Must the Maiden Die

by Miriam Grace Monfredo

  When she neared the station's cobblestone drive, she could hear a babble of male voices, and upon reaching the one-story depot she found twenty or thirty men outfitted in spanking-new militia uniforms. Sunlight glinted from a forest of steel gun barrels, many of them on the Springfield-type rifles manufactured by the Remington Arms Company in the Mohawk Valley of central New York. The canteens and haversacks slung over shoulders looked new, as did the scabbards on swords and bayonets. Some of these men were striding back and forth beside the station house, holding forth heatedly, while most were speaking quietly among themselves. A few, saying nothing at all, simply gazed down the railroad track.

  They must be members of New York's 33rd Regiment, Glynis guessed, made up of companies from Seneca County who would proceed to Elmira, the central rendezvous point. From there they would head south to Washington. Lincoln had asked for 75,000 volunteer troops to guard what had become an increasingly vulnerable capitol. Since New York had been among the earliest states to respond to the President's call, this company was not the first to leave Seneca County and, as was daily becoming more evident, it would not be the last. Some civic-minded group must have foreseen this, because the station house entrance was draped with a red, white, and blue bunting, and there were red, white, and blue flags flying from every possible upright object. Even from the baggage carts.

  Scattered here and there among the men stood a small number of women. While they were discouraged from coming to the train station—the premise being that women would bring a maudlin sentimentality to the occasion—there were always a few who persisted. These were usually young women, and, as on this day, they were far from maudlin. Most of them, dressed in pastel-colored spring frocks and straw bonnets, were light-heartedly cheerful, waving nosegays from which trailed long blue ribbons.

  One of the younger women, Faith Alden, Glynis recognized because the girl worked in her niece Emma's dress shop. Faith appeared to view this leave-taking with somewhat less enthusiasm than the others; her eyes looked red-rimmed and their lids were swollen. Her hair was tied with glossy white ribbon, and she carried a bouquet of violets, perhaps given to her by the subdued-looking young man in uniform standing at her side. More than once she buried her face in the violets as if to hide tears.

  The few older women there forced wan smiles, as if they too might be attempting to withhold the unacceptable signs of grief.

  In spite of the sunlit afternoon, Glynis experienced an oppressive gloom. She could remember well the first months of the Mexican War and the festive air of those soldiers' departure. She also remembered the men who did not come back. Like young Jamie Terhune, married for just one year before he left. His bride Jenny still kept vigil at the railroad station, sleeping at night in the baggage room and meeting each incoming train lest she miss Jamie's return. She was known as Mad Jenny, waiting for a man who fifteen years before had died in battle on the slopes of the continental divide. How could that war have been forgotten so soon?

  Most of the men in town, at least most of the younger ones, believed the "Dixie Rebellion," as they persisted in calling the secession crisis, was something that would be over shortly. Just a few weeks of skirmishing before the South came to its senses, dropped to its knees, and begged a return to the Union. In the meantime, the volunteers held daily drills, marching and target shooting with others who came from their home-town militia companies. Making it still more a community affair was the fact that even the men's drillmasters and immediate officers were their friends and neighbors. They had signed up for only ninety days, so why fret about the future?

  Glynis, hurrying past the men, saw this carnival atmosphere as a celebration of failure. Not something that she wanted to watch. As she walked to the far side of the station house, several male voices burst forth with Stephen Foster's "Oh! Susanna." The singers were immediately joined by others, and yet, while the song had been so widely popular for so long that almost everyone knew the words, it was, Glynis thought, a singularly inappropriate one to be singing now.

  Oh! Susanna /Don't you cry for me / For I come from Alabama / With a banjo on my knee.

  While she waited against a backdrop of men's voices rising and falling with each verse, her earlier impatience, together with a measure of anxiety, continued to grow. It was the third time today she had stood there, staring down the empty tracks. Each time a New York Central train had approached from the west, she had expected her niece Bronwen Llyr, and each time Bronwen had not appeared. But she must be on this next train. It was the last one scheduled until the following morning, and Bronwen had promised to arrive for her cousin Emma's pre-nuptial party to be held that evening. Breaking promises had not in the past been among Bronwen's shortcomings.

  At last, and after a series of piercing whistles, the east-bound, twenty-ton locomotive roared around a bend, its brakes screeching. Several minutes later brought the westbound train grinding to a halt. Now facing each other on their separate tracks, the engines followed by their long tails of passenger cars looked like two fire-belching dragons about to engage in mortal combat.

  Glynis had moved away as the trains steamed into the station, spewing sparks like live volcanoes. One of these days a spark would fly too far and send the entire village up in flames. Although she had been predicting this for a decade, and while it had happened in other places, it had yet to happen in Seneca Falls. Perhaps because someone had the foresight to demand the station house be built of brick.

  When passengers began descending to the station platforms, Glynis inched forward, hoping they didn't notice how thoroughly they were being scrutinized. It would not be the first time that Bronwen, now employed as a United States Treasury agent, had traveled in disguise. In fact, she had cheerfully admitted, "It's as good as being invisible. Just consider the possibilities!"

  Glynis considered many as she stood there studying each arriving passenger with a wary eye and craning her neck to see past the uniformed men now waiting to board. Although there could be no reason for her niece to disguise herself here in Seneca Falls, she might do it just for a lark.

  "Miss Tryon?" said a familiar voice beside her. "Glynis?"

  She looked around in surprise at the tall woman, close in age to her own early forties, in a simple dark dress; her thick brown hair, visible under a small bonnet, had been drawn back over her ears into a coiled bun at the nape of her neck. Glynis felt a warm flush creep into her face. She'd been so engrossed in the role of unmasking her niece that she'd missed the arrival of Susan Anthony.

  "I'm sorry, Susan, I didn't see you," she apologized.

  "No, you looked right past me. You must be expecting someone?"

  "My niece. You might remember Bronwen. Bronwen Llyr?"

  Susan began to smile, and the keen blue-gray eyes held an expression that said: I would be unlikely to forget her.

  She would not, of course, actually say that. But what rose in Glynis's mind was a memory, a very clear one, of being brought to the window of her library above the canal by the noise of ducks and geese squawking furiously as they scattered in every direction. The reason for this uproar had appeared in the form of Bronwen, astride a horse that she was galloping, to no earthly purpose, along the canal towpath. As it happened, a team of mules, their towlines running to a packet boat, had been plodding along the path minding their own business. Glynis had made what seemed to her, and surely to any other sane person, the natural assumption that when Bronwen saw the mules she would rein in her horse. Instead she had urged it on. Glynis had sucked in her breath, wanting desperately to turn away, but unable to tear her gaze from the looming catastrophe. Then, with the aplomb of veteran circus performers, horse and rider sailed over the mules as if they were just another programmed obstacle. The mule driver's reaction had been obvious from the clenched fists he'd shaken, and it had been a long while before Glynis could breathe normally.

  What brought this to mind at the moment was her later discovery that Susan Anthony had been aboard the packet boat that day.<
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  The woman was now smiling broadly. She pulled a scarlet shawl around her shoulders, saying to Glynis, "I like your Bronwen. In fact, I like all your nieces—"

  Susan was interrupted by a sudden surge of noise. The men of New York's 33rd had begun clambering aboard the passenger cars, and there was as yet no sign of Bronwen. But perhaps she was still on the train, struggling with her luggage. Except that Bronwen rarely struggled; most men as a rule were more than eager to shoulder her freight. A circumstance of which she managed to appear blithely unaware. Appear, Glynis thought, being the operative phrase here.

  In the meantime, Susan, looking for a baggage handler and apparently finding none, went to pluck her valise from a baggage cart. After hailing an open carriage, she told Glynis, "I'm on my way to Mrs. Stanton's for a long-overdue visit, and I am delighted that it coincided with Emma's wedding date."

  "Mrs. Stanton" was always called so by Susan, despite the fact that she and Elizabeth Stanton had been, for nearly ten years, fast friends and mutual supporters.

  Glynis watched the woman's carriage leave, and then turned back to the train with sinking hope. It seemed certain that Bronwen had not been aboard. The militia men had finished boarding the passenger cars and were leaning out of the windows, while the women had lined up alongside the tracks, waving their flowers and flags. A young boy, standing apart from the others, wore an expression of utter dejection, as if he were being forced to stay behind while his friends went off to the fair.

  Someone with a reed flute had begun to pipe "Yankee Doodle," which was quickly joined by boisterous singing. When the conductors went up the steps, indicating that both trains would depart shortly, Glynis began to wonder if she should consider taking up residence in the station's baggage room together with Jenny Terhune. Jenny, who at the moment was skittering toward the station house, clutching several crusts of bread.

  A clip-clop of hooves behind Glynis made her turn to see the Seneca Falls constable, Cullen Stuart, astride his Morgan horse. An amused expression creased his face along the lines worked by time and weather, his sand-colored hair shaggy around his neck and ears, and his thick brush mustache scarcely trimmed. Not that it mattered. Cullen, like Bronwen, seemed unaware of his effect on those of the opposite gender; but in his case, Glynis had long since decided, the lack of awareness was more than likely authentic.

  He leaned down to speak to her over the noise of the nearest locomotive gathering steam. "I take it Bronwen hasn't shown up."

  "No, Cullen, as you see."

  "You sound exasperated."

  She knew she did, and tried to smile. "A common enough reaction to Bronwen—"

  She broke off when she found herself shouting over the deafening noise of the locomotive, the men on board bellowing the last chorus of "Yankee Doodle," the young women screaming their good-byes, and over it all the reed flute shrilling like a frenzied bird.

  She and Cullen waited while one train, then the other, pulled slowly out of the station. When the roar of the engines had begun to diminish, the older women allowed themselves to weep openly. And a number of the younger ones, as if they had just now realized the party was over, had also begun to cry. Among them was Faith Alden, the wilting bouquet of violets crushed against her face.

  Cullen's earlier smile had long since faded. He had watched the departing trains with an odd expression, and Glynis suddenly wondered if he might be thinking that he, too, should be heading south. "Cullen," she began, hearing the catch in her voice, "you aren't considering—"

  "So where is Bronwen?" he broke in, as if he'd anticipated her question and didn't want her to ask it.

  Trying to push aside the specter of Cullen leaving for war, Glynis answered, "You know Bronwen. She changes her plans as often as she changes her opinions, wouldn't you say?"

  "No, I wouldn't say. She's usually reliable enough— when she chooses to be."

  Not exactly unqualified praise, thought Glynis, who had begun to worry in earnest.

  "Bronwen's coming from Washington?" Cullen asked.

  Glynis nodded. "But she wrote that first she wanted to spend a few days in Rochester with her family. Then she would come on here by train today."

  "If the trains were filled with troops, she might have taken a packet boat." Cullen twisted in the saddle to look toward the canal. "I'll check down at the boat landing."

  He guided the Morgan toward Fall Street and the Seneca River's canal, which ran below and parallel to the road, while Glynis decided she should check the telegraph office in the event Bronwen had wired. She tried not to imagine how Emma would react when told her cousin had failed to arrive.

  She was walking past the station house when a tall, fair-haired woman emerged from it. Her face was plainly distressed as she glanced around her, and she stood there at the door before taking a few steps to a nearby wooden bench. After sinking onto it, she brought up her hands to cover her face. Glynis had slowed, at first thinking she had seen the woman somewhere before, although the burgundy wool, hoop-skirted dress and cloak looked more elegant than were usually seen in Seneca Falls; the black, soft-leather shoes and kid gloves more appropriate for city streets. In comparison to her garments, the woman's fine gold hair beneath a black velvet bonnet struck a discordant note. Its disheveled appearance suggested a long train ride. It could mean that she, despite Glynis's initial impression, was a stranger to Seneca Falls.

  Glynis could not have said what made her approach the woman. It might have been the prod of memory, the recollection of another well-dressed woman who, years before, had come to town a stranger, and whose life shortly thereafter had been ended by murder. A murder that could possibly have been prevented, Glynis had always felt with guilty remorse, if someone like herself had thought to inquire the woman's intent.

  She crossed the cobbled paving to stand before the woman, and said cautiously, "Please excuse me if I'm intruding, but I wonder if I might be of help?"

  The woman's hands dropped to her lap and startled, blue eyes met those of Glynis. "I don't know," she answered in a hesitant voice which sounded not so much weak as troubled.

  "Were you to be met?" Glynis asked, although the woman did not strike her as someone who would collapse over the absence of a reception.

  "No," the woman answered. "But I believe there is someone I know...that is, I hadn't expected anyone to meet me." Her voice now sounded more steady, and she attempted a smile. "I'm just feeling somewhat overwhelmed by what I've done."

  Glynis seated herself on the bench, nodding in encouragement, and trusting that the woman would go on to explain what exactly it was she had done. When she did not, Glynis gave the woman her name, then said again, "I'd like to be of help, if I can."

  The woman straightened, saying, "I apologize if I've seemed ungrateful. My name is Elise Jager and I've come here from . . . from east of Syracuse, and . . ." Her voice trailed off, while she studied Glynis. She evidently came to a decision, because she continued, "I have reason to believe that my daughter is here in this town, but I don't know where to begin looking for her."

  When she did not offer more to Glynis, her silence raised immediate questions: Why was this woman's daughter in Seneca Falls, and not in Syracuse? How on earth could a woman lose track of her own child? Glynis didn't ask. Elise Jager's expression held every indication of intelligence, so she must have known that her words would be heard as odd ones. And if she didn't choose to explain herself, Glynis wouldn't intrude further, not with Bronwen's whereabouts continuing to concern her. She should be off to the telegraph office.

  "Perhaps you could start with the constable, Mrs. Jager," she said. Because of the gloves, she could see no ring, but assumed that if the woman had a daughter she was, or had been, married. If not, that might answer the questions.

  "Constable Stuart left here a few minutes ago," Glynis went on, rising from the bench and gesturing toward the canal. "He planned to stop at the boat landing, but if you don't find him there, you should try his office. Anyone in town can
direct you to it. I'm on my way to Fall Street," she added, "so I'd be happy to walk with you that far."

  Elise Jager had gotten to her feet, and she gave Glynis a brief nod.

  "Do you have any baggage?" Glynis inquired, glancing around.

  "I had it sent to Carr's Hotel," the woman answered briefly.

  As they walked toward Fall Street, Mrs. Jager said nothing more, showing little interest in the church and the school that they passed. Glynis found the woman's lack of curiosity peculiar. One would have thought, after arriving in an unfamiliar town and needing to find a daughter, she would be asking questions.

  When they reached the corner of Fall Street, Glynis again gestured in the direction of the boat landing. "You may meet the constable on your way down there."

  "How will I recognize him?"

  "He rides a black Morgan, and he wears a badge," Glynis said, smiling. "Both horse and man are markedly handsome, so I doubt you'll miss them." She extended her hand, saying, "I wish you well in your search, Mrs. Jager, and should you want to see me again, I can be found in the Seneca Falls library."

  The exception to that, she thought with some irritation, being those days when she was forced to wander the railroad station like an out-of-work drifter. She stood for a moment, watching the woman walk toward the canal, then hurried on to the telegraph office.

  When she questioned the telegraph operator, Mr. Grimes, he was adamant: no wire had come from her niece. So where was she? thought Glynis as she emerged from the tiny cubicle of an office. She remembered much too clearly that the only time Bronwen had failed to send word, she had been in serious trouble. But what could possibly have happened to her now?