Taken Too Soon

by Edith Maxwell

  “Precisely. Still, as you well know, senile dementia is common among those with seventy or more years behind them.”

  We passed a large mansard-roofed house and then a more modest home.

  “Last night Dru refused to tell me how Tilly came to take in Frannie,” I said. “I think thee was out of the room when I asked her. She said it was Tilly’s story to tell, which makes me wonder if there’s something unsettling or revealing about the history. I’ve never known the facts about it, and it didn’t matter when I was younger. Now I’m thinking the story might hold a clue of some kind.”

  “Will you ask Tilly?”

  “I’m reluctant to. I don’t want to upset her. Remind me in the morning to send a telegram to Daddy. I’m sure he knows.”

  “Consider me your personal secretary, my dear.”

  I laughed at the notion, but squeezed my arm more tightly through his. “Oh! Before we left, Sadie said she would insist on my aunts staying with her and Huldah during our sojourn here. That way she can look after both of them and they won’t feel they need to take care of us even as they mourn. So if we want, we can forgo the costly hotel room and stay right here in West Falmouth.”

  He pulled me to a stop and turned to face me with a tender smile. “My thrifty Quaker. Don’t you want the luxury of a fine room, breakfast prepared for us, the bed made up every morning and turned down every night? I can easily afford the price.”

  “That all sounds delicious, of course.” I bit my lip. He clearly wanted to treat me to a fine experience.

  “But you want to be close at hand in West Falmouth, to your aunts and to the investigation. I see that, dear wife.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “Then we shall avail ourselves of Tilly and Dru’s hospitality and Sadie’s generosity to allow us privacy.” He took my face in both hands and bestowed a kiss.

  “You are the best, dear husband. And this afternoon . . .” I looked up at him with roses blooming on my cheeks.

  “We can enjoy our hearts’ desires?” His husky tone matched the desire in his eyes.

  “Something like that.” I leaned my head against his arm as we came to a well-appointed house with a wide wraparound covered porch. The pink blooms of Rosa rugosa smelled sweet even from the walkway.

  “It’s all I can do not to sweep you into those bushes right now, darling wife,” David murmured.

  “Thee knows I can’t wait for our next mutual sweeping. But those bushes?” I snorted. “They feature an immensity of prickles, my darling. I daresay we both would rue the experience.”

  “So true.” He laughed. “Then let’s make all due haste back to our temporary marital bed, shall we?”

  “Mmm,” was my only response, because I spied a girl in her teens sitting in a porch swing to the side of the wraparound veranda. She was reading, and I waved in greeting when she looked up from her book.

  A woman approaching called a greeting to the girl. “Good afternoon, Miss Bowman.”

  Miss Bowman? Perhaps this was Hazel, Frannie’s friend. I tugged on David’s sleeve and whispered, “I think this might be the girl Frannie worked with. Do you mind if I speak with her?”

  He paused for a beat, then said, “Of course not.”

  I could have kissed him again. Instead, I reversed course and started up the walkway to the porch, with David close behind.

  “Hazel Bowman?” I inquired, smiling.

  She set down the book. “Yes. May I help you?”

  I ascended the stairs. “I’m Rose Car— I mean, Rose Dodge, niece to Tilly and Drusilla Carroll.”

  Her mouth tightened for a flash of a second. She replaced the look with a welcoming smile. “Please come and sit with me.”

  “This is my husband, David Dodge.” We sat on the wicker chairs to which she gestured. “I’d like to offer my condolences on the death of thy friend, Frannie.”

  Hazel, about sixteen, like Frannie had been, had large gray eyes and flaxen hair worn in a knot with stylish frizzed bangs. She studied me as if trying to discern my motives.

  I studied her back, curious about her pupils, which seemed overly constricted even for the sunny day.

  “Thank you,” Hazel said at last. “It’s awful that she was killed. Frannie was my good friend throughout our school days and more recently at the tag shop. I still can’t believe she’s gone. In a poof, just like that.” She touched the neck of her summer dress, made from a lawn sprigged with tiny red blooms.

  Interesting. She didn’t seem broken up by Frannie’s death. “It’s a hard thing to take in, isn’t it?” I asked. “My aunt said Frannie sometimes spent the night with thee.”

  Hazel laughed lightly. She gestured at the house behind her. “Look at this place. I’m the only offspring, more to Father’s chagrin, and we have bedrooms to spare. Of course, when Frannie and I had our girl parties, we shared my bed. It was cozier.”

  As many girls did. “But she didn’t sleep here the night before last?” I tried to keep my tone as light as her laughter had been. My tactic didn’t work.

  She narrowed those gray eyes. “The detective asked me the same question. Are you working with him? Frannie used to tell me about your investigations up north.”

  Interesting. Daddy must have written to Tilly and Dru about the several homicides I’d tangled with of late, and they’d told Frannie.

  “I’m merely trying to set my Aunt Tilly’s mind at ease about her dear ward’s sudden demise.”

  “You could ask Brigid McChesney what she knows.” Her lip curled. “She hated Frannie. I’m not sure why. If anyone murdered my friend, it would have been that Irish trash.”

  Chapter Eleven

  After an entirely delightful afternoon rest sequestered in our room at my aunts’ house (much of which rest was spent energetically rather than in slumber), David suggested a swim in the bay. I’d acquired a bathing costume as part of my modest trousseau, my first such getup since I’d outgrown my childhood one. Today was the fall equinox, with a full moon to rise tonight, and the air was sunny and mild. Sadie sent over a note with a boy, inviting us to supper. I wrote back to thank her but said we had enough left from our train supper to dine on tonight. I also added particularly to give my love to Tilly and Dru, and said we’d come over in the morning to spend time with them.

  “I feel guilty I’m not there comforting Tilly or out investigating the murder,” I told David after the boy ran off, David’s coin in his pocket.

  “They are being well taken care of, darling. I expect you’ll solve the murder tomorrow. Doing so might well prove more comforting for Miss Tilly than you hovering over her this evening. Come on. We have a sea to explore and a sunset to witness.”

  We found two bicycles in decent repair in Tilly’s shed and rode them toward the beach, with our picnic supper, bathing costumes, and a blanket strapped to the back of David’s steel steed. We bumped over a short bridge that must have been recently built judging from the smell of freshly sawn wood. We rode on along the sandy path. On either side the terrain was lined with scraggly windblown cedars, scrub oaks, and not much else.

  After leaning the cycles against a post on the bluff above the beach, we made our way hand in hand down the slope. The tide was out, and the small waves of Buzzard’s Bay lapped gently onto the expanse of westward-facing sand. The water was clear and a pale greenish blue, gradually darkening the farther out I looked.

  A changing house was available, but even so I emerged somewhat nervous to expose my body so thoroughly in public. I tugged the short black dress down over the bloomers. The top garment didn’t even reach my knees. The bloomers weren’t much longer and my calves were bare. I hugged my naked arms as I waited for David to appear, the cap sleeves of the dress both too ruffled and too short for my tastes. Children dashed around me, and a seagull dipped and wailed. All around bathers strolled, swam, sunbathed, or sat sedately and fully clothed under umbrellas. I waited and waited, finally hearing a shout from the water.

  “Rosie, join me!”
David popped up from the shallows. He must have changed quickly and dipped into the sea already. He ran toward me, dripping and grinning.

  Despite having seen him without a stitch on only an hour ago, I blushed. Even without my glasses, which I had left with my dry clothing, I could clearly see the sleeveless wet black knit suit clinging to his manly form over his bare arms and legs. As we were out in public, I resolutely gazed up into his face with his hair slicked down straight from the water—instead of farther down his torso.

  He ignored my struggle, grabbing my hand to run back to the sea. Within seconds we’d both waded in up to our waists. When he dove, I followed. I’d learned to swim in the pond at home as a child, but I’d never swum in the ocean as an adult. Bertie and I rode our horses to Salisbury Beach on occasion but we didn’t go into the water there.

  “This is splendid,” I exclaimed when I surfaced. The depth dropped off gradually so I could easily stand. “It’s entirely refreshing and not too cold at all.” I licked the salt water off my lips.

  “Isn’t it?” David came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. My body still tingled from our last expressions of love. The tingling now increased to a throb.

  “Wouldn’t thee like to have amorous congress with me right here in the water?” I murmured.

  He let out a moan and let me go. “Don’t tempt me, woman.”

  I laughed and swam away in an attempt to cool my fevers. I stroked back, but David had swum away from the shore. I tilted back my head, stretched out my arms, and floated face-up. I had to distract myself from thinking about the delights of the flesh, so instead I pondered what Hazel had said.

  Had I imagined a suspicious reaction when I’d mentioned Tilly and Dru? Hazel didn’t seem sad about the loss of her friend, certainly. I wished I’d asked her about Reuben. She must know him, the town being the small size it was.

  This Brigid whom Hazel had talked about was a new unknown. Not a soul had mentioned her so far, other than Hazel. While I would have preferred to enjoy a honeymoon free of murder, Tilly had asked for my help. I had to admit to myself I was intrigued to find out who Brigid was, and why she apparently disliked Frannie. Tomorrow I could poke about town asking questions.

  Except . . . I wasn’t at home in Amesbury with a good reason to patrol the streets on my midwife’s bicycle. I was on holiday with my beloved, I was acquainted with nearly no one here, and I barely knew my way around.

  Becoming cold, I swam toward shore until the water was again only waist-deep. Where had my new husband gotten to? The sun was sinking and it was difficult to search the horizon for a bobbing, swimming head, but I shielded my eyes and tried. I couldn’t spy him. It didn’t help that I wasn’t wearing my spectacles. Still, a chill for his safety came over me. “David!” I wanted to cry out. I urged him silently to come back to me. After what he’d told me about Currie’s near death in the ocean, I was terrified to lose my beloved in a similar manner. I stood there, swaying in the gentle swell, and shut my eyes. In my mind—and heart—I surrounded him with the glow of God’s Light to guide him back to shore.

  Something grabbed my foot. I let out a little shriek, kicking to loosen the grasp. David popped up in front of me from underwater.

  “I got you!” His delighted smile stretched to the island of Nantucket.

  “Thee near got me a heart attack, silly man.” My mouth pulled down and my eyes welled with tears.

  He sobered immediately. “I’m sorry, my darling. Did I scare you? I didn’t mean to. Currie and I used to play at that game.” He set his hands on my shoulders and peered into my face.

  I covered my mouth with my hand and swallowed down my emotion. “I couldn’t see thee. Thee hadn’t swum back. I was afraid, David. Afraid a shark had bitten you, that you’d hit your head on a rock, that . . .”

  “There, there, beautiful Rose. I am here, with you. I was swimming circles around you as you floated in thought, feasting my eyes on your loveliness.”

  Now I was able to laugh. “Oh, thee is an exceedingly silly man. Come, let’s extricate ourselves from this primordial brew and dry off so we can watch the sun set in comfort, shall we?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Dried, dressed—although not shod—and seated on our blanket, David and I settled in to sup and watch the unusual sight, for Massachusetts, of the sun setting over water. We in the Commonwealth were far more accustomed to seeing the light-giving orb rise daily over the Atlantic and set over whatever land lay to our west. Instead, here the vagaries of geography had plopped us squarely on a patch of sand facing westward—with an eighteen-mile-wide body of salt water between us and the next land. Specks on the opposite shore had to be buildings in the bustling port of New Bedford, with the tip of Rhode Island visible beyond. Curving around to our left was the peninsula of Wood’s Holl followed by long, thin Naushon Island reaching into the sea.

  Puffy clouds the color of my name arrayed themselves in a giant tower as I drew out the remains of the wedding supper and set them on the cloth between us. “The pickings are a little slim, it seems.”

  David reached for a bag he’d tucked in the corner of the basket, one that hadn’t been there on the train. He drew out a squat little jar and an unopened packet of water crackers. “Caviar, madam?”

  “Caviar? I’ve never had it. Isn’t it quite dear?”

  I must have been frowning, because he reached over with his thumb and gently stroked upward between my eyes several times, smoothing out the worry lines.

  “Don’t worry, Rose. The caviar was a gift to my father from some client. And now we can enjoy the delicacy before our meager meal. Which pickings, by the way, aren’t really all so slim.” A moment later he proffered a cracker topped with tiny black pearls of roe.

  I savored the rich, slightly sweet flavor, the subtly salty eggs popping on my tongue. The topping went perfectly with the crunchy freshness of a cracker seasoned with pepper and rosemary, if I wasn’t mistaken.

  “That is very nice, sir,” I said after I swallowed.

  He threw his head back and laughed. “It is at that.”

  I gazed at the sky again and at how the colors of everything appeared more vibrant than at home. “The light here is remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the reason artists are drawn to Cape Cod, especially at this time of year. I’ve heard of a young fellow named Herman Hartwich whose work is impressing quite a few collectors. Perhaps we can acquire one of his Cape landscapes while we’re here.”

  Around us others were also dining, some more simply than others. An older couple not far away had opened a can of sardines and ate them on bread. A family down the way had lit a fire of dry driftwood and were roasting corn and small whole fishes on skewers, which smelled divine. And a group of ragtag young men seemed to be taking their meal solely from bottles of ale, with the occasional munch on a piece of pemmican.

  “You know, Tilly said something to me before we went in to dinner. She said she hadn’t meant to interrupt our wedding festivities. As we saw, there was no reason for us to hurry down here last night.”

  “Yes, I noticed.”

  “I think perhaps Dru magnified the urgency.”

  “We’re here now, together and in paradise.” David tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

  The simple but intimate gesture flooded me with warmth. I savored a chicken turnover while I watched a low open boat being rowed toward shore. It now bucked the last gentle waves and ground onto the sand near us. A man in high boots hopped out and pulled the boat farther onto land. His ruddy face was as weathered as the boat.

  A tall young person in trousers, rubber boots, and a ragged pullover climbed out. I might have thought it was a young man, except she wore a long red braid down her back and had not a trace of whiskers on her face.

  “Brigie, why’re yeh after dawdling, now?” the man growled to her.

  Brigie? Maybe this was the girl Hazel had spoken of.

  She grabbed the rope at the prow and pulled the boat
the rest of the way out of the water.

  The man commenced to tossing wriggling sacks onto the wet sand. “Get yerself a-hustling, daughter.”

  They were close enough that I could see the girl, indeed no older than Hazel or Frannie, roll her eyes at her father’s impatience. But she moved, and with strength and efficiency. He’d brought down a wide wheeled cart, which soon enough was loaded with the day’s catch. Of what type of fish I couldn’t discern, other than they were still alive.

  The father grabbed the cart’s crossbar and leaned into it. The girl began tying the boat’s rope to a thicker rope running down from a post anchored in the bluff, a rope ending in a float. I sprang to my feet, told David I’d be right back, and hurried over to her. If I wanted to speak with her, I’d have to act fast. Her father was already impatient.

  “Would thee be Brigid McChesney?” I asked her in a soft voice.

  She straightened. “Who wants to know?” Her brown eyes bore into mine out of a tanned face.

  “My name is Rose Dodge.” I barely escaped saying Carroll again. “I was Frannie’s, uh, cousin.” Or close enough. If Frannie had been like a daughter to Tilly, it meant the girl had been my cousin. That was another question, but not one for now: why hadn’t Tilly adopted Frannie?

  Brigid glanced at her father, whose back was turned. She faced me and crossed herself. “May Frannie’s sweet soul rest in the arms of our Lord. It’s a terrible thing, what happened to her.” She sniffed. “I’m going to miss her that much, I am.” Her brogue wasn’t as pronounced as her father’s, but it was there.

  “We met a Hazel Bowman today. She claimed thee very much disliked Frannie.”

  The girl spat in the sand. “It’s because that Hazel, she hates me.”

  “Why?”

  “Brigid Siobhan McChesney, fer the love o’ God!” Her father scowled at her, a scowl now including me.