Charity's Burden Read online

  “What did thee quarrel with Ransom about?” I asked. “By the way, Ransom is his middle name. His given name is Howard, but Charity told me there are other Howards in the family, so he prefers Ransom.”

  “Whatever his appellation, he was being rude in the post office. Trying to push his way to the front of the line.” A loud bell clanged several times behind us. “It’s the trolley needing to pass, and I’m off to make a delivery at the high school. Let’s have a real visit soon,” Bertie said before she urged Grover into a trot and turned right up the hill toward the large four-square secondary school building.

  “Yes, let’s do,” I called after her, pulling as far to the right as I could. I kept a tight rein on Peaches as the horse-drawn trolley clattered by my buggy, but I didn’t really need to. A calmer horse I’d never met. I wasn’t so calm myself at this moment. Charity’s death disturbed me. Something didn’t feel right about it. I would like to discuss it with David, my betrothed and a physician, but he was away for a few days at a medical conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. That busy port city was only twenty miles to the north, but he was staying in a hotel there to avoid having to travel back and forth. I thought he said he’d be back on Fifth Day. I could send him a note when I got home asking him to come and see me when he returned. Of course I missed his loving care, his handsome smile, his devotion to me, which I gladly returned. But it was his quiet wisdom and professional expertise that could serve useful at a time like this.

  four

  I entered Lowell’s Boat Shop under a sign reading Office. A neatly put-together young woman regarded me over a wide desk. A carved wooden name plate on her desk read Miss Delia Davies. The hammering and sawing sounds of boat construction drifted through a closed interior door, but not a trace of sawdust marred her neatly arranged piles of paper and account books.

  “May I help you?” The woman’s starched shirtwaist was of a pinstriped fabric and she’d done up her flaxen hair in a chignon with the new fringed bangs that were becoming increasingly popular.

  I removed my glasses and wiped off the fog clouding them from coming in out of the cold. “Good morning. My name is Rose Carroll. I am here on a matter of some urgency and must speak with Ransom Skells.”

  She blinked several times. “What is the business you need to conduct with Mr. Skells?”

  “I prefer to speak with him directly about it.”

  “This is most irregular.” She stood. “What is your occupation and place of residence?”

  I cocked my head. “Why does thee need to know that?”

  “The owners have to be cautious about our competitors disguising themselves and learning our proprietary methods.”

  “Very well. I am most certainly not thy competitor. My name is Rose Carroll and I am a midwife caring for Ransom’s wife.”

  Her nostrils flared as she pressed her lips into a thin line.

  “I reside on Center Street,” I finished. “Now, may I speak with Ransom, please? As I mentioned, it is an urgent matter.” Sadly, it wasn’t really urgent. Charity was dead, and nothing could change that tragic and final fact. Still, I needed to inform Ransom as soon as possible.

  Delia’s expression returned to that of an officious gatekeeper. “Follow me.” She ushered me through the door and pointed to Ransom, who was perched on an overturned wooden crate eating his dinner.

  “I thank thee.” I covered the few yards in a moment, still feeling Delia’s eyes on my back. No matter. It was too noisy in here for her to eavesdrop on my sad tidings.

  A stocky man, Ransom held half a meat turnover as he gazed out at the white expanse of the frozen river. Behind him saws and planes, chisels and hammers, awls and gimlets were hard at work in the hands of craftsmen, creating the dories and whalers the shop was known for. Motes of sawdust floated in the light that was reflected off the Merrimack and the air smelled deliciously of fresh wood. My mission here was not so delicious.

  Ransom glanced up at me with a start. “Miss Carroll?” He stood, swiping crumbs off his mouth with the back of his hand. “What are you doing here?” he asked in his reedy voice, then smiled, the gap between his front teeth giving him a boyish look even though I thought he was at least thirty. He had remarkable light blue eyes framed by smile lines, and curly carrot-colored hair. Although Charity was a regular at Friends Meeting and her husband had converted to our faith, Ransom rarely accompanied her, and clearly hadn’t embraced the Quakerly manner of speech.

  I took in a deep breath, then began. “Ransom, I am very sorry to tell thee that Charity was taken quite ill this morning.”

  “Taken ill?” He shook his head. “There’s always something with that woman. I keep telling her—”

  I held up my hand. “Please let me finish. She sent for me. She was bleeding heavily, so I took her to the hospital on Market Street. But we were not able to save her.”

  “Save her what?”

  Was he willfully trying to shut out bad news, or was he simply not understanding me? “Her life, Ransom. Charity’s soul was released to God a little over an hour ago. I am so sorry.”

  He stared at me. “Do you mean to say she’s dead?” His pie hit the floor with a splash of sawdust, and his whisper was as harsh as rough sandpaper.

  I nodded once.

  “What will I do?” he murmured, more to himself than to me. He turned away, his face to the tall window. A hammer nearby fell silent, and the man holding it watched Ransom as he faced me again.

  “Bleeding, you say.” Ransom’s ruddy face had gone ashen. “Did she cut herself making dinner?”

  “No.” I spoke softly. “She bled from inside.”

  Ransom’s nostrils went wide. He opened his mouth and shut it again. He rubbed his thumb with his fingers on both hands. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

  I touched his arm. “Please don’t blame thyself. We don’t know the cause.” In fact, I didn’t. A hemorrhage from such an early-term pregnancy was unlikely. Perhaps Charity had another malady I wasn’t aware of. I hoped she hadn’t sought out an abortionist, but it was a possibility. She might have visited one of the many unscrupulous and shadowy ones, most of whom were also dangerously unskilled, eager to make money off women desperate not to bear the child they carried. That could have been what Orpha had warned Charity against doing. But wouldn’t Charity have told me the reason for her bleeding?

  It was curious, what Ransom said. Why would he think his wife’s death was his fault? Because he’d forced himself on her and knew she was with child again so soon? If she’d sought out an abortion because of her pregnancy, in a circuitous way her death would make him guilty.

  “Where is Charity now? Her, her body, I mean.” He winced at the term.

  “They are holding her at the hospital until thee comes for her.” As Quakers we didn’t believe in embalming, but it wouldn’t be possible to bury Charity promptly because of the frozen ground. She would need to go into Union Cemetery’s receiving vault until spring brought a thawing of the soil. That service came at a cost, however, and I wasn’t sure Ransom could afford it. Perhaps our Meeting could take up a collection to help defray the expense, or Charity’s parents would assume the cost.

  The man holding the hammer, a fellow with graying hair and spectacles perched on his nose, stepped forward. “Mr. Skells, I heard what the lady said. May Mrs. Skells rest in peace.” He crossed himself, then pushed up the spectacles perched on his nose.

  “I thank you, Mr. Sherwood.” Ransom straightened his shoulders. “This is Midwife Carroll. She was looking after my wife. Miss Carroll, Mr. Sherwood is my supervisor here, teaching me to make boats and all.”

  “Pleased to meet you, miss.”

  “And I, thee.” I extended my hand and shook his, feeling his calloused carpenter’s skin next to mine.

  “Now Mr. Skells, you go on home.” The supervisor’s quiet voice held authority. “You’ll be having
arrangements to make, a wife to grieve, children to comfort.”

  “Oh, but I can’t leave, sir. I need to finish my day. I need the pay, you understand.” Ransom darted a glance at me. “The little ones, where are they, Miss Carroll?”

  “Charity told me thy mother-in-law has them,” I said. “Thee will need to break the bad news to her, I’m afraid.”

  “It’s all right, Mr. Skells,” the supervisor said. “Don’t come back until Monday. I’ll inform Miss Davies that you’re to be paid for a full week’s work.”

  This was an exceptionally generous manager.

  “Very well, I’ll go, then. Thank you, sir.” Ransom tugged at his nonexistent hat.

  “I’ll take thee, Ransom,” I said. “I have a horse and buggy.” Transportation I hadn’t expected I would use for a sad purpose such as this.

  five

  Ransom remained quiet as we drove toward Charity’s mother’s abode. I glanced at him.

  “Who was that nice young secretary at the shop, Ransom?” I ventured.

  He snapped his face toward me. “Secretary?”

  “The one thy supervisor referred to as Miss Davies. She showed me in.” I didn’t add that she’d been reluctant to do so. I pulled Peaches to a halt to let a wagon heaped high with coal turn in front of me.

  “Oh, her. Delia Davies. She’s nice enough.” His fingers set to rubbing his thumbs again, even through his worn leather gloves.

  “Has she been there long?”

  He shrugged. “Was there when I started, but that was only two months ago.”

  “Does she live here in Amesbury?” Peaches clopped along again.

  “Why do you care?” His tone was brusque. “Here my wife has gone and died, we’re on our way to tell her mother the terrible news, and you’re asking about some girl, some chippy?” He stared away from me at Pattens Pond as we passed by.

  He was right to admonish me. He had just lost his wife, after all.

  “She’s just a girl,” Ransom continued. “I don’t understand why you need to know about her. She’s nothing.” His clenched jaw worked almost as hard as his fingers.

  What was that line from William Shakespeare? I think thou doth protest too much, or something similar. I let my questions lapse and soon pulled up in front of Virtue and Elias Swift’s home on Lincoln Court.

  “Would thee like me to accompany thee to convey the sad tidings?” I very much wanted to visit Orpha and learn what Charity had meant in her dying words. If Ransom wanted me to come in with him, though, I would.

  He blew out a ragged breath, once again looking the grieving husband. “If you will. I would appreciate the help, and I expect Mother will want to know the details of Charity’s death. She’s never taken to me much. I’m glad it’s daylight hours. Mr. Swift will be away at his office. He don’t like me at all.”

  “I will come in with thee.” Another curiosity, that he called his mother-in-law Mother rather than Virtue but referred to Charity’s father as Mr. Swift. The use of “thee” and “thy” wasn’t the only Friends way of speaking that Ransom ignored. Or maybe he addressed Virtue as “Mother” because it irked her, but he didn’t dare attempt the same with his father-in-law.

  The thought brought my own difficult situation to mind. My dear David had asked for my hand in marriage last summer, and I had gladly agreed. We’d received my parents’ blessings as well as David’s father’s. But his mother was firmly against our union. Amesbury Meeting didn’t approve, either. David was not a Friend, attending the Unitarian church in Newburyport. I would be marrying out, as Friends referred to it, and would be read out of Meeting, at least for a time. My mother had let me know the Lawrence Meeting, where she and my father worshipped—and where I had grown up—was more lenient and would welcome us to be married there. But the obstacle of Clarinda, David’s mother, was another matter. We had yet to schedule our wedding.

  “Does Virtue employ a stable hand?” I asked, wrenching myself back to the present. The Swift home was a large one and I glimpsed a matching carriage house set back on the right. If Charity’s parents were so well off, why hadn’t they helped her and Ransom financially? Because they didn’t like their son-in-law? At least they hadn’t shunned Charity. Virtue would not have taken the children for the morning if they had. I knew her only slightly from seeing her at Friends worship. She wasn’t regular in her attendance, and of course I had not grown up in Amesbury but rather on our farm in distant Lawrence.

  “Yes.” His mouth twisted. “They have a goodly number of servants, but wouldn’t give their daughter a red cent.”

  As I suspected.

  “Go along back there.” Ransom pointed to the carriage house.

  But before we traveled the several yards, a man with disheveled dark hair under a battered fedora stomped out of the structure leading a rather sorry-looking gray horse. Ransom jerked in the buggy next to me and swiveled in his seat as if to hide his face from the man, who mounted his steed before he spied us. He clopped up next to my buggy and grinned down at Ransom.

  “Ransom Skells, my man. I’ve been looking for you.” He tipped his hat at me. “Miss.”

  I detected the smell of alcohol on the man’s breath. The day had barely passed its midpoint.

  Ransom met his gaze. “Hello, Joey.” He lifted his chin. “Joe Swift, this is Miss Rose Carroll, my late wife’s midwife.”

  The man’s expression turned serious. “Your late wife, is it? Do you mean my cousin Charity has crossed the dark river?”

  His cousin. Interesting that Ransom had seemed to want to avoid speaking with him. “Yes,” I said. “She died this morning of complications from a miscarriage.”

  The man nodded slowly. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Be seeing you, Skells.” He clucked to the horse and trotted away.

  Ransom muttered to himself, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  “Shall we proceed?” I asked.

  “I would rather not, but we must.”

  I drove up to the open door of the carriage house. Inside were a drop-front phaeton and a lovely Bailey carriage. I thought I spied a wagon in the back, too. I handed off Peaches to the stable boy, barely older than my nephew Luke’s fourteen years, and followed Ransom to the house.

  Virtue opened the door. “Why, Ransom, what is thee doing here?” She was tall and angular, like Charity had been, but elegant where her daughter had been careworn. Virtue’s silvering hair was done in a neat knot, and her maroon day gown was of a fine wool. “Good afternoon, Rose. I am surprised to see thee, as well.” She stood back. “Come in, come in. Don’t just stand there in the cold.”

  “I thank thee, Virtue.” I preceded Ransom into a tastefully furnished front hall.

  Charity’s husband lingered on the stoop, twisting his tweed cap in his hands. “Mother, we …” His voice trailed off.

  “Ransom Skells, I will never for the life of me understand why thee can’t just call me Virtue like the rest of the world does. Now come in and close the door. Thee is letting all the heat out.” She tapped her foot, shod in a cream-colored kid shoe.

  He finally obeyed. I felt badly for him, but it was his news to bear. And who knew, perhaps he had lost his own mother at a young age and was happy to be able to use that word again to address his mother-in-law.

  “Now, what’s this all about?” Virtue asked. “And how’s my daughter? She said she was ill this morning, that’s why I fetched the little ones.”

  “Papa!” Little Howie, the couple’s only son, ran into the hall and hurled himself at his father. A white-clad woman in her mid-twenties followed, holding the Skells’ eighteen-month-old girl. Ransom lifted his son to his chest and buried his face in the boy’s curly red hair that was a brighter shade of his own.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the maid said. “Master Howie heard his father’s voice and insisted on seeing him.”

  �
�As of course he should,” Virtue said. “Let’s go through and sit.” She led the way into a comfortable sitting room decorated in shades of rose and green. A wooden rocking horse occupied a corner and was surrounded by books and blocks scattered on the floor, clearly the children’s play area when they came to visit.

  The maid headed in a different direction as Ransom touched my elbow.

  “I can’t. I can’t tell her, Miss Carroll, not with—” He pointed to his son’s back. Ransom’s expression was slack, his eyes puffy, his shoulders slumped.

  I nodded, sighing. “I will, then.”

  “Thank you.” He nuzzled Howie’s neck. “Let’s see if Cook will give us a treat, shall we, my boy?”

  Howie perked up. “Treat!”

  Ransom carried the boy toward the back of the house, while I carried my burden of sad tidings to Virtue.

  six

  Charity’s mother stared at me, her hand to her mouth. “How can she be gone? She merely said she wasn’t feeling well.” Her eyes filled but she kept her back erect, perched on an upholstered chair. “Is thee sure?” Her lips wobbled.

  I sat at the end of a settee next to her. “I stayed by her side until the end. I’m so sorry, Virtue. She was bleeding excessively. I believe it was from a miscarriage.” I laid a hand on her knee. “She lost too much blood, and there was nothing we could do.”

  “That man,” she muttered, anger apparently vying with her grief. “She had no business carrying another child so soon after losing the last one.” She bowed her head, sorrow winning as her shoulders shook.

  That man. Ransom himself. I pulled out a clean folded handkerchief I always kept in reserve for exactly these cases and handed it to her, then waited without speaking. It was not the right order of things, for a mother to lose an adult daughter. Sadly, such was life in our times.

  At last Virtue straightened. She dabbed at her now-reddened eyes. “I should have helped her more. I tried every way I could imagine to slip money to her now and then without my husband’s knowledge. Elias insisted she’d made her bed with Ransom and we had to leave her in it. I think he thought she would finally leave the man and bring her babies home to us. And she never did. Now it’s too late.” She sniffed. “I encouraged her to space those babies farther apart, too, and I provided her with money to obtain the necessary herbs. To no avail.”