26
At first I think the banging on the door is in a dream.
Nathaniel and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary that day by writing all of our cares of poverty on paper that we folded into little boats and launched down the river. Then we took Una to Walden Pond for a picnic with Henry, eating sweet treats sent by Louisa. Finally, we reenacted our wedding night in the light of the moon, and were asleep in each other’s arms by nine o’clock. So it comes as a great shock to us, who have just crossed over into slumber, when the pounding begins and will not be ignored. I pull on my robe and peek at Una, who sleeps on, mercifully, and then follow Nathaniel to the front door, where Ellery stands breathless and trembling.
“What is it, for God’s sake?” says Nathaniel. “Is it Ellen?”
Ellery shakes his head, attempting to catch his breath before speaking.
“There has been a tragedy. On the Concord River.”
Nathaniel and I look at each other, and I feel something shrink inside of me. He puts his arm around me and turns back to Ellery. “Go on.”
“We need the Pond Lily. It is the schoolmistress, Martha Hunt. It would appear that . . .”
Ellery stops and stumbles while taking a seat on the steps, wiping his perspiring head with his handkerchief.
“Pardon, Sophia, but I do not know if you would like to hear this.”
I draw closer to my husband. “I am composed for anything you might say.”
He stares at me through the dark for a moment, and then continues. “It seems Miss Hunt is missing, and likely has . . . courted her death in the river.”
“Who told you this?” asks Nathaniel.
Ellery gestures out the door, where I now notice figures on horses and foot; among them I recognize General Joshua Buttrick, who lives near the Hunt family, and another person who appears to be a youth. I step away from Nathaniel in an attempt to better see, and the moonlight reveals William Hunt, the boy we saw ice-skating on the river the day of my miscarriage. Martha’s brother. He is pale and ghostly. I place my hand over my heart, stricken by thoughts of my dead brothers, George and Wellington.
As Ellery apprises us of the details, his voice sounds far away. “Her family did not see her this evening, and when they asked around the village, they realized she never made it to school this morning.”
“Yes. And General Buttrick found her bonnet and shoes. It appears that she has taken her own life.”
I cover my mouth. The girl cannot yet be twenty years old.
Action resumes around me. Nathaniel kisses me and tells me to stay in the house. I am silent, because I know I will disobey him once he is out of sight. He joins Ellery and the men as they hurry through the orchard to the river. Once more I check Una, who sleeps soundly, and start out the back door.
The heat of this stifling July night presses around me. I look up to see the stars embedded like tiny diamonds on a great black cloth. The moon is a pearl. The peeping insects in the trees and the shush of the wind remind me of Cuba. In case I am seen by the clusters of men along the banks, searching for a sign of the girl, I wrap my robe tightly around my body, though I am hot enough to fling it off. I have knotted my hair, but the curls have escaped and are stuck in sweaty tendrils to the back of my neck.
I stay in the shadows and watch my husband and Ellery launch the Lily. I implore God to let this be a mistake, or let them find her soon; let it not be a suicide. Who can bear the thought of a young girl in such depths of melancholy that she takes her own life?
Oh! The dangers of solitude!
Something catches my eye—a movement on the bridge like a shadow that disappears as soon as I have seen it. Dread and terror fill me. First I think it is the beggar girl, but then I realize it must be the apparition of Martha herself, as we saw her all those months ago.
In spite of a sudden wish to run back to the house and hide away from this scene, I cannot leave. I weave my way along the secluded path and track my husband. From the whispers of men I learn that Martha was seen pacing the banks of the Concord for hours this morning.
“The poor thing must have agonized over whether to do the deed,” says one.
“She has been prone to melancholy,” says another. “She has tried this before, but was stopped by her sister.”
Yet another man—her father, perhaps—speaks. “It is that ghastly narrative by the slave Frederick Douglass. Reading it tortured her.”
Good heavens, what a tragedy!
Safely protected in the trees, I remove my robe and wipe the sweat from my neck. I have been out here no longer than twenty minutes, but Nathaniel has moved too far from me to see, and I cannot stray farther from Una. With reluctance, I make my way back to the house. Somewhere a hawk cries, and I hear shouts. I look back at the river but I can see no men at our bend. They are farther down the Concord. I stop and stare at the black surface of the river, where the moonlight makes strange lines like claw marks in the water. It is as still as death. Then I hear a terrible cry. They must have found her.
I find that I am running over the grass. My slippers are soaked from the saturated ground, and though my milk has almost ceased, my breasts are leaking through my nightdress. When I get closer to the house, I fling open the door and hear my poor Una sobbing upstairs. Her screams suggest she has been crying for some time. Now I am weeping, too. I take the stairs two at once and scoop up my poor, sweaty babe, whose red curls are stuck to her face and neck; she blazes from her fear and anger.
“Poor thing,” I say, with visions of both Una and Martha in my mind.
I do not sit in the rocking chair, but tear open my chemise, popping the buttons in my haste, and press Una to me while I stand. Though she rarely nurses anymore, she latches on with such force that I grimace from the pain. There is a great searing burn as the milk lets down, followed by tremendous relief.
Once my nerves have calmed, I walk with her to Nathaniel’s study at the back of the house, and gaze at the river through my scrawled writing and the other notes we have scratched on the glass. I wonder when the terrible thing will be birthed from the Concord’s waters, and how my husband will bear seeing the consequence of a solitary life ended in tragedy.