A Death in Utopia (8 page)

"Yes, he used to visit my aunt's house when I lived with her. He was a charming young man, just finishing Harvard College. His fa
ther was a famous preacher, you know, and he wanted Winslow to follow in his footsteps. Winslow told me he wanted to be a poet, but in the end he followed his father's wishes." Her voice was tinged with bitterness.

"You must have known him well."

"Oh yes, I knew him very well." She turned her head to the side and Charlotte thought for a moment she was going to cry, but instead she answered in a low voice, "He said he wanted to marry me."

"But you refused him. You married Mr. Pretlove instead."

"Oh, Mr. Pretlove. The famous George Pretlove," now Abigail's voice was anguished. She took a handkerchief out of her pocket and touched it to her eyes, then held it in her hand twisting it round and round into a sausage of white linen. Charlotte wondered why she was so upset, but she said nothing.

"There was no George Pretlove. It was Winslow I was married to," suddenly burst from Abigail's mouth as though she couldn't hold it in any longer.

Charlotte could only stare at her. What did she mean there was no George Pretlove? Timothy Pretlove was her son. How could she be married to Winslow? He was a minister. Everyone would know if he had a wife.

"You mustn't tell anyone, Charlotte. I didn't mean to tell you. You can't understand and neither can anyone else. Promise me you won't tell!" She leaned toward Charlotte. Her eyes were wide with fear and her grip was like a vise.

"I won't tell," Charlotte promised. It was hard to believe the change that had come over Abigail. She was always so beautiful, so poised and quiet as though she had never any care on her mind. Charlotte had envied the easy life she led. Now she was pleading
with her to keep a secret. They sat there a minute or two more just looking at each other, but then the children got tired of chasing spider webs and Charlotte had to take them back to the classroom. Abigail disappeared into her room.

Soon it was time to dismiss the children from class. It had been a long day for the smaller ones. To Charlotte's surprise Daniel was standing in the hall downstairs. For a minute he seemed like a stranger. He looked just the same as before—thin and pale with those bright blue eyes. His smile hadn't changed and that was reassuring.

"You're back again. You'll wear out the road walking back and forth so much. Have you discovered anything new about what happened to Winslow Hopewell?"

"I didn't want to bother Mr. Ripley on a Sunday, especially because you people had a famous visitor here. But I wanted to get his permission to ask questions here." Daniel was standing very straight and he had a little smile on his lips as though he was quite satisfied with himself.

"You look happy, so you must have been given the permission. And have you started asking questions yet?"

"I talked with Mr. Ripley, of course, and asked him what he knew about Winslow Hopewell and whether anyone could have been very angry with him. But I didn't learn much. Mr. Ripley knows Winslow's father. Has known him all his life. Everyone in Boston knows everyone else it seems, except for those of us who know no one. Anyway Mr. Ripley has known the Reverend Thomas Hopewell for many years. According to Mr. Ripley, he is one of the most respected men in the city and no one has a word to say against him. Winslow has been a little more controversial because there are some people who believe he is too liberal in his teaching about the
New Testament. And he has half the women in Boston pestering their husbands about the sufferings of the slaves in the South. None of that sounds as though it would get him killed, does it?"

Charlotte wondered whether one of those henpecked husbands might have killed Winslow just to stop the pestering, but that thought slid out of her mind as soon as it came in. It was too horrible to joke about when she could still see Winslow's white face in her mind.

"No, that doesn't get us very far. Is the whole family perfect? What about Mr. Hopewell's mother and brothers and sisters?"

"His mother died when he was ten years old and there were no other children. Thomas Hopewell never remarried and his son never married, so there have been no women in the family for many years."

"Oh, yes there were," Charlotte started to say and then caught herself. She couldn't betray Abigail even though she didn't know what the story about being married to Winslow meant. How could they be married if no one knew about it? She hurried to try to correct the mistake. "I mean, there were women who admired Winslow. Remember how Fanny said once that he had women swooning over his sermons? Maybe some of them were jealous."

"Silly women flutter over good looking ministers all the time," said Daniel loftily, "but they don't kill them. And none of those Boston women would have been out here at the Farm. Winslow Hopewell was a well-known and respected minister. Mr. Ripley knew him all his life from when he was a child. It's unlikely he had any guilty secrets in his life."

"Everyone has secrets. No one knows about them because they are secret. But sometimes secrets come back to haunt people."

"What do you mean? Do you think that Winslow belonged to some secret group the way my father did in Ireland? Was he a radical abolitionist? You don't think that Winslow stole church funds, do you? His family had plenty of money. What kind of secret do you think he might have had?"

"I certainly don't think he was a revolutionary or a thief," Charlotte said scornfully. "If he had a secret it was more likely to be about someone he loved or...oh, I don't know. Don't ask me." She turned away, but Daniel reached out and caught her arm.

"You know something you aren't telling me. What is it? Didn't we agree we'd try to solve this mystery together? How can we do that if you don't share what you know?"

"I can't. I just can't! And I won't say another word." She turned and ran upstairs. Her heart was pounding and if she stayed down there any longer she was afraid she would give away Abigail's secret. Daniel just stood at the bottom of the stairs watching her. He was scowling with disappointment and confusion. Charlotte didn't want to quarrel with him, but what could she do?

When she reached her room, Charlotte threw herself on the narrow bed. She shouldn't have said anything to Daniel about secrets. She should have known he would start asking questions. And now he was hurt. Why had she promised Abigail not to tell anyone?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Daniel Learns Something New

October 17-19, 1842

The rain had let up when Daniel left the Farm, but it was a damp, clammy evening with a wind that blew right through his jacket. His small lantern didn't give much light and a couple of times he nearly stumbled into a ditch. But it wasn't the deepening darkness and the ditches that made him start cussing; it was thinking about Charlotte Edgerton and why she had hinted at secrets she didn't want to tell. Had she changed her mind about working together? Were women really as changeable as that? He remembered a poem he'd read somewhere;

Must not a woman be

A feather on the sea,

Sway'd to and fro by every wind and tide?

Were women really like that? Daniel had his doubts. His mother was certainly no feather on the sea and he would never have thought of Charlotte that way either. But why had she suddenly refused to talk? What had come over her? One minute she was smiling and her
dark eyes were sparkling, then suddenly they were opaque and he couldn't tell what she was thinking.

The next morning Daniel went to the newspaper office to see whether Mr. Cabot had any stories he could cover. When he admitted he hadn't uncovered any news at Brook Farm, he got a cold reception. Grudgingly Mr. Cabot sent him to the court house to find something worth writing about.

Puddles from yesterday's rain lingered in the gutters and Daniel walked carefully to avoid a dead dog stinking up the street. He couldn't afford to step into anything that would ruin his only pair of shoes. It was trouble enough keeping them shined so they didn't disgrace him or the newspaper. As he approached the gray granite courthouse Daniel could see a handful of men standing around the steps waving cigars in the air as they talked.

"Tradesmen to the back door," one of them called out as Daniel started toward the steps.

"I'm with the Boston
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, he answered, mimicking the nasal Boston accent. These Boston voices grated on him.

No one stopped him as he walked through the big wooden doors and down the echoing hallway. He was surprised there were so few clerks or lawyers in sight. One young clerk in a bright blue jacket tacking up a broadsheet outside the sheriff's office was the only person he saw, so he wandered over to read the sheet.

"Jailbreak!" was the headline in thick black letters. "Roger Platt wanted by the Sheriff of Suffolk County. This convicted debtor escaped from his cell and is thought to be in the vicinity of West Roxbury. All citizens are required to report his whereabouts if they see him."

Roger Platt—that name sounded familiar. Wasn't the farmer out by the Community named Platt? "Does this man live around here?" he asked the boy.

"I heard he was connected to the Platts out near West Roxbury," the boy answered, "but I don't know where he lives. The sheriff said something about him borrowing money to buy a farm and then never paying it back."

"It's not easy to borrow money for a farm," Daniel said. He had heard a lot of hard luck stories down at the boarding house. "Most of the banks won't lend a cent to a farmer because it's so risky."

"Oh, the banks are no use," the boy agreed. "But there's a lot of rich men in Boston willing to lend at high rates. Rich merchants—ministers too. I think it was the old Reverend Hopewell was the complainant for this case. Times are hard. Lots of people are trying to borrow money and most of them are slow paying it back—if they ever do."

So the Hopewells were mixed up in this too. Daniel wondered whether the Mr. Platt out by the Farm was kin to this debtor. If he was, how did he feel about the Hopewells? Daniel thought of the possibilities. Maybe he should go and talk to Platt again. That might get him further than hanging around the courthouse. If he hurried down to the Common he could catch old Gerritson taking the mail out to the Farm and ride along with him.

The ride to the Farm was more comfortable than walking, but it wasn't much faster. The horse ambled down the road as if it didn't care whether if it ever got there. Jonas Gerritson never said a word except for an occasional "Giddap" to the horse, so Daniel had plenty of time to think his own thoughts. Could Abner Platt be angry enough at Winslow Hopewell to kill him? He was the one who ac
cused Rory of the killing. He sure didn't look guilty when he said that. He sounded as though he really believed it. But he was wrong about Rory. Maybe he was covering up for someone. Was this Roger Platt his brother or a cousin or something?

When they reached the path to the Farm, Daniel hopped off the wagon, thanked old Gerritson for the ride and walked toward Platt's place. The house was small and weatherbeaten. The front yard was filled with a vegetable patch; several large pumpkins sprawled across the dirt and some stakes held up browning tomato vines. Dried and broken corn stalks drooped toward the ground. A young boy was throwing kernels of corn on the ground to feed a few skinny brown chickens and a rooster. He stared at Daniel but didn't answer to a cheerful, "Hello there!"

Two men were coming out of the barn carrying spades. When they saw Daniel, one of them turned abruptly and went back in. Daniel called out a greeting to Abner Platt and he walked slowly toward him.

"What are you doing over here, young man?" the farmer asked, his forehead wrinkled with suspicion. "Aren't you supposed to be finding out who killed that young minister over at the Farm?"

"I am working for the
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, yes, but I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your brother."

"Which brother would that be? I've got five of them—good hardworking men all of them. What kind of questions are you asking?"

"I was down at the Courthouse today and noticed a broadside notice about a Roger Platt. Would that be one of your brothers?"

"Was if he is? Roger's a good honest man too. Trying to make a living like the rest of us Americans. If it weren't for all the foreigners
coming in, we'd be able to do it. And the bankers too! They push a man around when times are bad. There's no justice to it. A man has to feed his family."

"Have you seen your brother lately?"

"None of your business! Now get off my property with all your questions. This farm is mine and there's no one welcome here unless I want them. Tell your newspaper and all the busybodies in the city to tend to their own affairs. We're taking care of our own."

There was no sign of the second man, and Daniel didn't waste time looking for him, but just headed over toward Brook Farm. He was hoping to see Charlotte and tell her all this news. It seemed like they were getting someplace at last. It seemed likely that Roger Platt was hiding out on his brother's farm. He could have run into Winslow Hopewell and gotten into an argument about the debt he owed to his father. Abner Platt made those accusations about Rory to save his brother. Well that hadn't worked. Daniel was feeling pleased with himself as he walked across the road and up the path to the Hive.

Everyone was in the dining room having dinner when he arrived so he stood outside on the porch until he head the them singing. That was a sign the meal was over and time for him to walk around to the kitchen door to find Charlotte. The red-haired student named Fred let him in.

"You're the reporter," he said accusingly. "Are you going to write another story about us? Why don't you write about the great things we are doing here instead of about a tragedy that has nothing to do with us?"

"The sooner people know for certain that no one on the Farm has anything to do with the Reverend Hopewell's death, the better off you'll be. I'm doing my best to find the truth."

Charlotte was still sitting at the table talking to Abigail and another woman. Daniel hovered around the door waiting to talk to her and keeping an eye out for Mr. Ripley, so he could tell him about Abner Platt's brother. Charlotte's hands were fluttering as she talked to Abigail, who sat as still and serene as the Madonna she resembled. The two of them reminded Daniel of a lively wren flitting around a rock dove perched on a cliff. Pretty soon Timothy ran over to his mother and both the women stood up. Abigail went out into the hallway with the boy, and Charlotte walked toward Daniel.