The Monsters of Templeton

by Lauren Groff

  Please do write to me. The spring breeze is warm across the melting snowdrifts—I do feel so alive, so much more vibrant than I had been in this terribly dark winter.

  Your loving,

  Cinnamon Averell Graves

  Averell Cottage

  15 March, 1862

  Dearest Charlotte—

  You alarm me! It has been nearly five weeks since I wrote and you have not responded. I have waited, so anxiously. I have sent you other notes. Do you hate me? I think you do. I am sane now—I sleep now—I have regained my old beauty—even Marie-Claude says so. I am not sure exactly what I wrote, just that I confessed my darkest secrets. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?

  Your friend,

  Cinnamon Averell Graves

  Averell Cottage

  20 March, 1862

  Charlotte—

  Still you do not write? I am afraid of you. Please write.

  Yours,

  Cinnamon

  22 March

  C—Please write. I fear if you don’t I will do something rash.

  —Cinnamon

  24 March

  Very well. It seems I am reprehensible to you. I cannot believe you know me as well as you do and yet you have chosen to cast me aside. I know you know of what I am capable. Poor, poor Charlotte. This is the last time I will ever have any pity for you.

  —Cinnamon

  Averell Cottage

  March 25th, 1862

  Mon cher Monsieur Le Quoi—

  Or should I say Monsieur Charles de la Vallée? We met, I believe, at a party in October—I have been in heavy mourning for your entire courtship of Mlle. Temple, but I have seen it all. I would say that you should consider leaving your chase of the dear girl and returning to Nantes, where, it appears, you had been a Prefect of Police, sent to jail on allegations of graft? Is this possible? And to take your valet’s name—you should be ashamed. My friend who lives in Nantes sends me a poster of you during your—how do you say it—your fuite? The drawing is not flattering, of course. Then again, it is a good likeness of you.

  With goodwill,

  Cinnamon Averell Stokes Starkweather Sturgis Graves

  Spotter’s Academy, Templeton

  le 27 mars

  Chère Mme. Graves,

  Malheureusement, your letter does not frighten me a whit. Quite the inverse, rather. It makes me to a decision I was hoping I would not force to make. I have asked Miss Charlotte Temple to marry me and she has delightfully given her accord. I have come clean with my past, most of it, at least. How do you say it? Made a clean breast? It seems she has also had some rakes in the family. Her very noble grandfather, even, was of strange circumstances, she tells me, with a slave, perhaps. Although perhaps you know this. Though there were tears, quite copious when I told her of my circumstances, I was on hand to kiss them away. One’s past is quite lost in such a bright future, is it not? This, we have agreed together. We shall wed in April 20th, at Christ Church, where her family lies dead. I should invite you, but you are in mourning, and one cannot see la belle veuve before it is her time, I hear.

  As I value my freedom at least as many as I do the money, there is a piece of me that regrets this step I find so necessary now. But there is consolement. Miss Temple is pretty enough, and her great money will allow me to do anything I wish. Do you not agree?

  With great respect and good wishes,

  Charles “de la Vallée” Le Quoi

  Averell Cottage, Templeton

  March 29th

  Monsieur “Le Quoi”—

  I do find your name so appropriate, you know—The What. Precisely!

  Perhaps your future wife would be interested in hearing that you frequent—three to four nights a week—a certain house of ill-repute in Templeton. She would assuredly call off your marriage, and you would be left with nothing in the world, including your little fiancée and all her money. You probably would no longer be deemed fit to maintain your current position at Spotter’s Academy once the news got out. What a shame that would be.

  Your friend,

  Cinnamon Averell Graves

  Spotter’s Academy, Templeton

  le 1 avril

  Mme. Graves,

  Forgive me, this is the day in France which we call le poisson d’avril, and people make jokes upon one another. I believe this, your threat, is such a joke? It is sad you are to have no proof. The most delicious mouths can be stuffed with money, and never would tell a thing. As well, I doubt my dear fiancée would believe you, as apparently you are no friends much longer. You once were, but now she will not speak of you. Why such coldness, I wonder, when before she could only speak warmly of you? I have not succeeded in understanding. But I shall. I must wonder why you are eager to so pursue me? Is it perhaps that you fear for your “friend’s” happiness? Or is it perhaps that you do not wish her any such happiness? I wonder. Of course, I am here for to assist you. Perhaps one offer will be made such that piques my little interest, still.

  Your servant,

  C. Le Quoi

  April Fifth.

  [rough draft, unblotted]

  Madam Ginger; forgive this anonymous note. A person you know wishes you ill. I have prayed for many nights upon this matter. In the end, I knew that though you are fallen, and will be judged for your sins, it is my Christian duty to warn you. Please leave a note, if you wish to respond, under the stone under the statue of Chingachgook and his dog by the Susquehanna.

  One Who Does Not Wish You Ill

  April sisth.

  One Who Does Not Wish Me Ill But Not Well Neither; I don’t need no warning from you, whoever you are, your a woman, thats for sure. Backhanded slut. Nobody in my life never wished me more than harm. I can take care myself. You think your Christian. Pray for your own sole, youl burn in hell.

  “Madam Ginger” as you say

  Averell Cottage

  April 16, 1862

  It has taken me weeks, but I have spoken to my attorney and I can give you $20,000, legal tender, all my father left when he died. If you come to my house at 8:00 pm on the night of April 17th, I will provide you with a fast horse and the money in a strongbox. You shall sign an agreement that states you cannot return to Templeton, and will stay away forever. If you agree, you will send me a letter today.

  —C.A.G.

  Spotter’s Academy

  The 17th, April

  Ah! Enfin, you speak my language, Madame Graves. $20,000, not a fraction of the fortune of Miss Temple, but I won’t have to spend thirty years to listen to her babble, either. Alors, I agree. I shall see you tonight. You have lifted quite a burden from my shoulders, Madame.

  —Le Quoi

  Averell Cottage, Templeton

  The eighteenth of April

  [rough draft]

  Dear “Papa Gin Stone,”

  Well, my dear, here we are at last. Today I have sent away one of your best customers, Monsieur Le Quoi, and in recompense, I am sending you my servant, Marie-Claude. She is perhaps crying—I have dismissed her for good, and she feeds her family on the wages I pay her. Perhaps you will have a use for her. She is a good worker, and would be diligent even in a place such as yours. If you want her for other purposes, I suppose she’s pretty enough. I’d recommend $50 a month—the poor fool will think that a fortune. Also, take these nutcakes I am sending you. I was in one of my frenzies this morning, and baked too many for the Ladies’ Auxiliary. Perhaps we can become friends, Ginger. I am lonely.

  Averell Cottage, Templeton

  April 18th, 1862

  Charlotte—

  You scorn me—you judge me—fine. Perhaps you missed your French friend today, have you not? He told me you were visiting with the minister this afternoon, for your wedding in two days. Alas, the Frenchman didn’t appear. And when you sent to the Academy to see what was the matter, he was gone. And greasy old Dr. Spotter so embarrassed: all of the Frenchman’s things gone, snuck away, that rat, didn’t he? Oh, you poor thing. I have had my claws in him, of
course. No—he is alive—simply riding to Albany, where he will catch a post-chaise to Boston, there to start a life anew. He left you the note I have enclosed.

  Charlotte, mon chou, I could no longer dissemble. In the end, I loved more my freedom than I did you. If it is a consolement, I did love you a good bit, at some point, in some way. I wish you happiness. Charles.

  You see, darling? He did love you a good bit. It is quite all right. And it is best, anyway, that he has fled this den of thieves, the nest of vipers, the horrid little town that is Templeton. The Sodom, the Gomorrah! Oh, isn’t it? I have done you a favor, you see.

  Your friend,

  Cinnamon

  Averell Cottage, Templeton

  November the twentieth, 1862

  Dear Miss Temple—

  I daresay you remember me, though you have not written in so very long—since April, has it been? I heard today that you were to return to Templeton, and were bringing your “nephew” with you. I do hope you have been well at your sister Daisy’s in Manhattan—such a pity about her death so shortly after her dear husband’s. Especially with her baby that was born a month after she was laid in the ground! It must have been terribly painful to the poor corpse. A miracle, truly. Don’t worry—nobody here knows the true date of her death, only I, for I have been corresponding with your sister, Marguerite, and she let it slip. I won’t tell anyone your secret.

  My, we do have so many secrets between us, don’t we? For instance, nearly the whole of Templeton burning on that fateful night in April. Do you remember? Of course you do. The blazing bells, the four fire brigades, the bucket brigades of all of the Academicians and the regiments in town—and still, almost all of Second Street, devoured! All the way from the Eagle Hotel to the greengrocer’s and past Schneider’s Bakery! That whole stretch, burned up, all of the little buildings there from the very days of your own grandfather’s first founding of the town! It even took with it the lovely little Leatherstocking Hotel, of all strange places. Can you imagine—they pulled the skeletons of four unknown women and one boy from there—nobody has confessed to knowing any of them, save the huge woman, who had apparently bought the place from the little Yorker bachelor brothers. It does make you wonder why they didn’t have the presence of mind to escape. Why they couldn’t rouse themselves to run out of the building—one does wonder.

  The town is rebuilding nicely, though there have been many shamed faces in town since the great fire, you know. It was horrible. Old Mother Gooding died in the apartment above the harness shop where she’d lived for so many years. And, of course, so did that poor idiot son of Dirk Peck, the lawyer, that filthy boy who touched himself at the sight of a woman. They say he was in the very outbuilding where the fire started—some blame it all on him—that is a piece of news you may be glad to know.

  Speaking of Dirk Peck, I have been comforting the poor, hideously wealthy lawyer quite a bit. A handsome man, I must say—he has secretly asked for my hand, and I have secretly said yes, though we will wed when I am fully out of mourning. I like him. Perhaps I will keep him.

  You did hear of your fiancé’s capture in Boston didn’t you? Shameful, really—he was trying to sneak onto a boat headed for Martinique, and the French Lieutenant who caught him recognized him from the scandal in Nantes—they say he was the son of Monsieur de la Vallée, and took his valet’s name of Le Quoi. An ironic end for such a man.

  One last thing. I believe I have a packet of letters you might want. You do have a packet of letters I want. Could we, perhaps, engineer an exchange? We shall perhaps talk about this when you have returned to our fair town. I am eager to kiss the cheeks of your nephew. I do suppose he is bald at this young age, is he not? I do, however, hope he grows your abundant red-brown hair.

  My warmest regards,

  Cinnamon Averell, et cetera, soon to be Peck

  Post-Script—I forgot to mention the most important event of the terrible night of the fire—apparently, I am sure you know, that the Temple Manor also burned. The portraits of your grandfather, grandmother, and father are being kept safe for you by the Pomeroys. Unfortunately, all of the furniture that had remained there is gone. It is a terrible feeling, you know, to walk through what remains. The charred beams like the ribs of some dead whale, the mirrors’ mercury pooled on the ground. Such history that burnt down that night! I do pity you for your loss.

  The Capstan Building, Park Street, Manhattan, New York

  December the First, 1862

  Cinnamon,

  No double-talk. No mendacity. You are a dangerous woman, true, though I am also dangerous. I will not return your letters. This bundle is my only protection against you, and perhaps a fire I could summon, even from here, if need be. I am sure you wouldn’t want to lose Averell House.

  Your gossips are correct. I am returning to Templeton. My nephew will benefit from my family’s town. But, no, you will never kiss his cheeks, or wonder at his fine head of red hair. You will never address him. If I hear that he has spoken with you, I will probably lose my temper, and you understand what happens then.

  In Templeton, we will be acquaintances, civil and cold. In Templeton, we will not mix, as we are truly not of the same social class, not at all. People always wondered openly why I forced doors open for you. They called you a manipulator and a black widow, after the spider that eats its own husbands. I always laughed. I always told them that I helped you in society because you were such a good person. So kind, I said, and such an excellent friend.

  I will not salute you, for this is our last missive.

  Charlotte Temple

  19

  One Sees by the Light There Is

  I LOOKED UP from Cinnamon’s and Charlotte’s letters to find myself shaking.

  After I had read Sarah Franklin Temple’s journal, I saw a previous Templeton overlaid on the one I knew; after I read Cinnamon’s and Charlotte’s letters I saw, at first, only a deep, dark midnight falling over my town. I didn’t know what to think. All day, then all night, I read, then reread the letters. They could have been a hoax, I imagined, the fruit of some fevered novelist’s mind, a novel abandoned somewhere, half-finished. But the letters themselves smelled of antique rose water and age-crisped lace, and were brittle with the years. The women’s script was wildly different and the papers were different, too. Charlotte’s writing was elegant but small, controlled, perfectly blotted, her paper thin and feminine. Cinnamon’s paper was so thick and good it felt like cloth, and from afar, her script was gorgeous. Up close, however, her writing was a little wild, and there were odd breaks in more troublesome words, as if the writer had paused after four or five letters and checked a dictionary to ascertain her spelling.

  “Are these letters real?” I asked the Lump.

  Hours later, as the moon had shifted itself to the other side of the lake, I answered myself. “I think they’re real,” I said. I had remembered a fifth-grade walking tour of the village led by our portly little mayor with his brass cane and his short-shorts, when we heard about how Templeton had once almost burnt to the ground. All of Main Street, the mayor had been proclaiming in his basso profundo voice, gesturing widely with his arms, from the Temple Manor to where Schneider’s Bakery is today, all the way up Church Street was a blackened, charred ruin. And yet, children, he’d said, voice trembling with emotion, we rebuilt. We Templetonians always rebuild. On and on he talked while I imagined my hometown a smoldering ruin and longed for a ten-cent fudge pop from the bakery. His mention of Templeton’s great fire hadn’t surprised me, and I realized then that it was one of the strange, floating bits of knowledge that natives of a small town sometimes know without ever being told.

  By the time I looked up, dazed, from the letters, and out the window into the dark and sleeping town, I saw another change. I felt as if I were rising out of my body, then through the roof, and when I looked down, it was on a different Templeton, busy even in the earliest parts of dawn. I could hear the sleeping regiments in the fields out by the river, the nigh
t watch’s boots on the frozen ground. I could see Main Street still moving with half-drunken men, like hard-shelled insects silvered by moonlight. It was a different Main Street from the one I knew, before the great conflagration that Charlotte had somehow started; the buildings were all different, and one hotel hung plumb out into the middle of Pioneer and Main. A line of men snaked from behind a large building, the Leatherstocking Hotel, and even from above, I could hear their muted talking. Up on the hill, opposite the Presbyterian Church, was a huge building with rows and rows of sleeping boys on the top floor, the dormitory of the Academy. Consumptives sat on the porch at the Otesaga Hotel, to get the early air. Lanterns burned at the backs of the huge mansions in town, servants up already baking the bread for the day. The town was cold, and it must have been winter, but it was still pulsing with life. It smelled of burning wood and melting ice, the thick garlicky stink of many bodies in one space, mingled breath. This was Cinnamon’s and Charlotte’s Templeton, exciting in that time of war. Had I lived then in this bustling town, I would have said that Templeton would certainly be a bustling, important city 150 years later, not the insular village it is now.