Beacon Street Mourning (27 page)

"Animals 'r like that," Ralph said, "they sense things about
a person, sometimes an animal can see things a person can't. But anyway that wasn't the whole there was to it."

"Tell her the rest," Myra urged her husband.

"I'm gettin' to it," he said in his patient way. "The other thing was, Augusta, she wanted a new carriage, somethin' spiffier, and your dad—well you know how he was, Caroline."

I didn't correct him, because I was thinking back to my youth when I'd been just Caroline, and I knew exactly what Ralph meant. I said, "He liked the old better than the new, and he'd insist it be kept in good condition, no matter whether the old item was the grandfather clock or a pair of leather shoes. Father would buy the very best there was and then expect to be using it for the next hundred years. Especially something big, like a carriage."

"You betcha." Ralph nodded.

"But not Miss Augusta; she was the exact opposite, always a-wantin' new things. She'd figured out," Myra said, "she could have the very latest carriage and the handsomest horses to go around town in and show herself off, if she was to use hiring stables and always insist on their best."

"So she made a fuss," I guessed. I could see, and hear, her doing it. Just as I could see in my mind those magnificent black horses with the plumes on their heads, pulling her carriage for Father's funeral. No wonder I, using that same hiring stable, got such prompt service.

"Well," said Ralph, "it was the way she did it, made us quit. You tell her, Myra, I ain't got the heart for it."

Myra's kind eyes filled up with tears. "Mrs. Augusta said one of the horses bit her. She had a big bruise on her arm, with teeth marks—the skin weren't broken but the marks were there—and she said the gray horse, what was his name, Ralph?"

"Bill."

The other one was named Bob, I remembered now; Bill was the gray and Bob was a chestnut.

"She said Bill bit her, but he never did such a thing. So help me God, I don't know how she got them marks on her but that horse didn't do it. Your father, he believed that evil woman just the same as he always believed her—begging your pardon, Caroline, I mean Fremont, but I swear she could be evil—and Mr. Leonard told Ralph he had to put the horse down."

"Yep," Ralph confirmed, nodding somberly. "Perfectly healthy horse he was too."

"Oh, no!" I gasped, then covered my mouth with the back of my hand.

Somehow to hurt an innocent animal seems almost worse than to do something similar to a human being—I suppose because we humans can usually fight back.

I added inadequately, "I'm so sorry."

"We said to each other, didn't we, Ralph, we was glad you wasn't there to see it. That was when we decided to leave. Much as we didn't like to go off after all those years and leave Mr. Leonard . . . well, he had
her
didn't he, and she was what he wanted."

"Yep." Ralph first nodded, but then he slowly, sadly, shook his head.

I wondered if my father had continued to want Augusta all the way to the very end. I wondered if infatuation—I refused to call it love—could be that blind; and in a way, I hoped it could, because otherwise Father must have died an unhappy man.

IT TOOK very little persuasion for the Porters to say yes to my offer. Of course, Ralph had another job now where he would have to give two weeks' notice, but Myra wasn't working. She could move in right away at Beacon Street, and so could Ralph sleep there at night. They understood both my not wanting to
be alone and my concern that no gossip be started about me and Michael. In fact, they said they would come that very evening to spend the night, and would start to bring over their things the next day. Together we would restore their former quarters in the back of the third floor.

The sun was setting as my hired carriage crossed the Harvard Bridge going back the other way; its declining light made a golden wash across the mostly frozen surface of the Charles River. In mid-bridge, when for a few moments I could look straight down, I could see cracks in the ice and the river's waters moving beneath. Spring was coming soon.

I myself felt hopeful for the first time in what seemed like a long while; I was returning to Beacon Street with a sense of accomplishment. One wrong had been set right, at least: the Porters were coming back where they belonged. It was only one thing, a small step, but in the right direction.

THE NEXT DAY, being Sunday, should by the wellknown tradition have been a day of rest. I, however, did not rest so much as I found myself restive around the house, feeling there must be something worthwhile I could do to further my investigation into Father's death.

Michael had left on the train for New York City, where he intended to begin an investigation of Augusta's past by questioning her son, Larry Bingham, if in fact Larry could be found. Then Michael would move on to question the other Binghams—oddly enough there had not been a single Simmons— whose addresses he had taken from Augusta's address book. As I recalled, one was in New Jersey; the rest were in Connecticut, all easily reachable in a few hours by train.

For a moment I reflected upon how different this is from California, a state so vast that the urban Northeast would fit in only a part of it. Somehow my old environs had shrunk during my four years of living in San Francisco—especially the corridor from Boston to New York and the towns in between.

Soon after Michael left—that is to say, around ten o'clock on Sunday morning—I received a telephone call from a detective of the Boston police, McLaughlin by name. My memory being rather sharp after days of that not being the case, I
thought to inquire after his health and that of his partner, Detective O'Neal. These two had been at the house yesterday. I found it quite encouraging to have my excellent memory back, but Detective McLaughlin seemed singularly unimpressed. In point of fact he was downright grumpy. He proceeded to ask me for about the tenth time if I could not tell him the whereabouts of "young Mr. Lawrence Bingham." I felt like saying that if I knew I would hardly have sent Michael off looking, as it would be much more pleasant to have Michael here, but of course I could not say any such thing.

I could only reiterate the same thing I'd said the day before—that is, that Augusta's son had been concerned about keeping his job and so had gone back to New York the day before my father's funeral. I insisted I had not seen him since, which was of course true; and I said again I believed he was a reporter on the
New York Daily News.
Surely, I asked sweetly, they could contact him there? This was not what McLaughlin had wanted to hear but he rang off, and so, to my great relief, I was rid of him. At least, for a while.

As I hung up the telephone, I knew it would be only a matter of time before McLaughlin and O'Neal came to search Augusta's room themselves. They'd be wanting that address book, and a diary too; and being of a somewhat suspicious nature myself, I was very worried they might think I had stolen the diary. They weren't likely to believe a diary did not exist; I would've had trouble believing it myself if I hadn't known Augusta.

The first search of her room, conducted on the day of her death, had been done by police officers of the rank and file while I was answering questions for the two detectives downstairs—a time-saving measure, no doubt, on that initial day of the investigation. I supposed it would be something of a coup, or at any rate something they could congratulate themselves on, if the two detectives were to find something the uniformed officers had missed.

If I were to put the address book back now, they need never know I'd had it; further, they might well be more likely to believe me when I said I had never known Augusta to keep a diary.

Yes! I really was functioning much more like my usual self. Such a relief!

Nevertheless, I wouldn't put the address book back without making a copy of it for myself. It was unfortunate that I had no way of knowing which of the many names and addresses might be of use, beyond the family names Michael had already copied. I should have to copy all of it, which I subsequently did, and it took a good deal of time.

Meanwhile Ralph and Myra Porter, who had both stayed overnight in one of their old rooms on the third floor, had departed once more for Cambridge to tend to their affairs, which included giving notice on their rented apartment. Mary Fowey, who was religious, always had Sundays off to attend her church and to see her family in South Boston. I presumed she was Roman Catholic but had not actually inquired.

So I was alone in the house. I did the copying in the library, where I was more comfortable than in any other room of the house; indeed I wished I could sleep in the library too, with the sound of the grandfather clock ticking, its pendulum swinging in the tall case just down the hall. Ralph had set it back in working order first thing.

More than once as I worked I started at some unexpected sound. Many of these came from out-of-doors: although today the sky was slightly overcast, the weather continued to warm and the spring thaw was under way, with its inevitable sounds of things cracking. Icicles dropped with a crash from under the eaves. An occasional tree limb, weakened by long bearing the weight of winter snow and ice, now tossed by the strong March wind, broke and plunged to the ground like a bomb.

Some hours later, when I had finished my copying task and
was climbing the stairs to return the address book to Augusta's bedroom, I realized the wind was making me anxious. Surely it was the wind?

What with all that had been going on in this house, I had not paid more than superficial attention to the weather. But, now I thought back on it, this March of 1909 was conducting itself backward. It had come in like a lamb, but now it seemed determined to go out like a lion.

It was very distracting, all these noises at every door and window, wind moaning and squeaking and groaning, with the counterpoint of cracks and crashes from the melting snow and ice. Drips too. I began to wonder if all the sounds out there were from natural sources; had I possibly heard someone trying to work an old key in one of the new locks?

One by one I went to the doors—first listened through the door, then looked out a nearby window. Up close, I heard nothing on the other side. I didn't see anyone lurking suspiciously near the house, or running as if to get away; and further, there were a lot of people walking up and down the sidewalk on this side of Beacon Street. When the weather is fine, that is to say sunny (wind does not count in an assessment of whether the day is fine or not), Bostonians are fond of strolling—it is one of our principal entertainments.

Sunday is a major strolling day. I did not really think anyone would try to break into the house in the middle of the day when so many people were about. Nevertheless, after checking to be sure that front, back, side, and basement doors were locked from the inside, I went around to all the downstairs windows to be sure they were locked too.

After I had done that I could think of nothing more to do. Because it was only two o'clock in the afternoon and Ralph and Myra could not be expected to return for another two or three hours, and Mary not until after dinner, I went upstairs to take a nap.

It was no use. I could not possibly sleep. So what worthwhile investigatory thing could I do on a Sunday?

"I know!" I said aloud in a burst of inspiration. I practically ran down the stairs—so quickly that I almost stumbled and had to remind myself to slow down—toward my goal, the telephone alcove. This little room with its single purpose, to hold that newfangled instrument, had been cleverly created out of a broom closet in the space beneath the staircase. I switched on the light and seized the telephone directory.

I was in luck! Martha Henderson, Father's daytime private nurse, did have a telephone, and her address was listed. More luck: She lived in Back Bay, not too far, I could walk. I called to be sure it was the right person, that she was in and would see me, and upon receiving all replies in the affirmative I felt thrice blessed.

"IS IT MISS or Mrs. Henderson?" I inquired.

Even though that was not my favorite question, and I doubted it was hers either, one must be polite.

"It's Miss, but please call me Martha."

Ah, I thought, a woman after my own heart. I smiled.

"And do come in," she added.

"Thank you, Martha."

She lived at the back of a tiny mews, or pedestrian alleyway, off Newbury Street between Exeter and Fairfield. Her little house looked as if it might at one time have been the servants' quarters to the large edifice of golden stone in front. Perhaps the owners of that one had an unusually modern attitude and were renting this out. If so, the nurse was reaping the benefit, because her place was charming.

Or, I thought suddenly, it could be the other way around. Both large and small houses could belong to her, and due to whatever circumstances, she had chosen to live in the former
servants' quarters—if so, then more than likely she supported herself at least partially by renting out her own large house. It was something I might have done, if necessary.

"This is a lovely little house!" I said enthusiastically. "I have always liked Newbury Street."

"Yes, I think my little house has turned out quite well. I grew up on this street, in that stone house out front. When my parents died I moved in back here, and now I let out the big house for the income," Martha said.

And I thought: Aha! I was right.

"Would you like some tea?" she inquired.

"Yes," I agreed, "I believe I would. We could have it in the kitchen if that would be more convenient for you. I am quite fond of sitting around the kitchen table with tea or coffee and friendly talk."

Martha Henderson was a tiny woman, barely five feet tall, with bones so small she put me in mind of a bird. Yet I knew she was very strong, because I had seen her help my father out of bed and do other nursing tasks that required strength.

I had the most striking feeling—almost a premonition really—that Martha Henderson and I were going to get along famously. Even more, I felt that she would somehow be of great help to me, even before we began to talk.