Lone guardian of a vanished hope,

Bathed in an air of dim romance,

The white walls hold in tender spell,

Dream memories of a queen of France.

—The last stanza of a poem written by Boothbay's Charlotte Beath Brown.

When Lea Wait was a little girl, tour boats from Boothbay used to cruise past her Edgecomb home on Davis Island. Using the loud-speaker, the skipper would tell his passengers they were passing “The Marie Antoinette House.”

“We would run out and wave to them,” Wait said.

Since the 1950s, the celebrated Maine mystery author and her family have owned an imposing white house located on a high hill overlooking the Sheepscot river.

The house, built in 1774 on Jeremy Squam (now Westport) Island, and moved across the river in 1832, is the focus of a legend linking it to the Queen of France who lost her throne (and her head) during the revolution's “Reign of Terror.”

The legend says in 1792, there was a secret plot to rescue Queen Marie from the clutches of the revolution. Part of that plot involved a Wiscasset sea captain named Clough and his ship Sally, which was loaded with her furniture and other royal fancies, just waiting for Marie to escape. But the Paris mob had other ideas.

So, Capt. Clough said finders keepers as he cast off from Le Havre, and sailed for the Sheepscot where he furnished his house with all the royal goodies. Or that is what the legend says.

Lea Wait, one of the state's top mystery writers, said there is a thread of authenticity running through the legend.

She said her research shows there was indeed a Capt. Clough, who, with his family, occupied her home for years. One of his daughters was named Hanna Antoinette Clough and the family has continued the tradition of naming their daughters Antoinette.

She thinks Capt. Clough may have worked with a Boston merchant named James Swan who spent time in Paris.

Not long ago, Wait and her husband Bob Thomas were in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts where they noticed a Gilbert Stuart portrait of James Swan. The MFA records note they have a collection of fine French furniture dated to 1787, that was shipped to Boston by Swan.

Did Swan ship the French furniture to Boston on Capt. Clough's ship Sally? Did the sharp Boston businessman sell fine French furniture by telling his customers it once belonged to the Queen of France?

Is that the genesis of the legend of Marie Antoinette and the Edgecomb house?

No one knows for sure, but the lack of hard evidence has not stopped folks from repeating different versions of this story.

For example, Wait pulls out a yellowed newspaper clipping with a story about a psychic who knew it was true because she divined the image of a beautiful woman, obviously the queen, walking through the rose garden at the Edgecomb house. Wait notes her house does not have, nor has it ever had a rose garden.

A 1910 historical novel “A Royal Tragedy” spells out the plot to break Marie Antoinette out of jail, including a note containing details of the plot that were hidden in a bouquet of flowers. Unfortunately the plot was discovered.

The book says the scenes and incidents were taken from letters and manuscripts found in an old trunk in the garret of the Wait home. But the author says no manuscript or letters exist.

Another wonderful tale says Capt. Clough brought the Queen's Persian cat to Wiscasset, along with her royal baggage.

“The cat supposedly mated with Maine raccoons and that is the beginning of the Maine coon cat,” Wait said with a chuckle.

Some folks just show up at her house.

About 14 years ago, a woman from Texas parked in her driveway. She was obsessed with the tale — and she had proof, Wait said.

The Texas woman said she just knew that the official report that Marie Antoinette's son, Louis Joseph, the Dauphin, died at age 10 was bogus. The real story was how the Queen's supporters had spirited him away to Saint Dominique (now Haiti), then a rich French colony, where he grew up under the name of John James Audubon, America's first great painter of birds.

What made her believe this tale?

The woman said she knew the Dauphin was known to like to sketch and draw. And, she had a small print of a drawing, supposedly done by Audubon, of a dolphin.

“Dolphin — Dauphin? Get it? ” the woman asked Wait.

Other people have just barged into the house.

“One couple walked in while I was in the kitchen. I came to the front room and I asked them if I could help them, and they said no, they were fine,” she said.

Another tall tale from a visitor said the grounds are haunted by a ghostly woman clad in an a black cloak, the same garment worn by the queen when she knelt before the executioner. Of course, the historic record says she was wearing a white shift.

But maybe, it was not her cloak after all. Could it have been the black cloak worn by King Louis XVI as he walked to his doom?

No one knows for sure.

For Wait, these tales are a bonus that come with the privilege of living in one of Maine's legendary homes.

But she wouldn't change a thing. After all, mystery writers need characters and stories. And parts of the story can be found in the pages of her books.

Wait's latest book, “Threads of Evidence” a Mainely Needlepoint Mystery is due out Aug. 16.