What the Dead Leave Behind

by Rosemary Simpson

  Sitting at his desk, imagining him looking for a place only she would discover, her eyes tracked the shelves that covered three walls of the room. If he had had a second safe installed, he would want it to be where he could chuckle over how well he had hidden it, where he could glance up from the documents he was studying and be reassured no one would find it. Prudence took a deep breath, lowered her head as if to read something that lay before her, then quickly raised it, allowing her eyes to track naturally before her.

  Finger in her mouth, the sting of the splinter starting to ease, she walked toward the shelves directly opposite where the Judge would have sat, shelves that seemed to have been untouched, where her father had kept works of philosophy and the natural sciences, histories written in several languages, outsized books of geography whose folded map pages could be opened to four times their original size. She had found this portion of the library irresistible when she was a child, had loved running her small finger along the blue rivers and the coned mountains, sounding out the wonderfully strange names as her father described places she would then dream of in her sleep. Her favorite of the heavy geographies was still there, a compendium of the Lewis and Clark expedition that had charted the vast northwestern territories of the country nearly a hundred years ago. Many a night she had fallen asleep imagining herself to be the young Indian woman Sacagawea. She had even made up her own version of Shoshone, which the delighted Judge had pretended to understand. Such a long time ago.

  The hand with the injured finger reached out for the volume that had given her so much pleasure, and the moment she felt the embossed and gilded leather cover against her skin, she knew. The Judge had often left notes for her between the pages of the book she had loved more than any other. Entrusted to Sacagawea, who, like the Judge’s precious Sarah, had also died in her twenties. There was some other tantalizing tidbit of information she couldn’t quite remember. Something about Sacagawea retrieving the records of the expedition when one of the boats capsized. Retrieving records, journals, and unsent letters. Prudence smiled, and sent a winged message of thanks to the father who had taught her to apply logic to the hiding games he set her. If there were a safe, he had placed the heavy geography tomes in front of it. Sacagawea on guard to help Prudence recover what might so easily have disappeared forever.

  “Prudence?”

  Lost in the hope of what she might have found, she hadn’t heard Victoria’s repeated knocking. Holding the Lewis and Clark book against her chest, knowing she dared not explore any further, she opened the study door, slipping the key into the pocket of her skirt before her stepmother could see it.

  “The door was locked.”

  “It seems to be sticking. Perhaps Jackson could put a drop or two of oil on it.”

  “Mr. Hunter has called. He’s in the parlor. He says he’s come with bad news.”

  “Colleen!”

  Victoria held out her hands for the book, but Prudence shook her head. Within moments she was across the hall and through the parlor door. Geoffrey turned, as did Donald Morley.

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, Miss MacKenzie,” Geoffrey said. “It’s Mr. Conkling. He collapsed after court today. He said he had a terrible pain in his head, and the next thing anyone knew he was unconscious on the floor. They’ve taken him to his apartment at the Hoffman House Hotel. A doctor was summoned immediately, but I’ve also stopped by Worthington’s office. He’s already on his way uptown.”

  “Josiah has been worried for at least a week now that something like that would happen.”

  “Are you talking about Mr. Conkling’s secretary, Prudence? How do you know what he’s been worried about?” The two red spots of anger that always gave her away burned brightly in Victoria’s cheeks.

  “I had some questions for Mr. Conkling, Victoria. Nothing you need concern yourself about.”

  “I wanted to let you know as soon as possible, Miss MacKenzie. And I’m afraid the news about your maid is not very good either. They called the priest this morning. I imagine she’s gone by now.”

  That was the story Cameron had suggested and all had agreed upon. Colleen would be safer presumed dead than alive.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. She was a good girl, very quiet. I don’t think I spoke more than a few words to her or she to me the whole time she worked for us. I had the impression she was shy.” That should put Victoria’s suspicions to rest.

  “We’ll be responsible for her burial expenses, of course.” Donald jingled the coins in his trousers pocket. “Modest expenses, that is.”

  “Dr. Worthington asked me to tell you that he would see to the arrangements. He’s done it many times before. The body will be turned over to her family. He said he would send you the necessary accounting.”

  “The MacKenzie family will make some sort of appropriate gesture, Mr. Hunter. Flowers perhaps? Donald will see to that if you or Dr. Worthington will provide him with an address.”

  “I would advise against it, Mrs. MacKenzie. You don’t want to give the impression that Colleen’s fall was in any way connected to her employment in this household.”

  “I forgot, Mr. Hunter. Like Mr. Conkling, you’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”

  “Perhaps a gift to the family of double Colleen’s last week’s wages? That would be more than generous and is what’s generally done when a member of staff dies in service.”

  “I see.”

  “The suggestion came from Dr. Worthington.”

  “Donald?”

  “I think the sooner we put it all behind us, the better. Tell Worthington we agree. He can send us the bill.”

  Brother and sister nodded, for once in complete agreement. Colleen was dead. The incident was closed, the danger averted. Dead men told no tales. The same could be said of maidservants.

  “Will you stay for a cup of tea, Mr. Hunter?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. MacKenzie, but I think I’d better get back to Mr. Conkling. Josiah is taking his collapse very hard. Someone will need to make sure he doesn’t fall ill himself.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. The Judge always said that his friend Roscoe would outlive him by twenty or thirty years.” Victoria rang the bell. “I’ll have Jackson see you out, Mr. Hunter. Did you take a cab?”

  “It’s waiting for me.”

  “I found a book my father intended to give to Mr. Conkling, Mr. Hunter.” Prudence held out the Lewis and Clark history and geography. “He told me many times how much the senator admired Lewis and Clark. Will you take it to him?”

  “How very kind of you to remember.” Geoffrey Hunter took the heavy book and tucked it casually under his arm. He hadn’t missed a beat. “I’m sure Mr. Conkling will be delighted to have it. He’s likely to be laid up in bed for a week or more.”

  “He’s such an interesting man,” Victoria said. “And a very good lawyer. My late husband said he was one of the best, that a legal document crafted by Roscoe Conkling would stand up to any kind of challenge.”

  “I’m sure we all hope that’s true.” Prudence smiled the most laudanum-addled grin she could manage. “I’m so tired and a little dizzy. I wonder if it’s something I ate.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Victoria MacKenzie had been one of the most talked-about beauties of last year’s Easter Parade along Fifth Avenue. This year she was obliged to wear widow’s weeds from head to foot. Swathed in heavy skirts, a stifling veil, and black gloves, she thought she looked like an enormous Black Witch moth struggling out of its cocoon.

  “I don’t understand why you want to bother going to church and that ridiculous parade,” Donald complained. He had a vicious headache, a roiling stomach, and very little memory of the good time he must have had last night. “No one expects a recent widow to follow all of the conventions.”

  “You know nothing about the way society functions, Donald. Widows are watched more closely than wives, and I am most definitely expected to be at Trinity Church this morning. We have a family pew that will be g
laringly empty if we’re not there to fill it.”

  “Prudence can go with you.”

  “Of course she’ll be there. And so will you. Propriety demands a male escort who is also a member of the immediate family. Unfortunately, you are the only one in this house who fits that description and is at least nominally vertical.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “The Judge is dead, Donald. You have to take his place.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t order me around, Victoria. I don’t like it.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Where I go is none of your business.”

  “You won’t go anywhere if I cut off your funds.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “I’ve dared a great deal in my lifetime, brother dear. Drink another cup of coffee. I sent that stupid Clara to wake up Prudence, but if she’s not down here at the table in another minute, I’ll go up and shake her myself.”

  “I think it’s a bad idea to leave the laudanum bottle beside her bed, Victoria.”

  “After this bottle is finished, she’ll have to come to me for what she won’t be able to live without.” Victoria licked delicately at her lower lip and smiled the loveliest smile anyone could have wished for. “She has to be made to acknowledge and welcome her dependency. It won’t be easy, and it will take time, but eventually she’ll do anything I ask her to do, sign any paper I put in front of her. I won’t even have to threaten. The sight of that small brown bottle just out of her reach will tame Miss Prudence faster than a slaver’s whip.”

  “She’s still not down.”

  “Drink your coffee and try to remember what it feels like to be sober.”

  Victoria took the stairs to the second floor as briskly as her skirts allowed. She was impatient to be out of the house, finished with the long church service and walking among the well-dressed crowds along Fifth Avenue. Next year, she promised herself, next year I won’t be wearing black. One full year of mourning is enough for anyone.

  Without bothering to knock, Victoria opened Prudence’s door and swept into the room with the pentup energy of a dark tornado. “Prudence! Wake up! You’ll never be dressed in time! Where is that stupid girl I sent to get you up? Prudence!”

  One, two, three. She didn’t dare wait any longer. One hand raised to cover her eyes against the sun pouring into the room as Victoria yanked back the drapes, Prudence turned over and then lay flaccid and unresponsive in her bed, seeming to drift in and out of sleep as she moaned once against the light and burrowed deeper into the bedclothes.

  She felt rather than saw Victoria storm over to the bedside table, pick up the empty bottle of laudanum, and hurl it angrily against the wall. “How much of that did you take last night?” she demanded, reaching down to shake Prudence by the shoulders.

  Prudence forced herself to flop in her stepmother’s grip like a rag doll being waved around by an angry child. Her neck snapped, her long light brown hair whipped from side to side, and her cheek burned where Victoria slapped it. Then it was over. She lay flat in her bed again, every sense alert to the rest of the drama being played out in her room.

  “I told you to get Miss Prudence up, you stupid girl,” Victoria snarled at the maid who stood thunderstruck and frightened in the doorway.

  “I get coffee, madam.” Clara’s English was tentative under the best of circumstances, her German accent thick now with the certainty that she’d done something wrong. Again.

  “Put the coffee down and go get a chair in the hallway. You’ll sit outside Miss Prudence’s door until we get back from church. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Then do it.”

  The door slammed shut behind Victoria. Prudence could hear the staccato rap of her heels across the corridor into her bedroom, then moments later her firm steps on the broad staircase to the main floor.

  It had worked; her plan had worked. Easter Sunday was the one day every employer made sure the household staff attended church without fail. The moral obligation to see to the spiritual welfare of their hirelings was satisfied early this year, April 1, 1888, just three weeks after the Great Blizzard. Every member of the MacKenzie staff would assemble in the servants’ hall to be inspected by Mrs. Barstow and Jackson before being shepherded out the door to their respective churches. And God help the servant who couldn’t recount an authentic-sounding version of the day’s sermon.

  The only thing Prudence hadn’t anticipated was Clara being ordered to sit outside her bedroom. She waited until the front door opened and closed, then stood at the window to see Victoria and Donald handed up into the carriage while the line of household help mounted the stairs from the kitchen areaway and trudged off along Fifth Avenue. Careful not to make a sound, she retrieved the laudanum bottle from where it had bounced off the wall. There were still a few drops inside. She dipped a spoonful of water from the glass by her bedside into the bottle, swishing the liquid around until she was sure it was well mixed, then poured it into the coffee Clara had brought upstairs for her young mistress.

  “Clara?” Prudence opened the bedroom door.

  “Yes, miss. Do you need, miss?”

  “No, nothing, thank you. But here, you can have the coffee, it’s still warm. I don’t want it. I’m going back to sleep.” When Clara had taken the cup and saucer from her outstretched hand, Prudence yawned, smiled sleepily, and closed the bedroom door again. She wasn’t sure how long she’d have to wait, but maids were always tired, they never got enough sleep, there was always too much for them to do. She’d seen Colleen struggling to stay alert as she went about her duties. Surely Clara, sitting in the stuffy hallway, believing Prudence to be asleep, and with a good few drops of laudanum in her, would doze off in ten or fifteen minutes. She stared at the ormolu clock on the mantel, willing the minute hand to move.

  When Prudence finally judged it safe to open the door, she heard soft, contented snoring and saw an overworked Clara slumped in her chair, chin pillowed on her chest.

  Donald’s room first. He was the more likely of the two to be careless and she couldn’t afford to waste time. Victoria would be drawn to the informal Easter Parade that meandered along Fifth Avenue, but Donald could just as easily refuse to accompany her. There was no predicting how long Clara would sleep. Taking off her soft slippers and sliding them into the pockets of the robe she’d put on over her nightdress, she went barefoot up the staircase to the third floor, hugging the stair rail and stepping close to the edge of each riser where the wood didn’t creak.

  Donald Morley hadn’t bothered to lock his bedroom door. Perhaps he never did. Prudence was inside before she could give herself a chance to change her mind. Despite Brian the footman’s best efforts, Donald was clearly a man who would always need to be picked up after. There was a general air of untidiness in his room that could only be achieved by someone who restlessly moved small items around from where they should be to somewhere else. A fresh cigar butt had been ground out in a crystal ashtray, a half-drunk glass of whiskey left beside it. Whiskey on Easter Sunday morning? It looked as though Donald had decided to change his cuff links at the last moment. The ebony box in which pairs of cuff links should be resting in velvet lined slots was overturned, its contents spilled haphazardly amidst a collection of odds and ends scattered atop the chest of drawers.

  She went first to the two tables beside the bed that had been carefully made before someone sat on it and rumpled the dark burgundy satin coverlet. Donald had emptied the contents of his pockets into the drawers. Not once, but many times. Coins, crumpled bills, dirty handkerchiefs, bent cigars, a flurry of calling cards, several pieces of what seemed to be sausage casing, buttons, and fragments of ripped and soiled lace. She looked at each of the calling cards, but none seemed to be more significant than what any gentleman collected at every new introduction. No writing on any of them. She closed that drawer, leaving the contents as stirred together as they were when she opened it. The table on the other s
ide of the bed held more of the same.

  Nothing in the pockets of the pants and jackets hanging in orderly rows in the armoire, nothing concealed under the piles of laundered and ironed undergarments, shirts, and handkerchiefs in the chest of drawers. She got down on hands and knees to peer under the bed, ran her hands beneath the mattress and behind the headboard. Still nothing. She tried to think of where she would hide something she wanted no one else to discover, remembering the secret drawer in the rolltop desk and the many folded map pages of the Lewis and Clark tome. Standing on a chair, she pulled each picture away from the wall, feeling from one side of a frame to the other for papers that might have been glued against the backing. Nothing. It looked as though Donald had no past at all, not a photo or scrap of a letter connecting him to any life before this one. She knew that if she were forced to move from one place to another, there would certainly be things she would be so loathe to leave behind that a spot would be found for them no matter how full her suitcase.

  Suitcase. There it was, shoved back against the wall on top of the tall armoire where the suits were hung and polished shoes and boots ranged in neat rows beneath. She knew as soon as she’d wrestled it down, standing on tiptoe on the chair, that she’d found what she’d been looking for. Even before she opened it, she knew.

  The rectangular suitcase was small and battered, stains like dark patchwork disfiguring the leather, brass clasps and locks blackened and unpolished. She thought it might once have been a gentleman’s overnight case; someone’s initials had been painstakingly etched into the leather. L.W. Either someone other than Donald had owned this case when it was new or Donald Morley had once gone by a different name. Hands trembling with anticipation, fumbling at the catches, she opened the suitcase. And nearly cried out in disappointment.