Dangerous and Unseemly Read online

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  The next morning, Concordia prepared to leave for her mother’s house. She would stay there a few days before returning to the college. Only a few days, she reminded herself. Surely she could manage that. She paced the floor of the front parlor, waiting for the coachman to arrive.

  While it was a relief to have answers to the mystery of what had been going on in the attic, she had found out frustratingly little about her sister’s death, which was her true purpose. In the time since Concordia had eavesdropped on Dr. Westfield and the judge—more than a day ago now—the doctor had officially declared Mary’s death the result of endocarditis, an infection of the heart valve. There seemed nothing sinister in such a malady.

  Upon waking this morning—Annie having smuggled Davey back up to her own room—Concordia realized what had been missing from Mary’s possessions when she sorted through them: her sister’s personal correspondence. And perhaps a diary of some sort, too. Ever since they had been little girls, Concordia and Mary had been encouraged to keep a journal. Concordia had soon tired of the exercise, claiming (petulantly, she was sure) that there wasn’t anything exciting enough in her life worth writing down. Mary, however, faithfully wrote in her diary nearly every day, and would most likely have kept up the practice in adulthood.

  Concordia had not been able to find Annie or Henry this morning to inquire about it. Annie was no doubt taking Davey back to the asylum school—and not a moment too soon, in her mind—and Henry must have left for work early. She certainly wasn’t going to ask Judge Armstrong. Should she ask one of the staff?

  “Miss Wells?” A hesitant voice broke into her thoughts. Concordia turned to see Nancy in the doorway. She held out a small scrap of paper. “For you, miss.”

  It was a note from Annie.

  “Thank you, miss, fer helping me,” she wrote. “Todays my haff-day. Could we meet at Brown Thomsons at 11 clok? There’re some things I’m not easy in my mind about. I think you should know.”

  Concordia checked the mantel clock. She had just enough time. Thankfully, the coachman was now pulling up to the door. She grabbed her valise and hurried out, giving the driver her new destination.

  Chapter 19

  March 1896

  Every Hartford native was familiar with the Brown Thomson Company on Temple and Main Streets, in the heart of the downtown shopping district. It was the largest department store in the city. Like its competitors, G. Fox and Sage Allen, Brown Thomson had its humble origins, decades before, as a dry goods dealer. These days, the store reminded one more aptly of an elegant lady primped and ready for callers. On previous visits Concordia had marveled at the polished floors, gleaming counters, and neatly arranged displays, laden with goods from the world’s four corners. Today, she walked by it all without a glance, her meeting with Annie uppermost in her mind. Her heart pounded in anticipation. What did Annie have to tell her? Could she answer her questions about Mary? If so, why had she not spoken before?

  The Ladies Restaurant at Brown Thomson’s was a welcome alternative to more questionable eating establishments, where a respectable woman would never go unaccompanied. Concordia had dined here before, although she was careful to avoid the expensive entrée selections.

  The room hummed with subdued conversation. Concordia chose an out-of-the-way corner table, laid like all the others with crisp white linen and dainty lace napkins, and ordered tea and cake for the two of them.

  As she waited, her thoughts skirted around the same questions: what had been wrong with Mary? And whatever it was, why was Judge Armstrong working so hard to conceal it? Could he have been poisoning Mary, as Miss Hamilton had so boldly suggested? Had Mary known, but been helpless to save herself?

  But each of these questions pointed to the hardest question of all: why? It was the brick wall that kept her from seeing everything else.

  She was about to call for a fresh teapot when Annie finally came, wearing a modest brown dress with matching felt hat and low heels. Having seen Annie only in her domestic’s garb of gray dress, cap, and apron, Concordia almost didn’t recognize her.

  An alert waitress came over with a fresh pot and their food.

  “How is Davey?” Concordia asked.

  Annie flashed a wide smile. “Oh, he’s just fine, now. He’s so happy to be back at school. I think I’ll finally get a good night’s rest for the first time in a dog’s age.”

  “I can imagine that,” Concordia murmured.

  “Thank you again, miss, for all you done,” Annie added. She hesitated, smoothing her skirt and picking an invisible fleck of lint from it.

  Concordia waited, holding her impatience in check.

  Finally, Annie plunged into the heart of the matter. “I keep thinking there was something wrong with the missus that them men don’t want no one to know about.” Annie shook her head in frustration. “I been wanting to tell you, and then after what you did for me an’ Davey, I knew I ought to say something. But I can’t figure out what’s wrong. But there’s something. I sure hope you don’t think I’m crazy, miss.”

  Concordia certainly understood how the girl felt. “You’re not crazy, Annie. Let’s figure this out together. Between the two of us, maybe we can find an answer.”

  Annie nodded, fortifying herself with a sip from her tea cup. Leaning closer, Concordia walked her through Mary’s illness, symptom by symptom, as it developed over the months. Pain. Fever. Nausea. Bleeding.

  “Wait a moment.” Concordia hadn’t seen a wound of any sort. “What kind of bleeding?”

  Annie shifted uncomfortably. She dropped her voice to a bare whisper. “Like a lady’s cycle, miss. But it were for a long time. We had all them linens to clean, so we couldn’t help but know.”

  Concordia started, realizing that her own sense of modesty, and squeamishness, were to blame for missing this important detail. She customarily left the sickroom whenever the bed was being changed or her sister was to be examined. She could kick herself now.

  This symptom was obviously important, but Concordia was at a loss to explain it. What did a female indisposition have to do with the heart valve infection that caused Mary’s death?

  A wild idea occurred to her. Could there be a poison that produced this effect? But the notion was absurd. This was not a bookstall penny dreadful one reads on a train. And what did she know of poisons?

  Could Mary have been mistreated by her husband, perhaps brutalized by him? It was a repugnant thought. Everything she knew about Henry rebelled against the idea. And the fever would make no sense, if that were the case.

  There was another possibility. Concordia looked over at Annie.

  “Could Mrs. Armstrong have given birth to…a stillborn child?”

  Although Concordia was certainly no expert in the matter, it would account for most of Mary’s symptoms. The pain, the bleeding, the fever. But why go to such lengths to hide it? To lose a child would be a misfortune, certainly, but hardly a source of scandal.

  Annie gave a shocked gasp. “No, Miss Concordia, that’s impossible!” Several heads turned toward their table, and Annie dropped her voice.

  “I would a’ known, miss. No one could hide something like that.”

  Concordia let that go for the moment. “Tell me about the visit from the specialist—what’s his name?”

  Annie dutifully took Concordia through what she could remember: the relief they all felt that the missus would now be taken care of; the arrival of Dr. Samuels, the well-to-do gentleman with his fancy Boston mannerisms; the brief first visit, followed by a second, much longer visit, where everyone else, except Dr. Westfield, was told to leave the room; and a final, heated argument behind the study doors between Dr. Westfield, Judge Armstrong, Mr. Henry, and the Boston doctor. Annie couldn’t hear what was said, but she remembered that it ended with Dr. Samuels storming out of the study. He left so quickly that she barely had time to hurry ahead to hand him his coat, medical case, walking stick, and hat before he was out the front door.

 
“The judge was in a fine pucker for days after that,” Annie said, “stomping around, yelling at everybody for the least little thing.”

  Concordia was silent for a while. The Armstrongs and Dr. Westfield had strongly objected to Dr. Samuels’s medical opinion. Why? She looked up at the maid, who was watching her hopefully.

  “Our next step is to contact the specialist. I will do so right away,” she said. Annie looked disappointed.

  Concordia, too, was less than confident about her course of action, although she saw few options. Most doctors, understandably, were reluctant to breach patient confidences, even that of a deceased patient. Nonetheless, she had to convince Dr. Samuels to do just that.

  Annie had re-pinned her hat in place and was gathering up her gloves and pocket book when Concordia remembered something else.

  “Annie, do you know if Mary kept a journal? I couldn’t find one when I was going through her possessions. In fact, I couldn’t find a scrap of personal correspondence anywhere.”

  Annie looked puzzled. “Now, that’s kinda odd,” she said, “’cause I know she got letters. When they was away on their tour in Europe, we had a whole stack of ‘em saved for when she got back.”

  “But I don’t know about a jernal,” she continued. “She used to be writing at her desk a lot when she weren’t sick. I couldn’t say if it was a jernal, miss. I’m sorry.”

  Concordia bit her lip in vexation. They didn’t seem to be making much progress. She tried one last idea.

  “Do you think you could look around the house for a journal, and any of her correspondence? Without…the Armstrongs’ knowledge?” She felt hesitant about asking Annie to snoop in her employer’s house. She didn’t want to get the girl in trouble.

  But Annie’s eyes lit up. “O’ course! Ladies feel secretive about their private writing. Maybe the missus hid hers somewheres.”

  Concordia felt her spirits lift a little. Annie’s enthusiasm was infectious. “Yes, it’s quite possible,” she agreed.

  Annie stood to go. “Then that’s what I’ll do,” she said decisively. “If she had one, I’ll find it.”

  Concordia, too, stood. She grasped Annie’s hand. “Thank you. But do be careful.”

  Chapter 20

  March 1896

  Nothing is but what is not.

  I.iii

  Concordia and her mother were preparing for yet another round of condolence calls. They had received more calls in this past week than Concordia had in the last two years. She had forgotten how insulated the college environment was in comparison with the rest of society; at Hartford Women’s College, it was inclination, rather than necessity, that would prompt one to stir outside the campus gates.

  Most of the callers were her mother’s friends, an irksome assemblage, who seemed to delight in commenting upon the unseemliness of Concordia’s vocation. Many of them embraced the misconception that women’s colleges were a veritable breeding ground for anarchists and liberals.

  “I wonder at you, Letitia, allowing your daughter to consort with such people,” one triple-chinned matron said, after helping herself to another teacake.

  “I find Concordia’s fellow teachers to be entirely respectable,” Mrs. Wells said primly. Her long, slender hands delicately worked the tiny sugar tongs to pluck a cube for her tea. As a child, Concordia had been fascinated by those fluid movements, and had thought her mother the most graceful woman in the world.

  “A number of them have sent notes of condolence, and have been quite kind,” her mother went on. “Concordia’s students come from the most upstanding families in the area, Agatha.”

  Concordia, startled by support from this unexpected quarter, looked over at her, but received no answering glance.

  But their well-fed guest was not finished with the topic. “Our dear Reverend Burrows only last week informed us of a most alarming trend—apparently, most of these college girls do not go on to marry and have children! ‘Race suicide,’ he called it.”

  Whatever do you mean, Mrs. Griffith?” Concordia asked, with a touch of impatience.

  The lady gave a smug smile, enjoying her role as bearer of ill tidings. In her enthusiasm, she made an abortive attempt to lean forward, only to be thwarted by a tight corset, which gave a mutinous rasp of coraline and elastic stretched to the breaking point. She resettled herself, and the danger passed.

  “Well, I’ve known it all along,” Mrs. Griffith answered, huffing to catch her breath. “Just look around, at our own city! The foreigners are copiously producing their own kind, while the numbers of white children are in decline. It is only a matter of time, young lady, before we are absolutely overrun!”

  Concordia blinked in surprise. Mrs. Griffith must be dipping into the sherry a bit too often.

  “Now, Agatha, really,” Mrs. Wells interjected feebly.

  “Mark my words,” the lady continued, wagging her finger, “those indolent Catholics and Hebrews will be taking over, if we don’t protect our own interests.”

  Concordia refrained from pointing out that “indolent” people wouldn’t be stirring themselves to take over much of anything. Instead, she gritted her teeth and offered more scones. It was a relief to them both when Mrs. Griffith finally left.

  There were a few agreeable callers. Sophia Adams came by daily. Surprisingly, Concordia’s mother seemed to have a soft spot for Sophia, despite their philosophical differences. Concordia would have expected that the modern Sophia, with her reformist views on women and social issues, would provoke her mother beyond tolerance, but Sophie had a winning way about her, and Mother would just smile indulgently when she talked about her work at the settlement house. Concordia wondered if perhaps she could learn something from Sophia.

  Nathaniel Young also paid a visit. The poor man was looking haggard. While he was as well-groomed as usual, his silver-streaked wavy brown hair neatly smoothed to the side, his eyes lacked their usual sparkle and his face had a pinched look. He was taking Mary’s death as hard as the rest of them.

  He declined refreshments, but sat down to ask about their well-being, and Concordia’s future plans.

  “I will be returning to the college in a couple of days, after I pay a few obligatory calls,” Concordia answered. She suppressed a sigh. It could not be soon enough. She and her mother had maintained an exhausting civility toward each other since the funeral.

  “Oh? Whom are you visiting, my dear?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Miss Banning, tomorrow. I dearly need her advice on preparations for the senior play.”

  Concordia didn’t mention that she would also be paying a call on Mr. Reynolds. She wasn’t ready to discuss him, yet. For some reason, she thought Nathaniel and her mother would disapprove, although she wasn’t sure why. She certainly didn’t want them to get the wrong idea about her and Mr. Reynolds.

  “Ah, Margaret Banning!” he exclaimed, smiling. “Have you met her? No? Well, you will find her an unusual woman.”

  Concordia had heard similar comments. She had a vague recollection of Miss Banning from an early fall faculty meeting, shortly before the lady’s ill-health had forced her to give up her teaching duties. Concordia hoped the visit would not be tedious, with the old lady complaining of her various aches and pains.

  Miss Banning’s house was a modest brownstone along the quieter eastern end of Capitol Avenue. As she rang the bell, Concordia braced herself for the meeting, squaring her shoulders and settling her spectacles more firmly upon her nose. She had dressed carefully, choosing her best traveling suit of dark gray, the bolero jacket trimmed in decorative buffalo-red braiding with velvet-faced lapels of the same accent color. She hoped that she looked the part of a junior colleague. She wasn’t sure she felt that way.

  A woman much too old for parlor maid duties helped Concordia remove her hat and scarf. Concordia glanced around the narrow hall. It was furnished simply, with a single high-back chair, umbrella stand, hat rack, and small table. The floor was bare. Obviously, not a front entrance that catered to ma
ny visitors. There was not even a mirror for a lady to check the state of her hair, or a plate for receiving calling cards. Miss Banning was a woman who suited her own needs, apparently.

  But Concordia was not prepared for the state of the parlor. While the hallway was bare of furniture and ornamentation, the parlor was a jumble of décor and collectibles in the old Victorian style of excess. The oriental carpet was room-sized and ornately worked; the window dressings were elaborate swathes of fringed dark green velvet fabric, which barely admitted light into the room; the surfaces were littered with china figures, alabaster vases, and embroidered pillows. There was even an unfortunate stuffed bird under a glass dome, Concordia noted with a grimace. She didn’t know what to look upon first. The room was uncomfortably warm, and smelled of dried flowers and multiple cats. As proof of the latter, several felines dozed in front of the hearth.

  She saw movement. Miss Banning, seated near the fire, waved a cane imperiously at her.

  “I’m too old to get up,” she said, her voice strong but reedy, “just sit down over here, young lady, so I don’t have to keep looking up at you.” Concordia complied, shifting aside a pillow on a chair farthest from the fire. A well-fed orange tabby jumped into her lap. Concordia unceremoniously dumped it back on the floor and brushed off her skirt, drawing a throaty laugh from her hostess.

  “You’ll have to excuse Caesar, Miss Wells. That’s his usual spot,” Miss Banning explained. She gave the beast an indulgent look, as he settled himself at the old lady’s feet.

  Miss Banning was as extraordinary-looking as the room. She was a small woman, as Concordia had remembered, with large bottle-glass spectacles perched on her nose, and gray hair that peeked out from under a lacy breakfast cap of Swiss muslin, perhaps fashionable two decades ago. It was impossible to determine her figure, thin or stout; she looked as if she wore an entire dry-goods store on her back. Concordia couldn’t tell where the layers ended and the woman began. She didn’t look like any history professor she had ever met.