The Evening Spider (4 page)

Northampton Lunatic Hospital

Northampton, Massachusetts

December 20, 1885

Y
es, yes. You are correct. There were no mighty, bellowing trains. I got nothing more than a whistling teakettle in my Haverton kitchen.

I understand that you were skeptical, Harry. You must nonetheless admit that early married life suited me better than wasting away in Mother's home? Granting, of course, that I have adjusted my conception of what
wasting
really means in more recent years—

Yes.
Early
married life suited me well. I have already made that stipulation. You needn't interrupt.

I
did
enjoy being the mistress of a household—at least more than being a dutiful daughter. Our maid, Tessa, took up most of the more tedious housework, and I got to focus on the fancier cooking and hostessing tasks.

Matthew would come home and tell me about his work. When we were first married, he tried and won an embezzlement case. I'd look forward to hearing the details over dinner, but those conversations were often disappointing.

The secretary wasn't recording the funds correctly in the accounting books and was taking the difference for himself.

He's a revolting little fellow, really. That's what it boils down to.

Oh, I don't remember the exact numbers, darling.

The lesson is, Frances, that we all ought to be careful about whom we trust.

For a time, I felt that if I spent half the day in the kitchen working to serve his dinner hot, at the appointed time, and with the most precisely pleasing flavors, Matthew would in return serve up a decent and detailed story of his day's endeavors. That is not how marriage and housekeeping operates, I soon learned. Matthew never explained his work as vividly as you always did your studies.

Perhaps it was the age difference between Matthew and me that made him speak of things so simply. Or perhaps you always spoiled me with information since I'm your sister.

That is fascinating, Harry. I do wonder if the human brain is similarly organized? But how, specifically, did Fritsch and Hitzig access that part of dogs' brains while they were still alive?

Do you
really
want to know, Frances?

Why wouldn't I want to know?

Very well, then . . .

Matthew, however, thought I would not understand. It didn't bother me a great deal with that embezzlement case. But then, about six months into our marriage, he helped take on a more important case: the McFarlene murder, which occurred right there in our Haverton! Suddenly the details—the ones I could get out of him—were more enticing. A Wiggins Hill drunkard named John McFarlene had beaten Walter Beck, his brother-in-law, to death, they said. He had apparently dragged the body
to the woods in hopes it wouldn't be discovered. But a dog had found it the very next day, and barked and barked till his master came and saw it, too.

It was around that time, however, that I started to feel unsteady on my feet, and nauseous at kitchen smells. Not long after, Dr. Graham confirmed my pregnancy. My interest in nearly everything around me—and Matthew's work was no exception—wore thin as I became consumed with worries about the future.

I'd always enjoyed compliments on my small and delicate frame. Now those qualities felt like a death sentence. Surely I would not survive the birth of a child? And if I did survive? What then? I had never thought of myself as a mother. Why hadn't I?

Matthew was entirely occupied with his work and perhaps did not notice his wife's mortal fear. And then—rather quickly—his case was won. Of course Matthew was the younger, assisting prosecutor. Nonetheless, it was quite an impressive and celebrated win for such a young attorney. Do you remember? McFarlene was hanged in New Haven. Matthew was even present for the execution—can you imagine? Despite—or perhaps because of—my own (I presumed) imminent death, I longed to hear the details.

Was there a look of dread or a look of peace on McFarlene's face as he walked his final steps? Did he have any last words? Did his neck make a snapping noise after the trap was sprung? Is it true that the eyes bulge out in the terminal moments? Is it a purely physical response to the rope's constriction, or is it perhaps a final begging sort of gesture—begging to see just one more moment of life on Earth?

I suppose Matthew would not have been able to answer about the eyes since the convict's face is always covered. In any case, he would not have wished to answer any such questions. He surely would have been troubled to hear them out of the mouth of his sweet young bride. Besides, my condition made him regard me with even more delicacy than before.

Once the “unpleasant business” (as Matthew often called the execution) was over, Matthew was entrusted with ever more important cases. We enjoyed a respectable, even enviable, position in New Haven society.

We were the model of a happy young family, poised for even more auspicious times. At least, I believe that is how we
appeared
. There was a darkness growing inside me by then, however. I hid it well, but I pictured it often as a black tulip—like the ones I used to see with Father at his friend Mr. Cogdill's grand greenhouse.

Strong and pointed foliage unfurling. Petals with all the beauty of a crow's plumage.

Haverton, Connecticut

December 5, 2014

T
he wind was freezing, but the sun was shining. And we needed paper towels. At least, as much as you could really
need
paper towels. It was a decent enough excuse to walk to the nearby convenience store. Lucy was usually pretty happy rolling around in her covered stroller, and I was usually happy if there was a coffee in its cupholder—even if it was convenience store coffee.

I made my way back slowly, pushing the stroller one-handed as I sipped. As I took the corner to our street, the stroller's plastic wheels groaned painfully over the gravel on the sidewalk and refused to straighten. I had to put down the coffee for a moment and use both hands to reorient the stroller in the right direction. Coffee splattered out of the cup's little sip-hole, and I muttered a couple of curse words under my breath.

As I picked up the cup and continued toward home, I saw that our neighbor was watching me from her driveway.

Patty,
I had to remind myself. She looked so uncannily like Liza Minnelli that
L
names always came to my head first when I grasped for her name.

“Tiiiii-naaaaaah” Patty called when she saw me looking back at her. Patty seemed to keep her cat on a tight meal schedule. “Time for breakfast!” “Time for lunch!” “Time for din-din!” she called consistently at eight, one, and six o'clock. Chad had recently claimed that he'd heard her calling “Tina, time for your bath!” Patty—who was divorced, in her sixties, and, in her words, “still waiting for grandbabies”—always seemed eager to interact with Lucy.

“Hi there,” I called as we approached her driveway.

“Hello,” Patty said. “I saw you walk by when you left. I hope you two didn't go too far in this windy weather.”

“Just to SmartMart.”

Patty nodded. “Can I say hi to the little one?”

I pulled the hood of the stroller open slightly and peeked in. “She's asleep,” I said.

“The movement puts them to sleep real good, huh?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “She's in la-la land.”

I considered my house for a moment, trying to take in its antique charm as I had the first time I'd laid eyes on it: its unusually steep roof, its cozy blue solidity as it perched on its high stone steps. When you faced it from the street, it had perfect square symmetry—like a child's drawing of a house. There was a single black shuttered window on each side of its perky evergreen door.

“Patty . . .” I said slowly, “you've lived here in this neighborhood quite a few years, haven't you?”

“Almost twenty, yes.”

“You knew the previous owner of my house pretty well?”

“Janelle? No. She only lived here a year or so. I don't think
it was ever her plan to stay very long. Just to fix it up nice and flip it.”

“Oh, I didn't mean her. I meant before that.”

“Shirley, you mean? The Barnetts? You know, before Janelle, the Barnetts owned this house going
way
way back. Like, more than a hundred years, I think.”

“I know.” The real estate agent told us the basic story. The house had been in the Barnett family for generations. Shirley Barnett—a Barnett by marriage—had been in her eighties, living in the place alone, when she'd broken her hip and her family had decided to move her out and sell the place. Shirley had died in a nursing home soon after that. “Lately, I've just been curious about the house's history.”

Patty nodded knowingly. “You're a history teacher, aren't you?”

“Yeah,” I said. If I blamed it on that, this conversation didn't have to be creepy at all. “I'm a history nerd.”

Patty looked offended on my behalf. “You don't need to be a nerd to be interested in history. Like, I'm all into Marie Antoinette. Or at least, I was at one time. Do you know much about her?”

“Uh . . . just the basics,” I admitted.

“Anyway,” Patty waved the subject away. “You were talking about your house. Yeah, Shirley and Eddie were real proud the house had been in his family so long. Shame no one in the family wanted it when she had to move out. But she had just the niece and nephew left. Nephew has a house . . . in Southington, I think. And the niece . . . not sure about her. Just didn't want it. They split the money from the sale, I guess. I don't know the details.”

Patty shook her head, then tugged thoughtfully at a thick tuft of dark hair by her ear.

“It was a shame,” she said, “how they had to move Shirley out of here like they did. She didn't want to leave. But it was obvious she couldn't take care of herself anymore. It was the hip that did it, finally. But even before that I think there was a little dementia setting in, or something. Her nephew Gerard was telling me, the day they moved her out, she was crying, ‘Please don't take me away! Who is going to take care of the baby?' She never even had kids. So figure that one out. Poor thing!”

“Umm.” I stared at my hands as they tightened around the stroller handle. They'd grown bright pink from the cold. “Maybe she was talking about a pet, or something?”

“I don't think so. I'm pretty sure Shirley disliked cats, and I'm certain she didn't have a dog.”

“Maybe she meant the house,” I suggested. “Maybe she thought of the house as her baby.”

Patty scrunched up her sculpted eyebrows. “You know, I never thought of it that way before. Not sure that makes it any less sad. Huh. But hey—speaking of her nephew Gerard, you might want to talk to him. He's the one who did most of the cleaning of the house when they had to move her out. I know he found some pretty old stuff. Old books, old pictures, I think. The family had been in the place for so long, see, no one knew how
old
some of the stuff was that was packed away in there. He told me he got a few hundred dollars selling some of the old books. But since you're interested in history, like you say, maybe you want to take a look? I can give you his number if you want. If I can find it. It's been a few years.”

“Sure. That would be great. Thank you.”

As I said this, a happy little warble came from under the hooded stroller.

“Oh!” Patty clapped her hands. “I was hoping she'd wake up!”

I pulled open the hood, and Patty peered in. “How are you, Little Miss? Ooh, look at your little lamb fleece! What a doll!”

“She seems pretty well rested,” I said. “Or she'd be crying.”

“Hey, honey.” Patty leaned closer to Lucy, who seemed to narrow her eyes at her. “Oh! Dear. What happened, honey? What happened to your sweet little face? Did you take a tumble? You've got almost like a shiner there.”

“She . . .” I started to explain that we weren't sure what happened, but realized that sounded worse than almost anything else I could say.
In fact, we don't watch her at all. Could've been a sharp corner, could've been a falling whiskey tumbler. What can you do? Can't watch 'em every minute.

“She bumped the side of her crib. When she was sleeping.”

“Huh. Kind of an interesting shape, that bruise. Almost perfectly round.” Patty sighed and looked up at me. “Isn't that what those baby bumpers are for? My niece, she had some real pretty ones for her daughter. They had pink and orange polka dots. The whole room was pink and orange. Real bright. It was gorgeous. But you can get bumpers to match whatever you've got going on in her room, you know?”

“They say bumpers are a safety hazard now,” I said. “Babies get their heads caught under them sometimes and suffocate.”

Patty made a face. “Huh. I bet it doesn't happen very often, though. One person doesn't tie on their bumpers right and one kid has a freak accident and then that's the end of the baby bumper business. That's how it goes these days, huh?”

I hesitated. I wasn't sure I wished to extend this conversation.
As much as I was dreading the wordless monotony that awaited me inside the house, this was probably worse. It was a toss-up.

“I know, right?” I said.

Lucy popped her hand in her mouth and started sucking on it enthusiastically.

“She's hungry,” Patty said. “She says, ‘Mama, feed me.'”

“We'd better go in and do that, then,” I said.

Northampton Lunatic Hospital

Northampton, Massachusetts

December 20, 1885

A
re you listening to me? What are you squinting at? Yes, that is indeed a wire screen up there around that beautiful balustrade. They installed that a couple of months after my arrival here. A woman had jumped and died. Not the first, apparently. It's remarkable that this hospital had been functioning for decades before someone thought of that, isn't it? Progress! It seems to me a more obviously efficient preventative move than denying almost all of us forks at meals, but I am not a medical doctor, so perhaps it is not for me to say.

Now. Where was I? I believe I was about to tell you about Martha's birth. I have never told you the story of her birth till now since, while a man of science, you are still a man. Nonetheless,
now
you are a man sitting before a madwoman, so you will have to endure the details.

You see, dear brother—I was convinced, even months before the event, that I was to die. The fact that no one else ever broached the subject made me ever more certain. I felt I saw Mother and Clara giving me sad, sideways glances that hinted their knowledge of my fate. I was too terrified at the time to
realize that in Clara's instance it was probably jealousy, and in Mother's a parent's natural worry—not premonitions. Still, I was not readying myself for motherhood but simply Death. Late at night, after Matthew had fallen asleep, I prayed to God to be kind to me in the final moments and to do with the child what He felt was best for its little soul. Matthew, meanwhile, happily tended to nursery preparations and gave my fate not a single thought as far as I could discern.

The pains began on a Thursday afternoon, while Matthew was still working. I believe he was at the courthouse that day, so there was no telling when he would return. At first it was just a bothersome stomach cramp, but I experienced it as a solemn bell tolling. My time on this Earth had come to an end.

Our little maid, Tessa, sensed the time had come.

Do you wish to lie down, ma'am?

No, Tessa. That makes it worse.

Do you want someone to sit with you, ma'am? Can I tell you a story to take your mind off the pain?

If you wish, Tessa.

She told me the story of the Ugly Duckling. Of course I had heard it before, but she told it with a surprising passion, nearly weeping when the duckling decides he would rather die than endure any more scorn.

And I think the lesson is not that we can all grow to be beautiful, but there is a place of love and comfort for all of us, somewhere, somehow, if we endure for long enough to find it. Don't you think, ma'am?

I don't know, Tessa. To me, the cruelty is more memorable than the rare and lucky fate of the ending.

I'd barely choked out my answer when another pain overtook
me. Pain nagged at me for a full day and did not become dire until Friday night. At that time, Matthew sent for Dr. Graham. He needn't have bothered as the labors went on for another full day. Martha did not arrive until sundown on Saturday night. I recall the final hours as a series of painful freezing sensations. In between the sustained impressions of exhausted madness were the short glimpses of Clara—her tight raven hair and eager eyes—and Dr. Graham—his dreadfully long mustache. Tessa dashed in and out, breathless and shaking and crying by the end—in her young mind, perhaps promising against marriage and motherhood for what she saw. As those hours drove on, I surrendered to God, asking for forgiveness for my girlish pettiness through the years, and for my lack of fortitude now. I did my best, in the short moments between those of agony, to thank Him for the blessings I had received until then.

I recall nothing of the moment of Martha's actual birth—only that once she was born, she seemed to me just a squalling mass of pinkish-purple limbs. In my delusional state I thought I might have given birth to an octopus. Only Clara's cry of delight indicated to me otherwise. Oh, but I was too exhausted to care either way in that particular moment.

Frances, would you like to hold your precious girl? Frances!

Let me go, Clara. Please, just let me go.

My bed felt excessively soft, and then immaterial, and then cold. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a clearing in a wood. I lifted the upper half of my body to discover that I was lying in snow. It was still falling, but gently. Surrounding me were towering evergreens, all of them layered with white.

Have you ever seen such beauty, Frances?

I turned to find the owner of the voice that said those words.

But the voice eluded me. I turned and turned and turned in circles, until I slipped and fell backwards into the snow.

Someone appeared over me with deep and searching green eyes. I was dizzy, I could see only their color, and little of the shape of the face around them.

“Father?” I murmured, and blinked.

But when I blinked, I saw that the eyes looking at me were
like
his—but belonged to a stranger. A small stranger was being held up to me.

Eyes like emeralds, reflecting a question back at me.

I blinked again.

Father?

“No,” I whispered back. “Never in all of my days.”

I was allowed to sleep—for how long, I do not know. An hour? A day? More? When I awoke to my bedroom, its details felt imprecise somehow. The bed felt to be a different height, the windows not quite rectangular, the tick of the clock distant and desultory. Was this an illusion of my room? A death-dream? Or was this life a cruel bit of trickery? The birth had come and gone, and still I was here on this Earth? How was this possible? Did I not belong with Father, in the hush of the snow?