Chapter 5
“You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Marigold rallied her rational brain to challenge her accuser.
“I beg your pardon, but you most emphatically did not.” The uncomfortable feeling of being prejudged for the sins of her parentage soured her belly. She might not be able to fight such ingrained bias, but she would defend herself the best way she knew how—with logic.
“I called out the moment I saw her body under the corner of the boathouse,” she continued.
“I called for help to retrieve her. And frankly, judging from the state of her, she has been dead for quite some time.” Unlike the others, Marigold had an unwelcome advantage, in that this was neither her first drowned girl nor her first dead body.
“So you say,” Sarah retorted hotly. “I know what I saw.”
“So the doctor will say when she arrives, surely,” Ethyl said staunchly. “So will anyone who has taken even introductory anatomy and physiology, where we learned that rigor mortis sets in several hours after death. After,” she emphasized.
“I still think it’s very suspicious,” Sarah insisted.
“So do I,” Marigold countered. “How long have any of you been here? How did any of you not see her here? She was desperately tangled on the corner piling, the poor little thing.” Marigold took another long look at the girl’s still face, cementing once and for all that this dead girl was not Aggie—she was smaller and her hair was darker.
But the important thing was this poor young woman was not someone Marigold recognized. “Do any of you know her?”
“No,” Sarah said quickly—almost too quickly.
Which made Marigold entirely suspicious—the easiest way to get out of blame was to deflect it onto others.
And the people who would have had both access to the boathouse and knowledge of its secret corners were the rowers.
One of them might have easily done this poor girl in by—even accidentally—smacking her across the back of her head with an oar.
Perhaps seeing wickedness in every corner would prove useful after all.
Some girls took longer to look than others to answer—Ethyl took the longest time to make a closer examination before she, too, shook her head. “Never seen her before.”
Marigold was nonplussed. “No one? But she must be a fellow student.” Who else would be at a college boathouse?
“Perhaps a freshwoman?” Ethyl suggested. “We’re all seniors—we’re the senior class crew, just like I was telling you—and I for one haven’t met all the new underclasswomen since term started.”
“A very logical supposition. Thank you, Ethyl.” Now that the pulsating panic that had propelled her into the water was draining away, the gravity of the situation descended upon Marigold like a physical weight, leaving her exhausted. And wet. And too cold to think of what else she ought to say.
So they all stood there in doleful, dripping silence as the chill began to set into Marigold’s bones. And probably her brain—all she could think was how could none of them, the strong, athletic, intelligent girls around her, not have seen or heard the girl before it was too late?
How had they all paraded past a dead body in their boathouse?
Thankfully, speedy Ruth was soon back from her dash up the hill. “Dr. Barker is coming straightaway,” she panted. “And I sent word for Mr. Griffin to bring the Barge or Mr. Duckett’s cart, or something. Do you think that’s right?”
“Absolutely,” Ethyl said before she looked to Marigold. “Wouldn’t you say so?”
“Yes.” The caretaker’s cart was perhaps not the most dignified substitute for a hearse, but it was the most expedient.
Marigold set aside her suspicions to focus her attention and observation on the unknown dead girl.
At first glance, her clothing was stylish and very well made, if a bit dressier than the usual sort of things the students wore.
Her jacket was of thick velvet, and her skirts were excellent broadcloth, well-tailored in an uncomplicated but elegant style Marigold would not have been ashamed to wear.
Whoever she was, she had taste. And money.
Isabella would likely know where one purchased such clothes.
“Did she drown?” one of the Greek chorus of rowers finally asked into the uncomfortable silence.
Ethyl answered. “As Marigold here said, Dr. Barker will know.” She stood and Marigold saw that for all her take-charge personality, Ethyl was a diminutive girl—and therefore very likely the coxswain of her class boat, used to giving direction.
“Let’s all move back a pace, so that when the doctor gets here we’re not standing about like a dang picket fence.
” She turned again to Marigold. “Should we perhaps move her”—she indicated the dead girl—“away from the edge so the doctor might examine her more easily?”
“Yes,” Marigold agreed. “But let us first cement all our impressions of how we found her so we might give as factual accounts as possible to the authorities.”
“You think the authorities will need to be called?” Ethyl seemed astonished at the idea. “You mean the authorities from beyond the college?”
“A young woman is dead—” Marigold’s experience had taught her that at some point the authorities, in the form of the coroner at the very least, were bound to be involved in some way. Malice had found its way within their cloistered confines, and it would not find its own way out.
“So you say,” came the sharp complaint from Sarah Appleton.
Allies rather than enemies, Marigold reminded herself in an effort to keep her own response from being equally sharp. “The facts, established by Dr. Barker, will establish the truth. I hope you will defer your allegation to her opinion.”
“Lordy, yes, absolutely,” Ethyl said with a pointed look to the taller girl. “All of us will certainly be guided by the facts, which are about to be established—here is Dr. Barker.”
The young women dutifully shuffled back, giving way to the college’s longtime physician, Dr. Emilie Barker, who immediately went to her knees in front of the dead girl.
“What happened?” she asked as she began her examination—taking the girl’s wrist first, before bending to put her ear to the girl’s sodden chest.
“Marigold Manners found her, doctor.” Ethyl spoke up. “And heroically brought her out of the lake.”
Dr. Barker briefly glanced about. “Where?”
“I saw her just under the corner of the boathouse, doctor.” Marigold responded. “Her skirts had become tangled with the post. Her skirt ripped—there—when I pulled her out.”
“She was fully submerged when you found her?”
“Yes, ma’am. I think so.” Marigold tried to clear her mind’s eye of everything but the memory of what she had seen. “Just below the surface.”
“I see.” The doctor sat back for a moment, before she gently closed the girl’s eyes. And then leaned hard against the girl’s chest.
A sluggish surge of water gurgled from the girl’s mouth and nose.
“Drowned, I must assume,” was the doctor’s opinion.
“And in her Sunday best, it seems. God rest her soul. No idea how long she’s been in the water, as the cold may have arrested the natural processes of decom—” She broke off, with a glance at the students arrayed around her, clearly not wanting to upset them with harsh clinical details.
“But I’ll have to take her up to the Hospital Wing to examine her more particularly—just as a precaution. ”
“Ruth called for Mr. Griffin or Mr. Duckett’s cart at Marigold’s suggestion, ma’am,” Ethyl informed her. “Which I think shows some great presence of mind.”
“Yes.” Dr. Barker cast a long glance at Marigold. “Thank you both. You’ll need to get out of those wet things as soon as possible, Miss Manners.”
“Thank you, Dr. Barker, but I would prefer to stay.” Marigold wasn’t sure what compelled her, because she was frankly more than a little cold and wet. But she had lost at least one other drowned girl to the waves of Salem Sound—she was not about to let this one go. “Do you recognize her, doctor?”
“No.” Dr. Barker frowned. “I do not. Any of you?”
“No, ma’am,” Ethyl answered. “None of us recognize her.”
“Then an underclasswoman who has not yet had the need to visit my premises, I presume,” the doctor posited. “But I should think a bed check—or a modified sort of room check—will suffice to identify her.”
There were other ways as well—ways Marigold would certainly pursue if checking of all the dormitory rooms within College Hall did not turn up a name.
Like asking Aggie if she had loaned anyone her hat.
And the dead girl’s clothes—a look at the labels inside would probably prove instructive.
But looking at the girl’s labels was certainly off limits at the moment. Especially when Dr. Barker carefully arranged the girl’s arms into a gesture of repose before she began to organize the assembled young women.
“Now, if someone—or perhaps a few someones would be best—would care to have a look round the boathouse to see if there is some blanket or covering with which we might shield the body from curious stares? Or from horrifying the entire college campus. Thank you.” While the rowers dispersed as instructed, Dr. Barker turned her attention back to Marigold.
“I’ll advise you again to go up and change as soon as possible, Marigold.
By the way, it is good to see you back.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Marigold returned. “But I’m sure either Mr. Griffin or Mr. Duckett will be here presently, and we’ll all progress up to College Hall. I’ll change then.”
“Yes, all right.” The doctor’s attention returned to the girl lying between them. “Your observations, Marigold?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She truly was amongst her own kind—women who took other women’s opinions and thoughts seriously. “Other than the fact that she seems quite dead, she has these curious pink dots all over her face, but particularly around her eyes, there.”