And with that, they were out in the corridor once more. Ames felt as though he'd been put through some kind of wringer. MacKenzie, wisely, managed to get all the way back to Louisburg Square without once mentioning the seductive attraction of Mrs. Serena Vincent, who, having once been disgraced and destroyed by Colonel Mann, was by her own admission unhappy to learn that he'd targeted her once again.
CAREFULLY, CAROLINE POURED STEAMING TEA INTO THE delicate china cup and handed it on its saucer to the formidable old woman sitting across from her.
Aunt Euphemia Ames, who was the elder sister of Caroline's late father, nodded her thanks and declined her niece's offer of Sally Lunn.
“None of that heavy stuff for me, Caroline,” she said disapprovingly. “You know my digestion is delicate.”
Caroline did not know it. Aunt Euphemia had the digestion of a goat. Nevertheless, she smiled in assent; one did not argue with Euphemia.
That lady sipped her tea, made a slight wry face—Darjee-ling was not to her taste—and said sharply, “Why do you read that trash, Caroline? I should think you would want to improve your mind instead of wallowing in that silly stuff.”
She meant the Diana Strangeways novel, its title clearly visible on its purple cloth spine. Caroline had, in fact, been sneaking a few pages when Euphemia arrived, and she had not had the presence of mind to slip the book under her chair. She should not have been reading it, she knew; she should have been reading Emerson's Essays, which was the current assignment for her Saturday Morning Reading Club. Having Euphemia spot it was her punishment, she thought.
Not that hiding it would have done any good; Euphemia had an unnerving kind of second sight. Probably she would have seen it even if Caroline had hidden it behind the aspidistra plant in the corner.
Euphemia Ames was a tiny, ancient creature, barely five feet tall, with snow-white hair and brilliant dark eyes and a face as wrinkled as a walnut shell. She always wore black (for the Union dead); she always smelled like camphor; she was notorious in Boston Society for her sharp tongue and her high moral standards (thus her dislike of popular fiction); and she adored Val.
And that, Caroline had often thought, was what saved Euphemia from being completely impossible: her love for Valentine, the child of Euphemia's younger sister who, with her husband, had died of cholera in Naples when Val, left behind in Boston, had been only a year old. Euphemia had taken Valentine in, and had done—it was widely agreed—a perfectly splendid, if somewhat too strict, job of bringing her up.
Since one did not argue with Euphemia, Caroline knew from long experience that the only possible tactic to adopt was to change the subject; with luck, Euphemia would allow it.
“Valentine was perfectly lovely last night, Aunt,” she said.
“Yes, I know she was. I saw her before you and Addington came for her, remember. I called to thank him for escorting her. Of course it is no more than his duty, but still.”
She did not include Caroline in her thanks, but Caroline had not expected her to.
Val's maid, she thought. Surely Euphemia knew the girl had left, but how to broach the subject?
“When does he leave?” Euphemia was saying.
“You mean his trip to Egypt? Next Wednesday.”
Euphemia wrinkled her nose; she looked as though she'd smelled something bad. “Why on earth does he want to go gallivanting off to a place like that? Think of the diseases he might catch.”
Caroline allowed herself a little laugh. Euphemia took some pride in the fact that she herself had never traveled outside Massachusetts.
“I don't think he's concerned about diseases, Aunt. It is a wonderful opportunity for him. Professor Harbinger is a noted authority on Egypt, and he believes that Addington has real ability—”
“At what? Taking a shovel into the desert to uncover a few relics?”
“Oh, it is much more than that. They hope to find the tomb of—I can't remember which pharaoh, but a very important one, I believe. It may be filled with all kinds of treasures.”
Euphemia sniffed. “Treasures! And what will they do with them? Sell them?”
“Oh, no. Of course not. They will bring them back and study them. And then they will put them into some museum, either the museum at Harvard, or the Fine Arts in Copley Square—”
“And they will expect people to go to see them?” Euphemia said. “Who would bother?”
This was not, as Caroline had realized at the beginning, a fruitful topic of discussion. Time for another change.
“Valentine said that she will stop by with George after they've done skating on the Frog Pond,” she said.
She thought she saw a faint softening of Euphemia's customary fierce expression.
“Is that Alice girl with them?” Euphemia asked.
“Alice Dane? I don't know.”
“Walking over, I saw Dr. Cabot coming out of the Danes' house. Alice has been sickly since the summer. I trust it isn't anything catching. And she fainted last night at the Cotillion, Valentine told me.”
“Yes. She did. I know that she's—”
“But never mind about that.” Euphemia set down her cup with a disturbingly loud chink. She stared at Caroline accusingly and drew her mouth down into a severe line. This was the Euphemia Ames, Caroline knew, who had spent her youth working with the Abolitionists; she had had the reputation of being one of the most fierce, one of the most determined.
“Caroline, I want you to tell me the truth about Addington.”
Caroline's heart sank. “The truth, Aunt? I don't—”
“Yes, you do. You know exactly what I mean. Why was he visiting that terrible man on Monday evening? It gave me a bad turn, I can tell you, when Harriet Coolidge told me about it this morning at Sewing Circle. And of course she didn't trouble to lower her voice, so everyone heard.”
Euphemia's Sewing Circle was the second oldest in the city; it still had half a dozen members.
Caroline cleared her throat. If you are going to lie, someone had once told her, keep as close to the truth as you can. “It—concerned someone he knew, I believe.”
“Why would any of Addington's friends be mixed up with someone like Colonel Mann?”
“I don't know, Aunt. He didn't say.”
“It is most unseemly,” Euphemia snapped. “What will the Putnams say? What have they said already? Did they speak to you last night?”
Caroline remembered Josephine Putnam's cold stare, her grudging words of greeting.
“Yes,” she said.
“With anything more than the most minimal courtesy?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“I am surprised to hear it. Josephine Putnam is very careful about her associations, even if the Putnams are practically upstarts in this city.” The Putnams had come to Boston a few generations after the Ameses—something Eu-phemia never forgot—and Josephine was only a Matthews by birth. The Matthewses had arrived well after the Revolution.
Nevertheless, George Putnam was a splendid match for Valentine, and Euphemia was quick to light on anything that might put the marriage in jeopardy.
“Well?” she asked. “Did she speak to Addington, too? Really, Caroline,” she went on without giving Caroline a chance to answer, “I do think you might have alerted him to the danger of what he was doing. Was this so-called friend so important that he needed to jeopardize Valentine's position? Who is it, anyway?”
“I don't know.” Tell one lie and others come trippingly to the tongue, Caroline thought miserably. She had no idea where Addington was—it was late, past five o'clock—and she didn't know, just at this moment, if she wanted him to appear or not. Probably she did.
If Euphemia was upset because Addington found the Colonel's body, what would she say if she knew the reason he'd gone to see the Colonel in the first place? Think, she told herself sternly; think of something—and warn Addington and Val, later, of what you've said so that all our stories match.
“If he'd asked me,” Euphemia went on, “which I real
ize he would never do, but if he had, I would have told him that on no account should he ever associate with a dreadful man like the Colonel.” She held out her cup. “I never could understand how the Colonel found out about the Brad-shaws,” she added. “Could you?”
“I—ah—be careful, Aunt, I made your cup too full. Sorry.” Change the subject—again. And quickly. “How is— how is your lumbago?”
“Not as bad as it was last winter, thank goodness.”
Euphemia glanced around her niece's parlor. All seemed to be in order—all surfaces thoroughly dusted, a good fire in the grate, antimacassars freshly washed and ironed. They were managing well on just the one servant, she thought; too bad they'd had to take in a lodger, but it was better than selling up and leaving for heaven knew where.
And speaking of servants… “Val's maid has gone,” she said abruptly.
“Oh? Yes, I believe she said something—” Caroline had been caught off guard (had Euphemia intended that?), and her voice sounded forced, not nearly casual enough.
“And when I say ‘gone,’ I mean just up and left, without a word. Can you imagine? And only last month I gave the girl two of my old flannel petticoats. There is no gratitude anywhere these days,” Euphemia added darkly.
“Do you—she left no word?” Caroline asked faintly.
Euphemia shot her a glance. “Are you all right, Caroline? You look pale. Have another piece of Sally Lunn. No, no word at all. She stayed up to help Valentine to bed after the Cotillion, of course, but this morning she was gone. Vanished. And to make it even more mysterious, she was owed wages! It is odd, don't you think?”
Yes, thought Caroline, I do think. But it is not something I can discuss with you, Aunt.
“I never liked her,” Euphemia went on. “She was Irish, you know. Mrs. Haddock thought she was sly, but she never actually caught her out at anything underhanded.” Mrs. Haddock, Euphemia's housekeeper, was a woman with an even more formidable demeanor than Euphemia herself. “Ah, well, I will send Mrs. Haddock to the Intelligence Office tomorrow and put in a request for a new girl. I want one from Nova Scotia, like your Margaret. What we shall do when we have only Irish to choose from, I cannot think.”
Although Euphemia, decades ago, had been a devoted advocate for the rights of black slaves, she gave little thought, nowadays, to other oppressed groups.
Caroline felt, suddenly, quite exhausted. Euphemia would be here for another half hour, at least.
At that moment, she heard the low rumble of men's voices in the front hall, and a wave of relief swept over her.
“There is Addington,” she said to Euphemia. “Now you can thank him yourself.”
The pocket doors slid apart and Ames and MacKenzie stepped into the room. Greetings were exchanged; Euphemia even managed a cordial glance at the doctor.
Caroline handed cups of tea to the men, who settled themselves, and then Euphemia, in her blunt, forthright manner, said, “Thank you, Addington, for escorting Val last night.”
He inclined his head. “My pleasure.”
“I know you don't have much truck with those social affairs, but they are important for the young women.”
“You have nothing to worry about. Val was one of the belles of the ball, wasn't she, Caroline?”
“Yes—yes, she was.”
The unspoken hung in the room like a sword over all their heads: Addington's name in the newspapers in connection with Colonel Mann's death.
Ames stretched his long legs comfortably in front of the fire, put down his cup, and said, “Speaking of Val, Aunt, would you allow her to come to the theater with us tomorrow night?”
At once, Euphemia was on the alert. “The theater? What theater?”
“Lady Musgrove's Secret,” Ames replied easily.
What was this? thought Caroline. Addington—going to the theater? Which he never did, except for a performance of Shakespeare. And not only to the theater, but to see the notorious Serena Vincent?
So that's where he was this afternoon, she realized. Odd, the sudden pang of resentment that struck her; or perhaps it was not odd at all, considering Mrs. Vincent's reputation.
Euphemia, for once in her life, was too astonished to speak. She recovered quickly, however, and said sharply, “Lady Musgrove's Secret! Really, Addington, have you taken leave of your senses? If Josephine Putnam found out that Val had gone to see such a thing, she would call off the wedding at once!”
Caroline had a sudden bleak vision of the endless years stretching before them all as they minded their behavior so as not to upset the Putnams.
Ames shrugged. “Just a thought, Aunt. I don't think attending a performance of that particular play—or any play, for that matter—would destroy Val's—ah—virtue.”
“Nonsense!” snapped Euphemia. “Unmarried young girls don't go to plays like that, and you know it! I am surprised at you for even making the suggestion. And in any case, why are you going to it? It's hardly your kind of thing.”
“I was given a box pass this afternoon. George could come, too, if he liked.”
“Don't even mention it!” Euphemia retorted. “That would be most unsuitable! And speaking of unsuitable behavior, Addington, I would like to ask you why you went to see—”
The door knocker sounded. Another timely reprieve, thought Caroline. They heard Margaret answer; they heard a voice—only one—in the front hall. Val's voice. George was supposed to come with her to tea. What had happened?
Val's face was rosy from the cold; she wore a fetching short blue skating skirt that just grazed her ankles, and a matching jacket and hat.
Had she had a pleasant afternoon with her friends, gliding around the Frog Pond, Caroline wondered; or, as seemed the case from the girl's expression, had it been a disaster?
“And where is your young man?” Euphemia said as Val settled herself beside Caroline and accepted her tea.
Val did not look up as she answered.
“He—he had to leave early.”
“Leave early! But he promised—”
“He didn't skate at all,” Val said. Her voice was low— defeated, thought Caroline as she felt her anger beginning to build. Those Putnams!
“Didn't skate?” Euphemia pressed on. Leave it, Aunt, thought Caroline; can't you see what happened? “But it was he who organized the afternoon—”
“I think, Aunt, that we had better not inquire too closely just now,” Ames said.
Euphemia shot him a defiant glance, but to Caroline's surprise, she left off her questioning.
“He said he had something urgent to attend to at the office,” Val said, still in that defeated tone that Caroline found quite frightening.
George was a junior partner in his father's firm. It was an old, staid firm, like the family itself. Nothing urgent ever happened there, Caroline thought.
They passed the next ten minutes in uncomfortable small talk, and then Euphemia decreed that she and Val were going home. Ames offered to accompany them, but Euphemia declined.
“Come see me tomorrow, Val, dear,” Caroline said, kissing Val's cheek as they parted. She was longing to hear more about the faithless George; perhaps he'd had a genuine emergency after all, but she doubted it.
It has begun, she thought as she returned to the parlor, and we must acknowledge it for what it is: the delicate business of separation, of George wriggling out of his engagement to Val. The little incident this afternoon, the fabrication of “urgent business,” would be followed by other fabrications, other excuses to avoid her. And in the end—
No. It was too ridiculous. Even Josephine Putnam could not be so narrow-minded, so cruel.
She sat silent, brooding by the fire. MacKenzie forbore to speak, not wanting to intrude on her thoughts.
Ames, too, was aware of her mood; he dealt with it by announcing that he was going to Cambridge to dine with Professor Harbinger and deliver the book from the Athenaeum. If he had time, he said, he would call on Professor James.
THE NIGHT WAS FADING
TO PALE GRAY DAWN THE NEXT morning as Caroline made her way down the steep brick sidewalk along Mt. Vernon Street to the busy commercial thoroughfare below. The tall redbrick houses that lined the way still slumbered, shades drawn; in the below-stairs kitchen windows that faced onto the areaways she could see lights and hear the occasional clatter of pots and pans, of cast-iron stoves being riddled as the servants started their long days, but otherwise all was quiet. A few delivery wagons crawled the narrow streets, but the day's heavy traffic had not yet begun. She and Addington had given up their carriage some time before; their slot in the stables down on the flat of the hill had been sold, the money used to pay their mother's last doctor bills.
She turned onto Charles Street. The first Green Trolley of the day was just passing, the horses' breath making little clouds of steam in the raw, cold air. The few people she passed were not people she knew; they were part of that great mass of Bostonians whose labor served people like her and Addington: servants, grocery clerks, delivery-men.
But that, of course, was why she was here at this hour: she knew that Euphemia's housekeeper, Mrs. Haddock, always did early shopping on Mondays and Thursdays.
She turned in at the brightly lighted S. S. Pierce Grocers'. Mrs. Haddock was not there, but in the next moment Caroline felt a draft of cold air as the door opened and the housekeeper came in. Caroline stepped forward.
“Mrs. Haddock, you must excuse me, but I wanted a word with you.”
“Oh! Miss Ames! You gave me a start.”
Caroline could read the unspoken question in the woman's eyes: What are you doing here at this hour?
“I apologize for interrupting you. I know you need to do your shopping. But I just wanted to ask you—”
She had been maneuvering Mrs. Haddock to a quiet place toward the back, where they would not be overheard.
“I've only a moment,” Mrs. Haddock said firmly. “It's a busy day today, and with Miss Val's maid gone missing—”
“Yes. That is just what I wanted to ask you about. Could you tell me where I might be able to find her?”
The DEATH OF COLONEL MANN Page 13