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The
yard was full of eight foot tall azaleas shadowed by massive Spanish
moss-covered live oak trees intertwined with contorted wisteria vines as big
around as a fifth grader’s waist. During the summer the warm, sweet scent of
a hundred specimen gardenias wafted from the property over two city blocks.
When
I would visit some friends of mine in town, we would sneak up outside the
looming wrought iron and stone perimeter wall and peek in at the ‘big house,’
as everyone there called it. We marveled at its Disneyland castle appearance.
Mr.
Philpot owned the only Phantom Rolls Royce any of us had ever seen. Though I’m
sure it was a late 50s model, it looked like the same car Winston Churchill
rode in on film clips we had seen in school; steel blue, chrome and as long as
a bus.
While
spying on the house, we had seen movement of the maid and the cook as they
carried on with their duties and had seen his caretaker/nurse enter and exit
the house on errands, but none of us had ever seen the man himself...well,
except when his driver took him out for rides around the countryside. Then he
was always asleep with his mouth opened and his face mashed against the back,
passenger side window.
Until
we managed to cotton-up to Tom Dixon, Mr. Philpot’s retired yard man of over
sixty years, all we knew about him was that he was obviously very rich and,
our guess was, very old.
Mr.
Tom told us, over some cookies and cokes we had managed to sneak out of my
friend’s parents’ pantry, the story of the old man in the back seat of
that giant car.
The
original Philpot family had made their money around the turn of the century
selling cypress timber from, what was considered then, worthless swamp land
that his grandfather had bought after the War for Southern Independence, at
about a dollar an acre. He then invested in several sections of farm land that
oil was discovered on just in time for the petroleum demands of the First
World War.
The
current Mr. Philpot was an employee of that oil company. Young Reginald had
such a work ethic, dynamic personality and positive rapport with the dozens of
other workers on the oil field and farms that he soon rose to be boss, second
only to the company’s owner.
Unbeknown
to him, Reginald had long since caught the eye of the only Philpot child, a
very shy daughter named Clara Belle. She had been schooled by a governess,
away from public schools, and lacked the social character building that comes
with being around other children. As a matter of fact, according to Mr. Tom,
she was such a secret that it took the boss pointing her affections out to
Reginald before he even knew she existed.
Soon
after that, Mr. Philpot, Sr., hired someone to take over part of Reginald’s
responsibilities, giving the two young people time to get to know each other.
Reginald fell head over heels for this quiet thing he soon nicknamed Seebee.
Within a year of courting Seebee, Reginald was in the big house asking for Mr.
Philpot’s permission to marry her.
Of
course, he thought, it had to be a done deal. After all, the old man thought
he hung the moon and asking permission would just be a formality. Mr. Philpot
did give his blessing with one stipulation; Reginald would have to change his
name to Philpot so there would be other Philpots to carry on the name.
Reginald was initially shocked at the proposition but after a few days agreed.
The
two were married that May under the garden gazebo. Mr. Tom said that even
though it rained everyone into the house, Miss Clara Belle’s father
personally oversaw the release of dozens of white king pigeons as the grand
finale of the ceremony, becoming soaked to the bone in the process. He died of
pneumonia two weeks later. Those birds bred with local pigeons and their pure
white descendants can be seen, to this day, just outside of town at the Co-op’s
granary.
Reginald
was a very gregarious person with friends and business associates everywhere.
After his father-in-law’s passing, he increased the house staff and
entertained often, to the chagrin of Clara Belle who felt very uncomfortable
around strangers (and people she was acquainted with, for that matter).
Mr.
Tom recalled her personal physician coming to visit her occasionally, to begin
with, then on a weekly basis to try and stave off her fears by administering
different medications he carried in his black bag.
After
five years of marriage, no child had been produced though there were rumors of
several miscarriages and a stillbirth; and Clara Belle’s anxiety attacks got
worse and worse. Reginald had people over less, often partly to ease her mind
but, also, because his once sweet and gentle Seebee had become subject to fits
of rage. Mr. Tom told us that once during one of her tantrums she had
purposefully slashed her arms and upper body with a paring knife from the
kitchen and then threatened Reginald and a staff member when they tried to
take it from her.
After
that, most of the staff were let go and Reginald didn’t come out much any
more. Mr. Tom lamented that for the last fifty years he was employed there,
the only people, other than the few remaining staff members, to come on the
property were people in to do painting and other odd jobs and a construction
crew who built a large, one story structure in the back of the property where
no one from the street could see it. That was where Seebee was kept, never to
see the light of day again. Just the way she wanted it.
It’s
funny how you look at people of privilege. You think they have it all. No
worries. No pain. Reginald Philpot fell right into what most of us only dream
of. He died at nearly a century old…sad and alone.
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