Charity's Burden

by Edith Maxwell

  Meanwhile, I had a batch of bread to manage and my lunch to eat before I ventured out again. I removed my wraps, washed my hands, and donned an apron. The dough needed more flour and a good kneading. I greatly enjoyed using my hands to work with the warm living lump that was bread dough. As I turned and pushed, turned and pushed, all the way around the clock, over and over, my mind was freed to muse on Charity’s death.

  How and where could I learn what Ransom had been up to in the last week? I could return to the boat shop and ask the kindly supervisor if Ransom had missed any shifts. Would he tell me, though? I supposed I could query the oldest child in the family, but it didn’t quite seem fair to ask a girl who had just lost her mother questions that might lead to exposing her father’s culpability in wrongdoing. Last autumn I’d been responsible for uncovering two killers whose actions, once they were apprehended, left their children essentially orphans. I didn’t favor a repeat of that experience one bit.

  Speaking of wrongdoing, I glanced at the back door with alarm. Had I locked it when I came in? I dusted off my hands and hurried to turn the latch. It wouldn’t do to leave myself vulnerable. Just in case. Christabel darted by, nearly getting stepped on, likely in pursuit of a mouse come in from the cold.

  As I resumed kneading, Charity’s lifelong membership with Friends came to mind. It hadn’t occurred to me when her Memorial Meeting for Worship would be. I was sure the family would want to schedule it soon, despite the actual burial being delayed until spring. Memorial meetings never included a body in a coffin, anyway. The service was likely to take place in two days on Seventh Day. I could ask Ransom about the details, or perhaps Virtue.

  Once the bread was rising again and I ate something, I planned to visit Lucy Majowski out on Haverhill Road. After my home inspection I could poke around to learn what I could about Delia Davies. Neighbors who knew her and her family could possibly be convinced to share information. And if I visited Ransom at work I might be able to speak with Delia there, as well.

  But what about the suspicious Joey Swift? Was I falsely reading malicious intent into his actions, or was he simply untrustworthy because of his unhealthy habits of strong drink and tobacco?

  I finished kneading. Back into the bowl went the dough, now sitting up in a good ball, shiny and elastic to the touch. Back onto the bowl went the cover of damp dishcloth, back above the stove went the bowl. The dough should be perfectly risen once I returned from my afternoon foray. Pie crust was easy to assemble and roll out, and I could ready the pies for baking while the loaves cooked.

  A great bang on the back door sounded. I started, turning, staring at it. Did thinking of a killer actually make one appear? Of course not. But who came to the back door other than close friends and family? None of them would raise such a racket. The hairs on my arms raised, even under my sleeves, and on my head, too. A window was next to the door, but I’d drawn the curtains against the cold before I’d gone out this morning and never bothered to reopen them. At least the window didn’t look out on the landing, so a bad person couldn’t break it and climb in. The house was built well up off the ground, too. One would need at least an eight-foot ladder to reach the bottom of the glass.

  A second bang resounded and I jumped again. An idea sprang into my head. I dashed into the sitting room and raced up the stairs while trying to keep my footsteps quiet. From the bedroom directly above the kitchen, I slid open the sash. The house was only nine years old and well built, so the sash neither squeaked nor creaked. I leaned my head out and looked down.

  The very same Joey Swift I’d been thinking about stood with fists at his sides. He gave one more mighty bang on the door, this time repeating it four times: bam, bam, bam, bam. The building shook with his force.

  “I know you’re in there, Midwife Carroll,” he shouted. “I need to speak with you. If not here, if not now, you can believe it’ll be later.”

  The next-door neighbor poked her own head out her kitchen window. “Keep it down out there, mister. I got babies napping in here.” She glanced up, catching sight of me, and opened her mouth. I put a finger to my lips and shook my head fast. She smiled, looking down again.

  Joey whirled. He shook a fist at her, but his yelling and hammering at least ceased. I couldn’t see his face from up here and expected his expression was a furious one. I waited in silence until he stomped down the stairs and away toward town. I shut the window and sank onto the bed, stunned. I wished I had thought to call the police while he was here, but I was still so unaccustomed to our even having a telephone in the house it hadn’t occurred to me. That didn’t mean I couldn’t call them now. I hurried downstairs and a moment later Gertrude had put my call through.

  “An exceedingly belligerent man was just at my house pounding on the door,” I told the officer who answered after I gave my name and address. “Of course I didn’t let him in. But I thought I should report it.”

  “This man’s name, please?”

  “Joe Swift.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  I searched my brain. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.” As much as I didn’t want Joey to return, it didn’t feel right to trouble Virtue in her grief and have the police—or me—asking where Joey resided. “Can thee have someone patrol our lane from time to time in case he returns?”

  “I’m afraid we’re short on men at present, Miss Carroll, but I will note your call in the log. You should lock the doors and windows and be careful when you go out.”

  He hung up, and I did too, with somewhat more vigor than was entirely necessary.

  What did Joey think I knew? What did he want from me? If he hadn’t been so angry, I would have gone out and spoken with him. Me alone here and him in such a state? Confrontation would not have been a wise move. I worried a bit about going out alone to visit Lucy in half an hour’s time. But no, I’d be taking Peaches and the buggy. I’d be safe. If I let angry men stop me from doing my work, I’d have given up long ago.

  twenty

  “What a bucolic setting thee has, Lucy, even in the dead of winter.” I’d arrived at her farm twenty minutes ago without mishap. She’d shown me the house, including a sunny bedchamber upstairs, and all looked suitable and in order for an impending birth. I didn’t think she’d have any problems with her delivery.

  Now we stood at the back door looking out at a faded red barn, a small grove of fruit trees, and the snowy expanse beyond. A few forlorn and wizened apples clung to the bare branches of the trees, and the snow was halfway up their trunks. A shoveled and much traveled path ran between house and barn, with a rope strung along the walkway.

  “Is the rope in case of a blizzard?” I asked.

  “Indeed it is. Henryk’s papa near got lost in one once, and all he was doing was going out to the barn to feed the cows. That’s why they moved south, his father hates the winter so. Henryk and I, we mean to connect the house and barn with an enclosed passageway by and by.”

  “A good idea.”

  “We have ideas aplenty about how to improve the place. It was Henryk’s grandpa’s, and he left it to my husband when he passed on two years ago.” She gestured at a good-sized fenced section of the yard near the door to the left. “That’s my kitchen garden, and just here is where I grow herbs.” She pointed to a patch to our right, where humps of snow indicated the woody remains of perennial herbs. “I love growing things. Even this one.” She smiled, cradling the bottom of her belly with one hand and the top with the other.

  I prayed we wouldn’t have a blizzard during her baby’s birth. That was in God’s hands, not mine. “Does thee have any concerns, any worries about the delivery? Thee can tell me anything. Sometimes women have strange dreams close to the birthing time but they hesitate to mention them to anyone for fear they will be thought odd. I can tell thee they are more common than one imagines.”

  She led me back inside and shut the door. “I do, Rose, in fact. Last night
I dreamed I gave birth to a turtle and a seven-year-old girl, except she was only a foot tall.” Her laugh was a peal of amusement. “It seemed perfectly normal in the dream, of course. Not a nightmare at all. But once I awoke? I didn’t even dare tell my husband.”

  I laughed with her. “That kind of dream is not unusual in the least. It only shows that thee is feeling a degree of perfectly normal anxiety about the birth. After all, this baby is a person thee has never met who will proceed to change thy life irrevocably. I promise thee will deliver neither a turtle nor a schoolgirl of any size.”

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” Lucy asked, one hand now in the small of her back.

  “Yes, but thee shall sit and I’ll fix it.” I pointed to the kitchen table. “Soon enough thee won’t be able to sit every time thee wishes to.”

  “All right.” She fetched a plate of sugar cookies from a pie keep and set them on the table before she sat.

  Henryk pushed through the door from outside, stomping his feet on the mat and removing a knit cap. “Hello, Miss Carroll.”

  We’d met on Lucy’s first prenatal visit when he dropped her off. “Good afternoon, Henryk. Please call me Rose. We don’t need titles among us.”

  “It don’t seem right, quite. But I’ll try. How’s my bride?” He stood behind Lucy’s chair and laid meaty hands tenderly on her shoulders.

  “She’s doing exceptionally well, and all is in order here for the birth,” I said in my most reassuring voice. “Thee should have no concerns.” First time fathers-to-be were often far more anxious than their wives.

  “If you say so.” A small frown still creased his forehead.

  “Tell her about the mare, dear.” Lucy twisted her head to smile up at him.

  “Our Bella is about to have her first foal, too. The vet came and said she’s due any day.” He picked up his cap and twisted it in his hands, looking worried. “I hope she don’t have no problems. Do you know much about animal births, Miss … Rose, I mean?”

  “I grew up on a farm in Lawrence. I have seen many foal and calf births. Those large animals know what they are doing, Henryk. I wouldn’t worry.”

  “If you say so. I’ll be getting back to work, now. Even in mid-winter a farmer’s work ain’t never done.” He smoothed Lucy’s hair with a gentle touch. “You fetch me if you need me, Lucy Lu.”

  Her love for her husband was evident in her face as she smiled up at him. “You know I will.”

  After the door closed behind him, I stirred up the fire in the big old stove and put the kettle on, then joined her. “Thee mentioned thy former classmate, Delia. Where does she live, exactly?”

  “It’s the purple house on the other side of the road and just a bit farther west.”

  “Purple is an odd color for a residence.”

  “Indeed. I’m not surprised, though. Her mother is an odd bird.”

  “Is Delia’s father alive?” I asked.

  “He might be alive, but he doesn’t live with them,” Lucy said. “There’s another man been by the house a couple of times. I set eyes on him once when I was sweeping snow off the walk, and one other time, as well. I don’t know if he’s calling on Mrs. Davies or Delia. Acts kind of furtive, like he doesn’t belong there. Henryk saw him, too, when he was mending the fence in the front.”

  Ransom Skells, perhaps? “That’s unsettling. Does the man come when they are at home? He’s not trying to rob the place, is he?”

  “I don’t know. Delia has an older sister who’s married and lives in Newburyport with her brood of babies. Six at last count, but I don’t think this gent is her husband, either.”

  “Thee can always summon the police if the man seems to be up to no good.” When would Ransom have time to visit Delia, what with his job and his family? When the kettle whistled, I got up to remove it from the heat. An earthenware teapot sat on a shelf next to the stove along with a square canister labeled Tea. “How is Delia’s mother odd? Besides the color of the house, I mean.” After I brought the steeping pot and two cups to the table, I sat again.

  “She wears the strangest garb. All purples and blues. Plus shapeless dresses, scarves that make her look like an Arab lady, and that turban.”

  So Madame Restante was definitely Mrs. Davies. “A black turban?”

  “Yes. I don’t know why. It’s not for warmth, because she wears it in summer, too. Maybe she’s bald. I’ve never seen her without it.” She munched on a cookie. “How did you know about the turban’s color?”

  I poured us each a cup of tea. I had no intention of telling Lucy about my encounter with Savoire Davies. “I’ve, uh, seen her around town. What’s her Christian name, does thee know?”

  “It’s Sally.” Lucy giggled. “She looks about as far from a Sally as I can imagine.”

  twenty-one

  When I left Lucy and Henryk’s farm after we’d had our tea, I turned west instead of east back toward town. I pulled Peaches to a halt just before the purple house. An aproned woman with slate-colored hair swept the new snow off the front porch and walkway at the next house, a coat thrown over her housedress. She straightened when she saw me.

  “Can I be helpin’ yeh, miss?” she asked in a brogue. She swept back and forth across the walk toward me until she neared the road. She stopped, holding the straw broom upright with one hand and setting her other on a generous hip.

  “Good afternoon. I noticed that brightly colored house and was curious about its owners.”

  “Them,” she scoffed. “Some crazy lady and her daughter.”

  “Crazy? Does thee mean she should be in a lunatic asylum?”

  “Nay, not that kind of crazy. She’s odd, like. Has some business downtown, she does. And the daughter, she’s after going off every day to work, too. Not a one of them to keep the house.” She made a tsking sound and shook her head.

  “Surely one of the ladies is married, though.”

  “No. Nary a man in the place except the sneaky one.” She narrowed her eyes at the purple abode.

  “Sneaky?”

  The woman leaned closer and lowered her voice, even though not a soul was in sight. “He comes by when the girl’s here but the loony one isn’t. He might be a courtin’ her, but he doesn’t act proper and polite about it. Yeh should see him. He comes in one of them conveyances for hire, looks around to see if a body might be spying him, then goes in by the back door. The back door, I tell yeh!”

  “What does this man look like, Mrs. …”

  “Lord a mercy, Miss. I’m Mrs. Sheila Burke, I am.”

  “I am pleased to meet thee, Sheila. I am Rose Carroll.”

  “Likewise, I’m sure. You one of them Quakers, then?”

  I smiled. “Yes. Thee was about to describe this man.” Was it Ransom?

  She squinted her eyes, peering over at the house as if conjuring him up. “Ruddy cheeks. Built sturdy. One windy day his hat flew into the air and I saw his hair. Reddish, and curly-like.”

  Most assuredly Ransom. Sneaking in the back door. Only came when Savoire—that is, Sally—wasn’t home. He was consorting with Delia, who wasn’t married, but he certainly was, with children at home and an unhappy wife, now dead. I felt sick at the thought. Was he also giving money to Delia? She had certainly been stylishly dressed for a secretary.

  “Interesting. Well, it’s been lovely to chat with thee, Sheila.”

  “Hold on, there. I thought yer name seemed familiar, like. Yer the midwife, aren’t yeh?”

  “Yes, I am. I’m in this neighborhood because I’m attending Lucy Majowski across the way there.”

  “She’s going to pop any day now, she’s that big. Listen, Rose Carroll, I am so happy to meet yeh. Me daughter, she’s been going to this man.” She nearly spat the last word. “Her baby should be coming along in April, mebbe May. But this Dr. Douglass, he wants her to go to the hospital for her delivery. I told her no! A
woman’s place is in the home. She was birthed in the bedroom upstairs just like all me other wee ones, and me myself before them back in the old country. A hospital’s for sick folk, not for a healthy girl. ’Twas her husband who wanted her to go to Dr. Douglass. What does a man know about women and babies, anyway?” She shook her head again with even more feeling. “I’ll tell her to come along and see yeh, if I may?”

  “If thy daughter is in agreement, I would be happy to take over her care. Thee can learn my address from Lucy. But perhaps she prefers the care of a medical doctor, despite his sex, and the comfort of a modern lying-in hospital.”

  “Well, I know what’s best for my girl. She won’t object to coming to see you instead of that man.” Sheila held out a strong farm woman’s hand and pumped my hand with vigor. “I’m that glad you stopped by, lass.”

  I wasn’t sorry, myself. I’d rather it not be true that a married man was visiting Delia on the sly. I couldn’t change what was, though. And if Sheila’s daughter wished, I might have saved a woman from a physician treating her like an object to be studied and manipulated as if she were an invalid instead of a normal thriving farm girl who happened to be pregnant.

  twenty-two

  As Peaches plodded up the packed-down pathway that served as the street on which the Bailey house was situated, I spied a man striding down the walkway next to the house. He was headed toward the back door, which was actually on the side of the house. Was it our house he’d approached? Three identical homes had been built for the Hamilton Mills workers a decade earlier, and ours was the one in the middle.

  We grew nearer. Peaches naturally began turning in the direction of her stable behind the house, her oats, her straw, her freedom from bit and traces. I clucked to her. “Go straight,” I murmured. We passed by the walkway at the same time I heard a banging sound. Sure enough, Joey Swift stood hammering on the door again.