Shadows of a Down East Summer

by Lea Wait

  “Unless they were stolen. In which case whoever stole them wouldn’t want to call attention to what they were. If they were sold, and then ‘discovered’ as unknown Helen Chase paintings, they could then be sold at high prices,” Maggie pointed out.

  “Especially if Susan Newall and Carolyn Chase, the only people who could identify them as stolen work, were dead,” Will said.

  “I have some questions to ask Brad Pierce tomorrow,” said Maggie, standing up. “But right now, I’m going to bed. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a full day. And I want to read some more of that journal. I still think there are answers there.”

  July 31, 1890

  Jessie’s wedding date has been set. She will marry Orin Colby on New Year’s Day, and has asked me to stand up with her. She is very excited about the wedding. Much more excited than she is about the pearl engagement ring on her left hand, or the man who placed it there.

  She is having ivory satin for her gown sent from Boston, and would like me to wear blue satin, which she says Orin will pay for. They will be married at the Congregational Church, with a reception at her parents’ home following the ceremony. It will all be very elegant. She showed me menus from New York and Boston restaurants with recipes for such items as turtle soup and oysters Rockefeller.

  I was not sure how those delicacies could be obtained in Waymouth in December, but she assured me S.S. Pierce in Boston could deliver them. She seems to have learned a great deal from our summer on Prouts Neck. Mr. Homer received crates from S.S. Pierce almost every week.

  Luke Trask calls on me several times a week. Sometimes now we do not speak of Jessie, but of ourselves. He is not ready to marry, for he has no financial resources, and is but a young fisherman, but I am not ready to marry either, so that is not of concern to anyone but Mother, who sees Jessie’s wedding as a challenge for me to also find someone suitable to wed.

  She has suggested several men who attend our church and who she feels are eligible, but none are of interest to me, and she has not invited any for me to parade in front of, as Jessie’s parents did when they decided Orin Colby was the man they wanted for their daughter. I am grateful for that.

  For the most part I try to ignore Mother’s suggestions and hints, but some days it is difficult. Although Jessie’s wedding will be grand, I do not envy her wedding bed with Orin Colby in it. Or anyone else. Even Luke.

  August 20, 1890

  Today I looked back at my journal and counted. It has been nearly six weeks since that horrible day in July. I have tried to put it in the past. But, by all signs I have ever heard whispered in women’s corners, my body has not forgotten what happened then.

  I will not tell Micah Wright. In truth, I feel doing so would accomplish nothing but put myself in the shameful position of asking for something I do not wish under any circumstances to have.

  I can see only one chance to save my situation. I have just made a decision that would scandalize Waymouth, but which, if not successful, will result in even more scandal.

  As I am, I am ruined, and my family with me. Whatever I do, however degrading it might seem if I were to read it in a penny-dreadful, is what I see now as my only alternative.

  There is no one I can talk with; no place I can go. I must use my wits, and whatever charm I can find.

  And I do have a lovely yellow dress that I think may do....

  August 23, 1890

  It is done.

  I believe Luke was more surprised than anything else by my sudden overt affection, but if my advances were not polished and knowing, that was as well, since they were to seem naïve and unrehearsed...which, indeed, they were close to being. He was, to my surprise, gentle, and responded kindly and with apologies and gratitude, and held me afterward and told me that, indeed, he loved me.

  It was easier accomplished than I had imagined, and despite my nerves, even pleasant. He did not seem to notice anything amiss, thank goodness, and believed my protestations that I was overwhelmed by my affection for him and could not control myself. (Was ever a woman such? But he did not seem to question either my words or actions.)

  Now I must wait an appropriate interval to tell him our joyful tidings.

  September 10, 1899

  Tonight I told Luke of what I feared my condition was. I did cry as I spoke, more than a few tears, most of them genuine, as he is the first I have trusted with my secret, and no matter what his response, I was relieved to tell it.

  He was taken aback, it was clear, but bravely put his arms around me and told me that he loved me and that we would manage somehow and that, of course, we would marry as soon as possible.

  Bless Luke!

  I confided that I did not want our wedding to compete with Jessie’s planned celebration, especially under the circumstances, and Luke readily agreed, because time is of the essence.

  He will borrow a carriage from a friend and take me driving Saturday, as we sometimes do, and we will go to Portland, where we will find someone to marry us. We will leave notes for our parents. I have enough money for us to spend our wedding night at an inn in Portland.

  The dear man asked if I would like to stay that special night in one of the inns at Prouts Neck, since Jessie and I had journeyed there often this past summer. I quickly assured him that an inn on Prouts Neck was the very last place I wanted to be on my wedding night.

  Beyond Saturday, we have no plans. But I do love him. How could I not, when he is saving me from disgrace, or worse? We are not the first to marry in haste and have an early baby.

  There are many fates far worse than to have a handsome husband who says he loves me and my child.

  Maggie closed the journal, and turned off her light. As she’d read in the Waymouth archives, Anna May and Luke Trask had been married. But it hadn’t been the joyful celebration she’d imagined at the Congregational Church on the village green.

  Anna May was right, of course, in thinking she wasn’t the first bride to get married under such circumstances. Not even the only bride who’d given her husband selective information about the parentage of the child to come.

  But that wasn’t the end of the journal. Or the story. And what about Jessie?

  Maggie was tempted to turn the lamp on her bedside table back on, but resisted. She wanted to be alert if Aunt Nettie needed help during the night. And fascinating though the past was, she had questions in the present she needed to answer. She hoped, tomorrow.

  Chapter 36

  Richfield None Such. Hand-colored lithograph by R.H. Pease for Natural History of New York, 1851, “on stone by P.J. Swinton,” lithograph of a bright red apple today considered a heritage variety. Nineteenth-century lithographs were made by treating flat stones with a substance that would absorb or repel ink in the required pattern, and then pressing them on paper or vice versa. Large lithographs required large stones. Lithography was the first method of printing that employed color. Engravings, whether steel, brass, or wood, were colored by hand, usually by women working in assembly lines. 8.5 x 11 inches. Price: $85.

  In the morning Aunt Nettie said she felt stronger. If she hadn’t slept through the night, she didn’t share that with Will or Maggie. She was still “not as limber as she ought to be,” though, and reluctantly let Maggie help fasten her bra and pull a long-sleeved T-shirt over her head, while Will scrambled eggs and made toast for breakfast.

  “I have to see Brad Pierce,” said Maggie, a bit apologetically.

  “You go on,” said Will. “I have paperwork left from Saturday’s show.”

  There had been no sales at the show, which equaled almost no paperwork. But neither of them was comfortable leaving Aunt Nettie on her own.

  “I’ll stop at the grocery store and get us some things for lunch and dinner,” Maggie volunteered. “Then we won’t have to worry about going out later.”

  “Great idea,” agreed Will.

  “I could make lasagna for dinner, and we can have sandwiches for lunch.”

  She checked the refrigerator
and cabinets and added coffee, milk, and some fruit to make a tart for dessert to her list. Aunt Nettie might not be up to going out to eat in the near future, and that meant they’d all be eating in. Lasagna would mean leftovers for tomorrow, and bread and sandwich fixings would also do for several days.

  Will walked out with her to her van. “I don’t know how I could have gotten through the past few days without you, Maggie Summer,” he said, gently putting his fingers under her chin and raising it. “I know this isn’t exactly the vacation you imagined.”

  As their lips met, Maggie let herself relax in his arms. Then she pulled back. “We’re grown-ups. Grown-ups have to deal with life. Besides which, I really came to Maine for the lobster!” She made a funny face at him and blew a kiss as she backed out of the driveway.

  It wasn’t exactly the vacation she’d hoped for. But their time together wasn’t over yet. And Aunt Nettie did seem better this morning.

  Onward to see the lawyer.

  Brad Pierce’s office was in a converted Victorian house just off Route 1. The sign outside listed two lawyers, a chiropractor, a massage therapist, and an acupuncturist. Maggie wondered whether the lawyers referred those in traffic accidents to the chiropractor or the acupuncturist, or whether the massage therapist had accepted clients from all of the above.

  She rang the bell labeled BRADLEY PIERCE, ESQUIRE and walked in, as his sign directed. She was greeted and offered coffee by a cheerful woman behind a wide desk ringed with paper folders.

  “No, thank you,” said Maggie, wondering what the woman would have said if she’d asked for a diet soda. She added her drink of preference to her shopping list. And maybe a bottle of wine to go with dinner. She thought for a moment. How much rum had she added to her soda yesterday? Not much, but there hadn’t been much in the bottle to begin with. She should be a good guest and replace it. In Maine, wine and spirits, as her mother had called them, were sold in the supermarket, so that would be easy to do.

  “Dr. Summer?” A tall, thin man in his early fifties, with little hair to balance a large nose, had come out of his office.

  “Yes. Brad Pierce?”

  “Come with me. I’ve put the chest in my conference room, but I thought we might chat for a few minutes before you look at it.”

  Maggie followed him into his office.

  “I heard Miss Brewer had an unexpected visitor the other day.”

  “Someone broke in, dumped drawers, and generally messed up most of her house and left her tied up. For a ninety-one-year-old woman it was a very difficult experience.”

  He shook his head sympathetically. “How is she?”

  “She got home from the hospital late yesterday, and is feeling a little better now. But she’s far from back to where she was before Saturday.”

  “Have the police figured out who did it?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. They spent a lot of time at her house, though. Have they made any progress finding Carolyn’s killer?”

  Mr. Pierce shook his head. “Sadly, no. Her house was left in a similar state, I’m afraid. Was anything of Miss Brewer’s missing?”

  “We can’t say for sure.” Maggie hesitated to tell him about the photograph album. It seemed unlikely that it was stolen. “Her nephew, Will, and I don’t know her belongings well enough to tell, and she hasn’t been able to go through everything yet. Nothing obvious was missing. What about Susan Newall’s house, where Carolyn was found? Was anything missing there?”

  “Dr. Summer, I understand you were the one who identified two of Helen Chase’s paintings that were consigned to the Walter English Auction House for last weekend’s auction.”

  Mr. Pierce had just abruptly changed the subject. Maggie nodded. “I saw the paintings there and wondered why they weren’t identified as her work.”

  “The police feel they may have been stolen from Susan Newall’s home, but for some reason all paperwork at the auction house connected with those paintings seems to have disappeared.”

  “I see,” said Maggie. “That seems too coincidental, doesn’t it?”

  “To me, it does,” said Brad Pierce. “But so far no one is talking. Until they know how those paintings got to the auction house there’s no proof they were stolen. I once tried to get Susan to make a list of all the paintings of Helen’s that she had, but she never did.”

  “They couldn’t have been stolen from the house at the same time Carolyn was killed,” Maggie said. “They were listed in the auction catalog that was printed ahead of time. While Carolyn was still alive.”

  “Quite right, Dr. Summer. So we’re looking at a theft that happened before Carolyn Chase’s death. Or paintings consigned by Carolyn, or by someone she gave them to.”

  Maggie shook her head. “I didn’t know Carolyn well, Mr. Pierce, but she talked of her mother’s paintings with love and respect. She spoke of hanging them in the Newall house when it would be hers, and eventually leaving them to the Portland Museum. I didn’t get the impression she was thinking of selling any of her mother’s work. Certainly none of the Maine paintings.”

  “That was my feeling, too,” said Pierce. “But of course the police must consider every angle.”

  “Mr. Pierce, you know everyone in Waymouth.”

  “Perhaps not everyone. But a good number,” he admitted.

  “Do you know Henry Coleman and his son Lew?”

  “Certainly! Henry taught mathematics for years at Waymouth High School, and coached the basketball team. Good teacher, and darn good coach. He’s been retired some time now. His son Lewis graduated from the high school and went on to college, I think at Orono, and then got a solid job in New York. I used to see Henry at the Men’s Club at the church on Thursdays for lunch. Henry was so proud of his boy. Said Lewis was doing him up proud, mingling with the rich and famous.”

  “But Lewis is back in town now.”

  “The economy, Dr. Summer, has made it difficult for many. Henry told me Lewis lost his job. He couldn’t find another, so moved home until he could get his feet on the ground again. Walter English offered him a job at the auction house, as a favor to Henry. The boy does know something about art and antiques. He worked at that big auction place that’s on the news sometimes. South something or other.”

  “Sotheby’s?”

  “That’s it! I knew I’d recognize the name.”

  “I heard Henry Colman was having some memory problems, and Lew came home to take care of him.”

  “Oh, Henry’s not quite what he was twenty years ago, but he’s doing all right. He always was a little absentminded, and living alone hasn’t helped. His wife died about five years ago, and he’s let himself go a bit since then. But if Lew’s been saying that, he’s just avoiding telling people what really happened in New York. He doesn’t spend much time with his dad. Henry’s working on that book of his, and Lew’s at the auction gallery all the time. Or out socializing over at the Gull’s Way.”

  “The Gull’s Way?”

  “A tavern, next town over. A place some of the rowdier young folks from around here, fishermen, lobstermen, carpenters, those who work over to the Iron Works, like to hang out. Not too much eating gets done there, but a lot of dreaming and drinking. I’ve heard Lew does more than his fair share of both.” Mr. Pierce stood up. “But enough socializing. You need to look at the trunk Susan and Carolyn wanted you to have.” He shook his head. “Can’t say as I know exactly why. There’s nothing in it that’s of much value, but it was important to Susan, for sure. I don’t think Carolyn even got a chance to look through it before she...met her untimely end.”

  “Where has it been, since Carolyn died?” asked Maggie.

  “It was in her car,” said Mr. Pierce. “The police brought it to me after they finished searching Susan’s house. It’s been here ever since.”

  He opened the side door of his office to a small conference room. Maggie had been expecting to see a large metal or wooden trunk; the kind used by nineteenth- and early twentieth-century travelers that so
metimes found new uses as bases for coffee tables or storage spaces for out-of-season sweaters or blankets.

  Instead, in the center of an oval cherry conference table was a small pine chest, too large to be a stationery or glove box, but too small to have held clothing. It might have been made to hold sewing supplies. Or dolls’ clothes.

  On its top, brass carpet nails spelled out the initials SPN. It had belonged to Susan Newall’s mother, Maggie remembered. The initials must be those of Sarah Pratt Newall. The married name of Anna May Pratt’s sister, Sarah.

  “Go ahead. Open it,” said Mr. Pierce. “I don’t know what you expect, but what there is has been in there a long time.”

  Maggie lifted the rounded top of the small casket; the leather hinges were still strong. Inside were bundles of envelopes tied with faded ribbons. She picked up one of the bundles and the ribbon broke. The top letter, addressed simply to the Newall Family, Waymouth, Maine, was postmarked “New York City, 1913.”

  “These must be letters Kathleen Trask wrote back to Waymouth after she married Frederick Chase,” said Maggie. She glanced through the pile. They seemed to be divided by years, through the 1920s.

  She turned to Mr. Pierce. “I’d like to take a little time to go through these, if I might?”

  “You’re welcome to,” he said. “Put everything back in the trunk when you’re finished, and tell my assistant you’re leaving. Make sure she has your address in—it’s New Jersey you live in?”

  “I’ll do that,” Maggie said. “Thank you.” She would have liked to have sat down and read for hours, but there wasn’t time.

  She wanted to find out whether any papers dated back to the time of the journal. Anything from the early 1890s.

  Carefully she checked each stack of letters. Most of them were from Kathleen. Some with later dates were from Helen Chase herself as a girl and then young woman. Some of Helen’s letters were decorated with small drawings. (What a find! Maggie thought.) Nothing in the trunk was dated after the 1930s, which must have been when Sarah Newall died and the little casket was left in the attic.