“We should go down to meet him.” He came back to the bed. “I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to say this. So let me say it now.” He knelt down on the floor beside her and took her hand in his. “I love you, Rose Connolly, and I want to spend my life with you. I want to marry you. If you’ll have me.”
She stared at him through tears. “I will, Norrie. Oh, I will.”
He pressed her palm to his and smiled at Aurnia’s trinket of a ring, which never left her finger. “And I promise that the next ring you wear,” he said, “won’t be a sad bit of tin and glass.”
“I don’t care about a ring. I only want you.”
Laughing, he pulled her into his arms. “You’ll be an easy wife to support!”
A loud knock made them both stiffen. The old woman’s voice called through the door: “Mr. Wilson has arrived. He needs to return at once, to Boston, so the young lady had best come downstairs.” The old woman’s footsteps thumped back down the stairs.
Norris looked at Rose. “I promise you, this is the last time we’ll ever part,” he said. “But now, love, it’s time.”
Thirty-two
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES sat in Edward Kingston’s parlor, listening to Kitty Welliver on his left and to her sister, Gwendolyn, on his right, and decided that being imprisoned in Hell would be far more tolerable. Had he known that the Welliver sisters were visiting Edward today, he would have stayed away—at least ten days’ ride away. But once one has set foot in the house of one’s host, it is the height of rudeness to immediately flee from it, screaming. At any rate, by the time he considered that option, it was too late, for Kitty and Gwen had leaped up from the chairs where they had been so prettily perched, and each had snagged an arm by which they pulled Wendell into the parlor, like hungry spiders hauling in their next meal. Now I’m truly done for, he thought, as he balanced a cup of tea on his lap, his third this visit. He was trapped here for the rest of the afternoon, and it was a matter of waiting to see whose bladder reached its bursting point first, forcing its owner to end the visit.
The young ladies, alas, appeared to have bladders of iron, and they cheerfully sipped cup after cup of tea as they gossiped with Edward and his mother. Not wishing to encourage them, Wendell remained mostly silent, which bothered the girls hardly at all, since they scarcely paused long enough for him to get in a word anyway. If one sister did pause, say, to draw breath, the other cut right in with some fresh gossip or catty observation, a truly marathon stream of words limited only by the need to inhale.
“She said it was a truly horrid crossing and she almost died of it. But then I spoke to Mr. Carter, and he said it was nothing, just a small Atlantic storm. So you see, she’s exaggerating again—”
“—as usual. She always exaggerates. Like the time she insisted that Mr. Mason was a world-famous architect. Then we found out he’d built one little opera house in Virginia, quite an unimpressive work, I’m told, and certainly not on the level of Mr. Bulfinch…”
Wendell suppressed a yawn and stared out the window as the sisters rambled on about people he could not have cared less about. There’s a poem in this somewhere, he thought. A poem about useless girls in pretty dresses. Dresses sewn by other girls. Invisible girls.
“…and he assured me that bounty hunters will catch up with him eventually,” said Kitty. “Oh, I knew there was something unsavory about him. I could sense the evil.”
“So could I!” said Gwen with a shudder. “That morning in church, sitting beside him—why, it gave me the chills.”
Wendell’s attention snapped back to the sisters. “Are you talking about Mr. Marshall?”
“Of course we are. It’s all anyone’s been talking about. But you’ve been in Cambridge the last few days, Mr. Holmes, so you’ve missed all the gossip.”
“I heard quite enough of it in Cambridge, thank you.”
“Is it not shocking?” said Kitty. “To think we dined and danced with a murderer? And such a murderer? To slice off someone’s face! Cut out someone’s tongue!”
I know two women’s tongues I’d like to cut out.
“I’ve heard,” said Gwen, her eyes bright with excitement, “that he has an accomplice. An Irish girl.” She lowered her voice to say the scandalous word: “An adventuress.”
“You have heard nonsense!” snapped Wendell.
Gwen stared at him, shocked by his blunt rebuttal.
“You silly girls have no idea what you’re talking about. Either of you.”
“Oh, dear,” Edward’s mother quickly interjected, “I do believe the teapot’s empty. I think I should call for more.” She picked up a bell and vigorously rang it.
“But we do know what we’re talking about, Mr. Holmes,” Kitty said. Her pride was now at stake, and that superseded any pretense at courtesy. “We have sources close to the Night Watch. Intimately associated with it.”
“Someone’s gossipy wife, I assume.”
“Why, that is a most ungentlemanly phrase.”
Mrs. Kingston again rang the servant’s bell, this time desperately. “Where is that girl? We need fresh tea!”
“Wendell,” said Edward, trying to smooth things over. “There’s no need to take offense. It’s only idle talk.”
“Only? They are talking about Norris. You know as well as I do that he’s incapable of committing such atrocities.”
“Then why has he run away?” said Gwen. “Why did he leap from that bridge? Surely, that’s the action of a guilty man.”
“Or a frightened one.”
“If he’s innocent, he should stay and defend himself.”
Wendell laughed. “Against the likes of you?”
“Really, Wendell,” said Edward. “I think it’s best if we just change the subject.”
“Where is that girl?” said Mrs. Kingston, sweeping to her feet. She crossed to the door and called out: “Nellie, are you deaf? Nellie! We will have more tea at once!” She swung the door shut with a bang and thumped back to her chair. “I tell you, it’s impossible to find decent help these days.”
The Welliver sisters sat in resentful silence, neither one caring to look in Wendell’s direction. He had crossed the boundary of gentlemanly behavior, and this was his punishment: to be ignored and unspoken to.
As if it matters to me, he thought, whether I am addressed by idiots. He set down his cup and saucer. “I do thank you for the tea, Mrs. Kingston,” he said. “But I fear I must be going.” He stood; so did Edward.
“Oh, but a fresh pot is coming!” She glanced toward the door. “If that scatterbrained girl will just do her job.”
“You’re quite right,” Kitty said, purposefully ignoring Wendell’s existence. “There is no decent help these days. Why, our mother had a dreadful time this past May, after our chambermaid left. She was only three months with us when she ran off and got married, with no advance notice. Simply abandoned us, leaving us high and dry.”
“How irresponsible.”
Wendell said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Kingston. Miss Welliver, Miss Welliver.”
His hostess nodded a farewell, but the two girls did not acknowledge him. They continued to chatter on as he and Edward started toward the door.
“And you know how difficult it is to find decent help these days in Providence. Aurnia was hardly a jewel, but at least she knew how to keep our wardrobe in order.”
Wendell was just about to step out of the parlor when he suddenly stopped. Turning, he stared at Gwen, who prattled on.
“It took us a whole month to find someone suitable to replace her. By then it was already June, and time to pack up for our summer house in Weston.”
“Her name was Aurnia?” said Wendell.
Gwen looked around, as though wondering who could possibly have spoken to her.
“Your chambermaid,” he said. “Tell me about her.”
Gwen coolly met his gaze. “Why on earth would this interest you, Mr. Holmes?”
“Was she young? Pretty?”
“
She was about our age, wouldn’t you say, Kitty? As for pretty—well, that depends on one’s standards.”
“And her hair—what color was it?”
“Why on earth…”
“What color?”
Gwen shrugged. “Red. Quite striking, really, though these flame-haired girls are all so prone to freckles.”
“Do you know where she went? Where she is now?”
“Why should we? The silly girl didn’t say a word to us.”
Kitty said, “I think Mother might know. Only she won’t tell us, because it’s not the sort of thing one talks about in polite company.”
Gwen looked accusingly at her sister. “Why didn’t you share this with me before? I tell you everything!”
Edward said, “Wendell, you seem uncommonly concerned about a mere servant.”
Wendell returned to his chair and sat down, facing the clearly flummoxed Welliver sisters. “I want you to tell me everything you can remember about this girl, starting with her full name. Was it Aurnia Connolly?”
Kitty and Gwen looked at each other in astonishment.
“Why, Mr. Holmes,” said Kitty. “However did you know?”
“There’s a gentleman here to see you,” said Mrs. Furbush.
Rose looked up from the nightshirt that she had been mending. At her feet was the basket of garments that she had labored over that day, Mrs. Lackaway’s skirt with the sagging hem, Dr. Grenville’s trousers with the frayed pocket, and all the shirts and blouses and waistcoats needing buttons reattached and seams reinforced. Since returning to the household that morning, she had focused all her grief on a frenzy of mending and stitching, the one skill with which she could repay their kindness to her. All afternoon, she had sat hunched in this corner of the kitchen, sewing in silence, her misery so plainly written on her face that the other servants had respectfully allowed her her privacy. No one had disturbed her, nor even tried to speak to her. Until now.
“The gentleman’s at the back door,” said Mrs. Furbush.
Rose placed the nightshirt in her basket and stood. As she crossed the kitchen, she could feel the housekeeper watching her curiously, and when she reached the door, she understood why.
Wendell Holmes was standing in the servants’ entrance, a strange place for a gentleman to come calling.
“Mr. Holmes,” said Rose. “Why do you come the back way?”
“I need to speak to you.”
“Do come inside. Dr. Grenville is at home.”
“This is a private matter, for your ears only. May we speak outside?’
She glanced over her shoulder and saw the housekeeper watching them. Without a word, she stepped out, pulling the kitchen door shut behind her. She and Wendell moved into the side yard, where bare trees threw skeletal shadows in the cold light of sunset.
“Do you know where Norris is?” he asked. When she hesitated, he said, “This is urgent, Rose. If you know, you must tell me.”
She shook her head. “I promised.”
“Promised whom?”
“I cannot break my word. Even for you.”
“Then you do know where he is?”
“He’s safe, Mr. Holmes. He’s in good hands.”
He grasped her by the shoulders. “Was it Dr. Grenville? Is he the one who arranged the escape?”
She stared into Wendell’s frantic eyes. “We can trust him, can’t we?”
Wendell gave a groan. “Then it may already be too late for Norris.”
“Why are you saying this? You’re scaring me.”
“Grenville will never let Norris live to stand trial. Too many secrets would come out, damaging secrets that will destroy this household.” He glanced up, at the imposing home of Aldous Grenville.
“But Dr. Grenville has always defended Norris.”
“And do you wonder why a man of such influence would stake his reputation defending a student with no name, no family connections?”
“Because Norris is innocent! And because—”
“He did it to keep him out of the courtroom. I think he wants Norris tried in the court of public opinion, and on the front page of newspapers. There, he’s already been found guilty. All it takes is a bounty hunter to commit the execution. You do know there’s a bounty on his head?”
She swallowed back tears. “Yes.”
“It will all end quite conveniently. When the West End Reaper is tracked down and killed.”
“Why would Dr. Grenville do this? Why would he turn against Norris?”
“There’s no time to explain it now. Just tell me where Norris is, so I can warn him.”
She stared at him, not knowing what to do. She’d never doubted Wendell Holmes before, but now, it seemed, she must doubt everyone, even those whom she had trusted most.
“At nightfall,” she said, “he leaves Medford and travels north, on the Winchester road.”
“His destination?”
“The town of Hudson. The mill house, on the river. There’s a carved pelican on the gate.”
He nodded. “With any luck, I’ll catch up with him long before he reaches Hudson.” He turned to leave, then halted and looked back at her. “Not a word to Grenville,” he warned. “Above all, don’t tell anyone where the child is. She must remain hidden.”
She watched him run out of the side yard, and an instant later heard horse’s hooves clatter away. Already, the sun was low in the sky, and within the hour Norris would set out along the Winchester road. What better time than after dark to spring an ambush on a lone traveler?
Hurry, Wendell. Be the one to reach him first.
A gust swept the side yard, twirling dead leaves and dust, and she squinted against the sting. Through narrowed eyelids, she caught a glimpse of something moving across the walkway. The wind died, and she stared at a dog that had wandered in through the Beacon Street gate. The dog sniffed at the bushes, pawed around in the ashes that had been sprinkled across the slippery walkway. Then it lifted a leg, relieved itself against a tree, and headed back toward the gate. As she watched it trot out of the yard, she suddenly realized that she had lived through this moment before. Or a moment very much like it.
But it had been at night. With that image came a gnawing sense of sadness, a remembrance of grief so terrible that she wanted to shove the memory away, back into the dark hole of forgotten pain. But she held on to the memory, stubbornly tugging on that fragile thread, until it led her back to the moment in time when she had stood at a window, holding her newborn niece and looking out into the night. She remembered a horse and phaeton arriving in the hospital courtyard. She remembered Agnes Poole stepping out from the shadows to speak to the phaeton’s occupant.
And she remembered one more detail: the jittery horse, its hooves clattering nervously as a dog had trotted past. A large dog, silhouetted against the glossy cobblestones.
That was Billy’s dog there that night. Was Billy there as well?
She ran out the gate and was about to set off down Beacon Street when she heard a voice that made her freeze.
“Miss Connolly?”
She turned to see Dr. Grenville standing at his front door.
“Mrs. Furbush said that Mr. Holmes was visiting. Where is he?”
“He—he left, sir.”
“Without even speaking to me? That’s most peculiar. Charles will be disappointed his friend left without saying a word to him.”
“He stayed only a moment.”
“Why did he come? And why on earth to the back door?”
She flushed under his gaze. “He only stopped to ask how I am faring, sir. He didn’t wish to disturb you so close to mealtime.”
Grenville studied her for a moment. She couldn’t read his face, and she hoped that he could not read hers.
“When you see Mr. Holmes again,” he said, “tell him that his visits are never a disturbance. Day or night.”
“Yes, sir,” she murmured.
“I believe Mrs. Furbush is looking for you.” He went back into the house. r />
She glanced up Beacon Street. The dog had vanished.
Thirty-three
IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT when the household at last fell silent.
Lying in her cot in the kitchen, Rose waited for the voices upstairs to fade, for the creak of footsteps to cease. Only then did she rise from the cot and pull on her cloak. She slipped out the back door and made her way along the side of the house, but just as she was about to emerge into the front yard, she heard a carriage rattle to a stop before the home, and she pulled back into the shadows.
Someone pounded on the front door. “Doctor! We need the doctor!”
A moment later the door opened and Dr. Grenville said, “What is it?”
“A fire, sir, over near Hancock’s Wharf! Two buildings are gone, and we don’t know how many injuries. Dr. Sewall asks for your assistance. My carriage stands waiting for you, sir, if you’ll come now.”
“Let me get my bag.”
A moment later the front door slammed shut, and the carriage rolled away.
Rose emerged from her hiding place and slipped out the front gate, onto Beacon Street. Ahead, on the horizon, the night sky glowed an alarming red. A wagon careened past her, bound toward the burning wharf, and two young men ran by, anxious to join the spectacle. She did not follow them; instead she made her way up the quiet slope of Beacon Hill, toward the neighborhood known as the West End.
Twenty minutes later, she slipped into a stable yard and eased open the barn door. In the darkness, she heard the soft clucking of chickens and smelled horses and sweet hay.
“Billy?” she called softly.
The boy did not answer. But somewhere above, in the hayloft, a dog whined.
She made her way through the shadows to the narrow staircase and crept up the steps. Billy’s spindly silhouette was framed in the window. He stood staring at the red glow to the east.
“Billy?” she whispered.
He turned to her. “Miss Rose, look! There’s a fire!”
“I know.” She climbed into the loft, and the dog trotted up to lick her hand.
“It’s getting bigger. Do you think it could jump all the way here? Should I get a bucket of water?”