Being the Steel Drummer - a Maggie Gale Mystery

by Liz Bradbury

  October 5th, 1875,

  Late last night, Charlotte found her way to my room, which is far in the east wing of the house, distant from anyone else. I supposed that was her idea. For suddenly I found her sitting on my bed with a small lantern. Though Charlotte is certainly not in the bloom of youth, being well over fifty, the lamplight softened her features and brightened her eyes.

  She asked me if I was comfortable and if there was anything I wanted. She caressed my face and then drew her fingers, without undue haste, along my throat to the softness of my bosom where they rested as she began to compliment me in words I frankly found enchanting. She has a magnificent voice, and after all she is master of the craft of compelling speech.

  Among other things, she said, “You are remarkably fair of face, but I find your strength very attractive.”

  I must admit that I was not repelled. In fact it had been so long since I have enjoyed a woman’s affectionate caress that the depth of my breathing spoke its own encouragement. Clearly the meaning of it was not lost on her.

  She said simply, “Shall I kiss you, Victoria?”

  A rather considerable part of me spoke emphatic yeses in my mind, but then I remembered the two Emmas in another part of the house and marveled at Charlotte’s incredible roguery.

  “Charlotte,” I laughed, “just how many women do you need?”

  She laughed too. “Victoria, my dear, I need all of them! But I see I may not be having you? Not tonight? Ah well, more fool you.”

  “How does that make me a fool? I can’t help but worry that the women who love you will be very angry with me,” I asked her.

  She replied, “My little lover is with child. Her husband, my nephew Ned, does seem to find his way to her far more than I. And my dearest heart Emma is simply too tired. They put you in this far away room so they could sleep, not so that I wouldn’t find you. I believe they think that while you are following the scent of lavender you should consider that when you woo her, you’ll be all the better lover if you had the benefit of my... experience. Many women honor me for the things I’ve taught them, as do their current lovers. But, my dear, I think perhaps my teaching days may soon be over. My Emmas feel this too. I know it. That’s why they have directed me to you.” She laughed lightly. “A farewell performance of its own kind.”

  I laughed again, as if to deflect her words, but I was feeling deeply moved by her offer of mentorship in these delicate arts. Deeply moved in urgent physical ways. I had the need to minister to a pain I hadn’t felt in some years.

  Charlotte continued, “You know, I’ve met her. I’m sure you will win her. Don’t you want to please her in every way? I’m an excellent teacher, and in the waning days of my life I find it better to give than to receive. Especially in these days when my body fails me so grievously. Now, as the Bard said, ‘Come give us a taste of your quality.’”

  I could resist no longer. In acquiescence I drew down the sheet to expose my silk chemise. I confess it was my very best nightdress, the one I had made in Paris. Just a whisper of fabric. And I admit I had worn it this night in vague hopes that I would be visited by one of the many women in Charlotte’s house.

  Charlotte admired my nightgown and what she could see through it with a lingering glance. Then she kissed me deeply, as the overture to her next acts. She easily slipped the gown down my shoulders and her appraisal of what was revealed was more than a glance. After all, I am rather blessed in proportion and though it is not a boon to me personally, I have found others were delighted by my abundance.

  Indeed Charlotte paid worthy tribute, with both her hands and her mouth. And rather more thoroughly than others have done, yet without asperity. To my surprising delight, this ministration caused me to find my first of many spendings of the night. When she found her way below, her attention became more focused, and she was able to do more than assuage my needs. There seemed to be a constant rekindling of them and then relief, repeated in waves as though crashing on the shore.

  When I heard the hall clock strike 2 a.m., I became aware that this edifying interlude was at an end. Yet Charlotte left me neither besotted nor disaffected. Indeed I was hazy from pleasure, but I found myself shedding indolence to attend to her words.

  She said, “Take your skills to your angel, my dear, and make her happy, for in her you will find happiness too.”

  I will heed this advice, and I told her so.

  Charlotte had been quite true to her words. She taught me several important things about the delights and needs of my own sex and how to slake, then prime for more. I learned more to enhance these important skills in this one night than I had learned to increase my skill at carving stone in a full year at Harriet’s studio. I now see why so many women have been devoted to Charlotte Cushman and I confess that I will always be grateful for her mentoring in this doss classroom, after the hall clock had struck midnight.

  When I was done reading that passage I was literally sweating. Not only was it a hot little real-life love scene but it was history. Charlotte Cushman teaching Victoria Snow the subtleties of the bedroom while Emma Stebbins and Emma Crow were down the hall. Jiminy Crickets!

  But what about the lavender scent Victoria was chasing. Surely that confirms Evangeline Lavender Fen was the angel of whom Charlotte spoke. I skimmed through the next few pages of the journal. Victoria had gone to Boston with Emma Stebbins and Charlotte Cushman and had then received a telegram from the Centennial Exposition committee asking her to come to Philadelphia to confer about her sculpture for their exhibit. Victoria was thrilled that they had accepted her. She set up a small studio in Philly to begin work on it, rather than going back to Rome. The next fifty or so pages described the studio and her work. It was interesting to me, but didn’t contain clues about the object of her affection. Victoria seemed too nervous to mention her. She didn’t want to press anything in case she was rejected. Sometimes it’s easier to live in the fantasy than try to play it out and find it was just that—a fantasy.

  I read on:

  October 20th, 1875,

  Charlotte has not come to my room hence. She has complained of illness, and the Emmas and I convinced her to go to Boston to seek medical treatment fearing a recurrence of the cancer that gripped her several years ago.

  And then skipped to the last entries in this section:

  February 5th, 1876,

  I have rushed to Boston to be by Charlotte’s hospital bed and to give Emma S. as much help and comfort as I am able. I can’t describe how I feel, short of feeling that it is impossible for someone as full of life as Charlotte Cushman, to...

  The rest of the line was unreadably smeared by what looked like tear stains. Lower on the page in a slightly different color ink Victoria wrote:

  In the last moments of her life Charlotte, numbed by morphine, took my hand and told me to seek my passion.

  She said in a voice still rich but weakened, “She will never be yours unless you go to her and tell her you love her. Why wait when you know your mind? Go to her, Victoria. I have heard by the most recent post the barest hint from Evangeline that her financial situation is poor. She has a young brother and sisters and a mother to support. I’m sending her some gentle sum to help her carry on.

  And, my dear, I shall arrange for you to have a commission there. Yes... I shall do that, I have already decided. I believe there is a college that educates young women in the Arts...”

  Charlotte turned in her bed and waved Emma to her. Emma was never absent when Charlotte needed her.

  “Emma, please check with my solicitors on the arrangements.” Then she turned back to me. “It will be my gift. My gift to you, Victoria.”

  Emma dutifully left the room to send telegrams making the arrangements.

  Charlotte said, “You must go as soon as the commission is confirmed.” And then she smiled. (More tear stains on the page.)

  I was tearing up right along with Victoria just reading about it. In her last moments Charlotte was using all her resources to h
elp her friends. And that was certainly a worthy scene at the end of her or anyone’s life performance.

  In the next few pages Victoria chronicled Charlotte’s rapid decline. She described Emma Stebbins sitting by Charlotte’s bed with a cool cloth, holding Charlotte’s hand and keeping her free from pain with some kind of morphine brew. Victoria even drew a sketch of this tableaux in the journal. It was a simple line drawing, but I could read the profound emotion Emma was enduring by her posture and the angle of her head.

  I stared at it for many minutes, losing track of the present. I was transported back in time into the role of the artist herself, considering the effectiveness of each line before me, feeling their meaning. Suddenly I was Victoria Willomere Snow. I was pleased with the drawing for the most part, but there was one line that seemed a bit out of place, the tilt of Emma’s head needed a slightly stronger jaw line. I looked up expecting to see Charlotte Cushman in her last hours, ministered to by Emma Stebbins. But there on the other side of the glass partition I saw nothing but a brief glimpse of Isabella Santiago looking back at me and then gliding off to the stacks with a huge leatherbound reference.

  When she got to the edge of the first bookcase, Dr. Santiago turned to glance at me again. She gave one simple head nod and disappeared behind the first row of ancient architecture references.

  And then just as suddenly I was back in the present. I stared down at Victoria’s drawing, then turned the page.

  On February 25th, 1876, Victoria Snow wrote:

  Charlotte died on Friday the 18th. I attended her funeral, which was a rather wonderful affair of dignitaries, actors, artists, and all mode of women who loved her.

  And then the notification of my commission came.

  Just as Charlotte wanted, I find myself on the way to Fenchester, Pennsylvania, by way of New York, to try my hand at wooing. I can only hope.

  I looked at the clock and realized the hours had flown by. It was almost 9 p.m., which meant that Kathryn should be done with her meeting soon.

  I texted her,

  Literally five seconds later my cell played Save the Last Dance for Me, which I’d programed in as Kathryn’s ringtone. I snorted. Now I knew exactly how to get her out of a meeting.

  “Read it to me...” she said, before I even had a chance to say hello.

  “Are you out of your meeting?”

  “No, I got your text and told them I had to go to the restroom, which is where I am. Read it to me. Now.”

  “The whole passage?”

  “Do it.”

  “OK, this is from Victoria Snow’s journal circa 1875.” I read her the passage straight through, without comment.

  When I got to the end there was a long silent pause. I thought I’d lost her signal, but then I heard, “Oh Maggie, I’m really enjoying having you as a research assistant.” She exhaled. I could feel her heat and excitement over the phone.

  “Yeah?” I said in a low voice.

  “Yes!”

  “About that compensation package you mentioned...”

  “It’s increased.”

  “Yay!”

  “I could write a book from this little tidbit.”

  “So are you done with your meeting? Come over here and see the journal. Then we can walk home together.”

  “Oh dear,” she sighed.

  “What?”

  “This meeting isn’t even half over and it’s not something I can leave. It has to do with the funding for my women’s history program. If I’m not here, I’ll get stiffed. I can’t...”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, I really do. I used to work for the government, you know. One time I was in a union meeting that went on for three days.”

  “You’re a gem.”

  “I know.” We both laughed. “Do you have any idea when it might end?”

  “I’m hoping about two hours. Bolton can give me a ride home.”

  “Who?”

  “Bolton Winpenny. I told you about him. He was at the retreat.

  “The steel drummer? The one who got you out of the retreat early?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m indebted to him. By the way, this journal seems to be part of a set, but there’s only one in here.”

  “I can’t wait to look at it all tomorrow. Put everything on my shelf in the locked part. I got the combination. It’s 6...6...6.”

  “What luck, you’ll never forget that.”

  “Why didn’t anyone know about this journal? This should have been researched years ago. I don’t understand it.”

  “Well, it’s very hard to read. Also box was mis-shelved. No, that’s not right; it wasn’t in the data system. It didn’t contain the reference.”

  “But how could you find it? The archives are huge. The college boasts that there are over three hundred thousand archived collections.”

  “Well, I saw Amanda and she...”

  “Oh, Amanda helped you. But how could she even...”

  “She got Isabella Santiago to help us. Dr. Santiago went right to them.”

  Kathryn laughed out loud. “Very good! No really, so Amanda found the archive box?”

  “No,” I explained again, “she got Isabella Santiago to help us, though she seemed pretty pissed off about it. She’s a riot, so tiny and pale and kind of interesting looking. She must have been very pretty when she was a younger woman.”

  There was a long pause, then Kathryn said, “You saw her? You really saw Isabella Santiago? Really? You’re not teasing me?”

  “Yeah, haven’t you seen her?”

  There was another long pause, then finally Kathryn said, “Maggie, no one has ever really seen Isabella Santiago, well not in the flesh anyway. She isn’t a real person. She’s the library ghost.

  Chapter 10

  Kathryn insisted she wasn’t joking about the ghost in the library and I insisted I really had seen Dr. Isabella Santiago. We ended by being amused that we were both so positive.

  “You haven’t eaten, have you? I just called Fen-Ultimate Pizza to deliver some supper because we were all starving. By now you must be too. I’m paying, so I think you should come over and have a piece while we’re on a break.” Kathryn added gently, “Would you? I want to see you.”

  “Be there in five minutes.”

  When I got to the English Department Building on the quad behind Administration, I met the delivery person from Fen-Ultimate Pizza outside. I could smell the oregano before I even saw her. I paid and tipped her and carried the pies and other bags of drinks and side dishes to the meeting so I’d be all the more welcome as the bearer of brick-oven ambrosia.

  In a large third-floor classroom, various professorial types slouched on chairs and leaned on tables in break mode. They were all so academic that if you’d put black graduation gowns on them they could have played a revival of Good Bye Mr. Chips. Of course Kathryn would be in the hot Mrs. Chips role.

  When Kathryn saw me her eyes brightened.

  “Everyone,” she called, “please meet Maggie Gale. Not only the bearer of edible gifts, but the charmer of ghosts!”

  They swarmed the pizza as only college faculty can. Kathryn put an arm around my waist and propelled me pizzaward as we argued gently about who would pay the check. She won and gave me cash.

  “Maggie, this is Dr. Paul Ericson. I think you two met at the college holiday party,” said Kathryn.

  Paul Ericson was opening a box of salad. He was blond, fair-skinned, and had a full beard and twinkling eyes. He had on one of those tan corduroy jackets with leather patches at the elbows. He waved to me because his mouth was full.

  “And this is Dr. Bolton Winpenny.”

  So this was the steel drummer from the retreat. Winpenney had close-cropped reddish hair and a beard that mirrored the color of the sweater under his camel hair blazer, also with leather patched elbows. Unlike Paul, who was wearing khaki pants, Bolton was wearing straight legged blue jeans that fit
him well. He looked younger than his name.

  “Bolton,” he said shaking my hand.

  “And,” said Kathryn, “you know Daniel Cohen.”

  Dan Cohen crossed the room and bear-hugged me. Two months before, he and I had shared a high adrenaline fifteen minutes in an emergency, as we risked our lives to save another. It was one of those things that cements a friendship even though I’d only seen him a few times since.

  Kathryn introduced me to several other people who were too busy with the food to do anything more than nod.

  Paul Ericson, with pizza slice in hand, said, “Did I hear Kathryn say something about ghosts?”

  “Maggie tells me she saw Isabella Santiago earlier this evening,” said Kathryn.

  “In the library?” asked Paul.

  I nodded.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, Dr. Ericson, I really did.” I smiled, nodding.

  “Huh! Call me Paul.”

  “Wait, I thought she wasn’t real. Don’t people on campus refer to her as the library spirit?” asked Bolton Winpenny.

  This time Kathryn nodded.

  Dan Cohen was staring at me.

  I said to Dan, “Do you believe she’s a ghost?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t use the library archives much. I’ve never seen her. I thought she was an urban legend. But if you’ve seen her Maggie, then...” Dan nodded his head but didn’t quite finish the sentence.

  I turned to Paul Ericson, who was saying, “About four years ago I saw a woman in a white flowing dress hovering around the end of one of the stacks. I went after her, but she disappeared around a corner and when I got there she was gone. When I asked one of the librarians about her, he said nervously that she shouldn’t be disturbed. Did she actually talk to you?”