Thoreau at Devil's Perch

by B. B. Oak

  “I plan to leave Boston tomorrow,” he told me. “But I will sleep off the brandy this afternoon and be sobered up by nightfall.”

  Hence it was agreed he would come to my rooms at eight this evening. Before we parted on the street I asked if he by any chance knew where the Vails lived.

  Finch gave me a wink. “So you mean to visit the missus. Need I remind you that she most likely had relations with Captain Pox?”

  “Need I remind you that I am a doctor?” I retorted. “Mrs. Vail should be informed that she might be infected, and I suppose I am the one left to do it.”

  He nodded, swayed a bit, and said, “I recall her mentioning to Peck that she and her husband had recently removed to a most prestigious boardinghouse.”

  “There are more than a few of those in Boston,” I said.

  “Near Parson’s Corner or some such place,” Finch added, then went on his way, spine ramrod straight, and only the slightest drunken swagger in his step.

  Although I am familiar with just about every neighborhood in our dear City on a Hill, I had never heard of Parson’s Corner and knew not where to go forth. I could not very well return to the bank and ask Mr. Vail where his wife and he resided, but I recalled that he had told me they lived directly across from a bookseller. There are more than a few of those in Boston too. One that immediately came to mind was the Old Corner Bookstore, situated where School and Washington Streets meet, and known, because intellectuals and muses congregate there, as Parnassus Corner! Off I went in the hope of finding Mrs. Vail thereabouts.

  As always, Washington Street was teeming with coupes and coaches, phaetons and buggies, wagons, omnibuses, and shays. The brick sidewalks were clogged with all manner of pedestrians, from genteel shoppers carrying bandboxes and parasols, to ragamuffin newsboys hawking penny papers and Irish crones selling apples. When I paused to watch the antics of an organ monkey, the bright pink bonnet of another bystander caught my eye. Unfortunately, it also caught the eye of the monkey, and he made a leap to snatch it off her head. The organ grinder jerked the monkey back by its chain before it could touch her person, but still she screamed and ran off. I took chase and managed to reach her side just as she was about to blindly cross the street in front of a fast-moving dray loaded with timber.

  “Watch out, Mrs. Vail!” I enjoined, taking her arm and pulling her back to the sidewalk.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, looking up at me with dazed eyes. “Pray, how do you know my name?”

  “I am Adam Walker.You met me briefly in Plumford. We were introduced by Captain Peck.”

  The very name caused her to start weeping. She was clothed in black mourning, except for the pink hat, and this incongruity, along with her overwrought demeanor, made me fear she might have lost hold of her senses. But after a moment she collected herself, accepted the handkerchief I proffered, and daintily blotted her eyes with it.

  “Yes, now I recognize you,” she told me. “You were the captain’s closest friend in Plumford.”

  I did not contradict her. Instead, I told her that I wished to relate something of a very private nature regarding Capt. Peck.

  “Oh!” She pressed her hand to her breast. “Please go on.”

  “Not here on a public street, Mrs. Vail. Might we go back to your residence?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “There is no privacy there. Mr. Vail comes home shortly after three. Let us go to a coffee house.”

  I did not think that a suitable place. “I share consultation offices with another doctor on Beacon Street. We can go there.”

  “No,” she said. “I cannot wait to hear what you wish me to tell me. Mrs. Abner’s shop is only a few steps away.”

  In fact, it was right next door to the Old Corner Bookstore. We settled at a small table a good distance from the few other coffee imbibers in the establishment.

  After we were served, Mrs. Vail pushed aside her coffee cup and leaned toward me, tugging at a slender chain round her neck. “Let us gaze upon his beloved features whilst we speak of him,” she said, bringing forth from beneath her bodice a richly engraved gold locket. She opened it with trembling fingers, and I beheld Peck’s daguerreotype likeness in one compartment and coiled strands of his silver and black hair in the opposite one. I drew back slightly, reminded of how horribly Peck had been scalped.

  Apparently Mrs. Vail had much happier associations concerning Peck’s hair for she softly smiled as she regarded it. “Is it not lovely?” she asked me.

  Unable to come up with a response, I merely nodded.

  Realized she was referring to the locket rather than the lock of hair when she went on to say, “Gideon had it specially made for me out of Georgia gold, which he said was the finest gold there is. It is the work of the jeweler Pierre LaFarge.”

  A vivid depiction of lovemaking sprang to my mind. It was not the fair Mrs. Vail’s proximity that roused it, however, but the name LaFarge, for I recalled Peck stating that the artist who produced his erotica engravings was named thus.

  “I wish I could display such a fine piece of jewelry on my person rather than keep it hidden beneath my bodice,” Mrs. Vail continued, “but I do not wish to provoke Mr. Vail. He cannot bear it if I even mention Gideon’s name.”

  “Your husband knows that you and Captain Peck were . . . ?”

  “Lovers? He does indeed.”

  “How long has he known?”

  “Since our visit to Plumford. My tongue was loosened by a rum concoction I drank during the ball game on the Green, and I told him everything. It was a great relief!”

  “Did you tell him before or after the captain was murdered?”

  “Before of course. What point would there have been to tell my husband after my darling Gideon was forever lost to me?”

  I had no answer to such a riddle as that and remained silent.

  She continued, almost breathless in her eagerness to talk about Peck. “Gideon was too kindhearted to tell my husband himself. You see, they got on rather well. They had even formed a successful business together.”

  “What sort of business exactly?”

  “How should I know? Business is not a woman’s sphere. But I do take credit for bringing the two together. And a good thing too, for my husband and I had accumulated a great deal of debt before Gideon came into our lives. He was like a heaven-sent angel. Is it no wonder I fell in love with him?” She did not wait for my reply. “Now you must tell me what you wish to relate concerning Gideon.”

  Stalling for time, I took a sip of coffee. This would not be easy.

  “Well, go on,” she prodded. “I think I already know what you are about to say, so you need not hesitate. I can bear it, I assure you.”

  But I did hesitate. For if she really did know, why would she be smiling so wistfully? “What is it you think I want to tell you, Mrs. Vail?”

  “The same thing Gideon tried to tell me the afternoon before he died. But just as he was about to, that ill-mannered Lieutenant Finch came slinking around the belvedere, disturbing our privacy, and Gideon was obliged to postpone his confession. Yet he had already confessed to you, his good friend, had he not?”

  “He took me into his confidence because I am a doctor.”

  She frowned. “He never mentioned you were a doctor, only that he had divulged his deepest secret to you.”

  I nodded. “A secret he should have shared with you.”

  “Yes, of course. But he never got a chance to, poor love! No matter. I guessed it the moment I laid eyes on him in Plumford. It was clear he was in pain, and I knew why.”

  “Ah, you recognized the symptoms.”

  “How could I not, doctor? I was suffering from the same thing.”

  “I am very sorry to hear it, Mrs. Vail. How long have you experienced pain?”

  “Oh, my poor heart started aching weeks ago.”

  I had expected her to relate pain from a different area of her anatomy. “Only your heart?”

  “Not only mine, but his! Although Gideon
was the one who ended our relationship for the sake of my marriage, he could not endure being apart any more than I could. How ill he looked!”

  “Yes, he was very ill, Mrs. Vail.” Obviously she did not know why, and the time had come to tell her. “His condition was irreversible.”

  She sighed. “Love such as ours is indeed an irreversible condition. That is why I know Gideon wanted to ask me to leave my husband and remove to Plumford to live with him. Was that not the secret he shared with you?”

  “No.”

  She blinked a few times, as though waking up from a dream. “No?”

  I glanced around the shop. A group of men at a table across the room were arguing vociferously about Manifest Destiny, and I knew I would not be overheard. “He had syphilis, Mrs. Vail. Do you know what that is?”

  The horror and disgust transforming her pretty face made it clear that she did. “You lie!”

  “What reason would I have to lie?”

  “To punish me.”

  “I do not even know you, Mrs. Vail. Why would I want to punish you?”

  “My husband wants to. He put you up to this, didn’t he? He paid you to tell me this scurrilous lie to make me hate Gideon. But I shall love him to my death!” She stood up so vehemently that the table tilted. The coffee cups fell off it and crashed to the floor. Customers stopped talking and turned to look our way.

  “Calm yourself, madam,” I cautioned softly. “Please sit down and listen to me.”

  Instead, she ran out of the shop. I had no choice but to go after her, for I did not want her love for Peck to be the death of her. I took her arm once again as she waited to cross School Street.

  “Unhand me, sir.”

  “Please, Mrs. Vail. Allow me to examine you in my office.”

  “I will not!”

  “At least allow me to question you in private.”

  “No!”

  Having no choice, I proceeded to pose extremely personal questions to her on the busy sidewalk as people jostled past us. Did she have fever? Muscle aches? Hair loss? A rash on the palms of her hands or soles of her feet? Lesions on her mouth, or any other parts of her body? She kept shaking her head vehemently, and I hoped it was in response to my queries rather than my persistent presence. As determined as she was to tug her arm free from my hold, I was determined to delay her until she had heard me out.

  “Even if you have not noticed the symptoms I have mentioned, you must see a doctor to be sure you did not contract the disease from Captain Peck,” I told her. “If you will not allow me to examine you, I suggest you go to Dr. Eames here in Boston.”

  As I was spelling out his name for her a police officer came down the street, and Mrs. Vail called out to him. “Officer, this man is spewing the most vile questions into my ear and will not let me go!”

  “Release that lady at once!” the patrolman ordered me with as much authority as he could muster. As an officer in the daytime police force, rather than the night watch, he was most likely more accustomed to helping pedestrians cross streets than dealing with any sort of trouble.

  I immediately let go Mrs. Vail’s arm, and she immediately ran off. The officer clamped a beefy hand on my shoulder and called me a scoundrel and worse. Mrs. Abner bustled forth from the coffee house and informed him that I had caused the breakage of two fine cups and then run out of her establishment without recompensing her for either them or the beverages they had contained. I sputtered my apology for this oversight and settled my small debt, but neither she nor the officer seemed of a very forgiving nature. Indeed, I believe I was at the point of being arrested when a past medical school professor of mine appeared on the scene and vouched for my good character. When Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks, others listen. The officer released his grip, and Mrs. Abner showed more clemency. Dr. Holmes kindly invited me to join him in the coffee house, but I declined, for I had hopes of catching up to Mrs. Vail again. The crowded street had swallowed her up, however, and she was lost to me. I pray she takes my advice and visits a doctor. No matter that she has the character of a canary and the depth of a puddle, I feel sorry for her.

  Posted my letter to Julia and felt better for it. What is wrong in letting her know how highly I regard her? Went back to my rooms and thought about her for the rest of the day.

  Now it is well past eight. Lt. Finch is late in arriving, and I am beginning to doubt he will keep our appointment. Does he have misgivings about divulging too much to me as it is? Why should he unless he really is Peck’s murderer? It is hard to credit the crime to him, for he had no motive that I can perceive. The cuckold banker had far greater cause to kill Peck. He does not seem mentally or physically capable of carrying out such a grisly murder, however. Finch, on the other hand, could manage it with ease. No motive, though. Unless . . . could Vail have paid him to do it? Finch is both in need of money and handy with a knife. He even justified murdering Peck by declaring that his death put an end to his suffering. Yes, he might well be the murderer after all.

  Hear someone knocking on the front entrance. Must be Finch. If indeed he is a vicious killer, I am rather reluctant to go downstairs and open the door to him. A voice I recognize to be his now calls my name. T’would be prudent for me to ignore him until he goes away, I reckon. But curiosity compels me to let him in. Who knows what discoveries I will make once I hypnotize him? So if I am murdered tonight, here are my last recorded words: Lt. Finch most likely did it.

  JULIA’S NOTEBOOK

  Wednesday, 19 August

  Today I received a marriage proposal from the Reverend Lyman Upson. Lors me! I would suit him even less than a hare would suit a tortoise. Two of God’s creatures could not be more poorly matched than Lyman and I.Yet he is determined to have me as his wife.

  He came by this afternoon and found me contentedly sketching in the garden. I wish I had remained there. But when he told me it was his birthday I did not have the heart to refuse his offer to go for a ride. I put aside my sketchbook and we set out, at his suggestion, for Devil’s Perch. Small wonder he is drawn to that spot. Legend has it a minister of his ilk did indeed see the Devil there during a horrific lightning storm nearly two centuries ago. Hence the name. Along the way Lyman pointed out his fine house, set far back from the road on a quiet lane. He said he was happy he had no close neighbors to bother him. He asked me if I would like to view the house interior, and I told him I would prefer to keep to the carriage.

  We continued up the road. I did not much care for his driving. He kept such a tight rein on his little bay mare that she had not the slightest liberty of movement. And he occasionally gave her a sharp cut of his whip for no reason I could discern. Napoleon is a far more obstinate horse, yet Adam manages him quite well with words of encouragement and a relaxed rein, keeping his whip in the holder. Not so Lyman. His whip is ever ready in his hand.

  When I suggested he fold down the hood of his chaise so we could enjoy the fine day, he rebuked me for wanting to call attention to myself, and we continued onward shrouded from sunlight and eyesight. We came upon a dead raccoon lying in the middle of the road, and Lyman yanked back hard on the reins to halt his poor horse. “My lucky day,” he declared. He leapt out of the chaise, picked up the coon by the tail, and deposited the furry corpse right behind my seat. The smell of it was rather pungent. Alas, ’twas not my lucky day.

  “Are you going to have made a coonskin cap like Benjamin Franklin’s?” I asked him.

  He adjusted the narrow brim of his proper silk stovepipe and told me he had no intention of doing any such thing. He was going to skin the animal and preserve the pelt for future use in the making of fishing lures. I recalled him mentioning this hobby once before, when he showed me a leather sack stuffed full of dead birds he had shot. At least he had not shot the raccoon. If I glanced over my left shoulder I could just see one of its tiny black hands curled in the most graceful of attitudes. I could not keep myself from looking back at it.

  When we arrived at the top of the cliff I suggested we get ou
t of the carriage to better take in the view. This time Lyman acquiesced, perhaps because nobody was about. Together we went to the edge of the precipice and looked down at the river below, where we had both seen the body of the young black man lying on the rocky shore two weeks ago. I waited for Lyman to propose a prayer in his memory, and when he did not, I did.

  “He cannot be saved with our prayers,” Lyman replied. “God foreordained his soul to hell even before he was born, and there it now writhes in agony.”

  “No! I do not believe that.”

  “Surely you do not believe God would foreordain a Negro to heaven, Julia.”

  “I believe we are all equal in God’s eyes. And I do not believe God would decide beforehand where our souls will go when we die. Predestination makes no sense to me, Lyman. It is how we conduct ourselves in this life that should ordain our fate in the next one.”

  “Only those God has already chosen for heaven will conduct themselves correctly on earth,” Lyman explained to me in a most patient tone. “As for us all being equal in His eyes, I am afraid you have misspoken, my dear. Such a statement implies that woman was created equal to man. Do not forget the Bible doth tell us that man was made first, in God’s very image. God later took from man’s side the material for woman’s creation, and by the institution of matrimony she is restored to the side of man. They become one flesh and one being. Hence, in the eyes of the law, they are one person.”

  “That person being the husband,” I said wryly.

  “Of course. Man rules over woman as God rules over man. What reason is there for a wife to have a separate identity from her husband’s, Julia? Is it not his duty to support and protect her? In return, she will rise to his requirements and satisfy him in every possible way.” Lyman smiled at me. Although his teeth are good, his smile lacks charm. “In every possible way,” he repeated.