“There is a door out back,” said Jennie.
“But sometimes she takes the stairs as well, if she is in a hurry because something is cooking on the stove,” Lucy added.
“They can’t be too rotten, then,” Nellie said.
“I suppose not.” Jennie sounded doubtful.
“Maybe she keeps something down there—like a secret,” Nellie said.
“What’s that?” Lucy asked.
“Well, we don’t know if it’s a secret,” Nellie said. “Maybe she keeps jars of those sweets she used to sell in Chicago—or marzipan cakes and chocolate pudding.” Lucy and Myrtle laughed. “Maybe you should go down there, just to see what’s she’s hiding,” my sister suggested, and I could not for the life of me figure if she said it in jest or not.
“Oh, Mama would be mad then,” Jennie said. “You better not do it,” she told her sisters. I could hear Philip too then, making soft sounds. Jennie would likely have him in her lap while she did her work on the table.
“So what will we do about the cabbages, then, if none of you can go down there?” Nellie asked. “Maybe I have to go get them myself? If the stairs can carry your mama, I’m certain they can carry me as well.” The sound of her voice increased as she moved, slow with her ruined back, toward the door to the hallway. I had my filthy shoes off by then, replaced by a pair of house shoes, and quickly moved to block the cellar door. When Nellie came out, the first thing she saw was me.
“Oh, Bella!” She startled and clutched at her throat. “I didn’t know you had come in.” Clearly she had not, or she would not have tempted my children to mischief. “I was just—”
“I’ll get the cabbage,” I said, turning toward the cellar door, “and some turnips too. These stairs really are dangerous. You have to know where to tread to be safe.”
“Oh—oh, all right, then.” She stepped back into the kitchen with wide and worried eyes.
I went down in the cellar, where the floor was still covered in stained and reeking oilcloth; my heart was working like a piston in my chest, and my hands were so slick that I could barely hold the cabbage I fished out of the bin. What was it my sister wanted? How much did she suspect?
39.
Nellie
Ihad said that I came to borrow silverware, but in truth, I was in La Porte to make sure there was no new wedding on the horizon for my sister. It had been like that for quite some time; if I had not been in La Porte in a while, I grew restless, suffered from stomachaches and shortness of breath. I was drawn there over and over again, just to keep an eye out. To make sure that all was safe and no new husband was afoot. It hounded me always, that worry and fear. I thought I could not bear it if it happened again, and I had stood by and done nothing.
It was always pleasant to see the children, and it lifted my spirits to see them thrive. I thought that I had done right then, in leaving what had happened in the past well alone. I never dared to ask my sister how she fared in that regard, but hoped the young ones’ continued wellness and health meant that the beast had been thrown off her back. How could a woman who so patiently braided little girls’ hair and polished small shoes to a shine be capable of such atrocities? It made so little sense to me.
Surely she had only been sick for a while.
If only she did not marry again, everything would be fine.
Then, having had that worrisome conversation with the children, and finding Bella hiding behind the door . . . I could not stop thinking about it: the expression on her face. The fury that blanched her skin and made her eyes look so dark. It did not help one bit that she was quite herself when she came back up from the cellar with a sizable cabbage. I could barely eat that soup after all; my appetite had fled and did not return.
I wondered how long she had stood there in the passageway, listening in on the children and me before I went out there. Wondered if her anger was directed solely at me, or if it encompassed the children as well. The thought of the latter made me feel ill, which in turn was what gave me the courage to sit up with her that night, alone, and to ask her, though I deeply feared the answer.
“The children say you are looking for a new husband.” Our knitting needles’ soft clicking filled the silence between us.
Bella made a clucking sound. “They would say that.”
“But you don’t?” I looked at her over the knitting in my hands. We had lit a fire, and the scent of wood smoke filled the air.
“As I said, I’m happy alone.” She did not look at me, but counted the loops on her knitting needle, using a finger as aid. “I only crave some company from time to time. In an adult way.” Now she did look at me, a long, telling gaze.
Oh, how I wanted to believe her. “So that is why they are gone before breakfast?”
“For sure . . . I don’t care for them to get too comfortable here, or too friendly with the children.” She took up the knitting again, her needles clicking calmly and rhythmically.
“But where do you meet these men?” I had completely ceased my own knitting.
She shrugged. “Some I know from Chicago, acquaintances passing through.”
“I didn’t know you were in the habit of socializing with men.” I gave her a look over my newly acquired glasses. The half moons rested partway down my nose and still felt both unfamiliar and uncomfortable. They did help me see the knitting, though.
“I met many people while I had that store,” Bella informed me, and pulled the knitting higher up in her lap. She was making a gray sweater for Myrtle and was working on the back. “I don’t want to marry, but I don’t want to be lonely either. Surely you can understand.” Her chin lifted just a little.
“Just be careful,” I said in a voice that did not carry as well as I hoped.
“Of course.” She glanced at me. “I won’t put anyone at risk.”
“Lucy said that one of the men had—”
“That was a mistake.” Her chin lifted just a little higher. “He won’t come near her again.”
Yet I could not help but fret. The anger on her face when I found her in the passageway had been so terrifying, and if there was nothing to find down there, why did she so jealously guard that cellar? I did not for one minute think that she kept stairs that could be unsafe for her children without doing anything to remedy that fact. Unable to sleep, I rose in the night and went down in the kitchen, hoping to find some of Bella’s precious brandy to settle my nerves. A few laudanum drops as well, perhaps. To my surprise, I found Jennie there, crouched down in her nightgown and stirring the embers in the stove with a poker.
“Jennie,” I said. “What are you doing up so late? Is Nora up too?”
“No,” said the girl. “She fell asleep at once. It’s only I who have problems sleeping sometimes and come down here for some milk.”
“Well, I won’t hold that against you.” I smiled and sat down on a chair by the table. “I find it hard as well tonight.”
“It upset you, didn’t it?” She looked up at me from her crouched position. She had unbraided and combed her hair, and it hung around her face like a golden curtain.
“What did?” Again, that heart of mine acted on its own accord, setting up its speed. It took so very little since Peter Gunness’s death to have it race in my chest like an untamed beast.
“That thing with Mama, about the men . . .” Jennie rose to her feet and dropped a few logs into the red inferno. Then she came and sat with me. “I knew it would upset you; that’s why I didn’t say anything.”
“I understand that, Jennie.” I smiled and took her hand in mine on the scarred tabletop. “I do wonder about that cellar, though.”
“Oh don’t.” Jennie abruptly withdrew her hand. “Nothing good can come from poking around in Mama’s business. What she does down there is up to her.” The fear on her face was plain to see in the soft light.
“What do you mean by that? Is sh
e doing something down there?”
“No—I mean, she is there sometimes, for a long while, and I have to watch the children.” She was clearly uncomfortable; her shoulders were hunched and she was looking around as if she were a rabbit caught in a trap, eager to find a way out.
“And you don’t know what it is?”
“No . . .”
“But, Jennie.” I used my most reasonable voice—the girl was eighteen; she could take what I was about to say. “What if she does something dangerous down there—dangerous for her, I mean. Don’t you think we should help her, even if she doesn’t want us to?” I gently took her hand again. “Sometimes it’s hard to see it yourself if you’re in need of help from those who love you.”
Jennie did not answer at once, but I could hear her swallow hard. “There is a room upstairs.” Her voice was hoarse and very quiet. “She mostly keeps it locked now, but I know what’s inside.”
“What is that, Jennie?” I could hear the dread in my own, whispering voice.
“Travel cases, trunks, things like that. Coats, too, and hats.” There was something wild in her gaze when she looked at me, and she clutched my hand so hard in her grasp that I could feel her fingernails cut into my skin. “She says she is keeping it for them. That they will come back for their belongings in time.”
I let go of her hand and sank back against the chair. It felt as if all the air had left my lungs at once. “I have to go down there and see.” My whisper was brittle and weak.
“No, Aunt Nellie.” She shook her head with vigor. “Nothing good can come of that.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that, Jennie.” I staggered to my feet. I would not look away this time. I would not! “Hand me that candle and the matches, if you please.” With my inner eye, I saw Myrtle again, that day behind the barn. Oh, how I hoped she had forgotten it, whatever it was she had seen. I should have taken the burden from her then, but I had not. I would not make the same mistake again.
Jennie cried when she handed me the half-burned candle from the windowsill and the box of matches. Small whimpering sounds escaped from her throat. I had expected her to leave me then, to go back to the safety of her bed, but she stayed with me, and followed me into the passageway, too, when I moved so very slow with my poor back, across the creaking floorboards. The cellar door was to our right, a dark shape in the wall. I put my hand on the door handle and pushed.
Nothing happened. The door remained firmly shut.
I used more strength and put my weight against it, but the door stood firm.
“It’s locked,” I whispered back to Jennie.
“Are you sure?” Her eyes were wide in the light from the candle.
I nodded. “Do you know where the key might be?”
She mouthed no and shook her head.
We made our way back to the kitchen about as quietly as we had exited it before. Jennie was relieved, I could tell. Her whole face seemed to have smoothed out and her shoulders had slumped as well. I put the candle back on the windowsill and extinguished it. A string of acrid smoke curled from the wick through the air.
“Maybe it’s nothing, Aunt Nellie. Perhaps she is doing nothing down there.”
“Perhaps.” I turned to her and took her hands in mine. “But she wouldn’t suddenly lock the door then, would she? If there were nothing she was trying to hide.”
Jennie did not answer but looked a little pained again. I hated to put such a burden on her but did not know what else to do. “Be careful, Jennie,” I whispered. “Be very, very careful, but if you can, please try to find out what she’s doing down there.”
It had to be more than counting potatoes, or dusting off her jars of spread.
40.
Belle
How long would it take before Nellie added together the deaths of my husbands and the mysterious men who were gone before dawn? This was not good. Not good at all.
I had done everything in my power to appease my sister. I had given her good food and invited her for Christmas, done what I could to ease her worry, and yet she looked at me with suspicion and questioned my every move. Thought herself clever for sure.
I just wanted her to forget those things she thought she knew. It would be better for all if she did. What did it matter to her if my husbands died? It did no harm to anyone but the men in question, and the children and I were better off for it. My money box, too, was better off for it. Should she not rejoice that we thrived? Should she not be happy that I was my own woman, without a need for a good-for-nothing husband? Why did she only see what was wrong, and not all the good that came of it? The world was certainly no lesser place from my husbands’ being dead.
Yet Nellie looked at me with fear and concern, and a little bit of pity, too, which bothered me even more. She thought she had it all worked out after she heard from Olina. Thought she could see both the wound and the knife that had cut me. She thought me damaged rather than strong—and no cheerful Christmas party seemed to be able to remedy that.
I did not know what to do.
If only she had stayed well away from the topic of my guests, and the cellar, but no. She had even tried to raise my own daughters against me, tempting them to do mischief. Although I had never seen a need to do so before, as my children were well-behaved and obedient, I had turned the slender key in the cellar door lock that very same day, and it had remained that way ever since—just in case.
Just in case my sister’s words had taken hold.
I would never forgive her for tempting them so, and for allowing them to gossip about their mother. That was the problem with the little ones; as they grew up, their tongues became slippery and they spoke without thinking things through. Nellie should have known better, though, than to encourage such idle talk. The damage was already done, however. Nellie knew I had men coming to see me at Brookside Farm, and I was not at all convinced that I had managed to derail her with talk of a widow’s needs—that all her suspicion was gone.
In dark nights by the kitchen table, I kept wondering if there was a way to silence my sister—and then I felt aghast that I could even think that way.
Was this who I had become? A woman who would raise her hand against her own to protect her tawdry secrets?
The answer to that came in the most horrible of ways.
* * *
—
A few weeks after Nellie had been to visit, I was in the kitchen pouring milk when I heard Lucy and Myrtle whispering in the passageway behind me. Jennie sat by the table with some mending, and the two of us exchanged glances at the sounds. I could tell there was fear in her gaze when it darted toward the door, which certainly did nothing to dispel my own sense of unease.
I thought it best to check on them and stepped out there, where the sight of the open cellar door hit me like a fist. I went cold, then hot. I barely noticed the stool they had brought in and stood on in order to get to the key above the door. All I saw was that open door and the darkness behind it like a maw. I heard the girls’ feet as they scampered down the steps, not remembering at all that I had told them it was dangerous. I even heard them giggle, quiet and suppressed, as they slipped farther down in the darkness.
They were halfway down the stairs before I caught them. It would have been very bad for them to go down there that day. I had not cleaned up from the last crate yet; the oilcloth was still on the table with my tools scattered on top of it, and what little light filtered down the stairs would have revealed it all sufficiently to be hard to explain away. The victim’s bloody clothes lay in rags on the floor.
I hauled the girls back up by their arms; they were both squalling by then, from fear or shame I could not say. Myrtle’s face was red and teary; Lucy’s was twisted up and pale. I proceeded to give them both a hard beating in the kitchen. I had never beaten them like that before, had barely smacked them at all. The force of my anger surprised even me, but the
enterprise depended on their obedience.
If they did not do as I said, everything would be lost.
“We just wanted the marzipan cake!” Lucy cried. “Aunt Nellie said you keep sweets down there!”
“Well, I don’t, so there’s that,” I told them; my hand was aching from the punishment. “You could have broken your necks on those stairs.”
Myrtle’s eyes were puffy and red from crying. She stood with her hands pressed to her cheeks and looked at me with horror in her eyes. It made me want to cry as well, but how else was I to teach them to never, ever go down there again?
When the air had gone all out of me and their tears had all dried up, the girls went to their room with burning cheeks. It was a harsh lesson, but at least I felt sure they would never do something so foolish again. Marzipan cake! Nellie and her fancies! How could she do this to me? I almost regretted letting her live!
Jennie had been sitting quietly through it all, squinting and flinching whenever my hand landed another smack. The mending in her lap was all forgotten as she endured her sisters’ punishment.
Good, I thought then. When she sees what happens to them, she will never venture down there herself.
Then came the night when Lee Porter died.
The man was already married, as it turned out, so he sure had what I gave him coming. I had him down on the cellar floor; the oilcloth beneath us was slick with red and the cleaver in my hand smeared with the same. My hands were very red that night, as Mr. Porter was a heavy bleeder.
Then, all of a sudden—a sound—a quiet creaking on top of the stairs. I barely even noticed at all, being so intent on my work, but I knew that sound so well that it sliced through the haze and made me slow down the butchering. It was the sound of the door swinging open, but slowly, as if someone did not want me to hear.
A movement caught my vision then, and I looked up to see a flickering on the wall above the stairs. Someone was standing on top of the steps holding a lamp or a candle.
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