Chapter 6

Me and Cece spent the last half hour trying to think up a plan with as little we knew about the Oldest House Museum I mean we know nothing about what the house looks like on the inside. Though I do know that the man who had the house had nine daughters so he had to have at least nine rooms unless he had his daughters pair up. When we were here me and Mimi never went to the Oldest House Museum we did end up walking past me it multiple times on the way to the butterfly garden.

I'm not sure why we didn't go to the museum though we did go to the Ernest Hemingway House, the Ernest Hemingway House was the residence of American writer Ernest Hemingway in the 1930s. The house is situated on the island of Key West in Florida, it is at 907 Whitehead Street, across from the Key West Lighthouse, close to the southern coast of the island. Due to its association with Hemingway, the property is the most popular tourist attraction in Key West. It is also famous for its large population of so-called Hemingway cats, many of which are polydactyl.

The residence was constructed in 1851 in a French Colonial Style by wealthy marine architect and salvager Asa Tift. From 1931 to 1939, the house was inhabited by Hemingway and his wife Pauline Pfeiffer. They restored the decaying property and made several additions. During his time at the home, Hemingway wrote some of his best-received works.

Including the non-fiction work Green Hills of Africa (1935), the 1936 short stories " The Snows of Kilimanjaro " and " The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber ", and the novels To Have and Not Have (1937) and Islands in the Stream (1970). After Hemingway's divorce and deaths, the house was auctioned off and subsequently converted into a private museum in 1964. On November 24, 1968, it was designated a National Historic Landmark. Born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway grew up in a comfortable, but fractious, family.

Childhood trips to the remote woods of Michigan inspired his fascination with nature and a lifelong quest for adventure, including his passion for hunting and fishing. Interested in writing from an early age, he began his career as a journalist, working as a reporter in the Midwest. When poor eyesight kept him from enlisting during World War I, Hemingway volunteered as a Red Cross ambulance driver and was severely wounded in Italy at age 18, leading to a long convalescence.

In the fall of 1921, he married Hadley Richardson, eight years his senior, and, on the advice of friends, the couple moved to Paris later that year. The Hemingway's quickly became part of a group of American expatriates who poured into the French capital in the decade after WWI, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot. Dubbed the “Lost Generation,” they wrote, painted and composed by day, and drank, debated, and caroused the City of Lights by night. Hemingway supported his family including his newborn son as a journalist, traveling throughout Europe on assignment, while also completing work on his first novel.

“The Sun Also Rises,” which showcased Hemingway’s crisp, spare writing style and helped immortalize both its young author and his group of friends. Hemingway’s affair with fellow journalist Pauline Pfeiffer led to the collapse of his marriage to Richardson and their divorce in 1927. He married Pfeiffer soon after, and the pair decided to return to America when she became pregnant with the first of their two sons.

Writer and friend John Dos Passos recommended Key West, in the southern end of the Florida Keys. When they arrived in 1928, Hemingway was immediately enchanted. Located just 90 miles from Cuba, the region’s welcoming weather and the laid-back, permissive atmosphere seemed tailor-made for Hemingway. The couple lived on-and-off in Key West for several years spending summers in Wyoming, before finally putting down permanent roots in 1931.

Pfeiffer found a house at auction and her Uncle purchased it for $8'000 approximately 134'00 today as a belated wedding gift. Built-in 1851 by the owner of a local ship salvage company. The house sat on one of the largest private lots in the city, and, thanks to its high elevation and sturdy construction, could withstand even the fiercest of storms. The couple set out to restore the property, filling the house with the European antique furniture that Hemingway loved found on his frequent trips to Spain and elsewhere, and building a writing studio in a detached carriage house on the grounds.

Hemingway helped make Key West famous, and he and the city became almost impossibly intertwined during his years there, he immortalized his favorite haunts and drinking buddies through his writing, most famously in 1937’s To Have and Have Not. A Key West-set novel inspired by a group of local black-market smugglers. His hard-partying ways even came home with him, quite literally, in the form of a urinal, drunkenly carried home from Sloppy Joe’s Bar and installed in his backyard, which is still working as a water fountain today.

Hemingway also built a boxing ring on the property, allowing the self-styled pugilist a place to spar. Hemingway continued to travel throughout the 1930s for both work and pleasure. A two-month African safari in 1933 left him dangerously ill but provided both the inspiration for his famed short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and trunks full of animal trophies, put on display in Key West.

When Hemingway left to report on the Spanish Civil War in 1937, Pfeiffer decided to surprise him by building a pool, the first to be built on Key West Hemingway, however, seemed less than pleased by the gesture. Furious over the cost of more than $340,000 in today’s money, he threw a penny into the unfinished pool, noting that Pfeiffer might as well have taken his last cent. Pfeiffer, well acquainted with her husband’s often unstable moods, calmly had the penny embedded in concrete, forever immortalizing his outburst.

The warm waters surrounding Key West seemed to beckon Hemingway, he quickly became obsessed with deep-water fishing, and soon bought his boat, the Pilar. "Papa" Hemingway, as he’d dubbed himself, took to sailing the nearby waters with friends in tow, who were soon nicknamed the Key West Mob. According to legend, a fellow sailor and ship captain gifted Hemingway with a male cat with six toes named Snow Ball, polydactyl cats were popular among sailors for both their rat-hunting skills and as a supposed source of good luck.

Unlike Pfeiffer’s pool, Hemingway seemed tickled by the gift the warm waters surrounding Key West seemed to beckon Hemingway, he quickly became obsessed with deep-water fishing, and soon bought his boat, the Pilar. "Papa" Hemingway, as he’d dubbed himself, took to sailing the nearby waters with friends in tow, who were soon nicknamed the Key West Mob. According to legend, a fellow sailor and ship captain gifted Hemingway with a male cat with six toes named Snowball.

Snowball soon gave way to the first of several generations of six- and seven-toed cats that roamed Hemingway’s properties including more than 50 of them that call the Key West property home today. Hemingway’s time at Finca Vigia long outlasted his brief, tempestuous marriage to Gellhorn.

They divorced after five years, thanks in part to mutual infidelity and Hemingway’s resentment of her flourishing career. For the last two decades of his life, Hemingway would spend his winters at Finca Vigia, eventually joined by his fourth and final wife, Mary. His Cuban home became a pilgrimage of sorts, as admirers, friends, and fans from Hollywood, society and the literary world flocked to his doorstep. As in Key West, Hemingway happily held court, in a home filled with mementos and items that the notorious pack-rat refused to throw out, and surrounded by a gaggle of cats.

Hemingway and his wife left Cuba in 1960, following Fidel Castro’s overthrow of the Batista government although the left-leaning Hemingway’s sympathies were with the revolutionaries. In ill health and increasingly suffering from the depression that ran through his family, and which he had struggled against all his life, Hemingway settled in Idaho. On July 2, 1961, he shot himself in his Ketchum home and died, aged 61. Mary was able to return to Finca Vigia to retrieve some of Hemingway’s belongings, but the house itself soon fell into disrepair.

It was partially restored and reopened to the public in 2007, and it, along with his Key West home, stand almost frozen in time, testaments to Hemingway’s dramatic and eventful life. "I don’t mind Ernest falling in love," Hemingway's second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, wrote of the literary giant, "but why does he always have to marry the girl when he does?" That's a question that Ernest Hemingway took to his grave.

Before he ended his life with a gunshot to the head in July 1961, Hemingway had four wives who were remarkable in their own right: Hadley Richardson, Pauline 'Fife' Pfeiffer, Martha Gellhorn, and Mary Welsh. Having the unique experience of loving this talented, complicated, and erratic man. Welsh referred to each of her predecessors as graduates of "the Hemingway University" some of the women even managed to form a bond with one another.

Born in 1891 in Missouri Hadley Richardson was a gifted museum who spent most of her 20s taking care of her ailing mother. Her father, who had worked in the pharmaceutical industry, had committed suicide in 1903 the same fate that would end Hemingway. When Richardson and Hemingway met at a party in Chicago in 1920, the two had instant chemistry, despite Richardson being eight years his senior. While her appearance was unremarkable, she made up for it in sensuality.

Added to that, she reminded Hemingway of the nurse he fell in love with while recuperating from his battle wounds during World War I. In less than a year, the couple married and took off to Paris, encountering a who's who of famous writers such as James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. Living off of Richardson's modest trust fund, the couple lived in Paris for about two years before moving to Toronto, where Hemingway worked for the Toronto Star.

Around this time, Richardson gave birth to their son, Jack, whom they nicknamed " Bumby ". Bored with journalism, Hemingway longed to return to Paris to focus on his writing, and so the family of three found their way back to the City of Lights. Within a year of their return, they met a young, savvy journalist, Pauline "Fife" Pfeiffer, who would become Hemingway's second wife. Richardson and Pfeiffer became such close friends that the former had the younger woman accompany her and Hemingway on vacation.

“ It would be a swell joke on tout-le-monde if you & Fife & I spent the summer at Juan-les-Pins, ” Richardson wrote to Hemingway in the spring of 1926, knowing by then that he and Fife were having an affair. But Richardson couldn't play the third wheel for long, the arguments between the couple began to grow, and that fall, she asked for a divorce. Which was finalized in January 1927.

The couple's marriage lasted six years and by that spring, Hemingway and Pfeiffer were married. Hemingway would later romanticize his marriage with Richardson in his novel, A Moveable Feast. Born in 1895 in Iowa, Pauline " Fife " Pfeiffer was an accomplished journalist who wrote for Vogue in Paris. Unlike Richardson, Pfeiffer came from a very wealthy family and had a flair for fashion, sporting the latest trends while living in a chic Parisian flat off the Right Bank.

As a career girl, a new concept at the time Pfeiffer was ambitious, curious, and possessed a great editorial eye, which she utilized when giving feedback on drafts of Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Considered the most reviled of Hemingway's wives, Pfeiffer has been referred to as the devil in Dior as well as a determined terrier who was set on snatching Hemingway from his kind-hearted first wife. Even Hemingway himself vilified her in his novel A Moveable Feast, claiming that she had "murdered" his relationship with Richardson by using the art of seduction.

Regardless of how history views her, Pfeiffer remained Hemingway's wife for 13 years his second-longest marriage. Through her wealth, she had purchased the couple's home in Key West, Florida, starting in the late 1920s and gave birth to their two sons, Patrick and Gregory. A decade later, Hemingway was able to carry his share of financial responsibilities, as he had become one of the wealthiest writers in the world. But by then, he had become entranced by another ambitious journalist, Martha Gellhorn, who had befriended the Hemingways in the late 1930s.

Just like Pfeiffer had befriended Hemingway's first wife and then became "the mistress," Gellhorn would do the same to Pfeiffer. To say the least, their marriage was unconventional and competitive, and for whatever his reasons, Hemingway began playing the field again. Soon, Gellhorn would find herself in the same position as Pfeiffer: She was now playing the role of ex-wife-to-be while Hemingway's new mistress, journalist Mary Welsh, waited in the wings.

Gellhorn and Hemingway divorced in 19-.

" Bella are you even listening to what I am saying, " Cece asked interrupting my thoughts.

I sighed " sorry I was just thinking of the time me and Mimi went to the Ernest Hemingway house they told us quite a few things about him ".

She glared at me " well stop it we need to focus on the first clue so we can figure out where the next one was "

I shook my head " we should try to figure out where she had been in the Oldest House Museum first we might find something important ".

Cece opened her mouth to say something but before she could a pain in my head flared up causing me to cry out and nearly fall off the stool I was on. My reading glasses ended up getting knocked off and the pain lessened but only slightly, the pain was overpowering me. I've had headaches before I got them a lot when I was a kid because I didn't drink enough water but none this painful it felt like my head was trying to split open.

I felt someone grab my arm " Bella what's going on are you ok "?

I could hear Cece's voice but it sounded like it was miles away instead of being right next to me, I went to answer but I couldn't seem to get my mouth to work before I blacked out from the pain.

******

I felt pain all over my body as I was waking up but I knew I had to wake up I didn't know why just that I had something important to do. So I forced myself to wake up which wasn't as hard as I thought but when I tried to open my eyes I couldn't or I have opened my eyes and I just couldn't see. Either way, I am freaking out though I like option one better than option two I have a feeling option two might be the more realistic one.

I tried to sit up blindly but nearly ended up falling off the right side of what I assume is a bed until someone grabbed me and centered me.

" Hey, Bella I'm glad you are finally awake ".

It was Cece, I turned to her voice " uhu I have a couple of questions ".

She nodded ' or at least I assumed she did I'm still blind here ' before saying " shoot ".

"All right well here's one why the hell am I BLIND? Where are we? And how long have I been out "?

I heard her shuffling and she was probably about to say something before the door opened.

" Ahh Ms. White you're finally awake I'm Doctor Alkin and you are in the Lower Keys Medical Center as for how long you were out I would say eleven since it's now midnight ".

I nodded " as much as I appreciate you for answering my question you still haven't answered the most important question at least to me it is. Why am I blind "?

He sighed " well Ms. White the reading glasses that you had been wearing had damaged your eyes, frankly I don't know how you were able to read with these glasses I can't even see with them and I'm blind without my glasses. Whoever prescribed you these glasses had the lenses way off, I put something over your eyes that you can't take off until I deem safe which is why I need you to come in tomorrow so I can check your eyes again ".

I frowned at him but didn't say anything because I knew there was only one who could explain what was wrong with me and that was the lookout ghost. I heard shuffling beside me that I assume was Cece before I heard her say.

" So am I allowed to check her out "?

He nodded, ' again I'm just assuming ' before he said " of course just make sure she's here tomorrow at three ".

She paused for a second before asking " later today tomorrow or tomorrow, tomorrow "?

" Tomorrow, tomorrow," he told her and I heard the door open and close so I assumed he left the room.

Cece sighed " what are we going to do Bella "?

I laid back down on the bed " hope that my eyes aren't permanently damaged because not only do we need my eyes to see the clues that man leaves I still need my eyes for the rest of my life also ".

Before Cece could respond to what I said my phone started blasting Lost Boy by Ruth B, I pulled it out of my pocket but ended up dropping it because of my newly found blindness. Cece must have caught it before it hit the floor because if it did I would have heard it.

" Hello, this is Cece Bella's sister who is this "?

I didn't hear the answer because the phone wasn't on speaker but I felt when Cece placed the phone at my ear and an animatronic voice said.

" Hello Bella I'm quite sorry to hear what happened to you and I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your two hours are up ".

I rolled my eyes or at least I tried to " yeah right I'm pretty sure your bad news incarnated ".

He faked a hurt gasp " I'm hurt you would think that of me ".

Before I could respond to what he said he became completely serious " any joking aside I decided to add four more days for you to find your Grandmother, see I can bring nice news ".

Right, when he finished saying those words he hung up the phone so I turned to Cece and said.

" We need to go to the lookout ".