No Rest for the Dove (11 page)

Yet when Longfellow approached a row of hedge nearly two miles from the village, he saw a figure in plain skirts and a straw hat bend down, and then disappear into the glistening vegetation. That this was the place he sought he had no doubt, and not only because
she
was somehow there before him. Two days earlier, Knox had referred to this planting of hawthorn, all that was left of an old farm that had burned and been abandoned long ago. There, too, was a faint trail leading away from the verge, showing where a body had been dragged.

At Longfellow’s urging Venus jumped the ditch, giving a grunt as she landed on the other side.

“Good morning!” his neighbor called, rising when horse and rider were near. Her face seemed like a summer rose unfolding in the soft light, Longfellow suddenly imagined. For some reason, the thought unsettled him.

“I see that you, too, felt the need for exercise this morning,” he called back.

“For both mind and body. I scolded myself last night for having wondered exactly what had happened here, without bothering to walk out and look for facts.”

“How will one make bricks without straw? A biblical allusion, Mrs. Willett, in honor of the Sabbath. Perhaps one of us will lead the other out of Egypt. Have you succeeded in finding anything?”

“Come see what may have been the rock.” She stepped toward him into a circle of grass that had been well trampled. Longfellow dismounted and walked closer.

“Granite,” he concluded, when he had picked up the heavy sphere she indicated. It was somewhat larger than one of her orchard’s striped apples. He looked at its rough surface more closely. “There are also plates of mica here, and pink feldspar.”

“Do you see something else? Something dark, there in the indentations?”

“Possibly,” he said, squinting to make the best use of the reddish rays.

“From a felt hat, do you think?”

“You could be right. Well done, Mrs. Willett! We’ll know for sure when I’ve set some strands under my microscope, and compared them with the hat itself.”

“So it would seem the man rode this far, and was thrown suddenly, coming to earth one last time?”

“It appears likely,” he agreed, relief mingling with renewed admiration for her nimble mind.

“Yet I wonder if it happened just that way,” she continued quietly.

“What? Do you fashion a man with your straw, Carlotta, only for the pleasure of bowling him down?”

“I first saw this rock there,” she explained, pointing to the spot where he, too, had seen it. “And while it may mean nothing at all, here’s something else….”

Taking several steps, she knelt near a patch of mud and gravel which had made a hummock in what was largely undisturbed grass. “I’ve found a small saucer left in
the earth—which I suspect must have held a round object, and quite recently.” She took back the rock, and lowered it gently into the depression with a few raised edges of dried mud remaining. It was a perfect fit.

“And—?”

“And yet, as I showed you, I found this rock several feet away.”

“By this you mean to suggest—?”

“That if someone had fallen onto it
here
, where it recently was, then it should have been driven further into the ground. But it wasn’t. Somehow, it ended up
there
,” she finished, pointing to the place they had been standing moments before.

“What if the horse kicked the thing from its original seat, before our man fell? Or do you tell me this rock flew up from the ground to strike and kill the fellow? Assuming, of course, that he was not already the victim of Warren’s poison-wielding assassin.”

“I’m not completely familiar with Newton’s laws; but I would say flight, in this case, seems unlikely.”

“There, we agree. Still, for the sake of curiosity, let us spend some time going over the ground together.” He held out his hand for the sphere of granite, and placed it into his largest coat pocket. Then, for several minutes, they walked about the damp field until they found themselves many yards apart. It was Longfellow who finally called for a halt. But as Charlotte began to walk toward him, she swooped and again disappeared into the tall grass. She bobbed up with another object.

“An ordinary bottle,” he decided when they had come together. “Of inferior glass … the kind of thing frequently thrown away by travelers. Although,” he added, sniffing at its narrow mouth, “this one does seem to have held wine.”

Charlotte took back the bottle, tilting it to better see
the dried lees still adhering to the sides. “But how did it come to fall so far away?”

“Again, Mrs. Willett?” her neighbor asked with a tolerant smile. “Let us suppose, then, that it was carried by the dead man, and not tossed here by any one of a thousand others who have recently passed this way. If our man happened to be violently unseated, possibly by a bucking horse, what then?”

He stopped, waiting for her to draw her own conclusion.

“I suppose you’re right,” Charlotte conceded, although she also told herself that Science appeared to have its limits, particularly when it came to imagination.

“Well, then, let us go and hear what Reverend Rowe has to say of the week’s events.”

“I’m afraid I must miss the beginning, for I will walk back.” Her face showed that she was not sorry.

“You needn’t. Venus will hardly feel your weight, if you would care to come up behind me.”

“And cause more comment still?”

“Is it beyond your courage, then, this morning?” He drew his boot from a stirrup, and held down a hand in more insistent invitation.

Charlotte lifted herself with a hop and allowed her waist to be encircled, until she sat to one side of the horse’s back, behind the creaking saddle. Then, when he was sure she was settled, her arms around him, Richard Longfellow urged Venus on, taking them back to Bracebridge.

CHRISTIAN ROWE HAD
been unusually mild, using one of the Psalms for his text:
The Lord preserveth the stranger; he relieveth the fatherless and the widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down
. In his own way the preacher had thus introduced the once popish Signor Lahte (who sat saved in Longfellow’s pew), found a reason to smile
pointedly in the direction of Mrs. Willett, and chastised a drunken sot who had fallen from his horse but seemed unworthy of further notice.

When the morning service was finally over, Longfellow and Gian Carlo Lahte walked briskly up the hill ahead of Cicero and Charlotte. Lahte resumed an earlier discussion of Watt’s newly patented improvements to the British steam engine, upon which he admitted he’d meditated happily during the sermon.

As usual, thought Richard, the Italian was both lively and attentive, a union rare in mankind—at least, the part of it with which he was most familiar. After Mrs. Willett had gone on to her own home for an afternoon of reading and contemplation, Lahte allowed his host the pleasure of laying out a careful explanation of why a tall structure needed Dr. Franklin’s lightning rods; then, Longfellow described the recent installation of several atop his own barn, all attached to an iron tail whose end lay buried in the ground.

Over a simple dinner, the two men discussed improvements in plumbing and illumination; the new hope, dignity, and mobility of the working classes; abuses of lords and churches, old and current; and the growing web of navigation canals in England, which would further reduce prices while greatly facilitating travel in that country.

When their powers of concentration began to flag, the Italian and his host walked across the road in search of a snack and fresh entertainment. The musico then provided Longfellow and Jonathan Pratt with gossip from Milan, as well as news from London’s coffee houses which he’d frequented before embarking on his voyage to America. When Cicero joined them, Lahte switched to ribald stories collected in butlers’ pantries across the Continent.
Even Lydia Pratt seemed to enjoy his company, finding frequent reason to pass by their table, listening to what she could.

It later seemed to Longfellow, as he sat alone in his study at the beginning of a gray evening, that Signor Lahte had a knack for gaining the goodwill of nearly everyone. This sort of charm was something he suspected he himself lacked, especially during his black moods. But then, wouldn’t a theatrical performer naturally be more adroit at delivering flattering nonsense? And there was, after all, one man who
had
turned against Il Colombo.

Someone had at last spilled the beans to Reverend Rowe, which had brought the preacher flying up the hill in a royal huff. Once he found them at the inn, Rowe insisted on returning to Longfellow’s study for a private talk. There he roundly condemned the musico’s imagined proclivity for immoral thought and action, as he had heard such behavior was widely rumored to be shared by his kind. Longfellow had quietly defended his guest but abstained from argument, knowing there was little point. On his high horse, Rowe reasoned about as well as an ass.

Tasting again his swallowed bile, Richard Longfellow walked to a sideboard and filled a glass with port. Upon giving the matter additional consideration, he took both glass and bottle back to his easy chair. Finishing a first glass, he poured himself another.

“From what I have learned,” Rowe had insisted, “the castrato is a creature neither fish nor fowl. And how can one even begin to imagine the godless society in which the man was raised—one that brought him to his present state? Even if he only acted on a stage, he would be a thorn in the side of any decent, sober society. And yet, I saw you leave Mrs. Willett alone with this man!”

That, thought Longfellow, was rich, for he and Rowe
had gone out of Charlotte’s kitchen at the same time. As if to answer the unspoken charge, Rowe added swiftly, “At the time,
you knew what he was
!”

“But tell me what, exactly, he’s done.”

“He may have done no direct harm as yet,” the preacher admitted, “but think what influence his words might have on such an unprotected female! Have you not seen that they are both the talk of the village?
She
can hardly be expected to have strength of will, or a man’s judgment. And Signor Lahte is no fit companion for a headstrong woman!”

“But he has given us his word.”

“His word? How can he be trusted to keep it? He holds no faith to swear by—he has even abandoned his Pope! Yet now I’m told his youth was shaped to feed that man’s lustful pleasures—and what will happen if he attempts to raise his voice in our own choir? I will not have it!”

“Reverend, I hardly think—”

“His words are as a flow of amber—he tries to trap us like flies! This musico is a danger, Longfellow—and once again, a danger you not only overlook, but bring intentionally among us!”

Finally, it had been a draw. Rowe gathered up his outraged soul and went away, having worn himself down like a clock. Then, left alone, Richard Longfellow was forced to ask himself a serious question. Did he truly believe Gian Carlo Lahte to be entirely harmless?

Admittedly, the Italian had a glib tongue, as well as a rather careless view of the world. He had no family, no prospects for building one. He’d spoken of a new home, a new life—but what, exactly, was his plan, and did it have something to do with his attentions to Mrs. Willett? Could he mean, somehow, to make her part of his new establishment? Did he even mean to marry? Or was he interested in something … less?

Longfellow allowed himself another glass, and before it was finished he’d decided his suspicions were unworthy of them all. Instead of fretting further, he turned to study a new painting recently hung next to the even dearer portrait of Eleanor Howard.

Shortly before Diana’s wedding he’d commissioned John Copley to paint his sister’s likeness, knowing this would please her. And it had—so much that she had allowed her brother to enjoy the picture for a time, until her new home in Boston could be fully furnished. He concluded again that the result was a superior one … and poured himself yet another glass of port.

If the English aristocracy could think the artists of America untalented—after seeing something like this!—then they might be shot and stuffed, for all their talk of taste. The auburn locks, the mischievous eyes … the small, puzzling smile as she leaned forward, her chin cupped in one hand—all quite lifelike. The young painter had lately done an excellent portrait of Revere, and it would be interesting to see what Copley (whose mother, he recalled, once sold tobacco from her shop on Long Wharf) would make of the town’s great popinjay, Hancock! Longfellow had heard Boston’s own King John now sat for its busiest brush, when that monarch wasn’t off visiting his tailor. Even he must be forced to hold still for ten hours at a time, as other subjects were required to do. How Copley had managed to trap Diana for such periods was a mystery. Though perhaps she had discovered hidden reserves of patience, for one whose business it was to admire and preserve her beauty.

Meanwhile, he sat here in the country while Boston grew impatient in the summer heat. This Stamp situation was so much dry tinder, and secret meetings throughout the town continued to produce flurries of sparks. There was bound to be a conflagration, such as Sam Adams had
long dreamed of—something would soon set the place afire. But now Sam, as well as Joseph Warren, might be having second thoughts. For each was newly married, with a wife who would hardly wish to see her husband in serious trouble.

Marriage, he thought sourly. How could any sane man allow even the best of wives to rule him? After all, in most women Reason was no more understood than Greek, or even Latin—and only in its temples could man’s salvation be found. Richard Longfellow smiled tightly as he admired a new glass of the same old port.

Still, what did one
do
about women? What, indeed, could he do about Charlotte? Might the reverend’s suspicions of Lahte turn out to be true? Or what he himself now suspected of Rowe—!

He had loved Eleanor deeply … and so it seemed somewhat peculiar to imagine—though there was no true prohibition, after all. They were surely unrelated, even by marriage. They were simply neighbors, and friends. Good friends! But Mrs. Willett had lately made it clear she had no wish to alter her life. She, too, valued freedom. Let her skate on thin ice if she would, then. It was something he knew to be a fine feeling.