Samuel could almost be heard to wheeze at that, choking off a sarcastic comment. Livesey screwed his head about to glare again.
“More ultimate promise in her little finger than in the entire borough’s crop o’ misses, Mr Livesey,” Lakey lauded on, oblivious to Samuel’s scorn. “As I say, should you have no serious objections, we could, perhaps, allow ’em more chances t’be acquainted. Many a slip, t’wixt the crouch and the leap, o’ course. But …!”he barked happily at the auspicious prospects.
“Mmm, not encouraging, exactly,” Livesey mused.
“Nor dis-couragin’, either, hah!” Lakey bubbled. “Just so!”
“I promise I will give the matter serious reflection, sir,” he allowed at last. “And—”
“Why, here’s the lad himself, at last,” Lakey announced, using his long walking stick to aim at his nephew who approached them. “You young scamp, you took your own sweet time. Just leavin’, were you?”
“Uncle,” Andrew Hewlett replied, still out-of-sorts.
“Bess is feeling better?” Livesey inquired.
“Some better, Mr Livesey,” Andrew said. “She applied a cold cloth, soon as we attained your stoop. We sat on the porch while she did so. Then she decided to go in and have a lie-down so Ijust bade her my leave,just now.”
“Very good,” Livesey told him, approving his good manners, and knowing enough about the lad to know he was telling the truth. Besides, if he knew his Bess (and well he did), any caddish behavior would have been put down in a twinkling! Livesey rather suspected that Andrew had hoped for more—he looked rather hangdog and nettled—but it would not have been anything worthy of a switching. But any promising lad lucky enough to share Bess’s company would aspire to more. A lad with any bottom, at any rate. Still, he thought, he could ask her in a few minutes how Andrew Hewlett had conducted himself.
“Well, the social amenity done,” Thomas Lakey decided, “an’ Bess seen safely home, we will take our leave of you, good sir.”
“And we of you and Andrew, sir,” Livesey responded, tipping his tricorne, and bowing their departure.
“Don’t forget our invitation,” Lakey reminded him.
“I will not, sir, and thankee again,” Livesey told him. “We await your notice as to which Sunday would suit you best.”
“Hang formality,” Lakey chuckled. “Weather permittin’, let us say this Sunday. Ride in my coach after church. I’ll bring a horse or two, t’ease th’ crowdin’ in th’ coach.”
“You are too kind, sir. But weather allowing, yes. Let’s.”
“Adieu then, Mr Livesey … young Samuel. Come, Andrew.”
Samuel waited ‘til Lakey and Hewlett were safely out of hearing distance. “We weddin’ her off, then, Father? Huzzah, I say.”
With long practice, Livesey boxed his ear. “That for yer sauce!”
“I’m a man grown, Father,” Samuel graveled, rubbing his ear and blushing hot at such a public humiliation. “Don’t deserve such … not where all can see, I don’t! You didn’t have t’do that…”
“Then carry yourself like a man grown!” Livesey hissed, seething livid. “Such flippancy, mockery of your elders’ conversations … at such a time, too! An occasion nigh as grave as a funeral? Yet you would sneer, like a boy. Keep your counsel to yourself … or wait on my displeasure at home … where Ijust might take a strop to you, like an errant child deserves!”
“I’m sorry, Father, I didn’t…” Samuel snuffled. But Livesey, Senior, was already pacing away from him, forcing him to trot to catch him up.
Chapter 23
YOU TAKE ENTIRELY too much upon yourself, my girl,” Livesey warned her sternly. “I realize that, Father,” Bess replied, seeming chastised, in an uncharacteristically meek voice.
“Bowlegs’s advice to you was correct,” Livesey, Senior, went on, rasping in a confidential softness, as if he did not dare to use a normal tone of voice even in his own parlor, for fear of being over-heard. “This is dangerous business.”
“I know that, Father,” Bess whispered back, almost ducking her head. His harsh, confidential mutter rasped at her like a rough iron file. She cut a quick look toward Samuel, who was seated in one of their pair of decent wing-chairs. No matter how dangerous their father portrayed it, Samuel seemed to be enjoying Bess getting her “comeuppance,” scowling properly judgmental when Mr Livesey saw him, yet smirking with glee when he was not looking. Despite his earlier chastisement.
“My fault, I must suppose.” Livesey sighed heavily. “After your little escapade ‘cross the Brunswick with the MacDougalls, I shouldn’t have seemed so approving. Or encouraging.”
“But it’s only dangerous if the murder was a factional conspiracy, Father,” she dared enough to point out. “If it was only Anne Moore involved, if the reason was personal…”
“Even so, my girl,” Livesey cut her off quickly, slashing at the air between them with his hand. “Even so, you inquired too deep of her! Should you have put her on her guard …”
“On the qui-vive, as she would be wont to say?” Bess said, trying to lighten his mood, and her possible punishment.
“Do not attempt tojape!” her father gloomed back sternly. “You will not cosset me. Should you have put her on her guard, the gown may disappear, and with it, all proof of her involvement. Or her husband’s.”
“But that’s why I set Jemmy Bowlegs to watch the house, Father,” Bess reminded him. “To see if she throws it away.”
“Maybe she threw it out a long time ago,” Samuel offered up, in the tense silence which followed.
“Hmm,” Livesey mused, steepling his fingers under his nose. “If Anne Moore was romantically involved with Harry, as it now appears I must admit, Osgoode … Sam’l, that’s an interesting thought youjust had, my boy.” Matthew Livesey perked up a bit. “If the gown was discarded long ago, then she knows for certain that Osgoode is guilty. Has known, in fact, all this time. And is covering his crime, and her shameful link to the murder, and the reason behind it.”
“But Father”—Bess frowned—”if Uncle Harry and Anne Moore were lovers, how could she stand to live under the same roof with a man who’d killed the one she loved?”
“If Osgoode is found out, her rather comfortable, respectable life is over,” Matthew Livesey announced. “Even if he’s innocent, she would be ruined in the Cape Fear for her adultery. And the stench of it would follow her anywhere she went in the Carolinas. Except for Charleston, perhaps. Word of it could follow her all the way to London! Ift came out, do you see.”
“Yet she could have thrown the gown out long ago, as Sam’l says, and still not suspect Osgoode of killing him,” Bess said. “If she felt the gown was a danger to her reputation alone. Forgive me forjudging others, but Mrs Moore doesn’t strike me as a body who cares much for anyone but herself. And I’ve done something stupid, hoping she still had it! That she’d kept it out of some kind of… sentiment! I hope it’s still there. Else we’ll never know.”
“Most perplexing, ‘deed ’tis.” Matthew Livesey sighed. “Bess, be a good girl and top me up with some more of yon Madeira, will you?”
She sprang to do his bidding, fetching the bottle from the open wine cabinet and pouring his abandoned glass full again. She sat on the narrow arm of their shabby old settee, near her father, as he took a sip.
“So, did Osgoode suspect them, do you think?” her father asked at last. “Maybe put two and two together? And caught them together in that glade? Is he our murderer?”
“Well…” Samuel muttered shyly.
“Go on, Sam’l,” Livesey prompted.
“He left you and Uncle Harry early enough to get out there where the murder happened.” Samuel shrugged, hunching into himself as he felt their eyes upon him. “But if he’d caught ’em, wouldn’t he have shot him right then? Or been mad enough to have shot the pair of’em? Or, shot him running away, in the back? But Uncle Harry was waylaid. Ambushed. No word of warning or nothing.”
“Hmm.” Livesey
speculated, “Let’s assume Osgoode Moore had begun to be suspicious. Bouquets coming with no card, Anne sending a servant off with a bouquet. Over time, he could have discovered where they were coming from, and where they were going. He might even have followed his wife and seen them engaged in … ahum. Well, covertly, I should expect. I find it hard to picture Osgoode Moore bursting from the bushes, bristling with indignation. I should think he would be the sort to brood, to follow them more than a time or two. He’s a lawyer. He’d wish to make a case, after all, to satisfy his legal mind. Doubtless, he loves Anne. A public spectacle would harm both of them. He’d lose the leadership of the faction, if his best friend Harry had … ah. No one will follow a cuckold. A bill of divorcement would have to be presented in the General Assembly. Reverend McDowell would have to rule on it, as a one-man ecclesiastical court. Anne, Harry, Osgoode … they’d all be ruined. But a murder would solve every problem rather neatly.”
“And save the faction,” Bess piped up quickly.
“Hmm? Yes, it would, wouldn’t it?” her father agreed, just as quickly. “If Harry had been revealed as a traitor to his best friend, he’d have lost all respect, and the faction would have fallen apart.”
“So Prince Dick Ramseur was right, Father?” Samuel snickered. “In part, anyway. Uncle Harry ended up a martyr for the cause, ‘long as nobody ever discovers the real reason?”
“Exactly so.”
“Then, maybe Osgoode Moore threw the gown away, himself.” Bess nodded. “If he recognized the ribbons or lace torn from it to make up the bouquets, it would be too incriminating to keep. Ifhe was the murderer, if he confronted his wife once it was done …”
“Yet she did not seem …” Matthew Livesey began.
He was interrupted by a soft scratching sound at the back door of the kitchen annex, which led to a small back porch off the garden. They stiffened in dread as the scratching came again, louder this time and more insistent. The latch-stringjiggled!
“Sam’l, my dragoon pistols, on the mantel yonder,” Livesey ordered in a whisper. “Bess, see who it is, but don’t open it until we are ready.”
Bess went to the door, her arms folded across her bosom, hands clasping opposite arms hard to still her trembling. She glanced back to see her father on his feet, Samuel close by, and both now armed with heavy pistols, fresh-primed and drawn back to half-cock.
“Who is it?” Bess demanded, feeling fluttery with dread.
“Hits us’uns!” someone whispered back. “Op’m up!”
“Jemmy!” Samuel exclaimed, relieved, recognizing the voice.
“Good God, but you gave us a fright!” Bess said as she cracked the door just wide enough for Bowlegs and little Autie to slip in.
“Ev’nin’, Mistah Livesey,” Bowlegs said, beaming. “Hidy, Sam. Hidy, Miz Livesey. Whoa! No call fer them ‘barkers,’ hit’s just us. Say hidy to th’ folks, Autie.”
“Ev’nin’, y’all,” Autie said, doffing his straw hat and bowing to one and all. “Boss … ma’am.”
“Show ’em, Autie,” Jemmy ordered, and the monger laid a ragged sailcloth bundle on the dining table, opening it slowly, enjoying his brief moment of importance. Under the sailcloth was a gray, watered-silk sack gown, now much the worse for wear!
“Dear God, it’s … it!” Mr Livesey exclaimed in wonder.
“Whoo!” Bess whooped in glee, giving Bowlegs a hug for reward. “You’re marvels, the both of you! It was still there! But how did you get it?”
“Wayull, I put Autie out front, Miz Livesey,” Jemmy proudly said, “sellin’ ginger-beah on Market Street. Weren’t nobody goin’ t’care much, t’see a black feller vendin’ in front o’ their house. Most folk don’t even see black folk half th’ time, anyhow, nor pay ’em no mind.”
“‘At’s right, suh, hit sho’bel” Autie confirmed with a wry look.
“I got me a full piggin and went an’ had me a sit-down in a bit o’ shade,” Bowlegs went on, preening a little at his cleverness.
“Knowin’ you, Jemmy, they took it for rum,” Samueljoshed.
“Yeah, reckon so, Sam’l,” Jemmy agreed. “Got me a second, then follered th’ shade to th’ alley back o’ th’ Moore house. Pertended to take me a li’l nap … folk’d ‘spect that o’ me, too … an’ then a bit after dark? Wayull, heah come Miz Moore her ownself, sneakifyin’ out her back door, lookin’ six ways f’um Sunday! Slanky-slid over th’ trash barr’l an’ stuffed this-heah dress in. That’s why hit’s a tad ripe on th’ nose. Sorry … they wuz all sorts o’ slops in thar, afore, an’ some chamber pot, uh … stuff. Once’t hit got real good an’ dark, I jus’ hopped right over an’ snagged ‘er. An’ here hit be!” he crowed, thumbs hooked into the armholes of his waistcoat.
“You’re a marvel, Jemmy,” Mr Livesey declared. “It seems your backwoods skills are just as useful in town. Sam’l, fetch the wine. These lads have earned a glass, and our gratitude!”
“I can barely remember her wearing it,” Bess said, busying herself by pawing over the soiled gown despite its ripeness. “And, it’s not as flouncy as Biddy MacDougall described it, either, Father. See how much lace and ribbon has been removed? Carefully, but…” Bess reached into her apron pocket and brought out that eight-inch sample off the bouquet and laid it atop the remaining ribbon on the gown.
“Is it a match?” her father pressed impatiently, bustling over.
“To a Tee, I think,” Bess announced, her enthusiasm mysteriously vanishing, leaving a void in her soul. “Take a look yourself, Father. I’ll fetch the candles so you can see better.”
Livesey bent over the table and butted ends together, peering closely at them, frustrated that he might have need of spectacles at last, as if he was falling slowly apart. Too close and it all became a blur. “Well, da … tarnation,” he muttered.
“Here, Father,” Bess solicitously offered, bringing him a magnifying glass from the escritoire.
“Uhm, better. Confound it,” he grumped. Under the lens, though, the enlarged ribbons were a perfect match, identical in all respects.
S’pose I should see Doctor DeRosset for specs, he ruefully told himself, or fumble through mine own stock at the chandleryfor apair.
“They match, as you say, Bess. Perfectly,” he sadly said as he stood erect. “Sweetjesus. Poor, poor Osgoode Moore.”
“Match whut, Mistahjeemy?” Autie whispered to his confidant.
“Never ya mind, Autie,” Bowlegs cautioned. “Th’ less said, th’ better. Less ya know, th’ less trouble ya git inta. Rich white folk’s doin’s. Murder, an such.
“Ooh, Lawsie!” Autie said with a stunned expression. “Mistah Harry’s murder?” he asked, quickly surmising the situation with a wit most folk would not have expected. “Mm, mm, mm!” he concluded, dropping back into his witless, safeguarding, public pose.
“I quite forgot!” Mr Livesey exclaimed. “The curfew bell has already rung. Can you get your friend, Autie, home safely, Jemmy?”
“Don’ worry ‘bout that, Mistah Livesey,” Jemmy assured him, all but twinkling. “Autie an’ me know more’n a few ways ‘round Wilmington. Ain’t th’ first time we had … doin’s after dark.”
“Gosh, no!” Samuel attempted to add. “Why, once … !” He stopped short of a sudden, fearful of revealing his own dealings in the night.
“I will not enquire as to why you are so confident, Sam’l,” his father said, sternly frowning. “Nor where such knowledge came from.” Which veiled rebuke, and warning, made Samuel cough into his fist, and try to look innocent. “We must detain you no longer, Jemmy. For this, I owe both of you a debt, notjust in fiddler’s pay … thanks and ajug of wine, hah. A monetary award, or …”
“Best we hide Autie’s pushcart in yer shed fer th’ night, suh,” Bowlegs suggested. “Makes fer easy skulkin’. Nigh half a barr’l left, an’ I’m shore Autie’d say yer welcome to hit. T’other chandler asked/Fi shillin’s for’t. Now, could ya sell Autie an’ his Pap bar’coes o’ ginger-beah fer less, they’d �
�” Bowlegs slyly hinted. “Say three, or somewhars in thar …”
“Five shillings for each of you, this very night!” Mr Livesey firmly declared. “And any time I have ginger-beer to wholesale, Autie and his … Pap, may have a barricoe for three shillings, six pence.”
“Lawsie Muh’cy, thankya, Mistah Livesey, suh!” Autie cried.
“Kin I s’ggest ya put yer extry candles out, Cap’m?” Jemmy further hinted. “That way, we kin sneak th’oo th’ back door better. We don’t wanna be seed. Safer all ‘round.”
“Do you think anyone might have seen you take the gown, tried to follow you here?” Mr Livesey asked, with a worried frown.
“Huh!” Bowlegs sneered. “I’da knowed iff’n a body wuz trackin’ me, Mistah Livesey. Y’all give it a li’l time, put some lights out, an’ once’t hit gits right quiet, Autie an’ me’ll be goin’.”
And, a few moments of peeking and listening later, they went, slipping away past the shed and by the truck garden on cat-feet. Like a most-capable pair of chicken thieves.
“Well!” Mr Livesey gloomed once they were gone. “Now we know. Or, we believe we know.”
“Perhaps.” Bess sighed, sitting down on the settee.
“Why so glum, girl?” her father asked, stumping to take a seat beside her. “You were right, after all. The gown was still there in her house. And your probing forced her to throw it out. I was wrong to chaffer you about it. Once more, I stand in debt to your wits.”
“She doesn’t suspect Osgoode.” Bess frowned. “Else why would it have still been in her wardrobe until tonight?”
“Perhaps because he was very methodical and clever in his spying them out,” Matthew Livesey decided. “If he was in love enough to kill Harry to keep her, then he must have been smart enough to realize that throwing the gown away himself would only raise her suspicions if she missed it. Leaving it in her wardrobe, though, Anne must still think Harry’s killer was hired by the barons, or the motive had nothing to do with her affair with him.”
What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear Page 21