Louisa and the Crystal Gazer (26 page)

“You refer to Mrs. Percy,” Lizzie guessed. “Louy, look at those holes in your stockings! They are whoppers!”

Auntie Bond came in just then to fetch another lamp for her card party visitors. “I knew this was going to be problematic as soon as you announced you were attending one of her séances,” she said, having overheard us. “I’ve never, Louisa, never heard good of Mrs. Percy. I’m not surprised that even dead she is proving to be difficult.”

“Who is being difficult?” asked Martha, gliding into the room and holding a tray with sliced bread, strawberry preserves, and two toasting forks. “Tea is coming as well, my dears.” She put down the tray and returned to the kitchen.

“I’ll put bread on the fork for you, Louy,” offered Lizzie.

“Have you heard much at all about Mrs. Percy?” I asked Auntie Bond, pressing deeply into those old-fashioned feather cushions for warmth and comfort.

“Oh, all sorts of talk,” she admitted, wiping a bit of dust from the lamp with her dress sleeve, “though I don’t like to repeat gossip.” She cleared her throat and pursed her mouth as if forbidding herself to say more.

“Gossip about affairs?” I asked.

“Who is having affairs?” Lizzie asked. Her face had flushed red from sitting close to the flames.

“You are too young, dear,” said Auntie Bond.

“I’m twenty,” retorted Lizzie, “and anything that concerns Louy also concerns me.”

“That is the gossip I wished to avoid,” admitted Auntie Bond. “Yes, affairs. And suspicions of other irregularities in her household. She was in Boston some years before, you know, and there were all sorts of rumors. Mrs. Percy was a very unhappy woman, I fear.”

“Have you heard any reports about her cook, Meh-ki?” I asked, pushing my toasting fork closer to the flames. A little clot of flour on the crust sparked and flamed in a small explosion for a second, and I thought of Mr. Grayling and the ongoing Battle of Waterloo in his parlor, and the funny sounds I had heard men make when they played at war or described it, those pops and bangs, with a life ending with each one, though that was not discussed, not described.

“Nothing about the cook. Many people disapproved of her having a Chinawoman in the house, but she had to eat and sleep, didn’t she? She needed a place, and to Mrs. Percy’s credit she gave her one.”

“Out of the kindness of her heart,” I said softly, “though kindness does not seem to have been one of Mrs. Percy’s virtues.”

“I must return to my guests, Louy. Look, your toast is burning.”

I plucked the bread from the toasting fork and spread jam thickly on it. “Happiness consists in virtue, not winning, Father always says.”

“That would explain Mrs. Percy’s lack of happiness,” said Auntie Bond. “See you later, darlings. I must win at least one round before the evening is over or I shall be out of sorts all
tomorrow.” She left us to return to a new hand of cards. A moment later we heard laughter in the front parlor and then the buzz of voices spoken so as not to be overheard. I was sure that the older ladies playing at cards had plenty to say about Mrs. Percy that they did not want the “young” ladies to overhear. I speared another piece of bread with my fork.

I began to wonder—just wonder, mind you—if a life lived with something other than virtue as its premise might also have some rewards, adventure among them.

The doorbell rang. Martha padded lightly down the hall. She came into the sitting room a moment later.

“A gentleman here to see you, miss,” she told me. “A Mr. Cobban. Should I bring him in?” Lizzie looked up, her eyes bright with interest.

“Ah.” Constable Cobban was already standing behind her, in the hall, twisting his hat about in his hands and blushing fiery red. “I had hoped…had hoped I might find you alone,” he said.

“What!” exclaimed a startled Lizzie, smiling.

“I mean…I mean…I had hoped for a few private words with Miss Alcott.” I had never heard him stammer before. That was how I knew he was there to discuss Sylvia. He twisted his hat so furiously I was afraid it would be torn to shreds.

“Come,” I said, rising. “We can speak openly before Lizzie.”

He seemed much younger, boyish, since his visit was social rather than professional. Feeling almost sisterly, I poured him a cup of tea and gave him my toasted bread. He turned it this way and that and finally took a bite, then put the toast down on his tea saucer.

“It’s about Miss Shattuck,” he said finally.

“I know,” I said. Lizzie hummed to herself and crouched close to the hearth, pretending to concentrate on her toast.

“You do?” He looked up in shocked surprise. Men can be so very slow-witted about these things.

“I…I…I would like to know the name of her fiancé.”

“Fiancé?” I repeated, confused.

“Has Sylvia a fiancé?” asked Lizzie.

“She mentioned plans for a honeymoon in Niagara Falls. I distinctly heard her,” he said.

“Oh! That!” How long ago it seemed, that afternoon when Mrs. Percy had first been discovered dead, with the Niagara Falls souvenir pillow on the floor next to her sofa. “I assure you, Mr. Cobban, she has not got a fiancé. She was just thinking of a possible future event.”

He nodded, comprehending. “She intended me to feel jealous.”

“She did. Did it work?”

“I…I…” The stammer had returned. “I have feelings for your friend, Miss Alcott. Do you mind?”

I put another piece of toasting bread on my fork, hesitating to answer. “It is not that I mind,” I said after a while. “More that I don’t understand.”

“What is there to understand? She is kind and gentle and virtuous, is she not?” Cobban said.

“She has lovely hair,” Lizzie agreed, twisting her fork in the flames.

“And a lively humor and disposition!” Cobban said, glad for an ally. “All in all she’s a splendid girl, I think. First-rate. I could not ask for a finer friend in life.”

“But I fear for the two of you,” I said, deciding to speak openly. “Married life is very trying, and does need infinite patience and love as well as an eye to practical matters. Mother and Father taught me that much. You would both rebel if you were mated for life. You are too different and both too fond of freedom. Sylvia is…Well, she is not the kind to make a stew and boil lye soap for the laundry, if you see what I mean. She has never had to work in that manner.”

“Do you imagine I haven’t thought of that?” Cobban drank his tea in one gulp. “But I would help her. And she is quick. She could learn. And though I am penniless now, I am industrious. I have bought stock in the railroad and shares in a trading vessel. I plan to do quite well, Miss Alcott.”

“I am certain you shall,” I said, leaning back and studying his earnest, freckled face. It seemed I might be seeing Mr. Cobban on a regular basis in the future, and as a friend, not as an officer of the law. Suddenly I felt that this could be a pleasant situation, that he could provide the masculine comradeship I’d not had in a brother, if he were attached to my closest friend.

“I intend to speak with her mother,” he said. “But, Miss Alcott, Sylvia is closer to you than anyone else in this world. If I should interfere with your friendship, I would feel like a cad.”

His blue eyes were round with earnest sincerity. I took his hand in mine. “Mr. Cobban, if you make Sylvia happy, then you also add to my happiness.”

“Thank you! Thank you!” Now he swallowed the toast in one bite. “I am so glad that barrier is removed. I dislike this kind of scene.”

“But you handled it very well!” exclaimed Lizzie. “Oh, bravo!” She applauded.

“I would rather discuss Mrs. Percy,” I agreed.

“Eddie Nichols is in Worcester, we believe, and Pinkerton’s men are hot on his heels. It is just a question of time. Is there more toast, Miss Alcott? I haven’t had supper.”

“Martha will bring us more. You still think Eddie Nichols murdered Mrs. Percy?”

“All signs point to it. He had the reason to wish her dead and the morals that would allow him to take another life. Obviously they had a falling-out and he wished to be rid of her. She knew too much about him. More tea, too, please?”

“I have met the brother of Mrs. Phips,” I said. “He also has a motive, though an old one, and I don’t know if he is capable of murder. But he believes that Mrs. Percy once caused his sister great unhappiness, so much unhappiness that it added to her death.”

“Then I shall speak with him, though I think it is a waste of time. Mr. Nichols is our man.”

Was he?

Cobban left a few moments later, having achieved the purpose of his visit—that unsurprising announcement of his feelings for my friend Sylvia. I sat dreaming before the fire, still strangely at odds now that I had no labor to occupy my hands. It was weeks before the spring shirts would need to be finished. Lizzie, after a while, went to the old piano and began to play Christmas tunes, but my spirits stayed apathetic, wondering. She went up to bed at ten; at ten thirty Auntie Bond’s guests began to leave and Mrs. Wallace, a woman I had met before, came in to say good evening. She was a kindly soul
with a perpetual look of disappointment in her lovely blue eyes, as if life had never measured up to her expectations.

“Miss Bond tells me you have been asking about Mrs. Percy,” she said quietly, taking a seat in the chair next to me.

“Did you know her?” I asked, sitting up.

“Yes. In our younger days, and I knew many of her friends, when she still had them. When you have lived in one place all your life acquaintances build up, rather like the nacre on a pearl, only of course some acquaintances aren’t at all luminous.” She paused, wondering if she should go on. She had her hat on, but carried her cloak. Obviously she was willing to spend a moment or two with me.

“Please tell me of whom you speak,” I asked.

“Mr. Phips.” Her tone was icy.

“You do not care for him.”

“I do not. He was possessive, in the way that men who marry above themselves can be. He cut his wife off from her old acquaintances, and he was no gentleman, Miss Alcott; I will tell you that much. Poor Emily. She never really stopped grieving for August Pincher. His death just about destroyed her. And then William Phips came along, carrying words from her dead beloved, carrying that portrait, and he convinced her she would be happy with him. Oh, the promises men will make.” Her voice trailed off.

“Were Emily and William well matched?” I asked, intensely disliking that I sounded much as Sylvia’s mother would have sounded at that moment—but sometimes, patient reader, facts of finance are relevant.

Mrs. Wallace tucked a strand of her lovely white hair back into its snood and paused before answering, as if in reflection.
“My dear, his father was a stable hand in Pennsylvania. Breeding tells, in the long run. I’m certain he married for wealth and position. And there was considerable wealth in that family. Don’t let the brother’s eccentricity fool you. The Grayling children each inherited a small fortune. Many a man marries for wealth, and learns to love his bride.” Her voice grew very soft and she seemed to become distracted. Then she shook off the mood and continued her story. “I’m not certain Phips grew to love Emily, not in the way she deserved. His kindness certainly had limits. He told her once—and I’m certain he meant to give pain, to take revenge for some little domestic sin she had committed—that August Pincher had been unfaithful to her in Canton, that he had taken a Chinese bride. I think he invented it, Miss Alcott, to wound Emily.”

“Yes, her brother had the same belief. Her beloved Mr. Pincher,” I said, wondering. “I feel sorry for your friend, Mrs. Wallace. She was unable to find any man true and loyal.” In fact, I felt sorry for both husband and wife—for Emily, who lost her true love and married for comfort, only to find marriage brought no guarantees of peace; and for William Phips, the son of a laborer who had dreams to better himself and who married well, but perhaps without that passion that inspires fidelity, perhaps knowing he was never truly loved, not as another had once been.

“Poor Emily wasted away in that house, in that marriage. She, who had once been so worthy of love. Good night, Louisa,” said Mrs. Wallace. On impulse she bent and kissed my forehead, as Marmee would have, had she been there.

“Only a fool marries for something less than love,” Marmee had often told me. “I hope my daughters never make such a mistake.”

When the house was quiet and I was alone in my writing room, I thought again of Mr. Barnum, of the relief that had been evident in his manner when Mrs. Percy had been found dead. I thought of the many strange people that Sylvia’s adventure into the world of séances had brought into my life: Mrs. Deeds with her greed for jewels, even or perhaps especially those belonging to other people; her meek husband, almost too meek, so that he seemed to be playing a role—perhaps he had resented that dangerous triangular friendship between his wife, Mrs. Percy, and Mr. Nichols? Amelia Snodgrass, betrothed to a gentleman from whom she kept secrets, and now facing long years of overcoming the regret and pain of her affair with another man who had betrayed her several times and involved Mrs. Percy in those betrayals.

Mr. Barnum. Mr. Phineas T. Barnum, the greatest showman of all time, now tottering on disgrace and bankruptcy, thanks to Mrs. Percy’s ability to forge signatures. My heart sank as I thought of him, and I knew deep in my heart that he had wished her dead.

The maid, Suzie Dear, still in jail and with many years of jail ahead of her, most likely, for having been caught with stolen goods, and the unfairness of that —for all I knew the items had been given to her by Mrs. Percy, as bribery as well as payment. Could Suzie, that flighty young woman, have murdered? Had her mistress not been generous enough?

Mr. Phips, the son of a stable hand, a war hero who married well, very well, but did not keep his vows to his wife, who caused her so much unhappiness that she lost her desire to live.

And at the middle of so much unhappiness was Agatha
Percy. She was the connection, the universal theme that united them.

There had been another. Yes, the Chinese cook, Meh-ki, who had fled in the middle of the night, the night that Mrs. Percy had been murdered. What had been her role in all of this? Certainly her actions, that hasty flight, had brought suspicion upon her. Why had she fled, when I merely wished to speak with her? Because that is what immigrants do, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Marmee’s said in my head. Imagine yourself in a new country filled with unfamiliar customs, a language you barely understand, and now imagine that a great crime has occurred and you will be suspected of involvement. You flee.