"Phoebe, did you have much contact with the girl, Tamar?"
The feather duster fluttered, then hung suspended in the air. The wailing had ceased and Glynis had the woman's riveted attention.
"Her?" Phoebe blurted. "Oh, no! No, you wouldn't catch me near that one!" She sent Glynis a sly look, adding, "She's been cursed, you know."
"I didn't know," Glynis said, cautiously. "Why is that?"
"So's she can't spread her evil talk. Struck dumb, she was, and that's what happens to them who's in bed with the devil."
"I see. When did this take place—the girl being struck dumb?"
"I dunno when. I just know why!"
"How long have you worked here?" Glynis asked.
"Maybe close on a year."
"And the girl never spoke during that time?"
"I told you, she's cursed! I figured that out for myself."
"I'm sure you did," Glynis said, beginning a retreat to the parlor doorway.
"Now she's gone—and you know where?"
Glynis pulled up short. "No, where?"
"To sleep with Satan, that's where! You mark my words, when she's found, she'll be lying with the Lord of Darkness!"
Glynis started to step through the doorway, but paused again when Phoebe said, "And you know what else? Poor Mr. Brant—she killed him! He wouldn't have died, not otherwise."
Her voice caught, and she was applying the handkerchief as Glynis turned slowly and asked, "What makes you think that?"
"Cause that's what evil women do. She put a spell on him to make him die!"
Glynis quickly stepped into the hallway. It was believed by most, she thought, that this superstition had ended more than a century and a half ago with the horrors at Salem. But to those like Phoebe, that women were witches and willing consorts of the devil was still the explanation for the unexplainable.
She leaned back against the doorframe as the sound of renewed sobbing reached her.
13
Her fingers fumbled at her work
Her needle would not go;
What ailed so smart a little Maid
It puzzled me to know.
—Emily Dickinson, circa 1860
Glynis stood outside the parlor until she could regain some balance before approaching the Brants' cook. When she started down the corridor to the kitchen, she heard her name called.
And then called, again. "Miss Tryon?" The voice came from the upstairs.
Glynis turned and went back to the foot of the steps. Above her on the landing, Helga Brant stood leaning on her cane, apparently not as unwell as Konrad had earlier portrayed.
"If you have a moment, Miss Tryon, I should like to speak with you. Will you come upstairs, please?"
"Yes, of course," Glynis said, thinking herself fortunate to have dodged Konrad, an unlikely, bourbon-breathing, knight-errant guarding his mother's drawbridge. Or, perhaps he was more chivalrous than drunk. She had seen him pour out his bourbon, so he might be making an effort not to further distress his mother. Although it might also be that he feared his brother Erich. The word in town was, so Cullen had told her, that Konrad had been expelled from medical school because of his dissolute behavior. A rumor borne out as fact, if Erich's comment the previous night was any indication.
Glynis lifted the hem of her dress before climbing the steep flight of stairs to the landing, where Helga Brant had lowered herself onto a bench built under the stained glass window. A moment later, the white cat sprang from the banister to land on his mistress's lap with the lightness of a snowflake.
After Glynis's covert glance assured her that all doors along the upstairs corridor were closed, she seated herself next to Mrs. Brant.
"What a magnificent window," she said, looking up at the stained glass, composed of pearl-white lilies and red poppies traced against a field of brilliant emerald green. The flower motif obviously extended beyond the parlor. Had perhaps crept into every corner of the house like overgrown ivy, save for Roland Brant's library.
Helga Brant, stroking the cat with a tremulous right hand, while her left grasped the edge of the bench, gazed at the window, saying, "It is magnificent, isn't it. My father had it shipped to me from Munich as a wedding gift. Munich, in Bavaria," she added. "Naturally he knew how much I love flowers."
And yet she had no garden, Glynis thought with sadness. She made herself smile in response to the comment, hoping the woman's usual restraint would lift to reveal something more about herself. "Did you grow up in Bavaria, Mrs. Brant?" she asked.
There was more than a touch of sorrow in the woman's voice, when she nodded and said, "It was so long ago, my growing up. My mother, too, loved flowers, Miss Tryon. For some time, my father employed five full-time gardeners, and Mother kept them busy every minute. There were so many roses that their scent carried throughout the region where we lived. Oh, we had splendid large gardens then, known for miles around. It was as if we lived in a park."
Her father must have had considerable wealth, Glynis assumed. But she shouldn't try to make assessments now. There would be time later to comb through this information.
"As you may have noticed," Mrs. Brant was saying, "there are no gardens here. My husband did not like flowers."
She said it in such a way, her voice tight with emotion, that Glynis could not find the right words to respond. Even if Roland Brant had not liked flowers, would it have been such a hardship to allow his wife something she cared for so much? It was a side to the man Glynis would not have expected.
She was spared a response, for Mrs. Brant said, "Enough of the past. I asked to speak with you, Miss Tryon, because I want to know if there has been any word of the kitchen maid. Has she been found?"
"I'm afraid not. Not yet, but Constable Stuart has men searching for her. Mrs. Brant, do you have any idea where the girl might have gone?"
"None at all. I have asked myself that repeatedly, but I cannot think of any place. I am quite fearful for her safety. As I believe Clements told you, she does not speak."
"Yes, he told me. But she wasn't always mute, was she?" Glynis didn't want to reveal to the woman what had been Elise and Derek Jager's reaction to this question, but she wasn't sure why. She had learned, however, that with this sort of thing she should trust her instincts.
Helga Brant was staring up at the window when she said. "No, the girl wasn't always mute."
"When did she stop talking, do you know?"
"Well over a year ago, as I recall."
"Did there seem to be any reason? By that I mean did something happen that might have caused it?"
Helga Brant gave her a quick sideways look. "Such as what, Miss Tryon?"
"For instance, had she been ill? Did she have the measles or the pox?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Although, there was the incident of..." Helga Brant's voice trailed off, and she seemed reluctant to say more.
"Mrs. Brant," Glynis urged, "anything you can tell us about the girl could be of some help."
"Well, she did love animals," the woman said with some hesitation. "I recall one time, when the maid Phoebe was ill and the girl had to clean the bedrooms—which she had never done before—she became distraught when she found Konrad's butterfly collection. And then, the day my husband had to shoot a horse that became lame, the girl was inconsolable."
"Was that close to the time she stopped talking?"
But Helga Brant's face had suddenly blanched, and beads of perspiration formed on her upper lip. She put a hand to her throat, saying, "I can't remember, Miss Tryon."
"Are you feeling ill?" Glynis asked, alarmed by the abrupt change in the woman.
"No. No, I'm quite well, but I am rather tired. If you will excuse me, I believe I must say good day to you."
Glynis rose and started to ask if she could help Mrs. Brant to her room, but the woman was already rising with the aid of her cane. And Glynis sensed she would be embarrassed, or even offended by an offer of assistance. Meanwhile, the white cat, having jumped to the floor, strea
ked off as if pursued by the hounds of hell.
Mrs. Brant took a few unsteady steps to the stair railing and pulled on the bell cord there. A moment later a door along the upstairs corridor opened and Konrad Brant looked out, just as Clements came running up the steps, taking them two at a time, belying his apparent age.
"Mother," Konrad said anxiously, "are you having another spell?"
"I am just fatigued," she said, her voice more firm than frail. She turned and said, "I trust you will let me know, Miss Tryon, when the girl is found?"
She looked as if she expected an answer, but before Glynis could do more than nod, Konrad intervened. He took one of his mother's arms and motioned for Clements to take the other, and with Helga Brant between them, they led her to a nearby door. When Konrad opened it, Glynis had a brief glimpse of a rose-colored bedroom, which looked as cluttered with furniture as the parlor. Then Konrad closed the door behind them.
Glynis was standing at the top of the stairs, reflecting on what might have caused Mrs. Brant's sudden malaise, when Konrad emerged from the room. He seemed surprised to find her still there. "Mother is resting comfortably now, Miss Tryon. And I'm sure you're wanted downstairs."
Meaning she was not wanted upstairs.
"I hope your mother is all right, Mr. Brant."
Konrad smiled and nodded, obviously waiting for Glynis to leave.
As she descended the stairs, it occurred to her that the steps might be difficult for Mrs. Brant. She would probably require assistance, which, if no one were there to help, could keep her a virtual prisoner in the upstairs bedroom. But then, Konrad and Clements appeared to be highly solicitous of her. And Clements also seemed to be omnipresent.
The smell of freshly baked bread and roasting chicken met Glynis before she entered the large kitchen, two of whose windows looked out onto the same grassy track as did that of the music room.
"I'm Glynis Tryon," she said to a wiry Negro woman of middle age, who was standing at a table and rolling dough with practiced motions. "Are you Addie?"
"Yes'm," came the reply. The woman barely glanced at Glynis from large hooded eyes in a square face the color of cherry wood. Her sinewy arms were dusted with flour, and she wiped her hands several times on her long, cotton apron. It was rare to see a cook so thin, Glynis thought, although she recognized the woman.
"I know your cousin Isaiah Smith," Glynis said to her. "His wife Lacey is my niece's assistant at EMMA'S dress shop. And I think I've seen you in town at the Fourth of July picnics."
Addie gave Glynis a longer look, and nodded, then picked up two thinly rolled circles of dough and draped them over the pie plates. As she lightly pressed the dough into place, Glynis said, "Constable Stuart is asking everyone in the household about Roland Brant's death, and I offered to talk to you. Would you mind answering some questions?"
"Don't s'pect I have a choice." Addie turned to the far end of the table to throw several handfuls of flour into an immense bowl filled with pieces of cut rhubarb steeping in sugar, then tossed the mixture with a long-handled wooden spoon. "I got to get these pies done, though."
Glynis went to the table in the center of the room. "May I sit here?" she asked, motioning to a high wooden stool.
The woman brought the bowl closer to the pie plates, and with raised eyebrows said, "Nobody ever asked leave to sit in this kitchen before. Go ahead."
"Addie, were you here in the house Sunday night?" Glynis asked, perching herself on the stool.
"I was home. Never sleep over here 'less there's a big doin' early the next day," Addie answered, spooning the rhubarb mixture into the pastry-lined pie plates. Glynis felt her mouth pucker even as Addie poured in more sugar, then sprinkled a half cup of raisins over the top of each filling. "Where is home?" she asked.
The woman's glance said she thought this was no one's business but her own. She answered, however, "Same road as Isaiah and Lacey, but down a piece from them." She gave Glynis another hooded look, before she added, "You can ask them, Lacey and Isaiah, about that, 'cause I stopped there on my way home Sunday. Don't like working on the Sabbath, but I got to keep my job."
"Do you remember what time it was when you left here?"
"Not exactly, I don't. It was before dark, though."
"Were all the family members in the house at that point?"
"Missy, I don't know where the family members were. I stay in here, they stay out there. I like it that way." She spoke the last sentence slowly, as if Glynis should take particular note of her preference. She began rolling out dough for the top crusts.
"I apologize for intruding," Glynis said with a sigh, "but I'm afraid this has to be done. Surely you want to see the one who killed Mr. Brant brought to justice."
The rolling pin paused as the woman looked directly at Glynis, her expression impossible to interpret. Glynis waited to see if Addie would comment, but she only looked down again and continued to roll out the dough.
"How long have you worked here?" Glynis asked, wanting to leave the unfriendly kitchen, the brooding house, and the peculiar Brant cadre altogether.
" 'Bout a year and a half," Addie replied, taking a knife from a drawer and beginning to cut off strips of dough to form latticed crusts.
"So the girl Tamar had already been working here for some time when you came?"
Addie shrugged. "Guess so."
"Well, was she here, or not, Addie?" Glynis said, trying to keep impatience out of her voice and aware she was not succeeding.
"She was here."
"What did you think of her? Did you like her?"
"Didn't think of her at all. She was just a kitchen maid, not worth thinking about. No more'n these nosy questions of yours."
Glynis slid off the stool and went to stand across the table from the woman. "I've apologized for intruding, but whether you consider them worthy or not, Addie, these questions have to be answered. You have a choice, you know. You can talk to me now, or Constable Stuart can make you go to his office at the lockup to answer them. Frankly, I think you have too much dignity to want to do that. But it's up to you."
In return for what she knew was an ill-advised outburst, Glynis was forced to stand and wait while the woman began laying the strips of dough in a crisscross pattern across the rhubarb filling. When Addie had finished one pie and started on the other, she finally relented. "So what else you want to know?"
"What was the girl Tamar like. For instance, did she talk to you?"
"Didn't talk to no one."
"Did you ever hear her say anything? Anything at all?"
The floury hands stopped moving, and it seemed the woman was about to answer, but she pressed her lips together and said nothing.
"Do I understand," Glynis persisted, "that you never heard the girl make a single sound?"
Addie shook her head, the flour dust flying. "Didn't say that. You asked about talking, not about making sounds. I heard her cry a couple times."
"When?"
"Mornings, sometimes, she'd be crying when I came in. But she always stopped, soon as I told her to do something."
"So she wasn't a girl who wept often?"
"I wouldn't say she was weepy, no." Addie picked up a pie and with the knife began trimming away the excess dough of the crust, twirling the plate on her upturned fingers like a circus juggler.
"What reason did you think Tamar had for crying?" Glynis asked, watching the pieces of trimmed dough falling away with Addie's deft strokes.
"Told you, I didn't think."
The second pie was undergoing the knife when Glynis ventured, "I suppose anyone in the house would have access to those knives in the drawer. Or are you, as you indicated earlier, the only one—the only one other than Tamar—who is allowed here in the kitchen?"
Addie quickly set down the pie and looked at Glynis with a startled expression. "No. Anybody could come in here and get a knife," she hastily replied.
"Anybody, including the girl Tamar?"
Again, Addie seemed about to say
something, and stopped herself. Instead she simply nodded.
"I'd like to hear what you were about to say, Addie. If there's something Constable Stuart should know—"
"She took a knife," Addie broke in. "The girl, she pinched a carving knife a couple days ago. She thought I wasn't watching, but I saw her take it to her room."
"Did you tell her that you'd seen her take the knife?"
"Why should I tell her? She must have needed it for...for something."
"For what?"
"I don't know."
"Addie—"
"I told you I don't know! Maybe to protect herself or something!" Addie had begun to look alarmed.
Since that would get them nowhere, Glynis changed course. "Why don't you show me Tamar's room?" she said, hope of the girl's innocence fading.
Addie nodded at this request with surprising cooperation—perhaps relieved that she was not to take the sole brunt of suspicion—and led Glynis to a small room across from the kitchen.
The room seemed to contain little that would tell much about the girl: a rough commode cabinet, a blanketed mattress on an immaculately clean, bare wood floor, and several hooks on the door, from which hung a nightdress and wool sweater, a towel and washcloth. High up in the wall, a small amount of gray light struggled through a square of grimy window glass.
Glynis went to the cabinet and opened its door to find an unused chamber pot. The one drawer held a pair of cotton stockings, several undergarments, and two carefully folded cotton dresses, all clean and neatly mended. On top of the cabinet sat a half-melted candle in a crude, sheet metal holder, a small Bible, a hairbrush, and the wood carving of a butterfly with its wings spread in flight. Flight like the girl's, Glynis thought. But where had she flown?
She recalled then what Helga Brant had said about her son's butterfly collection, and Tamar's reaction to it, but could see no link between that and this carving. Other than Tamar's apparent fondness for butterflies. Glynis started to push the drawer closed and felt it catch as if something were jamming it. She ran her fingers along the back of the drawer until they encountered an object, and she pulled out a slim volume of poetry. With a librarian's eye she saw that the book was well thumbed even though the title page indicated a fairly recent printing date. A handwritten inscription on the flyleaf read: For yon far and silent maid."
Must the Maiden Die Page 14