Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(44)

I am very glad for the Humane Society. It makes me feel less like I watch over these small things alone.

? ? ?

(The Fall River office had no phone, thus my roundabout dealings, and lest you wonder, I cemented Mrs. Closely’s assurances with a sizable grant. I did not mention to that fine woman that, should I fail to return, what remains of my fortune is entirely theirs. You’re no longer in need of care, Emma—indeed, you’re well beyond it. I have no one else to leave it to, and at least it can do some good in the Humane Society’s hands.)

? ? ?

After my phone calls, I packed up my trunk and waited for the car to collect me. It was a nice car, not so rattling and loud as some others I’d ridden in, and the young man who drove it made minimal polite conversation—in the fashion of a professional who speaks only enough to earn his tip, and not bother his passenger.

I tipped him well, not least of all because he honestly seemed to have no idea who I was. He must have been new in town, or new to the car service at least. Either way, it was a refreshing change of pace, and it set a good tone for the journey to follow.

I left Fall River, and I became anonymous.

I was no longer the round-faced girl of thirty years ago, wearing high-necked dresses and nervous smiles. I was not the defendant, the axe murderess exonerated by the courts—but not her fellow citizens. Outside the city limits, no one recognized or thought twice about me: sixty-something years of age, my hair gone nearly white.

(It went that way suddenly, not long after Nance disappeared. It went white long before you died, Emma, but you know that already. For a long time, I thought it was almost funny; I thought I looked too young to have such hair. These days, my face is catching up to it.)

No one knew me as anything but Miss Lizbeth Andrew, lone spinster riding the rails on spinster business. Heading for warmer climes, I hinted to the few fellow passengers who chitchatted enough to require an answer. Needed to heat up these old bones, lest the arthritis make me slow and infirm.

I’ve gotten bad at chitchatting. I feel stilted and rude, but I try. And I have money, so I’m usually forgiven the lapse in etiquette. Thank heaven for grandmother’s jewelry, and for silk. I was rich and anonymous, and the farther I traveled from Fall River, the more powerful I felt.

I cannot remember the last time I felt powerful.

I want to say that it was uncomfortable, but it was not. It was only normal, or how normal should have looked . . . how normal might have looked for me, if I’d left thirty years ago and found some other place to haunt.

I could not catch the very first train out of Fall River, so I had to catch the next one, later that evening. It ran through the evening to Providence, and then I took another train to Boston. A roundabout journey, yes, but Boston was the closest place from whence I could get a more or less direct rail line to Birmingham, Alabama.

I say more or less because I had to change trains twice, and the journey took a full day and a half, but it was only a day and a half. Due to the arcane rituals of train schedules, it would’ve been two days or more before I arrived, if I’d tried to be more direct about it.

A day and a half was plenty, though. A day and a half of trying to get comfortable in a single seat that scarcely reclines, subsisting on galley food, enduring awkward conversations with strangers . . . I’m not looking forward to the return trip, I’ll say that much. If I make it at all.

But as mentioned above, I shouldn’t really have thought of it as some kind of odious burden to interact with my fellow passengers. I ought to have considered it practice. It’s been years since I’ve had any regular social interaction, but you’d think it’d be the kind of thing that’s difficult to forget—that the patterns of speech and behavior should come naturally, and be easily remembered. Not for me. Unless I’m being too hard on myself, and I’ve been guilty of such personal unkindness before. For all I know, I’m doing quite well. I have nothing to compare my progress to, so I must assume that any and all progress is to be lauded.

That’s how I’ll come at the matter: with optimism, rather than self-flagellation. I’m too old to beat up on myself like that anymore.

I’m also too old to travel comfortably for more than a few hours at a time. It was hell on my back and shoulders, trying to sleep with a little pillow—my head leaned against the space between the seatback and the window, rattling in that rumbling rhythm of the tracks. By the time I arrived in Birmingham, Alabama, I had a headache of immense proportions . . . combined with an intense desire to bathe and change clothes.

First, I needed to find my hotel.

No, first I needed to retrieve my trunk and find transportation, then the hotel. And then, to locate the Boston inspector who had so suddenly roused me from my isolation.

No, that wasn’t true, either—as it turned out. The inspector found me first, and thereby upended my half-formed plans.

The porter took my trunk down from the steps and I followed behind him, squinting against the midday sun. After the overcast dimness of the train cars, it was perfectly awful—and rather hot, once I stood outside, at the mercy of its full brilliance. The air wasn’t so bad; it wasn’t the muggy wonderland of outermost hell I’d heard about, but instead it was almost cool and dry. The sun, though . . . it was relentless up there, and it cooked me inside the navy blue travel dress I’d chosen for the trip.

“Can I find you a car, ma’am?” the porter offered, and I almost told him yes, that I’d appreciate it greatly—but someone else answered for me.