Louisa and the Country Bachelor : A Louisa May Alcott Mystery (9781101547564)

by Maclean, Anna

  “Do behave, and if you can’t, then leave us,” said Ida Tupper.

  He gave her a look that . . . well, if any of my family had given me such a look I would have turned to salt.

  “It seems we are not to speak of it now,” said Clarence Hampton, sitting down again.

  Uncle Benjamin came into the parlor with his spyglass jutting from his pocket.

  “They are disrupting the raven population,” he said. “Down where they ceased laying the train tracks and left the earth gashed, there was an old rookery down there, and now the birds are showing up everywhere.”

  “I hope they don’t roost in the chimney or the attic,” said Ida Tupper. “Clarence, you must go up there with boards and nails and make sure there are no holes.”

  Clarence nodded and stared out the window. Sylvia passed him the plate of biscuits, and he took one without even looking at her. Eliza’s housekeeper had said he was fast, but he seemed oddly immune to my friend’s appeal. His obvious indifference seemed even stranger, since his mother knew of Sylvia’s wealth and certainly had passed that information on to her son.

  Abba came in carrying a second pot of hot water for the teapot and announcing that her rhubarb had just come to a simmer and must be stirred, so she could not join us. She left as quickly as she had entered, with a briskness of step that bespoke dallying.

  “Rhubarb preserves,” said Ida Tupper. “It’s ever so long since I’ve had them. Wonderful blood tonic. I wonder if they are carried in town? I was doing my shopping this morning, and stopped in to pay my respects to my father-in-law, though he never returns the courtesy. I could have asked about rhubarb.” She barely took a breath between such disparate topics as ravens and roosts and relatives. “He has made a bid on Lilli Nooteboom’s lot. Do you think she will sell, Benjamin?”

  “I hear the Dutch are stubborn,” answered Uncle. “Ida, you mustn’t think of financial matters; it will bring on the migraine.”

  “You are right, Benjamin,” she answered meekly. “I have a husband and son and brother to think about such matters for me. I think women who understand money are so masculine.”

  Clarence Hampton made that odd laugh once again.

  “Mrs. Tupper, how is your brother’s health today?” I asked, wishing I could redirect the conversation to the science of geology and knowing she would not allow it. Etiquette was quite strict on what was permitted for discussion in the parlor and what was not. Talk of the new science, like politics, like finance, was reserved for other areas of domestic life, for that magic hour when the men rose from the table and went to the porch or to the den with their brandy and cigars. Oh, how I envied them that hour.

  “Poor, poor man. He is not better, Louisa, thank you for asking. He is much in need of nursing. In fact, I should be going now. It is time for his afternoon bowl of broth, and he will take it from no hands but my own.” She rose with much fussing and smoothing of skirts and patting of curls into place. “Come along, Clarence, since you are not in a social mood.”

  Clarence woke as if from a dream. His gaze lingered on Sylvia in belated acknowledgment of her. He rose and took her hand, placing a kiss on the fingertips. Sylvia blushed.

  I saw mother and son to the door.

  “Forgive me if I seem indiscreet, but it seemed to me you were in a moment of discord when I arrived in the parlor,” I said to them. “Is there a matter in which I may be of assistance?”

  Mr. Hampton gave me a long, steady look. The fire in his eyes calmed; his face grew composed, almost masklike. “I had just told Mother I had entered an arrangement to collect fossils for private collectors,” he said. “She disapproves.”

  “Hardly the work for a gentleman,” she added. “All that digging. He will ruin his hands.”

  “Oh, families are just horrid!” Sylvia exclaimed when I returned to the parlor. “How mean of Confucius to say that filial piety is the root of humanness.” She stomped from the room.

  Uncle Benjamin stared after her, amazed. “What a strange girl. Have I offended her?”

  I gave him a quick hug. “Not you,” I said. “She has developed an aversion, I think, to teatime, since it often seems to produce bachelors along with the tea tray.”

  “Well, she’d be better off not thinking of Clarence Hampton in that way.” Benjamin stood and tapped his walking stick on the floor for emphasis.

  “Why do you say that, Uncle?” I asked.

  “He’s even stranger than Miss Sylvia, a real handful, coming and going at all hours, mucking about on the mountain digging for fossils instead of taking up a real career. Amateur scientist. I never. But his mother won’t say a word against him, even when he sulks all day. I suspect he’s jealous. That young man cannot abide it when his mum caters to another. She’s warned me. He had tantrums as a tot.”

  So Clarence was one of those men who required all their mother’s attention? How had he felt when his mother had married? What were the relations between Clarence and his absent stepfather?

  “I’ve seen a tintype of Mr. Jonah Tupper, Ida’s husband,” I said. “He seems young.”

  “He is,” Uncle Benjamin said. “A callow youth. Ida and Jonah met at the Fourth of July celebration last year. She and her brother had taken a house for the summer, for the country air, she said. Well. Jonah and Ida are young. They eloped. Louy, promise you’ll never elope. It shames the family.”

  “I promise,” I said, refraining from pointing out that Ida, the “young” bride, already had a grown son at the time of her elopement.

  I sipped my tea. It had gone cold. I drank it anyway.

  “Ida made a bad choice,” Benjamin continued. “Young Tupper turned out to be a scoundrel, up and left. Wouldn’t be surprised if he has a girlfriend or two in other counties. My dear, I shouldn’t be speaking of such matters with you. Abba would be furious with me. You are much too young.”

  “I am grown and I have heard sadder stories in Boston.”

  “Young Jonah packed his valise and travel samples in November, and hasn’t set foot in Walpole since. Have you ever seen the samples they make for bells? Tiny, dollhouse size, but the sound is . . .” Uncle rambled on, and I followed my own train of thoughts.

  “Did Clarence and his stepfather get along?” I asked. Uncle stopped in midsentence. He had still been speaking of bells.

  “No. Clarence seems to get along only with pretty young women.” Uncle Benjamin sighed. “He’s helpful for chores and mending the steps and such—that is, when he’s down from the mountain—but a moodier young man I’ve never known. He kicks cats, and you know what I think of men who kick cats. You’ve met Clarence, my dear,” Uncle said, “and if you have an ounce of sense you’ll keep clear, and your friend will, as well.”

  “We will stay clear, thank you,” I said.

  “Clear of what?” asked Father, who came in just then, mindless of time and wondering when tea would be put out.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Confrontation in the Forest

  PROMISES ARE DIFFICULT to keep, though I broke my pledge to Uncle to “steer clear” in a form neither of us anticipated. Curiosity about Mr. Hampton’s campsite, and its proximity to that place from which Ernst Nooteboom had fallen, led to another unexpected encounter with Clarence Hampton.

  Friday of that week I finished my morning run in the ravine with considerable energy still left. I thought often of Mr. Nooteboom and regretted his untimely demise in such a beautiful place. But it was beautiful, and if one avoided places where death had occurred . . . well, there would be few places we could inhabit in this world.

  The evening before, Ida Tupper had come over for another knitting lesson from Abba, and had said something about being lonely because Clarence had taken the barge up to Charleston for some supplies not available in Walpole. She expected him to be gone several days, for he would probably do some fossil digging there, as well.

  I used the opportunity of his absence to hike up the ravine to his camp. I hid behind thick trees for several mome
nts, watching for signs of occupation and activity. There were none. The stone-ringed campfire was black and damp-looking; the blankets that would have been airing in the sun, the pots, all the detritus of human activity were out of sight, probably stored inside the brown oil tent while their owner was away. I came out from behind my tree and approached the tent.

  Boldly I pulled the flap and, on my knees, peered inside. I remembered my childhood yearning to be a boy as I studied that tidy interior, with the brightly striped camp blankets folded over a thin mattress made of straw, the shining pots hanging from a chain, clanging in the slightest breeze, the lantern next to the mattress, and the pile of books there, waiting to be read. How lovely to sleep in the open, undisturbed except by the call of the owl or the nightingale!

  Reluctantly I let the flap drop and backed out of it on my knees, a strong sense of trespass making my cheeks feel hot.

  I walked around the tent, which was solidly anchored some twenty yards from the edge of the cliff, where a thicket of bushes and trees obscured the view. Still, it did not seem possible that Ernst Nooteboom could fall (or be pushed?) from there and not have that fall be witnessed by Mr. Hampton, if Mr. Hampton were in his camp that morning.

  Had he been? His mother had said he was out of town.

  I paced, hands behind my back, studying the ground and finding nothing unexpected, only footprints going back and forth from tent to campfire, footprints coming and going from the path that led to this secluded place. There were no signs of violence, nothing on which my imagination could concentrate or focus. If only I knew what to look for!

  I sat under an ancient oak, enjoying its filtered light, the cool feel of the air that swirled under its thick canopy of leaves. My eyes closed of their own accord.

  A hand clamped roughly onto my shoulder and pulled me to my feet.

  “What are you doing here, Miss Alcott?” Clarence Hampton, his face just inches from mine, was furious. His green eyes glinted dangerously. He shook me with such vigor that my head snapped back and his fingers tore into my arms.

  For a moment I felt true fear. If I screamed I would be heard by nobody. Only the chattering squirrels and chirping birds were close enough to heed my cries. Then common sense prevailed, and surfacing up came the courage and outrage required for self-preservation.

  “Mr. Hampton, unhand me,” I said calmly. And to make my point, I brought up both my arms at once and broke his hold on me. It was a street trick I had learned from a Boston urchin who had tried to pinch my reticule. (Instead, the child let me buy him a raisin bun and sugar water in exchange for conversation and a few demonstrations of his singular talents.)

  Mr. Hampton and I stood, separated only by inches, glaring and trembling, he in anger and I in outrage. A gentleman does not put his hands on a lady in that manner. And then, of course, it occurred to me: Clarence Hampton was not a gentleman. He dressed well and spoke well, but those are easily acquired arts. His origins were elsewhere. His mother, Ida Tupper, was evidence, for she was no lady.

  He was the first to drop his eyes, finding as an excuse the need to straighten his hat, which had been knocked askew. Oh, reader, how deep is the heart! I felt pity for him!

  “Forgive me,” he said with a complete lack of repentance. “You took me by surprise. It is not wise for a woman to be here alone. This can be a dangerous place.”

  “So I have heard.” I straightened my own tilted cap.

  He reached up and tucked a lock of loosened hair back under it. “I rather prefer this morning attire to your afternoon tea frock,” he said gently. “But tell me, Miss Louisa, what are you doing here?” He carried a string of trout over his shoulder, and his trousers were damp at the ankles. He had been fishing, not taking the barge to Charleston. I made a note to pay little attention to anything Mrs. Tupper said.

  There was no response I could make that would not aggravate the situation. If I lied, he would see it was a lie. If I admitted to a curiosity about the matter of Ernst Nooteboom’s death so close to his campsite, that would hardly soothe the situation. So I said only, “Sorry to have intruded.” I walked away, feeling his eyes bore into my back. It was difficult to walk slowly and calmly, rather than break into a run.

  “Miss Louisa!” he called, his voice having resumed its cynical tones. “Miss Louisa, I really mean you no harm. But you would be safer to avoid this place.”

  It could have been a well-meant warning about the dangers of trekking alone so far from town. It could have been a threat.

  THAT SECOND ENCOUNTER with Ida Tupper’s son only increased my curiosity about her household, and I decided it was time to pay a call on her brother, the invalid. Courtesy required it of me, after all. We were neighbors.

  “Let me guess,” said Sylvia, when I asked her to accompany me that afternoon. “To meet Mrs. Tupper’s brother.”

  “Excellent. And how do you come to that knowledge?”

  Sylvia grinned. “Because it is the place I least wish to visit.”

  The Tupper house, immediately next door to our cottage, was whitewashed, with a huge front porch and stained-glass windows. It was large, very large, I thought, for a family of four: Ida, Jonah, and her son and brother, especially considering that the son and husband seemed rarely at home. Ida, judging from her stylish afternoon gowns, exotically feathered hats, and habit of name-dropping (“I had tea with Mrs. Bellows, my dear, such an old sweetie. She has promised to introduce me to the governor, when next he is in Walpole!”), had great expectations.

  I pulled the doorbell. It took a very long time for the housekeeper to answer. She was a young girl—very young for the position, it seemed to me, and somewhat simple of mind. Abba would not have approved of such an arrangement; the child still belonged with her mother.

  “Yes, miss?” she said with a curtsy, holding the door only partly open and gazing up at me with huge eyes. “The missus ain’t at home.”

  “Is Mr. . . .” I faltered. “I am here to see Ida Tupper’s brother,” I said, realizing I did not know his name.

  “ ’Cor,” cooed the little housekeeper, making her eyes even larger. “No one comes to see ’im!”

  “Well, it would seem we are here to rectify that oversight. Announce us, please, my dear. And, miss, what is his name?”

  I thought her brown eyes would fall out, so large had they become. “Mr. Wattles, miss. Mr. Jonathon Wattles. Wait here.”

  With much turning and looking over her shoulder, the little housekeeper made her slow way down the long hall and disappeared through a door at the end of it. I heard mumbling and exclamations; a thud that indicated a piece of furniture had been knocked into or even turned over, much rustling of paper and scraping of chairs on floors.

  A full ten minutes later the child housekeeper came back out and signaled that we were to come down the hall and enter. She curtsied again and closed the door after we had entered that room.

  It smelled as all invalids’ rooms smell, of lavender and mint compresses and the more stringent scent of a body that has not had enough fresh air and sunshine. The curtains were even more tightly drawn than in the waking room at Mrs. Roder’s boardinghouse. I could barely see. When my eyes adjusted I made out, in the darkest corner, a chaise and a figure on it, wrapped in blankets despite the warmth of the afternoon.

  “Forgive the dreary atmosphere,” said an old man’s quavering voice, “but the light hurts my eyes.” He coughed, and a spasm seemed to shake the breath out of him. “I am afraid a mistake has been made. My nephew, Mr. Hampton, is not at home, nor is his mother. Annie should have told you.”

  “I have come to make your acquaintance, sir,” I said. “I have the house opposite and wanted to make myself known to you, as your new neighbor.”

  “How kind!” He beamed. “I never have company. Come sit by me, my dear. You are my new neighbor? Ida has mentioned you.”

  “I hope my visit does not inconvenience you. Yes, I am Miss Louisa Alcott of Boston, visiting for the summer with Mr. Benjamin Willis
and his family. This is my good friend Sylvia Shattuck.” I approached and sat on a chair opposite. It was an old-fashioned ladder-back chair such as the kind used in waiting rooms and offices, designed not for comfort but to keep visits short.

  “No inconvenience at all,” he said, and another cough shook his body. He was silver-haired and elderly, with a beautifully groomed white beard flowing over his chest. Ida’s mother must have borne sister and brother with many years between them, but that was not uncommon.

  “Shall I ring for tea?” the gentleman asked.

  “Don’t bother. I see you are trying to rest. I know you have recently returned from a journey to Boston, and must be greatly fatigued. But I brought a gift, since we are neighbors.” I smiled, and my smile was returned, though his was a tight, close-lipped smile.

  “Rhubarb preserves.” He accepted the jar with reluctance. “Generous of you, very generous. My digestion does not allow such delicacies, but I’m sure Ida will enjoy it on her evening toast. Be a dear and put it on the table there. I will give it to her when she returns.” He coughed. “Don’t be afraid, child. Come closer,” he said to Sylvia, who had hung back. Sylvia took two steps closer.

  “Do you play?” I asked, spying a large cabinet piano in the corner.

  His laugh had a dreary ring to it. “I used to. Now my hands are useless.” He brought one out briefly from under the blanket and it had a clawlike quality to it. “Rheumatism.” He sighed.

  “I am sorry. It must pain you.”

  “Especially when it rains. But I must not complain. I have my sister. She plays for me, and reads to me until her voice gives out.” His smile was resigned. “My nephew attempts to amuse me with his fossils.”

  “You must happily anticipate Mr. Jonah Tupper’s return, to provide you with companionship,” I said.

  “I must,” he agreed with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm. He seemed disinclined to pursue a conversation. Many invalids, when left alone too often, lose the art of conversation. He yawned.