Cordelia Underwood, or the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  James slipped the envelope back amongst its companions and laid the unwrapped letters on the round lamp table beside his chair. “Let’s see what else we have,” he said, and leaned over the trunk again.

  This time he produced three fat books, looked about for a place to put them, and, finding none, handed them to his daughter. They had the look of hard use—their covers battered and indented, their pages brown with age and dampness and sea salt. Cordelia cocked her head and peered at their bindings, but any information once printed there was now worn away.

  “The Anatomy of Melancholy,” she read aloud from the title page of the first book. Her mother looked over her shoulder.

  “Ah,” said Mercia, “Robert Burton. Your uncle could quote from this at length.”

  “So oftentimes it falls out a great book is a great mischief,” quoted James, showing his own familiarity with the volume in question without looking up from the depths of the trunk. He lifted a box made of dark wood into the lamplight. It was as long as his forearm and perhaps a foot wide; the light behind him shone upon its smooth surface with a warm luster. The initials B. U. were inlaid in black upon the top.

  “These will be his Navy Colts,” he said. He shot the hasps at the front of the box and raised the lid. Two long-barreled pistols lay in their own impressions on a bed of dark velvet. James lifted one, ascertained that the chamber was empty, then weighed it thoughtfully in his hand.

  Cordelia set the first book on a table beside the sofa and inspected the second volume. “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,” she read from the title page.

  “That was your uncle’s favorite book,” said her father.

  “Really?” She flipped through its pages with interest.

  “Yes, and not to be yours, I hope.”

  “Really!” she said again, with more interest still. “Is it as bad as all that?”

  James laid the Colt back in its box and looked up to consider this.

  “You’ve read it?” inquired his daughter.

  “Yes, I have.”

  Cordelia made a silent O with her mouth and laid the book aside.

  A strange object covered in green, white, and yellow beads came out of the trunk next. It was the size and shape of an acorn squash, with one small flat surface on which it could be set without rolling. It seemed a sort of receptacle—a fancy jar, perhaps—but James searched in vain for a way to open it. Something rattled within it when he tipped it.

  “A musical instrument,” was Mercia’s guess.

  “Perhaps,” replied a skeptical James. He shook it carefully. “It’s not very musical.” Indeed, whatever rattled inside the object sounded like dice in a cup.

  “A percussion instrument,” ventured Cordelia. She took the beaded globe and perused it with a frown. She placed it against her ear and tipped it slowly from side to side. “It must be,” she said, finally. “I can’t think of anything else.” Her mother took a turn with the thing next, while Cordelia picked up the third book, and her father reached back into the trunk.

  “The Pickwick Papers,” said Cordelia, with a note of warm familiarity. It pleased her that she and her uncle had had a favorite book in common.

  Mercia set the odd object on the floor beside James’s chair and peered into the trunk. She unraveled a small roll of fabric and lifted a small figurine into the light. “Ivory,” she said, and passed her fingertips over the smooth cream-colored surface.

  The statuette was of a young woman, dressed in the high fashion of the previous century. The details of her face were not entirely articulated, and yet she wore a definite smile—a coy smile, perhaps—and the suggestion of her features and of her expression, were so masterfully rendered to give the observer the impression of seeing more than was materially there. The little figure held a fan modestly over her bosom.

  Mercia handed the statuette to her daughter. There was something libertine about the figure (despite the coy expression and the demure attitude) which quietly pleased Cordelia. “Was Uncle Basil a Romantic at heart?” she asked.

  “Is there any other place to be one?” replied her father dryly. “Now what is this?” He took from a corner of the chest a small envelope with his name, brown with time and distance, written on it in Basil’s handwriting. It looked like the sort of enclosure one would send with a gift, and perhaps, thought James, that was just what it was—attached to these artifacts of his brother’s life.

  He opened the envelope, slipped a card from it, and frowned at what was written there. His mouth formed a word that Cordelia could not apprehend.

  “Whatever can that mean?” said Mercia, who was reading over her husband’s shoulder.

  “Minmaneth,” said James, as if trying to recall an indistinct memory.

  “What is it?” asked Cordelia, her curiosity peaking. Her father handed the card to her. In Basil’s plain and steady hand, it said:

  Our Minmaneth is a young goatt.

  “Well, that certainly clears the matter up,” said Cordelia.

  “I am glad you think so,” said her father.

  “What is Minmaneth?” asked Mercia.

  “Who, really,” said James. “It was a game we played when we were young. Minmaneth was a figure from an ancient legend that our mother used to tell us. I haven’t thought of him for years.”

  “Was he a young goat, then?” asked Cordelia.

  “He wasn’t a goat at all. In fact, I don’t remember that the story had anything to do with goats.”

  “Did Basil like mysteries?” wondered Mercia.

  “No more than you or I, I suspect,” said James, reaching into the chest again. “No, I fear this is simply a symptom of Basil’s fever.”

  “That would explain the second t in goat,” suggested Cordelia. She did not feel that the issue was properly explained, however, and her face showed it. She looked up from the cryptic sentence to gauge her father’s expression, but his face was hidden behind a long, legal-looking piece of paper. She leaned forward and read the word Deed on the back of the document. Her mother hovered close beside him, scanning the paper with a look of surprise. James watched his wife while she read, and when she was finished, she turned and looked at her daughter.

  “What is it?” asked Cordelia.

  “It’s a deed,” said her mother.

  Cordelia had already discerned this much. “A land deed?”

  “Yes,” said her father. “Quite a large tract of land in the interior part of the state.” He folded the document once and held it out to his daughter. “It all looks proper and legal, drawn up by an American law firm with a branch office in Caracas. Your uncle has signed it, but it has been made out in your name.”

  5 Enter Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump

  THE GLORIOUS FOURTH WAS APPROACHING, AND—WHILE MISTER WALTON settled himself in his family home, and Cordelia Underwood read the first chapters of Tristram Shandy—Mr. Ephram, Mr. Eagleton, and Mr. Thump (of the Exeter Thumps) were gathered not far distant from any of these people, and they were in a state of genial enthusiasm. Bachelors all, they had met and had been meeting at the Shipswood Restaurant every Thursday night for fifteen years—and for fourteen years they had joined together in Fourth of July revelry.

  Enthusiasm, indeed, was a byword for them, and they entered into whatever events and observed whatever entertainments the holiday offered with a sort of masculine robustness that quite pleased the older ladies. But this, their fifteenth Fourth as a trio, promised a level of excitement previously unmatched—thanks to a seemingly insignificant discovery on the part of Mr. Thump.

  It is interesting to note that these three men—each hovering around the age of thirty-nine—had as little in common, beyond their age and family fortunes, as three men could.

  Mr. Ephram (the beneficiary of a highly successful cartographic company) collected timepieces, Mr. Eagleton (the scion of prosperous jewelers) was an amateur meteorographer, and Mr. Thump (whose father had formed one of Portland’s flourishing shipping firms) enjo
yed contemplating the art of sailing.

  Ephram was a Baptist, Eagleton a Methodist, Thump an Episcopalian.

  Ephram was a Democrat, Eagleton a Republican, and Thump a Green-back Silver Standard Bearer despite the party having more or less dissolved ten years before.

  They were of different heights, breadths, facial features, and preferred tailors. Ephram (the tallest) wore a large pair of dark mustaches to go with his gray suits, Eagleton went clean-shaven and wore tan suits, and Thump (the shortest) wore black and was facially inundated by a great explosion of brown beard and mustaches.

  They even read separate newspapers: Ephram searching for truth in the Eastern Argus, Eagleton sure that he found it in the Portland Daily Advertiser, and Thump quite pleased to find whatever he could in the Portland Courier. It was Thump, in fact, who caused the enthusiasm aforementioned by reading aloud an item from his preferred organ.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe had died the day before—the papers, all the papers, were full of news concerning the accomplishments of her life and the details of her passing. The three friends had spent some of the evening contemplating the great lady in silence as they ate, and the rest of the evening reading to one another what their respective journals had to say concerning the authoress.

  Meaning no disrespect to the departed, Thump briefly changed the subject (and thereby changed the tenor of the entire evening) by reading from a short item that described the formation of a club in Portsmouth—the Bywater Club.

  If ever these three men held anything in common, it was the thought that simultaneously dawned upon them while Thump idly read this item aloud. Once finished with the article, he lowered the Portland Courier and looked to his acquaintances, who (in turn) were looking at him and each other.

  “A club!” said Ephram.

  “Indeed,” said Eagleton.

  “What?” said Thump.

  “What, indeed!” said Ephram.

  “Most certainly!” said Eagleton.

  “A club!” said Thump.

  And thus it was decided—they would be a club, or they would have a club, or they would form one—whatever it was you did with a club, they would do it. It was a magnificent idea, and if the State of Maine had not prohibited the sale and drink of alcohol they might have raised a toast. Ephram clapped the table with the palm of his hand several times, applauding this stroke of sagacity.

  “Where shall we meet?” wondered Eagleton, who was precise in his wondering. His questions were often to the point.

  “Why, here,” suggested Thump cautiously.

  “Here?” said Eagleton.

  “The Shipswood?” said Ephram.

  “Well,” said Thump with a defensive frown.

  “The Shipswood!” shouted Eagleton, so that nearby patrons looked up from their meals to see what the noise was about. “Of course, Thump,” he said in a smaller tone.

  “Well,” said that worthy, his expression clearing.

  “Wonderful,” said Ephram. “The Shipswood it is.”

  “Yes, sir,” said a waiter, who paused at their table with their menus.

  “When shall we meet?” pursued Eagleton, when the waiter was gone.

  Thump leaned back in his chair. The eyes of the other two men were on him—they weighed upon him with their expectation: he had, after all, come up with a place for them to meet; he had, without a doubt, engendered the whole capital idea with his timely reading from the Portland Courier. Thump wondered if he had run out of inspiration, when an answer occurred to him. “We could . . .” he began.

  “Yes?” said Ephram.

  Thump frowned with concentration, but because of his extraordinary beard, Ephram and Eagleton had to lean forward to see his expression. The effect was that of two birds of prey searching out their next meal, but Thump was unshaken.

  “What?” asked Eagleton.

  “Do you think?” wondered Ephram.

  Thump raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” said Ephram.

  “Of course!” shouted Eagleton.

  “Thursday night!” said Ephram.

  “Ha, ha!” laughed Thump. He banged the table, then glanced about uncertainly.

  “A club,” said Ephram, not to be disconcerted by public scrutiny.

  “What sort of club shall it be?” wondered Eagleton.

  “What sort?” asked Ephram.

  “What sort of club? What sort is this Portsmouth group?”

  Thump referred to his paper. “A merchants’ club, it seems.”

  “Hmm,” said Eagleton. “Won’t do for us.”

  “What sort,” said Ephram, as if to himself.

  Thump shrugged elaborately, and they did not press him. The answer to this question was not so easily gotten. It could not be a trade guild: being of independent means, they had no trade between them. It could not be a religious brotherhood: their churches, they were told, were quite separate on matters of doctrine. It certainly could not be political in nature: not with a major election raising its disuniting head in the fall.

  Thump looked down at his menu. “What sort,” he mused.

  It was a silent meal. Thump, with his perspicacity, had gotten himself into something of a corner, the two sides of which were ably represented by the expectations of his comrades. He hardly tasted his meal (which was scrod) and ate with an attitude of abstraction.

  Ephram (who dined on roast beef) and Eagleton (curried lamb) did their best not to watch their friend as he thoughtfully chewed his food. An answer to this third question was not forthcoming, however, and—like the proverbial teapot—seemed to delay itself the more for being anticipated.

  “Well, a club,” said Ephram, after the check had come and the bill had been paid, and the three of them were retrieving their hats and accoutrements from the cloak room.

  “Yes,” said Thump, disappointed in missing the hat trick. “What sort, though?”

  “Well,” said Eagleton, “we’ll meet as a club whether we have sorted it out or not.” He was the wag of the trio. They were outside now, pausing on the top step to take stock of the evening. “Expected fair tomorrow,” said Eagle-ton, looking up at the night sky.

  “Six and a half minutes past nine,” said Ephram, consulting his watch.

  “High water at 4:48 a.m.” said Thump, though not with his usual enthusiasm.

  “The Fourth is on Saturday,” said Ephram, as they descended the steps. “Day after tomorrow, you know.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Thump.

  “Where shall we meet?” wondered Eagleton. “Deering Oaks again?”

  “Balloon ascension at Freeport,” said Ephram; he shook out his paper, and by the light of the street lamp outside the Shipswood he read: “Mrs. Roberto—in an attractive suit of tights—will repeat her popular 2,500-foot parachute jump from an ascended balloon.”

  “Good heavens!” said Eagleton. He looked at Ephram’s Eastern Argus to see for himself.

  This news revived Thump considerably, and it was decided that they would celebrate the Fourth in Freeport. The 7:00 a.m. Express out of Union Station was chosen as their mode of transportation, and they shook hands, parting in three different directions.

  As they walked home, Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump each did their best to contemplate the sad departure of Harriet Beecher Stowe and the great effect she had had on the abolition of slavery. We should not harshly judge them, however, if these instructive thoughts were sometimes interrupted by visions of the brave Mrs. Roberto in her attractive suit of tights.

  BOOK TWOJULY 3, 1896

  6 A Deafening Silence Hushed by the Smell of Bacon Frying

  IT HAD BEEN A LONG NIGHT FOR MISTER WALTON, ALONE IN THE OLD RESIdence. He had insisted that Mr. Baffin set out for home well before dark, and even managed to hail a cab for him while they walked a ways together down Spruce Street.

  Once he returned to the house, however, he regretted the loss of Cedric’s company, and he spent the evening restlessly pacing from room to room. His own steps were loud in his ears, the
rooms all too familiar in their furnishings and all too strange in their lack of population. Another person at the other end of a house can give the entire structure life; one person alone makes a home large in its emptiness and loud in its silence.

  Mister Walton gazed at the backs of books in the study, shuffled through stereopticon slides in the parlor, and listened intently to scurryings in the kitchen walls. In the parlor he sat for a while in his mother’s favorite chair and paged through an old album of tintypes. He wondered about his sister—who was in Africa, the last he knew. He thought about his brother, lost off Cape Hatteras. He wandered into the front hall, where he could converse with ancestors framed in ranks along the stairway.

  He had gone upstairs with a cup of warm milk, found a nightshirt in the bureau in his old bedroom, and climbed beneath the covers, weary and sad. Mr. Baffin had told him of Aunt August’s last months, and Mister Walton drifted off, thinking of her and wishing, for the thousandth time, that he had been closer to home when she had taken ill. He slept the entire night, but dreamed contrarily that he was wakeful, that people whom he could only vaguely see were dragging heavy objects through the room, scraping huge chests along the floor and bumping massive furniture against the door jambs. It was several minutes after he woke the next morning before he realized that he had indeed slept through the night, though he did not feel much rested.

  He sat for a while in bed, feeling logy, regarding the little hills that his feet made under the covers and wiggling his toes. He got his spectacles from the nightstand beside his bed and put them on.

  For a moment, he thought that the smell of cooking wafted from the kitchen below; perhaps he was still dreaming, after all. He breathed a deep stretching breath and the aroma of bacon caught his attention fully. “Of course,” he said aloud, and bounded from bed, the restive night instantly forgotten.

  He could move quickly for a portly man, and was half-dressed before a knock at the door announced Mr. Baffin, who carried a basin of warm water. He had never in his life been so grateful for such a simple amenity, and he splashed happily as he shaved and washed his face.