The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton (15 page)

TWELVE

A murderous instance

T
hroughout our first winter at Newspirit even the most resolute among us—Brothers Lucius and Hiram and Sister Rebecca—began quietly to reconsider the project. But with the coming of spring, everyone seemed infused with renewed, if tempered, optimism.

Shortly after Tom returned from England, as I say, he spent a day here visiting with me and Sabra and telling me of his satisfactory tour of the British mills. We also discussed my own plans, but these were still unformed; I knew only that at some point I must leave this enclosed world to make my way in a greater. He had concluded, therefore, to mete out a degree of justice and an unforgettable warning to Dudley on his own. At first I tried to warn him off such a course, tempted though I was by the prospect of slaking my own thirst for some manner of vengeance. But he was adamant by now.

“I can't allow him to escape justice entirely. Nor can I leave him to consider ever hounding you again.” His whispered words shot rapidly from his lips. “I mean to warn him off, Allegra, forever.” He paused to breathe deeply.

Then he laid out again what we knew, as if for a last examination. That Dana had agreed with my scruples about public justice and had confirmed a lack of sufficient corroborating evidence that pointed directly to Dudley. There was only my own testimony, the testimony of one who would be in the eyes of the world little more than a West-End Harlot.

“Someone has to do something!” Tom said. “Even while I was in England, Allegra, or maybe especially there once I was removed from you and unable in any way to assure your security … the more I thought about it the more I thought he should be made to pay, and be warned off. And what's more, Mr. Dana was circumspect, but he hinted darkly, Allegra, that there are indications—nothing certain at this point—suggesting your abduction is not the first of Dudley's crimes. He has to be stopped from believing he can with impunity go on treating anyone with such soulless cruelty.

“So you see,” Tom went on, “I'm determined to take matters into my own hands … to end his power over you.

Then he explained the difficulties—chiefly that he could not discover a means to waylay his quarry without arousing his suspicions in advance. Neither could he afford to wait for days or weeks by the roadside until Dudley happened along. So ultimately we agreed upon a ruse: I should write Dudley a letter saying that I wished to speak with him to claim some modest assistance, by way of reparation and as a mutual agreement to keeping us both out of the courts, due to the impecuniousness of my position since escaping his restraint and rushing out into the world alone. My inclination was that he might well believe such a fate had befallen me and quickly see the mutual benefit of our settling privately. I did not doubt that he would expect nothing less of another, and an aggrieved party at that, than something akin to blackmail, that he would wish to come to terms, and perhaps assess my vulnerability to him once again. I insisted on our meeting in a public place, but it would be on his journey there that Tom would surprise him. And if he should not slip into our trap, then Tom would devise another to exact his punishment and warning. We decided that we had nothing to lose by setting our first snare.

I
N THE MEANTIME
, I had begun to work outdoors again on most mornings in planting field and garden, and on fine afternoons, before the bugs swarmed with the evolving season, I gathered my paint box, easel, and canvas and set out in the sweet air as yet unthickened by the vapors of midsummer and burdensome heat. I love best that time when clusters of tiny whitish bluets and violets sweep along the just-greening pastures.

On May Day everyone stopped work by midmorning and alone, or in small groups, hunted far and wide for early flowers. Later that day small baskets of violets, bluets, cowslips, anemones, miterwort and saxifrage, may-apple, or the scarlet bud of maple leaves, among others, found their way to each person's door, or upon one's writing table, or atop one's pillow. A small name tag on each basket made certain that the right party found the intended basket. And in the afternoon, following a picnic, each of us delivered a performance or recitation of our choosing, and appropriate to the efflorescence of spring, in the amphitheater.

But such idylls as these were not to last. Later, long after the phoebes had nested in my gable, after the orioles and hummingbirds had danced about the blossoms of orchard and honeysuckle, and after my palette began to turn toward the yellows and the vermilions of summer flowers, I sat on our front bench drinking in the moonrise one warm evening when Tom suddenly appeared. He had been lying in wait for some time, he explained, in the shadows of bushes and trees, in hopes that I would emerge from the house, as was my habit about dusk and before turning in.

He wore no hat, his hair was disheveled, his face strangely awry, his clothes hung uncomfortably about him as clothing sometimes hangs upon a child's doll. His breath came heavily and his eyes were wild, a look I had never seen before in this man who was my own brother.

“Allegra!” he whispered as he stepped forth out of the moon-cast shadows. “Hush. Hush. Something has happened.”

“Tom!” I caught my breath. “What in the world are you talking about? Isn't it but a fortnight since you were so pleased in your work? You come now like a madman. What is it? Quickly!”

He sat down beside me, glancing about to be sure no one was nearby.

“I've had our revenge on Dudley,” he said in the same desperate whisper. “That is what's happened!” I could tell his mouth was painfully dry. His face contorted, he looked in the moonlight like a white devil.

“What do you mean, Tom?”

“I went to him, Allegra, just as we planned.”

“And you could not ensnare him?” I asked. “Oh, Tom, would you please tell me what has happened!”

“He's dead, Allegra. It is not what I meant to do. You must believe me, because I would not betray you, our plan. There was a terrible accident. And that's the long and the short of it, Allegra. Now … now, Allegra, I am a fugitive,” he said. “I shall no longer be able to help, or advise, or watch over you.” He paused to catch his breath and went on.

“Can anyone doubt that the violent end of this man of wealth will be scrupulously investigated? And if somehow found out, would I be seen as anything but a murderer? And am I not, after all, whatever I
meant
to be? Mr. Dana knows the whole story of our encounters with Dudley. Miss Fuller has a full accounting, hasn't she? And others know something of the sordid tale, and of my rage against this man. Even the
Friend of Virtue
, as I understand it, has not been restrained in naming Dudley in their lists, despite Mr. Dana's efforts to restrain them prior to any corroborations and proceedings. And might I have left something behind? Who can say what facts a vigorous examination would uncover of Dudley's death and of all our entanglements with him? And why should such an examination not eventually lead to me? But I will not sacrifice my freedom by turning myself over to the authorities. Not in trade for this blackguard's life. He isn't worthy of the sacrifice. And surely you can see that a sort of justice has been done. Finally. A
sort
of justice, Allegra.”

Suddenly I recalled a terrible moment from our childhood, another moment when Tom's nobility and courage got the better of his judgment. My Uncle Simeon—ever the petty tyrant—had finally caught a fox that had been raiding his henhouse for weeks. Rather than simply dispatch the animal and have done with it, he nailed the unfortunate wretch to the side of the barn and began to skin it alive. The creature's squalls of distress could be heard, we later were told, among our distant neighbors. While I stood on the door stoop weeping and screaming at my uncle to desist, Tom came rushing in from somewhere and shot the fox through his heart to deliver him. Whereupon Uncle Simeon, enraged to have been cheated out of his cruel retributions, turned upon Tom and beat the boy to the very brink of his young life. He had been badly bloodied, and I alone nursed him back to join the living.

And now because of Tom's distress, I simply could not deny him. After all, his accidental justice meted out to this libertine in a fashionable dress coat was on my account, and instigated as well by the folly of my own desire for revenge. And to be sure, I too did not want to see Tom severely punished for it.

I did not at the time give a thought to enmeshing myself even further in his culpability. Rather, I thought only of helping my brother escape in his dangerous fume of distraction, and I saw that the time had now come to act upon my growing impulse to depart Newspirit.

It was clear that we had to get away that very night. I could think of no one to help us other than Asa Perry, for who else had such a keen sense of the blindness of authority and the reign of the bad over the good? I knew from something he had said that Mr. Perry intended to leave that very evening for a short stay at his own farm.

So I had Tom hide in the shadows once more while I went inside and asked Mr. Perry if he would come sit with me briefly that I might ask his advice on a certain matter before his departure. Without hesitation he agreed. He smiled gently, perhaps as he might have smiled upon an anxious daughter, his hair and tunic shimmering in the moonlight.

I took his hand, as if indeed I were a troubled daughter, and said simply, “Mr. Perry, I'm afraid I very badly need your help this night, if you agree that my cause is just. There is a serious matter before us, regarding my brother Tom—who may be lost, sir—if we do not gain someone's confidence and aid.”

He frowned slightly, but never had I seen such a look of peacefulness and self-possession in a man's eyes.

“What is it, then, Miss Sigourney?” he said softly, patting my hand. “I am honored that you entrust this … difficulty to me. How may I help you and your brother?”

I then started at the beginning and, with Tom listening in the shadows, told Mr. Perry the whole story of my running away with Tom to our life on the road, of my captivity at the hands of Mr. Dudley, of my escape and path here to Newspirit with the help of Mr. Dana and Miss Fuller, and of Tom's misfortune while attempting to subdue forever Mr. Dudley's odious obsession for me.

He listened, it seemed to me, gratefully (his white head slowly nodding with empathy and understanding), almost as if he were some wise judge in an Old Testament melodrama.

“And where do you say your embattled brother is now?” he finally asked when I came to the end of my story.

“Close by, Mr. Perry, close by. Will you help us, sir? Will you help us on our way this very night? I dare not ask of you any more than that. We have thrown ourselves into your confidence, your discretion, whatever happens. I trust you beyond any other here. Perhaps no one will ever connect Tom with this mayhem. Perhaps it will become just another of those unresolvable incidents of the highway.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, somewhat distracted by his own cogitations on the matter.

“And no one has to know, ever, of your tenderness toward us in this plight,” I added.

“Let me speak to him, to Tom,” Mr. Perry said, his voice lowered.

I called Tom out of the shadows. The two men knew each other from Tom's earlier visits, and they shook hands. Tom then, in answer to Mr. Perry's questions, explained just how the accident had occurred, Mr. Perry all the while watching Tom carefully and calmly.

The essence of the occurrence was as follows. Tom had caught Mr. Dudley out that noon on the road to the meeting I had proposed. It was not far from his parents' house, where he now reigned since the death of his father. As Dudley rode by, Tom leapt out of hiding from the hedge by the roadside, pointed his pistol directly at Dudley's face as he sat astride his rearing horse, and ordered him to dismount.

In brief, as Tom explained it, no sooner had Dudley dismounted and faced Tom than he threw his heavy stick, which Dudley carried everywhere with him, directly into Tom's face and rushed at Tom, roaring like an enraged bear. Tom tried to dodge the stick, but it caught him hard at the shoulder and in an instinct of self-defense, but without meaning to, Tom pulled the trigger. Before he fully realized what had happened, Mr. Dudley lay bleeding from his chest and gasping for air.

“My only purpose that morning,” Tom said, “was to place Dudley on foot and in my power; then to warn him off by threatening his life, thrashing him severely, and leaving him by the roadside to consider his evil ways. To scare him off, you see, and give him a taste of justice.”

“Did you not think that he would bring action against you?” Mr. Perry asked.

“No, sir. I felt quite certain that the last thing he would wish was to have open to the scrutiny of the community and the courts the slightest hint of his cruel treatment of my sister.”

“I see. Perhaps you are right. And this rougher justice would make him pay a certain … percentage, at the least, and you hoped scare him off for good.”

“Precisely, sir. That was my thinking. Until it all went wrong.”

“Well, we can say, I think, that justice of a sort was finally done, after hearing the story of Miss Sigourney's captivity. Accidental justice. It's a shame you had to carry a pistol in the first place, Tom. I would have met the devil with another stout cane, or better a horsewhip. But there's nothing to be done about that now. You'll pay for your error one way or another the rest of your life, Tom, I expect, if they don't track this thing to your door first and hang you for an outlaw. Could anyone have seen this struggle?”

“I saw no one, but I was in a daze of distraction. And why shouldn't I fear that someone on the road might have seen something? I can not say, Mr. Perry.”

“Yes, I see,” Mr. Perry said. He then cautioned me to stay behind at Newspirit. But I refused to abandon my brother, who had stood by me. Mr. Perry finally gave up trying to dissuade me. So we arranged to leave quietly with him for his homestead that night. I was to have thirty minutes to gather my things together and prepare for flight.