Sowing Poison

by Janet Kellough

  Lewis kept a worried eye on Betsy, and when her limp became more and more pronounced as the day wore on, he took Daniel aside.

  “We can’t go on like this, you know. I’m quite willing to do whatever work needs to be done, but I’m useless in the kitchen and you’re not much better.”

  Daniel wrinkled his brow. “I hadn’t counted on having to hire help. I thought we could do it ourselves.”

  “We could if we hadn’t lost Susannah, but if we keep on at this pace we’ll lose Betsy, too, and then it’ll just be you and me trying to cope. I think you should hire someone before that happens.”

  He knew that Daniel was worried about what it would cost, but he truly could not see an alternative.

  “Look, the people who came here over the last couple of days came because of Mrs. Elliott. There’s apt to be even more tomorrow. That’s more business than you’ve seen in the last six months. Take a little of the money and hire some help.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Daniel grumbled. “I just don’t know if we can find anyone suitable. There’s not many will come to a hotel to work.”

  The problem, Lewis knew, was that too many of the families in Wellington were Quakers. No Quaker girl would wait on tables, and this severely limited the pool of available help. The Society of Friends were a sober and industrious lot, but they made peculiar distinctions when it came to working for others. An honest exchange of labour for wages was acceptable; anything that implied that they were subservient in any way was firmly declined. It was something the better class of English immigrants had complained of bitterly in the past, for this Quaker attitude had spread to others who, had they been in England, would have been little more than scullery maids and happy enough to tug their forelocks to their self-proclaimed betters. Here, the attitude of hirelings was summed up in the one word: help. It was no disgrace to move in with a family and “help,” but the help expected to be spoken to civilly and to sit at the same dinner table as her employers. And no girl of good family, Quaker or not, would ever be allowed to work at an inn that had a tavern; but surely an inn that boasted temperance in its name might be more acceptable?

  Susannah, who was well aware of just exactly how much work was entailed in looking after so many guests, readily agreed that some help was required. “I don’t know of anyone offhand,” she said, “but I do know who might. Go talk to the Scully girl. She seems to know everything about everybody, including half the things they don’t know themselves. Surely she’ll be able to think of somebody who would be willing to work for us.”

  Lewis knew that if he left it to Daniel the conversation would never take place, so the next morning he set off for Scully’s store.

  “You’re Mr. Lewis, are you not?” Scully asked as he entered the shop. “You’re over at the Temperance with your sister, isn’t that right?” Lewis nodded his agreement. “What could we do for you today, sir? I can only hope that you’re so busy over at the hotel that you’ve worn out the linen already and are looking for more.”

  “It’s not the linen that’s worn out, it’s me,” Lewis said. “I expect you know that my sister broke her leg. What you may not know is that my wife is not well either. That leaves me and my brother-in-law to manage things … and we’re not doing a very good job of it, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, dear, that does sound dire,” Scully said, “but how can we help you?”

  “I was wondering if I might speak with your daughter. I’ve been told that she tends to have a finger on the pulse of the village, and that she might be able to point me in the direction of some industrious person who could take up some of the slack.”

  He had rehearsed his very diplomatic statement, not wanting to imply that Meribeth Scully was a busybody, although as far as he could ascertain, that was exactly what she was.

  “Mr. Lewis! How is your sister? Recovering, I hope.” The voice came from the corner of the store. Lewis hadn’t seen the girl behind the huge oak table. She was so short she nearly disappeared when she sat behind it.

  “She’s as well as can be expected, I suppose. Thank you for asking.”

  “You must have your hands full over there. I hear the inn is nearly booked up now that Mrs. Elliott is so famous. I don’t know what to think of her, to be perfectly honest. It all seems so odd, but it certainly is good for business.”

  Lewis knew that she was fishing for more information about the mysterious sessions that Clementine held in her rooms, but he knew little more than she did, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have said a word. She had, however, given him an opportunity to jump directly to the matter at hand.

  “It’s busy, that’s the truth. And that’s why I thought I’d consult you.”

  “Oh, if there’s anything I can do, just say, Mr. Lewis.”

  “I’m wondering if you would know of anybody in the neighbourhood who might like to earn a little money. We can’t keep up with the work over there.”

  She screwed up her face in thought. “Well, there might be one or two. It would depend on what you were asking them to do.”

  “The cooking, mostly,” he replied. “Maybe a little cleaning. It’s too much for us. My brother-in-law and I can manage to get the food to the table all right, but it’s the business in the kitchen that we’re having the most difficulty with.”

  She laughed at this. “I don’t think there’s a man alive that truly knows his way around a cookstove,” she said. “Well, you might ask Sophie Carr, that’s Fred Carr’s daughter. You know, her brother Martin went with you when everyone was looking for Nate Elliott.”

  After Lewis recovered from his astonishment that Meribeth knew, much less remembered this small detail of such a wide search, he considered her suggestion. Martin had seemed like an intelligent boy, and if his sister was in any way similar, she could be a good choice.

  “She’s free at the moment, do you think?”

  “I expect so,” Meribeth said. “She spent the last year nursing her father, but he died three months ago. The family could probably use the money. They’ve been living on what Martin makes at the sawmill.”

  “Excellent. I’ll go along and ask Martin about it right now.”

  “It’s a funny thing, though, isn’t it? About Mrs. Elliott, I mean.”

  “I don’t understand.” She was still fishing, but she’d get nothing from him. “If she is so good at communicating with the spirit world, you’d think she could tell us whether or not her husband is dead.”

  As he walked along the street to the mill, he had to reflect that, although Meribeth was a dreadful gossip, she was by no means a stupid girl, for he had been wondering about that very same point. Surely if Nate Elliott was dead, and at this point it was almost certain that he was, Clementine would be in constant communication with his spirit. After all, she seemed to be able to summon up everyone else’s dear and departed practically on demand.

  Her activities at the inn had nettled him from the start. “Treating with the devil” would be the church’s objection, and one that would easily explain his unease to anyone who asked, although no one else seemed to make any connection between the tenets of their faith and table-rapping or spirit-calling, or whatever it was she did. In all honesty, his objections were far more practical; he was convinced that she was a fraud.

  He considered what Spencer had told him. “Near an island,” she had said to him. Well, that wasn’t difficult, was it? The Anthea had been in a part of the lake that had a number of islands, large and small, and an even greater number of shoals and bars. It wouldn’t require clairvoyance to provide the insight that they might be near an island. He worried over “happy and safe,” for that was the part of her prediction that had seemed so miraculous. He wondered what she would have done if the bodies had washed up on some shore, or if no news had ever been received as to their fate. And then he realized that the prediction had been so vague that almost anything could have been read into it by someone anxious for explanation. If they had simply disappeared, never to be he
ard of again, the claim could be made that they were happy and safe somewhere and just hadn’t informed anyone else of the fact. Even in the worst of scenarios, if the actual bodies were found, Mrs. Elliott could play to the expectation of an afterlife and claim that their souls had gone to heaven, a place that, after all, promised well-being and happiness. The outcome didn’t matter, he realized; she would be seen as prescient no matter what occurred.

  That still didn’t explain what had happened to Nate Elliott though. Lewis resolved to study the question more closely when he had time, but he would never have time if he couldn’t persuade Martin Carr’s sister to come to work at the inn.

  So he continued down to the planing mill, past the piers and the huge reels that were used to wind up the fishing nets so that they could dry. They gave the harbour an eerie skeletal look, accentuated by the hulls of ships that had been stripped of their masts and booms and hauled up onto cradles for the winter. The mill appeared equally deserted at first, for there was little call for finished lumber in the wintertime.

  Lewis entered the first door he came to and called out. He heard footsteps clattering on a set of stairs and Martin appeared.

  “Mr. Lewis, good day. What can I do for you, sir?”

  “I’m here to ask if your sister would be able to come and work at the hotel,” Lewis said, getting right to the point of his visit. “We need some help, mostly in the kitchen. Can she cook?”

  Martin grinned. “She does all our cooking and it makes my mouth water just to think of it. She’s better at it than my mother is.”

  “Do you think she might be interested in a job? We’ve more work than we can handle by ourselves.”

  “That would be grand,” Martin said. “I’m on short hours here because it’s so slow right now, and even when it isn’t, I don’t make nearly enough for us all. I don’t mind telling you it’s been a tough go with Pa gone, but Ma’s been reluctant to let Sophie go just anywhere. If it’s you and your brother-in-law, and the Temperance Hotel at that, I’m sure she’ll say yes, for she’ll know that Sophie will be treated well, and there’s no chance of her running into the rough bunch that go to the taverns.”

  “When could she start?”

  “I’ll ask tonight when I go home, but I expect it could be as soon as tomorrow if that suits you.”

  Lewis nodded his thanks and walked away a relieved man.

  Sophie arrived early the next morning.

  Daniel was in the sink room filling jugs with hot water to take upstairs to the guestrooms and Lewis was in the kitchen struggling with the beginnings of breakfast when a tap was heard at the back door. When Lewis opened the door, Sophie stepped in and introduced herself. His first impression was that Meribeth certainly seemed to have steered him in the right direction; the girl was neatly and demurely dressed, her hair tucked carefully under her cap. She was quite attractive — she looked a lot like her brother, but with the features softened into a pleasant femininity. He didn’t care, really, what she looked like as long as she did the work, but it was nice that she was so presentable.

  Sophie bustled into the kitchen and grabbed an apron. “Oh, good, I see you’ve got the porridge on. I’ll start the biscuits. How many are there for breakfast? And are the tables set?”

  Lewis had done this the evening before. He found that mornings were such a scramble that it was worthwhile to take a half-hour to brush off the cloths and lay the cutlery before he dragged his weary bones off to bed.

  He did a quick mental headcount, relayed the information to Sophie, then showed her the pantry in the cold room just off the back hall.

  By the time they returned, the kettle was boiling. He would start the coffee first, then re-boil the kettle for tea. It was a nuisance having to make both, but their American guests seemed to expect coffee at all hours. The Canadians, on the other hand, wanted their tea in the morning.

  Sophie seemed quite at home in the kitchen, so when Betsy came in he left them to it. Daniel had already wrestled most of the jugs up to the rooms, so Lewis decided he would help him carry up the rest.

  By the time the first guests straggled into the dining room, breakfast was ready, but Lewis noted that the menu seemed to have changed dramatically from the fare that he and Daniel had planned to provide. There were potatoes and bacon as usual, but Sophie’s bacon had been fried to a crispy brown and looked far more appetizing than the burnt strips they had managed. She had also chopped some onion into the potatoes, and, in the short time since she had arrived, she had managed to produce a mound of light, fluffy-looking biscuits, an addition that made even Horatio’s usually dour face light up. The porridge was free of the sodden lumps that appeared whenever he or Daniel cooked it and there were a handful of chopped apples on top. All in all, it appeared that Sophie would be a fine addition to the inn’s staff.

  Lewis left Martha to clear dishes away from the tables as the guests finished and went upstairs to help empty the slops and air the bedclothes. Normally he left these rather odious tasks to Daniel, while he washed the dishes and began the preparations for the noontime dinner, but Sophie had chased him out of the kitchen.

  “I’m fine here,” she told him. “I’ve already got the water boiled up for the dishes, so it’s just a matter of doing them.” She had smiled when she said this, revealing two astonishing dimples. “I’m sure there’s plenty else you could be doing. I’ll need a little more firewood in an hour or so, but nothing until then.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “I know when I’m not wanted.” At this, she had smiled again, the working relationship between the two sorted out in the matter of a few sentences.

  He found himself whistling a little as he climbed the stairs. Complete chaos had seemed suddenly averted, and for the first time since Susannah had broken her leg he was not operating on the edge of panic. Unlike most men, Thaddeus was aware of the amount of work women did, and tried not to take it for granted. But this business of looking after umpteen hotel guests every day was far harder than anything he had ever encountered in all his years as a circuit rider. Or maybe he was just getting old. After all, many families consisted of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen children or more, and someone cooked and cleaned for them all, didn’t they? Of course, the older ones looked after the younger ones and pitched in with everything else. The problem, he decided, was that you couldn’t expect guests to pitch in.

  With relief he turned to the Elliotts’ rooms. Mrs. Elliott appeared to be a very tidy soul, and extra clothing was hung on the pegs or had presumably been folded away, probably in the trunk that had arrived with her. He stripped the coverlets and sheets off the beds. He had extra time this morning, so he would turn the topmost mattresses over and smooth out the inevitable lumps and bumps that appeared as the goose feathers clumped together. Betsy had told him he should do this from time to time. (It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to him otherwise.)

  As he heaved the mattress off the smaller bed and onto the floor, a piece of paper slid out with the inevitable feathers that had escaped the confines of the ticking. It was a sheet of newsprint that had been shoved in between the many layers of bedding. It had been opened and folded to reveal the inside page and, as he retrieved it from the floor, an item in the top right hand corner caught his eye. It was the newspaper he had been reading when the Elliotts first arrived at Temperance House, or at least a newspaper with the same articles, for there was a description of Tom Thumb and the Feejee Mermaid. Horatio must have been as intrigued by these articles as he had been and taken the newspaper upstairs to read.

  But then his eyes slid farther down the page to rest on an article he hadn’t noticed at the time. “Information Sought by Prominent Businessman,” read the caption. The short item went on to state that a Mr. Augustus Van Sylen, a man of some means and prominent in New York financial circles, was offering a reward for information leading to the whereabouts of a certain Monsieur and Madame LeClair, who had been operating in the city as mesmerists and spirit guides. Mr. Van Sylen had
contacted the couple to discover the whereabouts of his youngest son, who had run away two years previously and had not been heard from since. The LeClairs regretfully informed Van Sylen that his son had headed west and had perished in an Indian attack on the travelling party. They claimed to have made contact with the son’s spirit in the next world and over a period of the next few months Van Sylen attended their sessions on a regular basis. He reportedly paid a great deal of money for this communication.

  The scheme had fallen apart when Van Sylen’s son was discovered in New Jersey, living under an assumed name with another man’s wife. But by the time Van Sylen returned to demand his money back, the LeClairs had disappeared.

  The newspaper itself was local, but a note at the bottom of the article indicated that it had been reprinted from the New York Tribune. Perhaps it was just coincidence that Horatio had happened to pick it up from the bundle of papers that were piled on the table in the parlour, but even so, why then would he have hidden it under his mattress? Mrs. Elliott had stated that she was from South Carolina, not New York, and her accent, with its honeyed twang, bore that out. But the description of the LeClairs’ activities bore a startling resemblance to the services being offered on the second floor of the Temperance Hotel. What if one of their other guests read the article? Would they come to the conclusion that Mrs. Elliott, too, was a sham? It seemed reason enough to spirit the paper out of the parlour and away from curious eyes, but Lewis had to wonder if there was more to it than that.

  He made a mental note of the date of publication and, once he had wrestled the featherbed back onto the frame, he carefully tucked the paper back where he had found it.

  When he was reasonably satisfied with the way he had reassembled the linens, he quickly made up the larger bed and turned to the door of the adjacent sitting room. It was locked, and the key was nowhere in sight. He tried the door that led to the room from the hall, but this, too, was firmly locked. A guest was well within his or her rights to lock their hotel room, but in Lewis’s experience few ever availed themselves of the courtesy, leaving their doors open so that the room could be cleaned and aired. Apparently, Mrs. Elliott preferred to keep the contents of her sitting room private. That being the case, he decided, she could clean it herself. He shrugged and headed downstairs to see what Sophie was planning for dinner.