In its day it must have been a beautiful tribute to architecture. Henley Road was a semi wooded cul de sac on the edge of a rural town called Lyndsey, after its first colonial settlers.
At some point in time, the occupants must have also been fairly self sufficient. The now overgrown patch of garden that swirled around the house would easily have provided sustenance along with an small bower of fruit trees. A gazebo in need of painting stood silently as if waiting to be occupied on a warm summer day.
Abandonement is a state of emptiness that eats away at the mind first and then in the long term, the soul.
The house on Henley Road was in an official sense abandoned. Or was it?
Its gingerbread exterior belied the grandiose interior still appointed in the Victorian style of earlier days.
Oddly, nothing seemed worn or emitted a moldy odor even though the house had been shuttered for decades.
The double oak front doors seemed sealed shut forever as if intentionally to keep others out.
Over the marble fireplace in the living room was a large photo of a beautiful woman with long chestnut hair that fell over her bosom.
She wore a white gown with a scarlet velvet bodice and flowing lace from the Empire waist to the ankles. The gown hid her delicate ruby slippers. In her hair was a single diamond star.
It wasn't possible to miss the far away look in her dark eyes or the lack of a hint of a smile on her painted lips.
A highly polished piano forte and carved harp rested in an alcove soundlessly.
The staircase led to a second floor where there were four large bedrooms and an enormous bathroom at the end of the hall.
All looked as if they were never used.
Oh, but they were, as was evidenced by the all too pristine neatness within each room.
There was an unmistakable sadness about the house on Henley Road.
Suddenly, the harp sounded ever so delicately in an angelic string of notes.
Just a draft? Even though the windows were all sealed shut?
A rattling sound came from the kitchen. It was not a ghost, but Melanie Dorren, the woman in the portrait downstairs.
Her husband, Daniel Dorren, a wealthy financier, was believed to have run off with one of his many paramours, leaving Melanie only their home and the furnishings.
Most believed she long ago left the house and returned to her New England roots in Manchester.
Melanie, like most wives of wealthy men, knew about her husband's numerous affairs, but kept silent rather than cause him scandal and ruination of his reputation.
He'd left several times before; but, once his affairs bored him, he returned to the comfort of the house on Henley Road.
No apologies to long suffering Melanie. Not even a tiny excuse for his absence.
It couldn't be said he married Melanie because of her beauty. She had a cameo-like profile, but apppeared more a sedate lady of her times.
Oh yes. She was heartbroken when Daniel had the first romantic affair with a girl a few years younger than she.
She experienced all the usual feelings of anger, betrayal and disgust. She just assumed Daniel would regret his poor judgment and realize sooner than later people would talk and he was jeopardizing his reputation.
But as Daniel's business grew, so too did his desire for personal satisfaction. It seemed to Melanie Daniel actually felt these affairs were an entitlement for all of the drudgery of labor.
As he began to age and the first signs of grey appeared at his temples, Melanie thought he would finally end his wild forays with women.
Whenever she dared broach the subject, Daniel immediately reminded her of all the comfort his hard work had kept her in.
"If you are expecting me to apologize to you for my personal decisions, my dear, you will be waiting na very long time. Why don't you find yourself a man who shares your interests?" he offered.
"When I accepted your proposal of marriage and you took possession of my inheritance, which as you know helped your business, you never mentioned that you wanted a part-time wife."
"You forget that I long ago repaid that debt several times over when I saw to it you wanted for nothing."
So that was it. A bizarre kind of indebtedness that somehow was paid by Daniel's "generosity."
More and more frequently, Daniel was away for longer and longer periods of time. So long in fact that even the servants no longer asked if he would be home for dinner.
It was true Melanie was quite introverted. She was the only child of Samson D. Lyndsey for whom the town was named and Margarethe Warborg.
Samson or "Sam" as he was usually called was a teddy bear of a man. His wife was the typical "proper woman" for whom respectability was determined by how in frequently she bore a child.
Melanie wasn't exactly wanted by her father or her mother. In fact, her parents referred to her as "the accident" and thus was raised by Mrs. McNorman, her nanny,
Mrs. McNorman was stern and demanding. Melanie learned that obedience even when unreasonalbe was preferable to being totally invisible.
As soon as Melanie was old enough, off she went to a boarding school for girls where all manner of mischief usually had her as the center of jokes.
Though she felt deeply hurt, she stuffed it all down deep inside and play acted the "good sport."
Margarethe was always absent from home and was involved in her civic duties to distraction.
That was how she met Edna Dorren, a matriach of society and well placed in the roster of wealthy wives.
Edna had two children, Daniel and Edwina, two years younger than Daniel.
Daniel was a handsome, though somewhat swarthy young college graduate of Boston University. Melanie was sent to France to complete her education and hopefully, according to Margarethe lose her shyness and gawkyness,
Melanie accommodated neither and in fact to her mother's dismay, had not lost her "baby fat."
The enticement that remained to get Melanie married off was a sizable dowry subtly mentioned during polite conversation with Edna Dorren.
It was a kind of "trade" deal where a wealthy albeit not very attractive daughter could be exchanged for a husband.
The gleam in Daniel's eye was not for Melanie but her inheritance. His father, Matthew, reminded him that such a windfall would do very nicely to get Daniel's dreams of business ownership under way.
"A wife's looks matter little when a man's future financial security is at stake," Matthew warned his son.
Daniel took his father's warning seriously.
What matters most to a man isn't a wife. It's financial security.
So, one by one, Daniel became a prolific womanizer while Melanie had but to become a non-entity.
Her husband only needed her at his side for business events where respectability was called for.
Otherwise, Daniel was willing to pay large sums for the kind of women who filled his every fantasy.
Not so very unlike his philandering father, Matthew. However, at some point Matthew managed to be taken into an alliance with the Boston Irish mobster, Ian McDevlin.
When McDevlin went to prison for his illegal "business," Matthew was secretly hoping it would erase their former alliance.
Daniel secretly admired McDevlin's "business" deals and vowed that he wouldn't be so stupid as to get caught.
Many Dorren Corporation subsidiaries were questionable. But, he knew passing palms with huge sums of money would pay for silence and even more so, loyalty.
He indulged his "pleasures" as often as he pleased and with any woman gullible enough and money focused enough to fall for his honey-in-his-mouth charm.
Melanie neither knew nor cared what he was up to. In every way, she lived in comfort and all she had to do was be blind and deaf to Daniel's machinations and affairs.
His only complaint was that Melanie was childless owing to a childhood bout with scarlet fever that has become a minor plague.
The truth was that the only lie she ever told in her life was that she was childless.
In fact, she was just "cautious" and owing to Daniel's disgust of unattractive women, she was glad when she reached the age when child bearing was no longer possible.
By age 50, Melanie managed to attract only the postman and milkman who in reality felt sorry for such a reclusive woman. They were likely all the kindness of her lifetime.
Daniel, on the other hand, had become boastful of his conquests. Until one of his envious business competitors discovered Daniel's lascivious fascination for sexually deviant women.
Archibald Fornier knew the only way to be rid of his worst competitor was disclosure of Daniel Dorren's proclivities for harlots he had to pay for.
Unfortunately for Daniel, laws in his state were quite strict regarding men who paid those kinds of women.
So it was that in disclosing Daniel's assignations, it wasn't long before a barrage of bad fortune struck.
First, one of the women he frequented blackmailed Daniel with a threat to describe graphically Daniel's appetite for perversion.
Unaware that Fronier had planted rumors about him, he paid Marnette Aspen a hefty sum to keep her silence.
Erring on the side of caution, Daniel reasoned that he ought to place all of his assets in his wife's name in the event of a lawsuit.
But that bit of providence would make Melanie Dorren not only independently rich but also powerful.
Still Daniel wasn't a gambling man though he might have other vices.
Of course, he decided it was best not to tell Melanie about her newfound windfall. He could still make all the major business decisions and she needn't be involved.
That was until, law enforcement got wind of not just his sexual vices but also several of his business decisions.
At first, he claimed to investigators, that he knew nothing about these things and tha t all business decisions were made by his wife, Melanie, who owned the Dorren business and all its subsidiaries.
Thomas K. Walter was chief detective on the Dorren investigation. He made a point of meeting Melanie Dorren when he knew Daniel wouldn't be present.
"Mrs. Melanie Dorren? I'm chief detective Thomas Walter."
"Yes?" Melanie answered.
"Has something happened to my husband?"
"Yes."
"Oh my heavens! Is he...?"
"Oh no. Nothing like that."
Thomas Walters had been in law enforcement since his days as a cop on Morgan Street beat. He was somewhat taken aback that this woman seemed less than sad about the possibility of a spouse's in jury or death. He also didn't expect to see the wife of such a proiminent business man like Daniel Dorren looking like a wash rag.
She wore a cotton flowered house dress, her hair was carelessly tied at the back with wisps of grey hair straggling over her face and neck. This woman owned a huge conglomerate?
Something didn't add up and he knew why.
"Actually, Mrs. Dorren I'm investigating the business you own."
"Oh but I don't own any business, my husband does."
"Not according to papers filed and signed by you claiming ownership."
"Mr. Walter, I tell you I do not own any part of Daniel's business. In fact, he is so frequently away on business trips that I barely know what the business is."
Thomas pulled a 3 page document out of his brief case.
"Is this not your signature?"
"No sir. It is not. Look I'll prove it. Every day I write my day's thoughts in my journal."
Melanie was shocked; but, yet not so shocked that she knew Daniel had gotten himself in trouble.
"Is my husband in some kind of trouble?"
"Don't you read the papers?"
"Daniel canceled the paper a month ago. I only found that out when I called the paper to inquire why it wasn't delivered. All the person I spoke said was that it was canceled by Daniel Dorren."
"What about your TV? Don't you watch the nightly news?"
"We have never had a TV. Daniel said wealthy people never do."
Daniel Dorren had effectively turned his wife into a recluse.
He didn't bother to ask why she never ventured out of their house. He knew it would be more of "Daniel said..." and it was clear Dorren turned over his assets to a wife he never informed, hoping she would end up in jail, not him.
Daniel was a master of secrecy until one of his paramours decided to make their meetings more worthwhile.
Daniel was 68 years old when Judge Desmond made an example of him.
Melanie was hounded by the press to the extent, she hid herself away in her home and made it appear she abandoned it.
Even the servants left because of constant press turmoil.
It wasn't long before the news moved on to other issues and crimes.
Melanie was glad. She lived in relative comfort thanks to Daniel placing all his assets in her name.
Still, she wanted no part of a world that had abandoned her.
Her parents, her nanny, her schoolmates and husband. All had abandoned her.
Now, for all time she would remain in an abandoned house.
