Must the Maiden Die

by Miriam Grace Monfredo

  The signature was a scrawl, impossible to decipher except for the unique lettering of a B. It was like the one monogramed on the gold belt buckle of every male Brant Glynis had encountered. She balanced the spine of the book on her palm, letting the pages fall open to those likely to have been most often read. It wasn't an infallible system, but it was the best available.

  The poem was Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the pages opened to the first canto, and Glynis saw faint pencil markings under several lines: Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare. / And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair.

  What an odd passage to be singled out, Glynis puzzled. To her the meaning of the lines conveyed a scorn for those young women who were blinded by some men's wealth, thus casting aside others more deserving. But the maiden Tamar did not seem to have profited, if she had indeed been attracted to wealth like a moth to light. It didn't fit.

  Unless the passage had meant something quite different to the reader who had wielded the pencil. Who might not have been Tamar at all, but the giver of the book. The girl's mother? No, wrong initial. One of the Brants? Konrad seemed the most obvious, although his brother or father, or even his mother, might have suggested to Tamar that here was a lesson to be learned. But would any of them take such pains with someone all seemed to think of as just a kitchen maid?

  As she put the book back into the drawer, Glynis considered the likelihood that what she had taken to be a carved butterfly could, instead, be a moth.

  Noticing that Addie had left her, having probably gone back to reclaim her kitchen, Glynis went to look again at the muslin nightdress. On closer examination, it appeared to be a new garment, edged in lace and possibly never worn, as out of place in this austere room as the gaudy rose paperweight had been in Roland Brant's library. The paperweight—strange that it should come to mind, Glynis thought, trying to recall if she had seen it today amidst the clutter on his library desk. She didn't think so, but could look again before she and Cullen left.

  She stood in the doorway to take one last survey of the room, and her gaze fell on the Bible. She went to pick it up, again letting the book fall open: Lamentations. This certainly seemed more appropriate to an indentured servant girl than Byron's footloose pilgrim.

  So what more did she now know of the girl? mused Glynis, as she closed the door of the room behind her and started again for the kitchen. The first thing that she, or any librarian, would note was that Tamar presumably could read. While the Bible was in plain view, possibly placed there by someone who felt she should have it, whether or not she could read it, the volume of poetry appeared to have been purposely concealed. The girl was neat and obviously clean, as the wood floor looked to have been well scrubbed. The window, though, was dirty, which might mean only that the girl was not tall enough to reach it. Tamar had very few clothes, unless they were kept somewhere else, which seemed improbable. She had nothing in the way of unessential personal belongings except the carving and the book of poetry. And while Glynis might consider poetry to be an essential, undoubtedly few else would.

  When she stepped into the kitchen, Addie was taking a glazed, roasted chicken from the stove, and she greeted Glynis's return with a look of stoic resignation. The smell of the chicken and roasted potatoes made Glynis yearn for Harriet Peartree's homey kitchen.

  "Addie, when did you last see Tamar?"

  "Don't remember exactly."

  "Try."

  There was a pause as Addie closed the stove door. "After Sunday supper. When I left, the girl was in here washing dishes."

  "Can you think of any reason that Tamar would want to harm Mr. Brant?"

  Addie gave her a long look, then turned away and began to scrape flour and dough from the table top. Glynis again had a feeling the woman had been about to say something but bridled herself.

  "This is very important, Addie," she coaxed. "I give you my word that whatever you say to me will not be repeated to your employers. If you're worried about that."

  Addie whirled round to say, " 'Course I'm worried about that! I need this job, Missy. Got three young 'uns and no man to help. You think I'm goin' to open my mouth about what goes on around here? And I sure got no reason to trust your word."

  Glynis shook her head. "No, I guess not," she sighed, "and I can understand that. It's just that everything seems to point to this girl as being Roland Brant's murderer. But if she wanted to rob his safe she had plenty of opportunity to do it when he wasn't around. And there appears to be no other motive for her to kill him."

  Addie stood there staring up at the ceiling for some length of time, and Glynis began to wonder what was overhead. Surely the upstairs bedrooms.

  Unexpectedly, Addie offered, "Things, they aren't always what they look like, Missy. Houses large as this one can hide a lot."

  Glynis leaned over the table toward her. "What kind of things, Addie?"

  "That's all I'm goin' to say! That's all!"

  From her determined look, Glynis believed it. But obviously Addie knew something she was reluctant, or afraid, to voice.

  From the corner of her eye, Glynis caught a sudden shift of light and she turned toward the windows. The rain had stopped, the sky had begun to clear, and from a lowering sun the kitchen was becoming suffused with an amber glow.

  A squeal of metal hinges made her turn back to see that Addie had opened the stove and was inserting her fist inside it. She held it there for a short time, and then yanked it out. "Hot enough," she pronounced, placing her pies on a rack. Then she closed the door with a clang, looked directly at Glynis and, emphasizing each word, said, "The men in this house have big appetites."

  Addie turned on her heel and walked quickly out of the kitchen.

  Glynis, stunned into silence, stared after the woman, while a flurry of thoughts crowded her mind, along with the unpleasant sensation of something crawling up and down her spine.

  Addie couldn't have intended what she'd said to come across as it did, she told herself. Glynis almost dismissed it before remembering Phoebe's remark about Tamar being in bed with the devil. Because the woman was unstable, Glynis's first reaction had been that the maid was simply jealous of Tamar's prettiness and the extra attention it might have brought the girl. But perhaps in that disturbed mind there was a twisted strand of truth.

  No; it couldn't be, Glynis told herself. This speculation was just her imagination fueling what had to be a particularly dreadful possibility. Still, what if Roland Brant had caught one of his sons molesting the girl in her room? And in appalled rage, had attacked his son, only to be felled himself. His library was next to Tamar's room, and it would have been a simple matter for either Erich or Konrad to drag his body in there. The floor of the girl's room had been immaculate, but the blood could have been scrubbed away, which would explain why there was so little of it in Brant's library.

  And Tamar, if she witnessed the murder, could have run away because she was terrified she would be next.

  No, Glynis again told herself. Her speculation rested on nothing solid. Addie had been referring to her pies. And about them feeding hungry, craving, desiring ...the synonyms for appetite rushed through her head. The plague of a librarian who read too much! Could she be as fixated with young females led astray as was her assistant Jonathan? When the lurid dustcover of A Lady in Distress rose before her, Glynis shook off the image with disgust.

  If she were to suggest this to Cullen... She couldn't suggest this to Cullen. She turned again to look through the window, if only to free her mind of thoughts that clung with the tenacity of leeches.

  The sun was throwing light over the grassy track and she saw again, more distinctly now, the stable boy and the horse with a white wrapping around its.... A dapple gray horse!

  She rushed out of the kitchen to find Cullen. The shadows clouding her memory had all at once cleared. A cloaked girl on a galloping, dapple gray horse had passed Glynis on her last trek to the rail station to meet the afternoon train. She had probably seen Tamar in
town on occasion, which is why the girl's frightened, pale face had looked vaguely familiar—and why Elise Jager a short time later had also looked familiar. Yet the gray horse was here, its foreleg injured in some way. Had it found its way back alone? If so, what had become of its rider?

  Glynis remembered the girl had been heading north. North, toward the vast swampland of the Montezuma Marsh.

  14

  They have heard that I sigh;

  there is none to comfort me.

  —Book of Lamentations

  The girl sat on the end of a fallen birch log some yards from the cabin. On the ground beside her lay the sheepherding dog, his white-frosted chin resting on the toe of her boot. Although the dog looked asleep, every so often his ears twitched and his muzzle rose, his black nose searching the moisture-laden air. Then the girl would put down the fish she was cleaning and look toward the water.

  She stroked the dog's head as she glanced west toward the dipping sun. The earlier rain had stopped, and the clouds slowly drifted away, leaving wide patches of blue, the color so clear and clean the sky looked as if it had been scoured. Overhead, a large crow came into view, circling once before it swooped down to perch on the woodpile near the cabin. As the crow landed, the dog's nose quivered; otherwise he didn't move. But the girl found the friendliness of the big, chunky bird to be a wondrous thing. She reached into her pocket, as she had done a number of times that day, and held out a handful of corn kernels.

  The first time the crow had come, she had been sweeping the cabin floor with rushes bundled together with twine. There was nothing else for her to do, not while it was so wet outside. The crow had suddenly appeared, hopping into the doorway on its spindly legs, just beyond where she was standing. It cocked its head to fix her with a dark glinting eye, its look saying: Do something. When she did nothing but stare back at it, wondering why the dog was not chasing it, was not even barking, the crow sidled up to the barrel placed under a porch-like overhang outside the doorway. It looked at her again as if waiting for something.

  At last, with noisy flapping wings, the crow hopped up onto the barrel. It perched there, and began pecking at the barrel's closed lid with its stout black bill, all the while making harsh cawing sounds. When she took a few steps forward, the crow flapped to the ground and again stood as if waiting. The girl lifted the lid and found the barrel more than half-filled with dried corn. She scooped up some kernels to scatter on the ground, but since the bird seemed so fearless, she slowly bent down and opened her hand.

  The crow, with no hesitation, hopped forward to pick each kernel from her palm. When her hand was empty, the bird lifted on its shining wings and was gone. But it came back again and again. The man Gerard must have fed the crow, she had thought, else how could it have known where the corn was stored, and have been so trusting as to eat from her hand? And the dog had paid the bird no mind, because he must have come to expect it.

  Now, after the crow had spread its wedge-shaped tail and iridescent purple-black wings to again take to the sky, the girl picked up the tin cup of spicy, boiled sassafras tea she had made from dried bark. She had found the bark stored in a jar on a shelf in the cabin, along with clusters of arrow leaf tubers that grew at the edge of marshlands. After she had fried the tubers over the man Gerard's fire pit, she had covered them with the lid of a tin pot to smother the smell—the potato-like smell that made her think of the kitchen where she had worked. The kitchen and the room across from it where she had slept. The thoughts brought back the half-formed memory of a knife's bone handle held in shadowy darkness. Was it from the knife blade that the blood on her hands had come?

  She shook her head, trying to remove the memory. The dog stared up at her; then, as if he knew she was afraid, scrambled to his feet to put his muzzle in her lap. When she bent down to press her forehead against his, she wished that she could tell the dog how grateful she was for his nearness and for the watch he kept. He could not guard against memories, but there were other dangers.

  Sometime earlier, when the rain had first begun to slack some, she had left the cabin and dug mud worms to bait the hook of a fishing pole she found propped against a cabin wall. Then she had carried the pole and a tin pail to the edge of the marsh. In a short time she had hooked a dozen small bluegills. On the way back to the cabin, the dog suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.

  The ruff on his neck rose. She heard a faint buzzing sound, but before she could see what was making it, the dog jumped in front of her and, barking sharply, began lunging at something in the marsh weeds. A moment later a rattlesnake, big around as her ankle, slithered off into the tall grasses. The dog chased it a short distance. When he must have judged the snake to be no further threat, he came trotting back to her with his feathered tail switching back and forth.

  She had knelt down to bury her face in his ruff, wanting to tell him what a fine dog he was, but the words would not come out. They could not get past her throat that felt as if it were packed with moist wool. The feeling had been there for a long time. She knew it was there so that she would not speak.

  Never talk of this. Never speak of it, or great harm will come to you.

  She had wrapped her arms tightly around herself, trying to shut out the voice. Never talk... never speak. ..

  Now the dog gave a high-pitched bark and went dashing to the water's edge, his tail sweeping behind him like wind that made the tall grass flatten. A canoe had appeared, making its way across silver-streaked water toward the girl and the dog.

  The man Gerard pulled the canoe up on land and stowed the paddle, and all the while the dog jumped around him, barking joyously. The girl, standing apart from them, watched as the man stopped to stroke the dog's head, saying, "Yes, Keeper, I'm back now. It's all right, boy."

  She thought she should try not to fear this man. He had not hurt her when he could have. He had helped her when he didn't have to. Not all men were dangerous, she knew that. One man had already taught her that some men did not have to be feared. And this man Gerard, who treated his dog with respect and taught a wild bird to trust him, might be safe for her to trust.

  But when he came toward her, a newspaper tucked under his arm, she took a step back. He stopped, and said, "Were you all right here?"

  His eyes did not look fierce now, but he wore an expression that she did not understand. He stood very still, looking at her, and she saw something sorrowful come into his face. It made her less afraid. And he said again, "Were you all right?"

  She would try to trust him. She looked at the dog, and then she nodded.

  He nodded back at her, then sniffed the air and turned toward the fire pit. "Something smells good. The arrow leaf tubers—did you cook them?"

  She pointed at the covered pan beside the pail of cleaned bluegills ready to be fried.

  "You waited for me to come back?" he asked. "Haven't you eaten anything at all?"

  She went to the corn barrel, lifted the lid, and pointed to the sky. And then he smiled at her. His smile made her feel like the crow must when it lifted on its shining wings, and she wanted to trust Gerard.

  "So Crow was here," he said, still smiling. "The little beggar. But I hope you had more to eat than dried corn."

  She went to the fire pit, and with a stick of green wood she stirred the coals until they glowed. The fish would fry quickly.

  ***

  They ate sitting on the birch log, now and then feeding pieces of fish to Keeper, and tossing kernels of corn to keep Crow at bay. When they had finished, Gerard said to her, "I found out some things in Seneca Falls today. Your name is Tamar, isn't it? Tamar Jager."

  She inched farther away from him.

  "Why does that upset you—my knowing your name?"

  She wasn't sure she knew why.

  "The newspaper says that you were indentured to the Brant family—the Roland Brant family. Is that true?"

  She started to get up from the log, but he reached out and took gentle hold of her arm. "You don't have to be frightened of me,
" he said. "You know that, don't you?" He let go of her arm then.

  She thought about the dog and the crow, and she sat down.

  "The paper says that the Seneca Falls constable is searching for you. Did you know that?"

  She looked at him and shook her head, reaching for the paper. He held it away from her, saying, "You can read?"

  When she nodded, he said, "You'll have the paper in a minute. But first, I want to ask you something. And no matter what you answer, it will be all right, just as long as it's true. I need the truth, so I can help you. Do you understand?"

  What truth did he need and why should he help her? But she nodded at him, so he would know she understood about telling the truth. It seemed important to him, so she looked straight at him and nodded again.

  He watched her closely as he said, "The night before last, someone killed Roland Brant. I need to know if it was you who did it."

  The ground under her feet suddenly seemed to be churning, throwing up small black specks that swam before her eyes, and the moist wool in her throat was growing so big that she couldn't breathe. Her fingers clawed at the log she sat on, and she started to fall forward.

  Gerard caught her shoulders and pulled her back onto the log. After that he got into a crouch in front of her. "Tamar, I don't care if you killed Brant. I just wanted the truth. But you didn't even know he was dead, did you?"

  Shaking her head back and forth, her hair whipping across his face, she grabbed her throat with both hands, pulling at her skin so there would be room for air.