Lethal Legend (13 page)

“But you can stop her meddling in your wedding plans. The minister came to call while you were away. She told him you wouldn’t be needing his services after all. Said you were going to jump the broom instead. I think that was it. Some Scottish custom she read about. A hand-fast marriage. Something about a year and a day and then either one of you could change your minds. What nonsense!”

Diana lifted her eyes heavenward in a silent plea for patience. “I’ll deal with Maggie, and the minister. But why in the world did you feel you needed to threaten me to ensure my cooperation? Surely you didn’t believe I’d really go along with one of Ben’s mother’s lunatic notions?”

“How should I know what you’d do? I hadn’t seen you in years when you turned up on my doorstep in Denver, determined to rush to the rescue even though no one had invited you to interfere.”

Diana felt her whole body go rigid. Her hands curled into fists. She’d risked life and limb, health and happiness for her mother’s sake. “Enough! You had better leave now, Mother. Maggie isn’t the only one whose meddling is unwelcome.”

Elmira studied her with undisguised curiosity. After a moment, she apparently decided she had pushed her daughter as far as she could and, with a shrug and a roll of the eyes, abandoned the field.

Diana closed the door after her, sagging against it in relief. She rested her forehead on the smooth wooden surface and took deep, calming breaths. What a way to start the morning! She only hoped the rest of the day would be an improvement.

* * * *

Ben waited at the bottom of the elaborate cherrywood staircase as Diana came down. She paused, one hand on the ornately carved griffin on the newel post, and smiled at him, instantly lifting his sagging spirits.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked.

“Better than I have for some time,” he lied. “Have you eaten?”

“Annie brought me coffee and toast.”

“You need more than that to sustain you. We’ve got a full day ahead of us.” He took her arm and escorted along her the length of the main hallway towards the dining room at its end, their footfalls nearly soundless on the thick Oriental carpets that partially covered the highly polished cherrywood floor.

“Why so formal?” Diana asked as she passed between the two enormous gargoyles positioned on either side of a cherrywood arch. “I’d have thought you’d prefer the breakfast room.”

“My mother is in there, along with your mother and her new husband.”

Diana made a face. “Say no more.” She lifted the lid off a serving dish on the sideboard and helped herself to a tender slice of ham. Cora Belle, Ben’s cook, had set out a selection of foodstuffs in both the breakfast room and the dining room. She’d been with the Northcotes for a long time and if she did not precisely understand their eccentricities, she did know how to take them into account. Ben wondered if Cora Belle would consider coming with him to the new house.

“I had an early morning visit from my mother,” Diana said. “She couldn’t wait to tell me about your mother’s recent ... conversation with the minister.”

“I already know about that. Don’t worry. We’ll straighten it out. That’s our first stop this morning.”

“Don’t you have to go to your office? You must have people waiting who are anxious to consult you. You’ve been gone for several days.”

Ben frowned. He was going to have to tell Diana sometime. He wasn’t sure why he delayed. Perhaps because he felt so uncertain himself.

At first, he’d wondered that he hadn’t felt more guilty for abandoning his patients. On the surface, he appeared to have neglected them shamefully, even though no one had gone untreated because of his absences. Other things had come first: his family; his fiancée; a old friend. But even before this latest crisis, he’d reached the conclusion that his skills were not being put to their best use in a general practice.

“I will stop in to make sure there are no frantic messages waiting,” he said to Diana, “but there are other matters I need to deal with today.”

“Our pursuit of Mr. Palmer and of Serena Dunbar’s past?”

Ben nodded.
And at least one other thing
, he added silently.
My surprise for you.

“Did you ask your mother about Mr. Palmer?”

“For all the good it did.” At her questioning look, he shrugged and slathered marmalade on a piece of toast. “She doesn’t know where he’s staying. She only met him once before and that was years ago. But she did inform me, in that oh-so-casual way of hers, that Justus Palmer is a vampire.”

That surprised a chuckle out of Diana. “She’s been studying old legends again, I presume.”

Ben couldn’t help but be relieved that she didn’t take the outrageous statement any more seriously than he did. “Or old novels,” he suggested. “I believe we have a first edition of
Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood
in the library.”

Chapter Six

At the Hammond Street Congregational Church, the minister invited Ben and Diana into his study, but he regarded them with wary eyes until Ben managed to convince him that they did, indeed, still plan to have him marry them.

“No pagan rituals will be performed before, after, or instead of the official ceremony,” Diana promised.

“I’m glad to hear it.” The pastor was a genial man, but he took his responsibilities seriously. He did not allow them to leave until he had delivered a homily on the subject of matrimony and assured himself that they intended to attend church on a regular basis in the future. He made it clear that he did not consider Ben’s duties as a physician adequate excuse for absence. He even went so far as to point out that it was against the law in Maine to work on Sunday, save in cases of dire emergency.

“Apparently preaching to a captive congregation counts as an emergency,” Ben muttered when they finally made their escape from the church.

Diana barely reached the buggy before giving in to a fit of laughter. “Oh, Ben!” she chided him. “That is really too bad of you. But what a pompous man!”

Ben handed her into the buggy. “He means well enough, I suppose. Though I’d think the fact that you are a widow should have persuaded him to tone down his rhetoric.”

“Perhaps he meant his words for you.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement. “Naturally, as a
single
gentleman, you’ll have had no dealings with women before marriage.”

“It is not too late to jump the broom,” Ben told her, clucking to the horse. “Or to select another pastor. We could be married at the First Methodist Church or the First Baptist or even at St. John’s Episcopal.”

“Let us not make matters any more complicated than they already are!”

Ben drove the short distance along Hammond Street to turn onto Harlow and a few minutes later made the right turn for Spring Street. The neighborhood was one of small, single-family dwellings interspersed with boarding houses, stores, and restaurants. His doctor’s office occupied the ground floor of a plain wooden house. The place had a deserted look to it. There weren’t even any messages slipped beneath the door.

Diana accompanied him as he crossed the simply furnished waiting room and entered the adjoining surgery. There
was
a note there, from the doctor he’d asked to cover for him. “Nothing pressing,” he announced when he’d skimmed the contents. In fact it seemed he had a dearth of patients. They’d gotten tired of waiting for him to treat them and found other doctors.

He glanced up from the page to find Diana staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. “You mentioned once that we might consider living in the rooms over the office. The idea has begun to appeal to me.”

“Don’t worry. We won’t be living with my mother and brother after we’re married.”

He’d never have a better opening, Ben decided, and hustled her out of the office and into the buggy. They set off at a fast clip, back across Kenduskeag Stream and then north along the road that followed its course. Ben reined in at what was clearly a construction site.

“I own this land, Diana,” he blurted. He was as nervous as a lad at his first dance. He gestured at the skeletal framework of the building, stark against the trees and sky. “This is going to be our house.”

Reaching behind the seat, Ben produced a set of architect’s drawings that included a sketch of the finished structure. As he handed them over, it occurred to him that perhaps he should have sought Diana’s opinion earlier, before construction began. His chest tightened uncomfortably. What if she hated the floorplan? What if she regarded keeping this secret as deceitful? Not everyone liked surprises.

The moment she unrolled the renderings, however, he breathed easier. Her face alight, Diana touched one gloved finger to the tower that dominated the sketch of the river elevation. “It’s beautiful.”

Ben grinned at her. “It is a ‘country villa,’ designed to be built between a street and a river. Because of that, the river elevation is as striking as the front of the house, complete with a veranda and a balcony.” He flipped the page to show her the floor plan. “The entrance is by a porch divided from the front veranda by a gothic arch.”

She leaned forward, eagerly studying the plans. “Dining room. Parlor. But a butler’s pantry? Are we to have a flock of servants, then?”

“Only if you want them. Look here—under the principal flight of stairs is the stair to the kitchen, which is situated under the dining room. Under the butler’s pantry is a kitchen pantry with a dumbwaiter. The rest of the basement is devoted to general cellarage.”

She turned to the plan for the second floor.

“Three spacious rooms and one smaller one, all with those newfangled built-in closets. And a bath. And in the attic there is more storage space, plus room for more bedrooms.”

She gazed at him in mock horror. “Just how large do you think our family is going to be?”

“That, my dear, is entirely up to you.”

“A wise answer.” Taking the floor plans with her, she hopped down from the buggy and went to stand by the foundation.

“The floors will be laid with one inch pine flooring, if that suits you. And the stairs will be built of black walnut on the newel, rail, and balusters.”

“No gargoyles or griffins?”

“None,” he promised. “The kitchen will have a pump and sink, with a drain to connect with the drain from the bath. There will even be speaking-tubes from the second floor hall and from the dining room to the kitchen, with a porcelain mouthpieces and whistles attached.”

A line of worry appeared to mar the perfection of her brow. “Can we afford this?”

“You are not marrying a poor man, Diana.” He didn’t resent the question. He knew enough of her history to understand why she would be concerned that they might run out of money.

“How much?”

He debated only a moment before telling her. “Five thousand dollars.”

When her jaw dropped, he caught her under the chin with gentle fingers and lifted until her mouth closed. Leaning close, he kissed her, then whispered, “I am not as wealthy as Graham Somener, Diana, but I can afford to build this house for the woman I love.”

* * * *

Diana’s mind was still full of plans for their new home when Ben escorted her into a handsome building of Frankfort granite and pressed brick with a Mansard roof and awnings over the ground floor windows.

“The library is housed on the second and third floors,” Ben said.

Access to the upper stories was by way of a door midway along the businesses occupying the Kenduskeag Block. Diana’s feet clanged on the solid iron plate set into the floor in the recess at the foot of the flight of stairs. It was a handsome staircase, six feet wide and finished in natural woods. The walls on the sides were wainscoted with hard pine. The rails, posts and newels—just like those in the house Ben was building for her—were of black walnut. Diana smiled to herself. She was still having difficulty believing that they would soon have a house of their own. A
beautiful
house.

On the second floor, they entered a room bigger than the dining hall at the Bangor House, where they’d just had their noon meal. Although the place was scrupulously clean, the shelves dusted, the tables and chairs gleaming with furniture polish, the distinctive smell of book permeated every corner and alcove.

High four-light windows provided illumination, revealing a multitude of bookcases arranged in a semi-circular pattern around the librarian’s desk. It was to this central position that Diana repaired once Ben left to pursue his own inquiries. She introduced herself to the librarian and asked if non-residents were permitted to use the facility.

“Certainly,” the librarian said, “but they must pay three dollars a year for the privilege.” At Diana’s start of surprise, her thin lips twitched. “But you are about to become a resident, are you not? I saw the notice of your engagement to Dr. Northcote in the newspaper. Since you are to marry a local boy, you may browse our collection—24,397 volumes at present—without charge. If you wish to check out a book, however—and we only permit one to go out to each patron at a time—you must pay an annual fee of one dollar for a library card.”

“I do not believe I will need one today, but I will certainly patronize the library in the future.”

Diana’s first cursory glance at the stacks told her that the library was in dire need of more space. A closer examination of its contents revealed that the collection would probably not be much help to her in investigating Serena Dunbar.

“Archaeology?” The librarian looked doubtful when Diana asked for her assistance. “Most of our books came to us from the library of the Bangor Mechanic Association, an organization which enables carpenters, machinists, iron workers, and shipbuilders to get an education. I do not believe they had a great deal of interest in archaeology. But perhaps Professor Winthrop can help you.”

“Who is he?”

“He taught at Harvard until his retirement last year.”

Harvard? Diana’s interest sharpened. That was where Miss Dunbar
claimed
to have been a student.

“Professor Lucien Winthrop was associated with the Peabody Museum. That institution has been a leader in the field of archaeology since its foundation. The professor lives in Belfast now and spends his time looking into local legends. I heard him lecture a few months ago, about how almost all the Indians had left the state of Maine by the time of the Revolutionary War. Just a few solitary holdouts remained. Well, we all know about Molly Molasses here in Bangor. She was over a hundred years old when she died twenty years ago. She left a daughter, but now she’s gone, too. And in the last century there were Pierpole and his family down to Franklin County along the Sandy River—”