The haunted castle.

Friday 21 October 2008

Plans have come together and the big Terncote 'haunted' Hallowe'en party is reality. The guest list included all of Lisa's classmates, their parents, a few of their siblings, and us-- including little J.J. in his cute little Cupid costume, Daddy in his tuxedo with tails, and Mother, Jessy, Lisa and me in our angel costumes.

Now the angel costume is a long-standing tradition in this family. Mommy and Daddy designed it when Jessy and I were just little. The costume is basically a shiny white ballet leotard and textured-to-waist tights and plain white ballet slippers (or sometimes pumps with heels). The wings are appropriately shaped, not too big to move round the house, made of stiff wire with translucent white film and decorated with glitter, sequins, and so on. The wings' harness, which also holds up the halo, fits round the shoulders and hooks together at the breastbone. To cover it up Mommy concocted a little jacket, made out of plain white linen, with no collar and three-quarter sleeves and one button to close at the chest, which is provided with slots in the back for the harness to slip through. So we look like angels wearing little jackets like the ones Regency-era girls wore with their off-the-shoulder gowns. It's elegant and cute and solves the problem of having all the wire and straps with buckles showing.

Mommy herself never wore the angel costume, but long ago when our stepmother was our nanny, she and Mommy made two of them for us and two of them for our stepmother and her girlfriend at the time who escorted us round the neighbourhood. Now there are three of us in the big-girl version and only one of us wearing Jessy's old wings and little jacket.

Needless to say the four of us in our angel costumes were a hit. ALL of the parents had positive things to say about us, or to us-- 'How appropriate!' --or 'That's adorable!' --and so on. We all took turns in various places but our job was to greet people as they came in the front doors, take coats if necessary, and guide people to the front stairway. Down stairs another of us would guide people to the party room, in the end of the basement under my room. On top of the billiard table, which is under the dining room, Daddy had put a board and a table cloth with all the food and drinks as a kind of buffet. Under the little back parlour is a bar with a counter and two little tables where people could sit and nibble. In the big party room were the games-- beanbag toss, apples spooning, pin the tail on the donkey and guessing games like charades. Most of them were chaperoned by Mother, who has a lovely way with small children, much like Mommy had. Well-- she often admits Mommy was her big influence.

Daddy sat on a stool with the kids round him and told spooky stories, some true, about the haunted house in Barnegat Light and the Jersey Devil and the great Pinelands train wreck of 1935, finally ending with Mother's own four-page 'for younger audiences' version of 'Frankenstein' in which she left nothing out and made no changes to the plot, which is unusual among retellings of 'Frankenstein', you know. It was a project she did for a class at UD (and got an A on). Jessy and I each took turns taking Lisa in to the toilet, which necessitated taking off the entire costume (needless to say Mother, Jessy and I had very little to drink till people had gone home). Jessy and I each took a turn relieving Mother at the activities so that Mother could visit with some of the parents-- still in costume, of course, and looking quite cute (and appropriate) in it too. Daddy looked on quite proudly and stepped in only as needed. He really likes to see Mother handle these things, you know, mainly because she is so good at it all.

Of course, Brett was here too, in a pretty good mad-scientist costume, and I was happy to see that rather than follow me round all night he was able to circulate, helping younger people and even spending some quality time talking with Daddy... which can only be good, you know. We also made a friend in Christa. the elder sister of one of Lisa's classmates, who is thirteen and in 8th grade and admitted she had come along, in a pretty good witch-in-miniskirt outfit, because she was interested in the house. So I led several people on a short tour round the first floor, mostly in the dark with only our flickering 'candle' bulbs in the sconces on to lend the feeling of a haunted castle. We went down the side stairs and rejoined the party in the big room of the basement.

This was really the first time we have shown off this house or even ourselves-- I am sure most of Lisa's classmates' families had no idea how many there are of us or where we are from or anything. People commented on or asked us about the house, about the costumes, about going to school in England, about Mommy and how our nanny got to be our new mother, and like tour guides at Williamsburg we were able to stay 'in character' as angels and provide all this information about the house and its family's history with smiles and good cheer. In all I think the house did as well as we did for making us all look good and I am happy to say we made plenty of new friends.

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