Reverend Christian Rowe, legally kept by his godly office from any position in secular government—though stating he was an earthly representative of a higher authority—also claimed a chair. Benjamin Tucker had been called as a medical witness. And Captain Edmund Montagu sat invited as a friend of the village; this was partly a bow to the captain’s somewhat vague connection to the Crown and its Boston representatives, as well as a recognition of his past service to Bracebridge in a matter of murder.
“So, then,” said Longfellow, putting down his glass, “are we agreed that the remains will be moved today to a better resting place? I suppose Miss Morris can be buried in what she wears.”
The reverend reddened, then answered. “Certainly, for it would be unwise for the village to be further exposed to contagion … by touching her again. She should be interred immediately.”
“Her family may wish to move her to Concord later.”
“Could we not send her there now?” another of the selectmen asked with faint hope.
“I hardly think we can, without her family’s approval. The father and two uncles are away to the north, at Penobscot, seeing to some timber. I take it the mother is too ill to travel, after hearing the news. A sister has written she will come when she can. For now, they leave it to us. I suppose they feel Will Sloan has some claim, and expect his family to see to the girl’s immediate needs.”
“The poor child,” Dr. Tucker whispered, lifting his glass once more.
Odd, thought Richard Longfellow, that Tucker appeared to be more moved than anyone of the village, except perhaps Reverend Rowe. “But now,” he continued, “what about Will Sloan? Has anyone had news of his whereabouts?”
When no one spoke up, he rose and went to one of the tall windows.
“When a man runs away from a thing like this,” said Phineas Wise haltingly, “some say it’s because of guilt. How do you gentlemen feel about that?”
“If,” said Longfellow, turning back, “a man were to see his fiancée lying dead, do you not suppose he would want to be alone, until he could sort himself out? If that is the situation here, Will Sloan’s absence is understandable. And we might find him before we accuse him—especially as we haven’t any clear idea of what has actually happened. But,” he added, looking from face to face, “we do have another concern. Will may be innocent of harming Phoebe, yet still a threat—if, for any reason, he went into the room to the girl. We all know that only those who have had the disease, or one very like it, can be trusted not to carry it. Will Sloan,” he finished bluntly, “never had the pox.”
“Then if we do find him,” asked Phineas Wise, “exactly what are we to do with him? I myself haven’t had it, either!”
Dr. Tucker answered, his voice weary. “I would suggest keeping young Sloan away from anyone else for a fortnight, at least, until we can be sure he’s over the risk of contagion. Any of you who have not had the smallpox should obviously refrain from looking for the boy in the first place.”
“I would like to add …” Captain Montagu began. While the others looked his way, and Longfellow again took a seat at the table, the captain waited. Then he went on.
“None of us knows exactly how smallpox is spread. But it has come to my attention that handling clothes, and particularly blankets, may be as deadly as making direct contact with a body, or with its gases.”
“I am aware of that, Captain,” Dr. Tucker said slowly. “There may also be a danger of effluvia carried on the air, which could ferment the blood of someone who has not been made invulnerable to infection. The medical community is still vague on that point—but I would be interested to hear of the circumstances on which you base your own conclusion, sir.”
“Recently,” Montagu replied, “during a parley with the Indians, one of our generals suggested to a certain colonel that he give blankets and handkerchiefs infected by smallpox to Pontiac’s warriors. The colonel followed this suggestion, which had the desired effect. Many died—though some by drowning, as they tried to cool their burning bodies in the waters. In fact, few were spared, even among their women and children.”
There was a moment of silence at the table.
“A shameful thing,” the doctor returned with a shake of his head.
“But we know war’s not always as tidy, sir,” said one of the selectmen, “as might be wished—”
“Pretty maids all in a row, marching with fine red coats on,” growled another, “may be marching to Hell, I tell you, for I’ve seen an Iroquois raid! And it’s not over yet for the brave men across the mountains—as these savages will honor no French treaty!”
Several others muttered their agreement, while Montagu felt his own blood rise. He, too, had known and admired men recently massacred in frontier garrisons: officers who had given their lives for their King, and to protect these very colonists! Yet could the sly murder of even women and children by infection ever be condoned?
The captain eyed the men about him carefully, before he spoke once more. “There are, you will agree, gentlemen, such things as rules of war, and of honor. I would imagine more than one of you has spoken lately of the Natural Rights of Mankind—”
Instantly, the muttering increased, and the conversation of some easily returned to the frequent topics of taxation and Parliament, and the dreaded stamps.
“Only tell me,” continued the previous speaker, banging a fist upon the table, “what rights the Indian may have, after he consorts with our enemy, and that enemy is defeated!”
“I’ve heard your story of blankets myself, Captain Montagu, but I will not believe it of Amherst,” came a different challenge. “For my brother followed the general to Ticonderoga, and swears he is as fair a man as you’ll meet in the King’s service.”
“In the King’s service,” echoed another suspiciously, casting a glance in Montagu’s direction.
“The question, gentlemen,” Richard Longfellow broke in, “is, should we instruct that the coffin be moved from my cellar to the churchyard, and buried this evening?”
At last, there was general agreement.
Hoping to move things along, Longfellow looked once more to Benjamin Tucker. Again, he was surprised to notice how the fellow’s face had aged. The man, he thought, did not look well at all.
“Dr. Tucker, you have now had a chance to examine the body of Miss Morris more thoroughly.”
“Ahhh—” exclaimed Reverend Rowe, as if struck with a twinge of toothache.
“I have done so,” the physician replied, his eyes on the table before him.
“Have you found anything there to help us?” Longfellow asked, though having spoken with Dr. Tucker earlier, he knew the answer.
“Nothing at all. She was unblemished, as we both saw; her limbs were unbruised, as was her face, except for a mark that amounted to nothing. She also lay, when found, in a composed manner. I assure you there was no sign of any other … interference, recent or otherwise. It is quite possible that she merely fell asleep, and never woke. It does sometimes happen, even in the young.”
“No interference, good sir?” Reverend Rowe wheedled softly, seeming to desire more on the subject.
“It is also possible,” said one of the others, “that the young man flew into a rage when he found himself not the first in her affections.”
“She may indeed have had other suitors,” Phineas Wise had to agree. “She was a pretty enough lass.”
“Though she had none recently,” Longfellow returned.
“My sister has informed me of this, as did Hannah Sloan—and as the doctor tells us, there was no indication …”
“But do you mean to say that he actually—”
“This is altogether too much!” cried another selectman, who had heard enough of speculation. “Are we to guess about these things like gossiping women? Or will we speak of what we know? He may have done this, she may have done that! Is there nothing we cay say for sure? Or must we try our best to ruin both their good names, with fancies no judge would think twice
on?”
“The girl is dead,” Longfellow said curtly. “We know that well enough.”
“A violent death, which no one in the house heard, seems to me highly unlikely,” Montagu now decided. “But there is still the possibility of suicide,” he continued, looking meaningfully at Benjamin Tucker. “Though it is an unkind accusation—one that might even be avoided, by a man of feeling—”
“Suicide!” Reverend Rowe hissed, his appetite for sin receiving new relish.
“—for obvious reasons,” the captain concluded.
“That thought occurred to me, as well,” Longfellow said. “For if the tables were turned—”
“—if, in fact, Miss Morris had been scorned by Will Sloan, and if she had access to some sort of poison—”
“—then she might have done away with herself. But for so little reason? Surely, that would indicate a weak and sickly mind, and I don’t believe anyone noted these symptoms in Miss Morris before her death. Doctor? No, I thought not. And just where would she have to come up with this poison, locked up in Mrs. Willett’s house?”
“It would appear,” Montagu had to admit, “that we cannot be certain of how or why the girl died. But we might at least look at who might have had an opportunity to influence her. We ought to learn who else might have been nearby, on the night of her death.”
“There’s something in that,” Phineas Wise replied, scratching the stubble on his long face. “We could question everyone who may have visited Mrs. Willett’s house. Or yours, Richard, which is the only other close by.”
“Perhaps,” said Reverend Rowe in an unctuous voice, “I should help Constable Wise with his questions. Mr. Longfellow has suggested to me that we might find a Grand Inquisitor to be useful. I am no Torquemada, I’m sure, but I know my duty to my congregation. Do you know,” he went on smoothly, “it occurs to me, Longfellow, that if it should be decided Phoebe Morris did away with herself, as the captain now suggests, then a court of law could hold you partly responsible. After all, you are the nearest householder—a thing Mrs. Willett herself cannot claim, since she remains on the property at her brother’s pleasure.”
Reverend Rowe was gratified to see small nods among the others, who felt obligated to bow to the law first, and to logic second. Thus fortified, the preacher went farther.
“I must say, sir, that I, and others in the village, have long been uneasy with the living arrangements you have lately engineered. For there was always a potential for great mischief in them, which you seemed to find of small concern.”
“You would do well to be wary of village opinion yourself, Reverend.” Richard Longfellow stood slowly, drawing himself to his full, impressive height. He had kept his temper in check, but had no hope, or desire, to keep it that way forever. “There might be more who believe there is also, in the arrangement of your own words, sir, a great potential for slander!”
Longfellow now had the satisfaction of seeing Reverend Rowe cringe before him. For the law in general, and lawyers in particular, were known to cut both ways. Then, summoning his wits, the clergyman forced himself to rise with a chilly smile. The others, too, stood with a clamor, hoping to ward off the storm that had begun to build around them.
With that, the meeting was adjourned, allowing the gentlemen to hurry out into the sunshine, where before long they offered others, unofficially, the benefit of their few and dubious conclusions concerning the sad death of Phoebe Morris.
AT THREE O’CLOCK, after an unceremonious dinner at Richard Longfellow’s house (during which politics, rather than Miss Morris, were discussed), Charlotte Willett sat down to think at the desk in her study. Beside her, Diana lay on Phoebe’s mattress, now stripped of its bedclothes, letting her fingers pull out some of the sweet straw that peeped from the stitches along the ticking. She had removed her turban, and her auburn hair fell from a gathering held up in the back by combs.
From her seat, Charlotte examined a portrait of her parents, drawn in charcoal by her sister Eleanor, which hung in a gilded frame.
“It’s difficult to lose someone—even someone you have barely met,” said Diana pensively. “It’s difficult to know how to feel, or even what to say. Not that there’s anyone to say much to, except for you, of course, Charlotte,” she added. “And one can say nearly anything to you without worry.”
“I am glad that you, at least, believe I will not bite.”
“What was that?”
“It sounded like thunder, still far away.”
“I’ll go upstairs and have a look from the window.”
Diana rose rather ungracefully, then unbuttoned and threw off her brocade bed gown in exasperation. Freed from its weight, she walked quickly and lightly to the door in her cotton shift.
“That’s better,” she said as she disappeared. Charlotte thought of taking up a pen, but decided Diana would only interrupt her when she returned. Instead, she rose and took a book from a shelf that held a variety of volumes from her own time, and those of her father and grandfather. Would a translation of Livy do for the evening? She thought not. Looking further, she saw a flowered cloth cover, a stranger among the rest. It sat behind the narrow bed that Phoebe had lately occupied. Charlotte reached over and pulled the volume out. She was surprised to find it was another sketchbook, much like those she had already seen. And the young woman’s name was written inside the cover, with a date: 1761.
Leafing through the images, she saw that Phoebe’s skills had improved in the intervening years, although her early work was quite detailed, and uniformly charming. There were several portraits of children, probably her brothers and sisters, as well as a rather severe older man, and a weary looking woman—no doubt her father and mother. How different from the couple on Charlotte’s wall, who regarded each other with a love they’d long enjoyed. She thought for a bittersweet moment of her own brief marriage, and wished the miniature of Aaron was in its usual place on her desk, instead of across the way in her temporary bedchamber.
Looking farther into the sketchbook, Charlotte saw that at some point Phoebe had decided to try her hand at landscapes, in which a river and its surrounding fields and foliage played a large part. There were also expanses of grain, gold in the sun, drawn in colored crayon beneath a blue sky. Surprisingly, the sketches then changed to include scenes of Boston: crooked lanes with cramped houses, tiny front gardens, brick and cobbled streets. There was Faneuil Hall, with repairs being made after the fire; Long Wharf, with its mass of ship masts and rigging; majestic Town House; a view of the harbor, and another of the green hills across the Charles.
Then there were other faces, more stylish poses. Here was a sketch with “Aunt Mary Morris” written below. It showed a woman who appeared to be kindly, holding a small dog on her lap. Another quick sketch showed a kitchen maid polishing silver. After that came an attractive, bewigged gentleman who looked familiar.
Charlotte sat down on the bed and closed her eyes. Then she looked again at the drawing of David Pelham. The fair complexion, the full lips, the soft expression of the eyes—these things were nearly the same today. In the sketch, he gazed at the artist with a look that seemed to express admiration, at least.
“There’s a storm coming, I believe,” Diana commented as she walked back into the room. She stopped in front of Charlotte. “The hills to the north are nearly purple, and there’s a different kind of cloud overhead, which I’m sure Richard would bother me with the name of, were he here. What have you there?”
Charlotte pulled in her skirt and Diana sat, looking to the book in her friend’s lap.
“It’s David Pelham,” Diana said softly. “Isn’t it?”
“I think it must be.”
“I haven’t seen this book before.” Taking the volume and scrutinizing its cover, Diana then turned through the first several pages. “It’s earlier than the others Phoebe showed me. She probably thought it wasn’t as good—it is quite good, though, isn’t it? He almost looks as if he’s dreaming.”
“Like
a man in love, do you think?”
“Possibly,” Diana replied. “She certainly took great care in her work …”
“And yet he claimed not to know her.”
Diana sat back, folding her arms. “When was that?”
“This morning, before we came to visit you—” She stopped, remembering an earlier meeting when she had noticed David Pelham’s clenched fist, and his sharp look to Dr. Tucker as soon as the physician had spoken Phoebe’s name.
“I don’t see why he would say that. He must have realized he’d soon see her again.”
“I wonder,” said Charlotte uneasily.
“Though I’m certain,” Diana went on, “that I mentioned Phoebe to him—and of course, he said he’d come and see me often, as long as we both remained in Bracebridge. Oh—and he did inquire as to her treatment …”
“Are you sure Phoebe never mentioned David Pelham to you?”
“Quite sure! Since I’d recently seen him at the inn, I would have enjoyed telling her he was here—which I did not. That’s why she gave him such an odd stare, standing there in the doorway, when she saw him leaving! She must have had no idea he was in Bracebridge. Judging by her expression, I suspect it wasn’t an altogether pleasant surprise, either. After all, she must have realized he had come to see me, and not her.”
“So he knew, and yet—well, it would seem they had a falling out, if he no longer chose to claim her acquaintance.”
“Perhaps I should ask him. And I hope he has a good explanation!”
Both women were silent for several moments. Indeed, they were so deep in their separate thoughts that each was startled to see Dr. Tucker walk into the room, quite without warning.
“Ladies! I hardly expected to find you both in here; but when you were nowhere else—”
“Dr. Tucker!” cried Diana, sending her fingers to her hair.
“We were just speaking of Miss Morris,” said Charlotte, “and we are unsure. Perhaps you might enlighten us.”
“Yes, madam?”
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