Coffins (5 page)

“Frederick Douglass,” Jeb was saying, his eyes aglow with admiration. “In an ideal world he'd be elected to the highest office. A Negro as president of the United States! Do you doubt him capable of such service?” he demanded.

“I have not one scintilla of doubt,” I responded. “Mr. Douglass would make an exemplary president. Of course, such a thing would never happen. Not in this century, or the next.”

“How can you be so sure?” said my friend, as if amused by my obdurate ignorance.

“Look around you, Jeb. Talk to the blacksmith, the farmer, the clerk. Such folk may be willing to support the idea of a United States—may even be willing to die for it—but while many of them despise the institution of slavery, they will not fight for Negro suffrage, any more than they will fight for female suffrage. It is too alien a thing to be embraced by the masses. Men such as you and I have the run of the country, and it will ever be so, because we will not easily relinquish what we believe to be our right by birth.”

“Piffle and nonsense!” Jeb exclaimed. “Fixed notions can be changed. It was a fixed notion that the colonies were sovereign to the Crown. A fixed notion that kings ruled by divine right. I put it to you that only white men may be elected to high office is likewise a fixed notion, and therefore subject to change.”

And so we debated the issue until well after the twilight had dissipated, with neither of us yielding an inch and both, I think, relishing the battle of wits. The others in the house, which included Nathaniel's wife Sarah and their newborn baby, and the as-yet-unseen-by-me cousin Lucy, apparently avoided entering whatever room Jeb and I occupied (for we moved around, it being an ambulatory sort of argument) and left us to unfurl our passions without interruption.

Then, having pleasantly exhausted ourselves, we took hot toddies of Jamaican rum and retired for a while to the main salon, where Jeb, stirring the fire with a poker, remarked that the fading embers looked like the souls of doomed men.

“Shall we debate the point?” said I.

This drew, as I knew it must, a warm smile from my small friend. “Another time. For now, let me show you to your chamber, and you can debate the subject of sleep with your pillow. I've no doubt you can win
that
argument, if no other.”

And so my first day in White Harbor ended pleasantly, and I went to bed a little woozy from the rum, and did not awaken until the beast began to wail.

4. The Wailing of the Beast

Some hours later the squalling of a cat roused me from a deep slumber. Sitting up in the dark, stupefied by sleep, I knocked over the sperm-oil lantern. So it was that several minutes passed before I could shed my oil-soaked nightshirt, somehow dress myself in the dark—collar and cuffs nowhere to be found, and therefore done without. I then made a fumbling search for the box of sulfur matches and, finally, put light to a candle.

By then the noise was beginning to sound human. As if it was not a cat at all, but a man reduced to some terrible animal distress. Candle in hand, I ventured out into the hallway. Try as I might I could not pinpoint the origin of the squalling noise. The anguished sound seemed to echo over the cool oak floorboards from various directions. As if the animal—if it was an animal—was trapped somewhere within the walls, and moving around.

Using my hand as a shield so the candle would not gutter, I had to proceed with caution. The weakness of the flame rendered me nearly blind in a house whose layout was barely known to me. At times the awful wail had the timbre of a human infant, and then, abruptly, a mewling quality that could be naught but a cat; it was the uncanny changes that kept me going, as much as the wailing itself. Whatever the origin, the cry bespoke a desperate fear.

Moving cautiously through the darkness, I knew there had to be a rational explanation for the awful noise. Despite the nightmarish quality of the experience, this was no dream or troubled sleepwalk. Something alive was obviously terrified, and had succeeded in frightening me.

Suddenly I was struck in the forehead, as if by a stony fist. But my opponent, on closer inspection, turned out to be a door standing open into the hallway. I must have cursed, because a nearby voice admonished me with a curt, “Sir!”

It was a woman's voice, and before my heart had slowed she appeared out of the gloom, holding up a sperm-oil lantern, twin to the one I'd spilled. “Oh,” she said, examining the welt on my forehead. “Sorry. It was I who left the door open.”

“Cousin Lucy?” I asked. Draped in a sheer cotton nightdress, she looked, in the lantern glow, like a spectral succubus, perhaps, with long dark hair loose upon her shoulders. Hers was radiant, porcelain beauty of the type that makes men into stumbling fools. Even in the dim light her eyes had a peculiar stimulating effect, for they were large almond-shaped eyes set slightly farther apart than is the norm, and of a pale, icicle-blue color that seemed to dazzle the lantern flame, rather than the reverse.

“I am Lucy Wattle,” she said, sounding amused to be recognized. “Captain Coffin's poor relation. His niece, to be exact. And you must be Jebediah's friend.”

At that moment the wail rose up a pitch or two, and then was cut short by what could only be a pistol shot.

“Oh!” exclaimed Lucy, losing her grip on the lantern.

The glass shattered on the oaken floor, and the blue glow of flame spread around her. Instantly I dropped to my knees and smothered the fire with my sleeve, and could see nothing but Lucy's slim, elegant, and quite naked feet dance lithely away.

When the flames were finally extinguished, we were left once again in absolute darkness, for my own candle had flickered out.

“Oh, dear,” came Lucy's voice, sounding very close. “I feel so silly. Was that a pistol?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“There must a thousand explanations for why a pistol might be fired in the night,” she mused. “Maybe that horrible screaming was a rabid animal, and it had to be put down.”

“Possibly,” I agreed. “I caution you—don't move. There is broken glass scattered all around your feet.”

“Stupid of me to drop the lantern. I keep thinking my eyes will adjust to the dark. So far I can't see a thing. Are you standing right next to me, by any chance?”

A hand fumbled along my arm and came to rest on my wrist, which was instantly warmed by her touch. I confess that my mind, which should have been concentrating on the pistol shot, was addled with all sorts of erotic phantasms, for there is nothing quite so stimulating as to be touched by a beautiful woman under condition of absolute darkness. It was as if her slim hand had a life of its own, though she touched only my wrist, and that quite chastely.

“What shall we do?” she asked, her voice soft and whimsical. “We can't stand here until dawn. Or can we?”

Her hand tightened on my wrist. Could she feel my pulse? Did she know my heart was pounding like a steam thresher? What, I wondered, would be her reaction if I offered to carry her away from the broken glass and back to her chamber? It was the prospect of her laughter—being the object of a young woman's scornful amusement—that prevented my making the suggestion. And just as well I refrained, for a minute or so later another light appeared in the hallway, carried by none other than Benjamin Coffin.

“No cause for alarm,” he said, but even in the soft glow of his lantern, I could see that he was hesitant to meet our eyes. And not just out of natural shyness, of which he had an abundance, but because he was discomforted by speaking less than the truth.

“But we heard a pistol shot!” Lucy exclaimed, letting go of my wrist.

Benjamin gave the distinct impression he was hiding behind his beard. I noted that he was fully dressed in a way that suggested he'd never been to bed, right down to his black frock coat, and that a large, sturdy key ring peeked from his waistcoat pocket. Keys that he fingered nervously as he hastened to guide us back to our rooms. “Nothing to worry about,” he said of the pistol shot. “An accidental kind of thing. Please put it from your mind.”

As a guest it was not my place to question him. Even Lucy, his blood relation, evidently did not feel comfortable pressing the matter. When he'd got us back to her door she thanked him, and nodding at me said, in a voice that seemed to promise more, “Tomorrow we shall be properly introduced, Dr. Bentwood. Until then, sleep well.”

It was a sweet sentiment, but sleep was impossible. After the dour Benjamin left me, I went to lock my door and discovered there was no locking mechanism, not even a latch or bolt. After propping a chair against the door, I lay upon the bed, staring up into the darkness, as my brain burned with two feverish trains of thought. The first concerned Lucy, beautiful raven-haired Lucy, and the other the peculiarity of the wailing and the shot in the night. Had it been a rabid animal, would not Benjamin have said so? What did he have to lie about, this man who quite obviously loathed prevarication? And what message had his cousin meant to impart, by touching her supple hands upon my wrist? Had she been amused by my charm, or by my failings? Did the hideous wailing emanate from the tower, is that what made it strangely echo throughout the house? What was Lucy doing now, at this very moment? Was she lying there in her gauzy nightdress, staring into the darkness and thinking of me?

I slept a little, and suffered dreams that cannot be written, else they burn the page.

The next morning at breakfast, something of the mystery was solved. Jeb entered the dining room in company with Nathaniel's pretty, plump, red-haired wife Sarah, who carried a six-week-old infant in her arms. A boy, she said, christened Cassius in honor of his grandfather. “I expect we'll call him Casey,” she said, giving me the distinct impression that the intended nickname was the result of compromise with the child's father. She took her place at the table with a great swish of her crinolined black skirt.

“I'm sorry you were disturbed by all that fuss last night,” were Jeb's first words to me. “Father had a bad spell,” he added vaguely.

“Your father?”

He nodded. “And his cat.”

My friend did not intend to make a further explanation, that much was clear. There was no mention of a pistol shot, and from his foreboding expression, I knew better than to inquire. Maybe he would satisfy my curiosity later, when his sister-in-law was no longer present.

Jeb climbed awkwardly into a chair whose seat had been raised several inches higher than the others, bringing his head almost to normal level above the table. There were dark circles under his clouded blue eyes, and a haggard look about him—more evidence of his father's “bad spell,” whatever that might mean. “Nate and Ben have taken
Raven
down to Falmouth on pressing business,” he said, attempting conversation as Barky brought out platters of eggs, sausage, and currant muffins. “If the wind cooperates, we can expect them back by evening.”

Sarah, who had quite a pleasant face, spoiled it with a dark scowl. Clearly she did not approve of her husband's absence. “Tonight for certain. He promised,” she said, casting a sidelong glance at Jeb.

“Nothing to worry about, dear,” said Jeb, but his own brow furrowed with concern, as if the very thought of his brothers' business in Falmouth was troubling. “Tell me, Davis, is the coffee here as bitter as it is in Boston?”

“By no means,” I answered, raising my cup. “Your cook is a treasure. I'll leave here a fat man, and the happier for it.”

Jeb was quite obviously relieved that I'd let him steer the conversation into safer waters, and he chatted amiably enough. By an effort of will he brought a smile to his face and began to discuss the attractions of White Harbor. It seemed my Portland hack driver was not far off in his estimations. Almost a hundred sea captains did indeed make their homes in the village, or nearby, though only a score were in residence at any one time, waiting to ship out. Some were gone for years at a stretch, while others plied more local waters for the thriving coastal trade. It had long been a White Harbor tradition that every able-bodied boy was destined for a life at sea, and many of the master tickets were passed from father to son. It had been so for generations.

“The only place to touch it is Nantucket, where the trade is pretty much confined to whaling,” Jeb said. “The Coffins there are as likely to be innkeepers as mariners, and are no relation to us, at least so far as we can determine.”

I had read a rather odd book on the whaling industry by Hawthorne's friend Melville, but truthfully had not been able to make head nor tails of it, so loaded down was the story with heavy-handed symbolism. I was no Ishmael when it came to tales of the sea, but preferred the clear prose of Richard Henry Dana, who made his voyaging seem more an adventure, and less a quest for strained metaphor.

“The White Harbor Coffins are related to none but the White Harbor Coffins,” Sarah stated, as if she expected an argument. She got none, however, and was left to butter her muffins and care for the infant Casey, who fussed quietly at her bosom.

“I promise a tour,” Jeb said to me. “On foot, I think, so you can observe the exquisite smallness of the place. Then, once we've seen the living, we'll stop by the cemetery and pay our respects to the departed.”

“A most excellent idea,” I responded, rising from the table.

And so we went out to the village of White Harbor, and saw what there was of it. Or as much as was not hidden from outsiders like myself.

5. Intruders in the Crypt

Jebediah strode purposefully along with his peculiar, sauntering gait, the result of forcing his extremely short legs to keep pace with me. The top of his high silk hat came nearly up to my chin and his cane rat-tatted along the cobblestones, as if keeping count. I got the impression he'd resurrected his good spirits by sheer force of will.

“You see this small hill?” he asked, indicating the rise upon which the Coffin mansion loomed over the village. “For me, as a boy, it was a great mountain of a place, and to this day I associate it with gleeful joy. Sam'n'Zeke, clever lads, built me a little wagon fitted out to look like a boat. They ‘sailed' me down this hill many a time. Oh, those were grand days! I was all of five years old,” he added wistfully, “and hadn't yet realized that I'd already reached the height God intended. All things still seemed possible then.”