Louisa and the Missing Heiress (24 page)

“I can’t believe he’s passed over,” she whispered, sitting on a white-clothed sofa and looking strangely like an artist’s model, with that grief on her face and all that draped cloth behind her; then I thought that she looked as all women look in a room filled with covered furniture, as if she were about to embark on a long journey. But it was her father who had just begun the longest journey. I shivered, both because of the eeriness of the room and because my feet were soaked. Harriet patted the sofa and indicated I was to sit next to her.

“I feel a similar disbelief. His passing was so unexpected,” I admitted. “You know he called on us just yesterday. We were so pleased to see him. It had been a long time, all those years he spent in Europe . . . and now, to come home and . . . and . . .” Because Harriet was sobbing again, I did not finish the sentence. Now, however, the sobbing had reached gale strength. Smelling salts were definitely needed. There must be a vial somewhere in the house. I found the little silver downstairs maid’s bell and rang it as loudly as possible.

A moment later a severe-looking woman came in.

“Yes?” she asked haughtily, obviously irritated to have been called away from her duties. She wore a lace-trimmed apron over her blue wool dress, and that was the only thing about her that indicated her servant status. She was tall, handsome, and reminded me of a governess Sylvia had once had, who had frequently locked her in her closet.

“Smelling salts and tea, please,” I requested, trying to sound slightly more authoritative than I looked. “Some brandy in the tea, if there is any in the house.”

The tall, wraithlike woman sniffed, complained, “As if I haven’t enough to do,” and walked out.

Between sobs, Harriet giggled. “Isn’t she awful? I’m simply terrified of her,” she admitted. “Father hired her through an agency. I believe he was planning to replace Mrs. Bradley as soon as he found a different housekeeper.”

“Yes, that is why he visited us yesterday, for help with staffing. When did Mrs. Bradley begin her employment?” I asked, pleased that this change in conversation had somewhat restored Harriet, who was most at ease when discussing domestic arrangements.

“I’m not sure. Father mailed ahead instructions—you know how he likes everything orderly so he doesn’t have to be bothered with the household—and she was here when he arrived. Even he was a little frightened of her.” Harriet giggled again. “Oh, Louisa, I feel so much better already. Thank you.”

Mrs. Bradley returned with a tea tray. She glared again and thumped the tray so loudly on the table that the milk spilled.

“Thank you, Mrs. Bradley,” I said. “No, please don’t leave. Not yet. I was wondering. Were you here last night, and this morning?”

“I was employed as a live-in, miss. Of course I was here.” She folded her arms over her chest and glared harder.

“Then did you notice anything amiss about your employer? His death takes us all by surprise; he seemed in such good health.” I tried to frame my questions as polite conversation suitable for a condolence call, not wanting to further upset Harriet.

“We’d just met. I knew nothing about him, so I really can’t say. Except I did warn him that sweets were bad for the heart. But he didn’t listen. Ate the box at one sitting, he did.”

“The box?” I frowned.

“Yes, miss. Some candy he brought home. Took it to his room last night and I found it this morning when . . . when . . .” For the first time her iron visage crumpled. Mrs. Bradley had discovered the dead Mr. Mapp in his bed.

“Would you bring me the box, Mrs. Bradley,” I said very calmly.

A moment later the housekeeper returned, bearing the tin box that Abba had presented to Mr. Mapp the day before.

“Ummm,” said Harriet. “Daddy loved marzipan. And there’s one left.” She reached for the last bonbon in the tin. It had been completely buried in the powdered sugar so that Mr. Mapp must have overlooked it.

“No, dear,” I said, staying her hand. “I will send you some fresh ones.” I took the tin from Mrs. Bradley and shut it firmly with the remaining candy inside.

I spent another half hour with Harriet, talking about her father and administering salts as required, but when other visitors arrived to extend condolences I gave Harriet one last embrace and took my leave.

On the front step I hugged the tin to my chest and gazed at Mr. Mapp’s house, with its black gauze mourning curtains. My mind was racing at a furious pace. If Mr. Mapp had indeed died from eating the marzipan meant for me, what did that mean? Surely Dorothy would not have wanted to poison me? Not the old Dottie, anyway, but perhaps this new, strange Dorothy who forgot when her guests were coming to tea. Dorothy had changed—if not her nature, then her responses and attitudes. And with reason Dorothy had grown jealous of Preston. Had she learned that Preston had once kissed me? If so, could she have truly been jealous of me, one of her oldest friends, because of a trifle? No. Not Dorothy.

I sent Sylvia a note that afternoon, asking her to pay a condolence call on Harriet, knowing full well that Harriet and Sylvia hadn’t spoken for years because of some silly girlish quarrel. But judging by Mrs. Bradley’s severity, Harriet would need old friends about her for a while. Sylvia returned my note with one of her own. She would call on Harriet. But it was to be a trade.

This was the favor Sylvia wished, as explained later: for me to come as a guest to a ball her mother was planning.

“You must, Louisa. You simply must, else I can’t bear it.”

It was the next morning, after we’d had a brisk walk through the puddling snow on the Commons, and I was setting up the parlor for my little day school, fetching chalks for the slates and a globe for the geography lesson.

“No. I haven’t the time,” I said. I was in such a rush I thumped pieces of chalk and a slateboard at each of six places set around a game table that had been recruited into the service of education.

“You promised,” Sylvia accused.

“You sound like a schoolgirl,” I said.

“Well, I felt like one last night, when I got home and discovered that without asking me Mother had sent out invitations for a dance, in my honor, for the Saturday following the next. A dance! You’d think I was sixteen all over again.”

“Yes. Not the ripe old age of twenty,” I said. “Don’t ask me to do this, Sylvia. I’m not in a mood to put ribbons in my hair and trip around a dance floor.”

“Think of the music.” Sylvia smiled slyly. “There will be polkas and reels. The musicians are already hired.”

“I can’t, Sylvia,” I protested gently but with slightly less conviction. It was to be a meat market, and we were to be the lambs for sale. But I loved music. “What with this business of Dorothy, and now worrying about Queenie and her baby, how could I spend an evening dancing? How could your mother ask it?” I insisted.

“Her reasoning is simple and heartless. Dorothy was not a blood relative, so we are not officially in mourning.” Sylvia bent down and fetched a marble that had fallen off the table. “I can’t bear it if you don’t come. Just for an hour. Bring your notebook and carry that around instead of a dance card. You can take notes for a story.”

I sighed. Sylvia had won the battle. Every experience could be used in one of my stories. Here was grist for the mill. “Well, for an hour or two. For the music. And the dialogue. The Brownly family will not attend because of the mourning, of course,” I added.

“Courtesy requires that they be invited, but Mother does not expect them to come. It is much too soon after Dorothy’s passing.”

“Then since you have determined to involve me in this affair, I will hand-deliver Edgar Brownly’s invitation,” I said. “And on the way, I will leave the marzipan tin with Constable Cobban. I’ve decided the police chemist should examine it.”

“Louisa, you can’t think—”

“I think nothing, Sylvia. But there is a connection, and it must be explored.”

“And to think, just a short while ago we believed Dorothy had suffered a fatal accident. Now it’s murder, and perhaps double murder. Is the world still round, Louisa, or has it gone flat? I wouldn’t be surprised, so much seems to be changing.”

“Or perhaps things never were as they seemed,” I said sadly.

The front door slammed and Walter Campbell stormed into the room, squealing that he wanted milk and crackers.

“School is starting,” I said with a wry smile. Sylvia fled, but only after promising to return in two hours and finish the last hour of school for me, so that I might attend to my errand of delivering Edgar Brownly’s invitation myself and have one more conversation with the Brownly heir.

I moved effortlessly through the lessons of the morning, able to recite all the tributaries of the Mississippi and conduct a second private train of thought in my head at the same time. But my reality had shifted in the weeks since Dot’s death. Daughters were no longer loved by their mothers and elder brothers; sisters no longer protected younger sisters; good friends bearing gifts seemed less trustworthy; and husbands . . . well, husbands seemed in general a thing to be avoided, if Preston were an example of the breed.

Much of what I had been taught of that great ambiguity that society likes to refer to as “life” seemed no longer pertinent. Dorothy’s death was revealing the underbelly of the serpent known as society, and any cruelty suddenly seemed possible.

 

 

WHEN I DECIDED to pay one more visit to Edgar Brownly, Mr. Wortham had been in jail for a week, trying to work with his lawyer to prepare a defense, for the court had decided he would be charged and tried. I feared that if the truth were not discovered soon, it might never be.

“You know how you must quickly spill salt over red wine when it splashes on a white cloth?” I told Sylvia when she returned after lunch. “If the wine dries, the stain can never be removed. I feel this stain is drying, Sylvia. There is no time to lose. Judge Loring will hear the case against Preston Wortham, and an outraged jury will find him guilty simply because someone must be punished. Mr. Wortham will hang, and I will never know for certain what really happened to Dorothy, and why.”

“Then you think my cousin innocent?”

“I did not say that, Sylvia.” I smiled sadly and put down the black crayon I had used to make my schoolroom maps of the Amazon and Nile and Mississippi. “I said I would never be certain. There. Can you work with this?

“Here is the Amazon. The one with the monkey in the tree next to it. The Nile has a pyramid next to it.” I put a second map over the first. “And the Mississippi has a levee. Can you remember those, and place the towns along them?”

“I suppose. Maybe I should just try singing lessons instead,” Sylvia suggested, daunted by what she had agreed to do.

“Now, Sylvia, you will never know if teaching children will suit you if you do not attempt it now,” I said. “Be brave. They cannot hurt you very much. Only remember little Dicky does bite when he’s angry.”

I tugged at my waistjacket and gave my hair one last pat into place. I wore my dark blue afternoon “calling” outfit, the same costume I had worn to Dorothy’s two tea parties, and I hoped, with those memories, to stir Edgar Brownly’s conscience. “The play’s the thing,” I had muttered as I dressed.

“I will return as soon as I have met with Edgar Brownly and made a short visit to Queenie. I have some new garments for her baby.” I rose from the table and, distracted, gave my friend a reassuring kiss on the forehead, as I did with my young students.

I missed Anna more than ever that afternoon, as I walked back to Mr. Brownly’s studio. It was unwise, I knew, going out without a chaperon, and if Anna had been at home she would have accompanied me. But she was in Syracuse, May was too young for this visit, Lizzie was too shy, and Sylvia was in the schoolroom. I was on my own. I hoped desperately that Miss Mendosa would not arrive in the middle of this lessthan-social visit.

The fickle Boston weather had changed from snow to a drizzle, and I carried my beat-up old parasol—not a prime choice of weapon, but one that would serve its purpose in the sequence of events that day. To save money, I walked to the bay rather than take the public coach, and because the cobbles were slippery, a full three-quarters of an hour passed before I arrived at Brownly’s studio. I encountered few people on the street, only those who must be out in wet weather, for over the centuries Bostonians have developed a nose for the weather, and it was the kind of day when mothers stuck their heads out of upstairs windows, sniffed, shouted back to spouse and children that a fog was settling, then clapped the window and shutters shut again, and kept them shut for the day.

The greengrocer was out with his cart of early lettuces and spinach, the milk seller and his donkey made their slow progress up and down the streets of Beacon Hill, but I spied no others braving the dreary afternoon till I arrived at the Common. There, a goose girl raced up and down a muddy path, herding her honking white charges, and at the Smokers’ Circle a huddled group of men created a denser fog than that rolling in from the bay.

I went first to the Charles Street Home, to leave a bundle of baby’s things for Queenie.

“Oh, ain’t that the sweetest!” The new mother sighed, examining the pink sleeping gown with matching cap, the white booties, the miniature woolen coat, all only slightly used and well mended by Abba herself where the moths had made holes.

“How do you feel, Queenie?” I sat in the one rickety ladder-back chair the room contained, and patted Queenie’s hand.

“Tired, Miss Louisa. And kind of soft in the head, if you know what I mean. I can only see today, like there’s nothing past it.” Queenie hugged her baby closer and the little bundle mewed and stretched, whereupon I spent several minutes admiring the baby’s beauty and intelligence, as new mothers seem to expect even before the infant can display any qualities whatsoever other than the primary skill of taking in and then giving out various liquids.