“Her name is Lucy.” Eugenie’s shoulders were tight.
Mrs. Kepple frowned. “Who?”
“Her name is Lucy. Not ‘girl.’”
“I didn’t mean—” She flicked a look at me and then at Eugenie. Her expression fell. “Gene . . .”
“I told you,” Rebecca murmured.
“What does that mean?” Eugenie’s voice was sharp.
“Nothing,” Rebecca said, dipping her chin. “I didn’t mean anything.”
Mr. Finch twisted in his seat. “You see?” he said. “Chaos. Mmph.”
Matron knocks on the iron door but doesn’t wait for an answer. Just pulls the door wide and stands like a supplicant in front of the bars. “Forgive me.”
“Go away.”
She sinks down, palms in her lap. Her hair is haloed from the thin oil lamp in the sconce behind her. I cannot see her face, only her contours. “She did not survive the journey.”
I stumble back. “How? It’s no more than—”
“She swallowed glass. That’s . . . There won’t be an inquiry.” Matron drops her head to her hands. I hear her gasps of breath.
I will not give her comfort. “We’re all mad.”
Chapter Eighteen
“James Clough was hanged in front of fifty spectators who cheered and foamed at the mouth with vengeance. Tell me the Christian mercy in that.”
Aurora’s voice floated through the open windows of the kitchen. I looked up from the tins and plates half scrubbed before me, glancing out to the back garden. I saw only the lazy swing of her buttoned boot and the flap of her skirt against her ankle. She had abandoned the stays and skirts as the temperature continued its upward rise during the week; now she wore only simple cottons that were not far in feature from the calico Cook had sewn for me.
The air hummed with cicadas. A dragonfly with indigo wings and a body shimmering like green glass hovered and landed on the window frame. It stretched and contracted its wings before settling into a corner of shadow.
Mr. Burton came into view in vest and rolled sleeves. He inspected the leaves and branches of an orchard cherry and glanced at her over his shoulder. “Was he guilty?”
“The point, Brother, is this: Was the punishment just?” She leaned forward, picked a leaf off the toe of her boot, then leaned back, out the edge of my window’s frame.
“You think hanging not a deterrent?” There, beyond my view, the rasp of Mr. Finch’s tongue.
“I think,” Aurora said, “it is a crime as brutal as the first. I think it cheapens us.”
“Indeed, indeed . . .”
Mr. Burton wiped his palms on his pant legs and strode the grass to take a seat next to Aurora, his long legs crossed and foot swaying in time with hers. “So, you fought to save that Blaisdell woman who has confessed, freely confessed, to murder. She killed with malice, Aurora.”
“We ourselves would have killed with malice in the hanging of Letitia.”
Mr. Finch’s pipe smoke twisted and snaked in the air, slowing and stilling before dissipating. “It is brutal, Mrs. Kepple, these ropes and gallows, but what about the crime that spurs the judgment . . .” Here another voice mumbled something and spit out another round of smoke. “. . . separated from the wheat, and those not deterred more ably watched and a tight rein taken to constrain the sinner inherent.”
“Your pronouncement,” Aurora said, “leaves no room for human correction.”
“I would be much interested in studying Mr. Clough’s head. There would, I believe, be very little surprise to it.” Finch jerked into view, his pipe caught between his teeth. He stretched his arms, then swung them across his chest before tramping out toward the orchard.
“You can’t tell me Otto approves of your friendship with this man,” Mr. Burton said. “He’s an insufferable egotistic—”
“Otto’s not the one who needs to approve of him. I wish to bring him into the cause. And Gene—”
Cook clattered a pan in the water, sending a dollop to soak my apron and dress.
“What was that for?”
“Little pitchers get their ears boxed.”
I stepped away from the pans and snatched a towel from the table rack to dab my apron and dress. “Now look.”
“If it was black, there’d be naught to see.”
Cook disapproved of my new dress, though she said nothing to Mr. Beede as he handed her the bolt of cloth and gave a nod that it was indeed a calico and indeed more lilac than blue. I couldn’t keep my hands to myself, but pinched and brushed the flowered pattern. Cook’s tuts were admirable, to say the least. After we’d cut and measured and pinned and hemmed, the tuts turned to mutters and shakes of the head.
She trundled back to her mixing bowl, dumping handfuls of dark raisins into the batter. “You give yourself airs in that.”
“I don’t.”
“I’ve seen you. Pride—”
“It’s a dress, Cook. I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t choose the fabric. And you of anyone should be pleased with the economy of it. Mrs. Burton didn’t need it, Rebecca didn’t want it, so here it is.” I flapped my hands against my skirt and turned back to the sink.
“That’s airs.”
“Oh, for God’s—”
“Lucy.” Cook slammed the whisk on the wood, spraying batter across the table.
“Say two psalms tonight. For my salvation.”
Mr. Burton and Mr. Finch were at the far end of the orchard. Aurora’s seat was empty. The dragonfly lifted from the casing and slipped away in the haze of yellow light.
I probably did have airs. I had not owned a dress of such fine smooth cotton since my mother passed and left me to Father’s meager care. I liked how the folds of it swirled when I turned. How my hands slid along the fabric and how the turns in the bodice showed off my waist.
I did not look like a vagabond or a maid. Just a woman, almost pretty, in a dress of lilac flowers.
“Oh good,” Rebecca said when passing me on the stairs. “That will save sending it to the rag man.”
But I saw the envy.
It wasn’t the piano that caught my attention later, though it was the first time it had been played in many months. It was the voice that accompanied it.
I was meant to be filling the lamps; instead, I paused at the doorway and listened to Aurora sing a tune I had never heard before. Something in French, with trills and long, winding turns of notes. Her head was tipped back, eyes closed and a glaze of pleasure on her face. Her fingers faltered on the keys, and she stopped and started a phrase. But it mattered little when the tune was again alive and her voice caught and held before dropping to a whisper.
“Not as good as Jenny Lind, cat, but damn near close enough. I should have stuck with the stage.” She reached down to pat Mr. Quimby, who flopped on his back and purred. She straightened and closed the lid, then drummed her fingers as she looked about the room.
“I’m told you play a decent hand of whist.” She cocked her head and turned to me, speaking before I could step out of her view. “Come in and close the door.”
I pressed the doors shut and set my oil can on the floor near the cabinet.
“So you are Lucy Blunt.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not fond of the country,” she said. “Pastoral as it all seems. There’s always a stench.” She stood and spread her arms, palms up. “But here I am. And there you are, Miss Blunt.” She knocked her knuckle on the piano lid and moved toward me. “Most girls like you want only silver.”
“Ma’am?”
“You’ve charmed Gene into foolishness and wild fancies.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Don’t insult me.” Aurora dipped her chin and stared with hard eyes. “Do you think you’re the first?” Her lips curled into a smile. “Of course you do.”
I dug my nails into my skirts, then flattened my hands to my thighs.
“Right now, you’re the wonder of her day. It’s getting tiring to read about it. Letters fr
om her, missives from Rebecca . . .” She trailed a hand along the back of the settee as she moved closer. “Eugenie has a proclivity for this sort of thing. Something to pass the time. Her world is quite small. You’re just un caprice. I think you’re a clever enough girl to understand that.”
I clenched my jaw. “Eugenie and I . . .” My words withered as she stared. “She’s asked me to be her companion.”
“I am aware.”
“I’m not a caprice.”
“Hm. Mary Dawson said just the same.”
My stomach gave a twist. “Mary . . .”
“This scheme you two have . . . Rebecca has no money and fewer charms. Even I can’t help with that. I’m afraid Eugenie is stuck with her. And as dull as he is, my brother cares deeply for his wife. I’m afraid she is stuck with him too. You, of course, can leave at any point in time.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“That will be your heartbreak.”
“Of that you will be wrong.” I grabbed the oil can and snapped the door wide, nearly careening into Eugenie and Rebecca. Mr. Quimby escaped like a shot, his bell jangling as he weaved past all the legs and jumped the stairs.
Eugenie gasped and stepped back, one hand outstretched, the tips of her fingers finding my arm. She frowned, then dropped her hand to her skirts and smoothed them. “You frightened me.”
I pressed my lips tight and stepped to the side. I could not look at her, nor at Rebecca. Was I just a curio to be eventually packed on a shelf in the attic?
Aurora leaned a shoulder to the doorframe. “Come keep me company, Gene. I can only entertain myself for so long.” She laced her arm through Eugenie’s. Her gaze traveled to me, but she said not a word.
Rebecca lingered. “Bring us some cakes, Lucy. When you’ve finished your other chore, of course.” She gestured to the oil can and then flicked her fingers on her skirt as if the sight of the can had dirtied her hands.
Here it was: the gnawing ache of doubt. It grabbed at my gut and wouldn’t let go. It clung to me, teeth deep and razored. Mary Dawson. Who before her? And who after me?
My nails bit into my palms as I stomped out of the house later, ignoring Cook, waving her away and saying that it was Monday anyway, my afternoon off. I tore down the hill, away from the house. The path was stone hard, dried and baked and wavering with heat. Not even the canopy of red maple and silver-barked birch could abate the crush of it. I fumbled with the buttons at my neck until two had come loose. I shoved my bonnet back so it dangled against my back.
I scrambled off the road to catch my breath and wipe the oil of tears away and found myself at a stream of jumbled gold and silt, its bank littered white with the last blooms of the wild plum trees. Iris and Queen Anne’s lace ribboned the water’s edge. A bevy of stone shingled out over a precipice of hollowed earth, and water bubbled and coiled round exposed roots.
I glanced back toward the road. This turn of the stream was concealed from view, hidden behind buckthorn and sheep laurel, and in winter would remain nearly so. And I couldn’t help but think: Mary Dawson died in a spot much the same.
There was a rustle and snap of branches from across the stream. “Ah. Ah hah.” Enoch Finch twisted to unhook the edge of his coat from the clutches of bush. He flicked his fingers over the hem and tidied his collar. “Are you lost?”
“Lost?”
He stretched his mouth into a wide smile. “I am perfectly lost myself. I was on my way to find the tobacconist. And my wandering mind . . . mmph.”
I pointed behind me. “The road is right here. You just follow it down.”
“Indeed.” He poked a boot in the water, then took a step and waded across the shallows. “Come. We will walk together.”
“You see, even here one can rely on the tobacconist.” Mr. Finch sat on the bench outside the shop, then stood again with a gesture for me to take a seat. “My apology.”
I sat and fanned myself with my bonnet while he packed the bowl of his pipe. Across the street, a mule dozed in his traces, one ear flicking away a clutch of black flies.
“We will, of course, not hear the last of this.” He struck a match on his shoe.
“This what?”
“You there. Me here. Without a chaperone. I suggest we not mention it.” His cheeks billowed and sunk as he worked to light the pipe. He turned and peered at me. “But I think your character tends to secretiveness, which sets me at ease.”
“You are an odd man.”
“I am a perceptive man. But underestimated.”
“What is it you do?”
He puckered his lips and then settled back. “I am an intellectualist. I’ve written a book or two.”
“What are they?”
He shrugged. “Well, rather pamphlets, but so . . . The Laws of Hereditary Descent was a recent. The Symbolical Head was a favorite. My mapping of phrenological organs is making a name for itself. For me.” He twisted and leaned back to peer at me. “You would be quite the study.”
“Would I?”
“Indeed. Quite.” With a clamp of the pipe between his teeth, he stood. “I am giving a demonstration in phrenology tonight. I will ask for you especially.”
“As a guest?”
“As my subject, Miss Blunt.” He knocked the pipe against his shoe, dumping the ashes and remaining tobacco to the ground. “Come, show me your fine town.” He hooked out an elbow for me, and when I took it he clamped my arm tight to his ribs.
It was uncomfortably hot and his hold clammy; I was glad as we neared the shade of trees near the church and moved to take rest under the bowers.
Mr. Finch tensed and tipped to his toes, his attention off somewhere in the graveyard. He pointed, then waved. “Ah. Miss White!” He pointed and waved again before dragging me past the low fence rails and among the flat headstones. “Miss White!”
Rebecca stood by a grave still raw with earth and a simple wood post. Mary Dawson’s last bed, awaiting its granite stone. She stepped back, gave a quick shake of her head, and dropped a small wrapped parcel into her reticule. I feared she might snap the drawstring as she pulled the cord tight. But she composed herself and settled a smile on her face. “What an odd pair you make.”
“What an odd place to find you.”
“Ah. Miss White.” Finch gave a tight bow. “I was just discussing our need for a chaperone. And here you are.”
“Why are you here?” I asked, for Rebecca was not of the habit of leaving the house and grounds.
She blinked at me. “Giving regards to poor Mary. Isn’t that why one goes to a cemetery?”
“Indeed it is, Miss White. Mmph.”
I was glad to leave the evening washing that night. Not one pot escaped a return to the scrub and rinse. Cook was in a churlish mood. She had made a fine meal of asparagus soup, duck confit, quail eggs in aspic, and raisin cake with brown-sugar glaze, and not one word of regard came down from above. Just a request for me.
All the lights were lit in the piano room, softening the walls to warm butter. Jacob stood near the door like a tin soldier, but he gave a lift of his eyebrow and a quick roll of his eyes as I entered. A round table had been moved to the center of the room, its top covered in a length of white tulle. Placed on top was a plaster cast of a man’s head. Upon its surface appeared to be diagrams writ in black lettering. Mr. Finch stood holding a large pair of calipers to the back of the sculpture’s head. Mr. Beede hovered near Mr. Burton’s shoulder, a bottle of wine cocked over his glass. Aurora’s arm draped along the back of a settee, her fingers playing with the fringe of Eugenie’s shawl.
I waited a moment at the door, watching Mr. Finch twirl the caliper and point at various bits of diagram. Watching Aurora fiddle and smooth that shawl. Watching Rebecca as she watched the two women whisper and titter and laugh.
Eugenie nodded at Mr. Beede when he proffered wine. She leaned then to Aurora to ask, “What is he doing now?”
“He’s got the calipers above the left eyebrow.” I crossed to Mr. Finch and peered at t
he plaster bust. “I can’t read this. What does it say, Mr. Finch?”
“Ah. She is here. We have our study.” He settled his measurement tool on the table and gave a light clap. “A chair. Let us get this girl a chair.”
Eugenie straightened and moved to the edge of the seat. “What now?”
“Enoch is measuring your maid,” Aurora said. “What secrets will you find, Enoch?”
Mr. Beede set a bentwood chair next to the bust.
“No secrets.” Mr. Finch gestured for me to sit. He cleared his throat and planted his fist on a hip. “Physiology. The brain. Character and morality.”
Mr. Burton glowered and slunk down in his seat.
“Why is Lucy here?” Eugenie asked.
“Why not?” Aurora took a sip of her wine.
“Get to the parlor trick, Mr. Finch. Without the lecture.” The room went quiet and all eyes turned to Mr. Burton.
“That came out wrong,” he said. “I apologize.”
“This is a science, sir.” Enoch’s cheeks reddened. He gave a tsk and grabbed the calipers, touching the cold tips to the exact spot above my brow, just as he’d done to the bust. Section by section I was measured. Section by section the measurements were scribbled to a notebook. Section by section Mr. Beede poured the wine and Jacob shuffled from foot to foot and Mr. Burton dozed. Aurora hummed and finally wandered to the window.
Rebecca stared at me. “Can you tell us her secrets, Mr. Finch?”
Eugenie grew anxious, biting her lip, rocking forward and pushing back against the cushions. Then she laughed, though it came out rough and dry.
“It seems we’ve all forgotten I can’t see.”
Rebecca stood up. “Of course not. There’s just nothing very interesting to explain. Yet.”
“It’s not your place to determine that.”
“Mr. Finch has the caliper tips stuck underneath my right earlobe.” I glared at Rebecca. “They are quite cold.”
“Mm.”
“Mr. Finch, can you explain exactly what you’re doing?” I grabbed at the calipers. “Out loud.”
Mr. Finch cleared his throat again. “You are confirming my measurements.”
“Mrs. Burton?” I held out my hand. “I’m two steps away. Come see the parlor trick.”
The Companion Page 15