Cordelia Underwood, or the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  “The same. A bother to all order and government! He’s held up the chest till next of kin come to sign for it.” The man finished off his second glass of wine, then placed it carefully upon a doily on the table beside him.

  “You were there, then, when my brother died,” said James.

  “Aye, and I dug his grave.”

  “His partner’s letter said that it was yellow fever.”

  The fellow nodded.

  “Mr. Stimply, I think you have been a great service to my brother, both before and after his death. If there is anything I can do to ‒”

  The sailor stood then, before James could finish. “Charles Stimply,” he said, “was falsely accused of a grave crime before the mast, and only Captain Basil Underwood cared enough to find the truth of the matter. If not for your brother, sir, I would have been hanged from the yardarm, ten years ago, day after tomorrow. It’s a pleasure to meet you. He did speak often, and fondly.”

  The Underwoods rose as one when the sailor moved toward the hall. “You’re not leaving so soon, Mr. Stimply?” asked the mother.

  “Well . . .” said the man. He turned and looked at each of them carefully. “Yes, I am. Sail tomorrow. The Merlin,” he added, to answer the next obvious question, “for Liverpool.”

  “Godspeed, Mr. Stimply,” said James, shaking the sailor’s hand. “And thank you.”

  “And for your hospitality. Ladies.”

  James held the door while Mr. Stimply stepped past it and into the darkness beyond. They could see his silhouette when he reached the street. He paused there for a moment, then disappeared in the direction of the harbor.

  In the parlor once again, the Underwoods were silent while they considered this brief apparition. Though not so greatly troubled by this news of an uncle who had been more real in her imagination than in life, Cordelia was yet aware of her father’s feelings toward his younger brother—the two had been close in their youth—and she was concerned to know how this unexpected remembrance affected him.

  “It’s a shame that Mr. Stimply couldn’t have stayed,” said Mercia. She touched her husband’s arm, and he took a breath, as if suddenly waking up.

  “Yes,” he answered, though it wasn’t clear that he had heard her.

  “Shall I have one of the boys at Mr. Spurling’s drive me down to the Custom House tomorrow morning?” asked Cordelia. “To get Uncle Basil’s sea chest?”

  “Not at all, dear. I can drive down,” replied her father, retrieving more of his natural animation as he spoke. “You can come with me, if you like.” He turned to his wife. “Mercia?”

  “Let’s all go,” replied Mrs. Underwood.

  There was something cheery in the thought, the momentary gloom dispelled by the prospect of an outing. Curiosity played a part, as well, in the sudden change of mood. There was an image in Mr. Stimply’s story—Basil rising from a fever to direct the packing of his sea chest, the gnarled seaman respectfully following his instructions—that radiated with a dramatic charm as much as it hurt with its sense of pathos. How would a man, sure of his immediate destination, pack luggage that could not travel with him? Would he store away remembrances of himself, or forward his own remembrance of those he loved?

  Sitting on the edge of her bed that night, her keepsake box opened beside her, Cordelia searched through moments of her childhood, collected in the form of simple jewelry, bits of ribbon, a tiny New Testament, and a seemingly out-of-place slingshot. She took from the box an oval brooch that held a delicate cameo.

  She traced a finger over the mountain that was etched into the small piece of agate. There was a lake at the foot of the mountain, and trees—pine trees—she thought—in the foreground of the scene. She touched the stone with the back of her finger, then laid it against her cheek, where it felt cool, like water. Uncle Basil had given the cameo to her on her seventh birthday; she had been quite grateful for what she considered to be her first piece of grown-up jewelry.

  She remembered seeing Uncle Basil only a few times during her childhood, but it had always been plain that he enjoyed his niece and nephews. “Have you been to the Marquesas?” asked her brother Brendan during Uncle Basil’s last visit, some twelve years ago, when Cordelia was eleven years old.

  “Yes,” answered Uncle Basil. It was a crisp autumn evening, and a fire snapped on the parlor’s hearth. Uncle Basil crossed his legs. There was something elegant about him—his dress, his movements. “With Captain Hartung,” he added, “in ‘72. We stopped at one of the islands for water.”

  “Did you see cannibals there?” pursued Brendan.

  “I saw natives. I didn’t inquire about their eating habits. They seemed civilized enough, in their own way.”

  “Were their teeth filed?”

  “I’m sure your sister isn’t interested in such things,” said Uncle Basil, which showed how little he knew about eleven-year-old girls. Cordelia, with some presence of mind, excused herself from the parlor, then asked her brother about the Polynesian cannibals when Uncle Basil was not within hearing. Looking back on it, she was sure that Brendan had embellished the tale.

  Papa had taken the news of his brother’s death with an outward calm that did not deceive his daughter. Neither of her brothers was home at the time, and she had felt the weight of silence as if she had borne it alone. Mama said little, but spent a large portion of several days with her husband in their room. It wasn’t till after the memorial service that Papa began to seem like his old self. He wore a black armband till the first anniversary of Basil’s death.

  Sitting on her bed now, Cordelia gazed at, only half-seeing, the brooch: the mountain and the trees in white, the sky and the lake in blue.

  “Uncle Basil,” she said to the brooch, quietly aloud.

  The clock in the kitchen struck midnight, and she had not yet heard her father climb the stairs.

  BOOK ONEJULY 2, 1896

  1 The Custom House Wharf

  PORTLAND’S CUSTOM HOUSE WHARF WAS A PLACE OF STEADY COMMOTION in the worst of weather; but on such a day as the 2nd of July, 1896—when the sun was strong enough to warrant a parasol for strolling ladies, and the sea breeze brisk enough to suggest a shawl—sightseers and ship spotters, brightly dressed sweethearts and gallant beaus, sailors, shore men, lads, swags, and lollygaggers made of the great quay a swarm of movement and sound.

  It was a quiet place when Nathaniel Pue, customs inspector, arrived at six in the morning. There was little traffic on the wharf before the Custom House opened—the odd thoughtful man on his early-morning constitutional, the occasional sailor nursing the effects of the previous night’s revel, an indigent curled upon one of the wharf-benches. (One cold spring morning, Inspector Pue had discovered a man frozen to death there.)

  In warm weather, Pue often saw the idle and unrepentant Horace McQuinn leaning with his short, bony frame against a piling. Horace would turn, slowly—with mock severity—and simply raise his hand in the air. Nathaniel would wave back, oddly gratified by Horace’s notice. From his office in the Custom House he could watch Horace watch the ships at anchor; but as the morning proceeded, Horace would be swallowed up by the great crowds, and similarly swept from the inspector’s mind during the business-filled day.

  Most who knew Horace McQuinn did not realize that he had worked in his younger days. There was a sense of idleness about the man, a humor toward the labor of others that characterized him as a lifetime loafer. He could stand for an hour without shifting his feet, or drawl a long tale—filling his listeners with belly laughs or their hearts with horror—while never raising his voice above the level of confidential speech. Even his one-handed pipe filling gave the impression of a man who moved no more than he had to.

  Horace McQuinn had driven logs on the Kennebec; he had sailed before the mast, and for several years driven a coach from Bath to Rockland along the old King’s Highway. Horace McQuinn had worked in his youth—he just hadn’t liked it much. Now—gray-haired, weathered of face, his fingers yellow with smoke—he q
uite preferred the labor of others.

  To be fair, Horace sympathized with those fellow creatures who passed him with a heavy burden. “Don’t be straining yourself, now,” was his most common form of advice, and he delivered it with immeasurable concern. There were times, indeed, when he would go so far as to offer the services of any particular gentleman or sailor who might be standing nearby.

  At Horace’s elbow this morning—while the traffic on the quay increased—was the untidy figure of a man in rumpled clothes, whose hair stood in a cowlick at the crown of his head, and whose expression never changed from that of the utmost astonishment. Mouth open, eyes wide, Maven Flyce was nearly thirty years old, appeared thirteen (for the look of wonder on his face), and reacted to the entire world as if he had just been born.

  “Gory, Hod!” he piped. “It sure is a choice morning!”

  There was a ladder several feet away that reached to low tide, and Horace, leaning against his favorite piling, was gazing down the ladder’s length, idly considering the shadow of a nearby boat, fractured on the surface of the water. He lifted his head to consider the truth of Maven’s statement. Certainly the day was fine enough to draw the crowds that were his principal form of entertainment. The sun was warm on the back of his neck, and the southerly breeze was fresh in his face. “It will do,” he said.

  A stern-faced matron trundled past, and something haughtily unforgiving in her glance caused Horace to shiver slightly. Maven, who had no hat to tip or touch, inclined his head and raised a hand to an imaginary brim. The woman recoiled slightly, as if unsure of his meaning, and threw a dark frown in his direction. Maven made a sound like a frightened hiccough. With her own noise of dismissal the woman continued down the wharf. Twice she looked back, sure that she had been insulted somehow, and each time Maven let out a small sound of astonishment.

  “So help me, Horace!” said Maven. “What was that?”

  “Her expression did have a certain tone of voice,” said Horace. He snickered quietly and, after a moment, declaimed the following:

  Among his many unheralded talents, Horace possessed a gift for verse, though he was never a poet on demand. His rhymes seemed to form from thin air, find expression through his voice, and return to the ether unhindered by art and unrecorded for posterity.

  “Honestly!” exclaimed Maven. Movement and sound on the wharf increased with every minute. Sometimes Horace would laugh without explanation, and Maven, amazed, would search the crowd for something amusing; finding nothing, he would shake his head in honest wonderment and return his attention to the few swift clouds above, or the water lapping against the pilings below, or a particularly pretty face passing by.

  A man sauntered through the press and approached Horace with a knowing smile. He would have been well-dressed if he had ever thought to wash his clothes. His teeth were a misfortune, his hair was matted beneath a dusty hat, and his face was dirty. But if he was dirty, his smile—somehow—was dirtier still. There was something beneath that smile, a hint of almost sinister potential. Horace himself was no model of public virtue, but standing next to this fellow he looked like a social aristocrat.

  A barque with the name Follow Me at its bow lay at anchor several lengths out from the wharf, and Horace was watching as a boat was lowered from her near side. An inner sense must have told him of the newcomer’s steady gaze, however, for he turned and looked the man in the eye, undisturbed by that distorted smile. “Adam,” said Horace, with his own sly grin.

  The man jingled something in his pockets. “There is an old fellow,” he said, “would like to see you up on Martin’s Point.” His eyes didn’t blink; his smile never shifted. He glanced once at Maven (whose mouth hung open) before resting his gaze on Horace.

  “I’ll get up and visit him,” said Horace. He matched Adam’s unblinking stare. Finally the man broke away and continued down the wharf.

  “My goodness!” said Maven. “You sure do know a lot of people!” He was about to ask Horace about this exchange, but watching the man’s unappealing swagger disappear into the crowd, he caught sight of something that straightened his posture.

  A break in the immediate crowd revealed a statuesque, dark-haired beauty striding with confidence and grace toward them. Her head was up so that the brim of her elaborate hat did not shadow her dark eyes, which seemed to miss little of her surroundings. There was something of the patrician in her straight nose and the near-angularity of her face. Her mouth was wide, and set primly, though not lacking a modicum of humor.

  Then the break in the crowd grew and a man was revealed at her side, escorting her, arm in arm. He was handsome, and though not short, still only a couple of inches taller than she. He was as dark and patrician; and to Maven’s way of thinking, they made a striking couple.

  “Goodness sakes!” said Maven, almost shouting. “Aren’t they handsome!”

  “They’ll do,” said Horace.

  “Aren’t you just surprised at the number of handsome people, Hod?”

  “It does make the day pass quicker.”

  “Well, I certainly am surprised!”

  “It surprises me to hear you say it,” said Horace quietly.

  Looking past Horace, Maven saw a new point of interest—a pretty green dress and a head of red hair that dazzled in the sunlight.

  Horace, meanwhile, watched the boat from the Follow Me tunk against the pilings below; a portly gentleman with a valise in one hand was helped by the crew to the foot of the nearby ladder. Despite the roundness of his girth and the hindrance of his baggage, the fellow climbed with little difficulty, and was just making the top of the wharf when the redhead and the striking couple crossed paths in front of him.

  Without warning, a sudden breeze lifted the gentleman’s hat from his head, and Maven hollered as the fellow began to step out into thin air in an attempt to retrieve it.

  A groom from Spurling’s Livery arrived with the Underwoods’ horse and carriage at ten o’clock and was combing Melody’s brown mane when Cordelia and her parents emerged from their house and came down the front walk. The unexpected melancholy of the previous evening had proved too hesitant to take hold, and now it evaporated in the face of a bright July morning. The elm trees along the street sifted a light southerly breeze, the sun blinking through their shifting leaves.

  The private residences on High Street, which they followed to the water-front, bloomed (as did their own house) in reds, whites, and blues—flags, striped buntings, and patriotic symbols fluttered from doorposts and windowsills and trellises.

  The carriage did not linger by these sights. Something in the air this morning dictated a brisk pace. There were mixed feelings amongst the Underwoods concerning their errand; it was natural that some regret would be attached to the claiming of Basil’s last worldly possessions. But curiosity is not a low sensation, and the interest that they felt in the mystery of this unexpected delivery raised their mission above the merely sad.

  James did not expect to find an empty hitching post in the vicinity of the Custom House; but commerce will solve what circumstance poses, and here commerce showed itself in the form of several enterprising boys, one of whom, for a short coin (that is, a nickel), would act as a migratory tether, watching horse and rig while keeping them from the flow of shifting traffic.

  Leaving Melody and their carriage in the care of a boy whose gap-toothed smile engendered an instant trust, the Underwoods negotiated the crowded walk arm in arm. There were several temporary stalls along the way, and hawkers of silk scarves, and roasted peanuts, and penny-dreadfuls called to them as they passed. Gulls oared their wings overhead, catching the sun on their white tails and swooping past the wharfside tower of the Custom House.

  Cordelia turned when they reached the dark oak doors, to gaze back at the activity on the wharf across the street. “Perhaps I’ll walk along the wharf, Papa,” she said, thinking that she had spent too much time, as of late, surrounded by walls.

  “Do be careful, dear,” said Mrs. Underwood,
before her husband had the opportunity to consider the propriety of their daughter walking unescorted among the general press. Cordelia realized that her mother had cut short discussion and allayed James’s inevitable doubts with four simple but elegantly placed words. Taking her mother’s parasol, she hurried through the slow-moving traffic, pausing only to wave and smile from the other side of the street.

  Feathered hats and bright parasols rose above the crowds like blooms reflecting the morning sun, but Cordelia’s parasol hung unemployed upon her arm—the July light was too glorious. More than one hat was touched in her direction, and more than one head turned as she passed—but Cordelia, unaware of the latter, took the former as common civility. These gallant acknowledgments were, in truth, reflections of her smile, which itself was not common.

  One young man, approaching through the crowd, evoked a corresponding admiration in Cordelia, and the presence of a beautiful woman on his arm did not discourage her from timing a potent glance in his direction. He had, indeed, caught sight of her already—and was, perhaps, preparing a glance of his own—when a singular event occurred in the dwindling space between them.

  A rotund man of medium height and middle years climbed from a ladder to the surface of the wharf, and promptly lost his hat to a sudden and unheralded gust from the north. The light breeze had given no indication that headgear was in danger; this notwithstanding, some impish curl of wind met him at the summit of his climb and neatly lifted his hat into the air.

  Reaching for the hat as it left his head, the portly fellow would have stepped off the wharf if not for Cordelia, who had the presence of mind to grab him by the elbow. She, in turn, found her own center of gravity suddenly over the harbor water, and was endeavoring to right herself with several wild arm movements, when another quick mind revealed itself and she was pulled, first by the back of her sash, then by her waist, to safer footing.