Belle Cora: A Novel (58 page)

Sometimes the fear of being caught was separate from the horror of being a murderess, but most of the time the two ideas were mingled in a poisonous brew. I told myself the world was well rid of Jack Cutter. That helped for brief periods.

To bring on sleep, I took laudanum, which gave me long, elaborate dreams involving Lewis, Cutter, and Tom London. In one it was 1837. We were on the deck of the steamboat to Albany. A voice said, “Look.” Shadows raced across the deck, and with a murmur of astonishment we looked up to see that the sky had become an undulating ocean made of pigeons endlessly crossing the river. Sounds of gunfire came from the riverbanks. Birds dropped into the water, splashing, spinning, and drifting, as dogs swam into the Hudson to fetch the corpses. Horace handed me the pepper-box pistol. I knew something terrible would happen if I pulled the trigger. I decided I would only pretend to shoot. I pointed. I shot, whereupon every bird in the sky came down and buried the boat. Then we were in a vast deserted ballroom littered with dead birds, and I knew the way out, but my poor lost friends Jack Cutter and Tom London didn’t. I was leading them. “This way,” I said. “Follow me. I’ll help you.”
On the second day, I saw Jocelyn, who was just back from Boston, where she had done an important favor for me. She came with news.

“But this is wonderful,” I told her. “Wonderful.”

I wrote to Arthur Heywood, and we met, and I told him how he might help me. He was delighted. “It’ll be like an amateur theatrical,” he said, assuring me that he was very gifted in that line. This worried me. He had nothing at stake in the outcome; for him it was a lark.

XLI

THERE WERE ALREADY CARRIAGES OUTSIDE
my grandfather’s house when I arrived. It was evening. The moist air smelled of lilac and hay, the leaves shivered and hissed on a rising wind, and the long shadows grew blurry and vanished as clouds gathered overhead. Agnes and Jeptha were in the drawing room, along with the other guests, talking in little groups of two or three near the punch bowl, the fireplace mantel, the piano, the window. More than one of these groups was discussing the deaths of the two men found at the Bloomingdale Tontine, not a quarter of a mile from the room where we stood. Even civic-minded abolitionist merchants and attorneys can be titillated by news of murder committed so recently and so nearby as to give them a feeling of proprietorship over it.

Robert had invited a pretty dark-eyed female, Amanda, the daughter of his law partner. She was about eighteen, small, her oval face framed by sausage curls, with a tiny waist accentuated by a big flouncy skirt. As we nodded to each other, I found myself thinking what I would name her and which of my gentlemen would like her best. This thought fled my mind when she began speaking of the murder, scandalizing the company with her naughty relish for the gruesome details. She was an adherent of the theory that the men had fought first and the woman had slain the winner—rather than supposing that she had killed both of them, one by knife, one by pistol, as an opposing camp idiotically maintained. She saw
no reason to insist, as some did, that the killer must really have been a small, delicately featured man dressed as a woman. She did not agree that the crime was too bloody to have been committed by a woman. Women differed in their propensities.

Robert remarked that Amanda’s enthusiasm for the discussion was itself a revelation about the capacities of Woman. John H. Harrington, of the New York Carpet Lining Company, asserted that women have broader scope than men: they are capable of greater self-sacrifice but also greater depravity. With a certain formality, this silly question was then debated.

Jeptha, when his opinion was solicited, remarked, “Saint Peter, who asked to be crucified upside down, was a man, and so were the fellows who obliged him. So it would seem men have a great deal of range, too.”

My grandfather was pleased with this comment. “What say you to that, John?”

“I think it an excellent point for a clergyman to make.”

Robert enumerated history’s best-known female assassins and murderesses: Judith, Livia, Messalina, Agrippina, Lucrezia Borgia, Charlotte Corday.

Agnes apologized for her inability to take any amusement in the tragedy. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help thinking it a grave matter, and that these men have souls that are being judged now; and each of them had a mother who never dreamed they would meet such a sordid end. And as Christians we should try to wish that the woman who committed this terrible, unwomanly deed should find her way to repentance and Christ’s forgiveness.”

She sought Jeptha’s eyes, and he gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. Robert said, “That’s a rebuke to you, Amanda. That’s how a woman should respond to terrible events.”

“Oh no,” Agnes protested. “I would never say so.”

“Of course not,” said Robert. “You’re too good to say it. But we are able to make comparisons. Amanda is bad. She should follow your model and improve.”

“He wants us to fight,” said Agnes. “Let’s confound him and be friends.”

Agnes was pretty, too, it had to be admitted, and would command high prices from discerning gentlemen.

“What about you, Arabella?”

“I’m just like Agnes. Mostly, I pity the mothers.”

“And the woman?” asked Robert.

“I suppose she had a mother, too.”

“Though there are some, like that poor babe you brought to Livy, who never know their mothers,” observed Agnes.

“It is certainly sad when that happens,” I agreed. “Though there is hope that Frank will find some happiness in the place where I once spent so many happy hours.”

“I’m sure he will. It is a miracle, what you have found the time to do, Arabella. That you, a woman on your own, have been able to manage your own shop, and yet to have time to care for another woman’s child, is almost more than I can believe.”

For the part of the company that had not heard of this, I explained about Frank and my work for the Female Reform Society. “But Agnes has an exaggerated idea of my contribution to Frank’s first year of life. I was only responsible for a portion of his care.”

“That’s not the impression one would get from my mother’s letters. She said it called you ‘Mama’ and cried its heart out to be parted from you.”

“I’m surprised to hear that. As I recall, he was sleeping when I left.”

“Perhaps my mother’s memory is faulty.” She was interrupted by the arrival of Arthur Heywood, who greeted me with too much formality, almost winking at me, and I became more nervous. I was afraid he would not play his part very well, though I was sure he would play it with enthusiasm.

“This is Arthur Heywood, editor and publisher of the
Courier
,” said Robert.

“I have heard of you, of course,” said Agnes.

“Arthur Heywood, this is my cousin Agnes Moody,” said Robert, “and our young minister Jeptha Talbot.”

“Agnes,” repeated Heywood. “So this is Agnes. And Jeptha.”

“Mr. Heywood,” said my cousin, “we were just discussing the good work that my cousin Arabella, whom you know, has done for the Female Reform Society.”

We heard a crack of thunder, followed by a hiss of falling rain. Lawrence
Jameson of Jameson Ironworks—a pious, awkward, middle-aged widower, very thin, with a white streak running through his hair, not quite down the center—went to the window and shut it before a servant on the same mission could reach it. Jameson never spoke at these gatherings, but was rich and dedicated to the cause.

“Indeed, I have heard of that society,” said Heywood. “I regret that in the past scoundrels in my employ have made light of their efforts.”

“I am glad you disassociate yourself from them,” I said.

“What I find so curious, though …”

“Yes, Agnes?”

“Since I’ve been in New York, I’ve spoken to many people who know of the Female Reform Society, and none have ever heard of them having anything to do with placing orphan children in homes anywhere. All anyone has heard of them doing is standing outside of brothels and barrooms, exhorting those within to amend their lives, for which well-intentioned work, very unfairly, they are sometimes mocked.”

I took the risk of glancing at Heywood. After a hesitation, he coughed and interposed, “Is that so?”

“Yes,” said Agnes.

“Well, I guess their information is out of date. The society has for the past few years dealt in orphans—as an outgrowth of their other work. Realize, in Five Points there are children whom it were better to treat as orphans in any case, so vile are the parents.”

The conversation turned to conditions in Five Points, Irish immigration, cholera, topics of mutual interest to newspaper editors and pious reformers, and Heywood had a lot to say, none of it useful to me. He passed up half a dozen opportunities to do what I had asked of him. Occasionally, he smiled at me as though he were noticing my beauty for the first time and wished he were young and single; I wanted to strangle him.

Someone mentioned orphans again. “That’s right,” said Heywood, as if just remembering. “A minister I know in Boston told me the society approached him, seeking suitable families among his acquaintance for placing orphans. So, you see, that
is
one of their good works. George Sackett, that’s right.”

At last. I watched Agnes and Jeptha separately respond to Heywood’s words, which meant something quite different to each of them.

“Who?” inquired Jeptha.

“The minister I know in Boston,” said Heywood. “His name is Sackett.”

“George Sackett,” said Jeptha.

“Yes, do you know him?”

“We grew up together, near the same town—George, Agnes, Lewis, Arabella, and I. Really, the rest of us were farm children, but George was a townsman’s son.”

He described Livy, how small it was, the old days.

“Amazing. What a coincidence,” Heywood prodded him. “And both of you ministers now! Do you correspond?”

“No,” said Jeptha, and he cast his eyes on Agnes, who looked back at him, thinking God knows what—racking her brains, I suppose. Whether Jeptha expected her to mention her prior relationship with George I could not tell. Perhaps she and Jeptha had discussed what should be said if the subject arose. At any rate she did not comment. So I had to speak. I spoke gently, since I was supposedly touching a tender spot. “George and Agnes remained friends,” I told Heywood, and I looked around at the guests, about a third of whom were paying attention. “In fact, they were going to be wed. Isn’t that right, Agnes? Until George took sick.”

Agnes nodded, and Jeptha said, “Well …,” and tilted his head to acknowledge the sad fact of George’s illness.

“Sick,” exclaimed Heywood, a little too loudly. “Is he? When did this occur?”

“Several months ago.”

“Consumption,” said Jeptha.

“He is not expected to live,” I explained. “And so, very bravely, he released Agnes from her promise.”

“Yes,” said Jeptha innocently, looking from Heywood to Agnes.

An unhappy little smile came to Agnes’s lips. That was all she showed of what she must have known was the collapse of her fondest hopes. Her eyes sought mine. I cocked my head and returned her look. I did not smile; Jeptha was watching. The moment was sweet. I might still hang, but this could not be taken from me.

“Truly?” asked Heywood, in whom I had come to have much more confidence by now. “I had not heard of this development. Perhaps we’ve been speaking of two different George Sacketts after all. Is this one a Presbyterian reverend?”

“Yes.”

“And his association is with Christ Church in Boston?”

“Yes, it must be the same man.”

“Well, when did you see him last?”

“Some years ago.”

“Then you know of his illness only by report?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have good news for you—good for Sackett, anyway.”

“What?” asked Jeptha.

“What?” asked Agnes.

“Simply that I saw George Sackett when I was in Boston not three weeks ago, and he had no complaints whatsoever about his health,” said Heywood. He tried to keep the delight from his face, but he couldn’t; this was his great moment. “All he could speak of was his broken heart. His fiancée had disappeared without a word of explanation.”

“You,” said Agnes, turning her whole body toward me, and she spoke loud enough to stop the two or three other conversations that had been going on in the drawing room. Amanda, Robert, and John Harrington, who were standing to the right of the piano, looked our way. My grandfather and Ronald, the male servant who was now called a butler, were talking near the window, and they, too, looked silently at us.