The Nell Sweeney Historical Mysteries
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Nell Sweeney Historical Mysteries
Six Novels by
P.B. Ryan
Published at Smashwords
First published by Berkley Prime Crime, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. as The Gilded Age Mysteries
Copyright © 2003-2011 Patricia Ryan. All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, these books may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.
Visit P.B. Ryan’s website and sign up for her newsletter: http://patricia-ryan.com
Still Life with Murder
Table of Contents
Book #1 of the Nell Sweeney Historical Mysteries
by P.B. Ryan
"P.B. Ryan makes a stunning debut with Still Life With Murder, bringing Nineteenth Century Boston alive, from its teeming slums to the mansions on Boston Common, and populating it with a vivid and memorable cast of characters. The fascinating heroine, Nell Sweeney, immediately engages the reader and I couldn't put the book down until I discovered the truth along with her. I can't wait for the next installment." —Bestselling author Victoria Thompson
Copyright © 2003 Patricia Ryan. All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.
For my agent, Nancy Yost, who's represented me for over a decade and a half...and we're still speaking to each other! Nancy's business smarts and good humor are what make us work, and for that I'm supremely grateful. Many thanks to Martha Bushko for knowing how to polish a novel without grinding away the good parts—a gem among editors. Thanks also to the warm and generous Susan Uttal for more than thirty years of unwavering friendship, and most recently for her enthusiastic service as my personal Boston tour guide. Finally, my deepest appreciation to Nick Dichario, Kathryn Shay, Tim Wright, my Evil Twin Pamela Burford, and my husband Richard Ryan for taking the time to read and sometimes re-read this manuscript as it took shape. Your insights were valuable, your encouragement and support priceless. This book, and the experience of writing it, wouldn't have been the same without you.
* * *
A guiltie conscience is a worme that bites and neuer ceaseth.
Nicholas Ling, Politeuphuia, 1597
Prologue
September 1864
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
"It's going to be a bad one." Dr. Greaves said it so quietly that Nell, sitting across from him in the Hewitts' glossy black brougham, almost didn't hear him.
Nell squeaked an end of her paisley shawl across the foggy side window. Trees writhed against a purpling sky as they rumbled past; raindrops spattered the glass. "The storm, do you mean? Or..." She eyed the flat mahogany surgical kit on the seat next to him, the cracked leather doctor's satchel by his feet.
"The delivery," he said. "And the storm. Both." Lightning fluttered across his face, making him look, for one jolting moment, strangely old. She'd never thought of him that way, despite being half his age. Cyril Greaves remained lean in his middle years, and was taking his time in turning gray. And then there were those benevolent eyes, that ready smile.
He wasn't smiling this evening.
"There must be something terribly amiss for them to have sent that fellow to East Falmouth for me." Dr. Greaves cocked his head toward the brougham's front window, through which the Hewitts' coachman, who'd introduced himself as Brady, was just visible as a smear of black hunched over the reins. "Families like the Hewitts don't bother with physicians for mere chambermaids. Not for routine births, anyway. It's only when disaster strikes that they fetch one, and by then it's usually too late."
All too true. How Nell dreaded the difficult calls—especially when something went wrong with a birth.
Crossing his arms, Dr. Greaves stared out at the passing countryside as it grew yet murkier and more turbulent. A white-hot rivulet crackled down from the heavens; thunder rattled the carriage. Nell turned to gaze out the other side window, thinking she might draw this landscape tomorrow if she wasn't too tired after her chores. No, she'd paint it, on a sheet of Dr. Greaves's best writing paper, in ink—great, bruising stains of it, black for the trees and a near-black wash for the sky.
Brady halted his team at a massive iron gate, which was hauled open for them by two men in Macintoshes. Snapping the reins, he drove the brougham past a shingle-sided gatehouse and up a long, undulating roadway. Nell had all but decided this couldn't possibly be the Hewitts' estate; there was just too much of it. But then a pulse of lightning illuminated a building in the distance—a huge, sprawling edifice adorned with turrets and a hodgepodge of steep gambrel roofs.
Her breath came out in an astonished little gust.
Dr. Greaves smiled at last; she often made him smile, but rarely when she meant to. "They call this place Falconwood. The Hewitts spend about six weeks here every summer, usually mid-July to the end of August. I wonder why they're still here."
"Six weeks? This...castle is for one family to live in for six weeks?"
"The Hewitts call it a cottage," he said, "but it's got over twenty rooms. Those in back look out on Waquoit Bay. The boathouse is larger than most people's homes."
Nell stared at the mansion as they neared it, at the scores of warmly lit windows, picturing the two-room hovel she'd shared with her entire family for the first eleven years of her life.
Her expression must have reflected her thoughts. "Nell," Dr. Greaves said softly. "You, of all people, should know that life isn't fair. And yet, somehow, you always manage to muscle through. Most people follow the path wherever it leads them. Others hack their own way through the brush and always seem to end up on higher ground. You're of the second sort."
The clattering of horses' hooves drew her attention back to the house, which they were circling on a paved path. Like the gatehouse, it was sided in shingles that had weathered to a silvery gray.
"The Hewitts have been summering on the Cape for about twenty years," said Dr. Greaves as he gathered up his satchel and surgical kit. "Not the most fashionable vacation spot, but I understand they like the solitude. Their main house is in Boston, on a Brahmin enclave they call Colonnade Row—that's a section of Tremont Street built up with mansions that make Falconwood look like a gardener's shed."
"Brahmin?"
"The first families of Boston—the venerable old bluebloods." Dr. Greaves answered even the most uninformed query without smirking or seeming surprised at one's ignorance. Nell had learned a lifetime's worth in her four years with him. "They tend to worship at the altar of high culture, and August Hewitt is no exception, though he's unusually sanctimonious for that breed. The wife's English, I think—Violet. No, Viola. There are some sons. The local girls would swoon for days whenever one of them showed up in town. They haven't been round the past few summers—except for the youngest. I see him at church every Sunday, along with his father. Perhaps the rest are off fighting Johnny Reb."
The carriage shuddered to a stop on a flagstone court behind the house, near an attached leaded-glass greenhouse with a domed roof. Passing the reins to a waiting groom, Brady unfurled the biggest black umbrella Nell had ever seen, opened the brougham's door and handed her down. "I'd best be takin' you folks in through the greenhouse," he said in a wheezy Irish brogue, raising his voice to be heard over the drumming rain. "The drive's flooded out up ahead. Watch that puddle, miss."
Taking a lantern from the brougham, the coachman gestured them toward an imposing arched entryway. Nell followed him through the unlit greenhouse, which she'd expected to be filled with plants, but which instead housed...
Paintings? She gawked as she wove through a forest of canvases propped on easels, each executed in loose, vibrant brush strokes. Some were seascapes featuring picturesque Waquoit Bay, and there were one or two still lifes, but most were of people—not posing formally, but lounging in opulent surroundings, exquisitely attired; jewels glinted, silks shimmered. They materialized out of the darkness, these sublime apparitions, only to dissolve back into it as the coachman's lantern swung past. The lamplight shifted and swayed just enough to make it seem as if they were inclining their heads ever so slightly toward Nell, eyes alight, mildly curious, before looking away.
The women dazzled, but it was the young men whom Nell found most arresting. There were perhaps three who had been painted repeatedly, golden creatures with luminous skin and expressions of languid ease. A particularly large canvas, which stood half-finished near the back wall, depicted two of them. One, an adolescent with hair the color of champagne and quiet, watchful eyes, sat tucked into one end of a maroon settee, while his brother—for surely these were two of the Hewitt sons—sprawled in elegant repose across the other. This older one's hair was a slightly darker blond, his smile more careless. Collar loose, tie undone, he had both arms draped across the back of the settee, a brandy snifter cupped lightly in one hand.
On a folding table nearby sat a palette crusted with dried oil paints, a jar of brushes, a wadded-up rag; some preliminary sketches were tacked to the easel's crossbar. Nell detected only the faintest whiff of linseed oil and turpentine; she would have expected the smell to be stronger.
"That's the one I see at church." Dr. Greaves pointed to the younger brother.
"Aye, that's young Master Martin. He's right pious." Gesturing them through a multipaned door into the house, Brady winked at Nell and whispered, "For an Episcopalian."
Nell winked back. She didn't think she looked particularly Irish, but those from the old country always knew.
"I'm to hand you over to Mrs. Mott, the housekeeper," the coachman said as he led them into a dim, cavernous kitchen, where he pulled a bell cord. Cocking his head toward a lamplit hallway, he said, "They've got Annie down there in the cook's room. That's Annie McIntyre, the girl what's havin' the baby. She sleeps up on the top floor, ordinarily, with the rest of the maids. But when her time come, Mrs. Hewitt, she said to put her down here where it's more cozy and private-like."
There materialized before them an old woman who looked to have been rendered in hard pencil on smooth vellum, so devoid of color was she: pale bespectacled face, scraped-back gray hair, unadorned black dress with a heavily laden key ring dangling from her belt, hands like carved bone clasped at her waist.
"Evenin', Mrs. Mott," Brady said. "I'm to go fetch Father Donnelly now. When you're ready for me to take you back, Doc, just—"
"We'll find you, Brady. Thank you."
"This way." Mrs. Mott turned and led them down a hallway, at the end of which slumped a young woman in a black dress with white collar, cuffs and apron. Red hair frizzed out from beneath her cap—not just a rusty brown, like Nell's, but a smoldering, red-hot red. She eyed them while gnawing on a thumbnail.
Pausing at a closed door halfway down the hall, Mrs. Mott turned to the maid. "Mary Agnes, shouldn't you be turning down beds?"
"Mrs. Bouchard wants me here in case I'm needed."
"You don't answer to Mrs. Bouchard, though, do you? You answer to me. For pity's sake, girl, stop chewing on that—"
"Oh, God." From behind the door came a woman's ragged moan. "Oh, God. Oh, Jesus." She was young, her voice high and thready. Another woman started to say something, but her words were drowned out by a wail that trailed off into whimpers. Mrs. Mott shrank back from the door. Mary Agnes looked at the ceiling as she started back in on the thumbnail.
Dr. Greaves knocked. "It's, Cyril Greaves, the doctor. May I—"
The door swung open. "Thank the Lord." Stepping aside for them was a solidly built Negro lady with a great copper bowl of a face and hair like hoar frost on gray moss. "My name is Mrs. Bouchard," she said in a sonorous voice seasoned with a peculiar accent, not quite southern and not quite French. "I'm Mrs. Hewitt's nurse. She asked me to help."
"Yes, thank you." If Dr. Greaves shared Nell's curiosity as to why Mrs. Hewitt should employ a nurse, he gave no hint of it. Nell followed him into the room, noticing as she turned to close the door that Mrs. Mott was already halfway down the hall, her tread as silent as if she were barefooted, although Nell couldn't imagine that was the case.
Leaning over the narrow bed, Dr. Greaves felt the forehead of the young woman lying in it, a heavily pregnant, china-doll blonde with big, panicky eyes. "How are you holding up, Annie?"
"N-not so good," she panted. "Something's wrong."
Mrs. Bouchard said, "The baby's lying transverse, Doctor. Hasn't budged through fourteen hours of labor." It wasn't a servant's uniform the nurse wore, but rather a severely unadorned black dress that looked to have been dyed from some other color. Her only jewelry was a small enameled watch pinned to her bosom. Was the household in mourning for some reason? Nell, in her faded blue basque and plaid skirt—hand-me-downs from Dr. Greaves's niece—felt suddenly rather shabby and conspicuous.
Dr. Greaves whipped off his frock coat and handed it to Nell, who laid it, along with her shawl and bonnet, on a chair in the corner of the small, tidy room. Rolling up his shirt sleeves, he nodded toward a wash basin in the corner. "Is that water clean?" he asked Mrs. Bouchard.
"I boiled it."
"Annie," he said as he soaped and rinsed his hands, "I'm going to have to examine you, but it shouldn't hurt. This nice young lady—" he nodded to Nell as she turned back the bedcovers from the bottom up "—is Nell Sweeney, my assistant. She's about your age, I should think."
"Let me guess." Nell smiled at Annie as she sat on the bed next to her. "You're...twenty?"
"Twenty-two."
"Exactly my age, then."
Annie grimaced, her head thrown back. "No..." she groaned.
"Ride it out," Nell softly urged, holding her hand and smoothing damp tendrils of hair off her face. "This will all be over soon, and then you'll have a lovely baby to—"
"Oh, God...oh, God." The girl cried out hoarsely during the contraction, trembled as it subsided; she was clearly exhausted.
Noticing Annie's wedding ring, Nell said, "Tell me about your husband." She'd learned not to ask Where is your husband? in case he was lying in a grave near some far-off battlefield.
"He...he..." Annie hitched in a breath and glanced down at Dr. Greaves, who must have begun his examination.
"Annie, look at me," Nell said gently. "What's his name?"
"M-Michael. Only..." Annie swallowed. "Only everybody calls him M-Mac, on account of his last name—McIntyre."
"He's one of our drivers," offered Mrs. Bouchard as she straightened a stack of clean sheets on the dresser. "Or was, till he signed up with the Boston Volunteers."
"The Eleventh R-regiment," Annie managed.
Mrs. Bouchard said, "He lost a leg at Spotsylvania in May. Been in the hospital since then, but he wrote to say he's coming home next month."
"Then you'll be seeing him soon!" Nell said.
Annie's head whipped back and forth on the pillow. "I'll be dead. Something's wrong."
Dr. Greaves said, "Annie, I'm not going to lie to you. Something is wrong. But it's nothing I can't fix. Nell." He gestured for her to stand. "I want to show you this so you'll know it next time we run across it. See how wide her abdomen is from side to side?"
She let him position her hands on either side of Annie's distended belly, over her linen chemise.
"Feel that?" Dr. Greaves asked. "The head's on one side, buttocks on the other—the worst position a baby can be in for delivery. Cord's prolapsed, too." Folding the bedcovers back down, he asked Mrs. Bouchard, "How long since her water broke?"
"Around dawn, just as she was going into labor."
"I'll need to operate as soon as we can gets things set—"
"Operate!" Mrs. Bouchard exclaimed.
"Oh, Jesus," Annie moaned. "You're going to cut it out of me? I am going to die!"
"Annie." Dr. Greaves turned her face toward him. "If you try to deliver this baby normally, your womb will very likely rupture, and you will assuredly die. Or the baby will. I'll use chloroform. You'll sleep through the whole thing."
"But, Doctor..." Mrs. Bouchard cast him a look that said she knew exactly what happened to women who underwent Caesareans.
"I've had excellent success with this procedure," Dr. Greaves assured her. "The secret lies in suturing the uterine wall. And no, it doesn't cause infection to leave the stitches in, so long as you keep things clean. Do you have any experience with surgery, Mrs. Bouchard?"
Her chin shot up. "My father was a surgeon in New Orleans. I assisted him for twenty years, through hundreds of operations. I won't faint dead away, if that's what you're worried about."
"Good—you and Nell can both help me, then."
"'Excellent success,'" Annie said. "W-what does that mean? Some of them still die, right? The mothers? When you do this operation?"
Dr. Greaves's hesitation was telling. "It's your only hope, child. And you're young and strong. There's no reason to think you won't make it, and...well, the baby almost always does."
"Do it," she rasped. "But first I need to speak to..." She mewed in pain as another contraction mounted. "Send for..."
Mrs. Bouchard patted her hand. "Father Donnelly's on his—"
"Mrs. Hewitt. I need to speak to M-Mrs. Hew—" Annie broke off with an agonizing howl.
Nell held her hands and comforted her until the pain had eased. Mrs. Bouchard said, "I'm sorry, Annie, but I'm not about to disturb Mrs. Hewitt at this hour. If you've got something to say to her, tell it to me and I'll give her the—"
"No!" Annie was trembling again, badly. "I have to speak to her myself, alone. Just her and me."
"Out of the question," Mrs. Bouchard said resolutely. "With everything that's befallen that poor woman of late, she doesn't need you troubling her with—"
"Then there will be no operation."
The nurse sighed with exasperation. "Annie, for—"
"Just do as she asks," Dr. Greaves quietly implored her.
Mrs. Bouchard marched out with a hiss of crinoline, hands in the air as if there were a rifle to her back.
"We can operate in the kitchen," the doctor told Nell, "on that big tiled table. See if there's someone who can't improvise some sort of stretcher. I'll need the gas jets turned up, and some lanterns hung from the rafters. Here." He dug the square-sided bottle of carbolic out of his leather bag. "You know what to do. Get that creature out in the hall to help."
* * *
"What is this stuff?" Mary Agnes winced at the tarlike stink of the rag Nell had given her to wipe off the table.
"Carbolic acid," Nell said as she scrubbed down a big enameled butcher tray that would hold the surgical instruments. "It'll get that table as clean as it can get."
"What's the use, if he's fixing to cut her open on it? It'll be a right bloody mess by the time he's done."
"He says it helps."
"Are you a nurse, like Mrs. Bouchard?"
"Not like Mrs. Bouchard. He's trained me in that sort of thing, but mostly I just...help with things. I go on calls with him, keep his books, do a little cleaning and cooking..."
"Don't he have a wife for that?"
"She's been ill for some time." That was what Dr. Greaves called it, anyway—an illness. But Nell knew that the Boston "hospital" in which his beloved Charlotte had spent the past eight years was, in fact, some sort of fancy lunatic asylum.
"What does he pay you?" Mary Agnes asked. "Or is it just room and board?"
"Room and board," Nell said. "But he teaches me things, too. Not just about medicine, but about history and music and how to speak and conduct myself with people. He's taught me how to read real books and write a proper letter and work with numbers. He—"
Mary Agnes cleared her throat as she speeded up the pace of her scrubbing. Catching Nell's eyes, she glanced meaningfully toward the door.
Nell looked that way to find a woman entering the kitchen in a Merlin chair, something Nell had seen only in pictures until now. Mrs. Hewitt was wheeling the upholstered wooden chair herself despite the presence behind her of Mrs. Bouchard, who could presumably have pushed it for her. Two ivory-handled folding canes and a needlework bag were hooked to the back of the chair.
Viola Hewitt was tall—even in the chair, you could tell that—and angular and aristocratic, with black, silver-threaded hair in a braid draped over one shoulder. In lieu of a dressing gown, she wore over her nightdress a purple and gold silk robe of Oriental design, much like those worn by the women in Dr. Greaves's book of Japanese prints; kimonos, he'd called them. She was a handsome woman, striking even, despite being an apparent cripple, and of a certain age. But there was an aura of melancholy in her eyes, in the set of her mouth, in her very posture, that robbed her of any claim to true physical beauty.
Mrs. Hewitt glanced once in Nell's direction as she rolled through the kitchen toward the hallway, wheels rattling over the slate floor; Mrs. Bouchard brought up the rear.
"That's not what I would have expected her to look like," Nell said when she was out of earshot. "Aren't her sons fair?"
"The three younger ones are." Mary Agnes smiled dreamily. "You never saw such lovely men, like angels in a painting. They got their coloring from Mr. Hewitt. He's the kind of blond that looks almost white. He really is going white now, but you can hardly tell the difference from before."
Nell shook out a tea towel to lay on the instrument tray, thinking back to one of the paintings in the greenhouse, the only one whose subject was standing. He was an older gentleman in white tie, holding an opera hat and gloves in one hand, walking stick in the other. He had hair like tarnished silver, radiant blue eyes and a grimly regal bearing: August Hewitt.
Dr. Greaves and Mrs. Bouchard entered the kitchen, having been asked to give Annie and her employer some privacy. Mrs. Bouchard sent Mary Agnes off for three clean bib aprons and as many freshly washed towels and dish cloths as she could carry. Taking the surgical kit from Dr. Greaves, Nell gathered up the ivory-handled instruments to be doused with carbolic: scalpels, bistouries, tissue retractors, artery forceps...
A muffled wailing, just barely audible over the pattering of rain on the windowpanes and the slight hiss of the turned-up gas lamps, made them turn toward the hallway. At first Nell thought Annie was having another contraction, but it soon became clear that she was crying.
"That girl has no business bringing any more woe on that woman's head," lamented Mrs. Bouchard as she unfolded a sheet onto the table. "She's aged a decade this past month, as it is."
"Why?" Nell asked. Too late, when Dr. Greaves's cut his eyes toward her, did she realize her tactlessness. She asked too many questions; he always said so. One could often learn more, he claimed, by keeping quiet and fading into the background.
Thankfully, Mrs. Bouchard didn't seem to mind. "The Hewitts lost their two oldest boys, both of them, just a day apart. They were captured back in February, at Olustee—that's in Florida—and thrown in that godforsaken hell-hole down in Georgia."
"You mean Andersonville?" Dr. Greaves asked. Even Nell, who had little time for newspapers, had heard about the notorious Confederate prison camp, a fenced-in sea of tents housing three times as many Union soldiers as it could reasonably accommodate. Rumor had it thousands had already starved to death or succumbed to one of the many forms of pestilence that thrived in such conditions.
Mrs. Bouchard nodded, dabbing her eyes with the edge of her apron. "They died last month, of dysentery—Robbie and Will. Dysentery. Lord, what a wretched way to go. It isn't right. It just isn't right."
"Both sons were in the same regiment?" Nell asked as she lined up the disinfected instruments one by one on the tea towel. Dr. Greaves was asking questions; why shouldn't she?
"They enlisted together in the Fortieth Massachusetts Mounted Infantry, on account of being such good horsemen." Mrs. Bouchard smoothed down the sheet with a bit too much vehemence. "Robbie, he was a regular volunteer. The older one, Will—he signed on as a surgeon."
Dr. Greaves, washing his hands at the sink, glanced over his shoulder. "He was a surgeon?"
"Just finished up medical school over in Scotland. University of Edinburgh."
Dr. Greaves let out a low, impressed whistle.
Mary Agnes returned with a towering stack of linens, including the three aprons, which Mrs. Bouchard distributed to herself, Dr. Greaves and Nell. "Poor Mrs. Hewitt hasn't done much of anything since she got the news, which isn't like her. I've told her she must rise above it, get on with things. After all, she still has Martin and Harry—those are the two younger ones. She was painting them when the cable came about Robbie and Will."
"Martin's the youngest, yes?" asked Dr. Greaves as Nell helped him on with his apron. "The one I see at church?" The one with the champagne hair and insightful eyes.
Mrs. Bouchard nodded. "He was all fired up to enlist next month, when he turns eighteen, but now his father's forbidden it. Says it'd kill his mother to lose another son. Mr. Hewitt, he pulled some strings and got Martin into Harvard so he can stay at home with his mama. He's already gone back to Boston, so as not to miss too much of the first term."
"And Harry?" Nell prompted.
Mrs. Bouchard turned away to fuss with the sheets on the table. "Mister Harry's needed at his father's textile mill in Charlestown."
It would appear that Harry Hewitt had chosen, like so many other young sons of wealthy families, to sit out the war and let his neighbors and servants—and brothers—fight it for him. Nell thought back to his image in the big unfinished painting—the beguiling grin, the lax fingers cradling the snifter.
From the direction of the greenhouse came men's voices. Opening the glass door, Nell greeted portly old Father Donnelly, her parish priest, and relieved him of his sodden overcoat.
"You'll have to wait your turn, Father," said Mrs. Bouchard. "Mrs. Hewitt and Annie are—"
"Mrs. Hewitt and Annie are done talking," Dr. Greaves declared. "If I wait much longer to operate, it will be too late. Father, do you think you can...do whatever you have to do while we're moving Annie to the kitchen?"
"I...suppose—"
"Good. Mrs. Bouchard, if you would give me a hand with Annie... Nell, make sure we're all set up in here."
It took mere minutes to get Annie settled on the table and prepared for surgery, with Father Donnelly muttering over her all the while. The poor girl, her face red from weeping, shivered with fear despite their reassurances.
Banishing everyone but Mrs. Bouchard, Nell and himself from the kitchen, Dr. Greaves said a brief prayer—a Protestant prayer, but Nell and Mrs. Bouchard crossed themselves just the same. He attached the drip spout to the tiny brown bottle of chloroform while Nell fitted the inhaling mask with fresh gauze.
"Close your eyes, Annie," Nell murmured as she placed the mask over the girl's nose and mouth. "When you wake up, you'll have a baby."
* * *
"I say—she's a beautiful little thing, is she not?"
Nell, cradling the swaddled infant in her arms, smiled across the kitchen table at Viola Hewitt. "All babies are beautiful," Nell said.
It was well past midnight; the gas lights were low again, casting the immense kitchen into amber-tinted semidarkness as the storm continued to rage outside. Dr. Greaves and Mrs. Bouchard were down the hall with Annie, watching for post-operative complications. Mrs. Hewitt, ignoring her nurse's exhortations to turn in, had lingered in the kitchen to oversee Nell's bathing and diapering of the newborn.
"They're not all as beautiful as that one." Mrs. Hewitt returned Nell's smile, her melancholic fog having dissipated over the past couple of hours. She had a distinctive voice, deep-throated and a little gritty, its rough edges burnished a bit by the remnants of a genteel English accent. "She's so plump and pretty, with that big, lovely round head. My boys all had a rather squished, stomped-upon look, as I recall."
"The round head is because of the Caesarean. She didn't have to pass through the..." Nell looked away, chastising herself for having made such a reference in polite conversation, especially with the likes of Viola Hewitt; what would Dr. Greaves say?
Mrs. Hewitt chuckled. "I'm afraid I'm not particularly easy to shock, Miss Sweeney. Mr. Hewitt is of the opinion that I ought to be a bit more prone to swooning, but I could never quite get the knack."
The baby yawned, quivering, then settled down again, weighty and warm in Nell's arms; how it gladdened her heart whenever she had the chance to hold a baby. She tried to fluff the thatch of black hair, but it was still matted, despite her bath. "Is her father dark?" she asked, thinking of Annie's golden locks.
Mrs. Hewitt frowned slightly. "No, Mac is...sandy-haired, I suppose you'd say. But newborns are funny that way. My Martin was born with a full head of thick, black hair, but now he's the fairest of all of my..." She trailed off, no doubt reflecting that "all of" her sons now numbered just two.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Nell said.
"Yes. Well. We're usually back in Boston by now, but I've been putting it off because—" Her voice snagged. "I've been saying it's because of Annie, because she couldn't travel in her condition—she's part of our Boston staff, you know. But we could have gone on ahead and sent for her after the baby came. It wasn't that. It was going back to that house on Colonnade Row, where those boys were little..."
The baby squirmed in Nell's arms, mewing and smacking her lips, her head jerking this way and that.
Mrs. Hewitt watched with interest as Nell dipped her little finger in the teacup of boiled sugar water with which she was keeping the hungry infant appeased. "She's ravenous, that one. I do hope Annie's up to feeding her soon."
"Me, too," Nell said as she slipped her fingertip in the baby's mouth. There was fresh milk in the ice closet, and an old baby bottle to put it in, but giving it to her at this point could spoil her for the breast.
"I would ask to hold her again, but she'd only fuss, as she did before. She's happiest with you. I've rarely seen anyone handle a baby with such...tender assurance."
Gratified by the praise, Nell murmured her thanks as Dr. Greaves returned to the kitchen. "Our new mother is awake and doing splendidly," he reported with a smile. "Why don't you bring the baby to her and see if she'll nurse? And then perhaps we should locate that Brady fellow and ask him to drive us back to East Falmouth. Mrs. Bouchard will sit up with Annie tonight, and I'll return in the morning to—"
"You mean to travel in this rain, and at this hour?" Mrs. Hewitt asked. "I've got half a dozen guest rooms, all standing empty—I can certainly spare two for the night. I'll have you brought night clothes and whatever else you need, and then Brady will take you back to town after breakfast."
Dr. Greaves accepted her offer of hospitality, to Nell's relief; why endure a late-night carriage ride in such weather?
In the cook's room, she found Mrs. Bouchard propping pillows behind Annie's back. "Look who's here," said the nurse as Nell sat on the edge of the bed with the baby. "It's your—"
"Take it away," Annie moaned, whipping her head to the side.
Nell looked inquiringly toward Mrs. Bouchard, who appeared dismayed but unsurprised at this reaction. "Now, Annie, don't be that way. You're her mother, after all, and she needs—"
"I don't want to see her. Take her away. Please."
Mrs. Bouchard nodded resignedly to a stunned Nell, who left with the child, closing the door behind her. Walking down the hallway toward the kitchen, she heard Mrs. Hewitt say, "Four years? And you've been pleased with her?"
"More than pleased," Dr. Greaves responded. "Nell's a hard worker, and clever. Nothing slips past her."
Nell stilled near the entrance to the kitchen.
"She's got a great deal of common sense, too," he continued, "and a strong stomach. I never have to worry about her keeling over at the sight of a gruesome injury."
"From a good family, is she?" inquired Mrs. Hewitt.
Nell held her breath for the long seconds it took Dr. Greaves to answer. "They were from the old country, ma'am. Both gone now, first him and then the mother, when Nell was just a child." Nell's father was gone, all right, but it wasn't his Maker he'd met; it was that greasy-haired barmaid from Dougal's Tavern.
"And there's no other family?"
Nell steeled herself, wondering if he'd mention Duncan.
"She had a number of younger siblings—that's how she learned to care for children. Disease took most of them—cholera, diphtheria—but one brother lived to adulthood. She assumes he's still alive, but it's been years since she's seen him. James—she calls him Jamie."
Nell released a pent-up breath.
There came an interval of silence punctuated by the muted bong of a clock somewhere off in another part of the house, striking one.
"She seems..." Mrs. Hewitt paused. "I found myself telling her things..."
"Yes," said Dr. Greaves; Nell could hear the smile in his voice. "She has that effect."
"I don't suppose she has any Greek or Latin."
A pause. "No, ma'am. She's quite proficient in French, though."
"Any Italian or German?"
"None to speak of. But she's got a better command of the three R's than I do, and she reads whatever I put in her hands. Lovely penmanship, and a fine hand with the drawing pencil."
"She's of good character and chaste habits, I take it?"
"She's never given me any reason to censure her, ma'am." Which didn't precisely answer the question.
"That little scar near her left eyebrow—may I ask how..."
"An old injury. I stitched it myself." As he had the several others that weren't so readily visible. Before she could ask him to elaborate on his vague answer, he said, "May I inquire as to the nature of your interest in her?"
"I just... I need to consult with my husband first, and I'm not sure if he's still up reading. If I don't get the chance to speak to you again tonight, perhaps...after breakfast?"
"As you like, ma'am."
Nell heard the wheels of the Merlin chair rolling away over the slate floor. She listened as the sound grew softer and disappeared, then reentered the kitchen to find Dr. Greaves staring at the door through which Mrs. Hewitt had just departed. He turned to look at Nell as she came up behind him, his expression contemplative, and perhaps a little sad.
"What was that about, do you suppose?" Nell asked.
He just sighed and turned away. "Eavesdropping, Nell? I'm surprised at you." Before she could protest that he might have done the same had he found himself the subject of a similar conversation, he said, "Let's finish cleaning up in here. It's been a long night."
* * *
Nell hastened to the guest room door as a second knock came, her fingers fumbling with the mother-of-pearl buttons on the dressing gown she'd found laid out for her when she was shown to this room about an hour ago.
Must be Mary Agnes, with another down pillow to heap upon the bed, another little perfumed soap or lush towel, she thought as she reached for the knob. But in fact, it was Viola Hewitt, not in her chair but standing with the aid of the two ivory-handled canes. "It's dreadfully late, I know, but I saw the light under your door, so I thought perhaps... May I...?"
"Yes, of course." Stepping aside, Nell held the door open for her visitor, whose gait, although halting, had an odd, birdlike grace about it; perhaps it was her height. A metallic scraping could just be heard beneath the silken swish of her kimono and nightdress.
"Leg braces," she explained. "They get me up and down stairs, but it's an ordeal. I say, how very pretty your hair looks down. You've no need of the curling tongs." She nodded toward the dressing gown. "Not too long? It's mine, you see."
"Oh, no, it's lovely." It was, in fact, the loveliest thing Nell had ever worn, a satin-trimmed cashmere peignoir the color of butter, worn over a matching silk nightgown. Now that she'd finally felt the liquid slide of silk over her bare skin, Nell understood why women prized it so. The ensemble was a far cry from the patched cotton nightdress and threadbare wrap hanging in her little dormer room back at Dr. Greaves's.
"You're comfortable here, I hope?" Mrs. Hewitt embarked on a torturously slow tour of the room, smoothing the counterpane on the tall half tester bed, adjusting the angle of the cheval mirror. She opened and closed the dressing table's single drawer, rearranged the roses in a fat Chinese urn. Their fragrance mingled with a whisper of lemon oil. The room smelled sweet and exotic and a little old; it smelled like wealth.
Nell couldn't help wondering why she was being treated to such luxury. Most people in Mrs. Hewitt's position would have berthed her upstairs with the servants.
"I went to Dr. Greaves's room, thinking I'd speak to him first, but he's not there. Perhaps he's downstairs unwinding after the evening's ordeal. I did tell him where he might find the sherry." Mrs. Hewitt glanced at the door to the dressing room, which stood slightly open.
"How is the baby faring?" Nell asked. Mrs. Hewitt had had a cradle fetched from the attic and put next to her own bed.
"Fast asleep, with a nice, full belly. I'm so glad she took to the bottle. Good heavens." She crossed to the little writing desk in the corner. "Did you do these?" Lowering herself into the chair, she lifted the two drawings Nell had inked on paper she'd found in the middle drawer—thick, creamy vellum embossed with a single word: FALCONWOOD. They were sketchy portraits, one of the baby and the other of Viola Hewitt herself.
"They're just rough," Nell said, heat sweeping up her throat as Mrs. Hewitt studied them. "When I have time, I'll add some more detail and—"
"Don't. They're perfect fleeting impressions, just as they're meant to be. I must say, though, it's remarkable how well you captured me—both of us—just from memory."
"I don't have a great deal of time to draw from life. I've learned to fix things in my memory and draw them later. It's almost like...making a photograph in my mind."
"It's a gift, being able to do that." Still contemplating the sketches, Mrs. Hewitt said, "Annie doesn't want the baby. At all. She means to give her up."
"Ah."
"Do you know why?"
Nell paused to choose her words carefully.
Mrs. Hewitt said, "I can't be shocked, remember?"
"Is it because her husband isn't the father?"
Mrs. Hewitt laid the sketches down carefully. "It was a year and a half ago that Mac enlisted in the Boston Volunteers, and he hasn't been able to get home since then. I've forbidden the servants to speak of it. These matters are..." Nell thought she would say "unseemly." Instead, she said, "...complicated. But we live in a world that likes to pretend such things are simple."
Too true, Nell thought; still, the older woman's acceptance of the situation struck her as bizarre.
"I'm adopting the baby." Viola Hewitt's smile evolved into a full, girlish grin when Nell's mouth literally dropped open. "Mrs. Bouchard doesn't approve. Neither does my husband, but he's humoring me because of..." Her expression sobered. "Because he knows it will make me happy to have a baby round the house. And a baby girl! I always wanted a daughter, but I ended up with four sons instead. Not that I didn't love them more than life itself, God knows. But there's something about a little girl..."
"Yes, there is." Still, rationalizations aside, for a society matron to adopt a maid's bastard... It was outrageous.
"Annie doesn't want her, and she doesn't want her husband or family to find out about her. If I don't take Grace, she'll be..." Noticing Nell's puzzlement, she smiled. "I'm calling her Grace. It was my mother's name. If I don't take her, she'll be doomed to some squalid orphan asylum, or worse yet, the county poor house. That's where they put the absolute dregs, the type of paupers who would simply die on their own—drunks, lunatics, people with the most dreadful contagions, all thrown in with the motherless little children. I've done charity work in those places. My dear girl, if you'd ever seen the inside of one..."
If only she hadn't.
"Annie will leave my employ and relinquish all legal claim to the child. Our attorney will draw up the necessary papers. In return, I'll ask Mr. Hewitt to recommend her to the Astors in New York—making no mention of the baby, of course. It will be an excellent position for her, and I'll see to it that they hire Mac, as well. They can always use another driver."
"Won't her husband question the scar on her abdomen?" Nell asked.
"She can tell him it was an appendectomy."
"You've thought it all through."
"More completely than you know. We'll be returning to Boston next week, with the baby, and...Nell, I'd like you to consider coming with us."
Nell stared at her. "As a...nursemaid, you mean?"
"We actually have one of those—well, she's been retired for some time, but she still lives with us in Boston. Miss Edna Parrish. She was my nanny back in England, and I brought her here for the boys. The thing of it is, she's quite elderly, and somewhat infirm. She'll be insulted if I don't ask her to take care of Grace, but she can't possibly manage on her own. I'd do it myself, but I've got these useless legs to deal with. Infantile paralysis, you know. Caught it in Europe right before the war."
"I'm so sorry," Nell said, but in truth, she was somewhat intrigued by the exotic ailment; she wished it wouldn't be considered rude to ask about it.
"I was thinking perhaps you could assist Nurse Parrish in her duties while Grace is little. Then, when she gets older and needs to be educated and learn comportment and so forth, you'd be more of a governess."
"A governess? Me?" A nursemaid might hail from the working classes, but Nell had read enough governess novels to know that their heroines were nearly always, despite their reduced circumstances, as wellborn as the families that employed them—and always well educated. "I'm not equipped for a position like that."
"I think you are," Mrs. Hewitt said. "You're intelligent, capable...and you seem to adore children."
"But governesses are teachers, and I've had so little formal schooling. And I'm...I'm not from your world, Mrs. Hewitt. I don't know anything about your way of life."
"You're clever. You'll learn. Besides, for the first eight years or so, you'll be what's known as a nursery governess, and to be perfectly frank, one doesn't generally expect as much of them as one does of a preparatory governess. You'll have plenty of time to fill any gaps in your own tutelage before taking on the more rigorous aspects of Grace's education. Even then, one does expect to hire outside masters in various subjects... languages, piano, dancing... A good governess is as much a moral guide as an instructress, and I can't help but think you would excel in that role."
If only she knew. "Mrs. Hewitt, I..." How to put it? "You may be harboring illusions about me that—"
"Gentlewomen have no monopoly on virtue, Nell—a minority view in my particular circle, but I'm accustomed to being regarded as an eccentric. I suppose I am—but I'm also, if I do say so myself, an astute judge of people. I know in my heart you'd be wonderful for Grace."
"I...I appreciate your confidence, Mrs. Hewitt, I truly do. But—"
"Have you ever been to Boston, Nell?"
"No, ma'am."
"Well, there's no place like it in the world. Our house is right on Boston Common, which is some forty-five acres of parkland. You'd have your own room on the third floor next to the nursery. I shan't lie to you—it's a rather plain room, but large and bright, and it has windows facing the Common, and a little nook off to the side that can serve as a sitting room. The nursery can be converted into a schoolroom when the time comes. You'll get ten dollars a week, and of course room and—"
"Ten..." Ten dollars a week? "For myself?"
"To spend any way you'd like. You'll need a proper wardrobe. My dressmaker will run some things up for you—at my expense, of course. Three or four day dresses to start with, I should think. At least one tea dress, and a nice walking dress, for when you take Grace out and about. Perhaps a simple black taffeta for dinner. Something to wear to church on Sundays." Looking down, she brushed an invisible speck off her kimono. "Mr. Hewitt did ask me to discuss the issue of religion. We're Anglican, you know—Episcopalian you call it here. Mr. Hewitt switched over from Congregationalism when we married. And I would assume you're..."
"Quite Catholic, I'm afraid."
"Yes, well, I had a Catholic governess myself—Mademoiselle D'Alencour, my finishing governess. I reminded Mr. Hewitt of that just now when he...well, he had some concerns. Grace will, of course, be brought up in our faith. You're welcome to attend Mass with the house staff, but once Grace is old enough for church, she'll be attending King's Chapel. And as for...doctrinal matters..."
"You don't want me putting papist notions in her head."
"In all other matters, I bow to your discretion. You'll be free to deal with her as you see fit, for the most part, without a lot of second-guessing from me. All I really expect is that you rear her with the same care and love as if she were your very own. Naturally, I would prefer that you remain unwed while Grace is young, in order to devote your full attention to her. And, of course, your conduct and reputation must be above reproach—you're responsible for the upbringing of a young girl, after all. But I can't think you'd let me down in that regard. Does this sound like something you'd be interested in?"
Having a baby to hold and feed and kiss anytime she wanted? A child to raise as her own—almost—after thinking it would never happen? "Yes," she said earnestly, remembering how the infant Grace had felt in her arms, so warm, so right. "Yes, I... Oh, yes, I would love it!"
Mrs. Hewitt seized Nell's hand and squeezed it. "I'll speak to Dr. Greaves in the morning about releasing you into my employ."
Nell nodded, although she knew in her heart that Dr. Greaves wouldn't stand in the way of an opportunity like this. He wouldn't like it, but he would do what was best for her.
It took some effort, and Nell's help, for Mrs. Hewitt to rise unsteadily from the chair. As she was leaving, she turned and said quietly, "You mustn't judge Annie too harshly. She does love him, you know—her husband, Mac. She wept for weeks after he left. But people get lonely. They...seek comfort where they can find it."
"I know."
That statement was met with an indulgent smile. "You may think you do, my dear, but you're really such an innocent. Perhaps someday, when Grace is old enough, you'll marry and gain some understanding of these things."
Marry to gain an understanding of loneliness? But then Nell thought of her mother, gaunt and shivering in her little hut with her many mouths to feed after her husband ran off. Had she never married, she never would have ended up so forsaken.
Closing the door, Nell rested her forehead against it. You're really such an innocent. Unfortunately, one doesn't remain innocent for long with the kind of life in which she'd been thrust. One does what one has to, just to survive. But Viola Hewitt didn't know that. To her, Nell was a simple Irish Catholic girl of working class stock and unblemished virtue. There would be much to keep hidden if she took this position, the worst of it having to do with Duncan.
Nell didn't relish the notion of harboring secrets from a woman she'd already come to like immensely. But she could if she had to. And if she took this position—and dear God, how she wanted it—she would have to.
Turning, Nell looked toward the dressing room. "Did you hear?" she asked softly.
The partially ajar door creaked open as Dr. Greaves emerged from where he'd secreted himself, hair slightly mussed, braces dangling. His shirt, which Nell had been unbuttoning when the first knock came, hung open.
For a moment he just looked at her, and then he raised his glass of sherry in a kind of toast, his smile so sad it seemed to reach around her throat and squeeze.
"To higher ground," he said.
Chapter 1
February 1868: Boston
It was a shocking turn of events, both wondrous and devastating; a miracle or a tragedy, depending on how you looked at it.
The news came while Nell was relaxing in the Hewitts' music room, listening to Martin sing his new hymn for his parents. Accompanying him on the gleaming Steinway in the corner was Viola Hewitt in her downstairs Merlin chair, one of four she kept on different floors of the Italianate mansion that overlooked Boston Common from the corner of Tremont and West Streets. August Hewitt lounged in his leather wing chair by the popping fire, arms folded, spectacles low on his nose, his Putnam's Monthly lying open on crossed legs. Nothing pleased him more on a Sunday afternoon than to bask in the bosom of his family circle in this richly formal room, his favorite. The Oriental-influenced Red Room, a silken refuge visible through an arched doorway flanked by six-foot stone obelisks, was his wife's preferred sanctuary.
Ancestral portraits lined the music room's rosewood paneled walls, six generations of Hewitt "codfish aristocracy," most of them in the shipping trade; copper and cloth had gone to China, ice to the West Indies and rum to slave-rich Africa on ships that came back laden with silks, teas, porcelains, sugar, cocoa, tobacco, and the molasses with which to make more rum. But the real merchant prince among the bunch had been Mr. Hewitt's father, scowling down from above the black marble fireplace, who'd diversified into the textile trade by founding Hewitt Mills and Dye Works, thus greatly augmenting the family fortune.
And then, of course, there was August Hewitt himself, represented by his wife's monumental full length portrait—flanked by modestly draped, life-size statues of Artemis and Athena—who had negotiated a lucrative contract to produce U.S. Army uniforms back when almost no one seriously envisioned a war between the states. His foresight had heaped the family coffers to overflowing.
Little Grace, in her favorite apple green frock and pinafore, lay curled up on Nell's lap, two middle fingers still somehow firmly lodged in a mouth gone lax with sleep. The grosgrain bow adorning the child's dark hair tickled Nell's chin, but not unpleasantly. Gracie's somnolent breathing, the lulling weight of her, her soapy-sweet little-girl scent, all filled Nell with a sense of utter well-being.
Across the room, Miss Edna Parrish sat propped up with pillows in her favorite parlor rocker—head back, eyes closed, mouth gaping, archaic mobcap slightly askew—looking for all the world like a strangely withered baby bird. Gracie had climbed out of her nursemaid's lap at the first wheezy snore and clambered up onto Nell's, dozing off almost instantly.
Through the velvet-swagged windows flanking the fireplace, Nell watched snow float down out of a pewter sky, her book—Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty by Mr. DeForest—neglected in her hand. She loved watching snow lay its glittering blanket over the city—so opaque, so pristine, as if absolving the streets beneath of their years of grime.
Boston had been a shock to her upon her arrival here three years ago—so huge, so raucous, a buzzing hive in which she'd felt not just lost but utterly invisible. How she'd longed for the rustic familiarity of Cape Cod—at first. Over time, the city gradually lost its daunting newness and began to feel like home—her home. Just as she became a part of Boston, so she became a part of the Hewitt family. Gracie was the child of her heart, if not her womb, and time had only served to cement her sense of kinship with Viola Hewitt.
That kinship notwithstanding, it was rare that Nell joined the family for these Sunday afternoon gatherings, Viola having exempted her from her duties for the better part of every weekend. On Saturdays, she often prowled the Public Library, the Lecture Hall, or—her favorite—the Natural History Museum. There were several other Colonnade Row governesses with whom she'd struck up an acquaintance as their charges played together in the Common, and from time to time they would meet for Saturday luncheon or a lingering afternoon tea—but as Nell had little in common with them, no true friendships ever sprang from these outings.
Every Sunday morning, Nell went to early Mass, a too-brief low Mass for which she had to awaken and dress in the predawn gloom, so that she would be free to watch Gracie while Nurse Parrish and the Hewitts attended services at King's Chapel. After that, she was once more at liberty to go her own way. If the afternoon was mild, she might take a long walk—even in wintertime if the sun was bright—or perhaps settle down with a book on a bench in the Public Garden. When the weather was less agreeable, as today, she often read or drew in her room. She would be there now had Viola not specifically requested her presence today.
Gracie is better behaved with you than with Nurse Parrish, Viola had told her, and you know how Mr. Hewitt gets when she starts fussing. He'll send her to the nursery if she makes so much as a peep, and I so long for her company this afternoon. You'll be home anyway, because of the weather. Please say you'll sit with us.
Unable to refuse much of anything to Viola, who'd come to hold as dear a place in her heart as her own long-departed mother, Nell had agreed. Mr. Hewitt had cast a swift, jaundiced glance at Gracie when she abandoned Nurse Parrish's lap for Nell's, but otherwise ignored her—as he did her governess.
Nell tried to recall the last time she and Mr. Hewitt had occupied the same room, and couldn't. That their paths rarely crossed was due to his distaste for children in general and—from all appearances, although it made little sense—to Gracie in particular. At his insistence, the child took all her meals, with the exception of Christmas and Easter dinners, in the nursery with Nell. On weekdays he put in long hours at his shipping office near the wharves, dined at home with his wife and Martin—Harry almost always ate elsewhere—then spent the remainder of the evening at his club. He came and went on the weekends, as did Nell; on those rare occasions when they passed each other in the hall, they merely nodded and continued on their way.
"It's different," Mr. Hewitt concluded when the hymn ended. "Not bad, actually, but that bit about God bestowing his grace on all the sons of man, welcoming them into his arms and what not... You might think about rephrasing that."
Martin, standing by the piano, regarded his father with a solemn intensity that might be interpreted by someone who didn't know him well as simple filial deference. At a quick glance, the flaxen-haired, smooth-skinned Martin looked younger than his twenty-one years; it was those eyes, and the depth of discernment in them, that lent him the aspect of an older, wiser man.
His mother closed the piano softly, not looking at either her husband or her youngest son.