Delivering the Truth

by Edith Maxwell

  She nodded but wrinkled her nose.

  “Does anyone know how the fire started?” I asked Frederick.

  He shook his head. “There was much talk, of course. A careless worker. A spark on old wood. Perhaps we’ll never discover the cause. With the recent disagreements between Amesbury and Salisbury about who would annex whom, our fire-fighting equipment has grown out of date and isn’t in good repair. The wind caused the blaze to jump from the factories to the post office and thence to the telegraph office, so they couldn’t send word by any fast method. By the time help arrived from Haverhill, Salisbury, and Newburyport, it was almost too late.”

  “What a pity,” I said. Haverhill was ten miles distant to the west, but Newburyport lay directly across the river to the southeast, and Salisbury, of course, was just to Amesbury’s east.

  Frederick rubbed his forehead. “Only the blessed rain prevented further damage.”

  “How will I live?” wailed Annie.

  I embraced her shaking shoulders. God bestowed such hardship upon us. Faith and I sat with Annie in the three-room tenement apartment down on the Flats where she lived with her mother, two brothers, and her mother’s parents—all French-Canadian and all textile mill workers except her dotty Grandmere. Because it was Good Friday, Hamilton Mill was closed. Thankfully it had been spared from the fire, as had the other textile mills on the Powow.

  Faith stroked Annie’s hair. “Thee will live. Life goes on, no matter how painful.” She tucked an errant red curl back under the green ribbon holding it.

  Annie paused her sobbing and gazed first at me and then at Faith. “I’m sorry. Of course you both know this better than anyone. You lost your mother, and you, Rose, your sister, so recently.”

  Faith patted Annie’s hand. “Thee will come to Isaiah’s Memorial Meeting for Worship tomorrow?” Faith asked.

  Annie nodded, her eyes filling again.

  Faith smiled at her. “Thee and thy pretty ribbons. I wish I could wear some.”

  Faith must be trying to take Annie’s mind off the death for a moment. I hoped it would work.

  Annie smiled back, but it was only a shadow of her usual bright expression. “You should. I’ll lend you some.” At my raised eyebrows, Annie said, “Oh, that’s right. You’re not supposed to.”

  “Yes, I have told thee before. Friends are to wear plain dress.” Faith sighed, sweeping her hand over her very plain dark green dress. “I’ll simply enjoy thy ribbons on thee, the ones Isaiah always delighted in.”

  I knew Faith loved bright colors as much as Annie. I had, as well, when I was seventeen. Now I had grown accustomed to my plain dresses in dark colors and my simple bonnet. I was too absorbed in my work to pay colorful items much mind, anyway.

  Annie pulled the ribbon from her hair and handed it to Faith. “Take this. Curl it up in your pocket. Wear it to bed. Do with it what you’d like, even if it’s only gazing upon it. Anyway, I shouldn’t be wearing bright colors myself while I mourn. It would be disrespectful to Isaiah.” Another tear slipped from her eye and trickled down her cheek, finally dripping onto her lace collar.

  “Thank thee, Annie.” Faith took the ribbon and slipped it into her pocket.

  “I must get home,” I said and squeezed Annie’s hand. “Be well, friend.”

  “I’ll stay for a while,” Faith said.

  I made my way slowly back up Water Street toward Market Square.

  “Rosetta!” a woman’s voice called out.

  Only one person in the world called me that. Smiling, I turned to see my friend Bertie Winslow hailing me. The wiry little woman, postmistress of the town, rode toward me waving from atop her horse. As usual, strands of her curly blond hair escaped out from under her hat, which was, as usual, set at a rakish angle.

  “Bertie, how is thee?” I asked when she got close enough. “Surely thee wasn’t still at work last evening?”

  “No, I was home. What a time, eh? Whoa up, Grover.” She pulled on the reins of the compact black horse.

  Only Bertie would name a horse Grover. I always smiled to hear her refer to a large animal by the name of our country’s president. It was delightfully subversive. And only Bertie had the nerve to ride astride instead of sidesaddle. She slid a leg clad in a long bloomer over Grover’s back and hopped off the animal, her skirt falling back down over her pantaloons. The bloomers, made from a cloth that matched the skirt, always showed when she rode. Bertie didn’t care what people thought.

  She was in her thirties, unmarried, and unconcerned about it. She and I had grown friendly after I had delivered her sister’s child several years earlier and Bertie had been there helping out. I enjoyed her always sunny and unconventional spirit. And since single working women were few in our town, we had that in common, too. Although she wasn’t exactly single.

  She hooked her arm through mine and we strode toward the square, Grover clopping behind. Bertie always strode.

  “Was there anything to salvage from the post office?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Even the boxes were melted down. We’ll have to start from scratch.”

  “What a pity.”

  “I consider it a fresh start. Or would if men hadn’t died in the fire,” she said.

  “Such a tragedy. Where is thee bound for?” I asked when we arrived at the busy intersection.

  “Have to meet with the postmaster in Salisbury to talk about reestablishing services, where the government wants us to rebuild, that sort of thing.” She squeezed my arm before mounting Grover. “Let’s go have fun one of these days, shall we?” she called back as she clattered off.

  “We shall,” I called after her.

  In the square, wet ash coated awnings and smelled of sadness. The storm had blown through leaving a sunny, breezy day at odds with the town’s mood. Residents and businesspeople talked outside in small clumps with much shaking of heads and faces red with anger at the town’s failure to extinguish the fire. I overheard an older man refer to it as the Great Fire. Following close on the Great Blizzard. What was the world coming to?

  A cluster of several men standing outside Sawyer’s Mercantile included Stephen Hamilton, the student Frederick had taught and tried to help. Now in his twenties, he wore a coat of fine cloth and carried a Bible in his gloved hand, but his hat sat askew and mud covered his fancy boots. He shook the book in their faces.

  “Now settle down, Hamilton. Everything is God’s will. Even accidents,” an older man said.

  Stephen wagged his head and pointed a trembling finger. His eyes burned with anger.

  “Why don’t you go home and try to calm down?” the man asked.

  Stephen stalked away, muttering. As I passed, the other man said, “That boy is touched in the head. He rarely speaks.”

  “He’s no longer a boy,” the older man replied. “His father should make him work. He needs a good honest job.”

  I watched Stephen go. I sighed as I made my way up High Street.

  “Rose!”

  I turned to see Zeb hurrying toward me. “Zeb.” I held out my hand to the tall, wiry young man.

  He grasped it in both of his. His usually delighted expression was replaced by haunted eyes and a wide mouth turned down in grief.

  “I’m so sorry about dear Isaiah,” I murmured. “How is thee? And thy parents?”

  “We can barely believe it. Rose, if only we could roll the clock back to yesterday.” He blinked suddenly full eyes.

  “If only.” I laid my other hand atop his.

  “They’re saying it might not have been an accident.”

  A cold knot grabbed my stomach. “Does thee mean someone set the fire with intent?”

  He nodded, his face a study in troubled.

  “Who would do such a thing? And why?”

  He only shrugged. He disengaged his hands and shoved them in his pockets, looking up toward P
owow Hill. I wished him well and watched him walk away with bent shoulders. As I continued toward home, I mused on who would have purposely set such a fire. Who would want to destroy much of the town’s livelihood, and human lives, as well?

  I caught sight of John Whittier strolling toward the square. I seemed to be encountering all my favorite people on this morning of grief. His prominent nose, erect carriage, and the deliberate gait of his long, lean legs made the well-known abolitionist and poet unmistakable about town. He must have recently returned to his home on Friend Street from his cousin’s at Oak Knoll in Danvers, where he spent his winters of late.

  “Rose Carroll, how is thee this morning?” His visage was somber above a snowy-white chin beard that left his mouth fully exposed. But he harbored the twinkle in his eye I was accustomed to.

  “It’s a sorrowful day, John Whittier. We’ve lost Isaiah Weed in the fire, and so many others.”

  He nodded slowly. “Has thee heard talk of arson?”

  My face must have given away my surprise at what he said. Two people talking of arson in as many minutes, nearly.

  He continued, “I see thee has. My friend Kevin Donovan was speaking to me not twenty minutes ago of the idea. Thee knows there is that of God in each person.”

  “I cannot fathom who might be led to destroy so many lives, so much property.”

  “If the story of arson is true, we must seek to understand how the manifestation of God in the arsonist could allow him to act in such a destructive way. I admit it is difficult to reconcile this contradiction, but persons ignoring the divine within and willfully hurting others occurs all too often in our earthly sphere.”

  “True. First we must understand who set the fire, and why.” I smiled at John to cushion my response. I hoped he wouldn’t find me harsh. I was known for being a little too forthright and I saw no reason to temper my attitude with this famous but personable Friend. I had been a member of the Religious Society of Friends my entire life, and had known John Greenleaf Whittier since my sister’s marriage to Frederick nearly twenty years ago.

  “I am sure we shall, as way opens.”

  I nodded. The Quaker concept of waiting for guidance, or for further events to show the way, was a tricky one for me. Patience was not one of my virtues.

  I bade John farewell. There was much to consider. I was surprised he called Kevin Donovan “friend.” I’d had a run-in with the burly policeman in the past when I’d asked him to take to task a husband I knew was beating his wife, even while she was with child. He’d responded in his Irish accent about how the law said the business of a man and his wife should remain behind the closed doors of matrimony. I didn’t agree. And because of his opinions on the right of a man to abuse his wife, I hoped he was a competent detective when it came to other crimes. If the fire was set by an arsonist, Kevin needed to find this criminal before he or she acted again. That shadowy shape I had seen as I left Parry’s the evening before. Could it have been the arsonist?

  John Whittier could seek to understand that of God in the killer after such a person was safely locked up.

  five

  After Faith returned home, I spent the rest of the day working alongside her. I had no ladies scheduled for visits, no births pending until the next week. We did the washing, running the wet clothes through the wringer we were fortunate enough to own, and hung them on the line out back. We scrubbed down the kitchen, put together a lamb stew, and baked dozens of gingersnaps and sugar cookies for the service. The twins and Betsy helped on the last, especially when it came time to clean the remnants of sweet batter from the bowl.

  As we worked I mourned for Isaiah. And I thought of all the families now without homes. All the men, mostly, now without jobs. The parents without children and children without parents. Those grievously injured by the flames. Zeb’s remark about the fire being set stuck in my brain like the incessant grumble of a mill wheel.

  My thoughts turned to Ephraim, forced out of his job before the fire. Perhaps he had wanted to destroy the factory that deprived him of his livelihood. But also burning up the men inside—that was a horrific thought.

  When we were finished baking, Faith let out a sigh of exhaustion. “I’m going to collapse and read in the sitting room. Or perhaps just collapse.” She paused with her hand on the door jamb.

  “Thee has earned a rest, niece.”

  I, too, felt tired to the bone, but I had other plans. I packed a basket with a bowl of stew, a loaf of bread, and a small paper of cookies.

  “Faith, I’m going to pay a visit on the Pickard family. I’ll be back for supper,” I called in to her.

  “Thee is a kind woman,” she called back.

  Kind, perhaps. Curious, certainly.

  Ephraim Pickard and his family lived on Friend Street beyond the Meetinghouse in a building housing four families. I had assisted his wife with the latest addition to their family some months earlier. Ephraim now sat on the stoop in the sunlight, a book open on his knees. He glanced up when he saw me, then stood, closing the book. His coat fell open, showing a dark smudge on the front of his white shirt.

  “Miss Carroll, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I brought thy family a meal, Ephraim.” I extended the basket but pulled it back when he kept his hands at his sides.

  “We don’t need charity.” He frowned.

  The door opened behind him and two girls about Betsy’s age ran out, leaving the door open. One bumped into Ephraim. “Sorry, Papa!” She ran off with a laugh.

  “Please consider it a gift from a friend instead of charity.”

  He nodded slowly and accepted the basket, setting it on the stoop.

  “Has thee heard talk about the fire, Ephraim?”

  “’Tis the only talk in town.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. “It must have been a lazy welder or sparks escaping from the warming stove.”

  “I have heard it was set with intent.”

  “Arson.” He snapped his head toward me.

  I nodded.

  “Who would do such a thing?” he asked.

  “Who knows? Perhaps someone with a grudge against the management.” The smudge on his shirt looked much like soot.

  Scowling, Ephraim stepped toward me. “What do you imply?” he shouted, his fists clenched.

  I backed up a step and cleared my throat. Harriet had often reminded me I needed to temper my natural forthrightness with tact. I might have overstepped the bounds.

  Ephraim’s daughters ran giggling around the corner of the house. He scooped up one in his arms, still frowning at me. As the girl squealed, a woman with a fat-cheeked baby on one hip appeared in the doorway behind him. The lines in her face measured years of toil and childbearing. She laid a reddened hand on Ephraim’s shoulder and squeezed.

  “Calm yourself, husband. Greetings, Rose.”

  I greeted her. “The baby looks well.”

  “Yes, he is, thank you.”

  Ephraim took a deep breath. “Miss Carroll has kindly brought us a gift of food.” He picked up the basket and handed it to his wife.

  “We gladly accept and thank you,” she said.

  “There are some sweeties for the children, too,” I said, keeping my voice friendly.

  A quiet smile spread across her face. “You’re very kind. They have few treats.” When the baby began to fuss she stepped back into the house and closed the door.

  I took my leave. As I glanced back, Ephraim glared at me over his daughter’s dark curls.

  I sat knitting that evening. I’d been working on a patterned sweater for Betsy for months. I liked to have a project to bring along to births, where I often sat and waited with a laboring woman for some hours before the baby’s emergence became imminent. My special pair of steel needles clicked through the woolen yarn dyed a lovely muted shade of lavender, Betsy’s favorite color, since children were in
dulged in wearing somewhat brighter shades than adult Friends if they wished. My mother, always creative, had made me a present of the needles, and she had painted tiny flowers and vines twining through my initials in fine detail on the slender, pointed needles.

  But I kept making mistakes on this project. My attention would wander and I’d not realize it until I found myself with a sleeve twice as long as it needed to be, or I’d have forgotten to change back to the other color, a cream shade. So many times I’d had to unravel a section and begin again. And now winter was over, it likely wouldn’t fit the growing girl in the next cold season.

  Faith, reading Louisa May Alcott’s Jo’s Boys, occupied the rocker next to me in the sitting room. Frederick perused the Amesbury and Salisbury Villager from his armchair. The younger children slept upstairs, after many somber bedtime questions about death, heaven, and whether Isaiah now sat near God with their mother. I thought of David, and how nice it would be if he were here sitting next to me, perhaps reading or making simple conversation.

  “Is there any news about who set the fire, Frederick?” I asked. I looked up from my yarn.

  He shook his head, glancing over both the paper and his reading glasses perched on his nose. “Nothing. It’s quite soon, though. There is a long article mentioning each family who lost someone.”

  “How is dear Zeb, Faith?” I asked. “He would usually be here of a Sixth Day evening, wouldn’t he?”

  She sighed. “Yes. He needed to stay with his parents, of course. His heart is very heavy.”

  “As are all of ours.” I patted her hand.

  “And thy visit to the Pickard family today, how did that go?” she asked.

  “His wife was most grateful for the meal I brought, but Ephraim himself seemed out of sorts. As is understandable, being let go from his position at the Parry factory.” I kept the detail of the smoky smudge on his shirt to myself.

  “And now there’s no factory for anyone to work in,” Faith said.