“And where is Mr. Brandon now?”
“He is helpin Mother and Tom lay Father out. He’s mighty heavy, is Pa.”
The magistrate exchanged significant glances with two men who had come in with Dr. Hudson and dismissed the boy.
“It may be—” said the magistrate, “it may be that we must look at this fellow Brandon. Doctor, what can you tell us about him? Is he sick or well, what is the nature of his illness, is he strong, what is his disposition, does he have a grudge against Mr. Taunton?”
“He has been suffering from the effects of a lightning strike he sustained two years past and has certainly been much disturbed in his mind, babbling and confused and plagued by suspicions. But yesterday he appeared to be a little better and said he wished soon to go home.”
“In your opinion, Doctor, is it possible that this preacher nourished a hatred of Mr. Taunton on account of the bread and milk or whatever reason, and gripped by a mad fit in the night crept in and strangled him?”
“He was given to fears, that is true, but I never heard him say anything against Mr. Taunton. Except the bread and milk, which was being fed him on my orders. Of course he may have been overcome with jealousy over the porch bed. I gave him leave to sleep there but the boy says Mr. Taunton denied permission.”
“Could he not, in his disturbed mind, have laid the blame for the repetitive comestibles on Mr. Taunton? And the sequestering of the porch bed?”
“Yeee-es,” said the doctor reluctantly. “Of course it could have fallen out that way. But I do not think he is strong enough to strangle a man.”
“But it has been known, has it not, for insane persons to exhibit great strength in their fits?”
“It has been known, certainly. There are many mysteries associated with insanity.”
“So you knew him to be insane?”
“I knew him to have been deranged by a lightning bolt. He did have fits and temper tantrums. But I was quite sure he was mending well and soon would be as sane as you or I.”
“ ‘Soon would be’ is not the same as ‘was.’ And if there was no one there but the family and this Mr. Brandon, subject to fits of insanity, I put it to you that it was he who strangled Mr. Taunton. Gentlemen, I ask you to go out and return with Mr. Brandon, who must be examined and stand trial.”
Mr. Brandon was incarcerated and relapsed into fulminating babble of his innocence. His loyal flock stood in vigil outside the gaol singing hymns, and later, outside the court, when, after a speedy trial he was found guilty and a date set for his hanging.
46. business meeting
All through a hot damp Boston summer James Duke courted Posey Breeley Brandon. He knew that no one could ever grasp what she meant to him. He had been sent away as a boy, passed over for promotion, he had been poor and crushed. And then how everything had changed. The crown of joy was Posey. He knew also that his cousins would be scandalized by the age difference between them, for he was now fifty-five and Posey twenty years younger. She was his constant visitor. In the evenings, when a cooling sea breeze moved inshore, they walked in the rose garden, around and around the sundial, talking of lumber and true love’s knot, her silk skirt rustling, her great dark eyes cast low. They walked from the first leaves on the roses to pink buds, to opened petals, to drowsy full-blown lush blooms, to faded blossoms, frost-nipped browning leaves. He would do anything for her, had already done so without regret. She asked him for nothing except his company and his conversation. She paid rapt attention to everything he said, he who all his life had been ignored. But the getting of Posey was hard, and as long as Mr. Brandon lived (he had escaped hanging) she was not gettable. Not only did the minister’s congregation include two members connected to important Boston families but Brandon himself was the nephew of Judge Archibald Brandon, who moved silently behind the closest circles of power. The judge would not see his unfortunate relative, a man whom he believed had been the innocent victim of an evil marriage and a lightning bolt, hanged as a murderer.
“I almost understand why God laid this affliction on him,” said the judge to Dr. Hudson, whom he had discovered after a short search. “The city has become a stinking mire of corruption and evildoing. I see this as a sign of God’s punishing vengeance. And yet I cannot feel my nephew was guilty of strangling this farmer over disagreeable suppers. He was ever a gentle man.”
“There may be a way for him to avoid that — that end,” said the doctor. “I think we must appeal to the Williamsburg authorities at the Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds. There was some indication earlier that he might be harbored there.” The weight of the judge’s name, the pleas of Mr. Brandon’s flock and Dr. Hudson’s carefully composed essay on the felon’s gentleness secured him a room at the Virginia retreat. In the company of others with disordered minds Mr. Brandon shone out as a model inmate.
• • •
Freegrace called the October business meeting of Duke & Sons. As always James felt the significance of being a voting Board member. He dressed carefully: tan wool pantaloons with a narrow fall and instep straps, tan vest piped in black, single-breasted cutaway coat. He carried Sedley’s gold watch, and to its chain he had attached Posey Breeley Brandon’s gift, a gold-wreathed fob that enclosed a miniature painting of her beautiful left eye, for intimate eye paintings were all the rage. Beautiful the subject was, but it had a certain fixing quality not altogether pleasant. Beside him Freegrace and Edward seemed drab in their old-fashioned knee breeches and pale silk stockings, the backs spotted with mud.
Freegrace introduced a cadaverous man with eyes like candles in a cave as Lennart Vogel, who had missed the last two meetings as he was traveling. He was Doortje Duquet’s only child, and so a cousin of Sedley Duke, James Duke’s hard-hearted father. After a cosseted and overeducated life, Lennart eventually came to Boston and made the acquaintance of his Duke relatives. No one was more fastidious in his dress and on this day he wore pearl-grey pantaloons buttoned four inches above the ankle over white silk stockings, his shoes the merest slippers, replaced every fortnight. He had made himself into an indispensable walking encyclopedia of figures, trends and innovations affecting the timber trade. His greatest value, Edward whispered to James, lay in his fluent command of seven languages. Lennart had another side. For two months every year he put away his town clothes, donned heavy bush pants and logging boots and went into the woods, sometimes with an Indian guide. He said he was fishing and visiting subcontractors’ logging camps. He seemed unusually cheerful when he returned to Boston.
• • •
The meeting room was warm with a fire to spite the autumn chill. Freegrace said, “Let us begin.” There was a great scraping of chair legs and a rustle of paper.
“This year the Maine drives got under way late, all was delayed, with the contractors hoping for rain to raise the rivers,” said Freegrace. “We hear from those jobbers that it was only a fair winter, not at all like the snows we had here. Meager snow forced the men to resort to dams to get the sticks down feeder streams and into the river — much labor and time. The jobber is demanding recompense. He won’t get it. I do have some figures for the previous year, which should cheer.”
James interrupted in a low voice. “Excuse my ignorance — how many men do we employ in the woods?”
Lennart Vogel answered, the figures ready in his mouth. “Better than one thousand this year for six to eight months. At ten dollars a month and their bed, board and tools. Ridiculous as it may seem, we’ve increasingly had to hire well-known cooks as other camps will get the better men by dishing up fancy vittles. Vittles!” He clearly relished the slangy American word and thought of himself as an adept slang slinger. “We figure twenty cents a day to board each man, which is a great deal of provision. We are forced to hire cooks who might command the kitchens of elegant restaurants save for personality blemishes.”