Louisa and the Country Bachelor : A Louisa May Alcott Mystery (9781101547564) (7 page)

“Ernst Nooteboom is dead,” said Sylvia.

I had wished to announce the mortality a little more gently, but Sylvia was in her straightforward phase.

Ida Tupper dropped her knitting. “Dead? I never thought . . . What a catastrophe.” Her voice trailed off, and I feared she would swoon. She did not. Instead she rose from the wobbly kitchen chair and went to the window. It was the side of the house that faced her own; she stared into her own front parlor.

“Oh, dear.” Ida turned back to us. Tears seeped from her eyes. “And I was just saying horrid things about that poor girl. I sympathize with her, I really do. It is awful to lose a loved one. I know, I know.”

We all sat for a moment in silence and brooded, as people do when a death has been announced. Mrs. Tupper dabbed at her eyes.

“Don't cry,” said Abba, going over to her and patting her hand. “I'm sure the town will do what it can for Lilli Nooteboom. There will be a raffle and a dinner to raise money for her, once the viewing and funeral are over.”

“Yes,” said Ida Tupper. “Tonight I will go through my trunks and find what I can give her myself. You are right, Abba. We must all be very brave.”

It seemed to me that Lilli Nooteboom was the one who must be brave, and the thought of short, buxom Ida Tupper's castoff dresses on tall, thin Lilli Nooteboom was almost enough to make me smile.

Father came in just then for his cup of tea, and to discover what delayed the arrival of his seed packets. He found the four of us sitting at the kitchen table.

“You look like someone has died,” he said.

“Someone has.” I took off my plain straw bonnet and placed it on the table next to Ida's confection. “Ernst Nooteboom, one of the Dutch workers. He fell into the ravine.”

Father folded his arms over his white work shirt and squinted. He had been so delighted to have a vegetable patch again that he had taken to dressing in farm clothes and coming to tea with his suspenders drooping. If anything, such informal attire made his thin, aesthetic face look even nobler.

“I hope it was not worse than an accident,” he said. “I mean, this has nothing to do with the ill will between the Irish and the Dutch laborers, I'm sure.”

I was not. I thought of Ernst Nooteboom's smooth-soled shoes, his sister's conviction that he could not have fallen because he was too practiced at climbing, and this young man's death acquired a sinister quality.
Well, climbers do sometimes fall
, I thought. But the thought nagged rather than reassured.

“Tomorrow we shall call on Lilli Nooteboom and pay our respects,” said Abba.

 

 

LILLI NOOTEBOOM, WE learned from Eliza, lived in rooms in Mrs. Roder's boardinghouse, the big gray house at the east end of Westminster Street. The following afternoon the entire Alcott family, including Sylvia, donned their formal calling clothes, left the little cottage, and turned in the direction of that street. Anna and Abba talked quietly about household matters; Father and Lizzie murmured occasionally about family friends—dear Mr. Henry Thoreau had sent a letter from Concord, where he was working as a gardener and continuing his study of Greek. But the conversations were muffled and we walked largely in silence, a reminder of the serious purpose of our visit.

Soon the more densely placed houses and stores of Walpole thinned into irregular lots, affording a view of the Connecticut River and, just before that, the huge scar in the earth where the ground had been dug and leveled for the railroad tracks. When in employment, Ernst Nooteboom must have been able to make it from his door to his work site in less than two minutes. A practical man, I thought, willing to give up the amenities of living close to the village square in order to save time. Practical men do not hike in town shoes.

Mrs. Roder opened the door to my knocking and greeted us with a stormy expression and a broom in her arms.

“Thought you were those ruffians,” she explained, placing the broom back in the corner and smoothing her apron. Her explanation did not flatter what we had considered to be our best attire. The landlady was an elderly woman, tall and strong and formidable-looking. New England stock.

“Ruffians?” asked Father, interested.

“The Irish railroad workers. They make trouble here some nights, because some of the Dutch live with me,” she said somewhat apologetically, deducing now from Father's voice that he was more in the order of a gentleman. “Threw eggs at the house last week. Sad waste of good food, don't you think? They will be sorry when the law has to deal with them. Mr. Nooteboom bloodied one of their noses, after the eggs. Oh, that poor young man!”

I wiped my feet carefully before stepping off the rag rug before the door. Mrs. Roder's hall was sparkling clean. “May we pay our respects to Miss Nooteboom? I understand she lives here.”

“She does. You may. Front room. It was the only room had a table long enough for that poor young man.” Mrs. Roder shook her head, pointed out the exact doorway, and went back to her chores in the pantry. The Alcott tribe moved in the assigned direction.

The sun had not yet set, but that room was almost as dark as night. Three layers of curtains had been tightly closed and only a single candle burned. Lilli Nooteboom knelt at the side of the table, a black shadow of a woman in a dark room. When my eyes adjusted I saw the spray of wildflowers lovingly spread over her brother's chest, and the crucifix holding them in place. The room was cold; pails of ice had been placed under the table to preserve the body until the burial.

Lilli started at our steps and looked over her shoulder at us.

Father, Sylvia, and my sisters took chairs that lined a wall, and sat with bowed heads. Abba and I knelt on either side of Lilli Nooteboom and offered prayers. Lilli began to sob. When Abba put her arm about her shoulders, the young woman, feeling the warmth and strength emanating from Abba, leaned her head there and wept freely. Abba had that effect on people: Here, you thought, was a personage you could trust completely.

I turned my attention to her brother, on the table. I hadn't seen Ernst Nooteboom's face before. Now I saw the strength of his jaw, his wide-set eyes and long, straight nose, and how his pale hair fell straight back from the broad forehead. He had been a fine-looking young man.
Such a man should not die so young,
I thought,
not before he has lived his share of years.

Also evident on that fine face was a deep gash on the side of his head, and his right leg had an unnatural angle to it; bruises showed on the hands and torn fingertips; he had tried to gain a purchase to break that mortal fall. Had his fingers left marks on an attacker? He was a stranger, but like his sister I could not believe that his fall had been an accident.

We prayed together, silently, and I stayed on my knees until Lilli herself stood.

“We have not been introduced,” I said then, “but we wanted to offer our sympathy.”

“Thank you. So few people have come.” Lilli extended her hand and swayed unsteadily from grief and the lack of sleep that often accompanies it.

“She needs air. Take her outside, Louy,” Abba said. “We will stay with Mr. Nooteboom.”

I took Lilli's arm and led her to the side porch, where a pretty flower bed of crimson poppies glowed defiantly against the brown earth. Lilli gulped big drafts of air, and color returned to her drained face.

“Have you been in Walpole long?” I asked, after she had wiped her eyes and blown her nose.

“Three years,” said Lilli, leaning against a column for support. “Our mother and father sends us here, to make our way. I have six brothers and sisters at home.” A tear splashed down her cheek, and Lilli dabbed her eyes again with her crumpled handkerchief.

“Will you go home now?” I asked gently.

“Home? No. I cannot. I am sent. I stay. Ernst would wish me to stay. We had plans. He is gone. I make plans now.” She stood straight again, defiant.

I didn't think I had ever heard a braver speech. Lilli pointed past the flowers, past Mrs. Roder's lawn and picket fence, to the gash of the empty railroad bed.

“See?” she said. “That part where the trees have not been felled. That part where the railroad must pass by. That is Ernst's and mine. We buy as soon as we come and Ernst guesses the direction the track will take. We eat bread and milk, wear only one dress and one suit, save everything. Now, is mine.” She gazed at the patch of mud with pride. “No, I don't leave,” she said. “I stay and earn money so I can send home. And I will get an American husband, become American lady.”

There was a moment of silence as we both stared into the distance, trying to see the unseeable future.

“May I ask a question, Miss Nooteboom?”

“Yes?” She looked at me with a little frown creasing the pale skin between the white-blond eyebrows.

“Did your brother often go climbing in his town shoes?”

“Never! Never would he do such a thing. I told you, we save every penny, are very careful of our wardrobe. Town shoes are not for such wearing.” In her anger, she pounded a little fist against the porch railing

“How do you explain what happened, his falling from the cliff?”

“It is as I told the sheriff, when I go to his office this morning,” Lilli said. “Ernst came to where I was working in Mrs. Simon's nursery—I sew the clothes for her children—and he told me he had a meeting with a man who wanted to talk about his lot. Our lot.” Her gaze wandered again to the distant patch of mud that was all she owned in this world. “Ernst told me he would not sell. Ever. My children would grow up in the house we built there. The town would grow in that direction, to follow the train, and we would build a big house, big enough for an inn, and behind it a pen to fatten cattle before shipping to Boston markets. Ernst was a clever man.” Her eyes glowed.

“Did your brother say where the meeting was, and with whom?”

“Not where. But yes, whom. Mr. Tupper. Always Mr. Tupper wants to talk, to meet, to buy our lot. I think in a few days, when he thinks is a good time, he will come to me with the offer, as well. And like Ernst, I will say to him no.”

Lilli frowned and clenched her fingers, folded now in her lap. “There is something else,” she said. “Ernst's pocket watch. Gold, from Grandpapa, and with a leather fob till we could match a gold one with it. All Ernst had of value, and he wore it always. It is gone.”

“Do you remember when you last saw it?”

“I think the day he went out, the day they say he fell. Yes, he was wearing it that day. But not when they carried him home.”

I put my hand over Lilli's in comfort.

“Now, Miss Alcott, I thank you for calling,” she said. “But I go back to Ernst. Will you come to the funeral?”

“Of course.”

 

 

RETURNING TO OUR cottage required that we walk back down Main Street, past Tupper's General Store. I remembered how the day before, Mr. Tupper had insisted repeatedly that Ernst's fall had been an accident.

“I have an errand,” I said to Abba and the rest of the family. “You go ahead, and I'll be home in a few minutes.” Sylvia gave me a questioning glance. I cleared my throat and she quickly decided she, too, had an errand to run. Friends often have these codes; Sylvia and I had perfected ours.

Mr. Tupper was in his shop, arranging a new shipment of cotton sheeting on a table. He looked up as we stepped in and his doorbell rang overhead. He looked wary. His gingercolored hair was tousled, his eyes clouded and red.

“Miss Alcott and friend again,” he said without enthusiasm. “May I help you?”

“I have been to see Lilli Nooteboom,” I said.

He flinched, as if something heavy had fallen.

“A tragedy,” he said. “If you will excuse me, I have work to see to.”

“Miss Nooteboom said that her brother had an appointment with you the day of his death.” I stared Tupper squarely in the face, unwilling to let him avoid my gaze, to escape my questions.

He shifted from foot to foot and twisted his hands into his paint-spattered work apron.

“That's what she told Sheriff Bowman, as well,” he muttered. “I've already had a visit from him.”

“Yes, Miss Nooteboom mentioned an officer of the law.”

Mr. Tupper, already flushed, turned even redder. His eyes bulged somewhat with an emotion I took to be anger, and he twisted his hands into his apron, as if seeking self-control over them. I took a step backward. “Little busybody,” he muttered, and I wasn't certain whether he referred to Lilli or me, until he followed it with: “And did she tell you that she and her brother were famous for their quarrels? That she had threatened to elope and he had locked her in her room for two days?”

No, she hadn't told me that.

“Did you meet with Mr. Nooteboom that day?” I asked, deciding the subtle approach had outlived its usefulness.

“I did not. How is this any business of yours?” He glared at the floor, which meant, of course, that he was lying.

“If there is an inquiry you will be asked to explain your whereabouts,” I said.

“I can. I'm a busy man. It's my word against hers.” The bell chimed and a woman towing two clamoring youngsters entered. He rushed over to wait on her with an alacrity I had not before observed in his attitude to customers.

He was absolutely right, of course. Her word against his.

 

 

MY MIND WAS awhirl with thoughts when we finally returned home, and I knew there would be no room in my imagination for the phrases and sentiments I needed to pursue my story about true womanhood; I decided to go for a solitary walk, instead.