A Death in Utopia Read online

  "But with a baby coming. He didn't leave you, did he?" Maura leaned over the table.

  "We didn't know about the baby. I told him to go do what his father told him if that's what he wanted. I was so angry I don't know what I said, but I know I said some horrible things about him being a little boy always doing what his father told him." The words hurt her throat as she said them. "And he went. He just went away!" She had to stop talking because the tears were coming so fast. And that was just the time Timothy and his friend came in from the alley.

  Timothy looked scared when he saw his mother crying. He came over and stood next to her and wrapped his arm around her neck. "It's all right, it's all right," she reassured him. "Mother's just telling a sad story. Don't pay any attention. See, I'm smiling now." She tried to force her face to smile. Maura bustled around getting tea for the boys and spreading a piece of bread and jam for each of them. Soon young Pat took Timothy off in one corner to show him some special yellow marbles.

  Abigail felt better despite the storm of tears. She had held the story inside herself ever since her aunt died. She had pretended to be a widow for so long that she almost believed it herself and her fantasy husband, poor George Pretlove who had died at sea, seemed almost real. During the years when she and her aunt lived in Groton no one had questioned her story.

  Over the years she sometimes heard news about Winslow and his preaching. He never knew about Timothy until he visited Brook Farm. After that Abigail finally told him the truth. He was shattered by the news—angry at first and then terribly sad that he had missed years with his son. They were just beginning to talk about making changes. Then came that terrible morning.

  When Abigail and Timothy left, Maura hugged them and made them promise to come back and visit again soon. Pat even gave Timothy a small blue and white marble to keep for his own. And when they were leaving, Maura went off and came back with a small piece of cloth wrapped around something that she pressed into Abigail's hand. "Sure God always has his eye on you, Abigail. Don't you ever worry about that. Timothy is a gift from Him and you will be happy again. I know you will."

  When she unwrapped the cloth Abigail found a rosary made of worn beads with pieces of yarn tied to mark the decades. She only recognized what it was because Maura had given it to her to hold onto during the birth. She said it would calm her. And it had. She had survived that; maybe she would get through these difficult days too.

  Timothy held her hand as they walked along the quiet road back to the Farm. He seemed to know she was feeling sad and lonesome. Soon Abigail began reciting to him some of the poetry her father used to read to her years before. The autumn fields were brown and dreary, but she remembered some lines from Keats:

  Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--

  While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

  [Something something she could not remember and then]

  And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

  There were no swallows in these skies, but other birds were twittering in the trees, making soft, comforting sounds. Maybe things would be better. She was still young and she had Timothy. This year was dying, but another year would come—many other years. Winslow was silent and gone. They would never talk again, but she and Timothy were alive.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Charlotte Hears a Secret

  October. 17, 1842

  On Monday, the rain came down in a slow, drizzle of water that soaked Charlotte's shoes as she walked across the lawn to the Hive. The few leaves remaining on the trees hung limply, waiting to be swirled away to their deaths, and the sharp wind was a reminder that winter was well on its way. Margaret Fuller had left the Farm on Sunday afternoon, busy until the last minute talking with Mr. and Mrs. Ripley. Charlotte, like many others, wished she could have stayed longer. It would be wonderful to know as much as she did and be so respected as well as loved.

  The children in the primary class were restless as they always were on rainy days. Johnny Parsons twisted around in his seat to make a face at little Mary Miller, who stuck her tongue out in retaliation. It was tiresome having to remind them to act like ladies and gentlemen, as if they could at that age. If the sun had been shining Charlotte would have taken them all out to look for spider webs and shake the cobwebs out of their brains after reading the fable "The Spider and the Silkworm". Since they had to stay indoors, she decided they could look for spider webs in the attic. She pretended they were starting on an exploring trip and led them up the wooden stairs to the large, dusty room under the eaves. Two small windows, one at each end of the room, gave a dim gray light through dusty windows. Along the sides of the room, under the slanting eaves, large trunks and bulky packages, some of them draped in sheeting, were stored.

  The children began to search in all the corners, the boys giggling and teasing the girls about being frightened of spiders, but they had scarcely started when they heard someone climbing the stairs. Charlotte was relieved to see it was Abigail; she was unlikely to complain about the children's noise. She smiled at all of them. Timothy, of course, ran over to grab his mother's hand and show her the web he had found.

  Abigail and Charlotte spread out one of the covering sheets and sat on the window ledge while they let the children scamper around the storeroom. Some of them were forgetting about the spider webs, but it was good for them to stretch their legs. Abigail looked less sad than she had seemed for the past week, ever since Reverend Hopewell died. She certainly took that death very hard and Charlotte wondered how she had felt about him.

  She broached the subject carefully. "Did you go to Winslow Hopewell's funeral on Saturday?"

  "No, I didn't," Abigail answered rather sharply. "I had no need of a funeral to make me remember him."

  "Did you know him in Boston? I remember when he first arrived you said that you and he had met before."

  "Yes, he used to visit my aunt's house when I lived with her. He was a charming young man, just finishing Harvard College. His father was a famous preacher, you know, and he wanted Winslow to follow in his footsteps. Winslow told me he wanted to be a poet, but in the end he followed his father's wishes." Her voice was tinged with bitterness.

  "You must have known him well."

  "Oh yes, I knew him very well." She turned her head to the side and Charlotte thought for a moment she was going to cry, but instead she answered in a low voice, "He said he wanted to marry me."

  "But you refused him. You married Mr. Pretlove instead."

  "Oh, Mr. Pretlove. The famous George Pretlove," now Abigail's voice was anguished. She took a handkerchief out of her pocket and touched it to her eyes, then held it in her hand twisting it round and round into a sausage of white linen. Charlotte wondered why she was so upset, but she said nothing.

  "There was no George Pretlove. It was Winslow I was married to," suddenly burst from Abigail's mouth as though she couldn't hold it in any longer.

  Charlotte could only stare at her. What did she mean there was no George Pretlove? Timothy Pretlove was her son. How could she be married to Winslow? He was a minister. Everyone would know if he had a wife.

  "You mustn't tell anyone, Charlotte. I didn't mean to tell you. You can't understand and neither can anyone else. Promise me you won't tell!" She leaned toward Charlotte. Her eyes were wide with fear and her grip was like a vise.

  "I won't tell," Charlotte promised. It was hard to believe the change that had come over Abigail. She was always so beautiful, so poised and quiet as though she had never any care on her mind. Charlotte had envied the easy life she led. Now she was pleading with her to keep a secret. They sat there a minute or two more just looking at each other, but then the children got tired of chasing spider webs and Charlotte had to take them back to the classroom. Abigail disappeared into her room.

  Soon it was time to dismiss the children from class. It had been a long day for the
smaller ones. To Charlotte's surprise Daniel was standing in the hall downstairs. For a minute he seemed like a stranger. He looked just the same as before—thin and pale with those bright blue eyes. His smile hadn't changed and that was reassuring.

  "You're back again. You'll wear out the road walking back and forth so much. Have you discovered anything new about what happened to Winslow Hopewell?"

  "I didn't want to bother Mr. Ripley on a Sunday, especially because you people had a famous visitor here. But I wanted to get his permission to ask questions here." Daniel was standing very straight and he had a little smile on his lips as though he was quite satisfied with himself.

  "You look happy, so you must have been given the permission. And have you started asking questions yet?"

  "I talked with Mr. Ripley, of course, and asked him what he knew about Winslow Hopewell and whether anyone could have been very angry with him. But I didn't learn much. Mr. Ripley knows Winslow's father. Has known him all his life. Everyone in Boston knows everyone else it seems, except for those of us who know no one. Anyway Mr. Ripley has known the Reverend Thomas Hopewell for many years. According to Mr. Ripley, he is one of the most respected men in the city and no one has a word to say against him. Winslow has been a little more controversial because there are some people who believe he is too liberal in his teaching about the New Testament. And he has half the women in Boston pestering their husbands about the sufferings of the slaves in the South. None of that sounds as though it would get him killed, does it?"

  Charlotte wondered whether one of those henpecked husbands might have killed Winslow just to stop the pestering, but that thought slid out of her mind as soon as it came in. It was too horrible to joke about when she could still see Winslow's white face in her mind.

  "No, that doesn't get us very far. Is the whole family perfect? What about Mr. Hopewell's mother and brothers and sisters?"

  "His mother died when he was ten years old and there were no other children. Thomas Hopewell never remarried and his son never married, so there have been no women in the family for many years."

  "Oh, yes there were," Charlotte started to say and then caught herself. She couldn't betray Abigail even though she didn't know what the story about being married to Winslow meant. How could they be married if no one knew about it? She hurried to try to correct the mistake. "I mean, there were women who admired Winslow. Remember how Fanny said once that he had women swooning over his sermons? Maybe some of them were jealous."

  "Silly women flutter over good looking ministers all the time," said Daniel loftily, "but they don't kill them. And none of those Boston women would have been out here at the Farm. Winslow Hopewell was a well-known and respected minister. Mr. Ripley knew him all his life from when he was a child. It's unlikely he had any guilty secrets in his life."

  "Everyone has secrets. No one knows about them because they are secret. But sometimes secrets come back to haunt people."

  "What do you mean? Do you think that Winslow belonged to some secret group the way my father did in Ireland? Was he a radical abolitionist? You don't think that Winslow stole church funds, do you? His family had plenty of money. What kind of secret do you think he might have had?"

  "I certainly don't think he was a revolutionary or a thief," Charlotte said scornfully. "If he had a secret it was more likely to be about someone he loved or...oh, I don't know. Don't ask me." She turned away, but Daniel reached out and caught her arm.

  "You know something you aren't telling me. What is it? Didn't we agree we'd try to solve this mystery together? How can we do that if you don't share what you know?"

  "I can't. I just can't! And I won't say another word." She turned and ran upstairs. Her heart was pounding and if she stayed down there any longer she was afraid she would give away Abigail's secret. Daniel just stood at the bottom of the stairs watching her. He was scowling with disappointment and confusion. Charlotte didn't want to quarrel with him, but what could she do?

  When she reached her room, Charlotte threw herself on the narrow bed. She shouldn't have said anything to Daniel about secrets. She should have known he would start asking questions. And now he was hurt. Why had she promised Abigail not to tell anyone?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Daniel Learns Something New

  October 17-19, 1842

  The rain had let up when Daniel left the Farm, but it was a damp, clammy evening with a wind that blew right through his jacket. His small lantern didn't give much light and a couple of times he nearly stumbled into a ditch. But it wasn't the deepening darkness and the ditches that made him start cussing; it was thinking about Charlotte Edgerton and why she had hinted at secrets she didn't want to tell. Had she changed her mind about working together? Were women really as changeable as that? He remembered a poem he'd read somewhere;

  Must not a woman be

  A feather on the sea,

  Sway'd to and fro by every wind and tide?

  Were women really like that? Daniel had his doubts. His mother was certainly no feather on the sea and he would never have thought of Charlotte that way either. But why had she suddenly refused to talk? What had come over her? One minute she was smiling and her dark eyes were sparkling, then suddenly they were opaque and he couldn't tell what she was thinking.

  The next morning Daniel went to the newspaper office to see whether Mr. Cabot had any stories he could cover. When he admitted he hadn't uncovered any news at Brook Farm, he got a cold reception. Grudgingly Mr. Cabot sent him to the court house to find something worth writing about.

  Puddles from yesterday's rain lingered in the gutters and Daniel walked carefully to avoid a dead dog stinking up the street. He couldn't afford to step into anything that would ruin his only pair of shoes. It was trouble enough keeping them shined so they didn't disgrace him or the newspaper. As he approached the gray granite courthouse Daniel could see a handful of men standing around the steps waving cigars in the air as they talked.

  "Tradesmen to the back door," one of them called out as Daniel started toward the steps.

  "I'm with the Boston Transcript", he answered, mimicking the nasal Boston accent. These Boston voices grated on him.

  No one stopped him as he walked through the big wooden doors and down the echoing hallway. He was surprised there were so few clerks or lawyers in sight. One young clerk in a bright blue jacket tacking up a broadsheet outside the sheriff's office was the only person he saw, so he wandered over to read the sheet.

  "Jailbreak!" was the headline in thick black letters. "Roger Platt wanted by the Sheriff of Suffolk County. This convicted debtor escaped from his cell and is thought to be in the vicinity of West Roxbury. All citizens are required to report his whereabouts if they see him."

  Roger Platt—that name sounded familiar. Wasn't the farmer out by the Community named Platt? "Does this man live around here?" he asked the boy.

  "I heard he was connected to the Platts out near West Roxbury," the boy answered, "but I don't know where he lives. The sheriff said something about him borrowing money to buy a farm and then never paying it back."

  "It's not easy to borrow money for a farm," Daniel said. He had heard a lot of hard luck stories down at the boarding house. "Most of the banks won't lend a cent to a farmer because it's so risky."

  "Oh, the banks are no use," the boy agreed. "But there's a lot of rich men in Boston willing to lend at high rates. Rich merchants—ministers too. I think it was the old Reverend Hopewell was the complainant for this case. Times are hard. Lots of people are trying to borrow money and most of them are slow paying it back—if they ever do."

  So the Hopewells were mixed up in this too. Daniel wondered whether the Mr. Platt out by the Farm was kin to this debtor. If he was, how did he feel about the Hopewells? Daniel thought of the possibilities. Maybe he should go and talk to Platt again. That might get him further than hanging around the courthouse. If he hurried down to the Common he could catch old Gerritson taking the mail out to the Farm and ride along with him.
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  The ride to the Farm was more comfortable than walking, but it wasn't much faster. The horse ambled down the road as if it didn't care whether if it ever got there. Jonas Gerritson never said a word except for an occasional "Giddap" to the horse, so Daniel had plenty of time to think his own thoughts. Could Abner Platt be angry enough at Winslow Hopewell to kill him? He was the one who accused Rory of the killing. He sure didn't look guilty when he said that. He sounded as though he really believed it. But he was wrong about Rory. Maybe he was covering up for someone. Was this Roger Platt his brother or a cousin or something?

  When they reached the path to the Farm, Daniel hopped off the wagon, thanked old Gerritson for the ride and walked toward Platt's place. The house was small and weatherbeaten. The front yard was filled with a vegetable patch; several large pumpkins sprawled across the dirt and some stakes held up browning tomato vines. Dried and broken corn stalks drooped toward the ground. A young boy was throwing kernels of corn on the ground to feed a few skinny brown chickens and a rooster. He stared at Daniel but didn't answer to a cheerful, "Hello there!"

  Two men were coming out of the barn carrying spades. When they saw Daniel, one of them turned abruptly and went back in. Daniel called out a greeting to Abner Platt and he walked slowly toward him.

  "What are you doing over here, young man?" the farmer asked, his forehead wrinkled with suspicion. "Aren't you supposed to be finding out who killed that young minister over at the Farm?"

  "I am working for the Transcript, yes, but I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your brother."

  "Which brother would that be? I've got five of them—good hardworking men all of them. What kind of questions are you asking?"

  "I was down at the Courthouse today and noticed a broadside notice about a Roger Platt. Would that be one of your brothers?"