A Promise to Love

by Serena B. Miller

  4

  Joshua tried to take the measure of Judge Cornelius Carver, who now sat at a table, reviewing some papers that A.J. Rogers had given him.

  Carver looked like a man who had ridden hard for too many miles and was not particularly happy to be here. His black suit was dusty and his eyes were red-rimmed. He did not strike Joshua as a man who intended to put up with much. There was only so much territory one judge could cover, and although this was life-and-death to him, Joshua knew that it was just another crowded makeshift courtroom to this court official.

  Joshua settled himself stiffly on a chair, with Polly on his lap and the other three girls grouped around him. His in-laws were seated only a few feet away, but except for one guilty glance from his father-in-law, neither of them looked at him.

  Little Bertie was nowhere to be seen, which was a disappointment. Aunt Almeida was probably keeping the child at home. A courtroom was no place for an infant—but it would have been nice to catch a glimpse of his son.

  “Pa.” Ellie tugged on his shirtsleeve. “I gotta go bad.”

  Joshua nodded toward the open door. “Go ahead but come back quickly.”

  “I will.”

  Ellie escaped the confines of the cabin. Through a window, Joshua watched the little girl head straight for the outhouse. Unless he missed his guess, that would be the last they saw of Ellie for a while. After finishing up in the outhouse, she would find a toad, or an ant colony, or some other child to play with. Sitting still was not Ellie’s strong point.

  “Tell the people to come in now, if they’re going to,” the judge said to A.J. “I do not intend to tolerate interruptions.” Carver continued to peruse the sheaf of papers he had been studying earlier.

  Joshua saw Hazel and the hired girl find a place on the benches that had been placed around the wall. It irked him that Millicent wore silk while allowing her to be reduced to wearing rags and what appeared to be George’s cast-off shoes.

  She was in good hands with Hazel, and he knew Hazel could use the company. If he could afford help, he would give the poor girl a job himself. It would be wonderful to have someone who would come and cook for the children every day.

  Polly squirmed on his lap.

  “Please be good, Polly,” he whispered.

  The little girl stuck her thumb in her mouth and settled back against his chest.

  “Can I go outside, Pa?” Trudy asked. “Ellie’s still out there and it’s getting hot in here.” She ran a finger around the collar of her dress for emphasis.

  Even though it was nice outside, the makeshift courthouse was filling up, and it was already getting stuffy.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “But please try to keep your dress clean.”

  “I will, Pa.”

  After ruining that one little dress, he had been up half the night trying to get their clothes ready without scorching anything else. His own shirt and pants were easy compared to the girls’ little things.

  “Is Joshua Hunter present?” Judge Carver said.

  “I am, sir.”

  “I’ll take your testimony now.”

  He handed Polly off to Agnes. He hoped she wouldn’t be too much for her big sister to handle. This was not a good time for his children to misbehave. As he made his way forward, there was a slight murmuring among the people who had wedged themselves into the small space. He saw that the windows had been opened so that the people outside could watch and hear.

  The judge nodded to A.J. “Swear him in.”

  Hand on the leather-bound Bible, Joshua promised to tell the truth.

  “Were you the husband of the deceased, Diantha Hunter?” the judge asked.

  “I was.”

  “Please have a seat, Mr. Hunter,” Carver said. “And tell the court what happened the day your wife died.”

  Joshua took the seat they offered. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “This is an inquest, not a trial, Mr. Hunter,” the judge said. “Just start with that morning and tell us anything you consider important.”

  He cleared his throat. “My wife fixed breakfast about six o’clock that morning. Then she took a walk in the woods while the children and I ate. Afterwards, she sat and drank a cup of tea with me while we made our plans for the day. She then took the children down to her mother’s to help her with some spring cleaning. About two hours later, she started complaining of a bad headache. She died about twelve-thirty, about two hours after the headache started.”

  “Had she complained about any symptoms or pains prior to that morning?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Was she given to walks in the woods in the morning?”

  “Sometimes. She said it calmed her nerves.”

  “Did your wife have trouble with her nerves?”

  “Occasionally.”

  As the judge wrote something on his papers, Agnes spoke up from where she sat with Polly on her lap.

  “Mama said me and my little sisters got on her nerves a lot, sir.”

  Soft laughter rippled through the courtroom.

  “I can imagine that she did,” Carver said kindly. “But I’m asking your father questions right now.”

  “Sorry.” Agnes’s face had turned red from the laughter.

  “Please continue, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Later that morning, Agnes came running to the barn where I was working and said that her mother had fallen. I ran down to the Youngs’ farm, thinking Diantha had hurt herself, but when I got there, she came walking out to the gate. I asked her if she was sick. She laughed a little and said she had just gotten a little dizzy-headed, and then she went back into the house.”

  “And what happened then?” the judge asked.

  “I helped my father-in-law load some lumber, then went to check on Diantha to see if she’d had any more dizzy spells. I found her out in the backyard drawing water from the well to start dinner. She said she felt fine. While Diantha and Virgie cooked, I went inside and visited with Richard for a while. About that time, my wife came into the sitting room from the kitchen and said her head was hurting.”

  “That was the first she mentioned a headache?” Carver asked.

  “It was. She sat down a spell, and I asked if she was sick in any other way. She said she wasn’t. Then she got back up and went on out to the kitchen again. It must have been after eleven o’clock by that time. I was there about five minutes when Agnes came to get me. She said something was wrong with her mother again. I went into the kitchen, and my wife was sitting in a chair, saying her head ached. I helped her go into her parents’ bedroom and lie down.”

  Joshua looked out over the crowd. The rapt expressions on some of their faces made him feel slightly nauseous. It seemed as though some were practically feeding on the story of the events preceding his wife’s death. Others, his closest friends, were staring down at the floor as though trying to give him some privacy as he recounted the most painful hours of his life.

  “What measures did you take to help her?” the judge asked.

  “We put a wet cloth on her head and gave her some coffee to drink. She started getting chilled, and we built up the fire and tried to make her warm.”

  At this, his voice choked up. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to pull himself together.

  “Please go on, Mr. Hunter,” the judge said impatiently.

  “It was so hot in there that I was sweating, but Diantha was shivering. Her mother put an extra quilt over her, and Richard built the fire up even hotter. Soon after that, she started complaining that her head was worse. I started to go for the doctor, but she grabbed hold of me and begged me to stay with her.

  “At that point she started writhing around underneath all those covers. She started convulsing and . . .”

  “And?”

  Joshua took a deep breath. “She died about a minute later. Her father went for Dr. Allard, who got there about one o’clock. He said he thought the cause of her death was some sort of burst blood vessel in her brain.”

>   “Did he mention any other possible cause of death?”

  “He did.” This was the moment that he had been dreading—the comment the doctor had made that had set Virgie off. “He said that the convulsions we described could also be symptoms of strychnine poisoning.”

  There was a gasp in the courtroom.

  The judge nodded as though acknowledging that this is what he had expected him to say. “At any time previous to her death, did you hear your wife say that she was tired of living or that she would commit suicide?”

  Joshua was blindsided by this question. This was private information—something he thought was just between him and Diantha. He had never mentioned it to anyone.

  Judge Carver noted his hesitation and glanced up from his papers. “Please answer the question, Mr. Hunter.”

  “She was in one of her bad moods one day.” Joshua picked a piece of lint off his army pants. “She said she was tired of living and wanted to drown herself. There were some days when she would talk like that to me when the children weren’t around. She didn’t mean it. It was just something she would say to let off steam. The next day she would laugh about it.”

  He wished he had been warned that he was going to have to repeat these words. If so, he would have sent Agnes out of the courtroom.

  There was a buzz in the air as everyone absorbed this shocking information. He had planned to go to his grave never telling anyone about those conversations with Diantha.

  He glanced at Agnes, who was sitting stone still. Her eyes were wide with shock. She leaped up, hiked Polly onto her hip, and ran out of the courtroom. He wished he could run after her, but Judge Carver was already following up with another question.

  “Had you secreted about your house previous to her death any strychnine or other poison?”

  “No.” He shook his head emphatically. “I have small children in my home. I would not have risked keeping that sort of thing anywhere around them. Richard told me he hadn’t bought any, either.”

  He didn’t tell the court that he had been so afraid that Diantha might do something to herself on one of her bad days that he had made certain there was nothing about the house which she could use to hasten her death. He had even hidden his guns away in the barn and had removed all but the dullest knives from the house.

  Judge Carver seemed to have lost interest in his testimony. The next question was so trivial he wondered why the judge even bothered to ask.

  “What was your wife’s age?”

  “She turned thirty November first of last year.”

  “Describe your wife for the court.”

  “Her hair was brown, her height was five foot and two inches, and her eyes were green . . .” He hesitated. Those words seemed so inadequate to describe someone like Diantha—a woman he had loved with all his heart. “And she was the most beautiful woman I have ever known.”

  The judge scribbled something on a piece of paper. “You may go back to your seat. We’ll take a short break.”

  During the break, Ingrid saw Mr. Hunter standing outside beneath a large tree, talking earnestly to Agnes, who had obviously been wounded by the things he had been forced to reveal about her mother. Her heart broke for him and his daughter.

  “Why do they do this to him?” she asked Hazel.

  “Diantha’s mother and her aunt Almeida, who came over right after her death, were in the room when Dr. Allard mentioned the possibility of poison. Neither of them have let up since. Evidently, Diantha had told them how unhappy she was, and at least one of them brought Millicent in on it. Diantha and Millicent were friends.”

  “I did not know,” Ingrid said.

  “It does seem odd. They weren’t exactly thick. Diantha had too many young children for them to spend a lot of time together, but she was closer to Millicent than anyone else.”

  At that moment, Millicent arose and started out the door. She seemed surprised to see Ingrid.

  “So that’s where you got to,” she said. “I need you back at my house at once.”

  Ingrid was taken aback. “You make me leave.”

  “I changed my mind. It will take time to find someone to replace you. In the meantime, I have no one to do your chores.”

  “She’s fine just where she is,” Hazel said.

  Millicent sniffed. “You don’t need a servant. You could never afford to pay one in a million years, no matter how wretched the servant might be.”

  “You might be surprised what I can afford,” Hazel said.

  “Come along, Ingrid,” Millicent commanded. “I’ll take you home now. There are dishes to wash.”

  Ingrid pressed her back against the log wall. “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I stay with Hazel.”

  “Hmm.” Millicent pursed her lips and cocked her head. “I wonder how Hazel will feel about that when George stops ordering the medicine he keeps in stock for her heart condition.”

  “He would not do that,” Ingrid said.

  Millicent’s mouth curved in a knowing little smile. “George will do anything I tell him to.”

  “You have heart problem?” Ingrid asked Hazel.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Hazel said. “Besides, I can order it my ownself—ain’t like I never kept a store before. I was only having George order it to give him some business.” She glared at Millicent. “The man needs all the business he can get if he’s gonna buy this one here all the fancy doodads she wants.”

  “I hope you’re prepared to order everything else you need for the rest of your life once I tell George you stole my servant.” Millicent glanced back and forth between the two women as though trying to figure out her next move.

  Ingrid put her arm around Hazel. “All she do is give me a bed when you throw me out.”

  “You have a perfectly good bed at our house. I’ll expect to see you in it by this evening, or I’ll make certain that Hazel’s money won’t do her a bit of good in our store.”

  And with that, Millicent swished away. She-Wolf growled softly, watching her go.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Hazel said, patting the dog’s head.

  Ingrid did not want to risk bringing misfortune on her friend, but she could not bear the thought of going back to work for Millicent. The only relatives she had left in the world were an ocean away, and she had no money to get back to them. There was no other job to be had for a woman in this small, out-of-the-way place.

  Mr. Hunter came back in and sat down. He moved like a man who was heart sick and bone weary. She felt so sorry for him that she shoved her own worries aside.

  “I’m gonna go see if that boy needs anything.” Hazel patted Ingrid’s hand. “You stay right here. Don’t let Millicent get to you. We’ll be just fine. Millicent must have forgot that they still owe me quite a few more payments on that store. George will get me whatever I need. Millicent doesn’t have that much power over him. The man does have a backbone. We just don’t get to see it very often.”

  Ingrid watched Hazel approach Mr. Hunter, wishing that she, too, had the right to go over and talk to him. Although what she would talk about, she had no idea.

  Soon, Judge Cornelius Carver took his seat, and people poured back into the room. Hazel resumed her spot beside Ingrid. Agnes returned with Polly on her hip and the other two girls in tow.

  “You should stay outside,” Ingrid heard Mr. Hunter say to his daughters.

  “We ain’t leaving,” Agnes said.

  The two little girls who had been outside were red-faced as though they had been running and playing hard. Obviously, they were too young to understand the gravity of the situation. Their ribbons had come undone, the lace on the youngest’s pantalets was torn and dragging, and both of their faces could use a wash. Agnes sat Polly down and began to rebraid Trudy and Ellie’s unruly hair.

  “How is he?” Ingrid whispered when Hazel had settled back down beside her.

  “He’s taken a pretty big hit, but Joshua is tough,” Hazel said. “He’s faced worse enem
ies than Diantha’s mother and this court, but never with his children beside him. I’m so mad at Virgie I could just spit. She’s probably the one who told the judge about her daughter spouting off about wanting to die just to make Josh look bad. Every woman says things she don’t mean sometimes.”

  Ingrid could not imagine ever saying anything like that. Not with those beautiful children to care for.

  “Now people will always wonder what Joshua did to make her feel that way,” Hazel said. “Oh. It’s starting again. I want to hear what Virgie has to say for herself.”

  5

  There was a time when Joshua had liked Diantha’s mother. Up until now, she had always been civil to him. In fact, when he had bought 160 acres of adjoining land from Diantha’s parents after the war, he thought that since his wife was not a woman to be easily separated from her mother, the acreage he purchased next to them was as good a place as any to live.

  Now, a hundred miles would not be enough distance to put between him and the Youngs as far as he was concerned. After Virgie had accused him publicly to whoever would listen of killing her daughter, he didn’t have a whole lot of use for the woman, even if she was grieving.

  After facing the enemy in battle, he had never dreamed the enemy would take the form of a woman in whose face he saw the shadow of his beloved wife’s.

  “Would Virgie Young please come forward and be sworn in?” the judge said.

  Virgie was a small, slender woman like Diantha. She had seen so much trouble in her life that her hair had turned completely white even though she was only in her early fifties.

  “Please tell us what happened on the day your daughter died, Mrs. Young,” the judge said after she had sworn to tell the truth.

  Virgie dabbed at her eyes with a wadded-up handkerchief, and for a few moments, while the entire courtroom held its breath, she seemed unable to speak.

  “Did your daughter appear to be in good health on that morning when she came to your house?” the judge prompted.

  “She did.”

  “Do you remember anything different from what your son-in-law testified?”

  “That man is not my son-in-law.” Virgie pointed at Joshua. “Not anymore. Not after what he done.”