Once she had made the mistake of leaving her teapot unattended on the stovetop in the orphanage’s kitchen. Forgetting all about her afternoon tea, she was called urgently by Elvira Nelson, who was holding down an orphan girl suffering from epileptic seizure. With all of the commotion both before and after the ordeal, Dolores Pennywhistle’s afternoon tea was the furthest thing from her mind. So by 5:30 in the afternoon, when the smell of scorched metal permeated the upstairs bedrooms and the children were screaming bloody murder from the stench, Dolores opened her office door to find out what all the commotion was about.
Immediately upon her opening the door, the smell hit hard. It even hurt to inhale. She began frantically looking for Elvira to help her with the children, who by this time were running amuck. As she searched for the nurse, Dolores Pennywhistle also searched for the cause of the horrendous odor. She checked the bathrooms. She then went upstairs and checked all the bedrooms twice while trying to dodge hysterical children. The last place she’d ever think to look was the kitchen, and that’s because Elvira Nelson was a boney woman who never ate a morsel of food.
Dolores herself, being a large woman, fancied the kitchen quite a bit and took pleasure in indulging in all it had to offer. Her favorite food in the world was strawberries dipped in chocolate. She’d always say how it was the strawberries she enjoyed because they were red, which was her favorite color. This was a stretch, to be sure, since her favorite color all her life had been purple, yet when put on the spot to explain why she always had strawberries in her mouth she didn’t know what else to say. She refused to admit that they went wonderfully with the chocolate she always consumed in mass quantities. So she came up with the story of red’s being her favorite color. But then again Dolores Pennywhistle was a very poor liar because her lies were so unbelievable.
Another thing she wasn’t very good at was that of remembering to take the kettle off the stove.
Dolores finally made her way into the hallway near the kitchen door. There the smell was at its worst. When she flung open the swinging door, there was Elvira opening all the windows and fanning out the smoke. The nurse’s nose was tucked tightly into her shirt collar in an attempt to spare herself from being sickened by the smell of burning copper.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Dolores as she ran over to Elvira, grabbed a rolling pin, and began fanning it in an attempt to clear the air. “This is all my fault!” Dolores asserted.
“What happened?” asked Elvira.
“I-I don’t know,” Dolores began. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I was making myself some tea to have with my strawberries and chocolate, and when I heard all the commotion and you screaming my name, all I could think of was to get to you as quickly as possible. I guess I just forgot! And now the children are all in an uproar. I don’t know how we’re going to get them settled down.”
Elvira’s fanning eventually stopped as the explanation sank in. “Chocolate! Is that what was boiling in the pot?”
Dolores Pennywhistle then realized that she had also forgotten about the chocolate she was melting on the stovetop. It lay there in the pot, burnt and black and hard. That, coupled with the burning copper teapot, made for one nauseating stench.
To hear Dolores Pennywhistle tell this story was like hearing her tell any other. She spoke as a ten-year-old would after drinking three cups of coffee. “My stars! How I must tell you about the unfortunate event that occurred to me.” She then would relate the story if someone mentioned any of the following: tea, teapots, stoves, chocolate, unruly children, rolling pins, or odors.
“I have to tell you,” she would say, “the one time I plum forgot all about the water boiling in my teapot. I mustn’t have heard the whistle going off with all the commotion. Poor little Rita Partridge, convulsing and foaming at the mouth! We all thought she was a goner. The water boiled into steam, and then the copper got too hot, not to mention the chocolate! There was nothing left of it but blackened crud. It was a sight. And the smell! Don’t get me started on that smell! It was not pleasant, I assure you. And how the children were behaving! They were not making it any easier for us, I can tell you that. And poor Elvira was so panic-stricken that she actually thought fanning a newspaper would do any good in ridding the kitchen of all that smoke and foulness!”
On one occasion Elvira Nelson heard Dolores Pennywhistle relate the story to a couple who were interested in adopting little Rita Partridge. Since Dolores was obligated to tell Mr. and Mrs. St. James about the child’s medical condition, she added her story of the forgotten teapot, once again stating, “Oh! And poor Nurse Nelson! You’ve met her in the hall. She’s wonderful, but in a crisis she panics and doesn’t think clearly. I mean, with the kitchen almost burning down, how she thought that a newspaper was going to remedy the situation is beyond me!” Dolores Pennywhistle would never mention her own blunder of using a rolling pin for the same purpose.
So it would be Elvira Nelson who would tell the story in her own way, which happened to be the accurate version. “I know I should have called for the fire marshal,” Elvira would say, “but I thought that I could take care of the mishap myself. I used the first flat thing I could find to fan the air—newspaper. What did Miss Pennywhistle use? A rolling pin! Now have you ever?”
Mass ended at 10:30 on the morning of November 3rd. Father Poole said to the congregation, “Dominus vobiscum,” whereupon they dutifully replied, “Et cum spiritu tuo.” Father Poole then intoned, raising his hands to the people, “Ite, missa est.”
Lowering his hands, the priest frowned as he saw Sister Ignatius take her hands from under her habit. Bringing her glue-filled silver flask up to her nose and bowing her head as if to pray, she closed her eyes, pressed an index finger against her left nostril, and breathed in deeply through her right one. For anyone else this would have been a sight to behold, but Father Poole had grown so accustomed to it, routinely during weekday Mass and at least three times during the longer Sunday Masses, that it bothered him only when the nun would do so in the presence of the congregation, though Father Poole was almost certain that no one noticed.
The relationship between Father Poole and Sister Ignatius could be summed up with one word: unpredictable. The priest did his best not to irritate his subordinate, but unless she happened to be hitting the glue, she did little to extend him the same courtesy. Father Poole cut her workload significantly. For instance, he asked her to type his letters to Manchester in duplicate rather than the former triplicate practice, sent and picked up the church’s mail by running down to the post office, and even moved her sleeping quarters from the bell tower of St. Andrew’s to one of the vacant rooms in the old Keats house. He hoped that she might see all this as some kind of peace offering.
“We have to do something about you staying in the bell tower.” He began, before ending with the punch line, “I’m always tempted to call you Quasimodo, Sister.”
Sister Ignatius’s response, however, made Phineas believe his lighthearted comment had come off as rather boorish. “Well it can’t be the existence of a hump on my back.” she replied. “I know! It’s a reference to my ugliness!”
Accustomed to it as he may have been, her glue habit was something he could not abide when there were people around. During the instances when he would catch her sneaking a whiff in public, he’d show his disapproval in the most appropriate way possible. In church, this would only amount to a slow shake of the head.
Sitting in the front pew with Mrs. Keats beside her, Sister Ignatius quickly frowned back at the priest and immediately stuck out her tongue at him. Father Poole turned away, as if trying to make it appear that he had missed Sister Ignatius’s rude gesture, but his grimace turned to a smile once he became aware of Mrs. Keats, whom he loved dearly. She made her sign of the cross with her head pointed piously downward. The priest’s attention then turned back to the Mass.
Father Poole could see Mrs. Keats mouth the words
“Deo gratias.” She had become such a devout woman that, although nearly deaf and half blind, she struggled to follow the Mass. She’d sit in the front pew every day with Sister Ignatius and come early on Sunday mornings to be as close as possible to the altar and do her best to read Father Poole’s lips.
The priest said goodbye to the congregants as they shuffled out of St. Andrew’s, shaking the hands of the men and kissing the cheeks of the women. While shaking Ernie Driscoll’s hand, he glanced over his shoulder to his friend Ben Benson’s house. As always, the old man was sitting on his front porch, rocking back and forth while smoking a non-filtered cigarette. As on every Sunday for the past four years, Father Poole wished that Ben Benson would give in and attend Sunday service in St. Andrew’s.
After Mass, as always, Father Poole headed over to Ben Benson’s porch for a beer and a few hours of conversation. The two men had developed a strong bond. Father Poole had come to love almost everyone on the hill… except for Sister Ignatius.
Before descending the steps of St. Andrew’s, the good Father went to the rectory to retrieve the Portland Daily Chronicle delivered to him every morning by Jordy Fitzpatrick. He wasn’t much of a newspaper reader himself, but the priest told Ben Benson that he was welcome to share his paper. Father Poole knew that money was sometimes an issue for Ben, so cutting back on a newspaper subscription was one way the old man could save money.
As he walked up his friend’s steps, Father Poole opened the newspaper to read the headlines to him. On the third step he read the name “Johnny Benson.”
“Hey! What d’ya know, Ben? Your grandson’s name is on the front page again!”
Ben replied, “Yep! I swear if he don’t make President by the time he’s forty!”
Johnny Benson had struck it rich through land investments and become a prominent politician in Greenwich, Connecticut. Because he was a local boy, the Portland Daily Chronicle followed his life faithfully, mentioning any accolades he’d received as well as announcing the birth of their first and only child, a daughter.
By the fifth and final step, Father Poole froze. His face became drawn and his heart began to speed up. He looked over to his old friend.
Ben Benson, seeing the priest’s face, asked, “What is it? Did the boy get himself involved in some corrupt scandal or somethin’?”
Father Poole needed to collect his thoughts and muster up the courage to tell his friend what the headlines read: “NH-BORN TYCOON AND CONN. POLITICIAN JOHNNY BENSON FOUND DEAD. APPARENT SUICIDE.”
Twelve
Meeting the Bensons
Johnny Benson’s situation was complicated from the start. He came from a line of people who had very little until he did something about it. Ben and Anne Benson had only one son, Jonathan, who was nothing like grandson Johnny. Like Ben, Jonathan was a sensible and hard-working man whose main concern was his family’s welfare.
Unlike his father Ben, who had married at a later age, Jonathan wed before he was 25. He married his school sweetheart, Beatrice (Bea) Glover in December 1900, and the young couple settled down in Ben and Anne’s home on Holly Hill.
Because New England’s economy was in a downturn at the turn of the century, Jonathan stayed without steady employment for several months. He worked in Mason’s General Store during the warmer months, delivering ice to some of the businesses in town and even to the local courthouse, whose jail was being remodeled. The two men residing in the jail while awaiting their respective trials had to be moved to the town’s ice house until the work was completed.
Jonathan enjoyed the coolness that the ice house offered during the hot months, just as much as he appreciated his stimulating conversations with the detainees. Each man told his story of why he was in jail. Samuel Foster, whom Jonathan referred to as “that poor son of a bitch,” was in jail for robbing the very store for which Jonathan worked. He and his family were hungry, and with no work he became desperate. One night he broke into the store and stole eggs, flour, two pockets-full of beans, and some honey. Unfortunately the owner, Dave Mason, who lived just above the store with his wife Rose and their two teenage children, had a rifle that he kept next to his bed to protect his family and property. Dave was also a very light sleeper.
Jonathan loved to hear of Sam’s troubles, which made his own problems seem so much less important. Working the ice route only a few hours a day, three days a week, didn’t pay much; however, Jonathan and his wife would never starve because they were living with his parents. They would also always have a roof over their heads as long as they’d need it. This was one aspect of his life for which Jonathan Benson would never be ungrateful.
Along with Sam Foster was another detainee, whom Jonathan referred to as “one of the lowest creatures I’d ever set eyes upon.” Victor Black had been accused of a more serious offense than Sam, but he didn’t come clean about it immediately. A drifter from Taloola, Mississippi, Black made his way up to New England doing odd jobs. He had been living in New York City for several months, residing in an abandoned building with no roof in the Bronx, and had corresponded with his family that he’d eventually be coming home the first chance he got. When a cousin back down South heard of this, he got word to Victor that he’d heard of jobs with the railroad that were available in New England near Boston.
So filthy and broke Victor Black made his way up to Massachusetts, stealing food from houses he would pass, drink from puddles after a good rain, and defecating whenever he felt the urge, no matter where he happened to be. On his way up to Boston, Black passed a charming little town not far from Marlboro, Massachusetts. The town had a gazebo in the central square, and all the buildings seemed to be symmetrically arranged, which was appealing even to Victor Black’s eye.
Just about the time he’d first spotted the gazebo, Black suddenly got the urge to move his bowels, this after finishing an entire blueberry pie he had stolen from the window sill of a farmhouse outside Springfield. He walked up to the gazebo, pulled down his pants, and proceeded to defecate in a wooden box sitting in the middle of the gazebo’s floor. When he was finished, Victor Black pulled his trousers back up, fastened the button, and walked off as coolly as anyone would who’d just done the same thing in his own bathroom.
The surprise was finally discovered when Mayor Cromwell Pickering walked up to the marquee to give his Founder’s Day speech. The custom every year was for the mayor of Lower Sodbury, Massachusetts, to speak for about five minutes and then offer the townspeople a handful of chocolate fudge, which was the town’s principal commodity. Needless to say, after this particular Founder’s Day the custom was practiced no more.
Victor Black said, though boasted seems more accurate, that he was set to stand trial for attempted nonconsensual intercourse with a girl from Holly whom he’d accosted. Although the worst offense Black had been accused of was attempted nonconsensual intercourse, Jonathan was deeply disturbed by the attitude of the accused, specifically by how he bragged, “I’d a fucked her. Yes siree Bob! Would a fucked her good and proper. Pop her sweet red virgin hole right open.”
It wasn’t until after the trial was over some two months later that Jonathan, and the rest of Holly for that matter, found out that the victim was a twelve-year-old girl. From then on Jonathan would cringe whenever he heard a southern accent. Whether from Taloola, Chattanooga, or Tallahassee, it was all the same to him. It was for this reason that he’d come to appreciate being a New Englander.
With winter coming, Jonathan Benson was let go from Mason’s General Store, being out of work beginning in November. Then late in February he was offered another job by a family that harvested maple syrup. Of all of the stages in maple-syrup production, Jonathan was sent to work in the sugar shack, which was where the sap was boiled down. Jonathan boiled forty gallons of sap at a time in a huge cauldron set over a roaring fire, a process that produced a mere one gallon of maple syrup.
While the pay and the
hours were more than those at Mason’s General Store, Jonathan hated his new job. The worst part was that, from the time he started at six in the morning until he finished at five in the afternoon, he’d be stuck in the sugar shack in front of a merciless fire. Sweat would drip so profusely from his brow that some of the boys on the job called him “Niagara Falls.” By seven in the morning his shirt would be soaked with sweat. As with delivering ice, Jonathan knew that he wouldn’t last long at this job either. He’d make it to the end of the sugaring season, which ran from late February until late April, or succumb to the other workers’ taunting.
Another thing Jonathan hated was how impossible it was to get used to this kind of work because the season was so brief. He’d only been promised employment by the Ward family, who owned the property, until April 30th. This was a knife that cut both ways for Jonathan, to be sure. On the one hand, he’d soon have to find new work, a task with which he was becoming all too familiar; on the other hand, at least he wouldn’t have to stand for hours on end in front of a fire that sometimes reached higher than himself.
One night, in late November 1901, Jonathan asked his mother and father to sit with him at the kitchen table. He called his father from the porch and his mother from her usual after-dinner post in front of the stove. “There’s something very important I need to discuss with you and pop,” he told his mother, as she was the first to arrive at the table.
“What is it, son?” Anne Benson inquired. “You’ve got me wonderin’.” She set her palms flat upon the table, leaned all of her upper body’s weight on them, and finally collapsed slowly with a final thud into her customary chair.
When Ben came in, he put his newspaper down on the place mat in front of his chair and sat down with an even louder thud than his wife. “Okay, boy. Out with it. What is so damn important that you got us comin’ to the dinner table as if you were Teddy Roosevelt and your mother and I were the Vice President and Secretary of State and you were gettin’ ready to tell us you’re aimin’ to kick the stuffin’ outta Spain for a second time ’cause o’ some lingerin’ animosity about what happened to the Maine?”
Embracing Darkness Page 10
