“I’m going upstairs today, Cal,” I said. “It would probably be best if you stayed down here.”
She still had her face buried in her food bowl when I left the kitchen, so I assumed it was safe to open the door to the stairwell. Wrong! It took me only seconds to pass through, climb the first few steps, and turn to tug the door closed behind me, but that was more than enough time for Calpurnia to streak past me. Since I’d made the mistake of leaving the door at the top of the stairs open on my last visit, she quickly disappeared into the hallway above.
“You’d better to be ready to come back downstairs when I am,” I called after her.
I didn’t relish the thought of trying to find her if she decided to hide. On the other hand, unless I immediately stumbled upon another diary, I’d be on the second floor for the rest of the day. At some point, Cal would show her furry little face and I’d be able to grab her.
I wished, not for the first time, that I knew how many diaries were left to find. One could be hidden in a relatively small space. A dozen would not be as easy to conceal.
Estelle’s room was the logical place to start. I did everything short of ripping up the rest of the flooring but found nothing more exciting than dust bunnies, mouse droppings, and spiderwebs. Searching Rosanna’s bedroom was equally unproductive, although I did pause to admire the dainty lingerie she’d favored.
I couldn’t remember when silk slips trimmed with lace had gone out of fashion but I did recall wearing them under skirts and dresses. The ones that didn’t bunch up had usually managed to show below my hems. Don’t even get me started on the girdles that were required foundation garments in those days.
Looking down at myself, clad in worn cut-offs and a T-shirt, I had to chuckle. In the 1950s and even into the early 1960s, girls and women didn’t have much choice. They were expected to wear skirts and blouses or dresses most of the time, even at home. Jeans were for horseback riding and not much else. Shorts were acceptable in the summer, but there had also been something called a skort that was a cross between shorts and a skirt. Much more respectable!
It was while I was searching the bedroom adjacent to Estelle’s that I heard a faint scratching noise coming from the short, narrow hallway just outside the door. It didn’t surprise me to discover that Calpurnia was the source of that sound, or that she was fixated on a section of baseboard on the opposite wall.
“Found another mouse, have you?” I asked.
She ignored me and continued to tap at the base of the paneling with one paw. The lighting was poor in this little side hall, so I turned on the flashlight I’d brought with me and shone it over the surface. Only then did it occur to me that the stairwell that led up to the attic was on the other side of that wall.
I hadn’t looked up as I mounted the stairs between the first and second floors. As a general rule, people don’t. They focus on what’s straight ahead, or maybe glance to one side or behind them. Had there been empty space above my head, up to the underside of the attic steps, or had the Swarthouts, like the people who built the farmhouse at the living history center, found a way to make use of that space for storage?
I’d examined the wall beside the stairs on the first floor. I’d even checked the cellar stairs for a hidden cupboard. Why on earth hadn’t I thought to check this section of wall at the same time?
“Early senility strikes again,” I muttered under my breath.
When I aimed the flashlight at the paneled surface, I felt my heart start to beat a little faster. The spaces where the panels met were not of uniform width. In two places, about two feet apart, they were slightly larger.
Cal paused in her attempt to claw her way through the baseboard to send me a questioning look. When I knelt beside her and began to run my fingertips over the wall, I was afraid I was indulging in wistful thinking, but I kept at it until, at last, I found a tiny indentation in the surface. The finger pull was almost invisible, thanks to its tiny size and the lack of decent lighting in the narrow hallway.
I tugged gently. When nothing gave, I pulled harder. Abruptly, a section of wall perhaps four feet high and two feet wide popped out by a quarter of an inch and stuck. The opening hadn’t exactly been hidden, but its outline had been obscured by the paneling.
Scarcely daring to breathe, I grabbed hold of the edge of the door, put my back into it, and pulled with all my might. It swung the rest of the way open with such suddenness that I fell back, landing hard on my posterior.
It’s a good thing I’m well padded in that area. Undamaged, I shifted my position until I was kneeling and aimed the flashlight into the space under the stairs.
Unlike the cupboard at the living history center, this one had not been fitted out as a clothes closet. I stared in bewilderment at what I saw inside, unable at first to make sense of the strange collection of objects.
Calpurnia pushed past me, eager to investigate. There was plenty of room for her inside the storage area but it would have been a tight fit for me, with no room to stand upright. She sniffed curiously at each of the items picked out by the beam of my flashlight. A large, ornately carved wooden box sat on the floor in the center of the cupboard. A bronze candlestick with the stub of a white candle protruding from the top stood to one side of it. On the other side was a silver picture frame.
I reached for the latter and turned it around to reveal a black-and-white photograph of a woman. I had no difficulty recognizing her. I’d seen her before in the photo on the bureau in Tessa’s bedroom. In that one, she’d been posed with Tessa and Estelle and I had no doubt that she was their mother.
With that realization came another: what I’d discovered was a shrine to her memory.
Chapter Thirty-four
My hands shook as I thrust my head and shoulders far enough inside the cupboard to grab hold of the wooden box. It was heavy and I was panting by the time I’d wrangled it into the hallway. Calpurnia watched the whole procedure with intense interest but didn’t offer to help.
Eager as I was to see what was inside, I hesitated to open it then and there. The nearest ceiling light was several feet away and low wattage. I wouldn’t be able to see much, even with the aid of my flashlight. Besides, if the box didn’t contain another diary, I was just as happy to postpone finding that out.
For one awful moment, I wondered if what I’d discovered might be a funeral urn. Then I remembered that cremation wouldn’t have been a popular choice at the time of the first Mrs. Swarthout’s death. I knew the date from the entry in the family Bible. Thinking of that, I also recalled her first name—Nellie.
I stood, dusted myself off, closed the panel in the wall, tucked the flashlight into my back pocket, and used both hands to pick up the box. With my faithful cat trotting along at my heels, and occasionally running ahead to get underfoot, I carried it downstairs and into the kitchen. When I’d placed my burden on the table, Cal hopped up to help me study it.
The box had a latch, but it wasn’t locked. I hesitated. From its weight, there was something substantial inside, but it might not be what I was hoping for. Braced for another disappointment, I extended my hand, then hesitated.
Calpurnia nuzzled my outstretched fingers.
“Okay. Okay. I’m working up to it.”
Cautiously, I lifted the lid. Right on top were two paper-bound composition books, the kind children used in school in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and gingerly lifted out the first one. I opened it and looked at the inscription on the flyleaf.
“Nellie Swarthout,” I read aloud. Just as her daughter had in the leather-bound journal she’d kept in the 1950s, Nellie had added, Her book. The first entry was dated June 5, 1915. Another entry in the family Bible came back to me. That was the date of Nellie’s marriage to Tessa and Estelle’s father.
The second composition book was also inscribed with Nellie’s name. She’d left behind two diaries. And there it was—the answer to the question that had
been bothering me from the moment I finished reading Estelle’s journal: Why would Tessa want me to publish her sister’s writings?
She hadn’t.
Tessa might not even have known that Estelle kept a journal. It was what their mother had written that she’d wanted the world to read.
I smiled. Mystery solved. I allowed myself a few moments to savor my success before I turned my attention to what else was in the box.
It was a bulging scrapbook filled with photographs and clippings. I immediately envisioned adding illustrations to the published diaries, even though that would make much more work for me.
Before I investigated further, I fired up the camp stove and made myself a cup of green tea. Why tea? Coffee would have made me jittery and it hadn’t occurred to me when I was packing that I might want anything stronger to drink. Although a fully stocked liquor cabinet has never been one of my requirements, I mix a mean rum and cola and on such a hot summer afternoon a cold beer would have gone down a treat.
From a practical standpoint, it was probably just as well I didn’t have that option. I’d need a clear head when I read Nellie’s diaries. Until I knew what she’d written, I couldn’t be certain my discovery called for a celebratory glass of champagne. A medicinal shot of brandy might end up being more appropriate.
Calpurnia butted against my leg with enough force to make me look at her. Once she had my attention, she stared pointedly at her empty food bowl. I opened a can of cat food and dumped it in, but my thoughts were still on the task ahead of me. After setting my tea a safe distance from the contents of the box, I once again opened the first composition book and began to read.
Nellie had written in an easy-to-interpret if somewhat flowery cursive hand. The earliest entries were brief and focused on household matters. She devoted considerable space to the ins and outs of keeping a boardinghouse and the trials and tribulations of raising chickens for their eggs.
Although Nellie Swarthout said little about her pregnancy or the birth of her first child, the pages that followed gave glowing accounts of baby Tessa’s marvelous achievements. I’m sure all that was fascinating to the new mom, but for me it fell into the category of TMI—too much information—and failed to hold my interest. When I caught myself skimming entries instead of reading them, I decided it was time for a break. I got up to stretch my legs and made a second cup of green tea to replace the one I’d let go cold.
Cal, who had been off who-knows-where doing who-knew-what, wandered back into the kitchen. She sent me an inquisitive look.
“This will never win an award as memoir of the year,” I told her. Nellie’s prose wasn’t exactly riveting. To be honest, she’d led a rather dull life. “Still, I suppose it might be of interest to people who are already fascinated by local history.”
I knew quite a few such persons, most of them associated with the Lenape Hollow Historical Society. Since Swan’s Crossing is close enough to be considered a neighboring town, they’d be delighted with all the minuscule details of daily life at a farm/boardinghouse back in the day. So would the folks at that living history center I’d visited. Now that I thought about it, both places would probably end up offering copies of Nellie’s book for sale on site and through their web pages.
“That will mean a little fame for me, too,” I told the cat. “Not that I’m looking to make a name for myself.”
It was time to get back to work.
Before plunging back in, I placed a lined tablet and a pen beside me so I could jot down notes to myself as I read. Most related to the editing I’d have to do. Nellie’s spelling was creative, to say the least.
The second composition book contained more mind-numbing household details. Even the birth of a second daughter didn’t do much to liven things up, but since Nellie often left lengthy gaps between entries, it didn’t take long for Tessa to appear as a young teen. By then Nellie was making increasingly frequent mentions of “feeling poorly,” but she didn’t elaborate or list any specific symptoms.
I paused to consider the number of things that could kill a person back in the 1920s but didn’t come to any conclusions about what might have ailed her. What was clear was that George, Nellie’s husband, wasn’t a bit of help when it came to keeping house. He worked the land. Cleaning and cooking were women’s work. Since his daughters were still too young to take over all of their mother’s responsibilities, George Swarthout eventually broke down and hired a cook to look after the boarders who provided so much of the family’s income.
Her name was Rosanna Mortimer.
“The plot thickens,” I murmured.
Little did I realize how true that statement would prove. A few pages later, I stopped and reread what Nellie had written. Marking my place with one finger, I looked around for the cat and found her sleeping on the windowsill.
“Wake up, Cal. Listen to this.”
She opened one eye.
I read aloud from the second diary: “I was desperately ill again today. I’ve seen the way she looks at my husband. If I die, she will persuade him to marry her. I feel certain of it, just as I feel certain she has already found a way to hasten my death.”
That was Nellie’s last entry.
Unable to sit still, I got up and began to pace. This was the story Tessa wanted the world to read. After seeing what their mother had written, her daughters must have been convinced that Rosanna had played a role in Nellie’s death. I know I was.
Tessa had tasked me with editing the diaries because she wanted the charges made public. That much I could readily understand. What confused me was the timing.
When had Nellie’s daughters found and read what was in these composition books? If it was soon after their mother’s death, Tessa would have been in her teens and Estelle would have been even younger. Had they tried to tell their father of their suspicions? Had he dismissed their concerns as nonsense?
That was a scenario I could visualize, especially if George Swarthout was already under Rosanna’s spell. According to the family Bible, he hadn’t wasted any time marrying her!
What then? Even if he’d succeeded in convincing his daughters that they were wrong, they’d have been wary of their new stepmother. Was that why they’d hidden the diaries and the scrapbook, out of fear that Rosanna would try to erase every trace of her predecessor? After all, it was the portrait of wife number two that hung in the place of honor next to George Swarthout in the living room.
That two young girls might create a hidden shrine to their late mother made a certain amount of sense. What I had trouble understanding was why Tessa and Estelle would continue to live under the same roof as Rosanna for the better part of a decade after their father’s death.
There had to be something in George’s will to explain it. Had he put conditions on his daughters’ inheritance? If he had, that might also explain why Tessa had kept and maintained the farm after abandoning it. In her shoes, I’d have sold it, especially if I needed money to live on in another location. Darlene and I had already speculated that George might have created some kind of trust, one that prevented his heirs from selling the property, but I couldn’t be certain of that until I could get hold of a copy of his will.
When I sat down to reread Nellie’s last entry, another possibility occurred to me. What if the sisters hadn’t read what their mother wrote until years later, well after her death? That could explain why the three women had continued to live together for so long. At first, Tessa and Estelle hadn’t suspected Rosanna of murdering their mother.
I frowned, spotting a major flaw in this theory. If they’d been adults when they learned that Nellie believed Rosanna was—what? poisoning her?—why hadn’t they gone to the police with their accusation, especially if their father was no longer alive by then and they had Nellie’s writings as proof of their claim?
But were they proof? Probably not in the legal sense.
I couldn’t help but wonder what two loving daughters might have done when they realized they would not be able to
get justice by going through official channels, especially if they’d only just discovered Nellie’s diaries and the accusation they contained. There was that gap at the end of Estelle’s journal—a full month between her last entry and the date of Rosanna’s murder. Was that significant? Could that have been when the two sisters belatedly discovered the truth about their mother’s death? Instead of writing down her feelings and recording her plan for revenge, was it possible that Estelle had simply taken action?
It was an explanation that made a perverted kind of sense to me. Motivated by a desire to avenge Nellie, Estelle, or her sister, or the two of them acting together, might well have devised a plot to kill their evil stepmother.
My friends in law enforcement would call my conclusion way too speculative. They’d be right, but the more I thought about it, the more determined I became to learn more about what happened the night of Rosanna’s murder. With that goal in mind, I fished my cell phone out of my tote bag and punched in Darlene’s number.
Chapter Thirty-five
My phone call to Darlene resulted in an invitation to have supper with her and Frank that evening. Although it was only three in the afternoon, I decided to leave for Lenape Hollow at once. Cal stayed behind in her role as guard cat. Even though I’d found the missing diaries, I intended to remain at the farm for a few more days. I wanted to give Bella Trent enough time to grow tired of pestering me to introduce her to Illyria Dubonnet.
I planned to make one stop on my way to Darlene’s. The pages in Nellie’s diaries weren’t numbered, but there were fewer than a hundred in all. It wouldn’t take long to make copies.
I could have gone home and used the scanner in my office, but with Bella on the loose I decided not to risk running into her. Instead, I headed for the Lenape Hollow Memorial Library where several copy machines are housed in an out-of-the-way corner of the main floor. I hoped to get in and out without being noticed, but I hadn’t been in the building more than ten minutes before Pam Ingram accosted me.
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