The Mansion

  The love of my life was an abandoned 1800s Victorian mansion. The rusty seven foot tall metal fencing was her only defence against vandals and the threat of becoming illegal housing for the many homeless. I would often look up at the pointed, spear-like ends of the fence and smile. The old girl sure knew how to protect herself.

  Her elegant facade and double front doors were located on Crest Street. The only part of the house that wasn't protected by the fencing were the two huge bay windows that were located on Main Street. The bay windows were boarded up from the inside, effectively protecting what ever treasures were hiding inside from curious eyes.

  The external paint was long since faded, leaving behind a cracked grey exterior. The window trims, which were once white, were now covered in so much dust, they were the same colour brown as the rusty fencing. The vast lawns were nothing but overgrown weeds.

   I walked past my love every day on my way to and from my job at the post office on Main Street. When I looked out of the post office windows, she was in my line of sight from my service counter. I looked out those windows and admired her often.

  Every day, I sat, eating my lunch on the bench located in front of the post office, looking directly at the mansion. Imagining what life would have been like in 1803, when she was built. It was only natural that I became obsessed with the beautiful old house.

  The mansion was located on the entire corner of Crest and Main Streets. The most sought after
location, in the best part of town. The land was worth a fortune. A greedy property developer had been trying to buy the mansion for years. His plans were to tear her down and put up a luxury high rise apartments.

  I checked the papers daily, dreading news of his successful acquisition. Fully prepared to chain myself to the metal fencing to defend her from bulldozers and wrecking balls.

  My hope was that if the owners did sell her, our corrupt local council would never approve the dreadful apartment plans. I'd watched far too many magnificent old homes be torn down and replaced by soulless high rises since moving to the area a year ago.

  I knew people needed somewhere to live and there was a desperate housing shortage, but I cared more about houses than people. It was hard to explain it, but it was like I could feel the house's soul. And her soul beautiful. She's was the keeper of two centuries worth of history and secrets.

  Her filthy stained glass windows had watched this town grow from having only a handful of houses and general stores, to becoming a bustling town centre. Those same windows had welcomed home or mourned the loss of its town's men and women during two world wars.

  The old girl had been around since the roads were nothing but dirt. When horses hitched to carts were the only means of travel. I'd smile as I imagined men tipping their bowler hats at women dressed in elegant 1800s dresses as they passed each other in the street. When everyone walked or rode bicycles everywhere because cars weren't invented yet.

  I sometimes imagined I saw the old drapes move. Or imagined silhouettes in her windows. Ghostly faces staring down at me from the second floor windows. Especially at night. There were stories all over town about the old place being haunted. And to be honest, I would have been disappointed if the mansion wasn't haunted.

  I even prayed for new owners, who would move in and lovingly restore her to her former glory, ensuring she stuck around for another two hundred hundred years.

  I wasn't very hopeful of that ever happening after I googled the address and discovered she'd belonged to the same family since she was built in 1803.  The Beauchamps. The same family who'd heartlessly abandoned her twenty years earlier and left her to rot and decay.

  I could never imagine having so much money, that you could afford to leave your ancestral family mansion in such an abandoned state. Even in her current state, she was still one of the most elegant looking houses in all of Victoria.

  I didn't know what she was worth, but I knew these huge 1800s mansions were worth several million. The size of the land alone was worth a fortune and the property market in the exclusive area was booming.

  The mansion became my treasured old friend. I would turn my head to my right and admire her
every morning on my way to work. I would look directly at her all day during work. Then turn my head to the left and admire her on my walk home every evening. She made me smile every day. Her presence was comforting. I loved her.