Still life with murder Read online

  Must be Mary Agnes, with another down pillow to heap upon the bed, another little perfumed soap or lush towel, she thought as she reached for the knob. But in fact, it was Viola Hewitt, not in her chair but standing with the aid of the two ivory-handled canes. “It’s dreadfully late, I know, but I saw the light under your door, so I thought perhaps... May I...?”

  “Yes, of course.” Stepping aside, Nell held the door open for her visitor, whose gait, although halting, had an odd, birdlike grace about it; perhaps it was her height. A metallic scraping could just be heard beneath the silken swish of her kimono and nightdress.

  “Leg braces,” she explained. “They get me up and down stairs, but it’s an ordeal. I say, how very pretty your hair looks down. You’ve no need of the curling tongs.” She nodded toward the dressing gown. “Not too long? It’s mine, you see.”

  “Oh, no, it’s lovely.” It was, in fact, the loveliest thing Nell had ever worn, a satin-trimmed cashmere peignoir the color of butter, worn over a matching silk nightgown. Now that she’d finally felt the liquid slide of silk over her bare skin, Nell understood why women prized it so. The ensemble was a far cry from the patched cotton nightdress and threadbare wrap hanging in her little dormer room back at Dr. Greaves’s.

  “You’re comfortable here, I hope?” Mrs. Hewitt embarked on a torturously slow tour of the room, smoothing the counterpane on the tall half tester bed, adjusting the angle of the cheval mirror. She opened and closed the dressing table’s single drawer, rearranged the roses in a fat Chinese urn. Their fragrance mingled with a whisper of lemon oil. The room smelled sweet and exotic and a little old; it smelled like wealth.

  Nell couldn’t help wondering why she was being treated to such luxury. Most people in Mrs. Hewitt’s position would have berthed her upstairs with the servants.

  “I went to Dr. Greaves’s room, thinking I’d speak to him first, but he’s not there. Perhaps he’s downstairs unwinding after the evening’s ordeal. I did tell him where he might find the sherry.” Mrs. Hewitt glanced at the door to the dressing room, which stood slightly open.

  “How is the baby faring?” Nell asked. Mrs. Hewitt had had a cradle fetched from the attic and put next to her own bed.

  “Fast asleep, with a nice, full belly. I’m so glad she took to the bottle. Good heavens.” She crossed to the little writing desk in the corner. “Did you do these?” Lowering herself into the chair, she lifted the two drawings Nell had inked on paper she’d found in the middle drawer—thick, creamy vellum embossed with a single word: FALCONWOOD. They were sketchy portraits, one of the baby and the other of Viola Hewitt herself.

  “They’re just rough,” Nell said, heat sweeping up her throat as Mrs. Hewitt studied them. “When I have time, I’ll add some more detail and—”

  “Don’t. They’re perfect fleeting impressions, just as they’re meant to be. I must say, though, it’s remarkable how well you captured me—both of us—just from memory.”

  “I don’t have a great deal of time to draw from life. I’ve learned to fix things in my memory and draw them later. It’s almost like...making a photograph in my mind.”

  “It’s a gift, being able to do that.” Still contemplating the sketches, Mrs. Hewitt said, “Annie doesn’t want the baby. At all. She means to give her up.”

  “Ah.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Nell paused to choose her words carefully.

  Mrs. Hewitt said, “I can’t be shocked, remember?”

  “Is it because her husband isn’t the father?”

  Mrs. Hewitt laid the sketches down carefully. “It was a year and a half ago that Mac enlisted in the Boston Volunteers, and he hasn’t been able to get home since then. I’ve forbidden the servants to speak of it. These matters are...” Nell thought she would say “unseemly.” Instead, she said, “...complicated. But we live in a world that likes to pretend such things are simple.”

  Too true, Nell thought; still, the older woman’s acceptance of the situation struck her as bizarre.

  “I’m adopting the baby.” Viola Hewitt’s smile evolved into a full, girlish grin when Nell’s mouth literally dropped open. “Mrs. Bouchard doesn’t approve. Neither does my husband, but he’s humoring me because of...” Her expression sobered. “Because he knows it will make me happy to have a baby round the house. And a baby girl! I always wanted a daughter, but I ended up with four sons instead. Not that I didn’t love them more than life itself, God knows. But there’s something about a little girl...”

  “Yes, there is.” Still, rationalizations aside, for a society matron to adopt a maid’s bastard... It was outrageous.

  “Annie doesn’t want her, and she doesn’t want her husband or family to find out about her. If I don’t take Grace, she’ll be...” Noticing Nell’s puzzlement, she smiled. “I’m calling her Grace. It was my mother’s name. If I don’t take her, she’ll be doomed to some squalid orphan asylum, or worse yet, the county poor house. That’s where they put the absolute dregs, the type of paupers who would simply die on their own—drunks, lunatics, people with the most dreadful contagions, all thrown in with the motherless little children. I’ve done charity work in those places. My dear girl, if you’d ever seen the inside of one...”

  If only she hadn’t.

  “Annie will leave my employ and relinquish all legal claim to the child. Our attorney will draw up the necessary papers. In return, I’ll ask Mr. Hewitt to recommend her to the Astors in New York—making no mention of the baby, of course. It will be an excellent position for her, and I’ll see to it that they hire Mac, as well. They can always use another driver.”

  “Won’t her husband question the scar on her abdomen?” Nell asked.

  “She can tell him it was an appendectomy.”

  “You’ve thought it all through.”

  “More completely than you know. We’ll be returning to Boston next week, with the baby, and...Nell, I’d like you to consider coming with us.”

  Nell stared at her. “As a...nursemaid, you mean?”

  “We actually have one of those—well, she’s been retired for some time, but she still lives with us in Boston. Miss Edna Parrish. She was my nanny back in England, and I brought her here for the boys. The thing of it is, she’s quite elderly, and somewhat infirm. She’ll be insulted if I don’t ask her to take care of Grace, but she can’t possibly manage on her own. I’d do it myself, but I’ve got these useless legs to deal with. Infantile paralysis, you know. Caught it in Europe right before the war.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Nell said, but in truth, she was somewhat intrigued by the exotic ailment; she wished it wouldn’t be considered rude to ask about it.

  “I was thinking perhaps you could assist Nurse Parrish in her duties while Grace is little. Then, when she gets older and needs to be educated and learn comportment and so forth, you’d be more of a governess.”

  “A governess? Me?” A nursemaid might hail from the working classes, but Nell had read enough governess novels to know that their heroines were nearly always, despite their reduced circumstances, as wellborn as the families that employed them—and always well educated. “I’m not equipped for a position like that.”

  “I think you are,” Mrs. Hewitt said. “You’re intelligent, capable...and you seem to adore children.”

  “But governesses are teachers, and I’ve had so little formal schooling. And I’m...I’m not from your world, Mrs. Hewitt. I don’t know anything about your way of life.”

  “You’re clever. You’ll learn. Besides, for the first eight years or so, you’ll be what’s known as a nursery governess, and to be perfectly frank, one doesn’t generally expect as much of them as one does of a preparatory governess. You’ll have plenty of time to fill any gaps in your own tutelage before taking on the more rigorous aspects of Grace’s education. Even then, one does expect to hire outside masters in various subjects... languages, piano, dancing... A good governess is as much a moral guide as an instructress, and I can’t help but think you would excel in that role.”

  If only she knew. “Mrs. Hewitt, I...” How to put it? “You may be harboring illusions about me that—”

  “Gentlewomen have no monopoly on virtue, Nell—a minority view in my particular circle, but I’m accustomed to being regarded as an eccentric. I suppose I am—but I’m also, if I do say so myself, an astute judge of people. I know in my heart you’d be wonderful for Grace.”

  “I...I appreciate your confidence, Mrs. Hewitt, I truly do. But—”

  “Have you ever been to Boston, Nell?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Well, there’s no place like it in the world. Our house is right on Boston Common, which is some forty-five acres of parkland. You’d have your own room on the third floor next to the nursery. I shan’t lie to you—it’s a rather plain room, but large and bright, and it has windows facing the Common, and a little nook off to the side that can serve as a sitting room. The nursery can be converted into a schoolroom when the time comes. You’ll get ten dollars a week, and of course room and—”

  “Ten...” Ten dollars a week? “For myself?”

  “To spend any way you’d like. You’ll need a proper wardrobe. My dressmaker will run some things up for you—at my expense, of course. Three or four day dresses to start with, I should think. At least one tea dress, and a nice walking dress, for when you take Grace out and about. Perhaps a simple black taffeta for dinner. Something to wear to church on Sundays.” Looking down, she brushed an invisible speck off her kimono. “Mr. Hewitt did ask me to discuss the issue of religion. We’re Anglican, you know—Episcopalian you call it here. Mr. Hewitt switched over from Congregationalism when we married. And I would assume you’re...”

  “Quite Catholic, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes,
well, I had a Catholic governess myself—Mademoiselle D’Alencour, my finishing governess. I reminded Mr. Hewitt of that just now when he...well, he had some concerns. Grace will, of course, be brought up in our faith. You’re welcome to attend Mass with the house staff, but once Grace is old enough for church, she’ll be attending King’s Chapel. And as for...doctrinal matters...”

  “You don’t want me putting papist notions in her head.”

  “In all other matters, I bow to your discretion. You’ll be free to deal with her as you see fit, for the most part, without a lot of second-guessing from me. All I really expect is that you rear her with the same care and love as if she were your very own. Naturally, I would prefer that you remain unwed while Grace is young, in order to devote your full attention to her. And, of course, your conduct and reputation must be above reproach—you’re responsible for the upbringing of a young girl, after all. But I can’t think you’d let me down in that regard. Does this sound like something you’d be interested in?”

  Having a baby to hold and feed and kiss anytime she wanted? A child to raise as her own—almost—after thinking it would never happen? “Yes,” she said earnestly, remembering how the infant Grace had felt in her arms, so warm, so right. “Yes, I... Oh, yes, I would love it!”

  Mrs. Hewitt seized Nell’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll speak to Dr. Greaves in the morning about releasing you into my employ.”

  Nell nodded, although she knew in her heart that Dr. Greaves wouldn’t stand in the way of an opportunity like this. He wouldn’t like it, but he would do what was best for her.

  It took some effort, and Nell’s help, for Mrs. Hewitt to rise unsteadily from the chair. As she was leaving, she turned and said quietly, “You mustn’t judge Annie too harshly. She does love him, you know—her husband, Mac. She wept for weeks after he left. But people get lonely. They...seek comfort where they can find it.”

  “I know.”

  That statement was met with an indulgent smile. “You may think you do, my dear, but you’re really such an innocent. Perhaps someday, when Grace is old enough, you’ll marry and gain some understanding of these things.”

  Marry to gain an understanding of loneliness? But then Nell thought of her mother, gaunt and shivering in her little hut with her many mouths to feed after her husband ran off. Had she never married, she never would have ended up so forsaken.

  Closing the door, Nell rested her forehead against it. You’re really such an innocent. Unfortunately, one doesn’t remain innocent for long with the kind of life in which she’d been thrust. One does what one has to, just to survive. But Viola Hewitt didn’t know that. To her, Nell was a simple Irish Catholic girl of working class stock and unblemished virtue. There would be much to keep hidden if she took this position, the worst of it having to do with Duncan.

  Nell didn’t relish the notion of harboring secrets from a woman she’d already come to like immensely. But she could if she had to. And if she took this position—and dear God, how she wanted it—she would have to.

  Turning, Nell looked toward the dressing room. “Did you hear?” she asked softly.

  The partially ajar door creaked open as Dr. Greaves emerged from where he’d secreted himself, hair slightly mussed, braces dangling. His shirt, which Nell had been unbuttoning when the first knock came, hung open.

  For a moment he just looked at her, and then he raised his glass of sherry in a kind of toast, his smile so sad it seemed to reach around her throat and squeeze.

  “To higher ground,” he said.

  Chapter 1

  February 1868: Boston

  It was a shocking turn of events, both wondrous and devastating; a miracle or a tragedy, depending on how you looked at it.

  The news came while Nell was relaxing in the Hewitts’ music room, listening to Martin sing his new hymn for his parents. Accompanying him on the gleaming Steinway in the corner was Viola Hewitt in her downstairs Merlin chair, one of four she kept on different floors of the Italianate mansion that overlooked Boston Common from the corner of Tremont and West Streets. August Hewitt lounged in his leather wing chair by the popping fire, arms folded, spectacles low on his nose, his Putnam’s Monthly lying open on crossed legs. Nothing pleased him more on a Sunday afternoon than to bask in the bosom of his family circle in this richly formal room, his favorite. The Oriental-influenced Red Room, a silken refuge visible through an arched doorway flanked by six-foot stone obelisks, was his wife’s preferred sanctuary.

  Ancestral portraits lined the music room’s rosewood paneled walls, six generations of Hewitt “codfish aristocracy,” most of them in the shipping trade; copper and cloth had gone to China, ice to the West Indies and rum to slave-rich Africa on ships that came back laden with silks, teas, porcelains, sugar, cocoa, tobacco, and the molasses with which to make more rum. But the real merchant prince among the bunch had been Mr. Hewitt’s father, scowling down from above the black marble fireplace, who’d diversified into the textile trade by founding Hewitt Mills and Dye Works, thus greatly augmenting the family fortune.

  And then, of course, there was August Hewitt himself, represented by his wife’s monumental full length portrait—flanked by modestly draped, life-size statues of Artemis and Athena—who had negotiated a lucrative contract to produce U.S. Army uniforms back when almost no one seriously envisioned a war between the states. His foresight had heaped the family coffers to overflowing.

  Little Grace, in her favorite apple green frock and pinafore, lay curled up on Nell’s lap, two middle fingers still somehow firmly lodged in a mouth gone lax with sleep. The grosgrain bow adorning the child’s dark hair tickled Nell’s chin, but not unpleasantly. Gracie’s somnolent breathing, the lulling weight of her, her soapy-sweet little-girl scent, all filled Nell with a sense of utter well-being.

  Across the room, Miss Edna Parrish sat propped up with pillows in her favorite parlor rocker—head back, eyes closed, mouth gaping, archaic mobcap slightly askew—looking for all the world like a strangely withered baby bird. Gracie had climbed out of her nursemaid’s lap at the first wheezy snore and clambered up onto Nell’s, dozing off almost instantly.

  Through the velvet-swagged windows flanking the fireplace, Nell watched snow float down out of a pewter sky, her book—Miss Ravenel’s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty by Mr. DeForest—neglected in her hand. She loved watching snow lay its glittering blanket over the city—so opaque, so pristine, as if absolving the streets beneath of their years of grime.

  Boston had been a shock to her upon her arrival here three years ago—so huge, so raucous, a buzzing hive in which she’d felt not just lost but utterly invisible. How she’d longed for the rustic familiarity of Cape Cod—at first. Over time, the city gradually lost its daunting newness and began to feel like home—her home. Just as she became a part of Boston, so she became a part of the Hewitt family. Gracie was the child of her heart, if not her womb, and time had only served to cement her sense of kinship with Viola Hewitt.

  That kinship notwithstanding, it was rare that Nell joined the family for these Sunday afternoon gatherings, Viola having exempted her from her duties for the better part of every weekend. On Saturdays, she often prowled the Public Library, the Lecture Hall, or—her favorite—the Natural History Museum. There were several other Colonnade Row governesses with whom she’d struck up an acquaintance as their charges played together in the Common, and from time to time they would meet for Saturday luncheon or a lingering afternoon tea—but as Nell had little in common with them, no true friendships ever sprang from these outings.

  Every Sunday morning, Nell went to early Mass, a too-brief low Mass for which she had to awaken and dress in the predawn gloom, so that she would be free to watch Gracie while Nurse Parrish and the Hewitts attended services at King’s Chapel. After that, she was once more at liberty to go her own way. If the afternoon was mild, she might take a long walk—even in wintertime if the sun was bright—or perhaps settle down with a book on a bench in the Public Garden. When the weather was less agreeable, as today, she often read or drew in her room. She would be there now had Viola not specifically requested her presence today.