More Than You Know (27 page)

like finally shining a flashlight into all the corners of a blackened room.

Curiosity is an underrated passion, in my view. Even if I never knew

the truth about the Haskells any more than anyone else, it was a relief

to finally learn what could be known.

Paul LeBlond emerged as charming, shallow, and weak. That

was clear, and so was the fact that he’d left the island the afternoon

before the murder; one of the Duffys had helped with his trunk and

seen him off on the packet boat. His leaving may have provoked a

crisis in the Haskell house, but it didn’t seem to the men who’d known

him best to have been any crisis to him. He was a rolling stone, a

traveler; he had a useful trade and thought he’d try his luck in San

Francisco. So much for Phin Jellison. I might have felt sorry for Sallie,

if I didn’t have reason to believe she was doing a bang-up job of

feeling sorry for herself.

The prosecution established that Sallie’s passion for Paul was

painfully real, at least. Her childhood friends, the Hortons, Bowdoin

Leach, were also made to describe the anger she’d often expressed at

her parents. They took care to point out that Sallie was if anything

more bitter toward her mother than her father. But then, her friends

didn’t want her to hang.

The friends agreed under oath that Sallie had a wild temper, but

only a waitress at the boardinghouse where she cooked would give

examples. She claimed she’d seen Sallie nearly kill a man with a

blackpan when he wouldn’t stop flirting. She had a good time with

the reporters, the waitress, but was never called as a witness. She was

possibly not the most reliable soul in town.

Sallie never testified at either trial; reporters had to confine them-

selves to describing her clothes and demeanor. There were drawings

of her being led in and out of the courthouse surrounded by sheriff’s

men, more to protect her it seemed than to prevent her escape. A very

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fat man traveled all the way from Ohio to propose marriage to her,

and give interviews. She got pounds of mail, more proposals, expres-

sions of support, many screeds full of hatred. Her guards at the jail

were the sources for this; Sallie never talked to reporters.

Nor did Mercy or Claris. Mercy was a favorite with the reporters

even so. She was young and almost pretty, with smooth brown hair

and clear skin and the teasing mystery of her pregnancy. Reporters

pointed out that there were very many unwed mothers in island com-

munities, owing to the infrequent visits of justices or clergy, and it

was common for island people to take their own view of their domestic

arrangements. One reporter cited a diary of Rev. Jonathan Friend of

Dundee, who recorded the many cases he found in island households

of children whose fathers were also their uncles, or their grandfathers.

Reporters thought Mercy betrayed an odd sort of sympathy for Danial

Haskell when she was forced to speak of him. She was self-possessed

and not petite. She could well have taken an ax to her host if his

attentions had been unbearable, but if she had, they seemed to hope

she got away with it.

Claris Osgood Haskell was hardest for reporters to read, and to

like, I gathered. Unlike Sallie and Mercy, she didn’t seem to grant that

they had a job to do. She behaved as if they had no right to exist and,

therefore, didn’t. Her testimony was terse and given grudgingly, as if

the murder and its consequence had happened principally to her, not

first to Danial and now to Sallie. Off the record people began to won-

der why Sallie had not killed the mother instead of the father.

Through two long trials, the three women never varied their

story. None of them had done it. None of them had seen it. None of

them had anything more to say.

When I was done with the papers, I asked if there was a copy

of Reverend Friend’s diary on the shelves. There was, a handsomely

bound book published by the Unionville Historical Society. It was

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almost time to collect Fern at the hospital, but fortunately I knew what

month and year I was looking for, and I found this:

Date: Sept. 22, 1874.

After ten days in the water the body of my nephew Amos Haskell

came ashore on the Neck yesterday morning. Fortunately Claris

stayed on with us after the funeral and is still here on the main.

She asked to have him buried in a place dear to him, where she

says he and our William were used to play. This we have done

this afternoon, with only Claris, Mary and Leander attending.

R.I.P. I hope it has been a comfort to her. I wonder how she will

break this news to the boy’s father.

I wondered too. I copied it out to show Conary, whom I met

every afternoon at the burial ground. Often we stayed there, kissing

and talking and growing closer and closer, but sometimes we grew

bold and drove here and there in the countryside. I never cared where

I was when I was with him. Edith noticed none of this. She was

shaken, and I almost felt sorry for her, up here alone, far from her

mother and her snippy friends.

This was the sunniest time of my summer, and maybe of my

whole life. I thought of Mercy, with her baby that was nobody else’s

business, and felt that Boston and its scolding strictures were very far

away. In Boston there were rules to shield girls who were being fooled

or making fools of themselves. Here there was life, shimmering and

tremendous, and, more important, here for me and Conary was true

union, which has its own rules. There was a wild field strewn with

boulders where Conary and I first made married love to each other.

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There was a freshwater pond back in the woods where we jumped

naked from a bold granite ledge into warm peat-stained water and

swam, laughing at how yellow our bodies looked under the water.

“This is my private bath,” said Conary. He brought a bar of soap and

we took turns washing each other’s hair.

We stopped fearing or even thinking about our parents’ disap-

proval; together we felt immune, invincible, beloved of God. How

could there be anything wrong with the expansive joy we felt together,

our faith in the future, the communion we felt with the town, the

countryside, the planets in their orbits? How could this be anything

but a blessed thing in the universe?

Not that being recklessly happy had rendered Conary docile,

mind you. In town I was hearing rumors about him; I heard he was

hanging around with the migrant berry rakers in the evenings, drinking

and carrying on. One night he came to my house after midnight and

threw blueberries at my window. They made purple splat marks all

over the pane, and I wanted to scold him, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

I put my head out, listening for Edith, and saw him standing below

me. I’d been about to tell him to shush himself, but he looked so

handsome standing there, all I could do was put a finger to my lips

and try not to laugh out loud.

“Come down,” he said in a stage whisper. I was sure we were

about to be caught, but he was obviously in a wild mood.

“I can’t—keep your voice down.”

“I can’t—I’m in love. Come down.”

I hesitated, wondering if there were some way out of the house

that didn’t take me past Edith’s door.

Connie whispered, “Jump—I’ll catch you.” I pulled my head in

and turned to see if Stephen was awake. He was, but I put my finger

to my lips, and he nodded. I crept to the bedroom door to see if the

house was quiet; maybe I could risk going down the stairs. Instead, I

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saw a thin line of light beneath Edith’s door; she was still awake. I

hurried back to the window.

“Go away, Connie—she’s awake. We’ll be caught.”

“I want to marry you,” he said in this whisper the whole neigh-

borhood could have heard. What had he been doing all evening? It

looked as if his hair was wet, and I was fairly sure he’d been drinking.

There was a lot more moon than the first night, and I could see pretty

well, but the light seemed really to be coming from Connie’s face

looking up at me.

“Will you?” he asked. I was gazing at him, dumb as an oyster;

I’d forgotten I hadn’t answered. “Will you?”

“Connie, go away, I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll be caught.”

Of course it didn’t matter what I said. He already knew the

answer.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

I nodded, grinning like a fool.

“Try to be early.” Finally he turned to go. Just before he dis-

appeared into the darkness, I saw that he must have hurt his foot; he

was limping. Minutes later, far up the road, I could hear his truck

start up.

The next day in the library two girls were talking in the stacks

where the magazines were; I heard Connie’s name. I couldn’t hear

what it was about, though it was clear that someone’s feelings had

been hurt.

“I’m sick of it,” said the one who was upset. She was quite

pretty, but with teeth that made her look like a horse. “I’m sick of the

way he treats people.”

“It’ll pass,” said the other one. “He has reasons.” I was dying

to know what had happened. They stopped talking as they took their

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books to the front desk, and while Mrs. Allen stamped them, I got a

look at their faces. I didn’t know their names, but I knew them; they

both were working at the drugstore that summer.

“I’m tired of him being such a bastard,” said the one with the

teeth, still fuming, as they reached the door.

Her friend sighed. “So is he,” she said. They went out.

I met Connie at the burial ground at four thirty that day. He was

as elated as he’d been the night before, although he had dark circles

under his eyes.

“Do you remember saying you would marry me?” he asked

when we stopped kissing.

“I did not say that. Where had you been? You hurt your foot.”

“It was nothing. I had supper with the Indians, and later we went

swimming at Friend’s Pond.”

“And that made you realize right then that you had to marry

me?”

“Yes. It was the moon. The water was so warm, and there was

a silver ribbon across it that led right to the moon. I wanted you to

see it.”

I understood. I wanted him to see everything beautiful I saw. I

wanted him right beside me, to share everything good.

He began to sing. “There’s a wee baby moon, sailing up in the

sky, with his little silvery toes in the air. . . . And he’s all by himself

in the great big sky, but the wee baby moon doesn’t care.”

“What is that?” I was delighted. His voice was sweet, like every-

thing about him.

“That’s what my mother used to sing. Whenever there was a

new moon.”

“Sing it again.” Every time I learned something new about him

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I felt as if I had captured another nugget of the only story I wanted

to be told. He sang, unself-consciously. We kissed. It was amazing,

just astonishing, to be so completely happy.

Fortunately we were well back in the grove, hidden by standing

stones and a large maple tree; we had a chance to jump apart and

straighten ourselves when we heard a voice demand, “Who’s in here?”

Standing at the open side of the clearing was an odd apparition.

It was dressed entirely in men’s clothing: baggy corduroy pants, a

man’s shirt under a baggy V-necked cardigan, even a beaten-up fedora

with no hatband. But the gray hair was long and wrapped into a soft

knot behind the head, and the voice was a woman’s.

“Miss Leaf! It’s me, it’s Conary Crocker.”

She peered at us across the grove. “Who’s that?” she asked

again. She was annoyed about something, and her eyesight could not

have been good.

“Conary Crocker, Miss Leaf,” he said, taking my hand and lead-

ing me toward her. He stopped when we stood in bright sunlight before

her, and added, “Tom Crocker’s boy.”

She peered at him. Her eyes were dim, but her expression was

keen.

“Oh!” she said. “You’re Tom Crocker’s boy!” She still seemed

annoyed. She looked at me. “Who’s this?”

“This is Hannah Gray.”

“Never heard of her.”

“You knew her mother . . .”

“Who?”

“Sara Grindle.”

Miss Leaf examined me carefully now, with the same intense

expression.

“Oh, you’re Frances Friend’s granddaughter. Your mother used

to come to my art class. Married that man from Boston, didn’t she?”

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“Yes,” I said.

“I knew it,” she said, as if I’d been trying to trick her into

believing otherwise. “Are you the ones been stealing my flowers?”

I looked at Conary for guidance.

“Miss Leaf has the beautiful garden just below here. It’s the