winchester screamed. Farnham thought it could have been a large owl startled by their lights, and he and Margaret tried to soothe Sarah Winchester. She almost collapsed in front of Mrs. Raven’s house, and it took his and her niece’s combined efforts to get her into the back seat of the carriage.
The next day, to everyone’s surprise, Mrs. Winchester announced that she was moving to California. Farnham overheard her tell Miss Margaret that she believed the owl had been a warning to her that they must leave Hartford immediately. “From now on, the spirits themselves will lead me.” Of the staff given the opportunity to move, none accepted but Farnham, who was unmarried at the time.
Once in San Jose, Sarah Winchester bought an eighteen-room house. Her first move was to hire twenty-two carpenters to immediately commence adding a wing to the house. Landscape gardeners were the next to arrive and they began to plant a towering hedge that shut off any view of the house from the road. Then seven Japanese gardeners were hired to fertilize and prune the hedge so that no one could possibly see through it.
Before they had left Hartford, Mrs. Winchester used to talk with Farnham occasionally. Now she never spoke to him or to any of the other servants. All instructions for everyone had to come through Miss Margaret, her niece and secretary. The veil Mrs. Winchester put on for mourning was never removed except in the presence of the Chinese butler who served her dinner. Farnham began to find that he could scarcely remember Mrs. Winchester’s features. Once, years later, Farnham asked Won Lee what Mrs. Winchester looked like now.
“She little old lady,” replied the butler, shrugging. “Look like shriveled plum.”
From the time of her arrival in the San Jose house, carpenters and masons were at work seven days a week. There seemed to be no hurry about completing many of the projects, and the workmen wondered why they were asked to be there on Sundays, holidays, and even Christmas Day. They had no idea of the warning a Boston
