Coffins (20 page)

Lucy nodded. “That's my point. Jeb was the sixth, after the first five were born perfect. And poor Rebecca died giving him birth. So there were those cruel enough to say Jeb was the curse upon the family. Proof that Cash Coffin didn't deserve his success. Proof of his sins.”

It was hard, being forced to imagine what little Jebediah had endured. The cruel taunts from children his own age, and from adults who resented his father, or were merely offended by the very existence of a dwarf in their midst. His keen awareness of how others saw him, and how so many of them denied him his humanity, his manhood. How had he borne it? How had he become such a person as I first met in Harvard Yard, a man of courage, nobility, and unshakable conviction? There was only one answer: Jebby the dwarf had become Jebediah Coffin, Abolitionist, through the strength and support of his kind and generous brothers, who loved him for what he was, and what he would become. He was the sum of their wholes, and now with half of his family destroyed—by his own fault, he thought, for the temerity of existing—half of him was destroyed as well.

“It wasn't only the children and the ignorant adults,” Lucy said. “There was Cornelius Remick.”

“Who?” I asked. The name was familiar, but I was certain I did not know the man.”

“Father Remick,” Lucy said. “The Episcopal priest. I was told he presided over Rebecca Coffin's funeral, and that he was the first who alluded to Jebediah's deformity as just punishment.”

“What?” I said, scarcely believing that a man of the cloth, a man of God, could inflict such cruelty on his own parishoners. “He said the family was cursed?”

“I don't know that Remick actually said that Jebediah was a curse upon the family. It may have been one of those priestly allusions, with quotes from the Scripture. All I know is that Cash stormed out of the church in the middle of the funeral and has never returned, and that shortly thereafter Remick was forced from his congregation and had to leave White Harbor. But no one who lived here has forgotten what the priest said, and they never let Jeb forget it, either.”

“Does he still live?” I asked her. “This man Remick? Is he alive?”

“I've no idea,” she said, “but there's someone who might know. The man who replaced him. Father Whipple.”

“Then I shall speak with the good father,” I said, getting to my feet.

And then, summoning my courage, I kissed her. A chaste kiss, but sweet.

2. The Good Father

It was unspeakably late when I approached the tidy building that served as the Episcopal rectory, located a few streets away from the church itself. The little house was precisely square, somewhat less than twenty feet on a side. The recent snow had collected into a glistening pile under the icicle-bound eaves. White smoke rose from a center chimney and a faint glow illuminated one of the small upstairs windows, so I assumed the inhabitant had not yet retired for the night. Not that a lack of candle would have prevented my fist from booming upon the storm door.

“Good Lord! Coming! Coming!”

The candle glow moved from upstairs to down, and soon enough the inner door creaked open and the storm shutter was unlatched.

“Father Whipple?”

“Yes, yes, who else? Get in, man, before the heat gets out!”

The priest, who I'd spoken to very briefly at little Casey's interment, was a moon-faced man of about fifty, with shoulder-length white hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Curled, Oriental slippers peeked out from beneath the hem of his floor-length sleeping gown. As he raised the candle to inspect me, I noticed bottle-thick spectacles affixed to his nose and held in place by means of a black ribbon. He peered at me with the faintly puzzled eyes of the badly nearsighted and asked, “Do I know you, sir? You do look familiar, but my eyes are weak.”

“Davis Bentwood. I'm a friend of the Coffins.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “You were at the infant's burial, were you not? Sad affair, very sad. Heard something of you from Griswold, later it was, after Sunday service, I think. Hmm? Yes, so it was.”

“Excuse me?”

“Dr. Griswold. Member of the congregation. Mentioned a young scamp from away, ‘poaching on his territory.' His words, not mine, couldn't care less. This way, Dr. Bentwood. To the heat, man, the heat!”

I followed the priest to the very center of his little domicile, where a Franklin wood stove had been installed in front of the bricked-up hearth. The cast-iron doors were closed, the draft was whistling, and the whole stove was pleasantly pink with warmth. Gratefully I joined my host, rubbing my badly chilled hands over the rising heat.

Father Whipple coughed, snorted, sniffled, cleared his throat, shuffled his slippers, and finally regarded me with a not-unfriendly gaze. “If you're here at this ungodly hour, I must assume the rumors are true. Another Coffin has met his Maker.”

“I'm afraid so.”

“And you wish me to preside at this funeral, too? Hmm?”

“Your service would be most welcome, of course, when it comes to that. But I came with another purpose, to ask if you know anything of your predecessor, Father Remick.”

“Cornelius? Oh, indeed, I knew Cornelius quite well. He was a good man.”

The air sighed out of me, and with it some of my resolve. “Do I take it Father Remick is deceased?”

Whipple stopped rubbing his hands over the stove and began tugging thoughtfully at his beard. “Five years. No, wait. More like six or seven. Died in his sleep, the lucky fellow.”

I uttered an oath and then quickly apologized.

“Don't trouble yourself,” he said, waving his hand as if the profane words were inconsequential puffs of smoke. “These walls have heard worse. I'm an old bachelor priest, but Father Remick was not. Lived in this very house, small as it is, with a wife, five daughters, and his mother-in-law, who had a salty tongue and used it frequently.” He paused from his recollection. “What did you want of Father Remick? Take a pew, Dr. Bentwood, and tell me all about it.”

The man kindly offered me an upholstered chair. I slumped into it and buried my face in my hands, at a loss for how to explain that I was searching for an answer to a question that I couldn't even begin to formulate. The good father took a “pew” next to me, held his curiously slippered feet out to the glowing stove, and mused aloud. “Hmm. Let me think. Says he's a friend of the Coffins but wanted to see old Cornelius. Medical man, Boston accent. Hmm. There's a clue. Were you at school with young Jebediah, is that it?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Hmm, hmm. Two and two together. So. First visit to our little village? Yes? I'd have known, I think, if you'd dropped anchor before. Tell me, Dr. Bentwood, are you sure you're not here about a proper funeral, speaking on behalf of the family, or of Jebediah? Because that wouldn't be a problem, despite that wicked old man's animus.”

“Animus?”

“To this church, and to the late Father Remick in particular, and to me because I took his place. Never you mind, son, let bygones be bygones. We can organize a funeral mass at your convenience, if it would make the family rest easy, and when the ground thaws we'll see the poor Coffin boys buried proper, with every pomp and circumstance, not to worry.”

“It isn't that,” I said. “It has to do with why Remick left. Do you know anything of the circumstance? Can you relate it without, um, betraying a confidence?”

“Ah,” he said, studying his slippers. “Hmm. Depends, I suppose.”

“Depends on what?”

“On exactly what you want to know. I've no desire to go up against Cassius Coffin, after all these years. Ancient history.”

“That's what I must know,” I said urgently. “The ancient history. Specifically what Father Remick said at the funeral of Rebecca Coffin, Jebediah's mother.”

“Ah,” Whipple said, bobbing his head. “You know nothing of it, then?”

“Nothing. Only that whatever was said, it made the old man leave the church. I assume he was the one who drove your predecessor away.”

Father Whipple nodded thoughtfully, studying my face as he might a map. “Oh, indeed he did. Quite right. Cash Coffin. A man of considerable influence. A man more interested, I might say, in burying the past than he was in burying his wife.”

“Oh?” I asked eagerly. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? Let me get this right, my boy. Hmm, did I say ‘boy'? You'll excuse me, Dr. Bentwood, for I'm an old man, old enough to be your father.”

“I take no offense. What was this about not wanting to bury Rebecca Coffin?”

“Did I say that? Didn't mean it, if I did say so. You should know, if you're to understand what happened between the two men, that Rebecca Coffin was the bosom friend of Jessie Remick. Remick's wife Jessica. Hmm? See the picture? Rebecca Coffin was, they say, a lovely, generous lady. Never knew her myself, but I've no reason to doubt it. Much beloved in the village, for not getting too high above herself. They say she was on the point of convincing her husband to build a proper rectory for the church. Something with enough room to house the whole Remick clan in comfort. But then Rebecca died on the birthing bed and everything changed. The way I understand it, Jessie blamed Cassius for Becky's death, and she persuaded her husband to be of the same mind. Then he spoke his mind and Cash Coffin would have none of it. Didn't matter if everyone in the village knew, it wasn't to be spoken of, or alluded to.”

“What wasn't to be spoken of?”

“Hmm? Ah? Why, where they'd got their money, of course.”

“And where was that?”

“You don't know? Why, everyone knows that Cash Coffin made his fortune running slaves.”

I gasped.

“Hmm. I don't suppose Jebediah would want to mention it, him being such a fervent abolitionist,” Father Whipple mused, weaving his long elegant fingers through the scruff of his white beard. “For that matter I'm not certain how much your friend actually knows of the particulars—families have a way of smothering such unpleasant kittens. But his father wasn't the only sea captain made his pile in the African trade. Wasn't even the only one in this village, come to that. Many a Yankee fortune was made in the buying and selling of men.”

This was hardly news to me, about the making of Yankee fortunes, but somehow I'd never considered that the Coffins might have been involved in the odious enterprise. It had never occurred to me that a slave trader would so generously finance his son's various abolitionist causes, to the point of having Frederick Douglass as an honored house guest. Was Mr. Douglass aware of the source of the family fortune? I wondered. Had I been the only one present at the Coffin house who couldn't appreciate the delicious triple irony of a former slave directing runaway slaves to safety in the home of a former slaver?

“If I remember correctly, and I think I do, Jessie Remick said that Becky had for some time made it known to her husband that she wished him to quit the vile business. And her husband in turn blamed Cornelius for turning his wife against him, as he saw it, by preaching against the slavers and turning his congregation into a hotbed of abolitionism.”

“And was it that?” I asked. “A hotbed of abolitionism?”

Father Whipple snorted and shook his head. “Hardly. Not by today's standards. But Captain Coffin couldn't abide it when any man dared disagree with him, especially in public. Also, let us not forget, that even back then transporting slaves from Africa was an illegal activity. So possibly Coffin felt that the abundant rumors put him in peril. Whatever was in his mind—and I don't pretend to know—he forbade his wife from seeing Jessie, and she in turn defied him and bared her heart to her dear friend.”

“But what has this to do with Rebecca's death, or the funeral?” I asked.

The priest sighed. “I was told that a day or two before Rebecca gave birth, she came to Jessie in some torment. The two women closeted themselves and exchanged the usual confidences. And then Becky related some terrible secret having to do with her husband. Don't ask me what secret, exactly,” he said, holding up his hand, “because I do not know. Jessie never said, not even to her husband, and she passed away some years ago, preceding Cornelius. All I know is that the subject was, in Jessie's words, 'unspeakable,' which explains, I suppose, her silence upon the subject.”

“But it had to do with slaving?”

“I've always assumed so, but I can't be sure. Certainly Cornelius thought so. For that was the subject of the sermon that got him dismissed. ‘The Curse of the Slave Trader.' That was the title. Old Corny was a direct sort of man, God love him. Didn't dilly-dally with words. And when Rebecca died, and the child with her, Father Remick saw it as a sign from God, a punishment like unto that of Job himself, and thundered so from his pulpit.”

“Wait!” I said. “Did you say the child died? Jebediah didn't die!”

“No,” Father Whipple agreed. “Jeb lived, but his brother died. His twin.”

I don't know why the idea of twins should have stunned me so, but it did. Perhaps because of Jeb's precious twin brothers, Sam'n'Zeke, so recently and so horribly deceased. When the priest saw that I was at a loss, he rose from his chair and fetched us brandy from the cupboard. “I think the occasion warrants medication,” he said with a smile, handing me a generous glass of the peachy-smelling stuff. “I see that you are shocked, but it is not so unusual that of two infants in the womb, one should be born flawless but dead, and the other deformed but alive.”

“Jebediah's twin was not deformed?”

“According to the midwife, the baby was perfect in every way save that it had ceased thriving some weeks before labor commenced. Poor Rebecca gave birth to a tiny corpse. Not an unusual occurrence, but it was the first time a child of hers had not survived. A few minutes after they'd wrapped the dead infant in a shroud, Becky suffered the convulsion that killed her, and the result of that convulsion was to expel the infant that still lived, the twin no one had foreseen or expected.”