by Lauren Groff
That’s when the ghost around me stepped forward and began disassembling it.
Stop! I said when it began unbuckling the little tin buckle on the saddle and slid it off. It didn’t stop. My own clumsy foreign fingers dug in the leather under the saddlehorn and prised it apart. And there, in the gaping old wound in the saddle, there was a tiny scrap of yellowed parchment, crispy. When I picked it up, the ghost slid suddenly away with a tremendous popping sound and I gasped and heaved until I felt the air burning the bottoms of my lungs. The paper was so fragile that I held it as gently as a petal I didn’t want to crush. The ghost moved outward into the room again. I closed my eyes until my lashes made it even smaller, but this tactic didn’t work: the ghost still purpled its way in.
At last I was breathing normally, sitting down, still staring at the paper that flapped and flapped in some small wind on my palm. It was brittle, liable to fall apart into my hand when I did touch it. And though it was only a small scrap, it had the heft of lead.
Before I opened the letter, I looked up so quickly that I caught the very thin edge of the ghost and at last fixed on it. It squirmed and throbbed in oil-coated waves, as if trying to wrench itself away. “Who are you?” I said, but the ghost didn’t answer and instead slowly turned dark with impatience, then a horrid eggplant blue. I considered the ghost, its goodness, its obsession with cleanliness, and didn’t say what I thought, which was Hetty? I turned back to the paper and opened it. I saw, in child’s script, the words Guvnor Averell. And then I read.
Elizabeth Franklin Temple
Elizabeth Franklin Temple, when young. This was a miniature portrait on ivory that Marmaduke Temple carried around with him on his many travels.
Elizabeth Franklin Temple
Elizabeth Franklin Temple, at an advanced age. This is a not-very-flattering watercolor and pencil sketch, probably done by one of Jacob Franklin Temple’s brood of girls. By that time, Elizabeth had become a shut-in at Temple Manor, legendary for saying her mind at all times.
30
Elizabeth Franklin Temple
I HAD HAD a dream of it long before it happened. I was not one for false portents. I am far too Quaker for that.
Every night in my hard bed was this: first the squeak of boots, the hickory-smoke freshness of winter air. Night. Snow sifting down. And somewhere behind, the sound of carousing men, somewhere on Second Street, the crossroad between the Eagle Hotel—the Federalists’ bar—and the Bold Dragoon—the Anti-Federalists’ Bar. A crowing of victory on one side, and on the other, a fiddle in a reel of defeat. It is only with the swim in my head, the flip souring in my mouth, that I know that I am Marmaduke within the dream, that the vast body at my command is my husband’s.
For a moment, there is the maiden three-quarters moon, nailed above the icy lake and powdered hills. And there is the long stretch of the town before me, down the hill to the lake; and behind me, past the boys’ academy and the churches into the heifer-rich farms; and to the right, past the Manor and up Mount Vision, where Davey Shipman’s cabin sits; and to the left, beyond the bakery and past the new courthouse and jail. A violent uprising of pride rises in my body, the likes of which I—as a waked Elizabeth—have never before felt.
Then there is a strange sound that I cannot identify, and, sudden, a darker sound within my very head, a hollow thump, like a muskmelon dropping to the ground. The slow tilting of the world as my big body goes loose and falls. The face to the cold, hard mud, a horse-smell. And from there, the trees loom dark over the huddled roofs of Second Street, as if they were menacing the town, and my cheek goes numb against the road. My darkening eyes see a stump in the dirt of the road, a vast old stump from some ancient tree, forgotten, cut to nothing in the road, and in the very central crack of this stump, the tiniest of saplings has taken advantage of some small warmth from dropped manure, and is springing up its tender sprig. Then something hot pools inside my ear, the sound of the carousing behind me fades and is replaced by a series of pulses, beats of a vast and terrible heart, and then there is darkness, and then there is a good release.
I dreamed of my husband’s death many times, vividly. The mystery has always been who had killed him. He had many enemies, especially with the questionable election that had happened a few days earlier. The recount of the votes was to end that day. He was an intemperate man, my Marmaduke, wrestled too commonly with the pioneers in town, made enemies with his wealth and strength.
But on the night of his murder, I knew who killed him. Even before he died, I knew why.
THE NIGHT BEFORE my husband’s death, I had been watching Davey Shipman’s cabin, how all through the night the windows gleamed red. Noname was still in labor by morning, for they would have extinguished the light to give her some sleep had she already delivered the child. I, a mother of seven, though only two survived, I knew what the poor child was going through. When the dawn was about to come, I had been fighting against it for hours. I knew even then that the coming evening was the night I dreamt of, the moon, the blow, my Marmaduke’s death. Every time I shifted asleep, the dream came, and I awakened, all my hair bristling with fear. Like an animal. At last, I washed myself in my French violet soap, dressed in my lightest gray frock, pinched roses into my cheeks.
And I stole in my softest shoes to Marmaduke’s chamber in the west end of the house. In the keen silence, I could hear the dozens of sleeping aspirations that seemed to make the house itself breathe.
I opened Marmaduke’s door and entered. It took me a moment to see that he was not sleeping. He was sitting behind his curtains, watching me through the opening. I came to him. He opened his arms, opened the covers for me. Full-clothed, I slipped inside his warmth; I was so small beside him; I had always marveled at this, my size, his, how I was like a child beside him. We didn’t move. We didn’t speak. I smelled his good smell, his sleep-smell and he kissed me on my temple. How he let off heat like a veritable furnace, and I, who was never warm enough, was now warm to the core.
I thought, I must tell him. It is my duty, so that he will stay home tonight, for the next few nights, allow the danger to pass. I was stalled by something, though, by large fears. Marmaduke did not always do what one thought he would, and I was afraid he would think himself bigger than any risk that could be in the world. Might even go out simply as an act of defiance. I gave myself until I heard Remarkable talking to herself in the kitchen, as she always did in the morning making breakfast. Then I had to tell.
Duke, I said at last, but he kissed me so that I could not say more.
No, he said. Can’t we just be silent?
Marmaduke, I said, but he sighed, rolled away. His huge hand held my hand for a moment, swallowing it up. We both stared at the canopy above, the dip in the fabric, the thin, strong posts. I was ready to try again, but then there was the tread of Mingo on the stairwell, bringing up Marmaduke’s breakfast, and I had to hurry up and out of the bed, hide behind the door as Mingo came in, then slide out as he kneeled over the fire. I took a long look in the doorway as my husband climbed out of the bed. Even in his undress, he seemed in-vulnerable, and for a moment, seeing his broad feet planting themselves like stumps on the ground, I doubted my dream.
IT WAS NOT an easy day. I could barely breathe with the strain.
LATER, AFTER DINNER. In the parlor, my little son Jacob was playing checkers with his brother, Richard. I with my book, Marmaduke warming his boots by the fire. Every hour, one of the servants went up to the Shipman cabin to check on Noname and bring Midwife Bledsoe another glass of whiskey. For purposes of cleanliness, the midwife claimed. Though, as Remarkable said, Goodwife Bledsoe must be scrubbed as pink as a baby inside. Every hour, Noname grew weaker. Remarkable came in, licking her lips to smile at Marmaduke, reporting every hour or so on the election recount in the offices of the Freeman’s Journal. Still counting, Master Duke, she said, shaking her head but not without a gleam of triumph. In the triumph, I feared for my husband.
BY EVENING, NONAME had been in labo
r for forty hours, and could not be awoken by the midwife. Dr. French went up. By evening, the throng surrounding the Freeman’s Journal offices had thinned, and only the trails of chimney smoke made the town seem alive. I saw from my window Elihu Phinney as he sat there, counting, recounting, recounting, checking a list. I watched him. He sat there until dusk.
A DARK DAY already, it was tarblack outside by the time Kent Peck knocked on the door. They said he was a handsome man, but to me he was as attractive as a block of wood. He brought with him his manure smell, the scent of new snow. I shrunk a little into my wraps. The man squeezed his felt hat so that the three corners became six before he surrendered it to Mingo.
Phinney has published the results, Duke, he said. Ran a special print. Found forty-three ballots missing from Otsego alone. Even tallied up likely Federalists and likely Anti-Federalists, and found a gap of near eighty. Claiming it’s because we pressed ballots into some folks’ hands.
We did press ballots into some folks’ hands. Is that wrong? said Richard, growing furious, purple, tightening his fists into dangerous mallets. My poor Richard, so earnest and good. Something had shifted in him over the past few months, I saw. He was not as innocent as he had once been. Phinney pressed ballots himself, Richard continued. I saw him. And I rode with the boxes, and I can attest that there was no wrongdoing on the journey to Albany. That terrible Phinney, that terrible, spiteful man.
A very weighty silence.
The question, said Duke, standing at the mantel underneath the handsome portrait of himself. The question is not what, if anything, happened. The question is what one does now. There are still rough men in these parts. If the rumor goes into the streets of this county, anything could happen to us.
And I in my corner, I who knew Marmaduke so well, knew from this that he had been guilty of some terrible wrongdoing. I knew then that he had dabbled in the election, and it would all turn out horribly wrong.
HOURS, IT SEEMED, they debated what to do.
Peck was for hiding out, calling in the courts of the state to settle it, keeping quiet until the people forgot.
Jacob was for giving that little Scot weasel Phinney a good thrashing, but he was reprimanded by his tutor that children must be seen, not heard, and Marmaduke grinned at his ten-year-old son, who shook his fist at the town through the window.
Richard was for calling a public hearing on the matter, immediately, presenting the case to the people, publishing an accounting of the Federalist side, insisting on innocence.
Marmaduke was quiet for a very long time, but as the tall clock in the hall rang, he spoke. I believe, he said in his deepest, loudest voice, that we must pretend we are not bothered by this. That Phinney is concocting this out of spite and bad form. We should celebrate and pretend we are not bothered. Do what we would normally do after winning an election of this magnitude.
And after he spoke, there was a great silence.
Drink, said Kent Peck, nodding his granite head with gravity and tapping his pipe three times on his knee, for emphasis. Go to the Eagle.
Hire fiddlers, suggested Richard. But, Father, is this appropriate?
Wrestle, said Marmaduke, and laughed. I should like to wrestle that “little Scot weasel Phinney” a good one, and he raised his eyebrow at Jacob, who nodded with vigor.
They stood, Mingo went from the room to fetch the canes and hats and greatcoats, there was a great bustle. No, I thought, this cannot happen, Marmaduke cannot go out. I was about to stand, to tell my husband I must see him, right now, it is an urgent matter, when Remarkable came in, curtseying with haste.
Oh, Mistress Temple, she cried, her eyes darting with great interest at Marmaduke, leaning massive on the mantel. Marmaduke in paint smirked above her head; Marmaduke in flesh frowned at her.
Such news, you never would believe, Remarkable said. That poor, dear Noname, bless her innocent soul, has died in childbirth.
And Remarkable crossed herself, which I do not like to see in my house, a papist thing. But my sympathies were quickened, and even Marmaduke seemed to listen to this news with interest.
Mingo entered. Richard and Kent Peck went to him, pulled their greatcoats from his arms.
And the child? I said. Remarkable seemed to expand, to tremble in her eagerness. She leaned forward to say in an overloud whisper, It is a girl. And perfect. But, Mistress Temple, she is a terribly huge baby. And then, looking at Marmaduke, who had gone still and white, Remarkable spilled in her lilt and brogue, She is covered in red hair. Red. And has blue eyes, unlike any red Indian the world has yet seen.
Satisfied, she leaned back, and the shadow of her nose on her smile was great and made the old woman look horrid, like a witch.
I thought in a moment of the big red-furred baby, and then of my russet Richard, laughing gently with Kent Peck by the door, helping him on with his jacket. But there was no man alive more virginal than he. A mother would know. He had never kissed any other woman than me. His loves were chaste and good; he would marry a simple girl, and be too shy to touch her for the first month of their marriage. I knew all this.
And it was then that I looked at Marmaduke, who had a pallor on his face like wax. He saw me looking, and cracked a small smile.
How wonderful, he muttered, avoiding my gaze. We shall send old Davey Shipman a cask of wine, he said. Then he bowed to us and stepped across the floor to Mingo and the waiting men, ruffling Jacob’s hair as he passed him. My small boy’s face was pale and stricken: he must have heard, the tutor was bending over him, whispering softly, taking him from the room by the far door. I was standing with Remarkable by the fire, my skirts nearly in the fire, I was watching my husband put on his greatcoat, and it seemed to me that he did it slowly, excruciatingly slowly. A year seemed to pass when one arm went into the coat, and another year passed before the next.
I HAD BEEN blind. I had believed that when I got rid of that Hetty, when I came to Templeton myself, that Marmaduke would be faithful, would adhere to the vows he had taken before God on the day we eloped in Burlington. And to hear that Noname, the innocent little Indian child, had produced a red-haired baby. In that one night, I aged a decade.
BEFORE THEY LEFT, there was nothing in the room save Marmaduke and me. And, between us, the dream hung darkly. The three-quarters moon. The rustle and the muffled thump in the head. The collapse, the sapling, the darkness.
I could have saved him. I could have prevented him from going out. I did not.
MY MARMADUKE, FATHER of this town, important man, husband, visionary, fool. I let him put on his coat. I let him take his stick and his hat. And when he turned to say good-bye to me, his eyes skittered past, beyond my slight form, beyond Remarkable, around the room. I did not find my voice to call him back, to warn him about the crossroads.
True, I did not look for it, either.
HIS BOOTS CLATTERED over the boards of this house he built from nothing, and he was out the door. I watched their small forms struggle down the snowy path, and out the gate to Second Street. From my window, they were indistinguishable from one another, all bending against the wind, the snow. My son could have been my husband, his father the son. They went around the fence, they were gone.
Remarkable turned to me, urgency making her face twitch, rabbity.
Davey Shipman went wild when he discovered the red hair, the blue eyes, they say, she said. Destroyed the cabin, turned furious, told Midwife Bledsoe that he was to kill Judge Temple. Went out with his gun. Chingachgook, too, that old Indian, stared at little Noname’s body until at last he stood, took out his tomahawk, and when Midwife Bledsoe screamed, only nodded, and went down the road to the town. The midwife was shaking, half out of her mind with drink and fear. And with Elihu Phinney, drunk and dangerous tonight after the election tally…she trailed off, gesturing out toward the road.
She left it open for me to send someone to bring him back. To warn him of his enemies. And, for a second time, I resisted. I only stared into the black night, the gray snow.
REMARKABLE AND I, alone, in the parlor. At last, I turned to my foe, my friend.
Something inside me was cracking with a terrible noise, but Remarkable could not hear it, she made no horrified step away from me.
Sit beside me and ring for tea, I said, my voice much steadier than I could have imagined it. I have never told thee of how I first truly saw my husband. The story of how we eloped, I said.
There was something in this that Remarkable never expected: she blinked, and though I could see her desire to crow in the kitchen about Noname’s redhaired baby, this was even more compelling. I wonder now that her heart didn’t burst from all the excitement that night. She rang for tea, for her knitting, then sat near me and took my hand.
Ach, Mistress Temple, she said, avid. I’m dying for this tale.
And I told her.
I WAS TWENTY-THREE, plain, and very good. I had known of him since I was small, as we attended the same Quaker Meeting for years. But he was a foundling, a runaway from his own overpacked farm of Temples. He had nothing when he ran away, breeches, and nothing beneath, a shift, and no shirt. He had no shoes. He had no hose. He dreamt of carriages, of thick rugs, he dreamt of owning all of Burlington. He had luck then, as he has always had luck. The day he ran away, he was adopted and taught to be a cooper by Phineas Dorley. When I saw him that day, in Meeting, he was nineteen, and a master cooper already, but also illiterate, a rake, a wild son given to drinking. Given, they said, to an unnaturally strong taste for serving girls. Even I—the fiercely protected daughter of the richest widower in New Jersey—even I had heard of his excesses.
There we were in the Meeting that day, silent, waiting for the word of God to fill us with its light. It was bitter cold, the skin around my nostrils and my eyes was smarting, and the congregation’s breath rose from our bodies, tethered to us like souls.
