The Caged Graves (17 page)

“Yes, and when your mother caught it, people believed she was somehow tainted by their—”

“Curse,” Carrie concluded.

“I'm sorry, Verity.” Annie sighed. “The sickness came upon your mother suddenly; she fell into a stupor and died. Ransloe was terrified you'd contract it too, so my mother and I took you out of the house. We brought you here and kept you for a few weeks, until your relations from Worcester came to get you.”

Verity looked at Annie with surprise. “I didn't know that.”

Annie's eyes filled with tears. “I was very upset when they took you away. I thought we were going to get to keep you.” She pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve to wipe her eyes. “Your father was devastated. I think that's why he gave in when people wanted to keep your mother out of the cemetery. He didn't have any fight left in him.”

Verity wanted to know who had demanded that her mother be buried outside the cemetery, but Annie was in tears. Moreover, she felt quite certain she knew two of the names already.

“Nate suggested I ask you to lend me some poetry,” Verity said instead.

“Oh!” Annie pressed the handkerchief to her eyes, then folded it away, obviously grateful for the change of subject. She rose and beckoned Verity toward the bookshelves. “Did you like the one he gave you?”

“I did.” She couldn't stop herself from adding, “I admit I liked it better when I thought Nate had chosen it.”

Annie glanced back at Carrie. “Oh, dear. Well, you couldn't expect
Nate
to pick out poetry for you. He asked me to do it.”

“Nate was very particular in his instructions.” Carrie put in her two cents. “I know he had poor Hattie doing his bidding, fetching gloves and whatnot for you, making her take them back if they weren't what he'd asked for.”

Verity felt herself blushing and hid it by pretending to peruse the poetry titles. “I didn't realize he gave it much thought,” she murmured.

“On the contrary, I think he read your letters very carefully and sent Hattie out to purchase things you might like,” Annie said. “I was chosen to select the poetry, and I viewed it as quite an honor.”

With a sinking heart, Verity realized how she'd misjudged his words on their first meeting. “Did you advise him on his letters?”

“Well, I
offered
advice,” Annie said with some exasperation. “We all did! Heaven knows if he took it.”

Carrie flashed a mischievous smile. “I searched his room from top to bottom but didn't find a single letter from you. He must have hidden them well or kept them on his person.”

Verity wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The young man who'd stolen her heart in those letters and the young man she'd been kissing on the kitchen stoop and behind the parlor door—they were the same person. How could she not have known?

“You don't have to take a poetry book, you know,” said Annie. “Let's see—Hattie's shelf is full of really dreadful dime novels. And Carrie has three shelves filled with even worse ones!” Her sister sniffed but didn't deny it.

“Does Nate have a shelf?”

Annie smiled triumphantly. Clearly, she'd been waiting for Verity to ask. “Nate has a
wall.
”

As Annie dragged her to the opposite end of the room, Verity was regretting her self-righteous assumption that a person who didn't read poetry didn't read anything at all. In fact, Nate's shelves were filled from floor to ceiling with travel histories, from Melville's
Typee
to Kane's
Arctic Explorations,
and adventures such as
Robinson Crusoe
and
The Last of the Mohicans.

She scanned the titles and felt humbled. If Nate had truly read all of these, he was better read than she was! “Which one is his favorite?” she asked.

Annie plucked a book off the shelves without hesitation.

Gulliver's Travels.

“I'll take that one, then,” Verity said. “If I may.”

Suddenly Annie turned toward the door and exclaimed, “Hattie! How is William?”

Verity guessed the answer by the way Nate's youngest sister leaned her head against the door frame as if she could not hold it up. “He's very uncomfortable.” Hattie looked drawn and strained, her pretty face pale and her hair bedraggled. “The pain has not let up since last evening, and the swelling is no better. You can imagine how frustrated he is.” Then she added in her characteristically audible whisper, “And how irritable.”

“Poor Will!” exclaimed Carrie.

“I'm so sorry,” Verity exclaimed. “Would you like me to sit with him while you lie down?” She barely knew Hattie's husband, but sometimes a visit from an acquaintance would encourage a patient to perk up, just out of pride.

Hattie smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Verity. That's very kind. But I've sent for the doctor, and I saw from the upstairs window that he's arrived. I've just come down to meet him.” She turned and disappeared into the hallway.

Annie followed her sister. Carrie hooked her arm with Verity's in a companionable manner and drew her along in their wake.

Verity was distressed by how loudly her heart thumped and how weak her knees suddenly felt. She clutched Nate's book to her bosom, as though to remind herself where her heart was supposed to lie, as Carrie dragged her toward her first meeting with Hadley Jones in two weeks.

THE DOCTOR stomped into the house with ill humor, grumbling and looking around impatiently. His eyes passed over Verity without recognition and caught sight of Hattie. “Did you use the poultice the way I told you last time?” he demanded.

“Yes, doctor, I did.”

Verity tried to calm the pounding of her heart. It was Dr. Robbins—not his apprentice. He was a big man, well over six feet tall, with wild gray hair and a puffed-out beard under florid cheeks. His shaggy eyebrows might as well have been a pair of mustaches hovering over his eyes. He mounted the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister.

Verity bade the McClure sisters a hurried farewell, and they were too caught up in worry about Hattie's husband to notice how shaken and embarrassed she was. She didn't know why she cared so much whether it was Hadley Jones or not, but she did know it would have been an awkward meeting and not one she wanted Nate's sisters to witness.

Leaving the house, she had to pass the doctor's horse and trap. The man in the driver's seat sank down as she descended the front steps, tilting his hat over his face—as if planning to nap while he waited for his employer. She considered walking by without stopping, but her sense of duty did not permit it. Taking a determined breath, she strode directly to the trap and called up to him, “Good day, Mr. Poole.”

“Good day, Miss Boone,” the driver replied in a soft voice. At least he didn't pretend not to know her.

“I believe I owe you my thanks for your timely assistance in the Shades two weeks ago.” He made no move to lift his hat from his face; nevertheless, she could see the scar that had frightened her that day. “And my apologies for hitting you on the head with my basket.”

“No harm done” was his mumbled response.

No harm done except Verity's injured ankle, and that was her own fault for behaving so foolishly and running from a man who was trying to help her. However, as Verity continued down the lane toward home, she reminded herself that she wouldn't have run so far or fallen at all if Jones hadn't chased her. Placing blame for the entire incident on the impertinent Hadley Jones gave her a certain measure of satisfaction.

When she got home, she took Nate's letters out of the drawer where she'd consigned them after deciding that he hadn't written them himself. If she hadn't been so pigheaded, so quick to judge him—if she'd just
looked at
his letters after meeting him—she would have known they were his by his turns of phrase.

 

I told my mother, see here, I will write her myself, and that is how I came to this unlikely point of courting you by letter. . . .

If you don't think it is too forward, I would be pleased if you called me Nate. Otherwise you can use Nathaniel, but when you address your letters to Mr. McClure, I feel like you are writing to my late father . . .

 

She could hear his familiar voice in every line, and the next day, when a late-evening knock on the door proved to be one of the Poole men sent down from the McClure house with a basket for her, she beamed with joy.

“Sorry to disturb you so late, Miss Boone,” the man said. “But Mr. Nathaniel bade me deliver this with his greetings.”

The basket held fresh cherries, no doubt carried all the way from Lancaster, as well as a short length of sturdy red ribbon fitted with a bell. Verity laughed. Nate knew her father thought Verity was spoiling what ought to have been a good mouser. A bell around her cat's neck would make him useless for hunting and identify him for what he really was: a very lucky, pampered house pet.

She found a brief note tucked along the side of the basket:
I will see you tomorrow, when I will count all the ways I love thee—even if I don't understand most of them.

He'd memorized Barrett Browning's poem for her, just as he'd promised. It shamed her to realize how she would have misunderstood his words before seeing his own books. Just because he didn't understand every line of the poem didn't mean he lacked intelligence. Verity had been struggling with
Gulliver's Travels
and felt thoroughly chastened.

She could explain the poem to him, and he could explain the book—if they didn't have anything better to do with their lips.

 

Beulah bristled the next morning when Verity announced her intention to make cherry pies, but Verity was prepared for this. “I'll make the filling, and I wondered if you would make the pastry. Your pie crust is much better than mine.” Verity hoped Beulah knew her well enough to realize this wasn't empty flattery.

If she did, it didn't seem to mollify her. “I found jam everywhere after you made those tarts,” the housekeeper said with a frown.

“I cleaned up all the jam.”

“I'm sure you thought you did,” Beulah muttered.

Verity blinked in surprise. “I'm sorry. I'll be more careful in the first place, then,” she said contritely. “I promise.”

The old woman didn't reply but brought out the flour and her rolling pin. Verity took that as evidence of a truce between them and commenced pitting the cherries. They were working together in silence when Johnny Thomas burst in through the back door, his eyes alight with excitement. “Cousin Verity!” he cried. “Have you heard what happened at the cemetery last night? Someone tried to dig up your mother's grave!” And having delivered this devastating news with the innocent callousness of a twelve-year-old boy, Johnny turned and darted back outside.

“Miss Verity!” Beulah exclaimed, and stepped between her and the door. Verity dodged around the housekeeper and took off in her cousin's wake.

Several yards ahead of her, Johnny vanished at the turn of the road. As soon as she reached the top of the hill, Verity could see carriages stopped at the bottom, all in a row as if it were a church day. People milled around outside the cemetery, congregating by the two graves marked with iron cages. At Johnny's arrival, people turned and looked up the road. No sooner had Verity been spotted than a familiar figure separated from the group and started toward her.

By the time Nate intercepted her, Verity had slowed her perilous run to a breathless trot. Her fists were clenched at her sides. “Don't you dare try to stop me!” she said.

Nate held both his hands up placatingly. “I know better than that.” His brow was furrowed with anger and worry. “Just—take my hand, Verity.”

His fingers gripping hers tightly, he walked her toward the cemetery. Ransloe Boone looked up with an anguished expression. Nate stopped at the edge of the crowd, and although Verity wanted to approach the grave, she could not induce her feet to move forward without him.

She was close enough to see that the cage had done its job.

The flowers and ivy she'd planted had been ripped from the ground and tossed aside. A hole had been dug at one of the corners of the cage and extended into a trench along one side and around the back. It looked as if someone had been testing to see whether the framework extended below the casket, which apparently it did.

The township sheriff stood at the foot of the grave, his hands on his hips, and Reverend White was explaining what happened. “After the voices roused me,” he said, “I came downstairs with a lantern and looked along the road. I didn't see anyone and thought perhaps it had just been an open carriage passing by. This was around two or three in the morning.”

“But they were arguing, you said. Loudly and violently.” The sheriff glared down on the tremulous clergyman. “This is not the first . . . incident that has occurred in this cemetery. Why didn't you come out to take a closer look?”

“I was in my nightclothes!” the minister exclaimed indignantly.

The sheriff looked down at the iron framework. “Was it the same grave last time—or the other one?”

“It's always Sarah Ann they come after,” growled Ransloe Boone. “Never Asenath.”

Verity shuddered to hear it.
They always come after Sarah Ann.

“I'm sorry, Ransloe,” John Thomas said in a voice hollowed with sadness and regret.

Nate whispered into her ear. “You're upsetting yourself
and
your father
and
me by being here. Have pity on your father, if no one else, and let me take you home.”

She nodded without speaking. Putting one arm around her shoulders, Nate turned her away from the graves. People stared at her as she passed, most with sympathy, some with bold curiosity.