Читать книгу The Widow Of Pale Harbour - Hester Fox - Страница 14

The invitations began almost immediately.

If Gabriel had thought that his arrival would be quiet, that he could slip into Pale Harbor unnoticed, then he had been sorely mistaken. It was a small town—Lewis had informed him that their police force consisted of one constable, and the nearest schoolhouse was ten miles away, in the next town—and the arrival of a new transcendentalist minister from Massachusetts had set everyone talking. If he had been a true minister, he would have relished the chance to recruit fresh faces and gather up a flock for his church. But he was not a true minister, and every time he thought of espousing universal truths to a church full of trusting, upturned faces, his heart twisted with guilt. He had thought that doing it for Anna, for making her dream come true, would have been enough, but he was quickly learning that it was not. Without her by his side, his actions were meaningless, his words hollow.

The first invitation came from the Marshalls, who—Lewis had explained in admiring tones—were the foremost family of Pale Harbor, having made a small fortune in the shipment of granite down the east coast. If Gabriel could persuade them to join his congregation, Lewis had assured him, then the whole town would follow. Whether Gabriel wanted a robust congregation was another story, but he would play his part, and at the very least enjoy a hot meal.

He slogged through the dusky little town, the scent of damp fallen leaves and wood smoke filling his lungs. Most of the homes he passed were modest, weather-beaten cottages like his, but old captains’ mansions with stately pillars punctuated the main thoroughfare, reminders of the town’s once-thriving whaling and trading industries. These could have been Anna’s streets, her soft footsteps evaporating into the yawning gray sky. She would have delighted in the tall pines creaking in the wind, the hawks that sat sentry in the spindly boughs far above. The ever-present roll and crash of the ocean would have been her nightly lullaby. Gabriel shook his head, trying to dislodge the painful thoughts.

The road ended abruptly at a steep-gabled house, painted a lush pink and trimmed with white latticework. Rosebushes, nearing the end of their season, climbed defiantly up either side of the porch. Among all the weathered clapboard and peeling paint of the other homes, the house looked like something dropped straight out of the pages of a fairy tale.

As Gabriel climbed the front porch steps, a rosy, stout woman came out and greeted him at the door, beaming at him from under a frilly cap. His melancholy thoughts evaporated, replaced by an anxious knot in his stomach that always formed when mixing with anyone of higher social standing than him.

But Mrs. Marshall put him at ease immediately. “Come in, you poor darling,” she said, tutting at his coat, which had never dried properly from the night before. “You must be the minister. I’m Clara Marshall and I’m so pleased to meet you.”

Gabriel glanced to his side, half-expecting to see a black-frocked minister to whom Mrs. Marshall had addressed her greeting. But, of course, she meant him.

“Er, yes,” he said, recovering. “Gabriel Stone.”

“Mr. Stone, then. Come in, come in. Here, give me that damp coat.”

No sooner had Gabriel stepped into the hall and surrendered his coat to a maidservant than Mrs. Marshall called out, “Girls!” and ushered forth two identical, golden-haired little girls. “Cora and Flora,” she said proudly.

Gabriel dipped his head. “A pleasure.”

“You’re tall,” said Cora, or maybe it was Flora. The other hid her giggles behind her hand.

“Girls, manners!” Mrs. Marshall shot Gabriel an apologetic look, and then passed the twins off to a servant with instructions to have them wash before dinner, and this time make sure they didn’t just pass their hands under water, but to really scrub them.

Throughout the harried introductions, a small, wiry man with graying whiskers was hovering in the hallway, fiddling with a cigar case. “Mr. Stone,” he said, pocketing the case and sticking his hand out. “Horace Marshall. A pleasure to meet you. Come, will you join me for a drink before dinner is called?”

Before Gabriel had a chance to respond, Mr. Marshall was thrusting a cigar into his hand and leading him into a dim parlor, brimming with expensive furniture and fussy ornaments. It was just the kind of place that made Gabriel nervous, as if all it would take was one careless movement to send a priceless figurine crashing over. He held his breath as he followed Mr. Marshall past a stuffed owl under a glass dome and a vase quivering with silk flowers and feathers.

“I can’t tell you how good it will be to have that church cleaned up and full of parishioners,” Mr. Marshall said, lowering himself into an overstuffed chair. “Not just because it’s a shame to let that old building rot away, either. Did you know it used to be a Quaker meeting house back in the last century? One of the oldest in Maine, if not New England. More recently, the Irish here were using it as a Catholic church, but they hadn’t the funds to keep it up.”

Gabriel murmured that he had not known. Perching gingerly on a precarious-looking settee, he searched for an ashtray in which to snuff out his cigar. He’d never liked the things, and the ash was growing long and threatening to spill onto his sleeve.

Oblivious to his predicament, Mr. Marshall tugged at his mustache and continued with his line of thought. “Might do the town good to have more of a godly presence, too.”

Gabriel commandeered a vase and discreetly tapped out his ash. “Oh?”

When Mr. Marshall didn’t respond immediately, Gabriel asked, “And why is that?”

“Hmm?” Mr. Marshall looked at him as if coming out of some deep private thought. “Oh, nothing. It’s only we’ve had some troublemakers lately, and a bit of fire and brimstone might be just the thing to keep them in line.”

“I see.” Gabriel frowned. “Well, transcendentalism generally doesn’t go in for that kind of thing.” That much he knew, at least. That’s what Anna had loved about the spiritual movement, “the exquisite freedom” of it, as she had once told him. There was no good and bad, no heaven and hell, only a beautiful energy that permeated the universe, connecting each and every soul. It was a nice way to look at the world, but it simply wasn’t true. There was good and evil—he had seen so for himself.

Mr. Marshall looked a little disappointed and cleared his throat before taking another puff of his cigar. “Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing. You’re the big city man, but I think hellfire would go a sight farther around Pale Harbor than any of this wishy-washy transcendental business.”

Gabriel choked on his cigar smoke but was spared the need to respond by the maidservant sticking her head into the parlor and announcing dinner.

He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the covers were lifted off the dishes, revealing steaming platters of buttery fish and fried potatoes, roast beef, succulent green beans and thick chowder. He shifted in his seat so that his hosts wouldn’t hear the rolling growl of his stomach.

Mr. Marshall clapped his hands and rubbed them together in anticipation. “You won’t find food better than this anywhere in Pale Harbor,” he said. “Tell me, have you employed a cook yet?”

“Er, no,” Gabriel said as he helped himself to a heap of potatoes. He’d barely opened his trunks yet, let alone found domestic help.

The twins, who couldn’t have been more than ten, had apparently been deemed mature enough to dine with their parents at the table, and were in the process of trying to wriggle out of their starched smocks. Their whispers and giggles were a constant backdrop to the conversation, and more than once Gabriel glanced up to see them sharing secret conversations behind their hands while staring at him.

With a careful glance at them, Gabriel swallowed his food. “Mr. Marshall—” he started, only to be waved off.

“Please, we don’t stand on ceremony here. Horace.”

If the wealthy businessman had known who Gabriel truly was, would he still have allowed Gabriel to address him so informally? He shifted a little in his seat. “Horace,” he began again, “you mentioned something in the parlor.” He chose his words carefully, mindful of the young girls seated at the table. “When I first went to look at the church, there was...” He cleared his throat. “There was some sort of...” How to describe the pile of remains that had left him so unsettled and had lurked at the back of his mind since the night before? “Some sort of...animal at the altar. A dead one.”

Despite his best efforts, Gabriel had attracted the attention of the twins, who immediately left off their whispers and regarded him with eyes the size of saucers.

Mr. and Mrs. Marshall shared a look. “I expect you will have heard something of the troubles that are plaguing the town?” asked Mr. Marshall cautiously, after a long pause.

“Troubles?”

“Horace!” Mrs. Marshall’s ruddy cheeks pinkened further. “That is not a conversation for the dinner table.”

Unperturbed, Mr. Marshall gave her a dismissive wave and settled back into his chair, swirling his wine around in his glass. “Well, he’s going to hear it sooner or later. He might as well hear it from us without all the embroidery some of the other townsfolk will give the story.”

Mrs. Marshall pressed her lips together before snapping at the twins to cease their giggling.

“Troubles?” Gabriel prompted again.

“Just last week Maggie Duncan found a pile of skinned squirrels in the woods behind her house,” Mr. Marshall said. “At first she thought it was the work of a fox, but what fox eats just the fur and leaves the meat? Then there was some sort of...of effigy. Crude little doll with all manner of buttons and strings sewed about it and stuffed into the hollow of the old elm tree in town.”

Gabriel stiffened in his seat at the descriptions that were eerily similar to what he had found just the other night. This must have been why Mr. Marshall had wanted his church to preach crime and punishment.

A thick silence had settled over the table. Gabriel put down his glass and looked between Mr. and Mrs. Marshall. “What is it?”

A meaningful look passed between the husband and wife. “No one has been apprehended,” Mrs. Marshall said tightly. “But most people around here know who’s behind it without a signed confession.”

Gabriel looked at them blankly, waiting for one of them to elaborate.

“Sophronia Carver,” said Mr. Marshall, as if it cost him something just to say the name. “Nathaniel Carver’s widow.”

“She killed her husband,” Mrs. Marshall added. “And lives in...an unsavory manner that I won’t expound upon in front of the children.”

Gabriel barely had time to ask what constituted an unsavory manner, when the children in question piped up.

“She’s a witch,” said one of the twins.

“It’s true,” said the other twin, nodding gravely. “Lucy Warren looked through her window and saw her stirring at a great pot. And what do you think was sticking out the bottom of her dress?”

Gabriel opened his mouth to say he was sure he had no idea, but the twins were too fast.

“A tail!” they exclaimed in joyful unison.

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Marshall seemed particularly taken aback by this outburst, Mr. Marshall continuing to saw away at his beef, and Mrs. Marshall only saying indulgently, “A tail! I don’t know where you girls get such stories.”

The twins dissolved into giggles again. “And she has the most horrid scar running down her face.”

“Probably from one of her victims trying to escape!”

“Well, tail or no,” said Mr. Marshall, taking the accusation against Mrs. Carver in stride, “the woman is queer and you can lay your last nickel on the fact that she’s behind all this unpleasant business.”

The dinner was taking on a decidedly peculiar slant and, unused to drinking so much rich wine, Gabriel’s temple was starting to throb. The widow in question would have to be a queer woman indeed to go traipsing about in abandoned churches, setting out dead, mutilated animals. It seemed more likely that it was, as the Marshalls had first suggested, the work of some cruel youngster.

The conversation continued in that vein for a while longer, but Gabriel was no longer listening. He was tired and on edge from trying to say the right things, to sit the right way on these damned uncomfortable chairs. All he wanted was to stand up, thank the Marshalls for the hospitality, and then go back to his empty little house and fall into bed. But then the conversation took an even more horrifying turn.

“Are you married, Gabriel?”

He froze, his fork hovering over his plate. It had been nearly a year, but the question still made him feel as if the carpet had been ripped out from under him, the breath stolen straight from his lungs. He put down his fork, hoping to appear composed in his answer. “My wife passed away. Childbirth,” he added, knowing that if he didn’t provide the cause now he would only be asked later anyway. “The baby died, as well.”

Mrs. Marshall’s face creased and fell. “Oh, dear, I am sorry to hear that.”

Gabriel waved off her concern, but it took a considerable amount of effort to keep himself in the present. It seemed that no matter how far he ran from Concord, Anna would haunt him, never mind that he had hungered for her ghost to follow him here.

“Well, I don’t like to impose where it isn’t my business, but Pale Harbor has any number of good, capable young women who would make good wives to a minister.”

“Clara!” Mr. Marshall exclaimed.

“Well, it’s true,” she said in an injured tone. “I don’t pretend to be a matchmaker, but there’s no hurt in him considering his options.”

Mr. Marshall gave Gabriel an apologetic look as if to say they both knew how women could be. Gabriel dropped his gaze to his plate, his appetite gone.

They finished dinner in silence, even the twins apparently content to be quiet. Afterward, the girls were sent up to bed while the adults retired to the parlor for dessert. Gabriel drank the coffee that was offered to him and ate the fruitcake, nodding politely along at the depthless conversation about the weather and the new portrait studio in Rockport.

Coming here had been a mistake. Why did he think he could converse with prominent, wealthy families? Social graces and etiquette had never been his strong point. What need had a man like him, from his background, for social graces? He’d had to learn everything painstakingly from Anna, and even now he was more suited to enjoying a good story in a tavern than polite small talk over delicate china cups of coffee.

“I should be going,” Gabriel said, standing abruptly.

Mrs. Marshall’s brows drew quizzically together, but she pasted on a bright smile. “Of course, I hadn’t realized how late it was getting. Horace?”

“Mmm? Oh, right, right,” said Mr. Marshall, standing with a grunt.

“Thank you,” Gabriel said, giving Mrs. Marshall a stiff bow of his head. “Dinner was delicious.”

Gabriel’s coat had almost completely dried after the benefit of being on a stove, and the men went out to the porch, where Mr. Marshall lit another cigar. The storm of the previous night had rolled off, leaving in its wake a steady drizzle and crisp breeze.

“You’ll think all it does is rain here,” Mr. Marshall said with a hint of chagrin. “We seem to be stuck in some sort of weather pattern, with storms from the sea rolling into the harbor every few days.”

Gabriel welcomed the rain. Every drop that chilled him to the bone was a penance, a reminder. He deserved to be wet and cold for the role he had played in Anna’s death. If he hadn’t gotten her with child, she would still be here. She had been too delicate, too fragile, for childbearing, and he hadn’t protected her. God, he was doing it again. Stop thinking about her, you dolt.

Mr. Marshall reached for something in his waistcoat pocket, pulling Gabriel from his thoughts. “I hope you won’t mind the presumption, but I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a list of all the families in town for you.” He handed Gabriel a folded sheet of paper. “Thought you might want to make the rounds and introduce yourself.”

Gabriel took the list and scanned the jumble of names, unable to fathom actually having to put faces to them. “Thank you. I’m sure this will be very useful.”

But Mr. Marshall wasn’t listening. He was worrying at his mustache, staring out into the gray dusk. “There is one name I omitted from that list.” He paused. “You would do well to steer far and clear of Sophronia Carver.”

“The widow?”

Nodding, Mr. Marshall took a slow puff from his cigar. “My wife has a flair for the dramatic, but there’s no getting around the fact that something’s not quite right about what goes on in that house.”

Gabriel followed Mr. Marshall’s gaze to the tip of a white cupola that just showed above the treetops in the distance. His heart grew heavy and his gut churned at the thought of meeting with anyone on the list, least of all the odd widow who had so captured their imaginations.