Death of a New American--A Novel

by Mariah Fredericks

  No, the day she died.

  I stopped walking. Reviewed in my head everything that had happened the day of our arrival, our welcome. Charles Tyler saying, “This is a happy house.” Smiles, hearty laughter, toasts to the couple, sly inquiries as to when a new arrival might make an appearance.

  And tears, yes, some tears, over a petty household problem. Not so strange, except when you considered that there must have been other tears to shed on the eve of the anniversary of their son’s death. But there had been no mention of it at all. Not even from the staff. It was as if any reference to the event were forbidden. What must it be like to have your heart bleed inside you while you smile and discuss the endless possibilities of orange blossom?

  It was time, I decided, to make my appearance at the party.

  * * *

  I saw Mabel wandering on the outskirts of the gathering. She was dressed in a lingerie dress with a wide yellow sash and short sleeves. It was a sweet, cheerful outfit, and Mabel was a sweet girl. But she was not cheerful. Her head was down and she swung her arms in an aimless, unhappy way as she made her way around the tree, slapping its bark in a halfhearted attempt at play.

  I approached. “Hello, Miss Mabel. Can I get you something?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  It was my inclination to leave people alone when they gave no indication of wanting company. But isolation wasn’t usually Mabel’s preference.

  “Is it nice, having your brothers home?”

  She nodded. “I told them about Sofia.”

  “They didn’t know?”

  “They said they did, but…” She frowned. “They didn’t talk about it, so I thought perhaps they didn’t. Nobody talks about it.”

  “I know.”

  “My grandmother didn’t want to talk about it either. She kept telling me to smile. I told her I didn’t feel like it, but she said that didn’t matter. I feel like everyone’s forgotten Sofia was ever here.”

  I leaned against the tree. “I’ll talk about her if you want. What’s the first thing you remember about her?”

  She stood beside me, keeping her hands behind her back to protect her dress from the tree bark. “I liked when she sang.”

  “Me, too. How did it go? ‘Fi la ninna…’”

  “Fa,” Mabel corrected me.

  “Fa la ninna, fa la nanna—”

  Mabel lowered her voice to basso levels. “Ninn-oh, ninn-oh.”

  “That’s it. Ninn-oh…” I went too deep and coughed.

  Mabel laughed. “You can’t sing at all.”

  “No. Sofia could sing.”

  “And she laughed. And she told you things, real things. One day she said straight out, Oh, Miss Mabel, I am having a terrible day. Today, I hate everyone except you. And she didn’t really mean she hated Frederick. Just that sometimes you want to … yell. Even if it is rude.”

  “Aha—” All of a sudden, we were in the whirlwind of Charles Tyler’s personality as he came out from behind the tree to snatch his daughter up. I smiled, expecting to hear Mabel laugh as her father pretended to be an elephant and swung her as if she were his trunk. “Here he is, the African pachyderm seeking out a drink. Is there water here?” He set her feet on the ground briefly before pulling her up. “There is not. Is there water here?” Again he set her down. “Wait, wait, I think I have it…”

  But Mabel pushed her father’s hands away and stepped out of reach.

  “Too old for the elephant game?” he said. “Poor old elephant. Well, maybe you’ll come have a dance, then.”

  “No, thank you, Father.” She kept her gaze on the ground. “I’m not feeling very well.”

  “Oh.” Charles Tyler was nonplussed at the combined oddities of rejection and ill health. “Then under this tree in the shade is probably the best place for you. Maybe Jane could get you some lemonade…”

  “I don’t want lemonade,” said Mabel.

  “All right,” said her father after a moment. Touching her hair, he said gently, “If my girl doesn’t want lemonade, it shall be against the law to give it to her.”

  He caressed her hair a little longer, watching the top of her bowed head with disquiet. I smiled at him—Well, children—and he offered me a quick smile back before saying to Mabel, “I’ll leave you be.”

  When he had gone, I asked, “Are you angry with your father, Mabel?”

  “No.” She leaned against the tree, looked off into the distance.

  “Is that what Sofia would say?”

  There was a long pause. Then I heard from around the tree, “He didn’t save her.”

  “Oh, Mabel.”

  “He saves people, that’s his job. He saved that little boy and he didn’t even know that little boy. He should have saved Sofia. She kept calling for him but he never came.”

  “She called for your father?”

  Mabel nodded.

  “Can you … I know it’s strange, but can you say it exactly the way you heard it?”

  She did. My heart stopped for a long moment.

  “Why didn’t he?” Now there were tears in her voice. “Men are supposed to save people.”

  “Mabel.”

  “Yes, Miss Prescott?”

  “Can I tell you something that I really think?”

  “Yes.”

  “People don’t always save you. They—men—don’t come to your rescue. Maybe they try, but they don’t always make it in time. Sometimes they can’t. And sometimes, they don’t even try. It’s not…” My voice caught. “It’s not something you can count on. You have to take care of yourself. Not now, but later when you’re older. And it’s not something to be afraid of. You’re very smart. And you’re strong. Remember what Mr. Behan said? You saved Freddy. That’s how strong you are.”

  I was no longer sure that Freddy had ever needed saving—at least, not in the way we’d all been told. But I needed to make Mabel understand that she shouldn’t make herself weak because others were supposed to be strong. In the distance, I heard Charles Tyler regale a rapt audience with his hunting stories. “… tiger—charged straight at me. Eyes flashing, fangs bared. Must have weighed more than five hundred pounds. Stood my ground, shot him square between the eyes. Wretched to have to kill such a splendid creature. I hated it. But it’s the only thing. Look the danger in the face and destroy it.”

  I heard Mabel say, “I like Mr. Behan. Can we visit him at his newspaper, like he said?”

  “I’m sure someone can take you. Maybe—”

  “No, I want you to come. I’ll see you, won’t I? At Cousin William’s?”

  I didn’t know how to tell this little girl that her world and everyone in it was about to change and there was very little that I could promise her.

  But then I wondered if perhaps she already knew that.

  * * *

  I went into the house in search of the courage to do what I knew I had to. Which was no less than to destroy the happiness of several people. Wanting to put Sofia firmly in mind, I went to the nursery floor. Reaching the landing, I thought for an awful, slippery moment, No. Leave it. What’s to be gained? No one really needs to know.

  But then I remembered Sofia’s hand, the few feet that formed a chasm between her and the baby she loved so much, between her and help. And that song, that silly song that I struggled to remember. I remembered her as pretty, but could not say what it was about her face that had made me think so. Her voice was low, I knew that. But … perhaps not? People fade so quickly, we lose them so easily.

  I turned the doorknob, pushed the door open. The nursery was now simply a room. Someone had removed the rug and done a halfhearted scrub of the walls. They had taken the blankets and toys, removed the crib.

  And of course they had shut the window. The curtains hung straight and still on either side. With the vague idea that perhaps I would discover that it did indeed open from the outside, or that there was a broken pane someone had missed, I approached. I looked up, I looked down. I looked side to side. But I saw nothing I had
not seen before. It was simply a closed window. Look beyond and there was the stretch of lawn far below. In the distance, the ring of trees that hid the kidnapper.

  Sighing in frustration, I sat on the window seat. And that was when I saw it. Right below the window. A glint of gemstone and the glitter of gold.

  Sliding off the seat, I crouched down to get a better look. Too small for a necklace, it had to be a bracelet. It was a fragile piece, designed not to overwhelm a lady’s slender wrist, but the jewels—they looked to be sapphires—would slide alluringly on her arm as she made a languid gesture. If she happened to have blue eyes, you would have to guard against the boringly obvious match …

  But blue-green eyes.

  The nursery, she never comes there …

  I heard the door close behind me and scrambled to my feet. Alva Tyler stared at me, stricken. Then she gripped her stomach and put her hand over her mouth as if she were going to be sick.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God, Jane…”

  She wheeled blindly toward the door, but finding it shut, groped her way to the changing table. Leaning heavily on it with one hand, she doubled over and cried out. A woman so desperate did not feel threatening, and I helped her to the rocker.

  “I’ll get you a glass of water,” I said.

  “No!” Her grip tightened on my wrist. “No, don’t leave me, please. Just … just let’s…”

  “We can be quiet,” I assured her. “Stay as we are. We don’t have to do anything.”

  Her mouth trembled into almost a smile. Then tears began to run down her cheeks.

  I kept my promise to stay, kneeling beside her as she wept. And I managed to keep my face open and calm when she said, “It sounds so terrible—it is so terrible—taking a life. But truly, truly, it seemed the only thing I could do at the time, the only way to make it … right. I didn’t feel I had a choice.”

  She turned her gaze to the window. “I tell myself now, Oh, you wouldn’t have really done it. But I would have.” She gripped my hand again. “I was going to go after, I wouldn’t have left him to go on his own. I would have been a good mother at the end, I swear it.”

  Her words were coming so fast, the truth behind them so unspeakable, it took some time for me to understand that we were now talking about a very different murder.

  She whispered, “Not like Johnny. He wouldn’t have died alone. I would never have left him.”

  I had one word and I barely breathed it. “Why?”

  She blinked into the distance and for a moment I thought I’d lost her. Then she said, “I never wanted a nanny, you know. I don’t like … people in the house. Mrs. Briggs is fine, she understands, but I don’t like being watched.”

  Yes, I thought, privacy would be essential to someone so fragile.

  “And I wanted Mabel for myself, you see. People told me I was wrong, told me I had far too much to do being Mrs. Charles Tyler and a mother of two boys. They all said, You’ll be exhausted, and I thought, Nonsense, I’m Alva Tyler. Even when Johnny came along and I was going to have Frederick, I thought, No, I’m fine. Mabel was five that spring, and you know, five … they’re very strong at five, children, strong-willed, and Johnny had just started walking.”

  Just started walking. A phrase I had heard from other mothers with such fondness and nostalgia. Now I thought I had never heard anything so ominous.

  “We loved to have them play on the grass, just … run wherever they wanted. It was a warm day. One of the kitchen girls, I don’t remember her name anymore, was doing the wash outdoors. She had a tub full of water. She went inside to get something. I was…” Her eyes closed as she remembered. “I was with Mabel on the front lawn. I was feeling a little … sick. She was having a tantrum over something, and I was trying very hard not to scream. I can’t remember what I said, or even what she was upset about. I just remember standing on the lawn, with a fist to my mouth, the world swaying and feeling it was all going to come out, the sick and the screaming and the…”

  She turned her eyes on me. “And I forgot. I forgot Johnny. It was only when the girl came back from the house and she found him…”

  Her voice twisted like a rag caught in two fists. “He…”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Tyler, I know.”

  “I wasn’t there,” she exhaled in a rush of anguish. “I wasn’t there, and he died. He died alone. I am not a mother, Jane. These poor children have no mother. I tried to tell Charles, but he wouldn’t listen. When Frederick came, he said, ‘Another baby, that’s what we need Alva, another baby to love.’ But I don’t. I can’t. Is there anything worse than a mother who does not love her children? Who has nothing to give them except … weakness? And despair?”

  “You have much more than that, Mrs. Tyler.”

  “I used to think so. When I had Mabel”—she broke into a true smile—“oh, I thought, my girl, my daughter, all the things I’ll show you. So many things we’ll do together. I saw us riding horses, scrambling over rocks, or just sitting together, making silly dreams about the future, but real ones, too. I thought for her, the dreams will be real. She’ll do things, she’ll break free—”

  “And she will, Mrs. Tyler.”

  “But then I was so tired. Not like before, but … bone tired. Like my blood had turned to lead. I couldn’t get up. For almost a year, I just lay in bed. The boys were fine with Charles and school. But poor Mabel! She would come to the door, ask me to read or braid her hair or play cards, and I couldn’t. I wanted to do so much, but I was so tired and I couldn’t. The sound of her voice made my head ache. The pull of her wanting all the time, I felt I would come apart.”

  “She loves you very much,” I said, thinking that would comfort her.

  “I know,” she said fretfully. “But—you’re not a mother, you can’t understand, but sometimes you feel, oh, it’s not really me they want, they don’t know me. They only know this thing called Mother who’s meant to do this and that and whatever else they want.” She pressed her fists to her temples. “You see? This is how awful I’ve become.”

  She was silent a long while. Then, still bent and gazing at the floor, she said in a lower voice, “I thought of not having him. I thought of … I don’t want to say, but … you’re an intelligent woman, Jane, you know what I thought.” Her mouth twisted in disgust. “But I didn’t. I brought that poor child into the world when no one wanted him.”

  Mabel loved him, I thought. And Sofia. But perhaps that was what Mrs. Tyler had meant when she called Sofia a thief. She had stolen that place in Frederick’s life that belonged to her. No matter that Mrs. Tyler was unable to claim it.

  “Surely Mr. Tyler loves him.”

  “Charles?” She smiled sadly. “Oh, Jane, really.”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but clearly to her it was so obvious it didn’t require explanation.

  “What happened that night, Mrs. Tyler?”

  “That night, I couldn’t sleep. It was…”

  “The anniversary, I saw.”

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about Johnny. He was such a fat, handsome boy. So gurgling and happy. Everyone said he was Charles without the mustache. I hadn’t”—she swallowed—“I hadn’t slept for days. Sometimes it feels like I haven’t slept since it happened. Sometimes I walk around the grounds. If the guards have ever seen me, lord knows what they think. I try to stay at the back.”

  I remembered the shadow figure I saw that first night we arrived.

  “That night I was at the back of the house and I heard Freddy crying. My heart just tore at the sound. I was convinced that he felt it, how I hadn’t wanted him. And I thought, I can’t let him endure this, it’s better if we go. I’ll take him out of all this and … end myself at the same time. I know it sounds horrible, but you can’t imagine how relieved I was. I thought we’ll just fly away. Somewhere quiet and I’ll hold him…”

  The footprint under the window, I thought, the too-small-for-a-man footprint. Of course, it was Alva’s foot.

/>   “I practically ran up to the nursery. Of course she was already there by the time I got there. I said, Let me have him, I’ll calm him. She wouldn’t give him to me, kept saying everything was fine and I should go back to bed.”

  I could imagine the state poor Mrs. Tyler had been in. No wonder Sofia had been reluctant to hand over the baby. I remembered our talk under the tree. All her questions about how well I knew the Tylers. She was trying to see if anyone but her realized how sick Alva Tyler was. She had tried to tell Charles Tyler not to trust someone—this man, that woman. I thought she meant Mr. Grimaldi or herself. But she was talking about his wife. No wonder he had been so angry.

  “I finally had to shout at her, He is my child and you will give him to me right now! She did, but she wouldn’t leave the room. She refused to leave us alone. I tried to be nice, saying, You know, you’re right, it really is too warm in here for him. And I opened the window…”

  Here her expression began to crack again. Her lip trembled and tears began to course down her face. “She asked me what I was doing, and I said, I am just opening this window. And … I don’t know … She stood in front of it, told me to give her the baby. I told her to get out of my way, I suppose I even tried to push my way through. We struggled, Freddy landed on the floor. He was screaming…”

  “Alva.”

  I jumped to see Charles Tyler standing at the door. In that moment, I had a flash of understanding, although it was not clear to me what I had learned.

  In a measured voice, he said, “Alva, come with me.”

  For a long moment, she stared at him. “Charles, there’s no point.”

  “You’re tired. Stop talking to Jane and come with me now.”

  “I cannot do this any longer. We have to tell the truth. You must tell the truth…”

  He had, I realized. Simply by standing there, Charles Tyler had revealed the final truth about that night.

  Standing up, I said, “Mrs. Tyler, I think Mr. Tyler is right. You should rest.” I gave Mr. Tyler a pointed look to indicate he and I were now allies, then told his wife, “You’ve done so much, it’s only natural to feel you can’t go on a minute longer.”