by P. B. Ryan
A futile command. Nell followed him as he sprinted through the foyer and down the hallway, surprisingly light on his feet. The hiss grew louder, the smell stronger, a thick stench that made Nell’s nostrils flare, her gorge rise.
Cook stared unblinkingly into the dining room, closed his eyes, crossed himself.
“Oh, God,” Nell moaned as she approached.
“Miss Sweeney—” Cook turned and seized her, kicking and flailing, in his bearish grasp. “I don’t think you want to—” He swore as one of her fists caught him in the nose.
A wail rose from her when she saw him, hanging by a belt from that titanic, searingly bright chandelier, his body limp and reeking, his blackened face grotesquely distorted. He wore the old sack coat he’d had on when he’d let her off at the Tremont Temple last night, no tie. One of the dining chairs lay on its side beneath him, along with his cap, which he’d no doubt tossed off during his death throes.
“Jack!” The scream, hoarse and despairing, seemed to come from somewhere else, from all around her. It reverberated in her skull, squeezed her stomach until the floor slammed into her knees and she found herself wretching onto that beautiful Axminster carpet.
“There, now, Miss Sweeney,” soothed Detective Cook as he helped her to her feet and walked her, jittery and weeping, to the front stoop, where the air was bracing and the sun almost as bright as that hellish, hissing chandelier...
But not quite.
“Sit here,” he said, pushing her gently downward onto the top step. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
He returned less than a minute later, sat next to her, and handed her a letter.
“What is this?” she asked numbly.
“It was sticking out of his coat pocket.”
Feb. twenty-two 1868
I, Jonathan Leopold Thorpe, hereby declare that I am solely responsible for the death of the merchant sailor known as Ernest Tulley, as well as that of Dr. William Lindleigh Hewitt, also known as William Touchette, who took his life rather than be hanged for a crime I was too craven to acknowledge as my own. I make this declaration freely and attest to its veracity before Almighty God. May He have mercy on my unworthy soul.
Jonathan Leopold Thorpe
o0o
April 1868
Cambridge, Massachusetts
He was still there.
Nell had first noticed him about five minutes into the graveside service, a spectral figure in the dense morning mist, shadowed by a massive, newly-leafed oak at the far edge of Mount Auburn Cemetery. He’d stood unmoving as Jack Thorpe’s coffin was lowered into the earth, although he was much too far away to hear Reverend Nicholson’s remarks.
Six weeks had passed since Jack’s death, but the ground had been too frozen until now for him to be laid to rest in the family plot. Leo Thorpe’s influence was such that the nature of his son’s passing, not to mention his written confession of murder, never became public knowledge. Indeed, his own mother and sisters had been spared the unseemly details, having been informed, along with the rest of Boston, that Jack had succumbed to a ruptured appendix. The murder charge against William Touchette, missing and presumed dead, had been dropped and the case quietly shelved.
Viola, although dismayed by Nell’s having wrongly accused Harry of murder, had been grateful enough for her efforts on Will’s behalf to beg her husband to re-hire her. He stubbornly refused; this, Nell had expected. What she hadn’t expected—what had stunned her as much as it had stunned Mr. Hewitt—was for Viola to threaten to divorce him and return to England, even going so far as to consult an attorney. It would be scandalous, but when had Viola Hewitt ever minded being talked about? Nell had her job back within forty-eight hours of losing it.
Harry was a good deal less forgiving than his mother, despite Nell’s formal apology delivered in the presence of his parents and Martin. Outraged over her continued employment in the Hewitt household, he bucked Brahmin tradition by moving out of his parents’ home and into number ten Commonwealth Avenue, which he rented on very favorable terms from Leo Thorpe.
“It’s the perfect day for this,” said Viola as Mrs. Bouchard wheeled her down the brick path toward their waiting brougham, both women in black mourning gowns, as was Nell.
Mrs. Bouchard cast a dubious glance at the back of her employer’s head. “I’ll take New Orleans in April any day.”
Mr. Hewitt, normally not one to tolerate Mrs. Bouchard’s casual impertinences, added a bemused little hmph to that assessment. “Only an Englishwoman would call such a dreary morning perfect.”
“A young man has just been laid to rest,” Viola said. “One ought not to do such a thing when the sun is shining.”
“Point taken, my dear.”
In fact, Nell thought, it was as if two young men had been laid to rest this morning, for William Hewitt was almost certainly just as dead. In fact, many of Reverend Nicholson’s observations about Jack—particularly the tragic irony of his having been taken so young after surviving the war—were just as applicable to Will, for whom there had almost certainly been no eulogy. In all likelihood he lay in some pauper’s graveyard somewhere, an unidentified corpse with no one to claim him, his death owing as much to crippling regret as to morphine. Nell had lit dozens of vigil candles at church these past six weeks, offered up scores of prayers for Will’s immortal soul—yet still she wept at night.
But when at last she drifted into sleep, he would be reborn, in uneasy, complicated dreams from which she would awaken in a state of feverish melancholia, a whiff of opium lingering in the air like perfume.
Such an extraordinary man, felled—as Jack had been—by his darkest memories, and the self-loathing that came of having survived them.
“Viola...August,” greeted Eugenia Thorpe through her nearly opaque weeping veil of black crepe—the most voluminous Nell had ever seen—as she approached them on the arm of her husband Leo, who looked remarkably old and stooped. “Thank you so much for coming.”
“We loved Jack as if he were our own son,” said Viola, one of the few people who knew the true circumstances of his death, because Nell had told her.
The two couples exchanged condolences and comments about the service and the weather while Nell and Mrs. Bouchard, both long accustomed to de facto invisibility, stood quietly by. Cecilia Pratt, chatting with her parents about twenty yards away, drew Eugenia Thorpe’s attention with that glass-popping giggle of hers. Lowering her voice, Mrs. Thorpe remarked that a young woman attending the burial of her fiancé should know better than to wear sapphires with her mourning black—especially sapphires given to her by the deceased’s replacement.
A movement in the distance caught Nell’s attention as the Thorpes were taking their leave. She looked that way to find the man who’d been standing under the big oak coming toward them. A tall, lean figure in black cutaway and top hat, he had a slightly stiff, almost stately gait that made Nell’s lungs pump a little harder because it was so familiar, so much like...
“Oh, my God,” she whispered as he came nearer, his gaze shifting from her to Viola, then back to her. “Oh, my God,” she repeated on a tremulous, disbelieving little laugh.
“Nell?” Viola reached out to her. “Darling, what’s...?” Tracking Nell’s gaze, she watched her firstborn son, the son she’d twice given up for dead, materialize out of the gloom. She breathed his name, braced her hands on the arms of her Merlin chair and struggled to rise.
“Careful there, Mrs. Hewitt.” Mrs. Bouchard helped Viola to her feet, unfolded the two canes one-handed, and crossed herself, her gaze fixed on Will as he approached.
“Ladies.” Will tipped his hat and bowed to the three women, his eyes lingering a moment on Nell, then nodded to his grim-faced father. “Sir.”
A slight thinning of the mouth was August Hewitt’s only response.
“Will.” With the aid of her canes, Viola took a quavering step toward the son she hadn’t seen in over four years, her eyes damp, smile wobbly. Taking both canes in o
ne hand, she reached out to Will, who hesitated a moment before stepping forward.
“Ma’am.” He allowed her to touch his cheek, remove his hat, stroke his hair.
“My baby... I don’t believe it.” Viola laughed as the tears fell. “I thought you were dead. Nell said...” She turned toward Nell, upsetting her balance.
Will caught his mother by the arms before she could fall. “Easy,” he murmured, lowering her gently into the Merlin chair as Mrs. Bouchard pushed it forward. He unfolded a handkerchief and handed it to his mother.
“It’s been a shock to her,” Mr. Hewitt said, “seeing you again. You might have thought of that before you decided to just reappear like this, out of the blue, with no warning whatso—”
“Oh, honestly, August,” Viola said as she dabbed her cheeks with Will’s handkerchief. “I’ve never been so thrilled to see anyone in my life. It wasn’t the shock that made me stumble—it was these withered old legs of mine.”
“Do you still keep a wheelchair on every floor of the house?” Will asked.
“Yes, and it’s bloody tiresome, I can tell you, hobbling up and down stairs with those canes. The older I get, the harder it seems.”
“That might just be a delayed effect of the infantile paralysis. Some people become weak and achy years later.” Turning to his father, Will said, “Have you considered installing an elevator for her?”
“In the house? No, by Jove, I certainly have not! They tried to get me into one of those contraptions at the Fifth Avenue Hotel last year, when I was in New York, but I climbed to the top floor on the strength of my own legs, thank you very much. Wouldn’t be caught dead in one.”
“How fortunate for you, then,” Will said dryly, “that you’ve got such fine, strong legs.”
Viola and Mrs. Bouchard both looked to be biting their lips, as was Nell, who exchanged a quick, amused glance with Will.
Blood flooded August Hewitt’s translucent white skin, turning it a rather startling pink. “You’re as insolent as ever, but I don’t know what else I would expect. I confess I’m at a loss as to why my Robbie should have been taken so young, while someone like you gets to live. God knows you’re not half the man he was.”
“On that, at least,” Will said, “we can agree.” He nodded in turn to Viola and her nurse—”Mother...Mrs. Bouchard...”—and then to Nell. “Miss Sweeney,” he said with that coolly intimate little smile of his, “always a pleasure.”
“You aren’t leaving!” Viola exclaimed as he turned and left. “Will, please! At least tell us where you’re staying.”
Smiling over his shoulder, he said, “You should know by now not to ask me that.”
Nell watched him walk away until he was just a small dark spot against a wet-on-wet ink wash of trees at the edge of the cemetery...and then she couldn’t make him out at all. How could he just appear from the mist and then dissolve back into it, she wondered, with no explanations, when for six long weeks, she’d thought he was—
“Look,” said Mrs. Bouchard. “He forgot his hat.”
Will’s top hat, the low-crowned, roll-brimmed type he preferred, lay on the brick path where it had fallen earlier; he’d walked away bareheaded, and everyone had been too preoccupied to notice, even him. Mrs. Bouchard picked it up and dusted it off. Taking a step in Will’s direction, she said “I’ll just—”
“Nell will bring it to him,” Viola said.
“But I don’t mind—”
“Neither does Nell.” Snatching the hat out of her nurse’s hand, Viola gave it to Nell. “Go! We’ll be waiting in the brougham.”
Nell returned her smile, lifted her black skirts and sprinted across the cemetery, dodging headstones, until she reached the small patch of woods that had swallowed Will up. “Dr. Hewitt!”
She wandered farther into the thicket, out of breath, heart hammering, trying to make out anything in the damp haze. “Dr. Hewitt!” She groaned in frustration, muttering, “Damn it, Will...”
There came a deep chuckle from behind her.
Wheeling around, she saw him several yards away, standing with his weight on his good leg, a cigarette in his hand.
“Such unladylike language, Cornelia. Good for you.”
She walked toward him, still breathless, the hat in her outstretched hand. “You forgot this.”
“Nonsense.” He took it from her, tucking it under his arm with a smile. “A gentleman never forgets his hat.”
It took her a moment to digest his meaning, and then she smiled, too. The hat had been a ruse; he’d wanted to see her alone.
She said, “It’s good to see you, Dr. Hewitt. I thought you were dead.”
He crushed his cigarette underfoot. “You called me ‘Will’ before.”
“Yes, well...” She looked out through the trees at the irregular rows of tombstones, dry gray stumps fading into a watery gray background.
“Yes, well...” he gently mocked. “When one has gone through as much trouble as you have to save a man’s life—even if it’s as pointless a life as mine—it seems rather silly to be on such formal terms.” A quiet gravity replaced his smile. “Please give me this. I know I haven’t earned it, but...”
“Yes.” Something in his demeanor—that earnest, frank request, his eyes so boyish, almost needful—touched her with unexpected force. “Yes—” Her throat closed; she cleared it. “I would like it if you called me by my Christian name.”
He smiled, gave her a little bow. “Thank you, Nell.”
The implication was that they’d be dealing with each other again, but Nell couldn’t imagine under what circumstances their paths would cross.
“Why did you come here today?” she asked, “if you weren’t going to stand close enough to hear the service?”
He ducked his head, rubbed the back of his neck. “I wanted to be there when Jack was buried. I just didn’t...I didn’t think I could deal with seeing my parents again.”
“What made you change your mind?”
Will shrugged, looked away. “Perhaps it was seeing you there, knowing I wouldn’t be facing them alone.” He looked back at her.
She looked down, fussed with her glove buttons. “Where have you been these past weeks? You bought all that morphine and disappeared. I thought—”
“You knew about the morphine?” he asked. “How...?”
“Mr. Maynard told me.”
He closed his eyes, muttered something under his breath. “I didn’t want you having to bring me Black Drop on death row. It wasn’t fair to you—I knew how you felt about it. So I concocted this oh-so-scientific plan to wean myself off opium before the trial. Decreasing doses of its primary active ingredient—morphine—by injection.”
“Did it work?”
“I’m still dependent on it, but I’ve reduced my need, and I’ve stopped smoking gong altogether.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” she said, wondering if he would slide back into his old ways now that there was no stint on death row to prepare for. “Where did you go? Jack and I looked all over Boston for you.”
He gave her a surprisingly diffident little smile. “Don’t think me bourgeois, but I actually have a little place out in the country—upstate New York, the Finger Lakes.”
“You?”
“I won it in a game of lansquenet. It’s just an unassuming little cottage, but it’s right on Skaneateles Lake. I rather like the sound of the waves slapping the shore when I’m falling asleep at night.”
Lansquenet? She said, “I assume you know that Jack’s father has managed to obliterate all trace of his confession. No one will ever find out what really happened.”
“That’s as it should be. Jack paid the price for his sin, as did Ernest Tulley. That should be the end of it.”
Interesting, she thought, that a man who seemed relatively contemptuous of religion should speak so casually of sin. She said, “I’ve worked some of it out in my mind, but I can’t quite figure out what Jack was doing with you at Flynn’s that night.”
“Drinking whiskey.” Will leaned back against a tree, lit a cigarette.
“No, I mean—”
“I know what you mean. The first time I ran into Jack after Andersonville was the day they hanged Henry Wirz at the Old Capital Prison in Washington. They were issuing tickets for that particular show, and I’d made it my business to get one. Ernest Tulley could never have worked his evil if Wirz hadn’t looked the other way. Jack noticed me in the crowd, and later, after a couple of beers, I asked him if he wouldn’t mind forgetting he’d ever seen me. He said, ‘Of course, old man,’ without even asking why. He understood instinctively. I always appreciated that.”
“So you stayed in touch and ended up spending that Saturday evening together at Flynn’s,” she said.
“The early part of the evening went pretty much as I’ve already told you—seeing Tulley, pulling him off the girl... But then Jack showed up, and by that time I was pretty far gone on gong, and I blurted out the whole story—about Tulley killing Robbie, and how he’d been there earlier and left. I pointed out that other fellow who looked like Tulley...”
“Roy Noonan?”
“Him, yes. I said, ‘That’s what he looks like. Let me know if he comes back.’ I wanted Tulley tried and hanged by the War Department. I thought he should die as Wirz had died—publicly shamed, kicking and choking. Jack, though...” Will shook his head. “He was drunk even before he got there, and my story about Robbie really lit his fuse. He’d loved Robbie like a brother, and he always felt as if he’d abandoned him when he retreated with the regiment instead of letting himself be captured.”
“I know. That’s absurd, though.”
On a plume of smoke, Will said, “People are absurd, Nell. Anyway, Jack was...not himself that night. He thought we should take matters into our own hands.”
“Kill Tulley.”
Will nodded. “Avenge Robbie ourselves, like men—that was how he viewed it. I think he wanted to prove something, and he saw this as the way. He was so soused I didn’t think he could possibly pull it off—that was my second mistake. I smoked myself into my usual coma and awoke to the sounds of a scuffle out in the alley. It seems Jack had been looking out the window and saw Tulley come back. He grabbed my bistoury, went out to the alley and...” He shrugged and took a draw on his cigarette.
