Taken Too Soon Page 3

  “Are you thinking of the deceased girl?” David’s tone was gentle.

  “How could thee tell? I’m wishing I knew more about the circumstances of her death.”

  “The death of any young person is a tragedy. To die at the hands of another is shocking.”

  “I know. My heart is heavy at the thought. Why would someone accost a young woman of sixteen? I also wonder how she died.”

  “Do you think your aunts had any inkling of trouble?”

  I could only shake my head. “How could they not? Frannie was young, she was Tilly’s ward. But of course I have no idea.”

  “We’ll find out after we arrive.” He patted my hand. “In the meantime, tell me about the girl and about your aunts. We won’t arrive at our destination for another eighty minutes, and that’s only if they’re running on time.”

  “I will, on the condition that thee then relates the essence of Currie’s falling-out with thy mother.”

  “I promise.”

  I pressed my hand to the window to gaze out into the dark as we clattered along. As the lights of a village came into view, three long blasts of the train’s whistle split the air, and then we were past it. I turned back to David.

  “Neither Tilly nor Drusilla married. To everyone’s surprise, Tilly—at the age of fifty-eight—took Frannie in after she was orphaned when she was only two, fourteen years ago.”

  “Why the surprise?”

  “Because of Tilly’s age, of course, and because Dru is the maternal one, not her sister. Dru bakes and quilts and loves her cup of hot chocolate. She adores children and taught them for many years. These days she seems wistful around little ones.”

  “Wishing she’d had her own.” He nibbled on a hand-sized meat pie.

  “Like that, yes,” I said. “You’ll see.”

  “How old is Drusilla?”

  “Let’s see, she’d be seventy-five by now, and Tilly is seventy-two. Daddy was the baby of the family. Anyway, it was Tilly who insisted on taking in the poor tyke. Tilly’s always seemed stern and critical. In fact, she never lets up chastising Dru for doing this or that the wrong way.”

  “How does Drusilla take it?”

  “She smiles and ignores her sister. Daddy has hinted that Tilly suffered a deep hurt in her past. Some who have gone through that adopt a cold manner as a shield. Tilly wouldn’t want to become wounded again.”

  “You’re a wise woman, Rosie. Many people do precisely that, in my experience.”

  I patted out a wrinkle in my dress. “Tilly cared very much for Frannie in her own way. She has to be devastated by the current turn of events.”

  “Who would murder a girl of sixteen, though?” He drained his small glass of port.

  “That would be the question of the month, wouldn’t it?” I watched more dots of light flash by in the inky darkness. “Frannie went to school, Tilly saw to that. West Falmouth is teeming with Quakers, as thee will see, and they have an excellent town school.”

  “And an academy for older children?”

  “I am not positive about that. I believe Falmouth town has one. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  David tidied up our supper things and set the basket on the floor. “I suppose it’s my turn to divulge family history.”

  “I admit to some curiosity.” In fact, ever since he’d mentioned Currie at the reception, the fact that he’d talked about him only once previously had been pecking at my subconscious. Why was that?

  “Very well.” He stretched out his legs and slung his arm lightly over my shoulders. “It’s been, let’s see, three years, I think—before I was fortunate enough to set eyes on your lovely countenance for the first time.” He squeezed my shoulder. “My brother has had his share of troubles. I believe he has some kind of disorder with his eyes or his brain, which makes it difficult for him to read well. Mother wanted him to go into law, but Currie couldn’t manage the studies, try as he might.”

  “I’ve seen that syndrome, too, often in people of high intelligence. It’s more common than we think, and unfortunately such souls are often labeled as stupid or lazy.”

  “Yes, and my mother would be one of those labelers. Father was more understanding and offered to find Currie a suitable position in his shoe manufacturing company, but the damage had been done to my brother’s view of his own capabilities. Currie fell in with an unscrupulous man who claimed he had a scheme to develop a malarial marshland in Florida into saleable properties. My brother lost a great deal of money and had the nerve to ask my parents for more, as a loan on his inheritance. Father was willing, but Mother insisted they not rescue him. She and Currie had the worst falling-out, with much name calling on both sides. It ended in her telling him to leave and never come back.”

  I laid my hand on his knee. “I hate to see families fall apart.”

  “It was painful.”

  “But that was her relationship with him. Didn’t thee or Herbert communicate on thy own?”

  David grimaced. “Currie insulted all of us before he left. By then I had my medical degree. My practice was keeping me very busy, so I had distractions. I now regret not trying to find him, to come to an understanding.”

  I nodded. I still didn’t understand why he hadn’t shared this story with me before, during all our many hours of talking and growing to know each other. Did David not trust me with his past? Was he uneasy about it? This wasn’t the time to bring it up, but I wanted to before long.

  “Mother threw herself into her charitable works with the church as well as into trying to find me a suitable wife.” He gave a throaty laugh. “She didn’t know I was fully capable of finding one entirely on my own.”

  “How did your father handle Currie’s departure?”

  “It cut him to the bone, Rose, but he wasn’t able to prevail with Mother to mend fences. I don’t know if he tried to reach Currie privately. Did you see how overjoyed Father was today?”

  “I did. I know you didn’t have much time with your brother, but did you learn what he’s been doing in Wood’s Holl?”

  David twisted to face me. “I didn’t. Perhaps during our stay on the Cape I can make some inquiries. I hope it’s a legal enterprise, whatever he’s up to.”

  “He mentioned the entertainment industry. I didn’t know Cape Cod had much of one.”

  He laughed. “God only knows what he meant by that.”

  It had been a full day, and it wasn’t over yet. Many questions had yet to be answered but they would have to wait until our arrival. The telegram had said to come urgently, but what we could do tonight about Frannie’s death remained a mystery. I let the rocking of the train and the warm comfort of my husband’s arm lull me into sleep.

  Chapter Five

  Despite our being on an express train to Wood’s Holl, David had prevailed upon the conductor to make a stop in West Falmouth, as it was dark and our wedding night. The tracks passed directly past the West Falmouth station, so the conductor agreed with David rather than force us to hire a conveyance at the train’s terminus to come directly back to West Falmouth.

  On our way, I kept hoping for a glimpse of moonlight shining on the ocean, but the tracks had been laid woefully inland. It was nearly nine when we stepped down from the huffing, steaming train. David carried both valises, while I managed my birthing satchel, into which I had wedged all manner of additional personal items, plus a new book each as gifts for my aunts. I also toted the dinner basket. We were fortunate to have arrived during a full moon. An owl made its “who-who-who-who whoo, whoo” query from a nearby tree and a cricket chirped away.

  “Is it far?” David asked. He glanced around, perplexed. The railroad station was a small one, and ours hadn’t been a scheduled stop, so no one was about. “Will we need to hire a driver?”

  “Not at all. My aunts live in a modest house on Baker Street, and it’s a mere fifty yards from here. If we’d stayed on the train, we would have ridden directly in back of their home in the next minute.” On the train I’d studied t
he map Tilly had sent last month when I’d told her of our plans. I thought I knew my way, despite never having been here before. “I wonder if they’ll have the local detective there to inform us of the facts of the case.”

  “The telegram was certainly urgent in tone.”

  Off we trudged, rapping the knocker shortly thereafter. Dru opened the door, spilling a flood of lamplight out onto the landing. Shorter than I, she was round of figure and her fluffy snow-white hair formed a nimbus around her face.

  “My dearest Rose, I can’t tell thee how glad I am thee made the trip. And this gentleman must be thy new husband, David Dodge.” She extended a hand to each of us, but it was a bit awkward, as our hands were full, and David stood on the step below mine.

  “I am pleased to meet you, Miss Drusilla,” David said.

  “Aunt Dru, can we come in, please?” I asked. My lids rasped against my eyes from my nap.

  “Of course, dears. Silly me.” She stepped back and out of the way. “Please enter.”

  We made our way into the sitting room, which was full with books, needlepoint supplies, and more tatted doilies than a person would ever need in two lifetimes. It was empty of any kind of law enforcement officer, however. We set down our burdens.

  “Now, how about a proper greeting.” Dru held out her arms to me and enveloped me in a bosomy, rose-water-scented embrace. She let me go and beamed up at David. “Well, isn’t thee a handsome drink of water? Give an old lady a kiss, will thee?”

  She was awfully chipper for someone whose sister’s ward had been murdered. I hadn’t seen Dru in years, since the last time she came up to Lawrence to visit. Her behavior seemed odd.

  David leaned down to buss her cheek.

  “Sit down, sit down, and I’ll put on the kettle.”

  I cleared my throat. “Aunt Dru, I’d like to—”

  “Oh! Visit the necessary, of course. Follow me, darling. It’s just at the back. Tilly came into a spot of money and insisted we install one of the newfangled water closets. It’s all the rage among the wealthy Friends around here. She did it for our comfort, of course, not for fashion’s sake.”

  I followed her down a hallway. From the back I saw that part of her fluffy hair covered a bald spot almost like she was disguising a tonsure. She kept prattling on even after I’d closed the door, but I ignored her. I’d forgotten how chatty she was. She’d been to visit us in Lawrence perhaps a decade ago, and both she and Tilly used to come more often when I was small.

  Much relieved and washed up, I returned to the sitting room to find my aunt fussing over David, offering him cookies, pouring his tea, and generally looking happy as a hen to have someone to take care of. One might think there hadn’t been a violent death in the family at all. Had I dreamed the urgent telegram? Or maybe this was Dru’s way of coping with grief, to simply shut it away and pretend it hadn’t happened.

  “David, do you want to freshen up, or whatever men call it?” I asked him.

  He stood. “Good idea.”

  I pointed him down the hall. “Last door on the left. Dru, what happened to Frannie?” I asked when he’d gone. “How did she die? Was she in trouble?”

  “It’s all a confusion, my dear. There is so much to tell, and so little, as well.” She blinked and smiled.

  What? She had certainly confused me. “Where’s Aunt Tilly?”

  Her smile slid completely away. “The poor dear. She’s a complete wreck. I summoned our friends Sadie and Huldah Gifford to fetch her. They know how to calm her better than I. We’ve lived together too long, Tilly and me. For someone who usually strikes others as cold and stern, Tilly’s heart is broken over poor Frannie’s death. Mine is, too, of course. We raised the girl together.” She sniffed back a tear. “But my sister had a special attachment to her ward, and she’s taking it hard.”

  “What about the detective working on Frannie’s murder? Thy telegram was most urgent that we should travel tonight. I expected him to be here.” I sank onto a love seat.

  “That will have to wait until tomorrow, dear.”

  So we could have stayed in a plush hotel room in Lawrence tonight, after all, and enjoyed the physical delights of being married. I sighed inwardly but resolved to make the best of it. “I’ve never heard the story of how Tilly came to take charge of Frannie. My family never made the trip down here, more’s the pity.” I’d have to ask my father why we hadn’t come to West Falmouth to spend time with his sisters.

  Dru blinked her rheumy blue eyes, so much like my father’s except for the rheum. “That’s a tale for another time, Rose. And it’s rightly Tilly’s to tell.”

  I glimpsed a framed photograph on a side table. It portrayed a girl of about twelve with dark curls, big dark eyes, and a spirited smile. The cheerful expression was unusual in such posed pictures, where the subjects were normally instructed to maintain a solemn demeanor.

  “That’s our Frannie, before she finished growing,” Dru said with a sad smile. “I wish we’d had a photograph made more recently. She was quite a beauty, Rose.”

  David sat next to me on his return. “Is the girl’s death truly a case of homicide, Miss Drusilla?”

  I smiled to hear him address her as “Miss Drusilla.” All on his own he’d come up with the same convention the rest of the village also used, at least the non-Quakers. If people called both her and Tilly “Miss Carroll,” there would be no end of confusion.

  “Enough of this Miss business. Thee must call me Dru, David.”

  He smiled. “Perhaps I shall, by and by.”

  “At any rate,” Dru went on, “homicide is what the nice policeman said when he came here.”

  A person’s death caused by another person, whether purposefully or not. “Will thee tell us all about it?” I selected a gingersnap and nibbled at its perfect spicy, crunchy sweetness.

  “I’ll do my best. Thee will get nothing coherent out of my sister, that’s certain.”

  “Dru told me Tilly is distraught and is being cared for by their friends nearby,” I told David. “And we won’t be able to speak with the detective until tomorrow.”

  He raised his eyebrows in return. I knew he was thinking what I had about not having had to rush down here. I could only shrug.

  Dru poured tea for us and herself, then settled into what looked like her usual armchair. “They found poor Frannie in the bay.”

  “Today?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Could her death have been accidental?” David leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands.

  “Apparently not, but the fellow didn’t give us any details.”

  Killed and dumped in the bay? Or attacked and left to drown. Whichever, it was an awful way to go.

  “Tell us more about Frannie, Dru, if thee will,” I urged. We would learn the horrible facts of the death in the morning, I was certain.

  “It was like this. Dear Frannie had completed her school through eighth grade, what, two years ago? She didn’t really have the aptitude to go on to the Lawrence Academy in Falmouth, even though other girls from our Meeting attend there. For the last two years she’s been working for Mrs. Annie Boyce tying tags.”

  “What’s that, pray tell?” David asked.

  “Women formerly gathered in Annie’s living room or at other women’s homes. They add strings to the tags that label all kinds of goods. It’s become quite the successful industry for Annie and the ladies and girls she employs, and she has an actual factory now down by the train station.”

  “We must have walked past it on our way here. So Frannie made a bit of money,” I said. “That’s good. Tell us more about her. Was she social or retiring? What did she enjoy doing? What was she like? I’m sorry I hadn’t seen her since Tilly brought her to Lawrence when she was little.” I would have been in my teen years then, as Frannie had been about ten years younger than I.

  Dru smiled sadly. “As I said, she didn’t seem to have the brains to continue studying. But that girlie was life smart. She was a dab hand
at fixing anything. Frannie could listen to a song once, pick up the words and tune, and sing it back in her lilting voice like she’d been practicing for a year. She had lots of energy, and she was a strong little thing, and so graceful, too. And my, oh my, could she read people. I’ve seen her tilt the dark curls on her pretty head, regard someone—anyone, of any age or stature—and say something full of wisdom about them, or confront them about a false statement.”

  “How about friends?” David asked. “Who did she spend time with when she wasn’t working or doing chores? Girlfriends? A young man, perhaps?”

  My aunt tapped the arm of her chair. “There’s the rub, David. She’d been stepping out with young Reuben Baxter. Boy’s a clam-digger. He’s not a Friend and in fact is a full-blooded Indian.”

  “Oh?” David asked.

  “Yes. The local tribe is called the Wampanoags. In a way, you would hardly know its members to look at them. They have regular names and wear conventional clothing, although their skin might be a bit darker than us palefaces. With all the people in this area who spend their lives near or on the ocean, though, we have some pretty dark-skinned white folks, not to mention the more swarthy newcomers from Italy and Portugal. So the Indians can pass, as it were, unless you know their heritage for a fact. The boy’s father, Joseph Baxter, is a local businessman’s handyman—one of several servants he employs, with all his riches—and his wife is a midwife.”

  An Indian midwife? That was a woman I wanted to meet.

  “Was Miss Tilly happy about Frannie’s beau?” David asked.

  “Not particularly. Thee must understand, my sister was only concerned for Frannie’s welfare, and rightly so, as it turned out. The Baxter boy has himself a temper.”

  “Thee is saying the police think Reuben killed Frannie.” I leaned forward.

  “They hinted as much.” Dru bobbed her head.

  “But why?” I pressed.