A Death in Utopia Read online

  A Death in Utopia

  Adele Fasick

  Mongan Books

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

  Copyright © 2014 by Adele Fasick.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

  A Death in Utopia/Adele Fasick. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN 978-0-9853152-2-1

  Dedicated to Pamela, Laura and Julia,

  my three Graces

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE: Charlotte's New Beginning

  CHAPTER TWO: Abigail Hears a Speaker

  CHAPTER THREE: Charlotte Sees Too Much

  CHAPTER FOUR: Daniel's Rainy Day in Boston

  CHAPTER FIVE: Charlotte Searches for Answers

  CHAPTER SIX: Charlotte Talks to the Sheriff

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Abigail Thinks About Secrets

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Daniel Has an Idea

  CHAPTER NINE: Abigail Tells a Story

  CHAPTER TEN: Charlotte Hears a Secret

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Daniel Learns Something New

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Daniel Tries Spying

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Daniel Solves a Puzzle

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Abigail Has a Holiday

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Daniel Asks Questions

  CHAPTER SIXTEENS: Charlotte Visits a Bookstore

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Charlotte Gets Unexpected News

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Daniel Tries to Learn More

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Charlotte Plays a Part

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Daniel Searches the Docks

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: Charlotte Pays a Call

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: Daniel Has a Disappointing Day

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: Charlotte Asks for Help

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR: Abigail Remembers the Past

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE: Daniel Looks for Work

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: Charlotte Talks to a Farm Wife

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN: Daniel Asks More Questions

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT: Fanny Speaks Out

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: Charlotte Learns the Truth

  CHAPTER THIRTY: Charlotte Looks Back

  AFTERWARD

  Sources of Quotations

  Other Books about Brook Farm and its Friends

  CHAPTER ONE

  Charlotte's New Beginning

  September 20, 1842

  "Where are you going so early?" Ellen Geary peered sleepily at Charlotte who was dressing quietly in the chilly room. The sky outside the bedroom window was just turning from black to gray.

  "Out to see the new piglets, if they've come. I want to take my class to see the newborns this morning. We've only one pig, so there aren't many chances."

  "I'll come along with you." Ellen decided quickly.

  The two of them soon slipped out the back door of the Hive, and walked across the dewy grass toward the barn. The milking group were gathering buckets and singing one of the familiar hymns they heard so often here:

  The world is all a fleeting show

  For Man's illusion given;

  The smiles of joy, the tears of woe

  Deceitful shine, deceitful flow

  There's nothing true but heaven!

  "They'll scare the pigs," grumbled Ellen. "What makes them so cheerful at this hour?"

  "Why shouldn't they be cheerful?" Sometimes Ellen's grumbling surprised Charlotte. She hinted about mysterious troubles Charlotte had never suspected.

  "Mr. Ripley didn't sound so cheerful when he was talking to Mr. Pratt and Mr. Dana in the parlor last night. They were talking about needing money to plant crops in the spring. Someone has to talk to a banker about getting another loan."

  "Another loan?" Charlotte echoed. The business side of Brook Farm was a mystery to her. George and Sophia Ripley had organized the experimental community almost two years earlier and had gathered enough followers to make it a reality. Even though they called their community a farm, the Ripleys certainly were not farmers. Mr. Ripley was a benign man who looked like the minister he had been before resigning his pulpit to found the group. His wife, a tall, spare woman with graying hair and a long, anxious face, struggled to keep the laundry room going and to supervise the cooking.

  The Ripleys had persuaded a number of their friends to become Association members and put money into the project. They all dreamed of a life that would balance intellectual efforts with manual labor. Their intellectual lives seemed to be flourishing; they certainly spent enough time arguing about life's higher goals and reading their poetry to one another. The labor part was not going quite as well—harvests had been bad for the two years since they started. No one in the group knew how to do practical things—only last week they had to ask a local farmer to show them how to mend harnesses and hoes so they could get through another season.

  The day that had started cheerfully seemed to dim. Was it possible the Ripleys were in real trouble? Was it possible Brook Farm could fail? What would happen to all the grand plans for reforming the world then? And what if the school failed? Charlotte would have to find a new job in a more conventional school where she would endlessly teach the children to memorize Bible verses and pious maxims.

  In the pig shed behind the barn, they found the sow and her piglets safely ensconced on a bed of hay. Mr. Platt, the neighboring farmer who often helped the inexperienced Brook Farmers, had watched over the birth. And Fred, a gangly fourteen-year-old student, was crouched beside him keeping an eye on the fragile piglets.

  Charlotte was satisfied she would be able to take the children out to see the animals later. Leaving Ellen with Fred and Mr. Platt she walked on up the hillside to look for late blueberries. Even after six months living in Massachusetts, she was still not used to the New England weather. Autumn came with breathtaking suddenness. Brisk winds blew feathery seed pods across the fields and turned maple leaves into flashes of unnerving scarlet. Every morning the hillside flamed with new patches of red and yellow. This was nothing like the leisurely British autumns she was used to when mist rose gently from soggy, mossy fields. In the crisp air Charlotte was filled with energy and hope for the revolution being planned at Brook Farm no matter what Ellen said.

  The sun was warm on her back as she scrambled through a broken place in the low stone wall behind the barn. Plump gray squirrels with acorns in their cheeks ran to get out of her way and a pair of blue jays squawked harshly from a pine tree.

  Soon she reached the tiny stream and easily crossed it on a couple of rocks. The blueberry bushes looked rather bare and stripped of their berries. Someone else was looking for blueberries too. Abigail Pretlove, wearing a white dress and a bonnet trimmed with pink flowers, was pulling at the bushes to see whether any berries were left. It was easy to see she was a boarder and didn't have to share in the work of the farm. Who else would have worn a white dress on a weekday? A minute later her young son, Timothy, burst through the bushes and saw Charlotte.

  "Good morning, Miss Edgerton," he cried. "See what I found." He held out his hand to show a blue-black beetle he had caught. Timothy was one of Charlotte's liveliest primary students. He smiled easily and was always showing her bugs and stones or asking her to sing a song for the class. His mother Abigail smiled a lot too, and all the men smiled back at her, even Mr. Ripley. She certainly was pretty. Charlotte sighed and thought of how her mother used to say to her, "If you don't have beauty, Charlotte, at least you have a happy heart and a clever head. You will have to make your ow
n fortune in this world."

  "There are very few berries left," Abigail called. "We can all share what I found. I'm afraid the berry season is over."

  Abigail and Charlotte started walking back to the house. As they crossed the meadow they saw a tall man in a dark suit walking toward the main door of the Hive.

  "That must be another minister from Boston come to talk to Mr. Ripley about his great experiment," Charlotte commented. She swerved across the lawn to welcome him. Abigail trailed after her, but hung back a few steps.

  "Good morning. I'm Charlotte Edgerton," she called as she got closer. "Are you looking for Mr. Ripley?"

  "Yes, indeed. I am Winslow Hopewell. Mr. Ripley invited me to visit for a few days, but where is everyone?"

  His name was familiar. Winslow Hopewell was one of the best-known ministers in Boston. His church was filled every Sunday, especially, Charlotte had heard, with women who admired the handsome preacher. Handsome he certainly was. He wore his black hair longer than most men and his deep gray eyes and pale skin made him look intensely spiritual. He would be very pleasing to look at in the pulpit. Charlotte sighed. Why wasn't an attractive spiritual leader like Reverend Hopewell a member of the Brook Farm community trying to reform the world instead of living in comfort in Boston preaching to foolish women?

  "The hour is early even for us," Charlotte answered. "But everyone will be at breakfast soon and I'm sure Mr. Ripley will be glad to see you."

  She turned back to look at Abigail, who was several yards behind, bending over to look at a flower or something in the grass with Timothy. It didn't seem very hospitable. "Would you like to meet the Reverend Hopewell?"

  Abigail straightened up and looked at them and as she did, Charlotte heard Mr. Hopewell draw his breath in sharply. "I believe we have met before," he finally said as Abigail approached. "Good morning, Miss Coffin."

  "My name is Mrs. Pretlove now," Abigail answered. "This is my son, Timothy. It has been quite some time since we last met, Mr. Hopewell."

  The minister stood silently for a minute searching Abigail's face but she turned her head aside to avoid his gaze. They had both forgotten Charlotte until she spoke. "You two must have much to talk about. I'll take Timothy to breakfast."

  She took Timothy by the hand and as they walked toward the kitchen to drop off the blueberries she kept glancing back at Abigail Pretlove and the Reverend Hopewell talking together. He didn't seem to be in a great hurry to see Mr. Ripley.

  Timothy tugged at her skirt. "Look at this pretty bug on the flower. Let's take it to the classroom and show it to the others." Charlotte let him search among the leaves looking for small creatures, but her eyes were on Abigail and Mr. Hopewell. He leaned over her, talking away as though he were giving a sermon. His long black shadow blotted out her white dress and darkened the meadow grass behind her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Abigail Hears a Speaker

  September 21, 1842

  Abigail heard a buzz of talk as she walked downstairs and into the large parlor where the famous guest would speak. People had been talking for days about Lydia Maria Child. She infuriated many people by speaking out on the most outrageous topics. Her book advocating the immediate freeing of all slaves in the Southern states was so explosive the Boston Athenaeum took away her library privileges. She was just the type of speaker Brook Farmers prided themselves on inviting to visit their community. Scaring the local farmers with visions of radical social changes was part of their plan to change the world.

  That evening almost everyone at the Farm crowded into the parlor to listen to the talk. Fanny Gray, Mrs. Ripley's best friend, had taken the younger children into a side room and was keeping them entertained with stories and music while the adults listened to the speaker. Abigail could hear Fanny's voice leading the children in singing "Oh Canaan, bright Canaan" and she smiled when she heard Timothy's high-pitched voice raised to ask a question. Despite her pride in his searching questions, it was nice to have someone else responsible for answering them for a few hours.

  The bare room had very little furniture except for the wooden ladder-back chairs around the walls. The older people sat on these, making a circle of figures in sober dark blue or brown clothes. Abigail knew her white dress made her stand out, but she loved that dress and felt pretty in it although she sometimes wondered whether her stern Quaker father would approve. Ten years in New England had made a difference. She wasn't the mousey girl in gray she had been in Philadelphia before her parents died. Eight years of being a mother to Timothy changed her too; she was much stronger than the timid girl Winslow Hopewell used to know. He was sitting now at the front of the room with the Ripleys and Mrs. Child and looking around at everyone, but avoiding her eyes.

  Most of the young people sat on the bare floor. Almost all of the students from the Brook Farm school were there. Red-headed Fred was sitting as close as he could get to the speaker. And beside him was his shadow, clumsy, dark-haired Lloyd gazing around the room with his muddy gray eyes. A few outsiders crowded around the doorway. Abigail recognized Mr. Platt. With him was a younger man who looked enough like him to be his brother. There was also a tall colored woman standing just outside the door pulling a gray shawl around her broad shoulders.

  Mrs. Child was seated in a high backed chair at the front of the room. She was forty years old at least, but she still looked elegant in a quiet dark gray dress with a filmy white collar. There was no gray in her dark hair and when she spoke, her clear voice reached everyone in the room.

  "I am going to talk tonight about an unpopular subject. We who live in New England speak harshly of slaveholders in the Southern States, but we must not congratulate ourselves. Thanks to our soil and climate, and the early influence of the Quakers, the form of slavery does not exist among us; but the very spirit of the hateful and mischievous thing is here in all its strength."

  Abigail heard a scuffle of feet at the back of the room and someone coughed. Mr. Platt scowled at the speaker.

  "An unjust law exists in this Commonwealth, by which marriages between persons of different color is pronounced illegal." Mrs. Child continued. Mrs. Ripley, seated at the front of the room with her husband showed no sign of being shocked; her face was perfectly still as she listened. "I am aware of the ridicule to which I may subject myself by alluding to this, but I have lived too long, and observed too much, to be disturbed by the world's mockery. The government ought not to be invested with power to control the affections, any more than the consciences of citizens. A man has at least as good a right to choose his wife, as he has to choose his religion."

  That was too much for Mr. Platt. He spluttered out, "You people have no right to come here with your wild ideas about how we should live. Everybody knows whites and blacks don't belong together. That's why God made 'em different. It's only radicals and Quakers want them to live together."

  Abigail looked at Winslow Hopewell, who was leaning forward in his chair, his attention focused on Mrs. Child. He paid no attention to the outburst. Very different from her father who always jumped into the middle of a fight if his beliefs were being questioned. Impulsively she stood up and spoke.

  "We Quakers believe all human beings should live together in peace. A man's character isn't shown in the color of his skin."

  "Hurrah for the Quakers!" one of the students blurted out abruptly. Mr. Ripley clapped his hands and told everyone to quiet down.

  "This is no way to treat our guest," he said sharply. "We will listen to what Mrs. Child has to say and then we can ask questions. But there must be no more interruptions."

  The room became quiet, but again Abigail heard a rustle of movement in back of her and a few more coughs as the Platts settled down. She wondered why they had come. She doubted that tonight's talk was giving the visitors a better feeling about Brook Farmers.

  Mrs. Child went on to talk about how quarrels between abolitionists were threatening the efforts to end slavery. "Whether we believe that slaves should be freed immediately to li
ve among us, or believe that freed slaves should find a homeland in another country, we must work together. Remember there are still many Americans who have met violent ends because they advocated ending slavery. Only five years ago Elijah Lovejoy was killed and his press destroyed because he published an anti-slavery newspaper. And the U.S. Postmaster General has proclaimed that the post offices will refuse to deliver anti-slavery literature."

  The students sitting on the floor stirred restlessly and Fred ran his fingers impatiently through his red hair. Mrs. Child must have felt the tension too because she soon ended her talk.

  George Ripley announced there was time for questions and Fred was the first to jump up. "What can we do here at Brook Farm?" he asked. "Why don't we have any members who are former slaves?"

  George Ripley exchanged an exasperated glance with his wife, but fended off Fred's question by announcing, "Our distinguished guest the Reverend Hopewell might like to start the discussion."

  Winslow Hopewell smiled faintly at the Ripleys and turned to ask Mrs. Child about her work as editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard. "We admire your courage in continuing to write about this vexing, and sometimes dangerous issue." he said. "I am sure we all hope the journal will soon reach a large audience."

  Fred scowled sulkily at his shoes, but no one spoke as Mrs. Child mentioned a few articles that had appeared in her journal. At the back of the room the colored woman pulled her shawl close around her and slipped out the door. Mrs. Child raised her head and looked after the retreating figure; she leaned forward as though to speak again, but sank back in her chair as George Ripley stood up and announced the meeting was over.

  Most of the audience started to leave, but a few lingered and moved toward the front to talk with Mrs. Child. Fred repeated his question, and Mrs. Child said firmly that she had strongly urged the Community to accept some freedmen as members.

  "It's difficult enough to get any members," George Ripley explained. "Some of these reforms will just have to wait."