Chapter 8 #2
Marigold did not take her scorn personally—she was confident in her own abilities. “No, ma’am. But I have a dear friend who is an accomplished and experienced professional cook—she has even published a well-received book on cookery.”
Even as she said the words, Marigold’s mind was turning over with ideas and possibilities.
Her friend Lucy Dove had recently returned to her own mother’s boardinghouse in Pride’s Crossing after her short stay in New York, seeing to the release of her book.
Having Lucy’s keen observations at this boardinghouse might be of great use.
“Has she now?” The landlady looked skeptical. “Good, healthful, elevated cooking, suitable for discriminating tastes?”
Marigold’s idea might face a different sort of discrimination, but there was nothing in not trying.
“Indeed, ma’am. Miss Lucy Dove is a Black woman who has considerable experience working for distinguished families on the North Shore.
” Although the Hatchets might not have exactly been distinguished, they were most certainly from the North Shore of Boston.
“And Miss Dove’s book of cookery has just been published by one such of those families—by Mr. Thaddeus Endicott, formerly of Pride’s Crossing.
” Marigold’s emphasis on the fashionable, old-money enclave was in the hopes that it might impress.
“But now Mr. Endicott is with the Collier and Son Publishing Company of New York, and is my friend’s editor.
I would be happy to furnish you with a copy of her book—regardless—so you can vouchsafe the recipes.
” Marigold had a copy in her trunks at College Hall, purchased out of solidarity for her friend, not with any actual ambition toward cookery.
And the book might give her an entrée into the boardinghouse, even if she could not convince Lucy that her presence there was necessary.
Not that she had really convinced herself—all of Marigold’s speculations about Professor Currier and the unnamed and unclaimed dead girl might turn out to be nothing more than empty suspicions.
Perhaps her involvement with the Great Misery murders had made her see shadows where there really were none.
And yet, some indefinable force, some instinct told her that Professor Currier, along with Sarah Appleton, knew something—and whatever that information might turn out to be, an entrée into the boardinghouse could only help. “I’ll bring that cookbook by for you, Mrs.—?”
“Barnacle. Mrs. May Barnacle.”
“Marigold Manners, Mrs. Barnacle. Pleased to meet you.”
The woman shifted her hands to her hips. “If you can get me a good cook, I will be pleased to meet you too.”
“Then I will endeavor to do so, ma’am. I will wire her straightaway. And now, I will take your other advice and get back to campus. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, what about you?” The woman was presumably addressing someone else.
Marigold pivoted to see a tall, very handsome man in a long double-breasted Chesterfield coat doffing his hat in the circle of gaslight. “Are you the proprietress?”
“I’m the landlady, if that’s what you’re meaning,” Mrs. Barnacle answered. “But I don’t mind telling you, I don’t rent to men. Ladies only. Keeps the peace.”
“Now, that’s a shame,” the fellow answered with an easy, undeterred smile. “This seems a fine looking, well-kept house.”
“It is,” Mrs. Barnacle retorted. “You won’t find better in Wellesley. But it’s not for men.”
“That will be my loss,” the man lamented. “Might you direct me to a house that does let to gentlemen?”
“I might,” Mrs. Barnacle alleged. “Say, you look kinda familiar.” She narrowed her eyes at him again. “Haven’t I seen you around here before?”
“I should think not,” he laughed. “I have only just arrived in town, on the 3:45 train from Boston. James Wilkerson, ma’am. I’m here to cover the story.”
“What story?” demanded May Barnacle. “You mean like a story in the newspaper?”
“I do, ma’am.” He included both Mrs. Barnacle and Marigold in the beneficence of his unforced smile. “I do indeed. The story of the death at the college.”
Clearly, despite all injunctions to discretion, the bad news had traveled, to use a particularly New England expression, faster than stink.
There was something in this man’s voice, some lilt or cadence, that gave hint to an accent not of New England, though different indeed from Ethyl Rautencranz’s rural drawl.
But regardless of handsomeness or interesting cadences, the last thing Marigold needed was a nosy journalist asking her questions she did not want to give the answers to or insinuating himself into her own investigation.
She had already violated the president’s directive once for the day, and that was more than enough.
And so, she merely ducked her head at Mrs. Barnacle as a goodbye, but by the time she had walked briskly back to East Lodge, where the town gave way to the wooded campus of the college, night had fully settled into inky darkness.
And the wind, which had chilled her earlier, now bit and nipped at any exposed skin.
Her nose would be red and her fingers white by the time she made it home.
She slowed at the lodge gate, because although a good strong gaslight shone from the lodge building itself, and the gas lampposts were lit, leading the way down the winding road through the woods, between the patches of light, it was eerily, frighteningly dark.
And there might be a murderer loose somewhere out there.
Marigold hesitated, stuck between her own sense of self-sufficiency and her burgeoning fear. It had only been a few hours since she had sat on the dock and held a dead girl’s head in her lap, and the horror of it all, the violence and waste and injustice, seemed to come over her all at once.
And then a movement—or was it the sound of a twig snapping underfoot—caught her fractured attention.
She started, but even as she chastised herself for being a jumpy, illogical fool, she stared back the way she had come. Had that man followed her down Washington Street?
She searched the shadows, but nothing came but the silent sweep of the autumn leaves falling from the trees. Still, the feeling of being watched—and hadn’t she felt it a hundred times on Great Misery?—persisted.
But she had been right on Great Misery, hadn’t she?
Which instantly helped her make up her mind—she would listen to her instincts.
She immediately rang the lodge’s bell. And waited an anxious few moments until the porter answered the door.
“Miss Manners! Glad to see you back. You’re out late.” Mr. Breyer and his wife were fixtures of the college, though they rarely left their post at the lodge. “Thought there was an injunction against you girls going out tonight?”
“I am indeed out late, on business in the town that could not be delayed,” Marigold explained.
“But as I have no wish to contravene President Irvine’s wishes that no one go about the campus unescorted, I hoped you might escort me back to College Hall.
” A glance over her shoulder betrayed her unease.
The porter stepped out of the lodge, peering hard through the thickening dark. “Is someone following you? Some tramp?”
“I-I can’t be certain. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling of …” Her concern felt even more ridiculous when she tried to explain. “I’m sure I’m just being silly.”
It wasn’t as if the polite young man with the charming accent had been dark and shadowy, or hiding beneath the brim of his stylishly dark homburg hat.
He had been everything polite and aboveboard when speaking to the landlady.
He had not made any advances toward her or even tried to speak to her directly.
He was hardly the type for a murderer. And even if the fellow had inadvertently followed her, he might simply be looking for another boardinghouse that catered to men.
Yet, there she was, shaking in her shoes like the verist peabrain.
But the porter did not object. “I reckon we’re all a bit on edge this evening, Miss Manners. You let me tell my missus, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Thank you, Mr. Breyer. I am most sincerely obliged.” She waited patiently in the thin glow of the gaslight, though she could not shake her unsettled feelings, despite telling herself that she was safe now.
Cab Cox would know better than to follow a woman—even inadvertently.
But why should she think of Cab Cox? Just because she was uncomfortable and a little bit spooked didn’t mean she needed the protection of a man.
Mrs. Breyer in a carriage would do as well as her husband.
But who would protect Mrs. Breyer on the way back?
And for that matter, who would protect Mr. Breyer?
A strangler might take umbrage at a man as well as a woman.
Marigold’s dilemma was solved when the couple came out together. “Quicker to hitch the carriage with the two of us.” Mr. Breyer explained.
“Safer too” was Mrs. Breyer’s softer but no less potent report.
Clearly, they were all on edge that evening. And Marigold, for one, did not object to finding safety in numbers.
“Well, then, Miss Manners.” The porter returned her to her own original intent. “Let’s get you home, shall we?”
Yes, the college was certainly home, even with the dark turbulence of the dead girl. Despite everything, the soaring gothic walls of College Hall were the best home she had ever had, and the only real home she was ever likely to know.