by Oak, B. B.
We left her to her commission and went out the way we had come in. As we were crossing the stage we saw the pretty actresses to one side of it, grouped around a most fortunate man of medium height and slender build. They were giggling and chattering away with him, and it appeared that Bidwell had been forgotten even sooner than predicted. Forgotten too was the Booth boy, sulking to the side of the cluster and looking most distressed about being ignored.
“Orlando!” he shouted. “Look at me! Look at me!” He jumped up and down a few times, did a somersault, and then stood on his hands.
The elegant man looked the boy’s way for a moment, giving Henry and me a brief opportunity to see his classic profile, and then turned back to the young women. Ignored once again, John Wilkes Booth lost his balance and fell down in a heap.
Upon reaching the street Henry and I shared a bag of roasted chestnuts, all we could afford with what little money I had left. We then parted for a few hours, agreeing to meet again at the Boston Athenaeum. Whilst Henry consulted reference books there to learn what he could about vampyres, I betook myself to the Medical College to consult with my old professor Dr. Holmes, hoping to learn what I could about something equally obscure—how to correct a harelip.
Dr. Holmes greeted me most warmly and loaned me journals from Germany and France in which the latest surgical methods for such a procedure are discussed. He also encouraged me, once again, to accept a staff position at Massachusetts General Hospital and have full use of its modern operating theater.
Of course I feel honored by his proposal. As Ralph Waldo Emerson is to Henry Thoreau, Oliver Wendell Holmes is to me—an inspirational champion of the new age. I have always followed Dr. Holmes’s credo to help rather than hinder the natural healing process of my patients, and I accept wholeheartedly his theory that the unhygienic methods of physicians can actually spread infection from patient to patient. I told him, however, that I could not see fit to leave Plumford at present, for I was the town’s only doctor and Consumption was rampant.
Dr. Holmes related to me this anecdote in parting: A country physician, when asked to define the word Consumption, replied thus, “Con means that the condition is constant, sum means that some shall always have it, and shun means, shun treating the ailment if you can, for it cannot be cured.” Perhaps “Uncle Oliver” was only trying to be humorous with a pun, as is his wont, or perhaps he was obliquely advising me to give up the thankless and insurmountable task I had taken on and return to my true avocation, surgery. But I cannot forsake my hometown just yet.
My visit with Dr. Holmes lasted longer than I had intended, and it was almost sundown by the time I reached the Athenaeum’s new building at the foot of Beacon Street. Found Henry in the spacious reading room on the second floor and apologized for keeping him waiting. But he had not even noticed the passing of time, so enthralled was he by a discovery he had made in the library archives. I sat beside him at a table by the high window overlooking the Old Granary Burying Ground, and he showed me a dusty treatise written by a Benedictine monk that chronicled apparitions, spirits, vampyres, and revenants in all the countries of Europe through the ages. One such account was of a shepherd in Bohemia. Villagers believed he came back from the dead at night to prey on the living, so they dug up his corpse, impaled it on a stake, and left it to rot in the sun.
“How little progress we have made in the last five hundred years,” Henry said. “That so many can still believe such foolishness makes me lose hope that our race will ever surmount superstition and fear.”
As he spoke I gazed out the window. The setting sun was casting its last long golden bars across the somber graveyard below, and my eye was drawn to movement among the headstones. ’Twas the figure of a very tall man in top hat and cloak emerging from behind a crumbling old tomb. He suddenly looked up at the window, and when his glinting eyes met mine I felt a distinct chill. I quickly turned my head away as if struck.
“What is it?” Henry asked, regarding me with concern.
“Nothing. A twinge in my neck. But look down there at that fellow.” I pointed toward the burying ground. “Is there not something odd about him?”
“What fellow?” Henry said, peering through the window and into the darkness. “I see no one.”
“No matter. He is gone now.”
But he was not gone! For in the next instant the man I had just observed a story below, or his exact double, was standing behind Henry, peering over his shoulder at the book on the table! Feeling his presence, Henry turned around to look at him.
“Do I know you, sir?” he asked.
“I do not think so,” the stranger said, backing off. “But I recognize that ancient text before you.”
“And I feel that I should recognize you,” Henry said. “There is something of the familiar about you. My name is Thoreau.”
The stranger shook his head. “I know no one called Thoreau. I am Dr. Luther Lamb, and the porter told me I could find Dr. Walker in this room.”
“And so you have.” Steeling myself, I stood up to meet eyes with him. Had to tilt up my head to do so, for he was well over my own six feet. His eyes were deeply set in their sockets, and their darkness glinted like polished black hematite, but I could not say for certain that these were the selfsame eyes that had so alarmed me only moments ago. Rather, I should say for certain that they were not, for it would have been impossible for him to have made it from down in the burying ground to the upstairs reading room so quickly. It had merely been an ocular deception on my part.
“Dr. Walker, I am most pleased to meet you. In fact, I have come all the way from Augusta, Maine, to do so,” the stranger said.
“But how could you have known you would find me here at the Athenaeum today?”
“Sheer luck!” Lamb did not bother with further explanation. “I took great interest in the dissertation you published in the Massachusetts Medical Journal concerning hypnotism, Dr. Walker. I think it brilliant.”
I confess I took prideful pleasure in hearing this, especially after hearing nothing at all in regard to it from my Boston colleagues. But I did my best to maintain a modest demeanor. “Whatever brilliance can be found in that essay, Dr. Lamb, originated with the Englishman who invented the term hypnotism, not me. I have merely followed up on Dr. James Braid’s methods and reported my results.”
“Well, I should like to follow up on your methods, Dr. Walker. Might I consult with you this evening?”
I told him I had to return to Plumford, where I was currently practicing, and suggested he visit me there at his convenience. Dr. Lamb eagerly accepted my invitation, and when I began to explain how to get there he said there was no need to for he was familiar with the area. We parted without further ado, and Henry and I hurried off to the Causeway Street terminal to catch the last train to Concord.
“I am happy to leave the city behind,” Henry said, settling in his seat. “Unfortunately, we will have to return soon enough if we hope to find more information concerning Bidwell. I do not look forward to venturing into the Black Sea district, but it seems we must.”
“We have been there before, and it did us no harm,” I said, recalling our last investigation together. “I suppose it will be an easy enough matter to find this Chandoo Gate on Ann Street. Do you think Bidwell’s murderer was an opium peddler?”
“It seems unlikely. Why kill off a good customer?”
“Perhaps Bidwell owed him money. Opium is not cheap.”
“More reason to keep him alive,” Henry said. “One cannot get blood from a turnip, nor money from a dead man.”
“His murder might have been meant to serve as an example to others who owed the killer money.”
“If so, it would have been better to kill him in Boston rather than in some backwater like Plumford.”
“Backwater it is, indeed,” I agreed, recalling Dr. Holmes’s offer to practice at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“Is it not odd that your great admirer Dr. Lamb not only knew of Plumford,
but had even been there?” Henry said.
“Well, people do occasionally visit our little hamlet, after all. And as for Dr. Lamb’s being my great admirer, he merely congratulated me on a journal article.”
“He called it brilliant,” Henry said. “No one has yet called my writing brilliant.”
“I should like to read your latest endeavor when you complete it, Henry. What is it about?”
“Life,” he said. “Life in the woods.”
That did not sound particularly interesting to me, and I went back to a subject that was. “I wonder if Dr. Lamb will take the trouble to visit me in Plumford,” I said.
“I would be careful in my dealings with him,” Henry said. “Methinks the name Dr. Wolf would suit him far better.”
I laughed. “Yes, he does have a rather hungry look about him, but that just could have been because he was wanting his supper. You told him he looked familiar to you, Henry. Do you recall meeting him before this evening?”
“I cannot recall the specific incident. I might have come across him on one of my trips to Maine. With his straight black hair and sharp cheekbones and nose, he reminds me of Indians I have met there.”
“Perhaps he is merely related to one of them,” I suggested.
“No. I am sure I have had personal dealings with Dr. Lamb.” Henry leaned back in his seat. “The circumstance will come to me eventually.” And with that he fell asleep.
I must have slept too for before I knew it the train had stopped at the Concord depot. I bid Henry Good Night and went to the stable where I had left Napoleon this morning. The ride back to Tuttle Farm in the dark was uneventful.
JULIA’S NOTEBOOK
Tuesday, 7 December
I have landed a commission! And my three charming subjects—the Misses Arabel, Beatrice, and Calista Phyfe—have already commenced sitting for their portrait. How this came about was by no means an accident. Indeed, my trap was well laid. Firstly, I drew an exceedingly flattering sketch of Mrs. Daggett and presented it to her as a gift. Just as I hoped, Mr. Daggett exhibited it at the store for all his customers to admire. When two of the Phyfe sisters came in to purchase gewgaws, they were immediately captured by the sight of it and hurried across the Green to ask me to please sketch them too. “Will you step into my studio?” said the Artist to the Girls. (“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly.) I rapidly sketched each of them gratis, but before they ran home to show off their likenesses to their papa, I gently suggested doing an oil portrait of them posed together. They mentioned a third sister, and I exclaimed that I had always wanted to do a portrait of the Three Graces.
I blush at my wheedling words as I recount them, but their father is, after all, the richest man in town, and if I am to provide for a small boy and a large housekeeper, as well as for myself, I must earn some money. What little Grandfather left me will not last for long, I fear. Mr. Daggett has ordered me art supplies on credit, and I must pay Kitty for her needlework as soon as she completes it. Noah is in need of shoes, and my one pair will soon wear out, not to mention my unmentionables. At least Mrs. Swann seems amply supplied with fine clothes. The trunk she had delivered here from Boston was enormous!
At any rate, no less than an hour after I’d sent the Phyfe sisters on their merry way, who should knock on the front door but Justice Phyfe. Mrs. Swann led him into the study, where I confess I was daydreaming rather than working. Fortunately, I did have a pencil in my hand and a sketchbook in my lap and made a show of putting them aside to spare the time to talk with him. He offered me fifty dollars to paint his three girls. I informed him in the most courteous manner I could muster that I would be paid triple that amount in Europe. He remonstrated most sharply that I was no longer in Europe. This I could not dispute, but still insisted on a hundred and fifty American dollars. Justice Phyfe declared that he found it unseemly to discuss money matters with a female and abruptly departed from my objectionable presence. But as he made his way to the door, Mrs. Swann waylaid him in the hall. She must have somehow persuaded him to reconsider, for the Phyfe sisters came for their first sitting today.
Such delicate, docile, innocent little maidens! With their tiny, regular features, smooth, petal-soft skin, and rosebud mouths, they remind me of flowers. Well, the youngest, Calista, is more a gangling dandelion weed than a flower. But the middle girl, curly-headed Beatrice, is most cultivated, reminding me of a frilly pink chrysanthemum. And the eldest—pale, elegant Arabel—seems as delicate and mollycoddled as a hothouse gardenia. Together the three are a veritable tussie-mussie of femininity, so why not portray them as such? I sat them down on the chaise longue together, and Mrs. Swann was most helpful in adjusting the position of their torsos and arms until I was satisfied with the effect of entwined limbs and tilted heads, conveying the impression of a nosegay.
They happily prattled away as I made my preliminary graphite sketches. Actually, the two younger ones did all the talking whilst Arabel remained mute. She did not look at all happy and sat so rigidly that I kept directing her to relax, but that only made her tense up more. I assumed she was cold, for she had chosen to pose in a gown that bared her sloping shoulders, but when I suggested that she might be more comfortable with a shawl draped about her, she shook her head so hard that her chestnut ringlets trembled.
“Just tell me how I can make you more comfortable,” I implored her. “Pray do not suffer in silence.”
“Oh, let Arabel be,” Beatrice said. “Suffering is what she does best. Especially of late. Goodness knows why, but she has refused to leave her bedchamber for days now. If not for this chance to have her portrait painted, she would be there still. Vanity overcame whatever was ailing her.”
“If you are ill,” I told Arabel, “we can postpone these sittings until you feel better.”
She shrugged off my concern. Rather haughtily, I must say.
“I think Arabel was hiding in her chamber all week because she was scared,” little Calista said.
“Of what?” I asked.
“Why, the Plumford Night Stalker, of course! When Arabel heard that a young man had been murdered on Wolf Hill, she fainted straight away. We had to revive her with smelling salts.”
Beatrice rolled her eyes. “My elder sister is always fainting. She thinks it makes her more romantic and refined.”
“At least this time Arabel had good reason to faint,” Calista said. “I nearly did so myself when Papa told us where the body was discovered. We have often taken that very same path!”
“Our Aunt Gussie’s cottage is but a half mile off it,” Beatrice said. “It is nicely situated by a spring-fed pond at the foot of the hill.”
“Well, I should not care to live in such an isolated spot as that,” Calista said. “With only wolves for neighbors.”
“There haven’t been wolves on that hill for over a hundred years, you simpleton,” Beatrice said, rolling her eyes again.
“But now there is a vampyre roaming about up there!” Calista countered. “I daresay that is far worse.”
“You are such a muttonhead,” Beatrice told her. “Did not Papa assure us there is no such thing as a vampyre?”
“Even so, I am thankful our dear auntie is safe in heaven now.”
“Aunt Gussie passed away near a year ago,” Beatrice informed me. “And her cottage has been empty since.”
“Papa’s cottage, actually,” Calista said. “Aunt Gussie was his sister and had no property of her own.”
“The poor dear was an old maid, you see,” Beatrice said. “Upon my soul, I would rather be murdered by a vampyre than end up like her!”
I could not help but reprimand the girl. “That is a very foolish thing to say, Beatrice.”
“Indeed!” Calista said. “You just said Papa assured us there is no such thing as a vampyre.”
“That’s not quite what I meant,” I said. “It is foolish for a girl to say she would prefer to be murdered than unmarried.”
“Well, these young ladies need not
worry about ending up that way,” Mrs. Swann put in. “They are far too pretty to remain maidens.”
I turned around. “Oh, are you still here, Mrs. Swann?” I hoped my question would remind her she had household duties to attend to. Apparently she did not, however, for she made no move to withdraw.
“It is so sad,” she continued, “when a young man, with so many pleasures ahead of him, dies so early in life.”
“And so violently!” Calista said.
“I hear he was very handsome too,” Beatrice said. “I wonder what evil, human or inhuman, was lurking in those woods that night to do such mortal harm to him.”
“Stop!” Arabel cried, covering her ears with her pretty little hands. “You know I cannot bear to hear such gruesome talk.” She began to sob.
Mrs. Swann rushed forward and pulled Arabel up and into her arms to give her a comforting hug. “No need to be affrighted, my dear,” she said, pressing the girl against her. “Mrs. Swann is here to protect you from any big, bad vampyre.”
The other two sisters rose from the chaise and joined in on the cuddle, melding to Mrs. Swann’s supportive frame. “Such sweet little pussy cats,” she declared, kissing the tops of their heads. “What say we have some tea and chocolate puffs, my pets?”
Perhaps I should have minded Mrs. Swann’s interruption of my work, but how could I possibly object to chocolate puffs? Indeed, as my officious housekeeper herded her “pets” into the dining room, I followed close at their tapping heels. The table was most elegantly set with the Wedgwood jasper-ware usually displayed in the corner cupboard, and the pastries were displayed on a silver cake stand that had been in dire need of a polishing but now gleamed like starlight.