Chapter 14

C HAPTER 14

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good

example.

—Mark Twain

"Now, let me send for Samuel."

Bessie and Lucy left Marigold to herself long enough for her to fill both her stomach and her curiosity. The tidy, gingham-curtained kitchen looked to be a meeting place of sorts—pamphlets for the Salem Colored Convention were neatly stacked on the table. Outside the window was a lush garden in which morning glories grew alongside scarlet runner beans, and honeysuckle rambled over the whitewashed fence to spill over the carefully swept dirt paths.

Practical considerations before the theoretical. "You have a beautiful garden, ma'am," Marigold complimented when Bessie returned. "I'm hoping to start an herb garden out on Great Misery Island and wondered if you might have some herb plants or vegetable seeds I might purchase from you?"

"I got some chives divided out just this week all ready. I might could see what else I've got to hand." Bessie crossed her arms over her chest in much the same skeptical way her daughter had yesterday. "But what grows down here in this patch along the marsh might not take to growing out on that bald, dry rock."

"I take your meaning, ma'am. It is curious how dry and barren it is when the coast here is so arable. But I have an idea to set out raised beds with well-rotted chicken manure—they seem to have plenty of that at Hatchet Farm."

"I reckon you do," Bessie agreed. "You sure are a determined little thing."

"She's like that," Lucy confirmed with a laugh. "She's already done more in two days than those Hatchets have done in two years."

"I thank you for the compliment, Lucy." Indeed, it was a lovely thing to be admired by people worth admiring. "But I have more to do yet—I'd like to visit a mercantile store and then a wire office?"

"There's Mercer's Mercantile up the commercials street, next to the Crestfield's Druggist and a few doors down from the telegraph office."

"Thank you. And thank you for the ham. I don't think I've ever had better."

"I got a smokehouse back out behind the garden—my property goes all the way back to the edge of the cove. Most folks round here, even the butchers, get their hams from me," Bessie said with some pride. "Now, listen, Pride's Crossing is a right enough place," she advised Marigold, "but like a lot of places out in the country, they don't exactly take to strangers."

"And am I so strange?" Marigold asked with an attempt at humor.

"Strange enough," Bessie laughed. "You're an eyeful, for sure, but most especially because you're a Hatchet."

"Technically, I am only related to Mrs. Sophronia Hatchet's side of the family, but I take your point. But what is it about the Hatchets that the residents of Pride's Crossing might object to?" Marigold probed with a nonchalance she didn't feel. "Was there some scandal or infamous incident that I should know of?" Like something that qualified as a great and godless wrong?

Bessie pursed her lips shut and wiped her hands with her apron as if she could wash the Hatchets from her experience. "Let's just say that the Hatchets don't go out of their way to make themselves peaceable and friendly. And the town feels the same."

Marigold had to admit her own introduction to her cousins had been neither peaceable nor friendly—what with the curses and lit matches and scythes and guns and shovels, not to mention the lack of hygienically prepared food. Yet there was so much scope for positive, forward-thinking change.

"But I reckon folks on the North Shore are going to be mighty interested in a pretty new Boston lady in town, Hatchet or not," Bessie was saying. "My advice is to be careful of what you let on—you don't want folks to judge you wrongly just because you're kin to Hatchets. They'll treat you respectful-like if you keep respectful. That's my experience."

Marigold nodded at Mrs. Dove's undoubtedly well-meaning advice. Her own experience of the world was that curiosity very often combined with fear and suspicion.

But here was her opportunity to allay fear and set aside suspicion, especially for Daisy and her young beau's sake. Who could be a better representative of the face the Hatchets ought to be presenting to the world than she herself?

"Here's Samuel now." Bessie called through the screened front door as an oxcart drove into view, "Come on in here and meet Miss Manners. She's come to sell a load of scrap she's got in the skiff down at our dock."

Samuel was a large Black man with arms as bronzed and well muscled as any Rodin sculpture. "Don't get many ladies come trading for themselves," he said as he climbed onto the porch.

"Perhaps they have not learned the pleasure of driving a hard bargain," Marigold answered, offering her hand. "Bessie gave me her word that you were a man who would bargain fairly."

"Oh, surely." The smith's smile was as reassuring as his calloused hands were gentle. "I'll head out to take a look, but if it ain't too rusted, I believe I'm prepared to go to twenty-two cents a pound for a friend of my momma's. But don't you go telling that tale around the town."

"No indeed." Marigold noted the easy affection between mother and son. She also noted that the smith looked at least ten years older than Lucy and bore little familial resemblance to her.

"That's a special price," he explained, "cause my momma likes you. And you know how mommas are." He laughed. "I make it a point not to disappoint her."

"Naturally," Marigold agreed with some chagrin. She had done her best not to let her own mother down, but sweet Esm é 's disappointment in her forthright, forward-thinking daughter had seemed inevitable.

"A man would do a lot for his momma." Samuel snuck a piece of ham into his mouth. "Mmm. Especially one who can smoke and cook like that."

"Indeed." So would a woman who had just eaten her only edible meal in days.

"You new to town?" the smith asked.

"New to the area," Marigold clarified. "I'm staying on Misery Island with my relatives, the Hatchets. I sailed across with your sister, Lucy, this morning."

"What do you know?" Some of the warmth faded from the man's smile. "Isn't that something." But he shook his head ruefully, much like his mother had. "I know it ain't none of my business, but you seem like such a nice lady. You be careful of them out there on Great Misery, you hear? Those people out there just ain't right."

Marigold no longer brushed off the warning. She had rationalized and dismissed the Hatchets' strange variety of threats, but she had to admit she had been truly frightened of Ellery Hatchet on the path that morning. And this whole business of Minnie Mallory didn't sit right. "Indeed, I will."

Perhaps she ought to rethink her residence on the island? If only there were some other way to find the information she sought about Ellery Hatchet's mistreatment of her mother. "Does Pride's Crossing have a public library?"

"Up Hale Street," Bessie answered. "Once you get over the railroad tracks, just follow the main street back up to the north. You can't miss it."

"Excellent." Marigold's own curiosity to see the town—and let the town see her—urged her to take her time finding the ivied stone library building in the center of the small municipal and commercial district. And as a New Woman, she never minded the physical exertion of a good walk.

Marigold dusted her skirts off before she entered and stepped up to the circulation desk, where a young woman was also attired in a smart shirtwaist and tie. "Good morning. I should like to apply for a library card. I'm new in the area and very happy to find such an excellent facility here."

"Certainly." The young woman adjusted her pince-nez spectacles and produced an index card for Marigold to fill out. "Welcome to Pride's Crossing."

"Thank you. I'd like to check out a copy of Pride and Prejudice , funnily enough." Her own copy was still in her crate of books, which, like her bicycle, had yet to be delivered—but Daisy's education could not wait until she tracked the cart driver down. "And I wondered if you have an archive of local newspapers from the last twenty to thirty years or so?"

"Of course, miss." The librarian was a model of both rational dress and rational competence. "If you'll step into the reading room, I can bring you the relevant issues of the Pride's Evening Times and the Manchester Cricket , although that will only go back to '88. But I'll also bring the bound copies of the Salem Register and the Gloucester Daily Times ."

Marigold felt the giddy attraction of meeting an equal—an educated woman who knew her business. "Most excellent. You are a godsend, Miss …?"

"Morgan. Amelia Morgan. Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley."

Marigold put out her hand to shake with genuine pleasure. "Marigold Manners, Wellesley College, Wellesley."

"Oh, how lovely!" The young woman's handshake was a boon to Marigold's hope to make like-minded friends. "So very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Manners. Let me show you the stacks where you'll find your Austen—who is my personal favorite, I must say." She flushed with her own pleasure. "The reading room is that way. If you'll make yourself comfortable, I should have the archived newspapers to you momentarily."

Marigold was buoyed by her friendliness—her plan to make a good impression was already working wonderfully. "Thank you. I wonder if I also might trouble you with the latest edition of the local newspaper? I understand the body of a young woman was recently found down the sound?"

Miss Morgan blanched. "Yes, such a tragedy. You should find today's issue of the Evening Times , as well as the Salem Register , in the reading room."

Marigold retrieved the copy of dear Miss Austen from the stacks before she found a table with a pleasant aspect out the window toward the leafy street and began scanning the local newspapers for information regarding Minnie Mallory.

The story was tucked away at the bottom of page four. Miss Wilhelmenia Ann Mallory had been the daughter of the Reverend Angus Mallory, the pastor of the First Parish Church, and was presumed to have drowned at the tender age of nineteen by mischance in the frigid spring-melt waters of Salem Sound.

Marigold could not suppress the shiver that ran across her skin. There was no mention of exactly when the young woman's body had been pulled from the water, nor of what she had been wearing, but Marigold was convinced that the glimpse of red skirt she had seen that first evening in the dory must indeed have been poor Minnie.

But if Minnie had been dead in the water, then who was in the hayloft with Seviah?

"Here you are, Miss Manners." Amelia Morgan appeared at the table with a stack of bound newsprint. "Let me know if there is anything else I might find for you."

"As a matter of fact—is there a modern police force in the town?" Marigold wondered if she ought to make some report of seeing the young woman's body, though to do so might raise more questions than it answered.

Miss Morgan frowned and lowered her voice. "I wouldn't exactly call them modern or forward-thinking, but there is a small police office housed in the town hall. Officer Parker is occasionally there during the daytime."

"Thank you." Then the answer was no—the last thing Marigold wanted to experience was being "little-missyed" by a part-time, rural officer. The best course was undoubtedly to find the answers to her own questions first, before she consulted any authorities. Accordingly, she turned her attention to the newspapers, searching the close-printed pages for any mention of a member of the Hatchet family, or of her mother's name. Or of other drowned girls.

Excepting a short obituary of one Captain Elijah Hatchet of Great Misery Island passing away at home back in the year 1844—which she guessed was shortly after Ellery Hatchet must have been born—there was no mention of any scandal or trouble that might be construed as a great and godless wrong. Or of other drowned girls.

How frustrating.

But the day was growing long and there were still her purchases to make, her scrap metal to be paid for, and Salem Sound to recross.

She returned the materials to the desk. "Thank you very much, Miss Morgan. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope I'll see you again on my next visit."

"Yes, indeed." The young woman's enthusiasm was a cautious, hopeful thing. "I look forward to that. We don't get many new faces in town. I keep rooms at Mrs. West's, up on Grove Street, and sing in the choir at St. John's Episcopal down the street—we're always looking for new voices."

"Thank you, but I live too far from town to attend services." Marigold kept her own religious beliefs—or lack thereof—to herself for the time being. "I'm staying at Hatchet Farm on Great Misery Island—" She reached for her calling card.

"Great Misery?" Miss Morgan's tone was aghast. "But you said Wellesley College?"

As if being an educated, rational creature automatically precluded any association with her relatives. Marigold's misgivings returned, despite her determination to be positive. "I did. I am here for a short visit. Mrs. Sophronia Hatchet is my second cousin."

Miss Morgan's reply was tactful. "I can't say as I've had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Hatchet."

Marigold's smile was purposeful—she had to think of Daisy. "I'll have to try to get her into town more often, as I'm sure she'd enjoy such a well-stocked and tended library. And my young cousins as well."

"Yes, I'm sure." Amelia Morgan's expression conveyed the opposite of her words as she handed Marigold her library card.

Marigold stuck to her principle of setting a good example. "Thank you again, Miss Morgan." She put her new library card safely into her pocket. "It shall be my dearest possession. Until next time."

"I hope there is a next time," Marigold heard Amelia Morgan murmur as she headed for the door. "Heaven help you out there on Great Misery."