Nobody's Secret

by Michaela MacColl

  “It’s none of your concern . . . ” He did a double take. “If you knew him, why is he lying here nameless?”

  “We were friends,” Emily admitted, “but I didn’t know his name.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” His tone was razor-sharp.

  “I know, but it’s true.” To Emily’s horror, she felt the tears welling up. She waved her hand in front of her eyes in a futile attempt to stop them.

  With automatic courtesy, Mr. Langston reached into his coat and handed her a handkerchief. When she looked up, she saw that his eyes were also filled with tears. Wordlessly, she handed it back to him.

  “Miss Dickinson . . . ” His whole demeanor was gentler now, as though her tears had dissolved his anger.

  “Emily.”

  “Emily, I can see you cared about James . . . ” He had to stop and clear his throat. “Naturally, I find that a point in your favor.”

  She sniffed and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “Then please, Mr. Langston, tell me everything you know.”

  The only secret people keep

  Is Immortality.

  CHAPTER 14

  They sat on the steps of the church, under the porch, watching the rain fall in gentle sheets. Finally, he began to speak.

  “My mother has two brothers. Sam, whom you met . . . ”

  “And a courteous gentleman he was, Mr. Langston,” Emily said drily.

  “Call me Henry,” he said with a wry smile. “And to be fair, you were stealing my uncle’s honey. He takes that personally.” With a tightening of her heart, Emily saw that Henry was even more like his cousin than she had thought.

  “My mother’s other brother was Jeremiah. Sam is a simple soul. Give him his orchard and hives and he’s content. Jeremiah was restless, never staying in one place, always traveling to find his fortune somewhere else. He would disappear for months or years at a time.”

  “And did he make his fortune?” Emily asked, although she had seen a list of Jeremiah’s extensive securities and bank accounts.

  “Several times!” Henry chuckled. “And often lost it just as quickly. It drove Father to distraction. He would beg Jeremiah to let him invest it, a safeguard against old age. But Jeremiah said he never intended to grow old and that my father could take his advice and go to the devil.” Henry suddenly recalled he was speaking to a lady. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Your mother mentioned that he passed away,” Emily prompted, impatient with the social niceties.

  He nodded. “We knew he was in the Dakotas. He got lucky and made a fortune. And then we heard nothing for eighteen months. My mother was beside herself with worry.”

  Having met the shallow Mrs. Langston, Emily doubted this, but she held her tongue.

  “About six months ago, we heard he was dead.”

  Emily calculated. “That’s when your family moved here from Boston.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Emily asked.

  “Mother said she wanted to go to Amherst to be near her only surviving brother, but she really wanted to be close by while my uncle’s estate was settled.”

  “Did your family need the money?” Emily asked, braced for a rebuff for asking such an indiscreet question.

  But Henry stood up, walked to the end of the porch, and looked out at the rain for a few moments. Finally, he came back to her and said, “My father was in the midst of a financial crisis in Boston. I was forced to leave school, and we had to sell the house. And Mother was concerned about Ursula. She had fallen into a fast set in Boston and was accumulating her own debts at an alarming rate.”

  Emily, despite her oft-protested dislike of gossip, was dying to know more about Ursula’s goings-on. Feeling like a wren who had to choose between two juicy worms, she forced herself to concentrate on the story of Jeremiah Wentworth. “So your mother and Sam inherited a fortune?”

  “They split everything between them. And I was able to go back to Yale.”

  Trying to study his face without being obvious, Emily asked the essential question. “Jeremiah had an heir, didn’t he? A son. Your cousin, James.”

  “Uncle Jeremiah had married a girl in the wilds of Texas. She died in childbirth. Jeremiah never had much interest in being a father, so he sent James to school as soon as he was old enough.”

  “But he never stayed at school very long.” Emily remembered how Mr. Nobody—she would have to get used to calling him James—had scorned the academic life.

  “He spoke of that to you?” Henry smiled reminiscently. “He ran away time after time. Finally when he was sixteen he disappeared for good. We thought he might have gone out West, or signed up for a merchant ship.”

  “I think it was a ship,” Emily said. “He spoke of the sea.”

  “Of course,” Henry said. “He loved to travel.”

  “Tell me what happened then.”

  “Then we heard he was dead.” Henry’s story had come to an abrupt halt.

  “How?”

  He thought and then shook his head. “I don’t know. My mother wrote me at school.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last Christmas. But she told me he had died months earlier. Before his father.”

  The sequence of events seemed suspicious to Emily. And if her suspicions were correct, it was precisely the sequence of events that mattered.

  Jeremiah, the rich brother, was out in the wilds of the Dakotas. He could die at any time. James, his son and rightful heir, was—who knew where? In any event, he was unlikely to return. A simple codicil to Jeremiah’s will stating that his son was dead meant that the remaining heirs, the Langstons and Sam Wentworth, would get their money that much sooner. If Jeremiah or James ever turned up alive, an unscrupulous clerk could simply destroy the codicil. It was diabolically clever.

  “But the rightful heir to Jeremiah’s fortune was very much alive,” Emily pointed out. “James was eating honeycomb Friday last.”

  “It was a shock, let me tell you.” Henry clasped his hands and began cracking his knuckles. “I hadn’t seen him since we were about thirteen—but I recognized him right away. I was glad it was I who met him and not Uncle. He has a heart condition; the shock might have killed him.”

  “Was your meeting amicable?” Emily asked, her eyes narrowed as she waited for his answer.

  “Of course it was.” Henry sounded almost puzzled. “I was delighted to see that he was alive.”

  “Even if it meant the loss of your family’s inheritance?”

  “What kind of cold-blooded monster do you think I am?” he burst out. “Besides, it wouldn’t have mattered. Uncle Jeremiah must have heard his son was dead too. He changed his will to remove James as a beneficiary, leaving my mother and Uncle Sam to inherit.”

  That was the codicil Emily had found in her father’s office. “So James came back to life—and found you and your family in possession of his inheritance?

  “It was an honest mistake.” Henry pronounced each syllable deliberately. “I told James so. There was no one to blame.”

  Staring at his face, Emily searched for signs of guilty knowledge. “You truly believe that?

  He glared at her. “Of course it was a mistake! Even if James had gone to the law, we would have reached some sort of compromise. There was plenty to go around. My Uncle Sam refused to touch his portion anyway.”

  “Why?” Emily found that most suspicious of all. Surely only a guilty conscience would cause someone to refuse a fortune?

  Henry shrugged. “He doesn’t need much.”

  “But luckily for your family, James died again. Suddenly.” Emily let the bald words, with all their sinister implications, hang in the humid air.

  Henry was silent, and Emily could see that his fists were clenched. Finally he glanced sideways and asked in a low voice, “How did he die?”

  “He was found float
ing in our pond,” Emily said.

  “Drowned?” The tension drained out of him. “So it was an accident?”

  “Possibly,” Emily said. “But don’t you think it’s an odd coincidence that my father, Edward Dickinson, was Jeremiah Wentworth’s lawyer—and Jeremiah’s son ends up dead in our pond?”

  “Nothing is more common than drowning,” Henry said. “Why were you being so melodramatic with your talk of mysterious circumstances?” He stood up and brushed several raindrops off his trousers. “I don’t know what your role, or your father’s, is in this tragedy, but my family will take care of its own. Thank you for telling me about James. Good day.” Without meeting her eyes, he stalked off toward his mother’s house.

  Something was wrong with Henry’s story. Emily wasn’t a lawyer, but she had grown up around the law. The story of the inheritance and the codicil seemed fishy. She wished her father were here to explain it.

  But her father was still in Boston, and judging from Henry’s hasty departure, she would get no answers from the Langstons. She would have to find a different way.

  Death is like the insect

  Menacing the tree,

  Competent to kill it,

  But decoyed may be

  CHAPTER 15

  Emily watched Henry as he disappeared on the College grounds. As though his departure were a signal for the heavens, the rain stopped.

  “Well?” Vinnie said, stepping out from the shadows around the corner of the church. She was very damp.

  “Oh!” Emily’s hand flew to her mouth. “You gave me a start.” She narrowed her eyes. “Did you follow me again?

  Vinnie nodded vigorously. “Henry Langston is rather handsome, but he’s a suspicious character. I wasn’t going to let you go alone.”

  Only a curmudgeon could resist Vinnie’s devotion. Emily reached out and clasped her sister’s hand. “You take better care of me than I deserve.” She felt the stirrings of a cough deep in her chest, but she smothered it before it could be born. No need to worry Vinnie, who would be sure to tell their mother.

  She noticed that Vinnie’s cloth shoes were soaked and stained. She had refused to wear the practical boots that Emily’s father had had made for them.

  “But I’m perishing of curiosity—I couldn’t hear a thing. What happened?” Vinnie asked.

  “Mr. Nobody has a name,” Emily said. “He’s James Wentworth, Henry’s cousin.”

  A slow smile appeared on Vinnie’s face. “You thought he might be!”

  Emily nodded sadly.

  “But he was supposed to be dead already. How is it that he came back to Amherst to die again?”

  “I’m more concerned about how he died in Amherst.” Emily tucked a hand in Vinnie’s elbow and led her toward home. “I wish Father had a criminal practice. Then we would be more knowledgeable about sudden death.”

  “Mother tells us enough stories out of the newspaper,” Vinnie replied tartly. “What don’t we know about grisly deaths?”

  Emily laughed, grateful to her sister for leavening her mood. “Dr. Gridley suggested James Wentworth was poisoned, but he couldn’t determine which poison.”

  “Can’t he perform some sort of test, like they do in our chemistry lectures?” asked Vinnie.

  “Only if he knows what poison to look for. I learned that in botany when we talked about antidotes.”

  They walked down South Pleasant Street, past the Common on their right. In the best of weather, the Common was a large soggy field, suitable only for hungry cows. Today it was a veritable frog pond. Emily could hear the tiny creatures croaking to one another, drowning out the persistent crickets. The Amherst House on the corner was doing good business, although the shops and offices were already closed for the evening. The gentle downward slope made the walk an easy one. They passed the widow Kellogg’s house, with its tall hedge of yew.

  Emily wrinkled her nose at the bitter smell of the trees. “Remember that little boy who died after he ate yew berries? Mother read it in the newspaper. The poison was called taxine.”

  “Who could forget?” Vinnie said with a smile. “Mother made us swear to avoid yew berries for the rest of our lives.”

  “It worries her how easy it would be for all of us to die. Killing a man is as easy as crushing berries from this tree and dropping it in his tea.”

  Vinnie stopped abruptly. “You think a yew berry killed your friend?”

  “I don’t know.” Emily sighed. “There are so many ways to kill someone with ordinary plants.” She paused, remembering her lessons. “And not everyone reacts to a plant toxin in the same way.”

  Miss Phelps had shown them how the brush of a tulip petal might irritate the skin. Ursula had shown no reaction, but Emily’s skin had turned bright red and developed a rash. Miss Phelps said that meant she was “exquisitely sensitive,” which was a botanist’s term. Emily remembered how envious Ursula had been . . . of a rash! Apparently Ursula craved to be the center of all eyes. Again, Emily remembered how Ursula had worked tirelessly to make her herbarium outshine Emily’s.

  “I had no idea that plants were so dangerous. Let’s hurry home,” Vinnie said.

  “Be grateful I don’t tell you how toxic the forest is,” Emily teased. But her steps quickened homeward as well.

  Emily woke the next morning with the dreaded and familiar cough. She tried to hide it, but Vinnie propped herself up and began scolding. “Emily, you’ve been overdoing it. You should never have gone out in the rain yesterday.”

  “I’m fine. Stop coddling me.” But Emily lay back on her pillow, her chest feeling hollowed-out and cold.

  Vinnie slipped out of bed and put on her robe. “I was going on a picnic with Jane Gridley, but if you are ill, I’ll stay home.”

  “Absolutely not!” Emily cried. “You go and enjoy yourself.” She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice. The picnic sounded fun, but Emily had not been invited. “I’ll rest for a bit this morning, then I’ll help Mother.” She had planned to pursue her investigation today, but her duties at home took precedence.

  “Well, if you insist, I’ll go,” Vinnie said. She looked as sly as one of her cats with cream dripping from its whiskers. “If you promise to rest, I’ll bring you a clue when I get home.”

  “Have you been investigating on your own?” Emily accused.

  With a secretive smile, Vinnie said, “I’ve just been doing exactly what I’m supposed to do . . . unlike another sister I could mention. Now sleep, or I won’t tell you.”

  Emily rolled over and buried her head under the covers. No sooner had she begun to doze than she heard her mother enter the room. The only thing that could distract Mrs. Dickinson from her own ill-health was the prospect of nursing Emily.

  Emily peeked out. “Good morning, Mother.”

  Her mother adjusted the blanket at Emily’s feet, tucking it in at the corners of the bed. “Vinnie told me you’re coughing. I sent for Dr. Gridley, but he’s out of town until Sunday.”

  “That’s not necessary. I feel fine now.” Emily kicked the blanket loose.

  “I thought you might like to speak to Dr. Gridley anyway—about your dead body,” her mother continued, as though Emily hadn’t spoken.

  Startled, she glanced at her mother’s pale face. There were shadows under her eyes, and Emily felt as guilty as if she had painted them there herself.

  Her mother went on, “Isn’t that what you’ve been sneaking out to do? Wouldn’t it be more convenient if the doctor just came here?”

  Emily wanted to pull the too-warm blanket over her head. She had underestimated her mother’s powers of observation. “I found out the dead man’s name,” she admitted. “He can have a decent Christian burial now.”

  “That’s admirable, I’m sure. But why was it so important to you?” Emily’s mother sank down on the bed as though her legs wouldn’t support her any longer.


  Emily reached out and took her hand. “No one cared except me,” she said.

  “You aren’t strong enough for such a crusade.” Her mother’s hand trembled in Emily’s.

  “If you keep me trapped in this house, I’ll never get stronger,” Emily retorted. At her mother’s stricken look, she relented. “Besides, you and Father taught me to do the right thing.”

  Mrs. Dickinson’s spine straightened and her chin lifted. “I’ve also tried to teach you how perilous the world is. Home is the only place you can be safe.”

  Emily felt as though she couldn’t breathe, but it had nothing to do with her weak chest. “Safe—but suffocating.”

  “Suffocating?” Her mother pulled away from Emily’s grasp and went to the window that faced the pond. Her back was rigid, and Emily knew she was remembering the corpse floating there.

  Emily spoke to her mother’s back. “I want to accomplish something with my life. I’ll probably need to leave home sometimes, but I promise I’ll always return . . . to find myself again.”

  “You are not meant to have adventures,” Mrs. Dickinson snapped. “You’re supposed to marry, have children of your own, and keep a beautiful house.”

  “What if I want something else?” Emily asked in a defiant voice. “Something that doesn’t require a husband or children?”

  “Of course you’ll marry,” Mrs. Dickinson said. “Lavinia will doubtless have more suitors, but there are many young men who will appreciate your intelligence, so long as you don’t frighten them away with your odd ideas and your secret notebooks.”

  Emily’s hand slid imperceptibly under her pillow, where she touched the reassuring square notebook filled with clues. It felt like a talisman.

  Mrs. Dickinson came back to the bed and fluffed Emily’s pillow around her head. “Vinnie is picnicking with that Jane Gridley. I’m not sure she’s an appropriate friend for your sister; Jane is entirely too popular.” She put a hand to her temple. “I’m feeling a headache coming on. I’m going to lie down. You should rest, too. Later, we’ll do the baking.”