Carrie waved a hand dismissively at her older sister. “All part of the same story, as it happens. The older stone belongs to the fellow I told you about: the Clayton who survived the massacre and might have escaped with the soldiers’ gold. Some say he made a bargain with the Devil to get out of the swamp alive; others say he murdered another soldier for the gold and brought a blood curse down upon his head.” Carrie seemed to find both possibilities equally thrilling. “Whichever it was, he didn’t make out well in the end. He lived in Catawissa for a while, but somebody turned him over to a regiment of Continental soldiers at Forty Fort and they shot him for desertion. Repeatedly.”
“Once wasn’t enough?” Verity asked.
“They say it took five musket balls to put him down. Even that wasn’t enough. They took their eyes off him, thinking he was dead, and he almost got away—staggered to his feet and into the woods. They had to—” Annie cleared her throat loudly, and Carrie changed whatever she’d been going to say. “Take more drastic methods after that. If you ask me, they should have made him give up the gold before they killed him!”
“I don’t believe he had any gold,” said Annie. “The Claytons live like paupers.”
“Well, he couldn’t use it openly, could he?” Carrie protested. “People suspected him, and he kept it hidden somewhere. Drove his son, Caleb, crazy looking for it.”
“Caleb Clayton didn’t have far to go,” Annie said.
“And the other grave belongs to the deserter’s son?” Verity asked. “What relation was he to the present Claytons?”
“Caleb, the son, was Eli’s father,” said Carrie. “My father said Caleb was the meanest, craziest wretch the town has ever known—and that’s saying a lot, when you consider Eli.”
“What’s the meaning of that epitaph—Stay put now?” Verity asked.
Carrie leaned forward eagerly in her chair, her carefully curled hair bobbing on her shoulders. “They had to put him in his coffin twice. Father saw it.” Annie clicked her tongue in annoyance, and Carrie darted a look her way. “Well, he did, Annie!” She turned back to Verity and lowered her voice. “Our father was about fifteen when Caleb Clayton died, and he went to the wake out of curiosity—just to make sure Caleb was really dead, he said. About halfway through the evening, everyone heard a moan . . . and a rustling . . . and the coffin began to shake. Father said the hair stood up on the back of his neck, and if he could have gotten out of the house, he would have! But the coffin was between him and the door. Then the whole thing fell off the table—and Caleb kicked his way out of it!” Carrie’s eyes were alight with gleeful horror. “He staggered to his feet . . . then turned and grabbed his wife by the neck and started strangling her!”
“No!” gasped Verity.
“He did!” insisted Carrie. “And people were too stunned and frightened to stop him, except Eli, who grabbed up a shotgun and emptied both barrels into his father. Then, when Caleb was down and still, they rolled him back into the coffin, closed it up, put it back on the table, and went on with the wake. My father swore to it.”
Verity looked back and forth between the sisters, wide-eyed. “He wasn’t dead.”
“Not the first time,” murmured Annie. “Father thinks he must have been in a drunken stupor, and his wife knew it. She probably hoped they’d put him in the ground before anyone noticed—he was such a hateful cuss.”
“But Eli Clayton wasn’t punished?” asked Verity. “He killed his father in front of half the town.”
“You can’t kill somebody who’s already dead,” replied Carrie. “And none of the Claytons rest easy in their graves. I’ve heard lots of people say as much.”
“Is that true of my aunt Asenath as well?”
The teasing light in Carrie’s eyes died out. “Oh, I—” Annie gave her sister a withering look, and Carrie winced. “I’m sorry, Verity,” she said earnestly. “I forgot she was a Clayton. I was only a child when she died, and I don’t remember her very well.”
Verity nodded, accepting the apology. She could hardly be offended when this was what she’d come to hear.
“Your uncle could have had the pick of any girl in town,” Carrie declared, then cast a sideways glance at her sister. “Including Annie, I think. If he chose Asenath Clayton, she must not have been like the others.”
“Why were she and my mother buried with those two Clayton men outside the church?” After regaling her with those other horrible stories, they could hardly refuse to tell her now.
Annie, still red cheeked after Carrie’s comment, looked pained. “Very few Claytons ever made it into the churchyard, and when they did, parishioners complained. There was trouble.”
Trouble with the parishioners or with the dead Claytons? Verity wondered. But instead of pursuing that, she asked, “Did my mother die of the strange illness that otherwise made only Claytons ill? Asenath survived it once, but it came back, didn’t it?”
“Yes, and when your mother caught it, people believed she was somehow tainted by their—”
“Curse,” Carrie concluded.
“I’m sorry, Verity.” Annie sighed. “The sickness came upon your mother suddenly; she fell into a stupor and died. Ransloe was terrified you’d contract it too, so my mother and I took you out of the house. We brought you here and kept you for a few weeks, until your relations from Worcester came to get you.”
Verity looked at Annie with surprise. “I didn’t know that.”
Annie’s eyes filled with tears. “I was very upset when they took you away. I thought we were going to get to keep you.” She pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve to wipe her eyes. “Your father was devastated. I think that’s why he gave in when people wanted to keep your mother out of the cemetery. He didn’t have any fight left in him.”
Verity wanted to know who had demanded that her mother be buried outside the cemetery, but Annie was in tears. Moreover, she felt quite certain she knew two of the names already.
“Nate suggested I ask you to lend me some poetry,” Verity said instead.
“Oh!” Annie pressed the handkerchief to her eyes, then folded it away, obviously grateful for the change of subject. She rose and beckoned Verity toward the bookshelves. “Did you like the one he gave you?”
“I did.” She couldn’t stop herself from adding, “I admit I liked it better when I thought Nate had chosen it.”
Annie glanced back at Carrie. “Oh, dear. Well, you couldn’t expect Nate to pick out poetry for you. He asked me to do it.”
“Nate was very particular in his instructions.” Carrie put in her two cents. “I know he had poor Hattie doing his bidding, fetching gloves and whatnot for you, making her take them back if they weren’t what he’d asked for.”
Verity felt herself blushing and hid it by pretending to peruse the poetry titles. “I didn’t realize he gave it much thought,” she murmured.
“On the contrary, I think he read your letters very carefully and sent Hattie out to purchase things you might like,” Annie said. “I was chosen to select the poetry, and I viewed it as quite an honor.”
With a sinking heart, Verity realized how she’d misjudged his words on their first meeting. “Did you advise him on his letters?”
“Well, I offered advice,” Annie said with some exasperation. “We all did! Heaven knows if he took it.”
Carrie flashed a mischievous smile. “I searched his room from top to bottom but didn’t find a single letter from you. He must have hidden them well or kept them on his person.”
Verity wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The young man who’d stolen her heart in those letters and the young man she’d been kissing on the kitchen stoop and behind the parlor door—they were the same person. How could she not have known?
“You don’t have to take a poetry book, you know,” said Annie. “Let’s see—Hattie’s shelf is full of really dreadful dime novels. And Carrie has three shelves filled with even worse ones!” Her sister sniffed but didn’t deny it.
“Does
Nate have a shelf?”
Annie smiled triumphantly. Clearly, she’d been waiting for Verity to ask. “Nate has a wall.”
As Annie dragged her to the opposite end of the room, Verity was regretting her self-righteous assumption that a person who didn’t read poetry didn’t read anything at all. In fact, Nate’s shelves were filled from floor to ceiling with travel histories, from Melville’s Typee to Kane’s Arctic Explorations, and adventures such as Robinson Crusoe and The Last of the Mohicans.
She scanned the titles and felt humbled. If Nate had truly read all of these, he was better read than she was! “Which one is his favorite?” she asked.
Annie plucked a book off the shelves without hesitation.
Gulliver’s Travels.
“I’ll take that one, then,” Verity said. “If I may.”
Suddenly Annie turned toward the door and exclaimed, “Hattie! How is William?”
Verity guessed the answer by the way Nate’s youngest sister leaned her head against the door frame as if she could not hold it up. “He’s very uncomfortable.” Hattie looked drawn and strained, her pretty face pale and her hair bedraggled. “The pain has not let up since last evening, and the swelling is no better. You can imagine how frustrated he is.” Then she added in her characteristically audible whisper, “And how irritable.”
“Poor Will!” exclaimed Carrie.
“I’m so sorry,” Verity exclaimed. “Would you like me to sit with him while you lie down?” She barely knew Hattie’s husband, but sometimes a visit from an acquaintance would encourage a patient to perk up, just out of pride.
Hattie smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Verity. That’s very kind. But I’ve sent for the doctor, and I saw from the upstairs window that he’s arrived. I’ve just come down to meet him.” She turned and disappeared into the hallway.
Annie followed her sister. Carrie hooked her arm with Verity’s in a companionable manner and drew her along in their wake.
Verity was distressed by how loudly her heart thumped and how weak her knees suddenly felt. She clutched Nate’s book to her bosom, as though to remind herself where her heart was supposed to lie, as Carrie dragged her toward her first meeting with Hadley Jones in two weeks.
Twenty
THE DOCTOR stomped into the house with ill humor, grumbling and looking around impatiently. His eyes passed over Verity without recognition and caught sight of Hattie. “Did you use the poultice the way I told you last time?” he demanded.
“Yes, doctor, I did.”
Verity tried to calm the pounding of her heart. It was Dr. Robbins—not his apprentice. He was a big man, well over six feet tall, with wild gray hair and a puffed-out beard under florid cheeks. His shaggy eyebrows might as well have been a pair of mustaches hovering over his eyes. He mounted the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister.
Verity bade the McClure sisters a hurried farewell, and they were too caught up in worry about Hattie’s husband to notice how shaken and embarrassed she was. She didn’t know why she cared so much whether it was Hadley Jones or not, but she did know it would have been an awkward meeting and not one she wanted Nate’s sisters to witness.
Leaving the house, she had to pass the doctor’s horse and trap. The man in the driver’s seat sank down as she descended the front steps, tilting his hat over his face—as if planning to nap while he waited for his employer. She considered walking by without stopping, but her sense of duty did not permit it. Taking a determined breath, she strode directly to the trap and called up to him, “Good day, Mr. Poole.”
“Good day, Miss Boone,” the driver replied in a soft voice. At least he didn’t pretend not to know her.
“I believe I owe you my thanks for your timely assistance in the Shades two weeks ago.” He made no move to lift his hat from his face; nevertheless, she could see the scar that had frightened her that day. “And my apologies for hitting you on the head with my basket.”
“No harm done” was his mumbled response.
No harm done except Verity’s injured ankle, and that was her own fault for behaving so foolishly and running from a man who was trying to help her. However, as Verity continued down the lane toward home, she reminded herself that she wouldn’t have run so far or fallen at all if Jones hadn’t chased her. Placing blame for the entire incident on the impertinent Hadley Jones gave her a certain measure of satisfaction.
When she got home, she took Nate’s letters out of the drawer where she’d consigned them after deciding that he hadn’t written them himself. If she hadn’t been so pigheaded, so quick to judge him—if she’d just looked at his letters after meeting him—she would have known they were his by his turns of phrase.
I told my mother, see here, I will write her myself, and that is how I came to this unlikely point of courting you by letter. . . .
If you don’t think it is too forward, I would be pleased if you called me Nate. Otherwise you can use Nathaniel, but when you address your letters to Mr. McClure, I feel like you are writing to my late father . . .
She could hear his familiar voice in every line, and the next day, when a late-evening knock on the door proved to be one of the Poole men sent down from the McClure house with a basket for her, she beamed with joy.
“Sorry to disturb you so late, Miss Boone,” the man said. “But Mr. Nathaniel bade me deliver this with his greetings.”
The basket held fresh cherries, no doubt carried all the way from Lancaster, as well as a short length of sturdy red ribbon fitted with a bell. Verity laughed. Nate knew her father thought Verity was spoiling what ought to have been a good mouser. A bell around her cat’s neck would make him useless for hunting and identify him for what he really was: a very lucky, pampered house pet.
She found a brief note tucked along the side of the basket: I will see you tomorrow, when I will count all the ways I love thee—even if I don’t understand most of them.
He’d memorized Barrett Browning’s poem for her, just as he’d promised. It shamed her to realize how she would have misunderstood his words before seeing his own books. Just because he didn’t understand every line of the poem didn’t mean he lacked intelligence. Verity had been struggling with Gulliver’s Travels and felt thoroughly chastened.
She could explain the poem to him, and he could explain the book—if they didn’t have anything better to do with their lips.
Beulah bristled the next morning when Verity announced her intention to make cherry pies, but Verity was prepared for this. “I’ll make the filling, and I wondered if you would make the pastry. Your pie crust is much better than mine.” Verity hoped Beulah knew her well enough to realize this wasn’t empty flattery.
If she did, it didn’t seem to mollify her. “I found jam everywhere after you made those tarts,” the housekeeper said with a frown.
“I cleaned up all the jam.”
“I’m sure you thought you did,” Beulah muttered.
Verity blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful in the first place, then,” she said contritely. “I promise.”
The old woman didn’t reply but brought out the flour and her rolling pin. Verity took that as evidence of a truce between them and commenced pitting the cherries. They were working together in silence when Johnny Thomas burst in through the back door, his eyes alight with excitement. “Cousin Verity!” he cried. “Have you heard what happened at the cemetery last night? Someone tried to dig up your mother’s grave!” And having delivered this devastating news with the innocent callousness of a twelve-year-old boy, Johnny turned and darted back outside.
“Miss Verity!” Beulah exclaimed, and stepped between her and the door. Verity dodged around the housekeeper and took off in her cousin’s wake.
Several yards ahead of her, Johnny vanished at the turn of the road. As soon as she reached the top of the hill, Verity could see carriages stopped at the bottom, all in a row as if it were a church day. People milled around outside the cemetery, congregating by the two graves marked with iron cages.
At Johnny’s arrival, people turned and looked up the road. No sooner had Verity been spotted than a familiar figure separated from the group and started toward her.
By the time Nate intercepted her, Verity had slowed her perilous run to a breathless trot. Her fists were clenched at her sides. “Don’t you dare try to stop me!” she said.
Nate held both his hands up placatingly. “I know better than that.” His brow was furrowed with anger and worry. “Just—take my hand, Verity.”
His fingers gripping hers tightly, he walked her toward the cemetery. Ransloe Boone looked up with an anguished expression. Nate stopped at the edge of the crowd, and although Verity wanted to approach the grave, she could not induce her feet to move forward without him.
She was close enough to see that the cage had done its job.
The flowers and ivy she’d planted had been ripped from the ground and tossed aside. A hole had been dug at one of the corners of the cage and extended into a trench along one side and around the back. It looked as if someone had been testing to see whether the framework extended below the casket, which apparently it did.
The township sheriff stood at the foot of the grave, his hands on his hips, and Reverend White was explaining what happened. “After the voices roused me,” he said, “I came downstairs with a lantern and looked along the road. I didn’t see anyone and thought perhaps it had just been an open carriage passing by. This was around two or three in the morning.”
“But they were arguing, you said. Loudly and violently.” The sheriff glared down on the tremulous clergyman. “This is not the first . . . incident that has occurred in this cemetery. Why didn’t you come out to take a closer look?”
“I was in my nightclothes!” the minister exclaimed indignantly.
The sheriff looked down at the iron framework. “Was it the same grave last time—or the other one?”
“It’s always Sarah Ann they come after,” growled Ransloe Boone. “Never Asenath.”
The Caged Graves Page 13