Louisa and the Country Bachelor : A Louisa May Alcott Mystery (9781101547564) (3 page)

I had more knowledge of the man, as he had been my accidental companion during the train journey from Boston to the depot south of Walpole where the train tracks ended, since the railroad company had not yet finished the line that would connect Walpole with the more southerly cities. Dr. Burroughs was a tall gentleman of some seventy years, dressed in the stern black suit and white stockings of an earlier generation. A shock of white hair sprang out from under his hat, and during that journey his hair had trembled with constant disapproval. “Don't see why we need trains t'all, t'all; coach do just fine,” he had said over and over.

During that trip, I had restrained from asking why he had journeyed by train, if such were his feelings, and had surmised that his Boston daughter-in-law (the topic of most of his conversation, for according to him she was lazy, ambitious, slatternly, and overly refined, all at once) had wished him a hasty removal to his Walpole daughter-in-law.

He had one wonderful saving grace—many years of experience as a medical examiner. He had assisted in piecing together the dismembered remains of Dr. George Parkman, who had been murdered by his debtor, Professor John Webster of Harvard Medical College, some nine years before. “I myself found the right thigh,” Dr. Burroughs had told me. “Skinny, you know. The professors at Harvard don't eat enough to put meat on their bones. These colleges will turn out paupers.”

Dr. Burroughs had talked at great length about the process of reconstructing a corpse as part of the process of finding the murderer, and I had found this even more interesting than the scenery.

We had met in the Walpole town square several times since our concurrent arrivals in that pleasant village, and I had learned to feel some affection for the man, since it seemed no one else cared for his company. He wandered the town square for most hours of the day seeking conversation and rarely finding it.

“Come in, Dr. Burroughs,” I said. “Have a chair and make yourself at home. Would you like a glass of water? I can't offer tea; we haven't purchased any yet.”

I hadn't told Dr. Burroughs that I was moving from Uncle Benjamin Willis's house to his cottage, to live there with my own family. Yet I should have known Dr. Burroughs would know. Such men—old, unwanted, but still filled with vigor and curiosity—are better at garnering news than the best newspaper reporters.

“Ah.” He took a package from behind his back. “A housewarming.”

I opened the brown paper–wrapped parcel. It contained a box of Ceylon tea, a tin of biscuits, and a cone of sugar.

“Well,” said Sylvia, smiling. “Now we can offer tea.”

“Offer accepted. May I?” He stepped over the threshold into the parlor, making a pantomime of stepping highly as if over a fence, and wobbled a bit, having challenged his sense of balance. Obviously he, unlike Sylvia, had never benefited from an Italian dancing instructor.

I took his arm to steady him and put his coat and hat on a free chair. Sylvia went into the pantry to heat the kettle.

“Your color is good,” he said, sitting on the settee and peering closely into my face.

“I spend much time out of doors,” I said.

“Good, good. Cannot stand those pasty, fragile females. My daughter-in-law seems to think she is more appealing with white powder all over her face.” He sighed heavily at the sins of youth. “Your family arrives today?” he asked. “Good, good. Do not like the thought of young women on their own. It's an evil world.” He sighed heavily again.

“It is also a beautiful world,” I protested. “Look out the window, Dr. Burroughs, at the mountains. Aren't they glorious? And Walpole. So friendly, so filled with neighbors looking after neighbors. It is quite a change from Boston, I assure you.”

“Bah,” he said, thumping his walking stick on the floor. “Walpole has gone to the dogs. That railroad line has sent property prices to the sky, and everyone is looking to buy or sell for profit, even the foreign laborers. Time was, a man bought a house and knew his children and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren would grow up in it. Now they buy only to sell later for more money in the bank. Bah. I never.”

Sylvia arrived just then with the tea tray.

“Coming by train, are they?” he asked, changing the topic.

“As far as the depot. They travel often by train,” I said. “At least, Father does.”

“Bah! Trains!” he muttered, thumping his cane again. His beautiful thick white hair, free now of its hat, shook as if a sudden breeze had captured it.

“It is progress.” I poured tea into three only slightly chipped cups. “They say that soon we will be able to travel from Atlantic to Pacific in three weeks or less, and from Walpole to Boston in less than a day.”

“Harrumph. Such speed is not good for the constitution. People will be dropping like flies should that happen. No, a strong horse's steady pace is as fast as man was designed to travel.” Dr. Burroughs sipped his tea and glowered.

“Think of hot-air balloons,” I said. “Soon we may all fly in the air.”

“It will never happen. In the air, underground. Bah. I suppose you, like other young people, approve all this digging about for fossils and dead elephants. Geology. I never.”

“You mean the mastodon they found nearby in a farmer's bog last year,” Sylvia corrected.

“I mean that dead elephant.” Dr. Burroughs knitted his brows. I bit my lip to keep from quarreling with him and stared determinedly out the window at the lovely mountains. Who knew what secrets could be found in those hazy peaks and vales, if mastodons could be found in bogs?

A few minutes later the hall clock (also on loan from Benjamin's daughter, Eliza) chimed two o'clock.

Sylvia cleared her throat. “Shouldn't we be leaving soon, Louisa?” she asked.

Dr. Burroughs took the hint and rose stiffly from his chair.

“Thank you for the housewarming,” I told him. “I hope you will come again, and meet Mother and Father and my sisters.”

He looked at me somewhat cross-eyed. Obviously it had been so long since he had received an invitation that he didn't quite know what to say.

“Well,” he muttered, confused. “Well.”

 

 

AT TWO THIRTY, dressed in freshly washed and ironed frocks (Sylvia, unaccustomed to such work, had scorched hers, but the brown patch was covered nicely by a summer shawl), we made our way down Main Street to the central square.

Walpole at that time was a large village of some fifteen hundred souls, twelve thousand sheep, and four hundred horses, perched on a high plain surrounded by the Cold and Connecticut rivers. Main Street ran tidily from north to south and was lined with beautiful old elms and maples, and behind those trees were very handsome residences. Children played at tag or with marbles, being careful to avoid the tidy, brightly planted front gardens of roses, foxglove, and iris that marked the homes. Walpole, with reason, was proud of itself. The town had excellent schools with almost universal literacy, a dozen shops, two shoe manufactories, and one shirt factory. White church spires darted into the cloudless blue sky, and in the near distance, Kilburn Mountain loomed in hazy shades of lavender and green.

Father, I knew, approved of Walpole in particular and New Hampshire in general.

“It is restful,” agreed Sylvia, reading my thoughts. “And Mother seems so very far away.” For as much as I admired my materfamilias, Sylvia spent much of her time trying to avoid hers.

But then I saw the row of idling men leaning against fences and walls, the burly laborers whose work had been halted because of property disputes. Some of the men and boys spit great gobs of tobacco that made walking a hazard; they all wore the tweed caps and collarless linen tunics that marked the new Irish immigrants.

There was a second group of men farther down the street, men with white-blond hair and wooden clogs: the Dutch workers who had arrived even before the Irish. The two groups shot glances of dislike back and forth, and occasionally one would venture over to shake his fists, mutter an insult, or snarl, before returning to the safety of his own group. It is ever this way, I have observed, that one group of low-wage immigrants will despise the next to come after them; there is a hierarchy of suspicion and employment rivalry.

Each day, when I had walked to the square, I had encountered this same dual grouping, almost identical, with only minor variations of numbers and postures. The ceasing of work on the railroad had thrown many bread earners out of work, and there was unease in lovely Walpole because of this.

I felt Sylvia stiffen next to me as we passed them by; for a moment their attention focused on us, and I remembered Dr. Burroughs's words—that women unescorted by men were vulnerable.

“Rubbish,” I said aloud. That made Sylvia laugh, and the moment passed.

The omnibus from the train depot was a little early that afternoon, and Sylvia and I arrived in the square just as my family was alighting from the coach.

I stood and gazed upon them for a moment, delighting in the sight of Abba, with her sensible brown dress and sewing basket dangling from her arm, for she never sat without a piece of mending or darning in her lap; Lizzie, shy and looking a little confused at the commotion, her beautiful long white pianist's hands fluttering pale in the sun as she retied her bonnet; May, the youngest of Abba's “Golden Brood,” our pet, dressed in a pink frilled frock and with her bangs curled on her broad forehead; Anna, a grown woman with a hesitant smile and lovely eyes; and Father. Father, with his sharp, noble features, his long, elegant figure, his patched and mended clothes, his air of constant distraction comingling with nobility of the highest degree.

Anna saw me first, gave a little gasp, and opened her arms. I threw myself into them. Soon we were all hugging and exchanging kisses, Father going so far as to kiss Sylvia on the forehead, thinking for a second that she was one of his own. It was a busy market afternoon, and many people in the square tut-tutted at our public affection, but no amount of disapproval could dampen an Alcott reunion.

“Have you many trunks?” I asked. “Uncle Benjamin said he would send his cart for them.”

“I don't see it,” said Abba, looking around in a worried manner. “There is no cart. And there are more trunks than we can possibly carry.”

“He might have forgotten,” I said. “He is increasingly forgetful.” Now worried myself, I looked at the pile of Alcott trunks, worn and battered things but also heavy with our worldly possessions, and knew there was no way we could transport them to the cottage ourselves. Father alone had four heavy trunks of books and papers.

“Say, you can't leave those boxes here, in the way,” said a man's voice. I turned and saw a very tall and gangly man, a veritable Ichabod Crane, with the arrogant eyes and bobbing Adam's apple of Washington Irving's schoolteacher, glaring at us. Sheriff Bowman, Walpole's single officer of the law.

Father extended his hand. “I am Bronson Alcott,” he said hopefully.

“Still can't leave them things in the way,” said Sheriff Bowman.

“Leave them here,” said a different man's voice from behind me. Mr. Tupper came out of Tupper's General Store and gave me a half smile. He had red hair and hazel eyes and a ginger-colored walrus mustache above his lip. His white apron was stained pale green with pickle juice. “Didn't mean to startle you, Miss Alcott,” he said. “Passengers can leave packages here for pickup later. Charge is a nickel a day for storage.”

I had met Mr. Tupper already on several occasions; he ran the Whig store, and my cousin Eliza Wells had given me stern orders to shop there, not at the Democrat store, or I would make trouble for her family. Walpole was very firm on those lines and more divided in politics than any other issue.

Though he, like other Whigs, was an antislaver, I had no fondness for Mr. Tupper; he overpriced his goods and was often rude. Political morality is well and good, but one must uphold principles in mundane matters as well. Charity begins at home.

However, we had no choice but to accept his offer for trunk storage, though the charge was excessive. I gave him a nickel from my bag, and Mr. Tupper and his boy began carrying our trunks off the sidewalk and into his store.

“Do put it down gently,” I called to him as he disappeared through the door of Tupper's General Store with a trunk May had packed for me as well. I had traveled to Walpole without my skirt hoop. Comfortable reader, if you wonder why I did such a thing you have obviously never sat for long periods of travel in a hoop skirt, which is somewhat like a clothy balloon but not tied at the ankles, thankfully. May, however, had been so mortified by my lack of stylishness she had packed the hoop into its case and brought it.

“The case is old and fragile . . .” I called to the store's interior.

Too late. There was a loud thud.

Obviously Mr. Tupper had never had to deal with crinolines and hoop skirts which, once wrongly bent, are never the same again.

 

 

HALF AN HOUR later we had returned to the cottage that Sylvia and I had prepared. I held my breath and pushed open the door. Abba entered first, then Anna, Lizzie, May, and Father.

They looked around in curious amazement at their new home.

Suddenly I saw the cottage, and my own work in it, through Abba's eyes. The windows were still streaky; the curtains in the dining room were lopsided. I had chosen the wrong rug to lay between the blue silk settees.

But Abba turned to me with glistening eyes and enfolded me in her embrace once again.

“You have made us a castle,” she said. “It is perfect and beautiful.”

I remembered the reading I had given Sylvia earlier in the day, about the ideal true woman. I realized then that I had been describing Abba.