The Accursed Page 12

  To cheer me, Horace read from The Gentleman from Indiana. He & Booth Tarkington having been in the same eating club at Princeton & the Glee Club & Triangle Club. I lay back laughing in the chaise longue, till suddenly I began to feel faint; then, suddenly vexed; I know not why, swept from the table all my medications, & a pitcher of water Hannah had only just brought me; half an accident, & half not. Horace was astonished as I wept, & wept; & Horace comforted me; though I thought him somewhat stiff & startled; & an air of weariness in his limbs, as he carried me to my bedchamber. When I inquired of him about Axson Mayte whom he had met that day at lunch at the Nassau Club, he spoke curtly: saying only that Mayte was not, in his eyes, a gentleman. And there was something in his complexion & the shape of his nose, that was not quite right. But when I begged him to explain, he would not. “You are in a state of nerves, Adelaide. I will give you your nighttime medication, it is time for bed.” Gravely my husband spoke, & I knew not to confound him. For it is wisest not to confound them, at such times. Yet how unfair, when all of Princeton is buzzing with excitement, & every sort of news & gossip, at only 9 p.m. poor Puss’s eyelids are drooping & soon—all spark of what Madame Blavatsky calls the divine spark of being is extinguish’d.

  _____ . Disguising my handwriting to emulate that of Frances Cleveland, & using a dark-purple ink for which the lady is known, I wrote to PRESIDENT & MRS. WILSON, PROSPECT HOUSE, PRINCETON: Dear President & Mrs Wilson you are very foolish people to believe that any in the community might favor you over the virile Andrew West. & you are not of good breeding tho’ you persist in putting on “airs.” & your daughters homely & “horse-faced” like their father & of most dowdy figure like their mother & in addition “buck-toothed.” Sincerely, A Friend.

  This missive, in a plain envelope, stamped, I entrusted to Hannah, to run out & post in a box on Nassau Street, while on errands in town.

  _____ . Horace in the city, visiting our broker at Wall Street; for there is some complications in his will, or in our joint will; of which I never think, for Dr. Boudinot has told me not to worry, in the slightest—“You will outlive us all, Mrs. Burr!” & by stealth & shy questioning like that of a maiden lady of ample years I put questions to Minnie, & to Abraham; as to Hannah, & one or two others; for it is known when a Negro lies to a white person, you can see deceit in their eyes for they are childlike & without guile, in their hearts. In so querying, I think that I have learned that the murdered girl was but eleven years old; father not known & mother a slattern who works at the Bank Street dairy. So there it is, after all my speculation! Poor child! Poor innocence!—for I am sure the child must have been innocent, being so young. Yet she was of a rough background & (it was hinted) of “mixed” blood. Such things will happen to such people, God have mercy on their souls.

  _____ . “Mrs. Burr, please do not ask, no more, Mrs. Burr, please”—so Minnie begged, just this morning; when I summoned her to my bedchamber, to speak frankly to me as to the circumstances of the murder; & whether the child was “tampered with unnaturally.” For this is crucial to know, for the well-being of all in the community. Tho’ it is too beastly, & will only make me ill to learn. “All right then, Minnie, don’t tell me,” I said, wounded; adding, “But if some grievous harm befalls me, it will be on your head.” Minnie began to quiver, & to shake; she is not so strong a woman as you would think, though the daughter of slaves out of Norfolk, & thus strong & reliable stock; yet, it is said she has not been well, with some sort of female illness of which it is best not to speak. Enough to know, I suppose, that there is monstrousness in our midst, in Princeton Borough.

  _____ . A wild windy night & we two are cozy by the fire in the master bedroom, that Abraham has stoked & teased into a blaze. & Horace is less irritable, since his meeting with our broker; our wills have been drawn up, & I have signed, without taxing my eyes, as Horace advised, in attempting to read the arcane legal-babble. & the unease with the unions has subsided, I think. At least, Horace is not raging over it now. Innocently I inquired of Horace, has any progress been made in solving the murder?—& he seemed quite startled, that I knew it was murder; & did not consent to this knowledge, but spoke vaguely that he knew of no serious crime in the Borough, in recent years. Then taking up Mr. Tarkington’s novel, & beginning to read; & I lay my hand on his wrist & begged of him, not to condescend to me; for I wanted to know the Truth, & would know the Truth, as all Theosophists must. & Horace said to me, with a laugh, that the only upset in Princeton of which he has heard, at the Nassau Club, was of some undergraduate pranksters again hammering down a section of Dr. Wilson’s wrought iron fence, he had had built to surround Prospect House; for the boys do take offense, that the president & his family of females should seek privacy for themselves, in the very midst of the campus. (“Dr. Wilson is one of those persons,” Horace has gravely stated, “who may one day succeed in impressing the world, but who can’t be taken seriously in Princeton, New Jersey.”) Later I fell into a headachey sulk, & scarcely consented to take my medicine from Horace’s hand, & dear Horace sought to comfort me, & perhaps wished to cuddle; so I allowed him to lie on top of the quilt & to press his weight gently against me, but very gently—for Horace has grown stout these past few years. & some other exertions may have transpired on Horace’s part, of which I took no heed; for already Puss’s eyelids were drooping. “Do you regret it”—so I asked in a whisper, & the dear gentleman kissed my closed eyes—“do you regret your invalid wife, that never yet has been a wife, nor ever shall be” & he denied all emphatically, as he always does; & hummed a gentle little tune; & his curly mustache tickled, & I thought of the ravaged child in the marsh, & felt an exquisite pain in the very core of my being, & in the next instant—was gone . . .

  _____ . Here is a surprise: there was no child of eleven murdered in Princeton, nor of any age. There were two persons said to be murdered—“executed”—for misbehavior & insult to their superiors—not in Princeton but in Camden, New Jersey. These persons, of whom I have been reading in the Philadelphia Inquirer, discovered by chance in Horace’s study, were called Jester & Desdra Pryde of Camden. All that was done to them, or why, was not explained in the paper, in a brief article on page eight; but the sheriff of Camden County stated that, of 500 persons observing the executions, “not a single eyewitness” has stepped forward. It is an ugly story but too distant from Princeton for pity, I am afraid. & you would know from the intent of the article, that the Prydes were Negroes, & not white; & that they were punished for misbehaving of some sort, that might have been avoided by more discreet judgment on their part.

  _____ . & so, there is no UNSPEAKABLE crime in Princeton after all, but, as Horace warned, a swirl of mere gossip. I am not sure if I am relieved, or disappointed. Poor Puss, misled!

  I have put away Horace’s newspaper where he will not know that it has been touched; & next is nap, & teatime in the late afternoon & ah!—B O R E D O M in gusts like airborne ether.

  THE BURNING GIRL

  One afternoon in late May, Annabel Slade, Wilhelmina Burr, and Annabel’s cousin Todd were walking along the bank of Stony Brook Creek, at the edge of Crosswicks Forest; the young women were intensely engaged in conversation as the boy—(at this time eleven years old but looking and behaving like a younger child)—frolicked about, and shouted commandments to the Slades’ dog Thor, who was accompanying the small party in their ramble.

  “Thor, here! Thor, obey.”

  The boy’s voice was sharp, provoking the dog to bark. The dog was a mature German shepherd with a gunmetal gray, whorled coat.

  “Thor, run! Go!”

  How noisy the boy was! And the handsome dog, that did not ordinarily bark, was barking now, excitedly.

  Out of the May sunshine and into the splotched light of the forest the boy and the dog ran. The young women could hear their crashing into the underbrush, like a deliberate thrashing of sticks.

  Annabel called: “Todd? Please! Wait for us.”

  Yet deeper into the forest the chi
ld ran, driving the dog before him.

  Unless the dog was on the trail of some creature, and leading the boy forward in an ecstasy of blood-excitement.

  “Todd! You promised . . .”

  Vainly—laughingly—Annabel called after her headstrong cousin.

  But Annabel was not truly complaining of Todd, her little cousin whom she loved dearly. His unfailing energy was a marvel to her, who was herself capable of walking for miles, in her good hiking shoes, in Crosswicks Forest and along the creek bank; nearly as far as the Craven house, and back again, on Rosedale Road. And Wilhelmina was an even more experienced hiker.

  On this May afternoon the young women were very sensibly dressed for out-of-doors: Annabel in a blue-striped shirtwaist, with a high collar and a tight-clasped belt; Wilhelmina, or “Willy,” in stylish Turkish trousers and a belted blouse. Annabel had tucked a water iris into the silken coil of hair gathered at the nape of her neck: a flower of extreme delicacy that mimicked the violet-blue of her eyes. Her straw sailor hat gave her a pleasing and piquant childlike air and, once out of the sight of the Manse, she had, in imitation of her bolder companion, lifted her chiffon veil off her face, for she found it confining, and disagreeably warm. “Mother worries about my ‘fragile, English’ complexion,” Annabel said, “but I can’t think that the sun will make an aged crone of me in a single hour.”

  “Not a single hour, but an accumulation of hours. That is the danger our elders perceive.”

  But Willy spoke lightly, dismissively. Annabel’s schoolgirl friend had long cast off a daughterly reverence for her mother’s cautious admonitions, and had a way of speaking so impetuously, Annabel had to laugh.

  “Well. We must take the risk, then. After all, the century is very young—it will go on for a long time.”

  In Princeton circles, it was acknowledged that Annabel Slade and “Willy” Burr were close as sisters, though very different. While Annabel possessed the sylphid grace of a fairy-tale princess, unstudied and seemingly spontaneous, yet with a dreamy air, Willy presented a dramatic contrast: brash, brusque, heavy-jawed, with eyes that engaged too directly, and too often ironically. Willy’s considerable charm was at first obscured, to the superficial eye, by a certain stolidity in her figure, as in her character. She was a brunette, with a somewhat dark, and very healthy, complexion, while Annabel was ivory-pale, with very fair hair, and very blond eyelashes and brows; Willy was more forceful, as Annabel seemed to glide; yet both young women were likely to be gay-hearted in each other’s company, and to whisper together, and laugh a good deal. (“If only Dabney could make me laugh, as Willy does!”—Annabel said sighing.) Young men complained of Wilhelmina Burr that she was given to unpredictable—“unprovoked”—moods; she could not be relied upon, to turn up when she’d promised; if engaged in croquet, lawn tennis, or court tennis, she could not be relied upon to graciously lose to her male opponents, but seemed rather too intent upon winning; and, having won, was likely to express some satisfaction. Nor did Willy take care with her hair, or her clothes and grooming, as other young Princeton ladies did, conscientiously; Willy’s “Turkish trousers” would have been appropriate for a girl-cyclist, or even a girl hockey player; the plain straw hat on her head looked as if it had been hurriedly clamped in place, with no effort at charm. Willy had cast her gloves away, or had lost them; and carried over her shoulder, like a vagabond in an illustration, a canvas bag into which her sketch pad, pastel chalks, and other art supplies had been thrust. Her high-necked blouse was white cotton, with limp throat-ruffles, and cuffs just perceptively soiled.

  Poor Wilhelmina, who struck the eye as distinctly disadvantaged, beside her beautiful friend!—for Mrs. Burr was always nagging at her, and complaining, and worrying that no one would ever wish to marry her, except for her family’s position and wealth. (Willy had “come out” in New York a year before Annabel but had, as yet, received only a scattering of unacceptable marriage offers, from either young men of no fortune, or young men of no family: which only amused the young woman, who commented that she looked forward greatly to declining an “irresistible” offer, like a governess in a romance novel, for the splash it would make in Princeton circles; but was being prevented by Fate.) So little did Willy care for feminine adornment, or for her own feelings, she did not take offense when Todd Slade, earlier in their walk, had presented his cousin with the exquisite water iris but gave to her a sprig of white baneberry, with the remark: “You shall have this, ‘Willy’—for it is said to be poison; and Todd senses, how you dislike him.” Indeed, so far from being offended by the boy’s curious, stiffly uttered words, Willy laughingly accepted the sprig from him, and tucked it into the chignon at the nape of her neck.

  IT IS TIME to acknowledge that Mrs. Adelaide Burr, “poor Puss,” had not been entirely misinformed, regarding an UNSPEAKABLE crime in the Princeton vicinity; and this not the ugly episode in Camden, New Jersey, but the disappearance of a young girl of thirteen, sometime during the night of April 30, out of her parents’ home on the Princeton Pike, about midway between Princeton and Trenton; after a search, the body of Priscilla Mae Spags was found floating in the Delaware-Raritan Canal, not far from the family home; though details concerning the nature of the crime were unclear, either because law enforcement officers did not wish to release them, or knew very little. Nor was there any mention of the sordid crime in the weekly Princeton paper. Trenton authorities had acted with commendable swiftness in apprehending and interrogating, in Trenton, a male of “unfixed” address, an immigrant from eastern Europe who handily provided them with a signed confession—signed, that is, with crudely executed initials, for the wretch seemed not to know how to read or write English, or speak English very coherently, nor seemed even confident of his birth date!

  So it was, or seemed, that the danger of further unspeakable outrages may have abated in the area; certainly, there should not have been any danger in the forested property belonging to the Slades, that stretched for several miles along Rosedale Road. (Crosswicks Forest, as it was locally known, and the adjoining countryside, were posted against all trespassers, of course; any hunter or poacher among the locals would have been very brash indeed, to set foot on the Slade property, and to risk the hot temper of the Slade gamekeeper, a close acquaintance of the county sheriff.)

  The young women strolled briskly, yet with their arms linked, as was their custom; trying not to be nettled by the commotion of Annabel’s young cousin and Thor rushing ahead into the woods; calling out to him, not chidingly, for like a part-bridled young horse the boy balked at being scolded even by Annabel whom he adored, but sweetly—“Todd! Please try to stay in sight, will you? Don’t make us fret over you”—even as the boy shouted back to them, out of the forest underbrush, of the “devils” he and Thor were scaring up—“witches”—“trolls”—the famed “Jersey Devil” itself;* then, with diabolic slyness, doubling back and rushing at them from behind, with Thor noisily barking at his heels, meaning to frighten them; and indeed, to a degree frightening them. In a high-pitched singsong voice Todd demanded of the tensely smiling young women: “The Jersey Devil asks: What is round, and flat, and blank, and tells no lies?”

  “ ‘Round, and flat, and blank, and tells no lies . . .’ ”

  Unlike her brother Josiah who was skilled at riddles, as at charades, and other parlor games, Annabel was at a loss at such times; and sought to deflect the boy’s intensity by brushing his damp hair from his fevered forehead, and picking burrs from his clothing, and declaring that his riddle was “too difficult” for her—which caused the boy to react in frustration, to gnash his teeth, leap into the air and clap his hands loudly; Annabel was accustomed to such childish tantrums, and only tried to laugh, while Willy shrank away, that the antic boy might not stumble into her. (It was true, as Todd sensed, that Willy did not quite share in Annabel’s indulgent affection for him.) And now Todd confronted Wilhelmina: “What is round, and flat, and blank, and, for you especially, tells no lies?”

  Willy
tried to smile, as one tries to smile at the over-bright, unsettling children of relatives or friends; she offered the boy a fig bar which he accepted from her, and devoured within seconds; then rudely declared that, though she was “Willy” she had not the “wit” to solve a riddle. In childish contempt Todd said: “It is a mirror, Miss Burr. A mirror, and you know it. You big Burr: mirror. The reverse side of a mirror, its back. Like your back, telling no lies, as a face does. Now, give me another fig bar! Thor and I are hungry.”

  Annabel protested: “Todd! You must not be rude.”

  Todd said, “You must not be rude, the two of you, to pretend not to know my riddle.”

  So mercurial were Todd’s moods, however, he soon quieted after devouring the second fig bar, which he broke in half to share with the eager German shepherd; and insisted that Annabel and Willy stop where they were, for it was time for a story—had not Annabel promised Todd a story, if he was good on their walk; and he was sure that he had been good, for he and Thor might have been so much less good.

  The young women had not intended to sit down just at this time, or in this place; but Todd found for them some exposed, gnarled tree roots, that formed a kind of seat; so they sat down, beside the quietly flowing Stony Brook Creek, and Annabel took out of her straw bag a children’s book, to read to Todd that tale of Hans Christian Andersen’s which was Todd’s favorite, “The Ugly Duckling”; and taking care not to intrude, Willy sketched her friend in pastels; for she very much wanted an intimate portrait of Annabel as she was before her wedding, to keep as a memento; as Willy felt, for some reason, that she would lose her closest friend once the young woman became Mrs. Dabney Bayard and lived in the old Craven house.