Chapter 18 #2
“Then they will have been put through another ordeal. No.” Imogen Currier seemed to sit up a little straighter, as if she were firming her convictions. “I’ll go. I’ll make sure. And then, if it is she—if Olivia really is dead—well, I should be the one to tell them.”
“Are you quite sure, Imogen?” Julia Irvine asked. “It’s all the way over in Dedham.”
“I am sure I can arrange private transportation for us.” Marigold hoped that Isabella might be persuaded to return with her town carriage for their use.
“This is not the sort of thing one ought to do alone.” She offered to accompany Professor Currier not only out of kindness—the fact that she would also be able to keep a close eye upon the professor’s demeanor was an added bonus.
Because Marigold’s instincts told her the professor was still hiding something important.
For the first time in the conversation, Professor Currier turned to look—really look—at Marigold.
“Forgive me if I’m wrong, but that advice seemed to be given in a tone of experience, which is not what I might have expected from one so young as you, Miss Manners.
You young women these days seem to have ice water in your veins. ”
At that moment, Marigold felt she had the opposite of ice water within her veins—every bit of her seemed hot with suspicion.
It gave her no pleasure to know she had been right about the identity of the dead girl, and less pleasure to know she would be watching Professor Currier like a hawk when she identified the young woman.
Murder had indeed made Marigold see wickedness in everyone she met.
“It is unfortunately true that I do have experience in identifying a deceased person, Professor. And so, I know the toll it might take upon a soul. You should have some support.”
Professor Currier seemed a little taken aback. “That is very kind of you. Thank you,” she said with obvious relief. “I would appreciate that.”
“And I will ask Dr. Barker to accompany you as well, Imogen,” added Julia Irvine. “It is only right that you have a colleague with you as a sign of the college’s support.”
“Thank you, Julia.”
“You are very welcome, though I am deeply sorry for the occasion.”
If the wait to tell Professor Currier about Olivia Thayer had been melancholy, the drive the next morning, from Wellesley to Dedham, the county seat, was funereal.
Isabella had been gracious in the loan of her carriage, but even while they sat in relative comfort—the professor and Isabella sat on the plushly upholstered forward-facing seat, while Marigold and Dr. Barker were on the backward facing bench—the drive was undertaken in churchly quietude.
But that was no reason why the time spent in transit couldn’t also be informative.
Marigold began with what she thought were less intrusive—but no less important—questions. “How long had Olivia Thayer been your protégée, professor?”
“Oh, she came to my formal attention at the college little over a year ago. A former classmate of mine now teaches English composition and rhetoric at the new Wellesley High School—she told me that she had a student who showed exceptional promise as an orator. And I agreed. I could see that Olivia was a very bright young thing,” the professor mused.
“Quick and curious and clever in a way that never triumphed in other’s mistakes or mischances.
Such a waste of talent and time and ambition.
She could have been … something. Something more.
” She shut her eyes and drew in a deep breath to restore some portion of her equanimity.
“Something truly influential. But now …”
“Yes.” They all sighed collectively. Yet Marigold still probed. “And when did she meet this Valentine?”
Imogen Currier’s mouth cinched up in a look of extreme distaste. “Shortly after he came, I suppose.”
“Came?” Marigold wanted to make sure she understood every particular. “From where?”
Professor Currier frowned and pursed her lips again, as if she found the subject—or perhaps the man—beneath her consideration.
“I’m not exactly sure.” She turned to look out the window, before she closed her eyes again.
“Richmond or Baltimore, I thought. I think I heard Olivia say he came from down south somewhere.”
A vague sense of alarm spread under Marigold’s skin—she endeavored to find its source. “How did she meet him, exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Again that desolate sigh that had her turning her head to gaze dolefully—or was it evasively?—out the window. “She didn’t really say.”
Marigold decided to be direct. “What did she say?”
“That she had met a rather charming gentleman by chance, and that they had talked and she thought him very intelligent and thoughtful at first—which was all a ruse, I’m sure.
If he was thoughtful, it was like a fox.
He did it all quite purposefully, I’m sure, to lure her away from her calling—from speaking.
” Her voice grew more vehement. “In fact, I am sure he chose her—chose to speak to her, chose to woo her—because he wanted to strike a blow against suffragism.”
“What gave you that impression?” Dr. Barker asked.
Professor Currier looked at Emilie Barker as if it were obvious. “Well, he’s killed her, hasn’t he, to prevent her from speaking.”
This was an angle Marigold had not considered. “I suppose the more conventional thought would be that he might have killed her because he was crossed in love.”
“He wasn’t in love,” the professor scoffed. “How could he be—they had only just met? What could a man like him, or a child like her, know of real love, of the sacrifices and burdens that come with the elation and joy? How could he say he loved her when he didn’t even know her?”
“I don’t know,” was Marigold’s honest answer. “But the important question seems to be if you think Olivia was even a little bit in love with him?”
“No.” Imogen Currier shook her head vehemently.
“She was certainly pleased to find an attractive man who seemed to listen to her and flatter her abilities—at first, as I said. She began to see through his charm from the moment he began to pressure her. But she was not in love with him. And she did not mean to marry him, of that I am now sure. Or I will be if … if it really is her.”
“But three days ago, you did believe she had eloped?”
“Because that was what he said. What he told her father! But she told me differently,” Professor Currier insisted. “She told me she did not want to marry him. She told me she was going to refuse him. I had encouraged her to do so.”
“Then why did you think she had changed her mind?”
“But she hadn’t changed her mind, had she?
And that’s why she’s dead.” The professor was close to tears.
“I should have helped her. I should have gone with her.” She took the handkerchief Isabella solicitously supplied.
“And I never should have been persuaded that Valentine convinced her otherwise. I should never have believed it when her father told me she had eloped with the man. I should have insisted then that she had no intention of marrying him.” She began to sob even as she spoke.
“And I think she told him that, Valentine, that she had no intention of marrying him. And that is why she is dead.” Her voice broke into a sob.
Dr. Barker reached out a consoling hand but looked at Marigold, as if to warn her not to distress the poor woman any further.
But not distressing people, not upsetting the status quo, had got them exactly where they were.
And the professor’s vehement protestations after the fact seemed a little too convenient.
“That would make it a crime of passion—of Valentine being thwarted in love—whereas before, you said you thought he killed her to stop her from speaking?”
Imogen Currier raised her red-rimmed eyes to Marigold’s. “If he knew Olivia at all, even a little, he would know that the only way to stop her from speaking her mind would be to kill her.”