A Northern Light(43)

I was hoping for good news in that letter. I try another one.





South Otselic

June 21, 1906

My Dear Chester—



I am just ready for bed and am so ill I could not help writing to you. I never came down this morning until nearly 8 o'clock and I fainted about 10 o'clock, and stayed in bed until nearly noon. This p.m. my brother brought me a Utter from one of the girls, and after I read the letter I fainted again. Chester, I came home because I thought I could trust you. I do not think now I will be here after next Friday. This girl wrote me that you seemed to be having an awfully good time and she guessed my coming home had done you good, as you had not seemed so cheerful in weeks ... I should have known, Chester, that you didn't care for me, but somehow I have trusted you more than anyone else...





Voices drift past the window. Men's voices. I freeze. "...thinks his name is Gillette." That's Mr. Morrison.

"Who?" That's Mr. Sperry. "Mattie Gokey."

"She say so?"

"She did. Said she heard the girl call him Gillette. Chester Gillette."

"Well, hell, Andy, I called the police department in Albany and told them that a Carl Grahm had likely drowned and asked them to notify the family. That's what it said in the register, 'Carl Grahm, Albany,' not Chester Gillette..."

The voices fade. I can tell that the men are walking across the west lawn, from the direction of the boathouse. They are headed for the porch, and I know that it's their habit to have a drink together at night and that the whiskey is kept in the parlor.

I bolt out of the parlor, race down the hallway, through the foyer, and up the main staircase. I make it to the first landing just as the front door opens, and duck down behind the railing, not daring to move, not daring to breathe, lest a floorboard creak or the banister rattle.

"...and there's Gillettes down Cortland way, too," Mr. Sperry says, closing the door behind him. "Well-heeled bunch. One of them owns a big skirt factory."

"South Otselic, where the girl's from ... that's near Cortland, isn't it?" Mr. Morrison says.

"Thirty-odd miles outside it. Mrs. Morrison ever get hold of her folks?"

"Yes, she did. Farm family."

Mr. Sperry takes a deep breath and blows it out again.

"It's a strange thing. You'd think one would be near the other."

"What would? The towns?"

"The bodies. In the water. You'd have thought we'd find one near the other. There's no current to speak of in the bay. Nothing strong enough to move a body leastways." He is silent for a few seconds, then says, "You fancy a nightcap, Andy?"

"I do."

"I'll get the bottle. Let's have it on the porch, though. Wouldn't be right to drink in the parlor. Not tonight."

Mr. Sperry disappears down the hall and Mr. Morrison busies himself at the reception desk, opening his mail and sorting telephone messages and checking the telegraph machine. I stay put on the landing.

A few minutes go by, then Mr. Sperry reemerges with a bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. "Andy," he says quietly. "She was so young. Just a girl."

Mr. Morrison doesn't seem to hear him. "Dwight, look at this," he says, coming out from behind the desk.

"What is it?"

"A wire from Albany. From the chief of police. About Carl Grahm."

"What's it say?"

"It says there's no such person by that name living in the city."

The two men look at each other, then they go out on the porch. And I run back to the attic and shove Grace Brown's letters back under my mattress and climb into bed and squeeze my eyes shut and press my hands over my ears and pray and pray and pray for sleep to come.





tott ? lish, frowy, blat, meaching


"Mattie, honey, you fixed all right for dust rags?"

"Yes, Aunt Josie."

My aunt never worried over how I was fixed for anything,' and she never called me honey.

"I'm having the Reverend Miller for tea tomorrow; you'll make sure those figurines are sparkling, won't you?"

"Yes, Aunt Josie."

She wasn't concerned about her figurines. She just wanted to keep me up on my step stool dusting, and away from the parlor door, so I couldn't hear what she was saying or see what she was doing. The door wouldn't close all the way. It had rained for two days straight and the dampness had swollen the wood. If I bent my knees and craned my neck just so, I could see my aunt and Alma Mclntyre through the gap. They were sitting at the kitchen table. My aunt was holding an envelope up to the light.

"This is stealing, Josie," I heard Mrs. Mclntyre say. "We're stealing Emmie Hubbard's mail."

"It's not stealing,' Alma. It's helping. We're trying to help a neighbor, that's all," my aunt said.

"Arn Satterlee gave it to me right before I closed for lunch. I've got to put it into the outgoing mailbag by two o'clock or it won't get to Emmie today."

"You will, Alma, you will; it'll only take a minute..."

My aunt said more, but her voice dropped and I couldn't hear it. I got down off the step stool and moved it closer to the door.