Dangerous and Unseemly

by K. B. Owen

  Annie thought for a moment. “Could be squirrels,” she said finally. “Last spring, there was a whole nest of them. Made a big mess.”

  “I suppose,” Concordia said doubtfully.

  “The grocer’s boy is comin’ in the morning,” Annie said. “I’ll get him to look. You won’t catch me going up there if there’s any critters, that’s for sure. Well, g’night, miss.”

  “Good night, Annie.”

  Somewhat reassured, and hearing nothing after that beyond the wind and the rain, Concordia resumed her sorting. Soon she had Mary’s clothes divided into piles on the bed, the brightly-colored silks gleaming in the light. She pushed a few hairpins back in place, and stretched.

  What next? She glanced around the room. Mary’s jewel case was perched atop the armoire. She could go through that. Mary wasn’t one to wear excessive ornaments, so it shouldn’t take long. That would do for tonight.

  Concordia hesitated when she opened the case. There were more pieces than she had anticipated. She recognized a few girlhood keepsakes of Mary’s, including a sterling silver bib pin, a christening gift from their grandmother. Concordia cherished her own pin, from so long ago. She would have to make sure that Mother got Mary’s.

  The rest of the jewelry pieces, however, were unfamiliar. Which items were gifts from Henry -- things that might have sentiment attached?

  Concordia sighed. Should she disturb Henry? Had he retired for the night? She could at least go downstairs to see. And a cup of buttermilk might be nice.

  As she reached the landing, Concordia noticed Dr. Westfield’s coat and medical bag in the front hall, carelessly tossed on the high-back chair. He obviously arrived after the staff had retired for the night. The doctor’s coat would have been hung up neatly, not left like that.

  Concordia stood uncertainly on the bottom stair. What was the doctor doing here? Was Henry ill from his grief?

  As she was debating what to do next, she heard a voice raised sharply. Concordia followed the sound to the library door. She looked along the corridor first before leaning closer to listen. She was placing herself in a ridiculous position if someone caught her with an ear to the keyhole. Fortunately, she had changed out of mourning--the dress rustled terribly--into a quiet wool skirt.

  Only snatches of the conversation were audible.

  “Frankly…disappointed…where were….” The voice belonged to an angry Judge Armstrong.

  The voice which murmured a reply was Dr. Westfield’s, Concordia could tell, although she could not make out the words. Tarnation! She straightened up from her crouch. What little she had heard suggested that Judge Armstrong was unhappy with Dr. Westfield for missing -- what?

  Perhaps the funeral service. Concordia had noted his absence, but one assumes with doctors that a pressing medical call is to blame.

  She had to hear what was going on.

  What other doors or windows would there be? She remembered the library as quite large. And unmistakably a man’s room, with its deep burgundy velvet draperies, dark leather chairs and the lingering scent of pipe tobacco. Not a flower vase in sight.

  In this weather, prowling out-of-doors was out of the question. But she remembered there were other interior doors, including….

  She frowned in concentration. Yes. The judge kept his rarest books in a curtained alcove at one end of the library, to protect them from dust and sunlight. Annie told her it used to be part of the housekeeper’s pantry, originally intended as a combination storeroom and sitting room for the head of the staff. If so, there should be a connecting door between the alcove and the pantry, accessible through the kitchen.

  She hurried toward the kitchen. Peering in, she sighed in relief. Empty. She crossed to the pantry door and pulled slowly on the latch, testing the hinges for creaks. She slipped inside. As there was no light within, she groped for the alcove door. Finally, she found it, and softly eased it open.

  Concordia hardly dared to breathe as she stepped into the library. She was now separated from the room’s occupants by the floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains in front of her. The alcove was not deep; she had to brace herself against a wall of books to avoid fluttering the curtains.

  “…precious few patients left to keep you so occupied, Adam.” The caustic voice was Judge Armstrong’s.

  “You already have what you wanted from me.” Doctor Westfield sounded weary, and bitter. It was not at all the jovial, booming voice she was accustomed to hear.

  The judge laughed. “We’ve helped each other over the years, or don’t you remember?”

  “How could I forget?” Dr. Westfield answered. “I live with it every day.”

  There was silence.

  Dr. Westfield continued, “Who else have you helped, Matthew; what knowledge do you use against other poor devils to get what you want?”

  “I seem to remember that it turned to your advantage,” the judge replied tartly. “Is what I’ve asked in return so outrageous? Simply sign the certificate, and keep your speculations to yourself.”

  There was a pause, and the judge continued, more gently, as Concordia heard Dr. Westfield weeping, “It was too late to do anything more for the girl, Adam. It is better to let the matter rest.”

  Concordia’s chest tightened so that she could hardly breathe. Her first angry impulse was to run out of her hiding place and demand an explanation.

  But something made Concordia stay where she was. Not cowardice, she hoped, although her heart was pounding and her mouth had gone dry, but her sense that neither man would have told her the truth if she confronted them. The judge would be only too happy to show her the door and forbid her return. Then she would learn nothing more. She had to find another way.

  A knock on the library door nearly made Concordia fall headlong into the curtains. There was a moment’s pause—the judge giving the doctor a chance to regain his composure, Concordia guessed—before she heard the door open.

  “Oh.” It was Henry’s voice. “I didn’t know you were engaged. I came in for a book.”

  “I was just leaving,” Dr. Westfield answered in a flat voice, “Goodnight.”

  Concordia heard the door shut behind him.

  “The doctor seems upset,” Henry said.

  “What do you expect?” Judge Armstrong snapped.

  “I’m here to get the Tennyson book, not trade barbs with you, Father.”

  Concordia realized that Henry’s voice was getting closer. Please heaven the book wasn’t back here.

  “You keep it in the alcove, do you not?” Henry asked.

  Of course it would be, Concordia thought, rolling her eyes. The curtain fluttered and she could see his fingers curl around the fabric. She braced herself, throat constricted.

  “You’ll have to find something else,” the judge answered. “The Tennyson is at the bookbinder’s for repair.”

  Concordia’s knees quavered as she watched Henry’s fingers loosen their grip and disappear from sight.

  After what seemed an eternity, both men left, and Concordia found herself in darkness. She waited a few more minutes before cautiously slipping out of the library and up to her room, milk forgotten.

  Back in the safety of her bed, she lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling.

  The next morning was the start to yet another damp and blustery day. When Concordia came down to breakfast, still yawning from her wakeful night, Judge Armstrong and Henry were already at the table, sharing pages from The Hartford Courant. Concordia had to restrain herself from glaring at the judge. After all, she wasn’t supposed to know they were concealing something from her. Fortunately, the judge paid her little attention, instead lowering his black brows over an article in the paper. She was relieved to be spared the difficulty of making polite conversation. They ate in silence, save for the occasional clink of a spoon against a china cup.

  Concordia finally spoke, keeping her tone level. “Henry,” she said, “I need your help in identifying some of Mary’s personal items.”

 
; Henry looked up. His dark, red-rimmed eyes looked dull against his pale face. “I’m afraid, Concordia…I can’t…”

  The judge cleared his throat, and Henry glanced over at his father. “Perhaps,” Judge Armstrong said, “we are being selfish in keeping Concordia here unduly long. She has her teaching to resume, and work is the best cure for grief. Help her this morning, Henry, so that she can finish more quickly.” He returned to his paper.

  Concordia stared at the judge, her mouth open in surprise. Judge Armstrong never spoke of her work, save with a sneer. Now he respected her time and responsibilities? Was he trying to be rid of her before she found out too much? But how could he even know that she had discovered something? She didn’t think the judge would be so calm if he knew where she had been last night.

  Henry looked equally surprised by the judge’s directive, but merely nodded.

  After breakfast, Henry accompanied Concordia to Mary’s dressing room. He briefly hung back in the doorway, as if reluctant to enter the room, but recovered and joined her at Mary’s dressing table. Concordia opened the jewel case. “I can’t identify these,” she said, pointing to a lower tray of earrings, neck chains, and brooch pins.

  They went over each one. The last piece, pushed to the back of the tray, was a gold-filigree brooch pin. Concordia plucked it out. “This is beautiful,” she murmured, running her fingers lightly over the pearls inset at each corner. “Is this your gift?” She handed it to Henry.

  Henry frowned as he examined the brooch closely. “No. I’ve never seen her wear this. This is not an heirloom from your family, perhaps? But then, why did she not wear it?” he mused. “It’s a stunning piece.”

  Concordia leaned over to look at the pin again. It must have cost at least twenty dollars, about a month of her teaching salary. “I don’t know. I could ask my mother,” she said finally.

  Henry passed the brooch to her. “Show it to her. Keep it if you like,” he said. “It means nothing to me.” He looked away, his thoughts already elsewhere. Concordia put the brooch in her pocket for the time being.

  “If we are finished here, Concordia, I have other matters to attend to.” He rose stiffly. His grief was aging him, she noticed. He moved like an old man, as if every joint were painful. She felt profoundly sorry for him.

  Finally, late into the night, Concordia finished in Mary’s room. She tidied the piles, packed a few items she thought Mother would want, and wrote instructions for the dispersal of the rest. It was a relief to be done, and to leave the Armstrongs in the morning. As if the company of Judge Armstrong and Henry wasn’t bad enough, there was something about the house itself that chilled her.

  Looking around the room once more, she had the feeling she had overlooked something, but she couldn’t think what.

  In the silence, the soft creak was unmistakable this time. It was not the rain outside.

  Nor is it a squirrel or a mouse, she thought grimly. Someone is up there.

  She was going to settle this, once and for all.

  Chapter 18

  March 1896

  The Armstrong attic was not a congenial place even on a sunny day, as Concordia well knew, so it was with a thumping heart that she approached the attic stairs, lamp in hand, so late on this miserable rainy night.

  As before, the knob turned easily and silently, although the wooden steps creaked loudly enough to be heard over the steady drumming of the downpour outside. The sharp smell of rain, filtering through the eaves, mingled with the usual smells of mothballs and dust.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Was that a glow, at the end of the attic?

  As she paused, uncertain what to do next, a figure detached itself from the gloom, coming toward her. Concordia yelped in terror and backed away.

  “Miss! Miss Concordia! It’s just me!” Annie said in a strained whisper.

  “Annie! You scared me to death!” Concordia cried. “Whatever are you doing here?”

  “Shhh. I don’t want to disturb no one,” Annie said in a low voice, moving toward the door. “I was checking to see how much room there was fer the missus’ trunks, seein’ as how yer nearly done packing them. I’m sorry to scare you.”

  “Uhh-nehh, uhh-nehh.”

  The sound was chilling, and familiar. Concordia pushed past a protesting Annie, and stooping low, made her way to the back of the attic.

  A white-gowned figure—the one from her dream, Concordia realized with a shock—crouched in a corner, terrified.

  “Annie, what in heaven’s name is going on?” she demanded.

  It was a child—a boy of perhaps eight years, although Concordia, not knowing much about children, was only guessing as to his age. He was a handsome child, with a full head of glossy black curls, wide eyes, and delicate pointed chin. He rushed over to Annie, flinging his arms around her skirts. “Uhh-nehh.”

  Annie clasped him protectively, giving Concordia an apologetic look. “Can we get him out of the damp first, miss, before I tell you about it? I was just comin’ to get him.”

  Indeed the child, barefoot and clad in a thin night shift, was shivering.

  “Let’s go to my room. It’s nowhere near the judge’s or Henry’s bedrooms. And I assume they know nothing about this,” Concordia added dryly.

  Annie shook her head.

  “There’s a nice fire in there,” Concordia said to the boy, in a softer tone. He looked at her blankly. Annie turned to the boy and made gestures which he seemed to understand, as he readily followed them out of the attic.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Concordia whispered.

  “He’s deaf, miss. Been this way since he were a baby and got scarlet fever. He’s my brother.”

  “Oh.” Why in heaven was a deaf child hiding in the Armstrongs’ attic?

  Once safely in the room, Concordia stoked the fire and turned up the lamps. The boy flinched at first when Concordia tried to put a blanket around his thin frame, but must have realized that here was a friend. Once he was snuggled close to Annie, he gave Concordia a tentative smile, gesturing rapidly.

  “What is he doing?” Concordia asked, puzzled.

  “It’s a sort o’ language for deaf people, miss. They’re teaching it to him at the ‘sylum. I’m learning some, too. He’s saying ‘thank you’.”

  Concordia knew what asylum Annie meant—the Hartford Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. It was only a few blocks from here, and had been founded more than eighty years before, for the training of deaf children. The neighborhood of Asylum Hill had been named for it.

  “He’s been saying things, too,” Concordia said, “I thought all deaf people were mute.”

  “There’s nothin’ wrong with Davey’s voice, that’s fer sure,” Annie said, with a fond tousle of the boy’s hair, “and when he’s mad he can yell somethin’ fierce. He jus’ can’t hear what he’s saying, so it comes out all garbled.”

  “But he can say Annie,” Concordia said, realizing what the repeated “Uhh-nehh” meant. It had been part of her dream—but not all of it a dream, she now knew. Mary had undoubtedly heard it too, during those wakeful nights of illness.

  Annie nodded. “He could say that when he were a baby, before he got sick. I guess he still remembers that.”

  By this time, Davey had fallen asleep in Annie’s lap.

  Concordia went to the door, looked down the hall to make sure it was empty, and closed it again. She turned back to Annie with a stern look.

  “Do you realize how badly you frightened me—and Mary, in the last week of her life—by keeping your brother here?” She looked over at the sleeping child. “Put him in my bed for now, and then we have to talk. I want the whole story.”

  “I’m ever so sorry, miss,” Annie began, when Davey had been settled comfortably. “I did’n mean to give you and the missus such a fright.”

  “What is he doing here? How long has this been going on?” Concordia asked.

  Annie sighed. “Fer a couple o’ weeks now. The ‘sylum got a ter
rible outbreak of influenza. They sent the healthy ones home, and shut down the school and took care of the sick ones ‘til it was over. I’m glad Davey did’n get sick, but I been tearin’ my hair out trying to figure what to do w’ him.”

  “You haven’t any family here?” Concordia asked.

  Annie shook her head. “Can’t afford the train fare to send him back home, and there weren’t no one to go w’ him, anyway. He sure can’t go by hisself. I had him w’ some other boys at a boarding house off and on—one of the teachers is takin’ care of them—but he’s been fighting w’ some of the others lately, and she can’t abide that.”

  Concordia looked over at the angelic face of the sleeping boy. It was difficult to imagine Davey as an aggressor.

  “Strange, ain’t it?” Annie agreed, catching her glance. “I think he’s been picked on, but he won’t let on.”

  Concordia walked over to her wardrobe and rummaged in a pocket. “I gather this is Davey’s?” She held up the wooden top and pull string.

  Annie’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, he’ll be so happy. He’s been missin’ that. Where’d you find it?”

  “He must have dropped it by the bed when he visited me one night. I thought I was dreaming. And the string I found in the attic.”

  Annie’s mouth formed a small “o” and she shifted uncomfortably. “Sometimes I’d let him play in the attic, when I worried he’d be seen in my room. But mostly, I try to keep him with me at night. It’s been real hard,” she said apologetically.

  Visions of the boy wandering into Judge Armstrong’s bedroom in the middle of the night made Concordia shudder. Annie was playing with fire.

  “He can’t stay here anymore, Annie. You know that. You could lose your place if the Armstrong’s see him.”

  “I know, miss. Thank the stars the ‘sylum is lettin’ the students back tomorrow.”

  Concordia looked once again at the source of all the trouble. The boy slept deeply, his face a picture of utter calm. Thank the stars, indeed.