Read More Than You Know Online
Authors: Beth Gutcheon
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Romance, #Contemporary
pride of the village, isn’t it, Miss Leaf?” He said this as if repeating
an oft-repeated phrase. Pennsylvania, the Keystone State. Miss Leaf’s
garden, the pride of the village.
“Would be, people’d stop stealing my flowers. I’m not the town
florist, you know. People want flowers can plant their own.”
“We haven’t taken any of your flowers,” said Conary.
“Well, somebody has.”
“Have they?”
“Yes, all summer. Finally I tracked him up here, and what do I
find? You two!”
“We didn’t take them, Miss Leaf.”
“Well, I’d like to know who did! Look at that there!”
She pointed to the north corner of the burial grove, and I could
see an orange flash of color lying on the ground back there. It surprised
me, now that she pointed them out, that I hadn’t seen them when I
came in.
She was leading the way toward her flowers now, and we fol-
lowed her. She couldn’t see faces from any distance, but apparently
she could see daylilies. That’s what they were, quite a bunch of them,
closed and wilting. They were lying on the grave of Amos Haskell.
2 1 0
Mercy Chatto could hardly conceal her pregnancy. She
was big as a washtub as the first trial got under way, and delivered the
baby at her mother’s house on the Neck shortly afterward. It was a
boy. She named him Seth, and her mother raised him as a Chatto. She
seemed dazed through the trials, unable to remember anything out of
the ordinary about the time leading up to Danial Haskell’s death. She
gave the impression she was waiting for something to happen that
never did.
It was easily established at the trials that, like Claris, she had clear
opportunity and quite possibly motive to commit the murder, and it was
this as much as anything else that prevented the juries from reaching a
verdict against Sallie. The prosecutor convinced jurors that the victim had
been murdered. He almost convinced them that the murderer was in the
2 1 1
B E T H
G U T C H E O N
courtroom, but he never could persuade them without doubt that he had
the right person on trial.
When it was finally over, Mercy left for Europe, with her parents’
blessing. They couldn’t help but agree that there would be no normal life
for her in New England unless she changed her name, and maybe not
then. She made her way to Italy and finally settled in Rome, where again
she taught school, this time to rich American girls who were being “fin-
ished” abroad. She came to speak fluent if heavily accented Italian, and
when she died she was buried in the Stranger Cemetery in the shadow of
the pyramid of Gaius Cestius.
Seth Chatto was her only child. She left her effects to him, though
she had seen him only once since 1890, when he had been three years
old. The effects consisted of a small amount of jewelry, some watercolors
she had made of street scenes in her neighborhood of Campo de’ Fiori,
and two small tables with inlaid tops of
pietra dura,
one of which has
found its way to the parlor of the Dundee Inn, where it holds the guest
book.
Miss Chatto had attended an Anglican church in Rome, because
they held services in English. Acquaintances from the altar guild there
had undertaken to pack her belongings for return to the States. In a drawer
in one of the tables Mrs. Pym found a stack of papers in Miss Chatto’s
hand.
“My goodness, what’s this then? It looks like a confession.”
Rather hopefully she handed the papers to Miss Turner, who
opened to the middle. Scanning, Miss Turner said, “I believe it’s a story.”
This surprised neither of them. Many ladies attempted stories, hoping to
sell them to glossy magazines. To be published under noms de plume, of
course.
“Is it any good?” asked Mrs. Pym.
“Oh, I’m no judge,” said Miss Turner, although she thought she
2 1 2
M O R E
T H A N
Y O U
K N O W
was. She was very partial to the works of Mary Roberts Rinehart. “What
do you think we should do about it?”
“Perhaps we should leave it in the drawer.”
“But not if it’s going to . . . you know. Embarrass her.”
“There must be someone in the congregation who would give us
an opinion.”
2 1 3
We couldn’t go back to the burial ground. At least, I
couldn’t. I knew it was probably just kids annoying Miss Leaf, or a
tourist who’d heard about the famous garden, but I was upset about
those daylilies. Conary was troubled too, but for a different reason.
He didn’t want to keep running into Miss Leaf. She wasn’t a gossip,
but like most people in a village, she liked to know what was going
on around her, and she might have said something to somebody.
The next day was Friday of the last weekend before Labor
Day—we had barely one more week together. I hoped all day for a
message from Conary and watched the library door for him or Mary.
It was almost five o’clock when Mrs. Pease turned around to where
Mrs. Allen and I were mending Oz books.
“You know that Micmac boy come in here a little bit ago?”
Mrs. Allen did.
2 1 4
M O R E
T H A N
Y O U
K N O W
“I filled out a temporary card for him, and you want to know
what he went out with?
The Maine Woods,
Henry David Thoreau!”
“No!” said Mrs. Allen.
“I thought, wouldn’t Mr. Thoreau be pleased?” said Mrs. Pease.
In my head, the light went on. Micmac! I made a beeline for
the Dickens shelf, and sure enough, the book was pushed in. He’d
been a handsome boy, not more than twelve. I hadn’t thought they
let them rake that young, but I’m sure they pretended to believe he
was older.
The note said,
Be at the top of Jellison’s road 11 am tomorrow. As soon
as I can, I’ll pick you up. Bring lunch.
All I had to do was think what to say to Edith. Just then a boy
named Ralph Ober came in, returning a stack of history books. “Your
grandfather all set to defend his title?” Mrs. Pease asked him.
“Yes, he is,” said Ralph. “Are you going?”
“We wouldn’t miss it,” she said.
“Are you going, Miss Gray?” He was a nice boy. I’d met him
over at the blacksmith shed, where he and some others were playing
horseshoes, and he always called me Miss Gray after that, because
Bowdoin Leach did.
“What is it?”
“Old-timers’ race. All the old sailors turn out in boats, begged
or borrowed, even some who were hands in the big ships in the days
of sail. It’s good fun.” Now that I think of it, I suppose Ralph was
flirting with me.
The next morning I said to Edith that I was going with some
2 1 5
B E T H
G U T C H E O N
friends to watch the Retired Skippers’ Race and would be gone all
day. She said that was fine, but be home by dark. I promised.
I packed a lunch for two and put a sweater into my book bag—I
kept that bag with me always now; I couldn’t take any chance of Edith
snooping in my room, reading my diary—and set off. I stopped to see
if Kermit’s pig had recovered from her thumps. The pig was named
Gloria Swanson, and she appeared to be enjoying life. No more than
I was, though; I was on top of the world.
I sat on the swing in the playground beside the road to the point,
across from the primary. The day was gorgeous, and while I waited
for Conary I wrote in my diary. I wrote that the sun and the smell of
gardens and the glow of beach roses growing wild made the day seem
good enough to eat.
Soon I heard a motor coming, smooth and humming, so different
from the sound of Conary’s truck that he practically had to run over
my foot before I looked up.
The car he was driving looked like a yacht, there was so much
polished brass and gleaming wood and plush leather. Conary, beaming,
got out and came around to open the passenger door for me.
“What is this?” I must have been gaping. I couldn’t understand
the car, and meanwhile Conary looked so handsome smiling in the
sun that I could have fallen over and died.
“It’s a Packard.”
“No, I mean . . . where did you get it? And how?”
“It belongs to Mr. Britton,” he said.
“Who’s that?”
“He’s a big bug over in the summer colony. He leaves it here,
and I put it away for the winter for him.”
“Did he say we could use it?”
“He trusts me. They’re gone for the year; he had to go back
down to Philadelphia. I’ll polish her up and put her to bed tomorrow.”
2 1 6
M O R E
T H A N
Y O U
K N O W
“It’s
beautiful.
” It was. I didn’t know a machine could be so
beautiful. Just standing near it I felt I’d been transformed into some
other order of creature. If I’d had a white linen dress and a parasol,
I’d have been Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt on a picnic from Campobello.
I stepped into the car, and Connie closed my door with a flourish, then
walked gravely around to the driver’s side. That took a minute; the
car was about twelve feet long. My seat was like a leather armchair,
and the dashboard was made of mahogany, gleaming like precious
metal.
We were off. Conary drove carefully out the Eastward road, and
at first all I noticed was the purr of the engine, the smooth satiny feel
of the leather, and a wish that everyone who had ever been mean to
me in my life would see me pass in this car, driven by the handsomest
boy in the world, and fall down gibbering on the ground in a jealous
faint. I came to when Connie turned onto the road to Unionville.
“Where are we going?”
“To the Bangor Fair,” he said.
I don’t know what I said. Probably screamed. Connie knew I
had wanted to go to a state fair, but Bangor was miles and miles away,
much too far to attempt in his rattletrap. He had done this for me,
stolen a car; we would be sent to jail. I pushed a chrome button on
the dash before me, and a door opened. Inside was a little compartment
full of driving gloves. There was a large brown pair with ridges sewn
into the backs, like the ridges your fingerbones make in the back of
your hand. There was a soft creamy white pair that . . . somehow got
onto my hands, the long soft cuffs reaching halfway to my elbows.
They smelled of lavender. I looked at my hands in the gloves, and it
seemed that my body parts were capable of independently coming to
belong to someone else. I wished I had a wide-brimmed hat with a
frothy veil, which I could tie beneath my chin.
We passed a farmer driving a tractor toward the village who
2 1 7
B E T H
G U T C H E O N
tipped his hat to us. Obviously we were millionaires from Philadelphia.
I said, “We have to go back.”
“Want to see how fast she can go?” Connie answered. I was
scared, but of course I did want to. Connie gunned the motor, and the
car took off down the deserted road. I had to hold on to the seat to
keep from falling over.
“Slow down!” I yelled over the noise, not because I wanted to
but because it was too thrilling. It felt like a pleasure that didn’t belong
to us and would lead to ruin.
Connie was smiling as if he owned the world, but he did slow
down. “How are you doing?” he asked me over the noise of the wind
in our ears.
“I’m afraid. We shouldn’t be doing this.” I was also afraid that
I might talk him out of it. I wanted this day, the perfect buttery sun
like peach ice cream, the speed, the satin leather of the car seat, the
fair. Forbidden fruit, a day like no other. Most of all, the picture we
made, a young couple in love with no cares in the world. I wanted it,
and I wanted it to last forever.
“Wouldn’t he mind, if he knew? Mr. Britton?”
“I drive for him when he wants me. I drive his boat when they
go out fishing, or for picnics. I drive the cars when someone needs to
go to the train. He talks to me about my life. He said I should let him
know if I want to go to college.” Conary looked at me and made a
comical face. It made him feel proud that this big man respected him.
He had wanted me to know about it.
We were passing a meadow filled with sheep. They were all
trying to huddle under the shade tree, a huge maple.
“Do you? Want to go to college?”
“Do you?”
“I do if my father can afford it. I don’t know if he can, though.”
“I thought about it,” said Connie. “But I don’t know where it
2 1 8
M O R E
T H A N
Y O U
K N O W
would lead. I know who I am here. If you go to college, then don’t
you have to go off to Boston or New York and have one of those jobs
where you sit indoors?”
I guessed you did. And Connie, out under the summer sky, his
hair ruffling, looked as if he were made for wind and sunlight. He was
a master of the physical universe, at home with beaches and sea, with
animals and engines, with Micmacs and with me. It was hard to imag-
ine him in a suit, at a desk, you’d have to kill off so many parts of
him to make it possible. And so easy to see him coming down some