Special Guest

Welcome to Augie's Corner:

I realize that this is unconventional even for me, but tonight I’m going to forego my usual interview and allow my guest to introduce herself. We are not in a studio, nor is there an audience present, just my guest and me. You see she is very shy, and the only way I could do this interview was to travel to Montauk Peninsula and visit her home. This is a gorgeous mansion, actually the first that I have ever been in, with huge walls that surrounds the perimeter, all I could see are rolling green hills, orchards, vineyards, stables and I think I can hear the sea.

Guest: Yes, Augie you are correct, you can hear the sea, if you pull the curtain back, you can actually see the harbor in the distance. Okay, I think I’m ready. Let me see, I suppose I should introduce myself and then go from there.

Augie: I think that would be a great place to start

Guest: Here goes, my name is Charlotte, and I am the only living child of Theis Veit-Standforte and Chevalier Georges Aethelbert Demerayes. We live in this mansion that has been in the Demerayes’ family for generations.

My mother is called Mistress and father is Master of Fanaman, who is a land baron.

I had a brother, who was younger than I, but he died. No one speaks of him, actually, no one is allowed to say his name, or mention anything about him according to Mistress.

Let me see, I’m nineteen, nearly twenty and I have never married, nor have I ever been betroth. According to mother, I am a disaster, a failure to all women and a failure to the Veit-Standforte as well as the Demerayes. 

You see women in my era were considered spinsters if they were not married or betroth by the age of sixteen, and I am a little late. I am an embarrassment, I accept this.

I wanted to be unconventional, you know never marry, enjoy life, but that was not to be. She had other plans for me. To be honest mother hates me.

Augie: Isn’t that a little harsh.

Guest: Oh no, she will not allow me to go anywhere, well I have been to the Village maybe ten to twelve times in my life and I do go with the family to Grissly Hall during the winter, but other than that I stay here, between these walls. All I have learned about life was taught to me by Mary, my favorite friend, she’s our maid and dear old Alexander, who is father’s manservant, who is really father’s boyhood friend. Mother has no friends, she spends her time conjuring up spells and doing evil things to people and me. She never spends time with me, unless it is to ridicule me about one thing or another.

I heard once that she had a friend but she disappeared, like the things in the Mansion, that mother tells me

that it is all in my head. Sometimes I think she is the one who takes things and blame it on me. 
Or I could be crazy She and father use to travel to Europe and Africa together, that's where we have holdings, excuse me, that is where she has holdings, a lot, but now father travels alone. And she goes...  .

She hates father too, she hates why they were forced to marry, some old tradition, she hates Fanaman, she hates the servants, she hates just about everything.

Father wants to have more children, but mother gash, whenever he looks at her. She refuses to sleep in the same room, oh yeah, did I tell you that she sees ghost?

Augie: ghost, where—here, I mean here?

Guest: Oh of course, here. I don’t believe in them, but strange things do happen here, like when my favorite doll was taken, and the Lady in White who would come in at night and sing to me, that no one saw and the Chamomile flowers that nearly killed me, and the Lady on fire in the plant room, she fell you know, but no one saw her body, and then deGraffy was killed and I know who did it, and the strange travel to Biarritz, and the poison, the ghost in the plant room, I fall in love in the middle of all of that, but I think he died or something. There's a lot of history stuff.

Anyway, a lot of things happened, but I’m still here at Fanaman. It says that if one leaves, they always come back.

Augie: Really, uhm will I be able to leave (trust me I won’t be back).

Guest: Oh of course.

Augie: You don’t sound so sure, what was that movement—that movement over there—you see it—over in that dark corner—whose that pointing at me?

Guest: Oh that, I don’t know, mother always sees things in here.

Augie: Charlotte, when will your story be released.

Guest: Oh I don’t know. Maybe soon or never. But that’s okay, I have you here to talk to.

Augie: No Charlotte, I’m leaving soon, as soon as the driver returns.

Guest: Oh did you tell him to return?

Augie: No, you did. Didn’t you—I’ll just call.

Guest: I think the phone lines might me down, but I can check.

Augie: No bother, I’ll just walk. I need the exercise. The weather is not too bad here in October.

Guest: Oh, okay if that is what you want to do. Father can have one of the men drive you back to your hotel, or you can stay here tonight. I’m sure Mistress will mind, but father won’t. I never had a real friend close to my age.

Augie: That’s nice, uhm can you call one of the men, I think the interview is over and I need to clean up some of the questions, before I can post them.

Charlotte Demerayes, it has been a pleasure speaking with you. I am looking forward to your new release that you are staring in. By the way what is the title?

Guest: Oh it’s Fanaman Curse.

Augie: Well alright, hopefully someday, maybe soon or not, we all shall be able to read Fanaman Curse, starring Ms Charlotte Demerayes.Is there an address where readers might be able to contact you, if they want to know more about you.   
(Something just caressed my face.)

Guest: Oh no, just here at Fanaman, you know I've been thinking, Mistress is Fanaman, and Fanaman is Mistress.

Augie: Are you giving me a trade secret

Guest: Oh no, It was just an epiphany.

 Thanks again for such an interesting interview. How soon did you say the car will be ready?

Good bye for now (I hope)   Augie