These Shallow Graves

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Jo laughed despite herself. “I’ll never understand how you were passed over for the lead in the school play. You belong on stage,” she said.

  “I wasn’t passed over, thank you. I was offered the lead and declined it. Mr. Gilbert Grosvenor frowns upon theatricals.”

  For a moment, Jo forgot about her own worries. She knew Gilbert. He was smug and disapproving, an old man at twenty. He was also stinking rich.

  “Will you really marry him?” she asked. She could no more see beautiful, lively Trudy married to Gilbert than she could picture a hummingbird paired with a toad.

  “I mean to. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because you … You’ll have to …” She couldn’t say it.

  “Go to bed with him?” Trudy finished.

  Jo blushed. “That is not what I was going to say!”

  “But it’s what you meant.”

  Trudy looked out of a nearby window. Her eyes traveled over the lawns to the meadows, then farther still, to a place—a future—only she could see.

  “A bit of nightly unpleasantness in exchange for days of ease. Not such a bad bargain,” Trudy said, with a rueful smile. “Some of us are not as well off as others. My papa can barely manage my school fees, never mind the dressmaker’s notes. And anyway, it’s not me I’m worried about. It’s you.” Trudy turned her attention back to Jo. “You know the rules: get yourself hitched, then do what you like. But for heaven’s sake, until you get the man, smile like a dolt and talk about tulips, not mill girls!”

  Jo knew Trudy was right. Sparky would be appalled if she ever found out what Jo had done. So would her parents, the Aldriches, and the rest of New York. Her New York, at least—old New York. Well-bred girls from old families came out, got engaged, and then went back—back to drawing rooms, dinner parties, and dances. They did not venture into the dangerous, dirty world to become reporters, or anything else.

  The boys got to, though. They couldn’t become reporters either—that was too grubby an occupation for a gentleman—but they could own a newspaper, run a business, practice law, breed horses, have agricultural interests, or do something in government like the Jays and the Roosevelts. Jo knew this but couldn’t accept it. It chafed at her spirit, as surely as the stays of her corset chafed her body.

  Why is it, she wondered now, that boys get to do things and be things, and girls only get to watch?

  “Jo?”

  Jo looked up. It was Arabella Paulding, a classmate.

  “Sparky wants to see you in her office,” she said. “Right away.”

  “Why?” Jo asked.

  “She didn’t say. She told me to find you and fetch you. I’ve found you, so go.”

  “Libba tattled,” Trudy said ominously.

  Jo gathered up her papers, dreading her interview with the headmistress. She was in for it.

  “Don’t worry, my darling,” Trudy said. “You’ll only get a few days’ detention, I’m sure. Unless Sparky expels you.”

  “You’re such a comfort,” said Jo.

  Trudy smiled ruefully. “What can I say? I merely wish to smoke. Sparky can forgive that. You, on the other hand, wish to know things. And no one can forgive a girl for that.”

  Jo hurried out of Hollister Hall, crossed the grassy quad, and entered Slocum, where the headmistress’s office was. A tall gilt mirror stood in the foyer. It caught her image as she rushed by it—a slender girl wearing a long brown skirt, a pin-striped blouse, and lace-up boots. Wavy black hair formed a widow’s peak over a high forehead, and a pair of lively gray eyes stared out from an uncommonly pretty face.

  “You’d be a beauty,” her mother often told her, “if only you’d stop scowling.”

  “I’m not scowling, Mama, I’m thinking,” Jo always replied.

  “Well, stop. It’s unappealing,” her mother would say.

  Jo reached the door to Miss Sparkwell’s office and paused, steeling herself for a thorough dressing down. She knocked.

  “Enter!” a voice called out.

  Jo turned the knob and pushed the door open, prepared to see the headmistress wearing a grave expression. She was not prepared, however, to see her standing by a window dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Had the mill girls story upset her that much?

  “Miss Sparkwell, I don’t know what Libba said to you, but the story has merit,” Jo said, launching a preemptive strike. “It’s high time the Jonquil offered its readers something weightier than poems about kittens.”

  “My dear, I did not summon you here to talk about the Jonquil.”

  “You didn’t?” Jo said, surprised.

  Miss Sparkwell passed a hand over her brow. “Mr. Aldrich, would you? I-I find I cannot,” she said, her voice catching.

  Jo turned around and was astonished to see two of her oldest friends—Abraham Aldrich and his sister, Adelaide—seated on a divan. She’d been so preoccupied with defending her story, she hadn’t even noticed them.

  “Bram! Addie!” she exclaimed, rushing to her friends. “What a lovely surprise! But I wish you’d have let me know you were coming. I would’ve changed out of my uniform. I would have …” Her words trailed off as she realized they were both dressed entirely in black. A cold dread gripped her.

  “I’m afraid we have some bad news, Jo,” Bram said, rising.

  “Oh, Jo. Be brave, my darling,” Addie whispered, joining him.

  Jo looked from one to the other, her dread growing. “You’re frightening me,” she said. “For goodness’ sake, what is it?” And then she knew. Mr. Aldrich had been in poor health for some time. “Oh, no. Oh, Bram. Addie. It’s your father, isn’t it?”

  “No, Jo, not ours,” said Addie quietly. She took Jo’s hand.

  “Not yours? I—I don’t understand.”

  “Jo, your father is dead,” Bram said. “It was an accident. He was cleaning a revolver in his study last night and it went off. Addie and I have come to fetch you home. We’ll get your things, and then …”

  But Jo didn’t hear the rest. The room, and everything in it, whirled together then spun apart. For a few seconds, she couldn’t breathe or speak. How could her father be dead? Of the many sure and solid things in her life, he was the surest. And now Bram was telling her that he was gone … gone … and it felt like the world was crumbling under her feet.

  “Jo? Can you hear me? Josephine, look at me,” Bram was by her side now. He’d put a steadying hand on her arm.

  The sound of his voice pulled her back, reminding her that their sort did not make scenes in public. And public, to an Aldrich or a Montfort, was any place other than one’s own bedroom.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  Jo managed to answer. “Yes, thank you,” she said. She forced herself to continue. “I shall be ready shortly. I just need to gather a few things. Please excuse me.”

  “Let me come with you,” Addie said. She took Jo’s arm and led her out of the room. Together they headed for the dormitory. “We’ll try for the 5:05. It’ll get us to Grand Central before dark. We certainly don’t want to arrive after dark. It’s far too dangerous,” she fretted. “This city’s no longer fit for our kind. It’s been overrun by foreigners, criminals, and typists.”

  Addie’s chatter barely registered. Jo was dazed, struggling to put one foot in front of the other. The quad with its lawns and buildings passed by in a blur. She’d walked this very same path only moments ago, but barely recognized it now. In the space of a heartbeat, everything had changed.

  The dormitory was deserted when they reached it. All the other students were at clubs or in the library. Addie opened the door to Jo’s room and ushered her inside. “Here we are, all by ourselves. You can cry now if you need to and no one will see,” she said.

  Jo sat down on her bed, frozen with shock. She waited for the storm of tears to come, but they didn’t.

  Ad
die started to hunt for Jo’s valise, but Jo stopped her. “There’s no need to pack,” she said. “I’ve plenty of clothing at home. If you could just get my coat, gloves, and hat.”

  “What a brave girl you are, holding back your tears,” Addie said. “It’s better that way, though. No red eyes at the station. No reason for the great unwashed to gawk.”

  Jo nodded woodenly. Addie was wrong, but Jo didn’t correct her. She wasn’t holding her tears back; she had none. She desperately wanted to cry, but couldn’t.

  It was as if her heart, corseted as tightly as her waist, could not find its shape again.

  “People pass. It happens every day,” declared Mrs. Cornelius G. Aldrich III. “That’s why it’s so important to make more of them.”

  It was Charles Montfort’s funeral luncheon, a somber and decorous affair—or at least it had been until Mrs. Aldrich arrived.

  “Another cup of tea, Grandmama?” Addie Aldrich asked, lifting a teapot off the low table in front of her.

  “No, confound it! You’ve asked me three times! Go ask young Beekman over there if he wants something. I don’t see a ring on your finger yet, miss!” Grandmama barked.

  Addie colored and put the teapot down. Grandmama, seated in a wing chair in the Montforts’ drawing room, returned her attention to the woman sitting across from her—Madeleine Montfort, Jo’s aunt. Addie and Jo sat together on an overstuffed settee between the two older women.

  “I understand the family’s bereaved, of course I do. But I don’t see why it should delay an engagement,” Grandmama said petulantly. She took a cookie from a plate and fed it to the spaniel on her lap. “Girls these days. I don’t understand them. Waiting until twenty to marry and then having such small families!”

  Jo, staring blankly ahead, vaguely understood that Grandmama was talking about her, Bram, and marriage. Apparently a proposal had been imminent, but would now be delayed because of her father’s passing.

  Should I be excited? she wondered. It was hard to be, given the circumstances, but it would’ve been hard to be excited not given them. A proposal from Bram Aldrich would hardly have been a surprise. For as long as Jo could remember, there had been an expectation that they would marry. Just last summer she’d overheard her mother and aunt talking about it in the conservatory.

  “An Aldrich match would be most advantageous, Anna,” Aunt Madeleine had said. “Bram is a fine young man, and the family is very well off. More so—”

  “Than we ourselves?” Jo’s mother interrupted, an arch tone to her voice.

  “Yes,” Madeleine replied. “Forgive me, but these things must be said. However, that is not to imply they are new money. My only point is, that if Jo were to marry Bram, she would never want for anything.”

  “I agree, Maddie, and I’m leaning toward the match, but keep that between us. It wouldn’t be wise to let Grandmama think she’s gotten her way,” Jo’s mother replied. “Not until I have some idea of what Bram’s father plans to settle upon the couple. Grandmama married beneath her, you know. She had no choice. Her father squandered his inheritance. She’s been trying to restore the blue to her bloodline ever since. She married her son to a Van Rensselaer, and wants a Montfort for her grandson. The Aldriches are a fine family, yes, but nowhere near as old or distinguished as our own. Jo could easily marry a Roosevelt or Livingston, and Grandmama would do well to remember that.”

  Theakston, the butler, had chosen that very moment to walk down the hall with a tea tray, and, to her chagrin, Jo had to hurry off before he caught her eavesdropping. Had she stayed a moment more, she might’ve found out what she most wanted to know—did Bram love her?

  Jo’s mother and aunt had kept their thoughts about the match between themselves—at least, they hadn’t shared them with her—but that hadn’t stopped the rest of society from talking. Especially Grandmama.

  Then again, Grandmama was always talking about marriage. She was the reigning matriarch of the Aldrich clan, and a Livingston herself before she married. The blood of many of New York’s best families ran through her veins. She was related to everyone who mattered, and everyone who mattered called her Grandmama. Deeply attached to Herondale, a Hudson River estate given to her by her father as a wedding gift, she only set foot in Manhattan when absolutely necessary, preferring Herondale’s woods and meadows to tall buildings and traffic.

  “And another thing I don’t understand, Maddie, is the younger generation’s total disregard for bloodlines,” Grandmama continued now. “Margaret DeWitt’s youngest is marrying a Whitney. Why, I’ve never even heard of them! I understand the boy’s father is a political man. He’d do for some new-money girl, but a DeWitt?” She shook her head, disgusted. “Fine set of hips on that girl, too. She’ll breed as easily as an Ayrshire heifer.”

  Madeleine blanched. She lost her grip on her teacup; it clattered into its saucer. “Tell me, Grandmama,” she said, “how is that other spaniel of yours? Suki, I think she’s called. I see that she’s not with you. I hope she’s not ill?”

  “Not at all. Didn’t I tell you? The bitch caught!” Grandmama said happily. “Mated her four times with Good King Harry, Alma Rhinelander’s dog. I’d almost given up on her, but she’ll whelp next month. If only it were that easy with daughters, eh, Maddie? Take a sturdy bitch in season, put her in a pen with a keen stud, and two months later, there you are with six strapping pups!”

  Madeleine clutched her pearl necklace. “Addie, I do believe Mrs. Hollander is leaving,” she said. “I know she’ll want to say goodbye to Jo. Would you be a dear?”

  “Of course,” Addie said. She took Jo’s hand and pulled her off the settee. “I’m so sorry, Jo. I don’t even know what to say. She’s impossible,” she whispered when they were out of earshot. “Papa used to be able to control her, but now that he’s so poorly, no one can.”

  “It’s all right, Addie,” Jo responded in a dull voice. She didn’t care what Grandmama said. Her father had been buried that morning, and with him, a piece of her heart.

  His funeral service had been held at Grace Church on Broadway and Eleventh Street and every pew had been packed. The old families still attended Grace, though few lived within walking distance anymore. Commerce, industry, and the rising tide of immigrants had forced them out of lower New York to the city’s upper reaches. Grace’s graveyard was as full as its pews, so Charles Montfort had been buried at the church’s northern cemetery. Alive or dead, wealthy New Yorkers now sought their accommodations uptown.

  Addie led Jo to the foyer, where Theakston was handing Mrs. Hollander her wrap, then bustled off to offer a cup of punch to Andrew Beekman. Jo made small talk with Mrs. Hollander, then kissed her goodbye. She started walking back to the drawing room, but on her way, she was gripped by a sense of unreality so strong, it made her dizzy. She put a hand on the banister to steady herself.

  “This is my house,” she whispered. “There is the ebony bench Papa brought back from Zanzibar. Above it is a portrait of Grandfather Schermerhorn. Beyond it is the drawing room, which contains a piano, a fireplace, a clock, and my mother.”

  But how could all these things be here, and her father not be? How could the clock still be ticking? How could there be a fire in the grate? How could her father be dead?

  Killed by a gun. His own gun. Accidentally. That’s what everyone said. But it just wasn’t possible. Her father was a sportsman. He’d known his way around guns and had kept several in the house, for he’d always been cautious about his family’s safety. To a fault, her mother said. He’d often walked the house at night, checking doors and windows.

  “Dearest Jo, how are you holding up?” a voice asked. But Jo, lost in her grief, didn’t hear it. The voice spoke again. “Josephine, are you quite all right?”

  Jo heard it that time and turned around. It was the Reverend Willis, her family’s pastor. He was peering at her with an expression of concern. She forced herself to smile.<
br />
  “I’m fine, Reverend. Thank you. Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.

  “No, my dear, I’ve had plenty. Perhaps you should sit down. You look pale.”

  “I will,” Jo said. But not here. She had to escape from the sad faces and hushed voices. Excusing herself, she hurried off to her father’s study. As she climbed the stairs to the second floor, the skirts of her black silk mourning gown rustling around her legs, the reverend’s eulogy came back to her.

  Charles Montfort was a man who was genial to all. A pillar of society. A man whose professional dealings were forthright and fair, and whose generosity to those less fortunate was unparalleled. He was a devoted husband and father, kind and loving to family and friends. …

  Yes, Papa was all those things, Jo thought. And yet, the reverend hadn’t captured him. Not entirely, for he could be so different at times. So quiet and remote.

  Jo reached the study and slipped inside. In here, she could almost believe he was still alive. She could smell him—his cologne, his cigars, the India tea he drank. She could feel him.

  “Papa?” she whispered.

  Emotion welled up in her. For two days, ever since Addie and Bram had given her the news, she’d been unable to cry. Now she would. Finally. Here, all by herself. She waited, but again the tears didn’t come. What was wrong with her? She’d loved her father. Why couldn’t she cry for him?

  Frustrated, she walked to the large bay window and looked out at Gramercy Square. It was a beautiful September afternoon, and the park was filled with children and their nannies. She leaned her head against the window frame, crumpling the voluminous draperies. As she did she felt a hard bump under her toe. The draperies were so long that their excess fabric puddled on the floor. Moving a panel aside, she peered down and saw something small and copper-colored tangled in the fringed ends of the carpet. It was a bullet.

  Jo shuddered as she picked it up, wondering how it had gotten here. Her father kept a loaded revolver in a cabinet in his study; it was the very one that had killed him. She wondered now, as she had a thousand times in the past two days, how the accident had happened.