The Transcendental Murder

by Jane Langton

  “What I love most about Howard’s idea,” said Mary, “is the fun he had with internal evidence—the symbolism and the images in Emily’s poetry and letters. The way she called herself ‘wife,’ and the obvious Freudian interpretation of her poems about bees and flowers. Some of it was pretty strong stuff for a spinster, don’t you think? Remember ‘Wild night, wild nights’? And what about ‘the wrestlers in the holy chamber’ and her ‘unique burden’ that she wrote about—do you think she was really talking about pregnancy and childbirth?”

  “Well, you’ve got to admit that it’s all very ingenious. Poor old Emily. If all this happened in 1860 it was only two years before Henry was dead. So she lost him twice, once by renunciation and a second time by death. And thus, Howard says, began her preoccupation with her ‘flood subject’—love seen through the barrier of death, the lovers reunited only in immortality.”

  “I believe it. I believe it all,” said Mary. “It only puts me even more in awe of them. I’d like to think it was all true, and that they had each other, even if it was only for a little while.”

  “Oh, hogwash.”

  “What did you say?”

  “My dear, there isn’t a scrap of truth in it. It’s all the purest, most delectable bunk.”

  “Oh, no, it isn’t, it isn’t. I refuse to give it up. Homer, please——”

  “Look, my darling, in the first place those Norcross cousins of Emily’s didn’t even move out of Cambridge to Concord until after Henry was dead.”

  “They didn’t?” Mary’s voice shook with disappointment. “But what about Elizabeth’s secret? Where would she have got the notion that she was descended from the two of them? I mean if there was no truth in it at all? And what about the stableboy, Richard Matthews? How did he get an extra child? That one that was born only four months after one of the others? And the red hair! Did you see that, in the black box in Elizabeth’s room, in the envelope that was marked Great-grandmother’s? How can you explain that away?”

  “Oh, the hair. Do you honestly think Emily Dickinson was the only redheaded woman in her generation? And as for the stableboy’s too many babies—damned if I know. Maybe his wife was wet-nursing it along with her own for some feckless relative, and then got stuck with it. And don’t bother your head about Elizabeth’s secret. May I remind you that she is now confined in an institution for the insane? Pure and simple old-fashioned delusions of grandeur. She was a nut. If you don’t believe me, listen to this. I looked into what I could find out about her parents and grandparents, and I discovered that her father went to his grave claiming to be the Stuart pretender to the British throne. And her grandfather, the original Henry Matthews, you know what he did? Well, first he made a fortune in carriages and buggies, and then he died. But before he died he built himself a fancy Moorish mausoleum on which were inscribed these words:

  HERE LIES ALLAH BEN BUDDHA,

  THE TRUE MESSIAH,

  KNOWN TO THIS WORLD AS

  HENRY RICHARD MATTHEWS.

  You can read it yourself in the cemetery there in Amherst.”

  Mary shook her head, covered her face with her hands and laughed. “Oh, no, no. All that lovely romantic story going up in smoke.”

  “Look, all you have to do is examine Henry’s journal for the last few years of his life, when this great passion was supposed to have possessed him. Does he moon in his secret heart about love and longing? Well, does he?”

  “No, no, I know. He goes on and on about tree rings and skunk cabbage and the height of the rivers after a rain. Oh, I know.”

  “Well, I call that pretty dry stuff for a man who was supposed to have met his Fate. And look—you talk about internal evidence—do you honestly think that any of Emily’s poetry expresses the experience of giving birth to and then giving up a child? It expresses some other colossal experience, sure—one can’t deny her some sort of excruciating personal knowledge of both love and death. But motherhood? No. And what about guilt? Don’t you think a sensitive soul like Emily would have felt some sort of complicated kind of shame if she had been forced to drop the fruit of her love for Henry Thoreau into the lap of someone else? No, no, there’s nothing like that in her poetry. And another thing—if Emily Dickinson was anything, she was honest, you agree? And don’t you remember that she said somewhere, ‘My life has been too simple and stern to embarrass any’? What does her white dress mean, anyway, if not purity, the bride of Christ, and all that? And anyhow, all things considered, I still can’t see Henry Thoreau, that stiff and rustic gentleman, dallying with Edward Dickinson’s daughter among the daisies. Those times were different, after all.”

  But that sounded familiar. Mary looked at Homer, unbelieving. It was what she had said herself, hadn’t she? She had been talking to Charley Goss, a long time ago. (How long ago!) Men and women didn’t have to be lovers, she had said. In those days the restraints were so universally accepted, the two sexes could be friends with each other. And then Charley had scoffed at her. “Listen, girly, men and women have only one relation to each other, and that’s all they’ve ever had. Don’t kid yourself.” But now even Homer was saying that Charley was wrong …

  “Well, all right. I give up. But I’m terribly disillusioned. It would have been so beautiful. And you know you still haven’t told me how a man like Howard Swan could be a murderer.”

  “I’m getting to that. In my own mind it goes back to Henry Thoreau again, and to the fact that a sign of his greatness is the diversity of his influence. Look at Rousseau, for instance. You might call him the father of collectivism as well as the father of democracy. For every disciple Henry Thoreau has, you’ll find a different image of the man. On the one hand we’ve got Teddy Staples, re-creating Thoreau the harmless naturalist and village eccentric. And on the other hand you’ve got Howard Swan. Remember what Howard was saying that night in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery when we thought for a minute he was Henry’s ghost?”

  “Yes, of course I do. It was something from Civil Disobedience, that part about any man more right than his neighbors being a majority of one already. I think I’m beginning to see what you mean.”

  “Civil Disobedience! There’s another Henry Thoreau for you! The Henry Thoreau who wrote that glorious essay, that incendiary document, that ringing call to the just citizen to refuse to obey unjust laws, setting the individual conscience above rules and decrees—that Henry Thoreau is a far cry from the one Teddy knows. If God is on your side, that’s all the majority you need. Shades of Robespierre!”

  “But he was writing against slavery, wasn’t he? God was certainly on his side there.”

  “Of course. I’m not denying it. But it’s like all glorious ideas: it’s dangerous when perverted. What it comes down to is, who says God in on your side? Howard liked to have things his way. ‘Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.’ That’s what Howard was, all his life, a majority of one. He was influenced by the least attractive side of Thoreau’s personality—the scornful side, what Walt Whitman found so disagreeable in him, his disdain for men. Henry disdained men by withdrawing from them. Howard disdained them by exerting power over them. God was on his side, naturally. If he couldn’t get things his way by simply running them, as chairman, or president or moderator, he did it by bending the rules somewhat. You saw him make a sort of personal juggernaut out of that town meeting. And God was still on his side, even when the only tactic left was murder. And so he murdered Ernie to protect his child.”

  “His what?”

  “His child. His manuscript. His masterpiece. His thesis. His life’s work, his heart’s darling, his bid for immortality, his great discovery. Here it was, almost finished at last, nearly done. He could see his picture in The New York Times, he could imagine the excitement, the controversy, the praise of the scholar, the delight of the student, the enthusiasm of the popular press—all so near. And then what happened? Along came Ernie Goss, the great booby, with a screwy set of nutty letters that he swore he was going
to hit the market with, right then and there.”

  “But what difference would that have made? Anyone could tell that Ernie’s letters were forgeries. No one would have believed in them.”

  “That’s right. No one would believe in them. Nor would anyone believe in another crackpot theory appearing on the heels of the first, invented by a close friend and colleague of the screwball—a theory attempting to establish the truth of precisely the same kind of scandal, involving some of the same parties—and with its chief evidence stemming from a statement by the wife of the donkey with the forged documents. A statement the wife would deny and disown.”

  “Oh, oh. Of course. Yes, I see.”

  “So Howard begged and pleaded with Ernie. He tried bribery. He even threatened violence. That was what you overheard the night of the dinner party. Then, when everything else failed, he thought he had no alternative but to silence Ernie by killing him. Howard was a clever fellow and he sat down and figured out an intelligent and daring crime, as intelligent and as daring in its way as the arguments in his manuscript. And then look how everything played into his hands. First of all Ernie himself misbehaved dreadfully, providing both his sons publicly with apparent motives for murder. And next morning, although Howard didn’t hear about it until afterward, Philip practically killed his father himself in full view of half the town. And even the mixup about the flintlocks turned out to work in Howard’s favor. There we were, too stupid to find the planted gun in the cider press, and there was Tom Hand, too stubborn to make cider with the apples Howard spirited onto the place in May. But then Charley, the poor fool, had to go and bury that musket, and Ernie himself led us all astray by gurgling ‘musket’ as he died.”

  “All right. I can see why Howard thought he had to kill Ernie. But what about Alice? Why Alice, Homer, why, why?”

  “Because she knew, that’s why. In the first place she knew the same ‘secret’ about Elizabeth Goss that he did, because she was an old and intimate friend of Elizabeth’s. But she was too sane and sensible to believe it. And then Howard confided in her, too, this same secret, not knowing she already knew it. He told her, I suppose, because she was the closest thing to a fellow Thoreau scholar he had to talk to, and because as chief librarian she was guardian of all his precious sources. And of course Alice must have been appalled. Here was this good man dedicating his life to something she regarded as a false notion. Then along came Ernie with his cuckoo letters, and she must have seen as clearly as Howard did that they were a threat to Howard’s theories. So then when Ernie was killed she couldn’t help suspecting. I think she must have come right out with it, and accused Howard of it. That would have been like her.”

  “Yes, and I know when it was. It was that day in church, way last spring. That was the first time I saw her looking frightened. Howard was an usher that morning and I’ll bet when he met her in the vestry she looked straight at him with that honest clear look of hers and said, ‘Howard, it was you, wasn’t it?’”

  “Yes, and then he threatened her, no doubt, and made her swear to shut up about his book, or she’d get it, too. So she did shut up, until it became more and more clear to her that Charley Goss was going to lose his life if she didn’t speak up. Poor old Howard. By the time he was so entangled in his own web that he had to kill Alice Herpitude, he was no longer defending his beloved manuscript, he was saving his own skin. Of course when Elizabeth Goss went out of her mind he must already have begun to lose hope that his theories about her glorious ancestry would ever hold water. And it must have become more and more evident to him that this very document would itself incriminate him by attaching to his name his own true and powerful motive for murder. He had killed for nothing, after all, and now he had to go on killing in order to keep from being suspected. Crime, they say, never pays. ‘I am in so far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.’”

  “Tell me one more thing,” said Mary. “What in heaven’s name was he doing on the island in the middle of the storm? Oh, I suppose he was afraid the water might rise and reach his manuscript and ruin it.”

  “I suppose so. And of course it was still very dear to him. I know I’d rush into a burning house to save the stuff I’ve written on Henry Thoreau. Some of it, anyhow. I’m going to have to throw out a lot of it, but the new stuff is pretty good …”

  “You know, Homer, if I hadn’t stumbled all over Howard’s manuscript like a great clumsy ass he might still have gotten away with it. No wonder he thought he had to …”

  “Oh, Mary—”

  Rowena Goss was driving past again, on her way out along the winding drives of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Good heavens, Homer was still necking. It was disgraceful, right there in broad daylight and in a cemetery, too, right beside the grave of Louisa May Alcott. Rowena’s beloved, peeking through the chinks in his bushel basket, agreed with her completely.

  “I’d better get home and mind the children so Grandmaw can take a rest,” said Mary.

  In Monument Square the autumn color of the ravaged trees was at its height. The elm leaves that had not been torn off by the storm were a shopworn yellow, but the abandoned maples raged in red and orange fire. There was someone standing on the sidewalk in front of the Town Hall, looking around wildly.

  “It’s the DA.,” said Homer. “For Christ’s sake, he must have seen a cow.” He slowed down and waved his arm and shouted.

  The District Attorney ran up to them, his face pale and per spiring. “Homer,” he said, “help me. I can’t find my car. Where’s my car?”

  “It’s all right,” said Homer. “There it is right over there.” He got out and helped the D.A. into it, and slammed the door. “How’s the campaign coming?”

  The District Attorney mopped his face with his handkerchief and wound the window down two inches. “Fine, just fine. Didn’t you hear? My opponent just got caught in a raid on a private club across the state line in the company of his gorgeous blonde secretary. I’m sitting pretty.”

  “Say, that’s great. His secretary, well, well. You watch out for that Miss O’Toole of yours, now. These secretaries are murder.”

  Chapter 61

  Romans, countrymen and lovers by the banks of the Musketaquid …

  HENRY THOREAU

  Mrs. Bewley was walking down Walden Street, swinging her pocketbook on its long chain strap. It was a big black patent-leather pocketbook that had once belonged to Isabelle Flower. She marched up to the door of the police station and walked in. Jimmy Flower was tapping away at a typewriter in the outer office.

  “HELLO, THERE, MRS. BEWLEY,” he bellowed, “COME IN AND SIT DOWN. WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?”

  Mrs. Bewley pushed open the swinging gate and sat down beside the desk. She put her pocketbook in her lap. Jimmy recognized it instantly. Only Isabelle would buy a fright like that. It had been missing since Town Meeting. “WHY, MRS. BEWLEY, WHAT A GOOD-LOOKING BAG. SAY, THAT’S JUST THE KIND MY WIFE LIKES, THAT SHINY BLACK STUFF THERE.”

  “REALLY?” screamed Mrs. Bewley, highly flattered. She picked up the pocketbook by its long chain and thumped it on the desk. “TAKE IT, TAKE IT.”

  “OH, I COULDN’T.”

  But Mrs. Bewley’s generosity soon overwhelmed Jimmy’s modest scruples, and he gave her a paper bag to empty the contents into and put the pocketbook in the desk drawer. “NOW, WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU, MRS. BEWLEY?”

  It was Priscilla, that was the trouble. Her hen Priscilla was missing. “MY BEST LAYER, AND SUCH A DEAR GIRL. NAUGHTY? I HOPE TO TELL YOU. BUT NICE. NAUGHTY BUT NICE. THAT’S PRISCILLA.”

  “SURELY SHE’S JUST SITTING ON SOME EGGS OUTDOORS, MRS. BEWLEY? NO? WELL, EXCUSE ME A MINUTE. I’LL HAVE SERGEANT SHRUBSOLE FILL OUT A CARD.”

  Jimmy got up and went out. Mrs. Bewley smiled seraphically and sat quietly in her chair, looking vaguely around the room. Her gaze fell dreamily on something that was lying on Jimmy Flower’s desk. Why, it was that Jesus-message with the pretty flower. Mrs. Bewley remembered it very well. She had known it was meant for her the fir
st time she had seen it, there in that box in Mrs. Goss’s bedroom. So she had tucked it in her apron pocket. But then (she was so generous) she had left it as a present for Mr. Goss in exchange for that sweet letter-opener on his desk. And then the next time she had dusted his room she had seen the message again, right there in his desk drawer, and she just hadn’t been able to resist it. So pretty! (Mrs. Bewley loved flowers.)

  Sergeant Shrubsole came in then and patiently filled out a file-card on Priscilla. He wrote down a description of her appearance and her habits, and at Mrs. Bewley’s shrill insistence, a transcription of her very distinctive soprano cluck. Then Mrs. Bewley went home, where she found Priscilla roosting naughtily on the rubber plant. She shrieked with relief and proceeded to give Priscilla a severe screaming-to and a whole bowlful of crushed graham crackers. Then she took her in her lap and scratched Priscilla’s pinfeathers affectionately. Naughty she was, Priscilla, but nice.

  Back at the police station, Jimmy Flower was entertaining Charley and Philip Goss. Released from captivity, Charley was as amiable as ever and he meant to show that he harbored no hard feelings. It was apparent that the brothers were enjoying one another’s company. The revelation of the truth had freed them of a burden of mutual suspicion that had been heavier, even, than the fear of death. But Jimmy looked at them and wondered if things could ever be altogether the same. After all, Charley had jumped to take the blame, and Philip had not. But perhaps Philip’s reluctance could be explained away—he must have known from his legal experience that lies on his part wouldn’t help a guilty Charley, and that only a good trial lawyer could be of any use at all.