The Truth of All Things (40 page)

“Which is what exactly?” she asked.

“The one that brought us here tonight in the first place.”

T
he following Friday, Helen sat on the warm grass in front of the strategically located headstone of a long-dead woman she had never known. She cast glances at another nearby visitor to the Evergreen Cemetery. That woman, Miss Rachel Blanchard, had approached almost half an hour earlier and spent several minutes removing the old flowers, pulling a few weeds, and offering prayers. She had remained sitting next to the headstone of her mother, Agnes Blanchard, ever since.

At thirty yards, Helen was far enough away to be inconspicuous but too far to hear the young woman, who appeared to be speaking in hushed tones. Rachel Blanchard was dressed in black, with her hair pulled back and hidden under a mourning bonnet, revealing a high forehead. Her face was plain, with close-set eyes and a small mouth. Helen thought the woman had the look of a stolid, dutiful daughter, but there was no keenness in her expression, no hint of particularly deep currents of thought. At last the woman rose up and rested her hands atop the gravestone, offering one last prayer. Rachel Blanchard’s body began to shake slightly, and she bowed her head. She reached into her purse and removed a kerchief to dab at her eyes, then turned to go.

Helen walked after her. Rachel slowed a bit and moved to rest a hand against a tree to support herself.

Helen hurried forward. “Here, dear, are you well?”

“Oh, thank you. Yes, I’ll be fine. Just a bit overcome.”

“Don’t apologize. I understand. Visiting your late husband?”

“Oh, no. Mother.”

“It’s so difficult sometimes,” Helen said. “Here, take my arm. We can walk together.”

“You’re most kind.”

“Oh, think nothing of it. I’d prefer it myself. I always feel so lonely
on the walk away. Like I’ve left a bit of myself down there with him, every time I visit. Isn’t that terribly silly?”

“No, not at all,” Rachel Blanchard said. “I know what you mean. Your husband, then?”

“No, my brother, actually.” Helen walked in silence for several steps. “He was such a sweet boy when he was younger. Sadly, he was a bit troubled in later years. Of course he’s gone to a much happier place now. I suppose it’s just me being selfish, but I do sometimes wish he were still here with me, even if he was being a bit of trouble, as he usually could be. I suppose that’s always the way with younger brothers.”

“Yes. It seems to be.”

“You have a brother, do you?”

“Yes. Geoffrey.” After a few more steps, Rachel tilted her head in toward Helen in a conspiratorial manner. “Don’t think me a terribly horrid sister to say such a thing, but sometimes I do wonder if … if it wouldn’t have been for the best if he had died along with our mother.”

“I’d put her in her mid to late thirties and her brother, Geoffrey, several years younger. He was always his mother’s child. She favored him, and he was devoted to her. When she died, Geoffrey was inconsolable with rage and grief, just couldn’t let her go. When he was older, he saw every spiritualist in the state trying to contact her again.”

Lean sat up at that news, his eyes shooting over to Grey, ready to give him a triumphant, just-as-I-suspected look. But Grey’s head was tilted back a bit, and he was staring at some point on the ceiling.

Helen continued. “At some point their father would no longer tolerate his grieving. He said Geoffrey’s stubborn refusal to come to terms with the loss and accept the matter as final revealed a disturbing weakness of spirit. Trips away to relatives failed to cure him. He was always shuttled back, the relations being unable to deal with the boy’s morbid outbursts. He was sent to schools throughout the northeast, but never for long. There were incidents, more than one, the nature of which she
wouldn’t say but grave enough that the boy was sent on rather quickly. He was enrolled in the army but discharged for medical reasons. Finally, at his wit’s end and thoroughly shamed by his son’s behavior, Colonel Blanchard had Geoffrey committed. He’s been in and out of asylums for the past ten years. The last three at the Danvers Lunatic Hospital, where he remains today.”

“Amazing, she let all that out in a half hour,” Lean said.

“Rather a sad and lonely person. I think she desperately wanted to tell it.”

“But so much family history, and to a perfect stranger?”

“Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger,” Dr. Steig noted. “They’re usually more polite and less likely to judge.”

“We may need more details. Did you manage to leave it on terms that you might speak again?” Grey asked.

Helen pursed her lips and shook her head. “She clearly needed to speak, but afterward she was a bit taken aback at her own openness. I think she’ll be relieved not to come across me again anytime soon. I must say, that’s my wish as well—I don’t think I could go on with the deception.”

Grey looked at Lean. “What do you think?”

“It’s possible that Geoffrey Blanchard knows something of Old Stitch. He was in a rage at his mother’s death. Perhaps he was there when the mob burned her out from Back Cove. He may have seen what happened.”

“We won’t know until we question him,” Grey said.

“Perhaps,” said Dr. Steig, “but if the fixation on his mother’s death is still so strong, after twenty years, and with so much time spent in asylums, who’s to say what state he’s in now?” He showed his palms and shrugged. “I have a few colleagues at Danvers. I’ll make some initial inquiries about this Geoffrey Blanchard.”

F
. W. Meserve’s rooms on Oak Street occupied part of the third floor of a narrow brick building that appeared to be compressed skyward by the shorter, blocky neighbors attached on either side. The exterior façade of sturdiness was immediately betrayed by the sagging and tilting steps of the inside staircase. Meserve clutched onto a handrail that gleamed from the steady polishing under his palms, always sweaty from the climb up in the summer heat. The historian ascended the stairs, with his nose peeking over a load of books carried in his free arm. Atop the stack was a thin packet that Mrs. Prescott had asked him to review. He took every step with patience, double-stepping, one foot before the other onto each tread, like a toddler still learning to trust the length of his own legs. A bell tinkled as he pushed the door open and let himself in. The alarm was redundant, as any hypothetical visitor would be heralded well in advance by the tortured creaking of the staircase, each step like another turn of the wheel, stretching the wood’s very fiber almost to its breaking point.

The layout of the apartment was haphazard at best, a series of halls and small rooms meandering through the building at improbable angles. It was as if some mad builder had broken through a side wall and then snaked his way along, repartitioning the closets, storerooms, and hallways of other tenants. All in all, the result was an act of architectural gerrymandering that would have made any old-time politician proud. Meserve had selected these accommodations because the various spaces allowed him to catalog and store all his diverse texts and documents according to an indecipherable system of his own design.

He heated up some leftover soup and found a stale heel of bread for his dinner, which he ate sitting behind his broad desk, glancing at research notes. The unpolished oak desktop was obscured by piles of books and papers that formed a protective phalanx around the man. He
felt most at home there, temporarily shielded from the endless barbaric forces of all those things yet to be studied and learned. A few minutes later, he set the remains of his supper on the floor beside him, to let his cat, Herodotus, lick the bowl clean. Meserve was a lifelong bachelor, somewhat by choice, and now approaching fifty years. This placed him comfortably past the age when his slovenly habits concerned him in the slightest.

He took out his pocketwatch and angled his head back to peer over the tip of his nose, where his reading glasses perched: two smudged, rotund lovers clasping wire hands and contemplating a united plunge over the edge, to end it all in one grand gesture. It was twenty minutes until eight o’clock. He would allot that much time to Mrs. Prescott’s request. She had given him the packet days earlier, but he’d set it aside while he finished an ongoing project. Her appeal was made with urgent tones, but Meserve was always loath to alter his existing work schedule. Upon standing to get a better view of his various piles, he spotted the large envelope and searched about for his letter opener.

He was very much regretting his inability to reject the request that Mrs. Prescott had put to him days ago. The problem was that Meserve was not quick on his feet when it came to unexpected situations. While not as problematic and unknowable as the future, the present was still something of a treacherous crossing for Meserve. This was the true reason he had devoted himself to historical studies. The past was set and never changing. There were no awkward shifts in conversations or people’s actions. Caesar always crossed the Rubicon, Washington always crossed the Delaware. With careful examination, events could be wholly understood. New sources could be found that altered the context of one’s understanding, but rarely was there any truly surprising development.

He slit the envelope and let the paper slip out onto his desk. Much to his surprise, his interest was immediately piqued. It was a picture of what appeared to be an old paper damaged by fire. The handwritten words were faint, but still legible, in the photographic image. Holding the page close to his lamp, Meserve read through as quickly as his eyes
would let him. He read it a second and a third time as his mouth hung open and his throat went dry.

After retrieving his magnifying glass from a drawer, he settled into his chair and began to inspect the page in earnest. So engrossed was he by the text, Meserve failed to even notice that Herodotus had leaped into his lap and curled up after a vigorous bout of kneading. Several minutes later Meserve let out an astonished gasp. In the margin, near where the page mentioned “the ascension of my Master, James,” a faint note had been scribbled. It was almost impossible to make out, but staring at the faded lines, he deciphered a name: James Arrelan.

Meserve bolted to his feet, sending Herodotus crashing against the desk front, then onto the floor. “My God,” he announced his victory to the empty room, “this is it! This is from the Black Book!”