Death Brings a Shadow Read online

  Geoffrey’s eyes followed Prudence’s scrutiny of the parlor. He wouldn’t have to tell her anything. She’d come to the same conclusion he had when he’d seen the overgrown lawn and traces of red brick showing through faded and flaking whitewash. Despite the sale of their island, this family was desperate for an infusion of ready money. Eleanor Dickson had been much more than Teddy’s beloved bride-to-be. She’d been nothing less than the Bennetts’ ticket back to prosperity. And now they’d lost any hope of pocketing the additional riches they’d counted on. No wonder the washed-out sisters mourned her. Without substantial dowries, a lifetime of barren spinsterhood and oft-mended out-of-fashion dresses stretched before them.

  “You were going to show us some of the sights of Wildacre,” Geoffrey said to Teddy, setting aside the glass of second-rate bourbon he’d been nursing. “I don’t mind stretching my legs a bit.”

  “I’ll join you,” Prudence put in quickly. She still hadn’t thought of a suitable topic of conversation to engage the two Misses Bennett staring blankly at her. It wasn’t as if she could inquire about the latest play they had seen, the most recent lecture they’d attended, or their current choice of reading matter. Nothing happened on Bradford Island. There was no place to go and nothing to do that warranted talking about. Had high-spirited, adventure-loving Eleanor fully realized that?

  Prudence kept her face politely expressionless when Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane decided not to accept their brother’s invitation to accompany him and their visitors on a quick tour of the grounds.

  * * *

  “I’ll show you where I hope Eleanor’s parents will consent to bury her,” Teddy said as they descended the graceful staircase and walked toward a grove of granite headstones beneath ancient oaks.

  “Are you thinking the same thing I am, Geoffrey?” Prudence whispered as soon as Teddy moved ahead of them out of earshot. She hadn’t told him the whole truth of why she’d wanted to come to Wildacre, but now she thought she would have to. The notion she’d had of finding some clue to Eleanor’s demise in the way the Bennett family spoke of her had proved foolish and ill-thought-out. She’d imagined guilt revealed in someone’s eyes, hidden jealousy, implacable hostility. Tossing and turning in her bed last night, she’d pictured a sudden and savage quarrel of unknown cause leading to a moment of overwhelming physical rage and sudden death.

  “That no one in the Bennett family has a motive for wanting Eleanor out of the picture? If that’s what you’ve decided, you’re not alone.”

  “I can’t come to any other conclusion. Whether they accepted her into the family willingly or not, they needed her.” Her father’s oft-repeated admonition echoed in her mind. Facts, Prudence. Don’t let your imagination run away with you.

  “They needed her fortune. What she was bringing to the marriage in the immediate future and what she stood to inherit someday,” Geoffrey concluded.

  Prudence had been so sure that Eleanor had been murdered. So sure. But, she now admitted, her conviction was based on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence. Maybe she’d been wrong. Perhaps Lawrence and his despicable sheriff and coroner had the right of it after all. The swamp could have devoured Eleanor just as it had consumed countless others who had wandered into its depths and lost their way.

  How sad. How unutterably sad and heartrending.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Wildacre graveyard had the tidy beauty of a family plot long and lovingly cared for. Located a short walk from the house, the site was nestled in a grove of ancient oaks and protected by intricately designed ironwork fencing. It reminded Prudence of the small private parks found in the most exclusive neighborhoods of Manhattan. Secluded and serenely peaceful.

  As they strolled among the gravesites, Teddy recounted short biographies of some of the more colorful characters whose plots were boxed in by low walls he told them were made by mixing together crushed oyster shells, quicklime, water, sand, and ash. “It’s called tabby,” he explained, encouraging Prudence to run her hand along the top of one of the walls. “At one time nearly all of the buildings on Wildacre were built out of it.”

  “The house, too?” Prudence asked.

  “The first house, which we use as storerooms now. Bricks were expensive and hard to come by in places where there wasn’t any natural clay.”

  “The men lived longer than most of the women,” Prudence remarked, gazing around her. “Except for those killed in the war.” She paused by the headstone of a beloved wife at whose feet clustered six small markers, each incised with a single date beneath the name.

  Neither Teddy nor Geoffrey commented. Women died in childbirth, but it wasn’t a topic men talked about.

  At the far end of the enclosure a wild rambling rose had taken root against the iron fence. Its thorny canes curled up and over and around the railings, masses of small white blooms among the green leaves like stars in a dark sky.

  “This is where I want Eleanor to lie,” Teddy said. “She loved roses.”

  No grave had been dug yet, nor was there any indication that the exact spot for it had been chosen. Prudence wondered if Teddy had informed his family of his plans. He’d certainly waited until Lawrence had left Seapoint before broaching the subject to Eleanor’s father. Perhaps Elijah’s statement that he considered his son’s fiancée to be already a Bennett daughter was nothing but polite hyperbole. Some men believed women should only be told what the men wanted or needed them to hear.

  As they turned to leave the graveyard, a niggling inconsistency made Prudence do a swift count of the headstones within its borders. Teddy waited politely just outside the iron fence, but Geoffrey was at her side in a few long strides.

  “Where are they?” she asked quietly. “Do they have their own burial ground?”

  “Slaves were never buried with the family,” he said, drawing her farther away from where Teddy stood. “There’s a place for them somewhere on the plantation, on waste ground that isn’t fertile or can’t be easily cultivated. Don’t ask about it, Prudence.”

  There were any number of subjects that well-bred ladies didn’t broach in polite company, that they weren’t supposed to think about even privately. But Prudence’s father had taught her that a practicing lawyer eventually came into close contact with every vile and despicable crime society could envision and legislate against. He’d had a care for her sensibilities in the way he chose to couch his descriptions, but he’d scoffed at the idea that a woman was too delicate to be able to bear the harsh realities he saw from his bench every day.

  The war to end slavery was long over. The North, the Union, had won. Times had changed. Then why did Prudence feel as though she had stepped back into a living history that was suffocating her? Enveloping and imprisoning her in a cage of thorns and beautiful blooms?

  Shaken, increasingly unsure what to think about this new world she did not understand, Prudence took the arm Geoffrey held out to her. She glanced back one final time at the spot where the white climbing rose glimmered in the sun-mottled shade of the oak trees.

  Perhaps this wasn’t the place for her friend Eleanor after all.

  * * *

  They could hear the vehement hiss of pent-up and abruptly expelled anger as soon as they approached the house. One of the floor-to-ceiling parlor windows had been left open after someone stepped through it from the veranda.

  Lawrence Bennett, Prudence decided, returned from seeing off the sheriff and the coroner, arguing furiously with his father. The voices were distinctive and easily recognized, though she couldn’t make out the words. Then someone closed the window.

  Teddy frowned and shook his head apologetically. “They’ve been doing that a lot lately,” he said. “Arguing. I wish I knew what it was about, but whenever I ask, they shut me out.”

  “Do you have an overseer?” Geoffrey asked.

  “No. And I think that’s part of the problem. Wildacre isn’t large enough now to justify hiring someone. My father has never shown much interest in the day-to-day runnin
g of the place, but he won’t turn the decision-making authority over to Lawrence. Until two days ago it didn’t concern me; Eleanor and I were going to be living in New York for at least the next few years.”

  “It’s too soon to decide what you’ll do,” Prudence counseled. She knew from sad experience the emotional and physical effects of losing someone close.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Teddy agreed. “I can’t seem to keep a coherent thought in my head for longer than a few minutes.”

  Their footsteps or perhaps their voices must have penetrated to the parlor. When Teddy opened the door to usher them in, the room was silent. Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane hadn’t moved from the sofa where Prudence had last seen them, and Elijah Bennett still stood by the fireplace. But a porcelain figurine lay smashed on the floor, and one of the smaller Oriental carpets had been twisted out of place by the stomp of an angry foot. Lawrence stared out the window that had stood open until a few moments ago. His rigid shoulders and the slight tremor of fisted hands were lost on no one.

  Yet when he turned to acknowledge his brother and their guests, his face was composed and calm, his voice steady, welcoming, and low-pitched. Only a pinched whiteness around his eyes and lips betrayed the effort he was making to rein in his temper.

  “I wonder if we could have the trap brought round,” Geoffrey asked into the strained stillness. “The afternoon is wearing on and we should be getting back to Seapoint.” He hesitated a moment. “I trust Sheriff Budridge and Mr. Norton got off all right?”

  “Judge Norton,” Lawrence corrected. “They did. The waters in the sound are usually calm this time of day.” He pulled a bell cord, and when a maid appeared, pointed wordlessly at the porcelain shards on the floor. As soon as the broken bits of figurine had been swept up, he ordered the trap, then took a folded slip of paper from his jacket pocket and gave it to Geoffrey. “Thaddeus thought Mr. Dickson might want to avail himself of this gentleman’s services.”

  Geoffrey glanced at the paper. “I’m sure he’ll be most grateful for the suggestion.” Undertakers had sprung up all over the country in the wake of the popularization of embalming during the war. Families had wanted to bury their fathers, husbands, and sons at home whenever they could. Arsenic in the drained blood vessels had made it possible.

  “The investigation into Eleanor’s death is closed, then?” Something about Lawrence Bennett made Prudence want to goad him into an ill-tempered reaction.

  “That was made clear when Judge Norton signed the death certificate. He wouldn’t have put his name to it otherwise,” Lawrence snapped.

  “I don’t understand how he can be so certain when no witnesses have been identified and no questions asked,” Prudence insisted. She could hear her father’s voice urging her on.

  “I don’t believe a Yankee like yourself, newly arrived in these parts, has any idea how dangerous our swamps can be, Miss MacKenzie.”

  “What good would it do to go around asking questions?” Elijah added. “We all know what happened. Tragic as it was, Eleanor brought about her own death. She had no business being out in the swamp alone. And especially not at night.” His jaw tightened and the muscles in his neck bunched out in righteous proclamation of an unpleasant and unwelcome truth.

  “What if she wasn’t alone?” Prudence asked.

  Aurora Lee harrumphed and Maggie Jane’s fingers flew to her mouth. No lady ever left her home unescorted. If she did, she deserved to have her reputation tarnished. Rules were rules.

  Lawrence stepped away from the window through which lengthening shadows could be seen creeping across the lawn. “What are you insinuating, Miss MacKenzie?”

  “Nothing, Mr. Bennett,” Geoffrey interjected before Prudence could answer. “But Miss Dickson’s parents will begin to ask questions as soon as their first grief for her has passed. Shouldn’t they be provided with answers?”

  “We know what happened, Mr. Hunter,” Elijah said. “And from what my sons have told me, so does Mr. Dickson. He was a member of the search party that scoured the interior of the island until they found the unfortunate young woman.”

  One moment Eleanor was as good as another daughter, the next she was an unfortunate young woman. Which was it, Prudence wondered, her eyes fixed on the senior Bennett’s face. He seemed to be focused on his second son rather than Geoffrey, as if it were Lawrence who had demanded reassurances.

  And why hadn’t Geoffrey allowed her to answer Lawrence’s question? Why had he interrupted and cut off what she was about to say? Surely by now he knew that she was capable of taking care of herself.

  “We don’t know how she got into the swamp, Mr. Bennett,” Geoffrey said reasonably. “Nor do we know what drew her outside after everyone else had gone to sleep.”

  “Swamp gas,” Lawrence put in. “When conditions are right, it flickers blue or yellow flames that can appear as though someone is holding a lantern.”

  “You’re saying that Eleanor looked out her window, saw what she thought was Teddy signaling to her with a lantern, and sneaked out to join him?” Prudence spoke quickly before Geoffrey could silence her with a comment of his own.

  “I don’t think we can discount the possibility.” Lawrence wore that same look of smug superiority she had seen on his face at Seapoint.

  It infuriated her.

  “Eleanor’s bedroom window faces the beach, not the live oak forest,” Prudence informed him. “There’s nothing between the house and the ocean but well-tended lawn. No swamp. No marsh. No will-o-the-wisps to be mistaken for lantern lights.”

  She was about to add that her room was next to her friend’s and that the first night they’d arrived on the island she’d stood at her window marveling at the play of moonlight on the ocean. Definitely no swamp gas. But then she gritted her teeth and said no more. Something about letting Teddy’s exasperating brother know the precise location of her Seapoint bedroom made her uneasy.

  Lawrence shrugged his shoulders as if to say there was no accounting for the night ramblings of restless young women on the cusp of wifehood.

  “Aunt Jessa showed up,” Teddy blurted out.

  Heads swiveled in his direction. The abrupt change of subject caught everyone’s attention and effectively if only temporarily damped down the hostility between his brother and Prudence.

  “Here?” questioned Elijah. “When?” He shot an arrow-swift glance at Lawrence, then busied himself nudging an overlooked fragment of statuary across the floor.

  “She hardly ever leaves her cabin in the live oaks,” Aurora Lee commented. “I can’t remember the last time I saw her.”

  “She wasn’t here,” Teddy continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Prudence encountered her at Seapoint.”

  “What was she doing there?” Lawrence was plainly annoyed that the elderly woman had intruded on the island’s new owners. “She’s so long in the tooth and addled in the head it’s a wonder she remembers where she means to go or why.”

  “She’s not that bad, Lawrence,” Aurora Lee chided.

  Maggie Jane looked confused, as if she didn’t quite understand what people were saying and couldn’t figure out what they wanted her to contribute.

  “She’s old, she smells, and she has no business at either Seapoint or Wildacre,” Lawrence insisted.

  “Teddy said she was your nanny,” Prudence maintained. “Sorry, I think the word he used was mammy.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Elijah put in.

  “He said a mammy sometimes got to be like a member of the family.” That was an exaggeration, but Prudence was determined to find out why Lawrence had been so put out by the apparently harmless appearance of a former servant.

  “That’s a preposterous idea!” Lawrence flamed. “We were always fair with our people, but never did we consider any of them to be a part of the family.”

  “They do bear the Bennett name,” Geoffrey said.

  “As I’m sure your family’s people adopted the Hunter name,” Lawrence snapped. He did
n’t say after the war or when freedom came because he didn’t consider the real war over and he’d never reconciled himself to the arbitrary abolition of slavery. He didn’t feel he needed to explain any of that to someone whose accent was clearly North Carolinian.

  “She said she came to make Miss Eleanor safe,” Prudence said. And waited.

  Once again Elijah and his younger son exchanged stares. There was a tension between them that Prudence found hard to fathom.

  “She gave her a juju blessing,” Teddy finally contributed. “She’s been doing that for years, whenever there’s a death on the island.”

  “Among the people, maybe,” Lawrence corrected.

  “I miss her,” Maggie Jane said. Life had been so simple when there was no dearth of black hands to comply with her every whim and wish.

  “None of us can live the way we did before the war,” Geoffrey commented, alert for the effect his casual pronouncement would have on the Bennett men.

  Lawrence stiffened and seemed about to say something. Elijah stepped away from the mantel, silencing his son with the commanding officer’s glare he’d perfected on the battlefield.

  “I think I hear your pony trap,” Teddy announced. He looked from brother to father and back again, clearly puzzled.

  “It’s past time we took our leave,” Geoffrey agreed. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Bennett.” He bowed gracefully toward Aurora Lee and Maggie Jane. “Ladies.”

  Then he walked closer to Lawrence and said something under his breath that Prudence couldn’t catch. Teddy’s brother looked surprised and then gratified. The two men shook hands.

  * * *

  “What did you say to him?” Prudence asked as the pony trap passed through Wildacre’s gates. “To Lawrence.”

  “Nothing important.”

  “It must have been something he wanted to hear,” Prudence persisted. “I watched the expression on his face change.”