by Oak, B. B.
“What can I do? I am sure Tripp’s killer has traveled well beyond my jurisdiction by now.”
“Always ready to do nothing, aren’t you, Constable?” I said.
Beers glowered at me, and I glared right back at him. I had little respect for the man. Not only was he as thick as the soles of the shoes he cobbled, but he was lazy to boot. Yet he continues to get reelected Town Constable, most likely because he is such a popular tavern denizen.
“I have done my duty and informed Coroner Daggett to convene a jury here,” Beers told me coldly.
That was doing very little indeed, for it was up to the Town Coroner to collect six townsmen to comprise a jury and bring them to the body. In less than an hour Fred Daggett, who was busy enough running his general store, arrived in his chaise with two of the jurymen, and after that came a horse trap with the other four. Mr. Jackson followed in his undertaker’s wagon. I affirmed that Tripp had died of a gunshot wound, and the jurors concluded that he had been murdered. Coroner Daggett declared he would inform Justice Phyfe of the verdict when he returned from a business trip in Lowell, and that was that. The proceedings did not last more than five minutes. Undertaker Jackson suggested that he take the body back to town and clean up the blood before letting Mrs. Tripp view it, and Coroner Daggett agreed.
“Who here knows the Tripp family?” Daggett asked us.
“My farm is the closest to theirs, but neither I nor my family are acquainted with the Tripps,” one of the jurors said. “My wife will do the neighborly thing and pay a condolence call on Mrs. Tripp this afternoon, but someone should tell the poor woman of her husband’s demise beforehand.”
“I will do it,” I said when no one else spoke up. I didn’t know Mrs. Tripp very well, but at least I had briefly conversed with her the time I took care of her husband’s dislocated shoulder.
“And I’ll drive the wagon back to the farm,” Henry said.
“You should accompany them,” Daggett said to Beers.
“Whatever for?” Beers replied. “No need for three men to bear the bad tidings to the poor woman.”
“It is your constableship duty to investigate this matter,” Daggett reminded him sharply. “And if Justice Phyfe were present, he would tell you the same.”
Without further protest Beers hefted himself upon his long-suffering horse and followed my gig and Tripp’s wagon to the farmstead. Except for a few scraggly chickens in the front yard, there were no signs of life at the Tripp house, but when I knocked on the door a dog’s frenetic barking erupted from within. Mrs. Tripp came out to the porch, quickly closing the door behind her before the dog bounded out.
“Good Day once again, Mrs. Tripp,” Henry said and took off his hat.
I too removed mine. “I am Dr. Walker if you recall, ma’am.”
“And I am the Plumford constable,” Beers announced with a curt bow of the head. “We have come to tell you that your husband was murdered last night less than a mile from here up Drover’s Lane. He was shot in the chest by a slave catcher.”
Henry and I exchanged a look of dismay. For someone who did not wish to tell Mrs. Tripp the tragic news, Beers had done so most abruptly, holding back nothing.
“A slave catcher,” Mrs. Tripp repeated hollowly. “Did you catch him?”
“No, he plumb got away,” Beers said. “And the slave your husband was carting has gone missing too.”
“Did you hear a gunshot last night?” Henry asked Mrs. Tripp.
“I heard nothing,” she said. She could barely move her pale lips, so frozen with shock was she.
“Let us go inside, so you may sit down,” I said.
She shook her head, and then jerked it toward the door. Behind it the dog was scratching and barking. “Better not come in. My dog bites.”
We told her that Undertaker Jackson had taken charge of her husband’s body, and that a neighbor lady would be coming over shortly.
“I must make myself presentable then,” Mrs. Tripp said. And with that she went inside and closed the door firmly behind her.
Satisfied that he had done his duty, Beers waddled to his horse and rode off. Henry and I were reluctant to leave Mrs. Tripp alone, however. After we unhitched, watered, and barned Tripp’s horse, we sat on the porch steps to await the juror’s wife. The dog had ceased its infernal barking, and all was quiet within the house.
“Left to Beers, there is little chance Tripp’s murderer will ever be found,” I said in a low tone. “Nor will he make any effort to search the bog for the fugitive.”
“Then we will have to conduct our own search,” Henry said, and we made plans to meet at the bog tomorrow with as many men as we could each round up. “My hope is that she did not perish in the bog and has continued toward Canada on foot, keeping to the woods and following the North Star.”
“May God protect her,” I said.
“The government certainly won’t,” Henry said angrily. “And I cannot recognize as my government that which is the slave’s government also.”
“I am an abolitionist to the marrow,” I told him, “and I do not countenance any law that supports slavery. Nevertheless, I am totally against Julia using her house as an Underground Railroad station. That is far too dangerous a situation for a woman who lives alone.”
“I would never ask Julia to do anything that would endanger her,” Henry said. “However, the Railroad is sorely in need of new Stations right now, Adam. The established ones in Concord, such as my family’s house, have become known to slave hunters and are being closely watched.”
“If I could do so in good conscience, I would offer Tuttle Farm as a Station,” I said. “But I am away all day and many nights seeing to patients, and Gran is much too ill to take on the responsibility of sheltering runaways.”
“Mrs. Tuttle is ill? I am most sorry to hear it,” Henry said. “Your grandmother has always seemed indomitable to me.”
“In spirit she is,” I said. “But not in body. Gran has a fatal tumor of the glands and has been slowly wasting away since the New Year.”
“I wish you had told me sooner, Adam. I would have come to her bedside.”
“Except for family, she does not care to have people see her in such a weakened state.”
“Nonsense. Is not disease the rule of existence? Why, there is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. And I shall tell your grandmother just that when I call on her.”
“She may not take too kindly to your comparing her to an insect-riddled lily pad, Henry.”
“Mrs. Tuttle has not taken kindly to a number of my notions. But I think it would do her good to get riled up over them once again.”
He was probably right. If there was one thing Gran always enjoyed, it was getting all riled up. “Why don’t you ride back to Tuttle Farm with me after the bog search tomorrow, Henry? I’ll tell Gran to expect you.”
Henry agreed to this plan, and shortly thereafter the juror’s wife arrived at the Tripp house as promised, carrying a basket laden with food. She had a kindly face.
“How did Mrs. Tripp take the sad news?” she asked us.
“Like a Stoic,” Henry said.
“I do not think she has let it sink in yet,” I said, having oft seen such a numb response from kin when I delivered a dire diagnosis or pronounced a loved one dead.
When the neighbor lady rapped on the door the dog inside started barking madly again. “He does not like strangers,” Henry said. “Stay here whilst I go in and tether him.”
“No need,” the lady said. “Although I am not well acquainted with Mrs. Tripp, I do know the dog. His name is Ripper, and he often comes to our farm to chase the chickens. But his bark is truly worse than his bite, for he has never harmed a one of them. I eventually made friends with the beast by throwing him scraps of food.”
And sure enough, when Mrs. Tripp opened the door, and Ripper got a sniff of her visitor, he became quiet as a lamb and began thumping his tail against the jamb. Mrs. Tripp invited her neighb
or inside but did not include Henry or me in the invitation, so we took our leave.
Henry headed back to Concord on foot, his favorite mode of transportation, and I drove back to town, sure that Julia was anxiously awaiting a report concerning Tripp’s murder and the runaway. When I entered the house the first person I came across was Julia’s house helper, Molly Munger, crawling about the parlor carpet.
“Have you lost something, Molly?” I asked her.
She sat back on her heels and smiled at me. “Not my mind, if that’s what you’re thinking, Doc Adam.”
Her pert answer amused me, but in truth she really had come close to losing her mind about two years ago, after an unfortunate affair with a scoundrel that resulted in a pregnancy and miscarriage. A strapping, rosy-cheeked girl of eighteen, she looks the very picture of health now, and her cheerful disposition conveys to me that she has put past regrets well behind her.
“I am hunting out stains to remove with my potion of ox bile and water,” she went on to explain, gesturing toward a bucket on the floor beside her. “Pa always gives Ma the gall bladder of any ox he butchers, and she squeezes out the juice and stores it in a corked phial. She let me have a dram of it to spruce up this old Turkey rug. I aim to spruce up this whole house for Julia. She was a good friend to me when I most needed her, and I am mighty glad to be of help to her now.”
I left Molly to find Julia in the room across the hall that she had transformed from Doc Silas’s cluttered study to her equally cluttered studio. Instead of journals and books scattered about, there were paint pots and canvases and sketch pads. Julia was peering into a large looking glass when I walked in but turned her attention to me. “Tell me everything, Adam!” she demanded.
Since Julia has never been one to flinch at gory details concerning murder, I did tell her everything. She expressed great concern about the missing slave girl and volunteered to help in the bog search.
“It will be an arduous and somewhat hazardous enterprise,” I said.
“One I am willing and able to take on,” she insisted.
“Your skirts will get caught up in the overgrowth and soaked in the pond water beneath.”
“I’ll hitch up my skirts.”
“Then every man’s eyes will be on your limbs instead of attending to the business at hand.”
“I’ll wear trousers then.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Julia.”
“I am just being practical.”
“No, you are being just the opposite. Your presence in the bog would be a hindrance, not a help.”
She considered this a moment. “If simply being a woman is considered a hindrance, then I withdraw my offer.” She went back to gazing into the mirror.
“Why do you stare into the glass so intently?” I asked her. I’d never known her to be vain.
“I am looking for imperfections,” she said.
“You have none!” I assured her.
She rolled her eyes at that. “Imperfections in my painting.” She gestured toward a canvas set on the easel beside her. “When I study the work in reverse, I can better spot the flaws in it.”
I positioned myself behind her and saw that the painting she was assessing was a portrait of Mrs. Easterbrook, the deacon’s wife, a woman of upright character and advanced years. It was so lifelike that I expected it to start speaking to me in the very voice of the sitter.
“I see no flaws in your rendering,” I told Julia.
“Then what do you see?”
I saw Mrs. Easterbrook’s pale visage beneath a starched white cap, just as she has always appeared to me in church, on the Green, or wherever I have come upon her in Plumford. Yet I saw something more. “Goodness,” I replied, surprising myself.
Julia nodded. “That is exactly what I tried to capture. The goodness of Mrs. Easterbrook’s spirit. I would never tell her that though. It would only embarrass the modest old dear. Indeed, all Mrs. Easterbrook thought worthy to capture in her portrait was the fine workmanship of her lace collar. Her daughter made it for her, and ’tis her most cherished possession.”
“She will cherish this portrait far more, I should think. It is very fine, Julia. As fine as any portrait hanging in the Athenaeum.”
“My work will never hang there,” she said ruefully. “Nor anywhere but a house or two in Plumford. I am but a country limner, after all, with commissions few and far between.”
“That will change when we leave Plumford.” I kissed the top of her head, where the golden waves parted. “Just be patient, my darling.”
“Patience has never been my strong suit.”
I could not disagree, for Julia is a creature of impulse, spontaneity, and willfulness. I would not wish her to be any other way, for I love her just as she is.Yet I cannot help thinking how much easier our life together would be at present if only Julia had acted less rashly in the past. Under the false assumption that she and I could never marry, she’d married a man whom she’d known for little more than three weeks, only to discover that he’d made his fortune in the slave trade. That much Julia has told me of Jacques Pelletier but little more, except that he is elderly and coldhearted. To make matters worse, she was married in France, where divorce is forbidden. According to Boston lawyers well-versed in French marital laws, as long as Monsieur Pelletier is alive, Julia and I cannot be legally recognized as husband and wife. For us to live openly as a married couple, our only choice is to remove ourselves from Plumford and settle where we are unknown. I cannot leave now, when my grandmother so sorely needs me, hence Julia and I must either stay apart (impossible!) or continue our liaison in secret.
We regarded each other’s image in the mirror, a study of contrasts. Julia is all lightness and grace, and I am of stolid physique and blunt features. Not one feature or trait do we share in common, and it is hard to believe that we used to think we were closely related. If you are raised up on lies, however, they become your reality. Yet even being under the misapprehension that Julia was my first cousin did not stop me from falling in love with her near two years ago. Or maybe I was in love with her since first we met as children. What a delicate little fairy princess she had seemed. But in the months that followed I saw her for what she truly was—a hellion of a girl, as much a daredevil as any boy. So of course I loved her even more.
“Hitch up your skirts for me, why don’t you?” I suggested softly into her ear. “I would be most happy to admire your limbs in the mirror if not in the bog.”
“No, Molly might walk in on us, and we must keep to the rules we’ve laid down for the sake of propriety,” Julia said. “But you may admire my limbs all you care to in my bed tomorrow morning. I shall be waiting for you there, as always.”
She kissed me and sent me off to Tuttle Farm.
JULIA
Thursday, May 18
It was well past midnight when I put aside my sketchbook and turned off the lamp in my studio. I paused at the window and drew aside the curtain, intending only to look out at the Green before retiring. But the full Milk Moon called to me, and I could not resist going out. I went no farther than the dooryard gate, of course. A man may roam through the night as much as he pleases, be he a ruffian or a gentleman, but no woman dares do so if she wants to be considered both sane and a lady.
Am I either? My conduct would indicate otherwise. I have deserted my husband and become an adulteress. Furthermore, I am unrepentant. My only regret is that Adam and I cannot live together, and as I gazed at the stars I longed for him so much I near fainted. Or maybe ’twas just looking up at the sky with my head thrown back that caused me to feel dizzy. I grabbed onto a fence picket to steady myself, and the sensation passed.
I went back to my stargazing, searching for the star that Henry told me helped guide runaway slaves north. To find it, I first located the seven stars that formed the Big Dipper. The two stars farthest from the dipper’s handle pointed to the bright North Star, and when I located it I sent up a prayer that the end of slavery would come soon.
/> Across the road the Town Green was full of moonlight but empty of people. All the shops were closed; all the homes in darkness. Plumford folk go to bed early. I believed myself to be the only one in town stirring until I saw Mr. Chadwick, who lives on the other side of the Green, exit his house and make his way to his barn to visit his cow Cora. His daughter claims he walks in his sleep, but perhaps he just longs for some warm companionship. He recently lost his wife of seventy years, poor man. Or lucky man, to have had a partner in life for so long. I hope Adam and I will still be together in seventy years. Since we are only in our twenties, it is entirely possible. Even so, we do not have endless time to bide. With each passing day I grow more and more restless to go away with him! Far, far away!
This restlessness of mine makes sleep difficult. So rather than go up to my chamber to toss and turn in my lonely bed after I’d had my fill of moon gazing, I took a stroll around my property. The backyard affords me privacy, being long and deep, with overgrown shrubbery separating it from my neighbors’ yards on the north and south sides. A tumbled stone wall marks the western border, and beyond that lies woodland. When I reached the wall I paused, recalling how Adam and I used to explore the woods for summer days on end as children. It had seemed an enchanted forest from a fairy tale to me in those days. Indeed, a dozen years later, I could still imagine it thus. The mountain laurel branches extending over the low stone barrier seemed like bony arms stretching out to pull me into the thicket, and the blossoms on the dogwood trees, glowing in the moonlight, beckoned to me like waving ghost hands. More eerie still were the smooth, pale trunks of the beech trees, which might as well have been the legs of mythic giants. And calling me from deeper within the woods were the trilling songs of trolls and hobgoblins, or perhaps just toads and frogs.
Feeling a chill in the damp night air, I turned away from the woods and started back to the house. The white clapboards shone in the moonlight, but the windows, five across on both stories, were black holes. I wished I had left a lamp burning, for there is nothing more dreary than to walk into a big, dark, empty house. I heard a rustling behind me but did not look back, discounting it as the sound of nocturnal woodland creatures scurrying through dried leaves. All the same, I did quicken my pace a bit. And when I heard what sounded like human footfalls gaining fast behind me, I broke into a run. Suddenly a strong arm wrapped around my waist, and a hand pressed tight over my mouth.