The Caged Graves

by Dianne K. Salerni

  Verity narrowed her eyes. “I suppose it was.”

  As soon as her aunt left, Verity forced an unlaced short boot over her swollen foot and took her father’s horse and wagon to Catawissa. She’d never driven such a large conveyance before, but she managed well enough, tied up the horse, and marched directly into Dr. Robbins’s waiting room.

  She would have spoken her mind in front of witnesses if necessary, but by chance she found Hadley Jones alone, seated at a desk. His face brightened on seeing her, and he stood up. “Miss Boone! How’s your ankle?” His eyes fell to her foot. The tongue of her boot flapped open at every step. “I wish you weren’t walking on it yet, but—”

  “Hawk Poole,” Verity said between clenched teeth.

  Jones looked confused. Then he looked around the room as if expecting to see the man. “What about him?”

  “You were together, the day you found me in the woods. The day you rescued me from the Indian who attacked and chased me. But it was your servant, Hawk Poole, who attacked me, and you were the one who chased me!”

  His eyes widened in surprise, and he held up his index finger, defending himself. “I wasn’t chasing you. A girl was screaming in the woods, and I wanted to find out what was wrong.”

  “But it was your man who frightened me!”

  “I didn’t know that! You told me somebody assaulted you. I knew Hawk wouldn’t have done that.” Jones blew out an exasperated breath. “And I thought we established that he didn’t attack you at all but saved you from doing something foolish!”

  “But you realized later who it was,” Verity persisted.

  He nodded. “After you told me about the mountain laurel.”

  “And you didn’t tell me!”

  “What did it matter?”

  It mattered. He’d played the hero, carrying her out of the terrifying Shades of Death—but it was his fault she’d fallen and hurt her ankle. The Shades hadn’t been terrifying until Jones and his companion had frightened the wits out of her. In the back of her mind she knew she might have poisoned herself if they hadn’t been there, but that was an entirely separate matter.

  “Now I know how I got my basket back,” she muttered.

  “Oh!” He snapped his fingers and opened a desk drawer, from which he removed her garden knife. “Found this later,” he said sheepishly, coming out from behind the desk and holding it out to her, handle first.

  When she limped forward to take it, he caught her by the hand. “Tell me you didn’t come here to be angry with me.” His eyes swept over her. “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll take a look at your ankle.”

  She wrenched her hand loose and backed away. “Touch my foot and I’ll box your ears.”

  He just grinned and shook his head. “You can be indignant, and I’ll apologize profusely.” He crooked a finger at her. “Come here. Let me apologize. Please.”

  Verity took another step backward. She knew the look of a young man planning to steal a kiss. She’d been ducking ornery lips since she was fifteen years old. She’d even been caught a few times, and that hadn’t been too terrible—rather like cupcakes: sweet and finished quickly. But now she was spoken for, and she absolutely could not indulge in cupcake kisses with Hadley Jones.

  “You are entirely too forward,” she said.

  “I have to be,” he said. He dropped a little of the playfulness, but he still watched her intently. “You’re engaged to another man, and I have only a short time to plead my suit with you.”

  “You have no suit with me,” Verity replied. And when she realized how dangerously close that came to being a lie, she turned and fled.

  Seventeen

  VERITY PUT Hadley Jones out of her mind and returned her attention to her mother’s diaries. She had started reading to better understand her mother and what had happened to her, but now she felt a growing fascination with the young woman who would be her aunt for such a short time.

  Asenath never fitted into the Thomas family. Her mother-in-law tried to teach her to read, but the girl wasn’t interested; she thought the best use for books was pressing flowers. Sarah Ann wrote:

  Father says that when you pick up any book in the house, a very flat bouquet falls out.

  Verity’s mother was the one family member who made the greatest effort to include Asenath. She started bringing the girl along to assist in midwifery, which probably explained Aunt Clara’s comment about choosing the wrong apprentice.

  June 15 – Took Asenath with me to Mrs. Harper’s lying-in because I knew it would be a simple one. She was cheerful and helpful and said she would come again.

  Sarah Ann seemed tolerant of Asenath’s strange ways, perhaps more than she should have been.

  Asenath keeps giving me sachets she has made with herbs and dried flowers. Mother calls them “spells” and hates the sight of them, but they are only superstitious little charms. One is supposed to protect the house, another is supposed to bring good luck, and today she gave me one to put in Verity’s cradle to keep “evil spirits” away.

  Verity realized that the little bags she had found in her mother’s trunk were not scented sachets, but charms made by Asenath.

  In the middle of July, after several days without any entries at all, Sarah Ann wrote:

  Thank the Lord Verity’s fever broke at last and the coughing has lessened. We are all grateful and tired and a little irritable. Poor Asenath put a red ribbon around Verity’s wrist to “keep the illness from coming back,” and Mother ripped it off. Asenath cried.

  It seemed Verity’s grandmother despaired of trying to educate her daughter-in-law and simply tried to prevent her from embarrassing the family. According to Sarah Ann’s gently phrased summaries, she was not very successful.

  We had a visit from Mrs. Eggars today. She brought back the charm Asenath gave to her sister at her lying-in and said making them was a heathen practice. Asenath did not know what the word meant.

  Cissy Clayton had been wearing a charm at her lying-in. Verity felt a chill when she considered how the practice of making and wearing charms—especially by folk as wild and strange as the Claytons—might be misconstrued. This was almost certainly the beginning of her mother’s ruined reputation.

  The diary was emotionally fatiguing. Verity read only a few pages at a time and was happy to put it aside for visitors. When Nate appeared on Saturday, offering to take her out of the house, she gratefully accepted. After her trip into town to give Hadley Jones a piece of her mind, her foot had swollen so much that she couldn’t fasten her shoe, and she’d remained at home ever since. It wasn’t until she’d limped outside that she realized what Nate had in mind.

  “It’s a beautiful day to look at the orchards,” he suggested.

  “Oh, but I can’t walk very far,” she said apologetically. They couldn’t drive a carriage through the fields. Then she saw he’d come on horseback and froze. “I’m not very good on horseback.” In fact, she’d never ridden anything larger than a pony, and that only at a fair where she’d paid a penny to be led around a corral.

  “The mare does all the work,” Nate said calmly. He put his hands around her waist and lifted her up. Finding herself perched sideways five feet in the air, Verity clutched the saddle and a fistful of the horse’s mane. A second later Nate mounted up behind her, taking the reins in one hand and putting his other arm around her waist. “You’re safe,” he assured her. “Sally’s very gentle. Hold on to me if you’re scared.”

  Hold on to him where? Verity couldn’t bring herself to put her hands on his thighs, so she grasped the arm he had around her waist with one hand and kept her grip on the saddle with the other. Her heart beat rapidly, and she sat as stiff as a board in front of him.

  Nate clucked at the mare, and she started off across the Boone property. “Let’s take a look at your father’s fields first.”

  Of course he wanted to see her father’s fields. According to Aunt Clara, he’d had his eye on them for years. Verity twisted her head to look up at him, expec
ting to catch him gazing at the land.

  He was smiling down at her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I promise you, I won’t let you fall.” She faced forward again, suddenly very conscious of every part of her body that touched his.

  They found her father pruning trees in his apple orchard with his two hired hands. Ransloe Boone pushed his hat back on his head and gazed up at them, surprised. “Well, look at this.”

  “I thought I’d show her around a little,” Nate explained.

  “Good,” said her father. “She could use some airing out.”

  “What does that mean?” Verity called indignantly over her shoulder as they rode on. Nate didn’t say anything, but she could feel him chuckling.

  Her father’s workers raised their heads as the horse passed. “Enoch,” Nate said to the older of the two, who waved a hand and went back to work. The younger one laid down his pruning shears and walked over, and Nate stopped the horse to wait for him. Verity was fairly certain this young man was either Beulah’s grandson or her grandnephew. She hadn’t quite worked out the complexities of the Poole clan yet.

  Nate greeted him. “Hello, Daniel.”

  “Afternoon, Nathaniel,” the young man said, taking off his hat. “Miss Boone.” He was about Verity’s age, slender and muscular, with dark hair and eyes.

  “Good afternoon,” she replied.

  “Heard from your brother lately?” Nate inquired. “My mother’s been asking about him.”

  Daniel Poole nodded, wiping the sweat from his brow. “He doesn’t like Philadelphia much. Misses the mountains. But he’s near the top of his class and fixin’ to beat the ones ahead of him. He won’t waste a penny of that money, you can be sure.”

  “Father would’ve been pleased.” Nate looked down at Verity. “When my father was too ill to serve in the war, Daniel’s brother went in his place, and my father set up a bank fund to pay his fees at the University of Pennsylvania.”

  Verity nodded solemnly. It was an unusual bargain between a man and his paid substitute but, in her mind, an honorable one. “I wish him good luck at his studies,” she told Daniel Poole.

  Nate gathered the reins and nudged the horse forward. “Send your ma greetings from mine. And if she makes any of her cabbage beet relish . . .”

  “I’m sure she’ll save some for you!” Daniel called after them.

  “Cabbage beet relish?” Verity looked up at Nate and wrinkled her nose.

  “Every man’s entitled to one vice.”

  They rode past the apple trees and through a narrow wooded strip of land, and then they were on the more expansive McClure property. Nate talked casually about the land, the workers, and the season, and Verity relaxed, growing accustomed to the horse’s movement and Nate’s presence behind her in the saddle. When there was tricky terrain ahead, he leaned forward and said “Hold on” in a calm voice, tightening his grip on her in a way that made her feel something warm and delightful.

  They toured more apple trees, then the peach and plum orchards. Nate pointed out the field crops in the distance, and Verity eased back against his chest, listening to the sound of his voice and admiring the sunlight on the leaves and the azure sky streaked with white clouds. The land was lovely, richly green and productive. He had every reason to be proud of it, as did her father, and seeing it this way for the first time, she was proud of it, too.

  Did it really matter whose idea this union had been—or when it had first been suggested? Yes, it was an arranged marriage, but wasn’t it possible to be happy with a man who came to her this way—just as much as she would be with someone who took a liking to her at first sight and pursued her against all reason?

  When Nate brought her home, he dismounted and turned to assist her. She transferred one hand to his shoulder, and he guided her as she slid to the ground. So cheered was she by the entire outing that she stood on tiptoe and impulsively kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Nate.”

  That brought on one of the smiles she liked so much, and a second later, Nate bent down and returned the favor by kissing her on the mouth.

  It wasn’t a quick smack on the lips while she tried to wriggle away, which was the only kind of kiss she’d ever known. This was a kiss a man gave his intended bride. After a moment he put a hand behind her head, not to prevent her from getting away but to steady her. Verity wondered, in a faraway part of her mind, if she’d swayed a little bit. Better safe than sorry—so she reached up and held on to a handful of his coat. She’d just discovered that this kind of kiss invited her participation, and she felt a little dizzy. When they finally stepped apart, they were both breathless. He looked just as startled as she felt.

  After that, Nate came to see her every day he wasn’t away at market. Sometimes he came in the evening and sat with her in the parlor like a proper visitor; sometimes he showed up for only a few minutes at the back door. It didn’t take long to rediscover the cordiality they’d once enjoyed in their letters, and this time Verity knew that no one was telling him what to say.

  One evening her father found Nate kissing her good night on the kitchen stoop. Neither one of them had any idea he was there until he took off his hat and snapped it against the door frame loudly enough to make them jump apart.

  “That’s enough of that,” Ransloe Boone said sternly.

  “Yes, sir,” Nate agreed, promptly retreating.

  Ransloe Boone took his daughter by the back of the neck and marched her into the house. She did her best to look remorseful, but she didn’t miss the smirk her father couldn’t quite hide.

  He seemed rather pleased that Verity and Nate were finally getting along.

  Verity was discovering a number of things about her father she’d never known before.

  In late July Sarah Ann Boone had written:

  Rained hard, but John and Asenath walked up to the house and we had an enjoyable evening. Ransloe played the fiddle and Verity danced.

  The fiddle?

  And:

  John wants to go to the church social, but Asenath does not know any dance steps. Of course, he asked Ransloe to teach her.

  What did she mean, of course? Was John Thomas a terrible dancer, or was her father an exceptionally good one?

  If Ransloe Boone and John Thomas were spending their time searching the swamp, Verity’s mother did not dignify it with a mention in her diary. Only one entry in early August hinted at such an occupation:

  Argued with Ransloe again about the time he spends with John, but we made amends in the usual way.

  The usual way? Verity clapped both hands over cheeks that suddenly felt very hot.

  Then she turned the page, and the death of Asenath’s sister Rebecca claimed her attention. Asenath was called to the Claytons’ today. Her sister was gravely ill, Sarah Ann wrote on August 13, 1852.

  I drove her in the carriage, but by the time we arrived, Rebecca had already passed. They waited too long to call the doctor in. The apothecary’s daughter was there and did what she could, but the girl was beyond help. They say she had terrible stomach pains and then fell down in a stupor. I do not like to think ill of anyone, but it was very foolish not to call for Dr. Robbins at once.

  The following day, she added:

  I helped lay Rebecca out for burial. The poor thing was barely 15. I thought it strange that her arm was badly swollen, and there were marks that might have been bee stings. Ransloe says he knew of a man who died from bee stings. But stomach pains are not usually a symptom of bee stings.

  Sarah Ann Boone offered her sympathy to Asenath’s relations, even though the Claytons were the outcasts of Catawissa society and difficult company.

  Ransloe and I paid a condolence call after the funeral, but Eli Clayton was so unpleasant, we did not stay. I felt sorry for poor Idella, trying to serve honey cakes and tea while her husband ran guests off the property.

  Asenath’s grief verged on hysteria, leaving her prostrate and bedridden. Verity knew her mother must have been reaching the end of her patience when she wrote:r />
  Asenath would not get out of bed, not even to attend Rebecca’s funeral. She supposedly saw 6 crows sitting together and believes it is a sign of more deaths to come. I thought Mother might slap her, and I almost wished she would.

  That entry was dated August 15. Verity felt a chill up and down her spine when she realized that in exactly three months’ time, both her mother and Asenath Thomas would be dead.

  Eighteen

  VERITY FELT she knew her father better through her mother’s diaries than from living with him for three weeks. Every morning, Ransloe Boone came downstairs for breakfast and looked at his daughter as if he was surprised to find her there. The man who’d once romped through the house like a pony for her amusement seemed uncomfortable conversing with the young woman she’d become. When she tried to talk to him about wedding plans, he tugged on his shirt collar and suggested she take such matters to Nate’s mother and sisters.

  “Aren’t you interested?” Verity asked, hurt.

  Her father cringed. “Of course I am, Verity. Anything you want—I’ll purchase it for you. If you’d like a fancy arbor on the lawn like your Aunt Clara has, I’ll build it. But if you want to plan a party . . .” He spread his arms wide in a helpless gesture. “You’re better off asking Fanny McClure.”