Daniel Plainway - Or The Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  “Uncle Harding was a little distracted, though, when we all were down for breakfast, and I learned years later that when Father had gone to the wharf and I had gone to school, Uncle Harding told Mother that he had gone downstairs the night before and seen their mother knitting in the parlor rocker.

  “It was a little confounding, of course, but they weren’t afraid of their mother, in any case, and as they heard nothing in the nights that followed, they didn’t speak of it again even if they didn’t altogether forget about it.

  “But the next December, on the twenty-first, Mother woke again and heard the clicking sound from downstairs. She met Uncle Harding in the hall, and she said, ‘You get back to bed. I’ll go see.’

  “Mother went downstairs quietly but not secretively. The treads creaked a little. She could hear the wind in the eaves. And the sound of clicking grew louder as she reached the foot of the stairs and turned in to the parlor.

  “There sat my grandmother, the only object in the room that was visible in the dark; one would have thought a light was shining somewhere for her alone, and who’s to say it wasn’t? There she was, rocking and knitting, as pleasant as a Sunday in June, and when she looked up and smiled, Mother felt a sort of rough thrill down her back. Of course it was nice to see her old mother again, but it troubled her that Grandmother was busying herself with something so domestic when better things must be waiting for her elsewhere.

  “She came back the next year as well, diligent as you please on the twenty-first of December, and it was after this visit that Mother realized what to do and wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before. That third time Mother sat for some minutes in the parlor and watched Grandmother knitting away. Sometimes that spirit would look up and smile, and Mother thought she was looking younger.

  “Sometime the next fall Mother took the unfinished sweater down to her aunt’s in Cape Jellison, since her aunt would know the stitches that Grandmother had been using. Her aunt knitted up that sweater in a week or two but Mother didn’t bring it back to the house till the twenty-first of December. That night, before she went to bed, she laid the sweater, folded up, in the rocker in the parlor. It was a little sad for Mother, you know; it was like saying good-bye all over again, but it seemed the right thing. And that night she had a dream that Grandmother was standing by her bed, looking younger than ever, and saying, ’Thank you, dear. I’ve been some provoked with that piece of knitting. You tell Harding to keep warm with it.’

  “And when Uncle Harding woke the next morning, that sweater was folded up at the foot of his bed.”

  “And they never saw her again?” said Sundry. “Your grandmother?”

  “They did, actually,” said Mr. Burnbrake. “Or, rather, Uncle Harding did. Mother had told him how the sweater came to be knitted, and he thought it was something so filled with magic and grace that he wouldn’t wear it, though he’d take it out to look at now and again.

  “Come next December twenty-first, Uncle Harding had a dream, just like Mother’s, and Grandmother was standing at his bedside, saying, ‘You listen to me, Harding! We didn’t go to all that trouble so you could hide that sweater in a cedar box. You wear it, and wear it out, do you hear?’

  “So he did wear it, though he never wore it out. It stood up like iron, that sweater, and he asked to be buried in it, which he was.”

  There were several exclamations, most particularly from the members of the club. Eagleton had produced his ever-present journal and was scribbling the basic points of the tale.

  A message boy from the local telegraph office had entered the room, and he was holding a piece of paper in his hand as he looked about him. “Mister Walton?” called the boy. He raised the telegram in his hand.

  “I’ve never heard that story!” Charlotte was saying.

  “I am here, thank you, young man,” said Mister Walton. He was reaching into his pocket for a tip.

  “You haven’t?” said Uncle Ezra to his niece. “You mark my word,” he said to the rest of the table, “if they are coming back for anything, it’ll be solstice night, and no mistake.”

  The messenger gave Mister Walton the wire and thanked him for the tip. Mister Walton was distracted by the discussion that followed Mr. Burnbrake’s story, and he held the telegram without reading it.

  Daniel had said nothing throughout the account and even now was looking down at his plate, as if digesting something besides his gumbo. Charlotte made a small noise that only her uncle and Thump could hear, something between a sigh and a gasp as she realized the effect of the old man’s story upon the lawyer. Leaving behind an unfinished sweater was all very well, but Daniel was thinking of people who had left behind far more and whose eternal peace might be in question.

  “Good news, I hope, Mister Walton,” her uncle was saying.

  “Oh, dear!” said Mister Walton. He adjusted his spectacles and peered at the telegram more closely.

  “Toby?” said Phileda.

  “It’s Mr. Tempest.”

  “What does he say?” wondered Sundry.

  “Nothing at all, I’m afraid. The police believe they’ve found his body in the harbor.” He passed the telegram to Mr. Burnbrake, who sat to one side of him. Charlotte looked past her uncle to read the wire.

  PORTLAND TELEGRAPH COMPANY

  Grand Trunk

  DECEMBER 7 PM 5: 17

  C/O SOMERSET COUNTY SHERIFF

  MR TOBIAS WALTON

  BELIEVE MR TEMPEST BODY FOUND IN PORT. HARBOR THIS MORNING. CALEB BROWN SAILED. PLEASE COME ASSIST IDENTIFICATION.

  DEPUTY CHIEF FRITH

  It seemed so very little to have of the man, a card with a name and address Charlotte wondered. that fitted in the palm of her hand. Had it been very forward to ask for it?

  They waved to the foreshortened image of a face and a hand as the train pulled from the station. The platform was uncommonly empty, it seemed to Phileda McCannon and Charlotte Burnbrake, without Daniel Plainway and Mister Walton, Sundry, and the rest of the Moosepath League.

  Phileda let out an unconscious sigh. “Well,” she said, “I don’t need to see the back end of a train.”

  Charlotte was struck by a sudden loneliness, yet she was aware that Phileda had been visited with some disappointment; they understood each other’s emotion, though their faces were half hidden in the hoods of their cloaks and their hands were wrapped in fur muffs. They strolled together around the station, picking their way along a crudely shoveled path that led to the sidewalk and Middle Street. “He is a lovely man…Mister Walton,” said Charlotte.

  “Yes,” agreed Phileda, but almost grudgingly. Then she shook herself out of her gloom and said a little more brightly, “Toby is a fine man. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see him at my door last night.” Just saying this, she knew a cozy moment of well-being, not altogether kindled by her wool cloak and the brilliant afternoon sun. a cold breeze did rise up from the Kennebec, past the buildings on the slope below them, to nip their cheeks.

  “He seemed very pleased with your company,” Charlotte ventured. She hardly knew Miss McCannon but felt at ease with her-perhaps because Phileda reminded her so much of her good friend Pacif a Means.

  “Did he?” replied Phileda, and there was something both gratified and ironic in those two words that made Charlotte smile. “He does hurry from it.”

  “Certainly a request from the police was not to be ignored.”

  Phileda smiled and shook her head, as if this were not the point. “It is difficult to guess,” she said, “whether a man is simple pleased with a person’s company or whether he fears that pressing his suit would be indelicate.”

  A noisy troop of schoolboys passed them, with books tied and slung over their shoulders and mischief in their eyes. Phileda knew two or three of them and exchanged hellos; as a young girl she had often wished, not to be a boy, but to partake in their rough games and laughter. She wondered what Toby had been like as a lad.

  “Do you know, my mother proposed to my father?”
said Charlotte.

  “Did she really?”

  “It was a scandal among all the aunts.” Charlotte laughed softly to remember the story as her mother had told it-so many years ago now.

  “Was it leap year?” wondered Phileda wryly.

  “I don’t know.” Charlotte considered her mathematics. “I don’t think it was. No, it must have been 1847 when she proposed.”

  “It’s leap year now,” said Phileda, almost to herself; proposing to Toby did seem immoderate, however. “Could you, do you think?” she asked.

  “I have my father’s gumption, you see, which is to say, not my mother’s. Some thought it presumption rather than gumption, but she considered it common sense. They were both dear people.”

  Phileda thought they must have been, for Charlotte herself was someone she would like to know. “She may have been right, in any case,” said Phileda, “as it would probably be better to discover he is simply pleased with a person’s company and have done with it rather than walk about in a cloud wondering when he will be so uncouth as to seek further encouragement.”

  Charlotte laughed aloud, saying, “Oh, Phileda! Perhaps when we have the vote.” Charlotte had in fact read some fairly drastic tracts upon the subject of feminine rights but would have felt a hypocrite to prescribe a bold approach since she felt so unfit to undertake one herself.

  They paused at the juncture of Middle and Winthrop streets, Phileda feeling at least the pluck that derives from native scenes and familiar faces. She spoke to an elderly gentleman as they passed him on the sidewalk. Charlotte had not that added foundation of intimacy with her present surroundings and felt as if she must return home and gather in the tether before she could right herself again.

  “Do you suppose,” conjectured Phileda, “that one of the great secrets of our society might be that women have been striking the initiative more often than we are led to believe?”

  “It won’t be me, I fear,” admitted Charlotte ruefully, “though initiative, come to think of it, might be no more than a new dress or a carefully placed hat.”

  BOOK SIX

  December 9-18, 1896

  47. Several Attempts at Tying Up Loose Ends

  FROM MISTER TOBIAS WALTON

  PORTLAND, DECEMBER 9, 1896

  Dear Phileda,

  It seems, as I told you at the station, that our friendship is foreordained to interruption, and though I would not presume that this is of great moment to yourself, I will admit that I am vexed to be taken from your pleasant company once more.

  The situation regarding Mr. Tempest grows stranger by the day. On the morning of the seventh the local police were apprised that a body had been hauled onto the Portland, Bangor & Machias Company Wharf, and upon investigation they were fairly certain that the unfortunate man was Mr. Tempest, who had gone missing from the Caleb Brown. The ship herself had left the harbor unexpectedly—that is, Captain Matthews had given the police every reason to believe that he was leaving later in the week-and the authorities couldn’t help putting a suspicious blush upon this turn of events.

  Yesterday, before I was able to meet with Deputy Chief Frith, a nephew and niece of Mr. Tempest’s arrived by train to identify and claim the body. They came from Cambridge and Deputy Chief Frith said they must have been waiting at the Cambridge station with tickets in hand when word of their uncle arrived. I asked for a description of these people, and they were as blond as our Mr. Eagleton.

  I would have turned heel-about and come back to Hallowell immediately, but in explaining my brief connection to Mr. Tempest to the deputy chief, I told him about our adventures in Skowhegan and of the Broumnage Club, and he has asked me to stay on at Portland for a few days in case there are further developments in the case.

  It does seem that my path has crossed with some culprits as of late, and the local constabulary is looking upon me as some sort of adventurer, which Sundry likes very much. He says he never knew there were so many criminals in the world till he met me!

  In the meantime I propose to use the time shopping for presents and discussing with the Moosepath League the possibilities of a small trust fund that would clear the taxes and upkeep on Bird’s family estate in Hiram. (Or should I be calling him Bertram now, or Bert, now that we know his real name?)

  We discussed, only the once, the possibility of seeing one another near the holiday, and I hope that this plan will bloom and come to fruition. If you are not too busy, perhaps I might come up to the Worster House for a day or so. Hope all is well. If you see the Covingtons, who are coming to Hallowell to meet the Burnbrakes (the Burnbrakes are understandably interested in the artifacts on their land), please give them my best. Sundry says, please pat Moxie for him.

  Please take care.

  Fondly,

  Toby

  Mister Walton sat back and considered the letter. It seemed pale and ineffective in light of the awkward scene between Phileda and himself at the Hallowell station two days ago. Seven or eight scraps of paper in the waste basket by his desk attested to the work he had put into the dispatch, however. Each successive draft was less interesting and more impersonal than the last, till he was left with this skeleton, which, not surprisingly, said little about the writer’s thoughts or temper.

  One of the early drafts actually began with the words “I fear that I have been a dunderhead,” which was true, but the words hinted at too strong a feeling, when applied to their circumstances.

  Aside from the letters that they had exchanged, he and Phileda knew one another only from three all too brief visits, and yet she occupied the bright and anxious precincts of his heart, filling him with a kind of giddy apprehension-joy and fear. Still, he could not presume that she felt anything like it for him, though he imagined-on certain days or even at certain moments-that she might.

  He remembered her laughter as they walked together, her arm in his. He sighed to think of the moment before the Hallowell Harvest Ball when she had reached up to adjust his collar for him. He thought back on the previous July, when he first saw her bright eyes shining behind her round spectacles as she stepped onto the porch of the Weymouth House. Her hands were lovely, strong, and graceful. Well, he thought, this describes her entirely.

  He was standing and didn’t remember getting up from his desk. He held his hands behind him and paced the floor. What he wanted to say he could not put in a letter. What he wanted to say he could not seem to say to her face. He valued her friendship so highly that he feared to dismantle it by professing anything else. He left the room but turned around in the hall and returned to the study and his desk.

  He folded the letter and put it into an envelope, then addressed the envelope. He laid these aside and took up another sheaf of paper. He had other letters to write: first to Mr. Plainway to tell him of the Moosepath League’s plans to help in defraying the costs of the Linnett house till Bertram came of age or the hidden hoard of gems was discovered, the second to the O’Hearns to let them know that the mystery of Bird’s identity had been solved.

  FROM CHARLESTON A. THISTLECOAT

  EN ROUTE TO BANGOR, DECEMBER 9, 1896

  Dear Miss McCannon,

  I must apologize for leaving Hallowell without saying good-bye, but an unexpected business arose regarding the railroad at Bangor that I must attend straightaway. The journey is tedious, however, and as I have time on my hands, I thought it practical to pen my intentions, that you might consider a proposal till I return.

  I believe, at this mature time in our lives, neither of us would benefit from a protracted courtship. I find you very suitable as a companion and appreciate that you are a person of intelligence and positive philosophy. I have had the impression that I am not disagreeable to you and thought the time we have spent together (admittedly short) was spent pleasantly. You have expressed a desire to travel and an alliance with myself would benefit this inclination, as I travel a good deal in the name of both business and pleasure.

  It goes without saying that my pecuniary outlook is mo
re than favorable and that you would do without nothing that you either needed or wanted. I am quite prepared to be generous, even extravagant with a person who so collaborates with me, and I believe that what I do have would give me more pleasure for having someone with whom to share it.

  A is obvious, this is a union that would please me, and I flatter myself in imagining that it might do so you as well. Certainly it would benefit you. I hope you will consider this proposal in a friendly and thoughtful light. I shall return to Hallowell in about a week, when I shall forward this offer in person and hope for your answer.

  With all due regard,

  Charleston A. Thistlecoat

  FROM ISABELLE COVINGTON

  HALLOWELL, DECEMBER 9, 1896

  Dear Mister Walton,

  Frederick and I wanted to take the first opportunity to thank you and Mr. Moss for your gallant assistance in the recent business on Council Hill and for your sage advice and prudent wisdom. We have also yourself to thank for introducing us to Mr. Gaines, who continues to delight and who enveloped us in a protective shell of his friends and the relatives of his friends while we stayed in Skowhegan.

  At the same time, Frederick and I want to express our regrets for having involved you in such a dangerous affair, as it turned out to be. It is extraordinary the entire business, and all the more so when coupled with the tale of the little boy and Mr. Plainway’s connection to it. We have had more diversion than we should connecting everyone in these affairs, and we had not met you and asked you to take dictation from poor Mr. Temyou and your fellow club members seem at the center of it all. Indeed, if pest, and if your friends had not delivered the same, Miss Burnbrake and Mr. Plainway would not have met-a circumstance, I promise you, for which she was very grateful.