‘Yes, but small towns are also close towns. As soon as you ask questions, people will fall silent.’
‘They already are.’ She tugged at a ringlet of her hair; despite everything, she had still combed the ends and set the style, the familiarity of the regular act a needed reassurance. ‘When I went into the street before, nobody would dare speak with me.’ She rubbed at her forearm. ‘Well, almost nobody. Amery told me what people have been saying, although they say little to him too. It seems they agree with Lavington, that Clemency took her own life out of guilt for the boy’s death.’ Her face set. ‘These same people who claim to have known her for years. That, or they pretend she was some kind of witch, because she knew something of medicine, because she tried to help people.’ She chewed on her knuckles, digging her fingernails into her flesh.
‘Mercia.’ He hesitated. ‘Is it not just possible that she did—’
‘No.’ She threw down her hand. ‘Do not even speak it. Clemency Carter did not kill herself. Even forgetting she knew it would have damned her soul, it was simply not possible. I spoke with her at the waterfall after the boy’s death. She felt a deep guilt, yes, but she was not about to destroy herself.’ She began to pace the room. ‘You know as well as I do that she was murdered.’ She stopped and looked at him. ‘If nobody here is courageous enough to face that truth, then I shall have to furnish them with proof. Maybe Clemency’s cousin can help.’
Nathan frowned. ‘The trader? I recall Clemency mentioning he was out of town, but – what was his name?’
‘Hopewell Quayle. Amery says Lavington sent a rider to fetch him back, but she could not find him. I shall have to wait until he returns of his own accord, every two weeks or so, it seems.’ She sighed. ‘In the meantime, maybe Nicholas will have better luck convincing Amery to do more to aid us.’
A sharp rap sounded on the front door, followed by three gentler taps. ‘Speak of the devil,’ said Nathan, rising to answer. But the man he showed into the sitting room was neither Nicholas, nor Amery.
‘Mr West,’ said Mercia. ‘This is a surprise.’
Kit West entered the room, giving a slight bow as he removed his spruce hat. ‘Mrs Blakewood,’ he said, his English accent evident. ‘Am I interrupting?’
‘We are just talking.’ She looked at Kit, taking in his simple outfit: smart for a sawyer, she thought, his white shirt crisp and his black breeches tidy, if speckled with sawdust.
‘I hear you have been asking questions,’ he pursued.
Nathan folded his arms. ‘What of it?’
Kit played with the hat in his hand. ‘Nothing.’ He turned slightly. ‘Perhaps I should come back.’
‘No.’ Mercia glanced at Nathan. ‘You wanted to see me, Mr West, so you may as well speak.’
Kit paused a moment, then turned back to face her, the freckles on his cheeks reminiscent of the dust in his dark hair. ‘I came to say – I mean, I wanted to say, I regret no one here is heeding you. I knew Clemency. She did not take her own life.’ He frowned, speaking more clearly. ‘To do so would have been to abandon her own soul to the Devil. Clemency was many things, many of them not liked in these parts, but … I wanted you to know that.’
Mercia latched onto his words like a babe in arms to its mother. ‘It is a relief to hear someone say so. I was worrying nobody would care to acknowledge the truth.’
‘The truth can be hard for people, at times.’ Kit tugged at the cord round his neck. ‘I was talking with Percy before. He explained how distraught you were. I thought I should speak with you myself.’ His cheeks tautened, flattening the corners of his mouth. ‘There are those of us who will not run from the truth.’
She could feel her pulse quicken. ‘So you will help?’
‘In whatever way pleases God, Mrs Blakewood. You should not suffer when others do not.’
‘Save your pity.’ She closed her eyes, embarrassed at her brusqueness. ‘I am sorry.’
Nathan laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Do you know who might have done this, Mr West?’
‘Kit. Or Christ-carry, but most folk call me Kit.’ He shook his head. ‘And I cannot say, although one thing I will say, Mr Keyte.’
Nathan smiled. ‘Nathan.’
‘Nathan, then.’ He nodded. ‘Do not mistake how strongly people care for this town, new though it may be. Myself included. It comes from being on the edge of God’s lands, from the calling we have to be here.’
Mercia looked up. ‘Strongly enough to be a reason to kill?’
‘Surely anything is a reason, if someone believes it well enough.’
‘That is true. But then someone had savage reason indeed.’ She waited for him to say more, but he stood against the wall in silence. ‘Were you a sawyer back in England, Kit?’
‘I was to enter the law, if you can believe it. But instead I sailed to America. I could have remained in Boston, I suppose, but I preferred to come here, to the wilderness.’
‘That calling you mentioned?’ Behind Kit, she could see Nathan nodding, as if in understanding.
His eyes seemed to light up. ‘I wanted to live where I could use my hands. It feels – cleaner. More at ease with the land. Does that make sense to you?’
‘I think so.’ She studied his keen expression. ‘Your family, are they in America also?’
‘Still in England. What is left of them.’
‘They are Puritan folk?’
‘No.’ He shuffled his feet. ‘’Tis one reason I was eager to leave.’
‘But your name?’ In the corner, Nathan raised a cautioning eyebrow. She knew he would seek to dissuade her from delving into the personal matters of a man she barely knew. But she needed to learn about the people of the town, and she would do so whenever she could.
‘Christ-carry?’ His earnest face took on a serious air. ‘When I arrived here, I had the Boston minister baptise me again, in the river. A cleansing, if you like, from the sins of the past. The water is so pure here, don’t you think? So clear.’ He shook his head, as if drawing himself from some reverie. ‘So now I am Christ-carry, to make my heart plainer to the Lord. To show how I carry His Son’s spirit with me always.’
She nodded, thinking. ‘Is everyone in Meltwater so devout, Kit?’
‘As much as we can be. I strive to be as faithful as the Lord wishes. But no, not everyone believes as they should.’ He looked at her. ‘You are asking about Clemency?’
‘I am asking about anyone.’
‘She had detractors, of course. People did not approve of the way she sometimes lived.’ He frowned. ‘You think this could be a private matter? That the man who killed her could have borne some grudge?’
‘Perhaps.’ She paused. ‘You said man.’
‘Evidently.’ Kit held out his hands; his fingers were long, like his eyelashes, and pale. ‘Whether conscious or insensible, she had to be forced into the noose. It had to be someone with strength.’
The pit of sorrow returned at his cavalier words. ‘So not an old man either.’
‘Old or young, here it makes no difference. Men need strength to survive, Mrs Blakewood, and wits, however many their years. ’Tis hard here, friends. We must struggle that we may live.’
Another silence fell. Nathan stepped towards the hall. ‘Mercia has had a difficult ordeal, Kit. Thank you for coming, but would you mind …?’
Mercia turned her head, her eyes widening in annoyance. She opened her mouth to respond, but Kit cut off her riposte.
‘Of course.’ He replaced his hat. ‘I have said what I came to say. We should speak again when you are feeling better. That is – if you intend to stay.’
‘I want to,’ she said. ‘But there is no need for you to leave if—’
‘No, Nathan is right. I should let you rest.’
He bowed, passing into the hall as Nathan opened the front door. The two men gave each other a cursory nod before Kit stepped out. A cold draught blew into the cottage as Nathan pushed the door back shut.
Drawing close her jacket, Mer
cia followed Kit a half-hour later to brave the chilly streets. Irritated at Nathan’s protectiveness, they had spoken little since the sawyer had left, but her pique was giving her the push she needed to face a task she had been dreading.
She was not walking far, but she felt everyone staring as she passed, and she knew what they thought, that she, a stranger, had no business to interfere with the town now that Clemency, the woman who had invited her in, was no more: it was for the town, not for Mercia, to decide how to respond. But she continued unabashed, for so far their response had been shameful. Perhaps, indeed, a stranger was what they needed.
Her breathing quickened as she reached the white gate of Clemency’s cottage. She could tell the watching eyes were still on her as she laid a hand on the rough wood, but she did not pause. Approaching the familiar red door she was surprised how she could push it open without panic. She called inside lest anyone was within, but it seemed the house was deserted.
She closed the door, shutting herself in with the memory of her lost friend. She was unsure what she hoped to find, did not even know if the constable had already searched, but she knew it was the right place to come. And yet – not right. The rooms screamed with emptiness, torn by an unnatural void deep with missing presence. Clemency had been too vital a character to slip away unchallenged by the world, and so the house, and the world, had noticed. Walking through the cottage was like walking through an aberration. The air was cold, the humble furniture at odds with the vibrancy of Clemency’s life.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself. Nothing mattered but this, as though a barrier had descended that she would not shatter until justice was released into the hall, into the kitchen, into the travesty that was the bedroom. She forced herself to search for anything that might help, but there was little to find. Clemency’s clothes: the yellows, the blues, no longer to grace the town. Clemency’s provisions: the hidden bottle of rum. Clemency’s medicines for all the ailments she would no longer treat, the antimony of ceruse that had failed Praise-God Davison and perhaps failed Clemency herself.
In a small chest covered in a thin layer of dust, Mercia found a pile of letters that she made herself read. Sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor, she felt uneasy scanning her friend’s correspondence, but she supposed Clemency would not mind. As she read, she began to sense the room warming, as if Clemency herself had entered and was reading behind her, cheering the dim house with her wit and her smile. But when Mercia turned round, Clemency was not there, the longed-for resurrection a fallacy.
The most recent letters were from Clemency’s cousin, Hopewell Quayle, in which he wrote of the things she knew must have delighted her: the Indians he had met on his travels, the makeshift tents he had constructed with their help. Underneath these was a well-thumbed, yellowing letter, scrawled in a scratchy hand by Clemency’s mother in Hartford, long since dead. Mercia paused her reading, thinking of Clemency being welcomed into heaven, her parents helping her now as they would have done when she was their child, sad to see her too soon, but happy to be reunited. That was some comfort at least, the same she tried to give herself when she thought of seeing her own father and husband once more.
Breaking from her musings she returned to the letters, one from Winthrop about a new mineral he had discovered, and then another from—quickly she set down the paper, turning away her face. But then she chided herself for her prudishness, and continued to read. The letter was from a man, imbued with passion; not in terms of love or endearment, but intensely sexual, describing acts the writer clearly wanted Clemency to enjoy with him. Feeling slightly ashamed for reading, Mercia wondered that Clemency could have stood to read such unadorned sentiments. Surely she had never indulged in these … proposals? And yet here was another letter in the same hand, not describing acts that had happened, but acts this man wanted to happen. Even assuming Clemency had never agreed, the letters were still here, not burnt, not discarded, proof of a man’s coarse desires, proof, perhaps, that Clemency did not feel threatened by them at least. Who the man was, was unclear – there was no signature, not even an initial, but the references to where he was writing were apparent enough: the man lived here, in Meltwater.
There were four more such letters, all on a similar theme. Mercia thrust them in her pockets, unwilling for the townsfolk to discover them to be used as further proof against Clemency’s character. She herself was disturbed enough, but that barrier she had thrown up was still there: the letters changed nothing, save that here perhaps was a motive for murder, a crime of savage longing, of jagged desire.
She pulled herself up to finish her search of the cottage. Although each object spoke of Clemency’s life, nothing seemed pertinent to the hanging. A mirror Clemency would have studied her reflection in; a cup she would have sipped ale from; a shawl she would have warmed herself at night with – all these things were simple, belying the majesty of the woman, and unhelpful in understanding her end. Wanting to be thorough, Mercia exited the red door and passed round to the backyard, ignoring the stares of John Lavington who was watching from the street, no doubt alerted to her presence and come to check for himself, but he made no move to follow.
Running her hand along the uneven stone of the cottage’s exterior wall, she winced as a sharp point dug into her flesh, drawing a pinprick of red. She sucked on her finger as she came into the pretty backyard, well-groomed plants dotted about an impressive twelve-foot tree a little set back from the house. Too tall to have been planted recently, it must have been in place well before the settlers arrived. What was it witnessing here? Mercia thought. The beginning of a new way of life, a new future? Or was Clemency’s end an indication of what was to come if the colonies failed to take, if America refused to countenance the settlers’ promise?
She wandered the neat garden, but as in the house she found little. Not that she expected it; maybe, she pondered, her hand resting on the bark of the tree, she should—
‘She was a good woman.’
Mercia broke from her contemplations and turned to face the house. An unfamiliar woman was leaning against the back wall, her bare, toned arms folded across her full chest. Her skin was darker than the pallor of most of the English, and in contrast to Mercia’s strict bodice her own covering was loose and of a warm fur.
The stranger pushed off from the wall and approached. ‘She was a kind woman. She tried to understand our ways.’
Mercia looked the newcomer up and down; she was about mid twenties, she thought, and confident, holding her bearing erect. Her straight hair was lush and intensely black.
‘Did you know her?’
The woman nodded. ‘We exchanged goods. Sometimes we talked. She was interested in our medicines. And she had a kind heart.’
‘Yes.’ Mercia felt a dull sadness. ‘She did.’
‘Susanna.’ The woman pointed to herself. ‘That is my name. The name you English have given me, at least.’ She held out her hand. ‘I never know what I am supposed to do with your customs, but I think this is what the men do.’ She jiggled her hand up and down. ‘Shake hands – is that it?’
Mercia took the woman’s hand. ‘They do like to do that.’
Susanna inclined her head, looking into Mercia’s eyes as though scrutinising her purpose; the black wells were intelligent, Mercia thought, full of curiosity. ‘I have not seen you before,’ she said finally. ‘Were you Clemency’s friend?’
A shiver ran through Mercia’s soul. ‘I was, but … do you know what has happened?’
Susanna’s face clouded. ‘I do. It is … horrific.’ She frowned. ‘Is that the word?’
‘It is one word. You speak English well.’
‘It is my role in the tribe. I speak with your people and take the news back to mine.’
‘An interpreter.’ Mercia was impressed. ‘What is your real name, then?’
Susanna cocked her head. ‘You wish to know?’
‘I would.’
She seemed surprised. ‘Then it is Sooleawa. It means
silver. But it is not a Christian name, and so I must be Susanna here.’ She looked behind her. ‘I come as often as I am allowed, or asked. Standfast – he is my friend – he told me about Clemency. I came to look.’
Mercia folded her arms. ‘For what?’
‘For nothing. For her spirit. Because I wanted to be here.’ She looked up at the house. ‘Because I knew her.’
‘Yes.’ Mercia followed her gaze to the bedroom window. ‘I understand.’
‘I was bringing her herbs, from upriver. She uses them in some way.’ Sooleawa lowered her gaze. ‘I don’t know who will be interested now.’
A cough from towards the house made Mercia look over. John Lavington was crossing the yard with Humility Thomas, but then he paused, hovering back, while Humility hobbled towards them.
‘Mrs Blakewood,’ he said, ignoring Sooleawa completely. ‘Why are you here?’
She glanced at the magistrate. ‘If Mr Lavington wishes to address me, he can do so himself.’
Humility grunted. ‘Forget Lavington. Your business is with me.’ Despite his words, he looked back at the magistrate, who nodded. ‘You have no right being here. You barely knew Clemency and this is a private house.’
Mercia bridled. ‘Clemency was my friend. I was here at her invitation, and as nobody—’
‘Exactly what I came to say.’ He thrust his tongue out in his cheek. ‘Now Clemency is gone, there is no reason for you to remain. I must ask you to leave my son’s cottage and go from the town.’
Mercia stared at him. In truth she had been expecting this, but the stark manner of his words appalled her. ‘Mr Thomas, I know I am staying in the house at your kind indulgence, but if nobody has need of it I would like to help the town solve this.’
He blinked. ‘Solve what?’
‘You cannot—why, Clemency’s death, of course.’
The hefty man rested a large arm around her shoulders, drawing her out of Sooleawa’s earshot. When they were a little distance off, he lowered his voice.
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