Must the Maiden Die (5 page)

Emma's smile faded. "Miss Usher is being
very generous, and I'm not sure I like my wedding being
characterized as a 'show.'"

"No, of course not—I'm probably still giddy
from the thin air. But Emma, why shouldn't Vanessa Usher be
generous? She's got more money than Midas, and she could never
find clothes like the gorgeous stuff you make for her."

Glynis watched a storm gather in Emma's gray
eyes, as she seemed torn between defending her best customer and
accepting her cousin's rather backhanded compliment. But while
"gorgeous stuff' was not the most delicate phrasing, it was
undistilled Bronwen and Emma should know her cousin by now. Trying
to head off discord, Glynis said quickly, "We should probably be
going, Bronwen, or there won't be time to dress."

"I'm afraid I didn't bring much to wear,"
Bronwen said with a look of untypical chagrin. "I knew the
bridesmaids' dresses were being made by you, Emma, and the
balloon's basket can't hold much."

"I've things at the shop that you can wear,"
Emma offered. "Actually, I've made several gowns for you—and for
Cousin Kathryn, too," she added. "We're nearly enough the same
size."

Size, thought Glynis, being the only thing
about these two young women that was the same. And Bronwen's older
sister Katy—or Kathryn, as she had gently suggested she now be
called—was unlike either.

"Emma, I hope you don't intend to put me in
one of those steel-cage hoops," Bronwen said, "or worse yet, a
corset!"

Her cousin's face gave away nothing, but her
eyes went beyond Bronwen to where Professor Lowe stood talking and
nodding animatedly, surrounded by townspeople who were doubtless
asking about his miraculous journey. His height put Glynis in mind
of Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

Emma, with her gaze still on Lowe, commented
dryly, "Why don't you ask to borrow the Professor's stylish Prince
Albert coat, my dear cousin?"

"The very thing, Em! I'll ask him."

"You know, Bronwen," said Emma in the same
dry voice, "I have always feared for your sanity." She smiled
faintly as she turned and walked toward Fall Street, the fringe on
her parasol swaying with every step.

"Sanity?"
Bronwen repeated to Glynis.
"Emma used to just call me crazy. Have I been raised in rank, do
you think?"

Glynis was trying not to think of what the
next days with these two might bring, and so nearly missed
Bronwen's second question.

"What's the matter with her, Aunt Glyn?
Emma's always been on the serious side, but now she looks
positively funereal. Like she's readying for a wake instead of a
wedding."

"Emma has a great deal on her mind," Glynis
said evasively, although this, as far as it went, was true. "I
assume, Bronwen, that you're staying with me at the
boarding-house?"

"Yes, after I find Professor Lowe a room.
I'll take him to Carr's Hotel—it can't be full of wedding guests
yet, can it?" Not waiting for an answer, she turned to start back
across the grass, saying, "I'll see him to Carr's, then I'll come
to the house."

With much of the crowd slowly and
reluctantly dispersing, Glynis accompanied Bronwen toward where
the balloon was being covered with tarpaulins by Professor Lowe and
the deputies. The heap of pale silk looked as insignificant as a
melting snowdrift.

"By the way," Glynis asked her niece
casually, "how was everyone in Rochester?"

"Rochester?"

If Glynis hadn't been watching for it, she
would have missed the blank look that flashed across Bronwen's
face. Her niece recovered with, "Oh, you mean
Rochester!"

"Yes, Rochester. The place where you grew
up. Where your family lives. Where you said you would be visiting
before coming here."

"Aunt Glynis, I couldn't get home. It just
didn't work out. Besides, the family will be here in just a few
days for the wedding," she said quickly, as if this explained her
sidestepping.

While she hadn't quite out-and-out lied,
she'd come very close to it. Since they had nearly reached the
others, however, Glynis did not press her. Instead, she
commented, "We don't have gas here to reinflate the balloon.
Professor Lowe knows that, doesn't he?"

Bronwen gazed studiously at the grass. "I
expect he does by now."

"You didn't tell him that before you
landed?" Glynis stopped to stare at her niece.

"I may have mentioned it."

When Glynis sighed heavily, Bronwen went on,
"Look, Aunt Glyn, I absolutely had to get here. Otherwise you'd
never have spoken to me again."

"I suppose that's possible."

"Well, there you are. And Professor Lowe is
a genius. He'll think of something!"

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.

—Book of Lamentations

The girl slowly lifted her head. When she
had first wakened, it had been to the harsh caw of unseen birds
and the smell of marshland, for she found herself lying on a small
mound of earth tufted with grass. Now she could see that a short
distance beyond her the grass sloped downward to meet an expanse of
water, desolate and murky except for a few silver glints from a sun
dipping low in the sky. The air bore a dankness that felt on her
skin like laundry pulled from tubs of lukewarm water.

How long she had been there she did not
know. She held a hazy recollection of a loft in the carriage house,
a horse rearing, and the sensation of falling. Only that; nothing
more.

When she tried to pull herself upright, her
head throbbed and her left arm hurt her, and when she looked at it
she saw a wound, as if somehow the top layers of skin had been torn
apart. She fell back on the grass and lay there until the pain
eased. A black snake undulated past, gliding silently into the
water, and she heard overhead the cries of wild geese and the trill
of smaller birds. From closer by came the murmur of water lapping
at stalks of reeds and cattails.

Moving carefully to favor the arm, the girl
tried again to pull herself upright, but now the weight of her wet
cloak held her down. A few pieces of straw clung to the black wool
as she raised herself to a kneeling position. When she saw the
stark gray stumps of dead trees jutting from the water, she
wondered if, before she had been thrown from the horse, she had
somehow reached the edge of the vast Montezuma Marsh. She couldn't
seem to remember why she would be there.

She looked down at her hands, shaking as if
they were birch leaves, and saw splotches on them that looked like
smears of dried blood. And then it came; an image of wavering water
and a prone body and the long handle of a knife, and above the body
she saw the reflection of her own face.

The girl closed her eyes, grinding her fist
against her forehead until it hurt so much she had to stop. The
image lost its sharpness and gradually faded.

When she tried to get to her feet, she fell
back on the grass because her legs would not hold her. Her arm
ached, and as she inched backward on her knees away from the water,
her head throbbed with the rhythm of heartbeats. But then, over the
throbbing, she heard a rustling noise. It came from behind her. It
was moving closer, and with it came the sound of something
splashing through water.

She had to get away. When she again tried to
stand, she toppled over but did not cry out. The splashing came
closer. She lay still and shut her eyes tightly, as if by not
looking her terror would vanish. Then she heard what sounded like
an animal panting, and something cold nudged her cheek.

The smell of wet fur made her open her eyes.
She looked into the face of a medium-sized dog that crouched before
her as if ready to spring. Its keen gaze was trained on her with
the intensity of a guard warning its prisoner not to move, so the
girl lay still. But when she looked again into the alert, brown
eyes, her fear began to lessen. She recognized the dog as a
sheepherder like the one she had known as a child. Its ruff and the
blaze down its face was white, and so was its undercoat that was
overlaid by long dark outer hairs, as if the dog's back and head
had been stroked with a sooty hand. Its semi-erect ears twitched
slightly, and when it rose from its crouch and moved sideways, she
saw behind the dog a pair of worn, mudcaked boots below ragged
trousers of jean cloth.

She heard a soft moaning, and it came to her
that the sound might be of her own making. But she could not talk,
so that must not be. She was afraid to raise her eyes until the
boots took several steps toward her, and when she forced herself to
look up, the man was standing in front of her. He was gaunt with a
heavy beard and wild dark hair that hid most of his face. But when
he stepped toward her again, the hair fell away so she could see,
staring down at her, fierce black eyes.

She tried to crawl away from him, but the
dog sprang to its feet to block her path. The man bent down and
reached for her shoulders, saying something she could not make out,
and she tried to cry with her eyes what she could not cry with her
voice—no...no. ..no....

The dog began to circle her with a deep
warning growl, the thick ruff of hair around its neck rising. When
the man bent down again, the girl felt his hands slide under her
arms, and then she was dragged forward on her belly. Still
circling, the dog barked sharply as she tried to twist away from
the man, clawing at his boots with her hands while the pain in her
head and her arm sliced through her fear like a butcher's knife.
Her arms had no strength. It seemed as if they were no more than
bare branches tossed by the wind.

She thought the man said, "Stop struggling,"
and he looked down at her with a face of anger, and then she knew
he would force her. He would cover her mouth with his hand and
press her under him into the silent marsh. The water would cover
her face and she would die.

When she felt herself being lifted, the fear
stopped her breath. She strained for air, and the last thing she
saw were the fierce dark eyes boring into her own.

Seneca Falls—upon [the] Seneca River, was
incorporated April 22, 1831. It is a station on the N. Y.C.R.R.
[New York Central Rail Road] and the Seneca Canal. The fall is 51
feet and furnishes an abundance of water power which is greatly
improved. It contains 7 churches, the Seneca Falls Academy, a
union school, 2 newspaper offices, extensive manufactories of
fire-engines, pumps, machinery, iron and woolen goods and a great
variety of other articles. Population about 4,000.

—from an 1860
French Gazetteer

Glynis stood at the window of the dress
shop, looking out onto Fall Street and watching pink clouds in the
western sky fade into twilit mauve, while behind her the plucked
strings of a harp sang softly under the murmur of women's voices.
The murmur was oftentimes punctuated by soft laughter.

During daylight hours the view from the
front window of EMMA'S
,
a shop that sat tucked among others,
was usually a fairly lively one of horse-drawn farm wagons and
carriages, mule teams and their drivers, chickens and geese, the
odd sheep or cow that had somehow gotten loose, and even an
occasional Berkshire sow and her young; the last always bringing a
measure of excitement when townsfolk ran around trying to capture
the slippery little porkers. There was also a bewildering number of
cats and dogs, the sounds of whose ancient, mutual loathing could
make everyone within hearing distance miserable.

In the hours of early morning, and again at
noon, Fall Street bustled with farmers, shop owners and customers,
mill and factory workers, bankers, and a few lawyers. Now the road
was nearly deserted. A few minutes before, Glynis saw Cullen and
his black Morgan pass by at a fast clip. The constable had looked
deadly serious, so there likely had been a fight at one of the
taverns down along the canal.

It was only then that Glynis remembered her
encounter at the rail station with the troubled Mrs. Jager. But
given what followed that meeting, it was hardly surprising that it
had slipped her mind to ask Cullen if the woman had managed to find
him.

Glynis turned back to what Emma called her
"showroom." Gathered there were a dozen or more women friends, and
a few of her favorite customers, as well as her employees Lacey
Smith, a runaway slave come north years ago on the Underground
Railroad, and young Faith Alden, whom Glynis had seen earlier at
the rail station. The girl's eyelids still looked swollen. Most sat
on small sofas and chairs provided by Emma's best customer, Vanessa
Usher, while several of the younger women were on decorative
pillows placed on the thick, green Brussels carpet. The smell of
coffee and tea and cinnamon cakes floated over colorful drifts of
paper and trailing ribbons, since many of the gifts had already
been unwrapped.

Vanessa Usher sat in one corner, her fingers
running up and down the harp strings in a rippling glissando. When
finished, and after some well-earned applause, she rose from
behind the instrument and glanced over the gifts, saying, "My dear
Emma, what a treasure trove you have here."

It was one of those infrequent moments when
Glynis found herself in agreement with Vanessa. Draped over a chair
was a large signature quilt, each of its cream-colored squares
signed by a member of the Seneca Falls Ladies' Sewing Society.
White lace-edged sheets with scalloped and embroidered
pillowcases, ivory linen tablecloths and napkins, linen bath
towels, and woven table runners and sideboard scarves were
carefully folded to be tucked into a rosewood dowry chest bestowed
by Vanessa.

Against a sofa stood a framed, parchment
copy of the
Declaration of Sentiments,
which Elizabeth
Stanton had written for the first women's rights convention, held
in Seneca Falls some thirteen years before. Tonight Elizabeth had
managed to escape her seven children and husband for a rare evening
out, having left them all in the care of Susan Anthony who had
earlier presented the
Declaration
to Emma with a smile,
saying, "Hang it over your stove!"