The Caged Graves (15 page)

One evening her father found Nate kissing her good night on the kitchen stoop. Neither one of them had any idea he was there until he took off his hat and snapped it against the door frame loudly enough to make them jump apart.

“That's enough of that,” Ransloe Boone said sternly.

“Yes, sir,” Nate agreed, promptly retreating.

Ransloe Boone took his daughter by the back of the neck and marched her into the house. She did her best to look remorseful, but she didn't miss the smirk her father couldn't quite hide.

He seemed rather pleased that Verity and Nate were finally getting along.

 

Verity was discovering a number of things about her father she'd never known before.

In late July Sarah Ann Boone had written:

 

Rained hard, but John and Asenath walked up to the house and we had an enjoyable evening. Ransloe played the fiddle and Verity danced.

 

The fiddle?

And:

 

John wants to go to the church social, but Asenath does not know any dance steps. Of course, he asked Ransloe to teach her.

 

What did she mean,
of course?
Was John Thomas a terrible dancer, or was her father an exceptionally good one?

If Ransloe Boone and John Thomas were spending their time searching the swamp, Verity's mother did not dignify it with a mention in her diary. Only one entry in early August hinted at such an occupation:

 

Argued with Ransloe again about the time he spends with John, but we made amends in the usual way.

 

The usual way? Verity clapped both hands over cheeks that suddenly felt very hot.

Then she turned the page, and the death of Asenath's sister Rebecca claimed her attention.
Asenath was called to the Claytons' today. Her sister was gravely ill,
Sarah Ann wrote on August 13, 1852.

 

I drove her in the carriage, but by the time we arrived, Rebecca had already passed. They waited too long to call the doctor in. The apothecary's daughter was there and did what she could, but the girl was beyond help. They say she had terrible stomach pains and then fell down in a stupor. I do not like to think ill of anyone, but it was very foolish not to call for Dr. Robbins at once.

 

The following day, she added:

 

I helped lay Rebecca out for burial. The poor thing was barely 15. I thought it strange that her arm was badly swollen, and there were marks that might have been bee stings. Ransloe says he knew of a man who died from bee stings. But stomach pains are not usually a symptom of bee stings.

 

Sarah Ann Boone offered her sympathy to Asenath's relations, even though the Claytons were the outcasts of Catawissa society and difficult company.

 

Ransloe and I paid a condolence call after the funeral, but Eli Clayton was so unpleasant, we did not stay. I felt sorry for poor Idella, trying to serve honey cakes and tea while her husband ran guests off the property.

 

Asenath's grief verged on hysteria, leaving her prostrate and bedridden. Verity knew her mother must have been reaching the end of her patience when she wrote:

 

Asenath would not get out of bed, not even to attend Rebecca's funeral. She supposedly saw 6 crows sitting together and believes it is a sign of more deaths to come. I thought Mother might slap her, and I almost wished she would.

 

That entry was dated August 15. Verity felt a chill up and down her spine when she realized that in exactly three months' time, both her mother and Asenath Thomas would be dead.

VERITY FELT she knew her father better through her mother's diaries than from living with him for three weeks. Every morning, Ransloe Boone came downstairs for breakfast and looked at his daughter as if he was surprised to find her there. The man who'd once romped through the house like a pony for her amusement seemed uncomfortable conversing with the young woman she'd become. When she tried to talk to him about wedding plans, he tugged on his shirt collar and suggested she take such matters to Nate's mother and sisters.

“Aren't you interested?” Verity asked, hurt.

Her father cringed. “Of course I am, Verity. Anything you want—I'll purchase it for you. If you'd like a fancy arbor on the lawn like your Aunt Clara has, I'll build it. But if you want to plan a party . . .” He spread his arms wide in a helpless gesture. “You're better off asking Fanny McClure.”

Verity wasn't averse to asking Nate's mother for help; she'd already determined that Fanny McClure was the queen of Catawissa society. But planning an event with Nate's mother bore some resemblance to being run over by Clara Thomas's carriage. No sooner had Verity broached the subject than half a dozen
Godey's Lady's Book
s were dumped in her lap.

Mrs. McClure turned the pages so quickly that Verity could hardly take anything in. “White satin and lace for the dress, don't you think, dear? Just like Queen Victoria.”

Verity hesitated. A dress made especially for the wedding would be a great expense, and she didn't want to impose on her father's generosity. “I thought I would put a new overskirt on the gown I wore to the party and change the trim on the bodice.” One of her mother's old dresses had a lovely velvet ribbon trimming the sleeves, and Verity thought it might be nice to put something of her mother's into her wedding gown.

“Oh no, dear. This is the wedding of my only son, and you shall have a new dress! I'll buy the fabric and take you to my seamstress.” Verity started to protest, but Mrs. McClure didn't give her a chance. “Don't say a word. It's my pleasure. Of course, it doesn't have to be white. Now that I think about it, blue silk would be lovely with your hair. And we should consider the date. We harvest rye in July, peaches and plums through September, and then the apples start. We
could
have the wedding in August, or wait until November. No later than that, or snow might prevent your Massachusetts relatives from coming. What do you think? August or November?”

Verity blinked, feeling dizzy. She opened her mouth to reply, but Mrs. McClure didn't wait for an answer. “November,” her future mother-in-law decided. “It will give us so much longer to plan.”

“Nathaniel might have an opinion on the matter,” Verity said.

Fanny McClure graced her with a confident smile. “Nathaniel will do what I tell him to do.”

A day later, Nate announced that he and Carrie's husband were traveling to Lancaster County to look at a new variety of plum tree, and Verity accused him of making a cowardly retreat. “You're escaping your mother.”

“I am not,” Nate protested. “Timothy and I have planned this trip for weeks. It has nothing to do with being forced to look at wedding invitations in
Godey's.
”

“He's a terrible liar, isn't he, Beulah?”

“I couldn't say, Miss Verity.” The housekeeper sat in a corner of the parlor, sewing. After Ransloe Boone had caught Verity and Nate on the back stoop, he'd asked Beulah to chaperone their visits. No matter. Verity was certain Nate could slip in a kiss when she walked him to the door.

“I'll miss you while I'm gone,” Nate said. “And that's the truth.”

“You'll probably forget all about me, you fickle thing,” Verity chided him. “The way you forgot all about poor Amelie Eggars after staring at her in church.”

“I did stare,” he admitted ruefully, “when the sermon was really dull. I used to wonder why her eyebrow grew straight across her forehead the way it does.”

“Shame on you,” Verity said, although she couldn't smother her grin.

“What are you going to do while I'm gone?” he asked then. “Promise me you won't spend the whole time with your nose in those diaries. I'm almost sorry I fetched them for you, they make you so sad.”

“I don't think it's a bad thing for me to want to know my mother.”

“No, but that's not all you're doing. The past is the past. I wish you'd let it go.” Nate sat up straight and eyed her with firm command. “See here. I want you to visit my sisters while I'm gone. If you want something to read—why, Annie can lend you a dozen books of poetry. For pity's sake, Verity, if you'll promise to put those diaries away for a while, I'll—I'll read one of those books myself. I'll even”—he looked mildly panicked—“memorize verses and recite them for you.”

She raised her eyebrows in a challenge. “I'll give you back the one you sent me. You can learn a few verses by Barrett Browning while you're away.”

“Timothy will think I've gone stark raving mad,” Nate groaned, overlooking the fact that she'd promised him nothing.

 

Two days later, Verity stood on the front porch of the Boone house after dark, calling “Lucky” and “kitty” and “puss-puss” just as she'd been doing for the last two hours. The kitten, who normally kept pretty close to the house, was nowhere to be found. Verity was beside herself with worry—and angry that no one else seemed to care.

Her father stuck his head out the front door. “He'll come back when he's ready, Verity. And if he doesn't, we've got plenty of cats living around the barn. Pick another one to pamper and fatten up on cream. Nathaniel won't care.” Verity shot him a resentful look, both for assuming Nate didn't care about the kitten he'd given her and for suggesting her pet could be replaced by any barn cat. Ransloe Boone shook his head at her expression and climbed the front stairs to retire for the night.

She called for Lucky again, peering into the dark. She didn't want to leave him outside all night with bears and bobcats. For all she knew, opossums might eat kittens. There was no use trying to sleep when she was so worried, so she fetched a lantern and started walking down the road toward the woods.

It was only a little after ten o'clock. In Worcester people would still be walking or riding home from social events, their way lit by gas streetlamps. On the Pennsylvania mountainside, however, there was little difference between ten o'clock in the evening and the dead of night. The sky was deep indigo, the trees black against it, and the only thing she could hear besides her footsteps was the rustle of nameless things in the woods. Verity wondered if she would ever be at ease with this isolation. She felt a little like Lucky, small and helpless in a wild world.

It wouldn't have been so bad in town. Catawissa might not be a city, but she could grow accustomed to its picturesque homes and little shops. For a moment she imagined herself living in a clapboard house with a gable front near the center of town and felt a flicker of cheer. But Nate would never agree to live that far from his property. Verity was marrying a farmer, not a doctor.

She frowned, unhappy that thought had even entered her head. “Kitty, kitty, kitty,” she called. She reached the place where the road divided in two and stopped, reluctant to venture farther. It occurred to her that bears and bobcats might not find a kitten worth their trouble, but a foolhardy city girl would make a tasty meal indeed.

She was about to turn around and head home when she heard a distant meow. “Lucky?” She stood still, listening. A thin, mewing sound answered her. Verity promptly started down the road toward the church, putting bears out of her mind. Was Lucky hurt? This was exactly what she'd feared all day—that he was injured and lying helpless somewhere, unable to come home.

Her sore ankle protested as she descended the hill, and she held the lantern up to light her way, not wanting to turn her foot and injure it all over again. She imagined the embarrassment of appearing a second time at Reverend White's house, where she would be chastised for another foolish excursion. Every few yards she stopped at the edge of the road and peered into the woods, calling for her cat.

About halfway down the hill she spotted a light near the cemetery—a lantern, if she wasn't mistaken. Verity paused, wondering if Reverend White had heard her voice and come outside to see what the problem was. But the White house was dark, and this lantern wasn't moving. Whoever held it was standing still, or else it was resting on the ground outside the cemetery wall.

Verity drew in her breath as she remembered finding her mother's marker overturned. Was somebody tampering with the graves again? With an unladylike exclamation, she marched the rest of the way down the hill, meaning to surprise the culprit in the act.

When the light near the graveyard went out, she knew she'd been seen. The person and the lantern had both vanished by the time she arrived at the cemetery wall. She looked left and right, glanced over her shoulder, and peered around the corner of the church. The light proved she hadn't been alone here a minute ago; but the darkness did not prove she was alone now.

The caged graves cast long, latticed shadows on the ground. She walked around both of them. The doors were closed and padlocked. The stones marking the resting places of her mother and her aunt looked the same as ever, the ground around them unbroken.

Her lantern radiated a circle of light all around her, but on the other side of the low cemetery wall, headstones threw oblong shadows that stretched blindly toward the darkness. She saw no sign of movement and no evidence of mischief, but then her eye was caught by a dim glow in the grass some yards away from Asenath's grave.

Embers. A few dying embers, growing cold and gray even as she watched. Verity walked over and poked them with the toe of her shoe, smelling the sharp odor of pipe tobacco. Someone had stood here with a lantern a few minutes ago, emptying a pipe. Who would visit a graveyard in the night to smoke a pipe? Verity raised her own light and for the first time saw that there were two other graves outside the cemetery wall, their rectangular stones set flush against the earth and overgrown by grass.