Being the Steel Drummer - a Maggie Gale Mystery

by Liz Bradbury

  Mr. Curtis looked at it carefully, then nervously entered the notation number. And nothing came up.

  Dr. Amanda Knightbridge’s features became rather fierce. I’d seen that look before. Bright focused eyes, like a bird of prey. She said in a quiet but somehow frightening voice, “Is Isabella Santiago here?”

  Senior Librarian Curtis looked nervously around. The younger librarian with the fringe visibly blanched. Curtis stage-whispered in a shaky voice, “I believe she’s always here, Dr. Knightbridge. But she doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

  “Maggie, I’ll be back in a moment.” Amanda stalked off far more stiffly than her general floating gait. I could faintly hear Amanda calling out, “Isabella,” far back in the stacks.

  I stood there with the two librarians, who were rapidly transforming into cowardly lions about to meet OZ. Mr. Curtis tugged at his collar, looked at his watch, mumbled something about having to help someone, and then sped off so fast I could practically hear the Roadrunner sound effect. The young woman librarian seemed terror stricken to be left alone and disappeared without explanation.

  So who was this Isabella Santiago, who could strike fear into the hearts of librarians everywhere?

  Seconds later, Amanda came out of one of the study rooms down the hall, followed by a female Yoda. She was tiny, wrinkled, and very old. She looked kind of bald, but it was just that her white hair was the same color as her skin. People have told me that I am freakishly pale, but this woman made me look like a San Tropez ad. She was so white, she kind of glowed. She wore a long loose robe of brocade material tied at the waist with a silk sash. Under it she had on some kind of layered white dress. She had huge owl-like gold-rimmed glasses, even bigger than Judith Levi’s. She could have been a hundred years old.

  “Isabella, please meet Maggie Gale. Maggie, this is Dr. Santiago. She knows this library very well.”

  Dr. Isabella Santiago advanced on me with swift baby steps. She tipped her head up to peer at me through huge owl corneas. I said, “Very nice to meet you, Dr. Santiago. You’ve worked here for a long time?”

  She said, “Pffft.” She turned toward Amanda and said in a surprisingly loud and clear voice, “What does she want?”

  “Maggie would like to see the Victoria Snow papers.”

  “Ask...” She waved her hand toward the space where the small herd of librarians had been before they’d sensed danger and scattered.

  “She did so, however, they could not find the reference to the papers in the system.”

  “System,” she muttered, flicking her hand to the side. In a clear but creaky voice she said, “I’m working on a treatise on 16th century building materials and I do not have time to... Oh never mind. Follow me and hurry up about it!” She darted toward the stairs and rapidly descended three flights, then zipped toward the stacks like a cockroach heading under the refrigerator when the light comes on. She zig-zagged down nine or ten aisles and came to an abrupt halt in the middle of a row so dimly marked I couldn’t read the tag. She nodded toward a high shelf.

  In the middle of a series of brown archive boxes was one labeled Snow, Victoria Willomere. I had to get a kick stool to reach and slide the heavy box out. By the time I stepped down, Dr. Isabella Santiago had scuttered back to the 16th century, leaving me and Amanda alone.

  As I carried the archive box back to the study area, Amanda said, “You know, Maggie, Isabella Santiago doesn’t talk to people very often. We were lucky to draw her away from her work. It seems to help a great deal to be the head of the History Department. She never spoke to me when I was just a professor. I’ve worked quite hard to establish communication with her.”

  I looked back at Amanda and in the dim light of the stacks I could see she was smiling to herself.

  “But now you know her?”

  “I don’t really know her, but I’ve found that if one has a good reason to seek her she’ll come out of hiding. She certainly knows everything about the collections.”

  The way Amanda Knightbridge was talking was giving me that feeling you get when the eerie background music comes on. I wanted to ask more but Amanda said, “I’m afraid I have a meeting soon. You can use this research room here. Let me know what you are able to find out.”

  Amanda reminded me to wear gloves when handling any of the papers and indicated a box of white cotton ones on a shelf.

  She said, “You know, Kathryn could request the research department make digital files of these papers for her. I believe there is a young woman there who has developed quite a devotion to Kathryn.”

  “Swell.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Amanda with a hint of amusement. Then in a more serious tone she went on, “Maggie, have you told Kathryn how you feel about her?”

  “Um, I care for her very much.”

  “Yes, that’s evident. May I say that I don’t think you should worry about convention. There are stages in a relationship and many feel that a certain amount of time should go by.”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m not sure one of the many is Kathryn and I feel somehow that you do not fit into that group, either... Ah well, this is not my business. But, I have known Kathryn for some little while. She will give you cues, and I hope you take heed of them. I have great faith in you. I have great faith in you both.”

  On that prognostication Dr. Amanda Knightbridge turned on her heel and floated from the room. She left me wondering more about Kathryn and me than about the archive box on the table. I really didn’t think that just telling Kathryn I cared for her... would be enough to make us both feel as though we were... hmmm... well, I guess Farrel and Jessie would say, as though we were a team. It wasn’t about words. The total willingness to trust and to yield—we just weren’t to that point. But if we didn’t get there soon I feared it would create a wrinkle in our relationship that we might never be able to smooth out.

  “Oh crikey!” I sighed.

  I slipped on gloves, removed the cover of the archive box, and gently drew out the acid-free folders. I set my laptop up next to the folder piles.

  I sorted the items carefully. The first group were legal papers. I gently went through each of the piles dividing them by type. In the last stack was a small thick leather-bound book with the initials V.W.S. on the front.

  I opened it carefully. The first page was inscribed:

  Dim Eden of delight,

  In whom my heart springs upward like a palm;

  Loving your morning strength, your evening calm,

  Your star-inspired Night --

  A sweeter breath blows upward from the sea,

  Like a fresh hope from God’s eternity; --

  Latest and best, are you then coming?

  Nay — shadow is not here;

  Save of the rocks upon the gleaming sands,

  And that which moves beside me with clasped hands,

  A suffering shadow, drear

  With watching, it would seem, the endless swell,

  Great, white-faced waves, sent ceaselessly to quell

  The stern and silent shore with thunder.

  To Victoria on the occasion of her 30th birthday, May this present help you record your morning strength and evening calm and everything in between!

  - from Anne and Abby. Feb. 1st, ’75.

  I whistled out loud. Journals are treasure and this one was gold.

  And Anne and Abby... were Anne Whitney and Abby Manning. This was Anne Whitney’s poem Kathryn was quoting in the cemetery. Wow, this was really something. I couldn’t wait to look through it.

  The book looked like it was part of a set. I looked back in the box, but it was the only one in there.

  I took the Carbondales’ book from my bag, found Victoria in the index, and read the brief account of her life. She had traveled and had shows of her work in several cities, but after 1876 always came back to Fenchester where she lived a rather solitary and very long life in Fen House. She had died in 1938 at the age of 93. Interesting, I hadn’t known she had lived in Fe
n house. She must have bought it after Evangeline died. Now that I had a little context I went back to the papers.

  Among them were Victoria’s will, passport, birth certificate, some deeds; there was even a driver’s license. There were catalogs documenting all her shows with pages listing all the works exhibited. These could be helpful. I put them aside.

  Piper Staplehurst had said there was no record of the works Kathryn bought at the flea market, so that would mean there was no mention of the works in this box, because certainly the college and museum had already cataloged the information in these papers when they were originally placed in these archives.

  I turned back to the journal and carefully turned to the first page. The writing was tiny and in a flowing artistic script that was hard to read. I finally discerned that the page described a trip Victoria was taking on a ship. I clicked on a bright extension arm lamp and swung it over the page; then I squinted at the minute letters.

  March 15th, 1875:

  Leaving Liverpool for New York on the Bothnia. One of Cunard’s newest ships. I must say it has every convenience. My stateroom on the spar deck is spacious. Would that I had had such a room when I was in Rome.

  As it turns out I know several of the other 1st class passengers and I hazard to guess quite a few of those riding steerage, though I do not see a way in which one in 1st class could venture to even converse with someone in that part of the ship. Totally blocked off.

  I find this trip so different from my voyage on the Scotia ten years ago. Truly a maiden voyage for me, if not the ship itself. In fact, that ship seems quaint to me now, with its huge paddlewheel. Of all the crossings I’ve taken, that really was the most memorable. For the ship itself, if not the company. I suppose the sails are about the same even now, and they say the speed is as well, but the coal dust and noise are definitely reduced and the plain fact of hundreds of other people on board below decks feels decidedly different. Not frightening as some of my more timid friends would suggest, but as though we all share a similar adventure into the incalculable future.

  We will all arrive in New York eleven days hence. I am eager to land.

  I was amazed that in 1875 you could cross the ocean in a steamer in just eleven days. I looked back in the box for other travel papers and found her college diploma. She went to Oberlin. She must have known the artist Edmonia Lewis there. Lewis had been at Oberlin during the Civil War period and they were both sculptors.

  Victoria’s handwriting was difficult to read. You barely see anyone’s handwriting anymore, much less flowery 19th century calligraphy from the point of a quill. But as I continued to turn through the pages, I got used to her style.

  April 11th, 1875:

  The delivery and installation of my newest piece at the Vanderbilt’s is done. One of Cornelius’s older sons has suggested it may go to the new college the family is financing. As always, everyone is charming to me and the attention of the young men is almost comical. Yet my heart pines, but I feel I cannot hope. I wish Anne was here to advise me. Perhaps I will go to Boston to see her on the pretext of helping with her newest commission. Then I could ask her or Abby what would be my best course. But alas, I must first take Edmonia’s work to New Orleans.

  She’s talking about Anne Whitney in this passage. She and her partner Abigail Manning lived in Boston. I turned to my laptop and found some entries on Anne Whitney’s life. She was indeed working on a preliminary study to enter in a commission competition for the statue of abolitionist Clark Sumner in 1875.

  And it must be Edmonia Lewis’s work Victoria is going to deliver. I skimmed for another reference to Edmonia and found one.

  April 23rd, 1875,

  Have finally reached New Orleans to deliver Edmonia’s work. Though it has been ten years, one can still see the devastation of war. Amazingly, the trains are running well.

  Though I am grateful that my trip was fully financed by my longtime college friend and colleague, and proud to be emissary of her work, there is grimness everywhere that pains me. Illness and loss. Yet, when I find sympathy in my heart for the current lives of struggling landowners, I then feel a kick of reversal when they speak of the blessed old days. They seem to have no awareness that their easy lives years ago were genteel due to the forced labor of human beings. A moral outrage, still.

  The fact that I am delivering a monumental sculpture made by a woman of African, Haitian, and Ojibwe descent pleases me. Particularly so when white men disparage my role (as a woman) in conducting this important work to its destination!

  I gasped inwardly at this passage and then my eyes widened at the next sections that were clearly referring to Charlotte Cushman and Emma Stebbins! I skipped through them.

  April 29th, 1875,

  Must rush back to Boston to see Charlotte do one of her readings at the Globe Theatre. Emma suggests in her latest letter that it may be Charlotte’s last performance. And unlike her many final performances as Hamlet, I suspect Emma may be accurate.

  May 16th, 1875,

  Charlotte’s performance last night at the Globe was moving. I was in tears, not just from the words she spoke, but for the look on Emma’s dear face as she watched her.

  I was whisked to a party at some fine restaurant after the show in a private room that looked much like Delmonico’s.

  Charlotte and Emma are going on tour through New York State and then will rest in Newport. They implore me to visit.

  I clicked my laptop for some quick research to confirm the timelines, then flipped ahead looking for more interesting entries:

  July 4th, 1875,

  The City of Philadelphia and whole of the country is already in preparation for the Centennial, even this one year in advance. Pavilions, memorials, and monuments are already in production. I am in the running for a work in the main American Pavilion. This commission should cement my reputation so I am in hopes that I will not face unfair treatment because I am of the fairer sex.

  Edmonia is already at work on what is surely her most ambitious piece. The Cleopatra sculpture will be hailed, no doubt, as a huge success at the exhibition. Indeed Edmonia has amassed so much money she is already speaking of retirement somewhere in France. Perhaps I envy her... and yet, I feel alone and in need of affection.

  September 1st, 1875,

  These weeks in Boston with Anne and Abby have been idyllic. They dote on me as loving aunts. So much like Rome where sisters of my own heart followed their true desires. I should have done so then. At least I would have known if the flame could burn in her as well.

  Of course Anne is furious that the commission she won for the Sumner monument has been revoked because the authorities have realized she is of the female sex. Some nonsense about a ‘woman could never sculpt a man’s legs.’ Absurd! Anne vows to do the sculpture anyway and already has some interest.

  Anne and Abby encourage me to follow my heart. The heavens know I want to, as does the devil. But my better judgement cautions. I do recognize, with no little amusement, that if my declaration is spurned, Anne and particularly Abby will devote themselves to finding me a new object for my affections. Indeed they have invited several extraordinarily beautiful young prospects to dinner, who all seem rather remarkably eager.

  Yet I received a gentle note yesterday with tender if non-enlightening words, which renewed my desire. I have written back and hope for an invitation to visit.

  Will go to Newport to see Charlotte and Emma, then should consider returning to Rome to begin work again... if no other invitation arrives.

  Yeah, this was getting good. Victoria was after a woman, just like all those other hot lesbian artists, actors, and poets in Rome in the 1860s. I was willing to bet the farm that it was Evangeline, but the only thing I had to go on was the way Victoria had modeled the nude sculptures of her.

  The journal was beginning to read like a hot romance novel and I couldn’t put it down. The problem was, I was acutely aware that this was real life. It might not end the way romance novels always do. Victori
a could be kicked in the head by the painful revelation that the object of her affection was not that kind of a girl. Or perhaps worse yet, that she wasn’t ready for commitment.

  I sighed, It keeps coming back to that, doesn’t it?

  There was a small drawing labeled Home of Charlotte Cushman in the journal margin. It was a beautiful house on the coastline. Below it were these enlightening entries:

  October 1st, 1875,

  Newport, Rhode Island. Magnificent house, yet quite different from the piazza in Rome. Excellent and well appointed studio for Emma, which she never uses. Several other ‘sisters of the heart’ also here visiting Charlotte. In that respect it mirrors Rome!

  Charlotte’s nephew Ned has married the lovely Emma Crow, who is now pregnant with his child. I have to say I had always suspected that Emma C. was devoted in the most intimate ways to Charlotte herself and was surprised to hear that Emma S. allowed the charming young thing to follow them to Italy and then back here to Newport. But then, what Charlotte wants, she wins. Both Emmas are devoted to her and seem to tolerate each other. And thus Charlotte has achieved her role as sultana, a role she has been rehearsing for with various results for many years.