The Evening Spider (10 page)

Haverton, Connecticut

December 10, 2014

I
bolted up as soon as I heard it. The little journal tumbled to the floor.

Shhhhh.

I must have dozed off while reading—and Chad must have switched off my lamp when he came upstairs. My eyes took a moment to focus on the little green light of the baby monitor.

Shhhhh.

There were no water sounds to muddle it now. I'd taken the iPod player out of Lucy's room altogether.

“Chad!” I snapped. “Wake up! Do you hear that?”

Chad rolled over and mumbled, “Hear . . . whuh?”

I ran down the hall and threw open the door, shouting, “Stop it!”

I approached Lucy's bed, and her eyes flew open. She fussed a little but didn't scream. Still, I had to pick her up.

We rocked for about a half hour until I could put her down again. After I did, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. Instead, I went downstairs to find my laptop and a blanket, and then came back up and settled by her doorway—curling up on the floor beneath the blanket.

I had no idea how I was going to distract myself into
sleepiness. Maybe it was time to research baby monitors? A brand new, highly rated audio monitor would cost well over a hundred dollars, but I suspected it wouldn't solve my problems. Maybe our monitor was picking up some kind of radio static, and a new, expensive one wasn't the solution.

A video monitor was a possibility, however. It would cost twice as much at least. Chad and I had promised each other, when we opted for me to take a year's leave, that we'd avoid extravagant purchases. That was how we'd ended up with a decade-old secondhand monitor in the first place. We'd bought nearly all of Lucy's things secondhand. But this, I decided, had been an error. An investment in my sleep and my sanity was entirely different from fancy baby dresses or weekly meals out for Indian food or steak.

When I opened my computer, I found a new messagev in my inbox.

I hesitated, staring at the name
Wendy.

Of course. That baby's name had been Wendy.

The last time I'd gone to the group, Sara had put her nose against her bald baby's, rubbed it back and forth in a gentle Eskimo kiss, and sang
WEN-dy, WEN-dy, WEN-dy!
Up until then she'd referred to her daughter as Gwendolyn. The nickname shouldn't have startled me—and yet, it had.

I had not wished to go back to the group after that. I'd not wished to see that baby's sweet bald head again. Nor her blue eyes, so much like her mother's.

I closed the e-mail and then Googled the name of an online baby store. Settling quickly on a middle-range video monitor, I clicked hastily through to the checkout. When I was finished, I got up, crept into the bedroom, and yanked the monitor's cord out of its socket. I carried it downstairs, flipping on all the lights in my path. When I reached the kitchen, I set the receiving end of the old monitor on the counter and stared at it. Innocent white plastic, with a silver-gray circle framing that little green light—now cloudy in its unplugged, inactive state. A cheerful red Fisher-Price label was blazoned across the little gray speaker below the light.

I pulled out my French rolling pin and gave the monitor two swift and efficient whacks—enough to break it into several plastic pieces. I didn't worry about Chad waking, because apparently he never heard anything much in this house at night.

The new monitor would be here in a few days. In the meantime, Chad and I would just have to keep our ears and our bedroom door open.

There could easily be a story about fumbling around in the
dark, the monitor breaking on our hardwood floor. I could justify the new one more easily with the old one broken.

I put away my laptop, tiptoed upstairs, grabbed my pillow from the bedroom, and crawled back under the blanket by Lucy's door.

Every time I felt my eyelids droop, the words
Shut up, please
crept out from somewhere deep in my head. When I tried to block them out,
You deserve it
would slip out instead. I must have fallen asleep eventually. The next thing I knew, Lucy was up with the first morning light.

Northampton Lunatic Hospital

Northampton, Massachusetts

December 20, 1885

I
t was the summer of bonnets.

In the first days of my return to mothering, I wondered if there was a tonic or dietary regimen that might make Martha's hair grow faster. I was, you see, eager for her scar to be disguised. Because Mother always said we were, all three of us, especially bald infants for an especially long time, I decided bonnets were a more promising solution.

I sewed dear Martha nearly a dozen bonnets and purchased a few more. White ones and blue ones, mostly. Simple ones and fussy ones. Some with lacy rims, some with large ruffles that made Martha look like a daisy. She grew used to wearing them all the time—even in the house. I removed the bonnets only while she slept at night. Matthew accepted this, assuming I was so proud of my handiwork that I was reluctant to remove them from her head.

I did not return to the old sewing projects I'd attempted before my rest, however—with the exception of a single dress for Martha, which I worked on in a leisurely way. Bonnets were relatively simple—simple enough not to distract me from my
day-to-day duties—regular mealtimes, keeping the kitchen and drawing room tidy, directing and aiding Tessa with the laundry.

I tried not to get lost in the veins of maple leaves or the pattern of ants parading the kitchen floor. And I believe I performed rather well.

One August day, I was afflicted with a peculiar urgency to finish the dress for Martha. It was a summer dress, and the days of summer were dwindling. I'd intended it to be a dress for Sundays, and now I would be lucky if I could use it for a single Sunday. I decided I'd walk with Martha to see Louise, and use her sewing machine.

The urgency of the dress was perhaps exacerbated by my growing loneliness. I missed Louise's company and sensed a separation between us since my marriage and particularly since my period of rest.

There was great surprise on her face when she saw me arrive with Martha's carriage—and with rivulets of sweat running down both my temples.

Oh, my dear! Frances! What a pleasant surprise! But is something the matter?

I thought I might use your Singer?

Of course, but for what? On a day like today?

I'm sewing Martha a special dress with a matching bonnet. For Sundays.

For Sundays?

Louise looked perplexed. How could something for Sundays be a matter of such urgency that I'd bring my delicate child out in this heat? What she didn't understand was how Sundays troubled me. How I could feel other ladies' eyes on me—and on my Martha—in church. How desperately I needed for Martha
to be the most beautifully outfitted, most supple-skinned, most rosy-cheeked child in the room to distract those women from any gossip they may have heard.

Louise's dear aunt Dorothy joined her in the drawing room, and together they played with Martha while I sewed. As I attached the sleeves to the bodice of Martha's dress, I considered how I could separate Louise from Dorothy and have a private conversation.

I was not certain what I wished to discuss with my old friend. That feeling of urgency—the urgency I'd awoken with, and which I'd associated with Martha's summer dress—had not left me.

I looked down at the little dress and found I'd sewn on one arm upside-down. To wear it, little Martha would have to keep her arm up in a permanent salute. I scanned the room for a sewing box, for a seam ripper. Seeing no such thing, I nearly burst into tears. Instead, I called out for Louise to help me. When she came in, I whispered to her that I'd like to step outside with her for a little chat. She extracted us from the house expertly, saying she wanted to show me some bugs on the lettuce in the garden, and claiming my entomological expertise.

As we bent over the lettuce heads, a desperate rush of words came out—words that felt necessary to prevent more tears.

Louise, do you think some of the ladies in town regard me as an inept mother?

Louise's response was slower than I'd have liked.
Frances. Pardon me?

Do you think some of the . . .

Why are you troubling yourself in this way? Did someone say something unkind to you?

No. It isn't about words. It's about looks. Hard looks and censuring eyes.

Who?

There were women in church. I know I wasn't imagining it.

Who? I know Haverton's characters better than you, Frances, and—

One of them had red hair. But Louise, my feelings are not about any one woman. There is truth to any criticism one could apply to me.

Oh, Frances . . . Red hair. Might that be John McFarlene's sister?

It was possible. Louise, however, did not seem to understand what I was truly asking of her. I changed my approach.

Louise. Do you remember the time we walked by the stream behind the Wilsons' barn, and it was so muddy I started to fall in? Do you remember how I grabbed you and pulled you down with me?

When we were girls?

And do you remember how that broken stick cut you so terribly on the back of your leg?

Yes?

Did you ever think that I had done it deliberately? Pulled you down?

Frances? We were twelve years old.

And do you still have the scar?

No. I don't believe so. It was on the back of the thigh, so I don't really often see . . .

So perhaps you still have it.

I don't think so. If I do, it is quite faint.

Might I look and see?

Frances . . . no. You're being very silly. I'm not going to lift my
skirt out here in the garden for you. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Louise pulled a head of lettuce from the ground, stood up, and placed it in my hands.

I've missed you, my friend. I thought I should visit you more this summer.

Why didn't you?

Your brother said that the doctor said you should have only necessary guests. That you weren't to be excited without good reason.

Excited?

Is that the correct word?

I think so. But Louise, what I meant to ask, about that fall you had, about the scar—

Louise had moved farther down the line of lettuces, and I wondered if she could hear me. As I caught up with her, I considered what I'd been about to ask her next—about whether the scar now or ever had a distinct shape. I considered how this question might sound, even to an old friend. It would, of course, sound mad.

Therefore I did my best to forget the question. I took a deep breath and asked a different one.

What is the interesting news around town, Louise?

Louise hesitated before answering.

Have you been following the story in the papers, about the Madison minister accused of
murder?
It is about to be tried in New Haven. Surely Matthew has talked about it?

Surely. But not with me.

I believe that is how I first got wind of that case. The Mary Stannard case.
The Great Case.
Do they still call it that, or has a greater, more gruesome, more complex case replaced it since?
A minister had killed the girl Mary in the woods because she was pregnant with his child. Others had been talking about it for some time, apparently. I, of course, had had other concerns in the preceding months. I didn't read the papers, and Matthew sheltered me from such unpleasant matters.

It occurred to me later that Louise was asking because she already knew of your involvement in some of the anatomical testimony that was being prepared at Yale.

You were secretly courting her by then, weren't you? If I hadn't been so busy with my endeavor to appear as happy and maternal as possible, I probably would have known that by then. In those days, however, I hadn't had time for visiting with either of you. And you were, of course, hiding yourself in that lab a great deal.

In any case, you'd already spoken to her about it—surely with great excitement. Perhaps not in gruesome detail, gentleman that you are and delicate flower that she appears to be. Maybe you know now that she is not that at all. I hope I don't offend you by saying so. I might be a lunatic, but I know as well as anyone who has experienced marriage that there are usually limits to one's capacity to pretend.

But I digress. I was probably relieved to have my troubles nudged gently back into the dark and to have the lurid troubles of a stranger to discuss instead.

They dug her up three times.
Louise was so breathless about this fact that you'd have thought she herself had done some of the toilsome digging.
The second time, they chopped her head off.

Of course Louise would use the word “chop” in this context. Wasn't that just like her? Wasn't that the sort of irreverent peculiarity I'd missed about her company?

Where did you hear that?

It's been in the papers. But hasn't Harry spoken to you about it?

I've not seen Harry for two months.

I see.

How dreadful for her family. What on earth do they need her head for?

Something about arsenic traveling up to the brain. I believe her head was nearly severed off anyway, with how deep the cut of her throat was.

The cut of her throat? So she wasn't poisoned?

This is what's so terrible. Poisoned, throat slit, bludgeoned with a rock.

Do they have a great deal of evidence against the minister?

Apparently their strongest evidence has to do with the poison. Apparently they are doing a number of experiments at Yale. With her stomach, I believe. Several professors will be testifying.

Oh? How interesting. I wonder if Harry's mentor will be among them.

Louise was silent for a moment.

You ought to ask him.

I will. I would like to see him soon.

He has missed you, too, I would imagine.

I like to think you had, Harry. All the way home, my thoughts were of you. Of how I missed you, and perhaps more so, of how lucky you were.