The Reservoir

  “I looked into that acreage for sale in the bankrupt court out near Oakwood Cemetery for Mr. Bray.”

  Willie strokes his horse but doesn’t say anything.

  “You remember I told you about that,” Tommie says.

  “Yeah, you find any good timber up there, let me know. If it’s cheap.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Not a thing in the world, brother.” They walk a few more steps in silence. “You’re seeing somebody up there, aren’t you?” Now a sly smile creases Willie’s face.

  “What makes you say that?” Tommie sighs in relief. Then he has the distinct feeling that he is being watched by someone.

  “You seemed all nervous and flustered before you left. I had to lend you a collar—how often has that happened? And you went off unshaven.”

  “I got a shave in Richmond.”

  “And you come back looking like a cat got you.” At first Tommie doesn’t understand; Willie has not even appeared to glance at him.

  “You mean the hand? It’s nothing. An eruption of some kind.”

  “Well I hope whoever it is is worth the trouble. You’ve been in a botheration for I don’t know how long. She’s not married is she?”

  Tommie snorts. “The only women I see in Richmond are at Lizzie Banks’s house, and I haven’t been there in months.”

  “You’re not still keen on Lillie are you?”

  “Lillie Madison?”

  “You know who I mean. Yes, cousin Lillie.”

  Tommie waits but Willie says nothing, and the sound of high laughter comes so clearly from behind that Tommie jerks around. All he can see is the sun glinting through the tall pines across the road and a lone osprey winging toward the river. It feels colder than when he started out. “No, I’m not keen on her,” says Tommie. “Why?”

  “Her father was asking about you.”

  “Her father? When?”

  “I saw him over in King William, market day. He thought I was you, or else he got our names mixed up. He said, ‘You been shunning me, Tommie?’ And I said I’m Willie, the older brother. Tommie’s the ugly one. But he’s not much on funnin’—he just gave me a squint-eyed kind of look and said, ‘Well, you tell your brother he’s mighty high on his horse. If he thinks he’s too good for me and my daughter, he’s wrong. It’s the other way around.’ ”

  “That old coot. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I haven’t seen her since, gosh, it must’ve been last fall, before she went off to Bath.”

  Sunlight glances off the sides of their faces as they walk up the field, their lungs filled with the smells of manure fertilizer and freshly turned earth. “But you’ve heard from her,” Willie asks.

  “Nothing more than the letters she sends to Aunt Jane. Honestly, I don’t know anything more about her than you do. You know I was sweet on her for a while there after you and she … but nothing came of it. Nothing at all, and then she went off up to the mountains. I don’t know what her father means. Maybe she wrote him something, but she never says boo to him. You know that.” Why now, Tommie thinks, when they never talk about her?

  Willie shields his eyes with his hat brim, trying to see into his brother’s eyes. “Shad are running,” he says, just to say something, though doubting he’ll get much interest.

  “Maybe I’ll go out with you,” Tommie says. The brothers walk on together, Willie talking about how he’s gotten all his beets and carrots and potatoes planted but hasn’t quite finished the oats yet on account of a bent harrow. All around, the cultivated fields running to the lines of woods have a serenity and a timeless feel that give strength and confidence to Willie—the solid ground underfoot is reassuring in its promise of work and food. A barred owl makes a scratchy echo out in the distant woods, and clouds are gathering from the west.

  “What is it?” Willie says, looking at his brother. “Goose fly over your grave?”

  “No, that owl gives me the shivers.”

  Willie laughs, slapping his brother in the shoulder. “Four years of college and you’re more superstitious than I ever was.”

  In the morning Tommie takes Aunt Jane’s dappled gray to Upper Oaks to call on the Brays. It doesn’t seem so long ago when he rode along here in Lillie’s company, before he was engaged to Nola Bray. He was going up there to court Nola, and Lillie was still living at Aunt Jane’s. She was heading off to her tutoring when Tommie overtook her in the road. He had just returned from law school and Lillie was saucy with him, not nearly as respectful and awestruck as the girls at church for instance. Of course, by then she was almost like a sister, but she could annoy him in ways he thought no sister could have. He does not remember what she said now, only that he seemed to have offended her in some way and that as she, flush-faced, trotted away from him he noticed how her blouse stuck with sweat to a spot on her back and the ribbon on her hat bobbed as she posted. While visiting Nola that time he could not stop thinking about Lillie, the spot on the small of her back and the curve of her calf visible through her skirt.

  Now he lets himself in the front gate and rides up the horseshoe drive, past the white pillared portico, where the stableboy takes his horse. And he beholds again the finest house remaining in the lower part of the county, its Georgian symmetry and grace a statement of aristocratic refinement since well before the war. The Brays’ butler ushers Tommie back to Mr. Bray’s study, where Tommie dutifully reports that the land is available for two dollars an acre but he may be able to get it cheaper if he waits. Mr. Bray asks if he’s going to church with them, and Tommie tells him that, no, he’s off to Tappahannock in the morning and wanted to see Nola before he left. He goes out to wait for her in the garden. Presently she comes, wearing an overcoat. She has put on some weight in the last few years, giving her a less severe appearance. “You’re really very lovely,” he says to her.

  “Thank you, Tommie. Isn’t it a little chilly for a garden stroll?” She closes her eyes an extra beat as she addresses him—the habit has always slightly unnerved him, as though she half-expected to see somebody more interesting when she opened her eyes.

  “Yes, but it’s our favorite place, and I wanted to see if there were any blooms yet besides the redbud.”

  “You’re a romantic, Tommie.” She lets him take her hand. “Was there some reason you wanted to talk with me this morning?” Since the death of her mother in December she has seemed less critical of Tommie, but also less patient, less willing to laugh at frivolities. He told her recently that this spring he expected to find himself in a promising financial situation and that he had his eye on a house in Little Plymouth. What he hadn’t said was that he hoped to be disentangled from a rather pressing problem.

  Again last night he could not sleep well. Now he hears bells. He knows the sound is only in his head, but they ring clear like cathedral bells in some old European capital, or like all the church bells in Richmond clanging at once. How precious life is, he thinks. What a miraculous gift. “The sun feels good,” he says.

  “Yes, but it’s going to rain today, which we need. Did you just want to walk?”

  “Yes, I think so,” he says, gripping her hand tighter and thankful she is not as perceptive as his brother, as attentive to his moods. Once upon a time he hardly dared to think of himself as her suitor—she seemed so much more sophisticated and better positioned. But when he became a law student with a future, coupled with his aunt’s connections and money, he was somebody. She also found him handsome, and he could make her laugh about the books and music she had studied so devotedly. He was a breath of fresh air to her, and if she was a little prudish for his tastes she was nonetheless the older of two daughters and hence the heiress to one of the few intact estates left in the county.

  “I got a letter from Lillie,” Nola says.

  “When did she write?” He pretends to be interested in some dogwood buds, but his head is throbbing.

  “Only a few days ago. She told me she was going to Old Point Comfort to help take care of a friend’s sic
k aunt. She’s awfully sweet to come all the way across the state on an errand of mercy like that, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” he says, noncommittally. “What else did she say?”

  “Well, I don’t remember …”

  Think, Nola. Did she mention me? Tommie feels himself going slack in the neck and the legs, as if the blood is leaving his body and draining into the ground.

  “Oh, she said her teaching was going fine, but that it was very cold and they had lots of snow up in the mountains. She has a new coat and asked me to send some material for her to work a hatband. It must be so beautiful there and she has a wonderful way of making friends. I’d like to go out and visit, though I don’t want to intrude. What do you think? It’s thanks to you that we became such good friends, you know. Tommie? Tommie, are you listening?”

  “Yes, I—yes, of course I am. You wanted to know about visiting. I don’t know. Only if you want to.”

  “Yes, but she hasn’t specifically invited me, you see. And Daddy depends on me now—I’d hate to leave him for very long.”

  There must not have been any more to the letter than that, he thinks. “I have to go now, Nola,” he says. “They’re waiting for me to go to church.”

  He kisses her on the cheek and, though she appears to want something more from him, he turns and lets himself out the gate. It is going to rain. He can feel it in the air.

  All afternoon long, people come by the almshouse, tracking the floorboards with mud and water from the rainy streets. Rich and poor, black and white, farmers, bankers, laborers, factory workers, prostitutes, and entire families dressed in church clothes—all file through for a look. The Sunday paper had carried a story about the dead girl; word went around. She lies in an open coffin, a clean white shroud up to her neck. The almshouse workers have combed the red dirt out of her hair and washed her face.

  Detective Wren has positioned himself in a corner of the chapel where the dead girl lies, studying the people who study the girl. Every so often he will approach one of the gawkers and ask a few quiet questions. Did you recognize the girl? It seemed as though you knew her. Just curious, huh? Richardson has decided to let Wren stay, as long as he does not appear to be scaring anybody off.

  People are quiet, respectful, as though viewing a dead body were part of their regular Sunday ritual. Some people remark on how small and pretty she looks. Others shake their heads and say what a pity it is, her dying like that and no one here to claim her. Quite a few comment on the bruises and wonder how she came by them. By dark, no one having identified the woman, the almshouse superintendent closes the door to further visitors. Several people continue to knock during the evening and are told to come back tomorrow.

  First thing in the morning Dr. Taylor impanels a jury of inquest, composed of the usual half dozen officers and medical experts. In the meantime, people keep coming by to view the body. Finally a woman with a squinty eye swears it’s the body of Harriett Mays, who used to live in her boardinghouse. The superintendent asks her if Harriett Mays had long hair, and she says, “No, it was short and brown, just like hers.” Since the young woman’s hair is mostly pinned behind, the way it was when she was found, the superintendent is dubious. Standing with the squinty-eyed woman, an unshaven man, his jacket out at elbows, says he’d bet his life on it being Harriett Mays. He saw her himself a week ago last Friday. He wants to know if there will be a reward.

  Richardson takes a police ambulance out to Harriett Mays’s address in Manchester. From an alley the mingled odors of cooking greens and stale urine assail him. He ducks under a laundry line, his tall leather hat dripping rainwater onto his shoes, and climbs a rickety flight of stairs. He knocks on a thin, cracked tenement door. “Is there a Miss Harriett Mays here?” he asks.

  “You’re looking at her,” says a shock-haired woman with no eyeteeth.

  “Harriett Mays,” Richardson says. “I hate to inform you, but you’re dead.”

  Her eyes bug out. “I ain’t either,” she insists.

  Richardson explains the situation and asks her to come with him up to the almshouse for a few minutes. When she arrives, the crowd makes way for the suddenly revivified Harriett Mays. She stares at the corpse, then shyly at the crowd, then back again, as though she has indeed cheated death. On her face is the biggest smile it has ever known.

  A short while later a young woman named Miss Emma Dunstan comes to the almshouse in the company of her younger sister. When she sees the body, she knows it is that of Fannie Lillian Madison of King William County. “We visited her family Christmas before last.” Her father, she explains, is from King William, and knew the Madisons quite well. Both Taylor and Richardson are interested in the Misses Dunstans’ opinion. Richardson takes them into a room for further questioning.

  “Any distinguishing marks that you know of?”

  They both shake their heads.

  Richardson touches just above his left breast. “A scar about here?” They don’t know of any such scar, but they are ready to swear it is her. The paper mentioned the finding of a traveling bag with clothes marked F. Madison. It got them to thinking. Emma hands Richardson a folded-up red scarf and says her mother found it on their front hedges Saturday morning. Their house happens to be near the reservoir, which seems an odd coincidence. Richardson at first doubts the scarf has anything to do with the dead girl, then he begins to doubt the Dunstans. They don’t seem like the type who just want to see their names in the newspaper, but why would the girl’s scarf end up at their house? Unless she was going there. “Had she ever been to your house?” he asks.

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “What sort of person was she?”

  “A high-minded, ambitious sort of girl, I thought,” says the elder Miss Dunstan. “But not the sort that would ever do a bad thing or think a bad thought.”

  Uh huh, thinks Richardson. Nil nisi bonum. Don’t speak ill of the dead. “You know she was pregnant?”

  “I read that.” She glances down.

  “Anybody she was particularly close to?”

  “I didn’t know her that well, but you could ask her cousin Cary Madison. He’s a carriagemaker. He lives down on Fifth.”

  Richardson thanks the young ladies and shows them back to the hallway. People are still coming in, eyeing the body, making speculations. The Dunstan girls take another quick look in the coffin as they pass, then hurry back out into the gray rain.

  • CHAPTER FOUR •

  THE FIRST TIME he really noticed her was at his uncle Samuel’s funeral. It also happened to be the day he met Nola Bray. Tommie was fourteen and he and his brother had recently moved downcounty to live with their aunt and uncle. Uncle Samuel had been a wealthy merchant who knew nearly everybody in three counties—fine carriages were parked a mile up and down from Mount Olivet Baptist Church. After the service they went back to Cedar Lane, where Aunt Jane in widow’s weeds gallantly shook everyone’s hand, flanked by her two nephews.

  The children drifted to the back lawn with plates of food. Tommie found his brother out by the well talking to an older cousin from King William and two girls from a nearby estate. He stood quietly just beyond the little group until the older girl introduced herself. “Hello, I’m Nola Bray, your neighbor,” she said. She spoke with a precision and formality he had never heard in a person his age. Her little sister giggled at him, standing there like a statue, and he blushed. Willie and the cousin went off to the edge of the field, leaving him there with the two girls.

  “I’m so sorry about your uncle,” Nola said. “And I’m sorry you haven’t yet been to Upper Oaks. We’ll have to remedy that. I’ve been away a good part of the summer at White Sulphur Springs. The air is so much better there. A lot of people from Charleston go there. Some of them are nice, but some of them put on airs. Have you been there?”

  Not sure if she meant White Sulphur Springs or Charleston, but the answer being the same to both, Tommie shook his head. At that moment a swarm of younger children went dashing
by. Leading them was a girl of about twelve who tagged him as she passed, and sang out, “Follow my leader.” After standing around greeting unfamiliar people, he was itching to shed his suit and run around like crazy, chasing after the girl. But, damn it all, he’d be thought rude to be carrying on so at a funeral.

  Nola was telling him what a good place Aberdeen Academy was and how lucky he was to be going there this fall instead of Locust, where his brother was going. Secretly he was proud that he had been chosen to go to the better school, but he had misgivings about boarding in a place a half-day’s journey away. So he pretended indifference. “I’d as soon go to Locust,” he said, shrugging.

  “Well, you’re wrong about that,” she insisted, tossing her thin nose. Her face was narrow, and her eyebrows rose with almost everything she said, giving her a haughty look. She made some comment about the heat and the lack of good rain, then took her sister in hand and made her way back up to the house. Her dark hair was braided and twisted tightly to the back of her head; from behind she could be taken for an adult, with her black dress and her proudly erect walk.

  Not so the girl who had tagged him. Tommie wandered down to the icehouse, looking for his brother. He peered into the darkness, inhaling the cold vapor that felt so otherworldly on a hot day. The girl came along again, this time by herself, but still running, her brown ringlets bobbing and white dress sliding ghostlike over the clipped grass. She tagged him again and as he turned to say something, his brother jumped out from behind the icehouse and grabbed her by the wrist. She struggled to free herself. “What’s the matter with you,” Willie said, “running around here like a little hellion?”

  “You oughten to cuss.” A blush spread across her marble-white cheeks. She almost had a woman’s shape, yet everything—her hands, her feet, her features, even her voice—seemed diminutive.

  “And speaking up to her elders too,” Willie said, letting go her hand.

  “You ain’t my elders either.” She swept a curl off her forehead.