Dreams of Fire (Maple Hill Chronicles Book 1) (20 page)

Marianne knew that young people at the turn of the century had been given a lot more responsibility and were considered adults a lot sooner than they were today. She’d read about farm kids as young as twelve being put in charge of driving the family wagon two or three days into town, buying supplies, and returning home. They relied on the kindness of strangers, as they slept in barns along the way and had to take their chances not to be cheated in monetary transactions. They also had to care for a team of horses and guard the valuable supplies all the way home. She shook her head. She couldn’t imagine Michael or herself at that age, for that matter, being competent or confident enough to do that job.

Miss Abigail Leventhal was probably from a poor family, perhaps one of many children, and had been sent out in the world to make a living. Often such children had to send their meager wages home or worked for next to nothing. Their families were often relieved to have one less mouth to feed.
 

She looked at the article again. Abigail was doing the family ironing when the fire broke out. Ironing would have been an all day job in a stifling hot room. Yards of cloth shaped the ankle length skirts of the day, underlain by petticoats. Separate shirtwaist blouses were full sleeved and full breasted, making the women of the day resemble pigeons. Mr. Eddy probably wore white or vertical striped shirts over fitted trousers. In any case, Abigail would have done the washing in a laundry tub the day before and had to iron everything the following day. The article indicated that it had been a hot, dry summer, making the weekly ironing particularly awful. Marianne sympathized with the teenager of long ago and was glad of her own wash and wear wardrobe.

Abigail also seemed to be babysitting at the same time. Marianne had done some babysitting when she was a kid, and while some children had been decent to watch, others had been a real handful. The phrase “the fire began accidentally when one of the irons was left on a sheet on the kitchen table” stood out to her, and she imagined Anne and Samuel might have been in the distractingly rowdy category. She didn’t know the details of how the iron had been left unattended but could understand how it had caused the fire.

After the death of little Sam, the Eddys would have had to bury him pretty quickly or risk putrefaction and disease in the late August heat. Burial customs of the day centered on the women of the family washing and dressing the body and readying it for burial. The men would have built the coffin and dug the grave. Anne would have been around for all of the preparations and would have had plenty of time to ruminate on the loss of her little brother. Marianne could easily imagine that Anne might have been in her own dark hole, thinking she’d caused her brother’s death. Poor thing, no wonder she lingered in the Violet Lane house, warning people about fires and the basement!

Marianne made a copy of the article and put it with her notes and other copies she’d made. She noted with a frisson that the anniversary of the date of the fire was only a few days away. She scanned editions of the paper for several months after the fire to see if anything else was written up, but there was nothing further.
 

Resetting her mental filters, she started scrolling through microfilm of the Maple Hill Register from the 1960s and 1970s. Scanning for references to George Rutherford, she didn’t register the low growl of thunder outside.

It turned out that George was a successful and well-respected lawyer both in town and within the county. He was connected to a larger family of Rutherfords who were also well known in business and community affairs across the county. George belonged to a local fraternal organization, started by prominent local businessmen. They emphasized philanthropy and held fund-raisers for worthy causes. Marianne did not doubt that it was also an opportunity for networking and being seen as generous and benevolent by the rest of the community. There was a photo of him and his buddies at the lodge’s fortieth anniversary gala. No women, of course. Then, in a 1971 issue, Marianne found George’s obituary. He’d died at the age of seventy-six. According to the text, he was predeceased by his wife Anne Eddy Rutherford, survived by a brother and a sister and various nieces and nephews. He had been involved in various businesses, used to have concerts in his home where his wife would play piano, and would be missed by his friends. He was an upstanding citizen by all accounts.
 

That was interesting. Lily Thomas said she remembered him as a “difficult” man, and Marianne wondered what her definition of “difficult” was. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time an upstanding citizen presented one face to his community and friends and was a real bastard at home. Marianne stared at George’s photo and thought he seemed vaguely familiar. Something about the eyes, maybe. She racked her brain trying to place who he reminded her of and couldn’t think of anyone off the top of her head. She printed out the obit and set it aside.

Anne Rutherford seemed like a good candidate for one of her ghostly roommates, but she hadn’t been able to rule out Sullivan or Bordman yet for the other spirit. She did an Internet search on ‘Sullivan’ linking it with the search word ‘electrician’ and came up with several results. Noting that there were Adam Sullivans who lived as far away as Florida, Ohio, and Texas, she saw that one of them lived in Fishkill and jotted down that information. She found the address and phone of the local Electrician’s Union for reference as well. Maybe there was someone who remembered him and could talk to her. Lastly, she did a search for Markus Bordman and found one living in Poughkeepsie. She got an address and phone number for him as well. She’d have to call Mr. Bordman and see if he was willing to talk to her about his stay at 25 Violet Lane.

A sharp crack of thunder outside followed by the lights flickering caused Marianne to flinch, and she logged off the terminal hastily. She put her materials away and headed for the front doors. It was pouring buckets outside the glass doors, and she stood in the entryway indecisively as she pondered her next move. It was 2:30 by her watch, and she was hungry for lunch. As usual her research zeal had carried her past mealtime. If the rain let up soon, she could make a dash for home and have something there. Depending on the weather, she could paint more or do her other research errand and see if she could find the Maple Hill Cemetery and pay it a visit.

After a twenty-minute tantrum, the thunderstorm stalked away over the hills toward the south, leaving cooler air sprinkled with light drizzle and lots of puddles.

She walked back, mulling over the new discoveries and planning what to do next. Marianne arrived at home with wet feet, thinking she’d quite like to find the graves of the Eddy family. Grabbing an apple and hunk of cheese and some co-op bakery bread, she backed out of the drive and headed The Flea up to Main Street, where she turned left and headed north. Thinking about where the town or village of Schukill might have been, she set out to find it as well as look for the Maple Hill Community Cemetery.

Chapter 17

She drove north on Main Street until it crossed a little bridge. There were a few more houses and businesses and an Episcopal Church but more spread out here. After the last building, the road turned into County Road 301, winding through trees, fields, and hills. In about fifteen minutes, she came to Henryville, the next town over. Here she turned around and headed back toward Maple Hill. When she came to the bridge, she pulled over and got out. A small sign indicated that this was Schukill Creek. The bridge spanned a creek that was swollen with the recent rain and running over rounded stones some fifteen feet below the road.

Putting Maple Hill behind her again, she searched for the first road turning off 301. She explored west of the road, toward the Hudson, looking for rural cemeteries without success. Then she explored east of CR301, slightly uphill and came upon the Maple Hill Community Cemetery within a mile. There she drove past the entrance pillars made of rounded stones with a black iron gate. Ironwork letters in a graceful semicircle over the gate said “Maple Hill Cemetery,” and a small sign to the right gave notice that the gate would close at dusk.

There was a small cottage made of the same rounded stones as the entrance pillars with a battered blue Ford pickup parked next to it. Marianne pulled up behind the truck and got out. She always felt a little shy about introducing herself to new research contacts but made herself knock on the front door anyway. Sarah said she’d notify her friends of Marianne’s visit, so presumably, they would be amenable. Marianne knocked again, but no one appeared. Finally, she walked around the back of the cottage and found a shed with one door open. She called out “hello” but no one answered. Peering inside, she saw neatly stored tools for clipping, trimming, and pruning, and an old gas powered walking mower kept scrupulously clean, in spite of its age. There was space in the shed for something else, and the dark stains on the floor suggested another smallish vehicle.

The caretaker must be out and working, she thought. Maybe if I walk around I’ll find him. She ambled slowly through neatly trimmed grass and evenly spaced markers. The stones closest to the caretaker’s house and shed were from the 1970s and clearly legible. As she wound her way uphill, slowly looking at names and dates, she discovered there were rough groupings by date: 1940s and 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, 1980s-2000s. Closest to the tree line at the top of the hill were the most recent stones including a couple where the grass was only beginning to cover the dirt of the newest graves. At the top of the slope, there was a dirt road wide enough for a car and a half to pass where she turned to look back and catch her breath.

The landscape was breathtaking. The grassy lawn, dotted with white, sloped gracefully down to the road. The stone and iron fence and a line of old maple trees marked the beginning of the cemetery and protected it from casual access. Large maples and oaks clustered at intervals and created islands of shade, contributing to the park-like feel of the place. On the other side of the road, the land sloped further down and was lost in trees. The ribbon of the Hudson River glimmered and sparkled here and there obscured by the dense tree line. Dark green mountains purpling with distance bulked on the west side. The sky was now blue with fluffy white clouds after the storm. The air was somehow moist but mercifully, no longer sticky.

Marianne stood transfixed by the whole picture for a long moment, feeling peaceful and happy after the roller coaster of emotions this morning. For the first time, she was glad she’d moved here and could see this beautiful sight and know that she could come back any time and see it again and again. She looked down at the rows of headstones and thought how pleasant it would be to be buried here and spend eternity surrounded by this beautiful view. Thank heavens for John Loudon’s brilliant reimagining of cemeteries as parks.

 
The distant hum of a small engine slowly came closer, and she reluctantly drew her vision back toward the approaching sound. A golf cart with a small flatbed containing an assortment of tools, tarps, and greenery was making its way up the dirt road toward her. She waited until it drew up a distance away, and the driver emerged. He was a tall, thin, dignified older gentleman with thinning white hair and the best Mark Twain mustache Marianne had ever seen. She smiled as he approached.

“Hello! What a beautiful day it turned out to be,” Marianne said by way of greeting.

“Yes, indeed it did.” He turned out to have a surprisingly deep, mellifluous voice. He was wearing faded canvas pants and a gray long-sleeved button up shirt with a short stand up collar open at the neck and looked altogether like he’d stepped out of an earlier age.

“Are you the caretaker here?” Marianne asked, enchanted. He nodded, and she added, “My name is Marianne Singleton, I’m a friend of Sarah’s. She said she would call ahead for me?”

His beautifully groomed mustache waved gently up and down as he nodded again. “Yes, she said you might stop by. I’m John Irving.” He held out his hand and shook hers solemnly.

“Irving, like the writer of
The World According to Garp
?” She asked.

He shook his head and smiled, “No, like
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
.”

“Wow, really?” She was impressed.

“Only distantly related,” he demurred.

“Still, that’s so neat. Uh, did Sarah tell you why I was coming by?”

“Only that you were looking for a particular resident here. Have you found who you were looking for?”

“No, not yet. I’m looking for several actually.” She paused and then decided to explain her situation more fully. “I moved into a house in town that seems to have the spirits of two former residents still in it. And after doing some research, I’ve narrowed it down to several possibilities; Anne and George Rutherford are among them. As far as I can tell she died in 1963 and was buried here. George Rutherford was buried in 1971 or so. I think the rest of her family is buried here as well. Her parents were Samuel and Josephine Eddy, and her little brother was Samuel Junior. He died when he was three years old around 1905. I don’t know when her parents died, but it would have been after 1905. Do you know where any of them might be?”

“I don’t know them in particular, but I can show you where to look roughly by year. Would you like a ride?” He gestured in a courtly manner to the golf cart/truck, and she grinned and nodded.

The cart’s doors had been removed for ease of access, and she held onto the frame and braced her feet against the floor as the wheels bounced over the dirt road and off into uneven grass.
 

“How big is the cemetery?” She asked as he maneuvered skillfully between sections.

“We have five acres allotted to us by the county, but only about two and a half are occupied at present. There are approximately 8000 souls residing here. Our oldest residents are from the mid 1800s.”

Marianne goggled. It didn’t look like that many stones and monuments and said as much.
 

“Many grave sites hold more than one person, and we need less space after death.” He pulled up to a row of relatively recent markers about a third of the way down. “This is the 1960s area. You’ll just have to walk up and down until you spot the right one. I have to continue working, so I can’t stay. If you look down toward the road, the early 1900s are about ten rows up from the fence.” He indicated an area near some of the oldest trees farthest from the entrance.