Must the Maiden Die

by Miriam Grace Monfredo

  While in the telegraph office, Glynis had debated with herself as to whether she should send a wire to Rochester. But if Bronwen had simply been delayed en route—and connecting trains were often late—such a wire would cause her family needless worry.

  Glynis sighed, then raised her eyes from the road when she became aware of some commotion on the far side of Fall Street. A handful of townsfolk were standing there, pointing excitedly and shading their eyes as they gazed at the sky. Since she heard anxiety in their voices, Glynis discarded the simplest explanation: a late flock of Canada geese winging northward. As she started across the road, people began pouring from shops and offices, all pointing upward, so Glynis stopped to search the cloudless sky. She blinked several times to clear her vision, then looked again. And still did not believe what she saw.

  There, high over the land to the west, was something that appeared far too large to be a bird, or even a flock of birds. It bobbed slightly on the nearly windless air, and as Glynis watched, along with what had become a growing crowd, the object looked to be slowly descending.

  She had to conclude that if she were losing her mind, she was not alone in madness, since the voices of those on the street were reaching fever-pitch. When her elbow was nudged, she turned to find the Morgan nuzzling her sleeve. "Cullen, what is that? Do you know?"

  He gave her an odd smile when he dismounted, as if she were asking the obvious. But he seemed fairly unconcerned, and while this had the effect of calming those nearby, they looked to him for an explanation. Glynis, staring upward at the now rapidly approaching object, said with some frustration, "Cullen, if you know what that—"

  She broke off, because all at once she knew. It must have shown on her face, because Cullen nodded, saying, "Yes, it's a balloon."

  "A gas balloon!" she said, abruptly recalling articles she'd seen in library copies of Harper's Weekly. And now it did seem obvious. A pale, shimmering balloon floating on the air like an immense, gone-to-seed dandelion. With her references now in mind, Glynis knew it must be made of India silk contained within a net of thin, knotted silk twine.

  "It's a lot bigger than the ones I've read about," Cullen said. "Must be fifty feet high, and I'll bet it weighs a ton or more. Wonder where it's going to land."

  "Surely it won't land here," Glynis said, shading her eyes against the canal's reflected light. "How can it? We don't have coal gas yet, so it couldn't be reinflated to take off again."

  This seemed reasonable to her, yet Cullen just shook his head, and now there could be little doubt that the balloon, available coal gas or not, was descending. As it came closer, Glynis could pick out, suspended from ropes that hung below the balloon, a large, rattan or wicker basket. Painted on the balloon itself, like a ship of the sky, was the name Enterprise.

  After Cullen's announcement the crowd had quieted, all eyes straining upward, until a voice shouted, "Look! There's somebody in that basket!"

  Glynis felt a twinge of foreboding, then pushed it aside as being too outlandish to consider. She remained uneasy, however, and by the time the deflating balloon had neared the far reach of the canal, she began to think her fear might have been justified.

  She then heard Cullen's quick intake of breath, followed by, "Glynis, it looks as if there are two people in the basket. You don't think one of them could—" He broke off, shaking his head again, but at the same time smiling. A minute later he was laughing. "It's her, all right! I'd know that red hair anywhere."

  "No, it can't be!" But even as Glynis denied it, she spotted, above the rim of the basket, a red-gold blur.

  Just as the now wrinkling balloon seemed to tower above them, the crowd gasped with one voice. The rattan basket had begun to brush the first branches of several lofty elms, swinging erratically with a sickening, bobbing succession of jerks. Then, with a series of sharp, crunching noises, it struck the tree's lower limbs. A piercing cry—and if Bronwen's, it would be anger rather than terror—reached those standing below, and over the side of the basket appeared strands of long red hair whipping like ropes.

  Glynis was barely aware of Cullen's hands gripping her shoulders. With her own hands clenched to her mouth, she watched the balloon swing slowly to one side like a ship listing in high seas, while the wildly lurching basket was dragged through a tangle of lashing branches. Its occupants, if the forked limbs did not impale them first, would surely be thrown out. But no one dropping from that height could possibly survive.

  2

  At an altitude of a mile and a fifth I shot out of the lower westerly current, and entered the great easterly river of the sky.

  —Thaddeus Lowe, 1861

  The rattan basket pitched and bucked, jerking from side to side through the branches and stripping off tender new leaves that rained down like confetti. Its occupants must have been thrown to the basket floor, because all Glynis could see of them were two pairs of hands clamped over the rim. As she craned her neck, trying to catch a glimpse of Bronwen, she vowed that if her niece somehow survived this disaster, she would never be forgiven for taking part in it. The next moment Glynis vowed never again to scold Bronwen, not even for reckless behavior. But what, if not reckless behavior, was this? How could Bronwen have allowed herself to be put in such peril?

  On and on, for what seemed an eternity, the leaves and branches tossed and churned, nearly obscuring a view of the basket. Glynis was certain that at any moment its passengers would plunge to earth, but could not take her eyes from what she could not bear to see.

  All at once she realized that something was striking her face. It was as if she were being pummeled by tiny, stinging drops of hard rain, and everyone around her seemed to be rubbing their eyes.

  "It's sand," Cullen told her, "used as ballast. They're throwing it over the side to gain some altitude."

  And ever so slowly the balloon began to swing upward. The flurry of leaves diminished as the basket appeared to be righting itself, and with one last breathtaking jerk, it broke free of the branches. Then the rapidly deflating balloon, and the basket with ropes now dangling from it, continued the descent, and Glynis felt the grip of Cullen's hands on her shoulders loosen.

  "It's heading for the park!" he shouted to her over the noise of the crowd. Seizing her waist, he lifted her onto the Morgan, swinging up behind her to urge the horse forward. Dazed townsfolk parted before them like a sluggish sea, and then surged after them as the Morgan left Fall Street for a side road and cantered toward the park.

  Glynis, seated sideways and none too firmly on the horse, clutched the black mane and anchored herself against Cullen. She could feel him shaking, and did not need to see his face to know he was laughing, undoubtedly thinking the town hadn't seen this much excitement since the last fire. She couldn't help but wonder again why Bronwen continued to exercise such reckless disregard for her own well-being. Unless, of course, the balloon was her notion of a theatrical arrival. The ultimate deus ex machina.

  Cullen's laughter was all very well, but Glynis didn't know yet whether to laugh or to cry, not until she saw Bronwen in one piece. And if she was whole, Glynis reminded herself, she would never be forgiven.

  Just ahead of them lay the open park and, waving above it, a crinkled billow of pale silk.

  "Please catch the ropes," came a booming voice from the sky. "Hold the ropes, if you please!" It took Glynis a second to realize that the voice was not supernatural in origin, but must be coming through a megaphone.

  When they reached the park's grassy verge, Cullen reined in the Morgan, and Glynis could see his deputies Zeph Waters and Liam Cleary running from the opposite direction. They abruptly stopped short, freezing in place as they watched the balloon basket nearing the ground. At Cullen's yell of "Grab the ropes!" the young men again sprang to life and raced across the grass.

  To Glynis's surprised relief, the basket did not crash on landing but bumped gently only a few times before coming to rest. Some yards beyond, the once huge balloon, now crumpling and wavering like a drunken ghost,
began to collapse with a curious slithering sound.

  She slid from the Morgan's back as Cullen dismounted and tossed her the reins. Immediately he loped toward the balloon, at the same time shouting to the deputies, "Anchor the ropes to the hitching posts, then hold back the crowd! And don't let pipes or cigarettes anywhere near it!"

  Glynis threw the reins over a hitching post, and whirled round in time to see her niece being hoisted to the waist-high rim of the basket by a tall, dark-haired man. Bronwen shook her head while saying something to this man, then swung herself over the rim to stand, rather unsteadily, on the grass.

  Her long coat hung in rumpled folds, her red hair looked as snarled and tangled as the balloon netting, and her face was sunburned, but otherwise she appeared none the worse for her time in the sky. Twigs and leaves flew from her coat as with long strides, her balance clearly restored, she walked briskly toward her aunt. When she neared, Glynis saw the green eyes under the tumbled hair holding their familiar, expectant glitter, as if Bronwen were a magician who had just performed an impossible escape and now awaited applause.

  Glynis, with supreme effort, somehow managed to say only, "You have arrived, I see."

  "It was beyond words, Aunt Glyn! Utterly glorious— well, except for the last part. As Professor Lowe says, it's like riding a great river in the sky."

  "Indeed."

  "You can't imagine what it's like up there." Bronwen's arms stretched skyward. "Everything down here on the ground looks so small... so.... Are you upset?"

  "Whatever gave you that idea?"

  "You're upset! I was afraid you might be." Bronwen sobered and lowered her head in what was evidently supposed to be contrition. The attempt was unsuccessful, because the sobriety quickly dissolved in a grin. And although Glynis struggled against it, she, too, had to smile.

  "Aunt Glynis, you must meet Professor Lowe."

  Glynis looked past Bronwen to see both her aerial comrade and Cullen securing the balloon. And for the second time that day, she could scarcely believe her eyes. The dark-haired man beside Cullen wore an elegant, satin-lapeled Prince Albert coat, and had just donned a tall silk hat.

  "Does ballooning require formal dress?" she asked, before recalling that Bronwen frequently took such comments literally.

  "The professor was at a banquet when word came that the high wind had died. He didn't have time to change, and I couldn't even wire you, we had to take off so quickly!"

  "Take off from where?"

  "West of here," Bronwen said, with a vague wave of her hand. Glynis began to ask the specific location of this launch, but Bronwen interrupted with, "I'll tell you about it later. Now come and meet him."

  Professor Lowe stood a shade taller than Cullen's six feet, and even had he not been in evening clothes would have cut a dashing figure, Glynis thought as she and Bronwen approached him. His sturdy frame surprised her; she would have guessed, after reading the Harper's articles, that an aeronaut needed to be slighter, and to weigh considerably less than this man must. A trim mustache was as thick and black as his hair, the dark blue eyes deeply set under heavy brows. When introduced, Thaddeus Lowe raised his hat and bent slightly over her extended hand. "I hope we didn't worry you too greatly, Miss Tryon. Trees can be troublesome, I grant you, but the balloon is really quite safe."

  Glynis might have argued the point. He had not been riveted to the ground, watching in abject terror, but she refrained, mostly because a quick grin from Cullen told her that she would be wasting her breath.

  "My niece tells me you came from west of here," she said instead to Lowe. "I remember reading that you believe the upper wind currents all flow from west to east, no matter what the weather conditions on the ground. Is that correct?"

  "Absolutely." He seemed delighted that she knew something about this, and in his enthusiasm he fairly glowed. "That's been my hypothesis, and now I feel confident that it's more than just conjecture. It's a fact! I've made enough of these flights to satisfy myself, and to prove it to those in science who have scoffed. That's not to say, however, that a balloon is not influenced by ground winds—" he smiled at Bronwen "—as your niece can tell you."

  Bronwen shot him a peculiar look, Glynis noticed, very much as if she were warning the man of something. Then, possibly aware of her aunt's scrutiny, Bronwen laughed and said, "We were nearly blown off course."

  Lowe nodded. "The lower winds from Lake Erie pushed us to the southeast."

  "People would like a closer look," said Cullen, who had been watching an excited crowd that by now must be made up of half the town, and that his deputies were holding back only by determined effort.

  "They can't do the balloon much harm," Lowe told him. "Not if they can be kept from walking on it."

  Bronwen turned to scan the crowd, then said to Professor Lowe, "My cousin is over there and I'd like to see her. Then we'll find you a place to stay." She turned and walked toward Emma, whom Glynis had just spotted at the far edge of the crush of townspeople.

  At a gesture from Cullen, his deputies came forward with the crowd close on their heels. The men positioned themselves to protect the silk fabric, while the increasingly loud babble of voices drove Glynis to follow Bronwen across the grass.

  Emma stood there as if she had just stepped from a page of Godey's Lady's Book, in a flounced, hoop-skirted dress of rose-colored cambric. Her long, dark brown hair was caught back with pink grosgrain ribbon, and the white velvet parasol she held dripped silken fringe. She accepted her cousin's quick embrace with a faint smile.

  "I'm glad you're here safely, Bronwen, and thank you for coming. That was a most dramatic entrance."

  Glynis smiled, recognizing that Emma, too, had picked up the theatrical element of her cousin's descent into Seneca Falls. But Bronwen threw Glynis a quick glance before she said, "Emma, are you all right?"

  Emma's dark brows raised slightly. "Yes, I'm all right. Why wouldn't I be?"

  "I thought you might be annoyed that I was late getting here."

  Emma shook her head, but didn't answer and seemed preoccupied. Had seemed so, in fact, for several days, and Glynis wondered if it was wedding preparations alone that disturbed her. Or if the recent disagreement with her fiancé, attorney Adam MacAlistair, had escalated rather than been resolved.

  "The party tonight will be at Emma's shop," Glynis told Bronwen, mostly to divert her from questioning her cousin further.

  Emma appeared to pull herself back into the present with some difficulty. "Yes, we've been moving things around all day to accommodate a harp"—Emma gave Glynis an amused look—"under the baton of Vanessa Usher."

  Glynis pressed her lips together to keep from smiling when Bronwen groaned. "I thought Aunt Glyn wrote me," she said to her cousin, "that The Lady Vanessa was hosting your wedding. Or is she, as usual, running the entire show?"

  Emma's smile faded. "Miss Usher is being very generous, and I'm not sure I like my wedding being characterized as a 'show.'"

  "No, of course not—I'm probably still giddy from the thin air. But Emma, why shouldn't Vanessa Usher be generous? She's got more money than Midas, and she could never find clothes like the gorgeous stuff you make for her."

  Glynis watched a storm gather in Emma's gray eyes, as she seemed torn between defending her best customer and accepting her cousin's rather backhanded compliment. But while "gorgeous stuff' was not the most delicate phrasing, it was undistilled Bronwen and Emma should know her cousin by now. Trying to head off discord, Glynis said quickly, "We should probably be going, Bronwen, or there won't be time to dress."

  "I'm afraid I didn't bring much to wear," Bronwen said with a look of untypical chagrin. "I knew the bridesmaids' dresses were being made by you, Emma, and the balloon's basket can't hold much."

  "I've things at the shop that you can wear," Emma offered. "Actually, I've made several gowns for you—and for Cousin Kathryn, too," she added. "We're nearly enough the same size."

  Size, thought Glynis, being the only thing about these two y
oung women that was the same. And Bronwen's older sister Katy—or Kathryn, as she had gently suggested she now be called—was unlike either.

  "Emma, I hope you don't intend to put me in one of those steel-cage hoops," Bronwen said, "or worse yet, a corset!"

  Her cousin's face gave away nothing, but her eyes went beyond Bronwen to where Professor Lowe stood talking and nodding animatedly, surrounded by townspeople who were doubtless asking about his miraculous journey. His height put Glynis in mind of Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

  Emma, with her gaze still on Lowe, commented dryly, "Why don't you ask to borrow the Professor's stylish Prince Albert coat, my dear cousin?"

  "The very thing, Em! I'll ask him."

  "You know, Bronwen," said Emma in the same dry voice, "I have always feared for your sanity." She smiled faintly as she turned and walked toward Fall Street, the fringe on her parasol swaying with every step.

  "Sanity?" Bronwen repeated to Glynis. "Emma used to just call me crazy. Have I been raised in rank, do you think?"

  Glynis was trying not to think of what the next days with these two might bring, and so nearly missed Bronwen's second question.

  "What's the matter with her, Aunt Glyn? Emma's always been on the serious side, but now she looks positively funereal. Like she's readying for a wake instead of a wedding."

  "Emma has a great deal on her mind," Glynis said evasively, although this, as far as it went, was true. "I assume, Bronwen, that you're staying with me at the boarding-house?"

  "Yes, after I find Professor Lowe a room. I'll take him to Carr's Hotel—it can't be full of wedding guests yet, can it?" Not waiting for an answer, she turned to start back across the grass, saying, "I'll see him to Carr's, then I'll come to the house."