Fire Watch

SERVICE FOR THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

I should not have come, Anne thought, clenching her gloved hands in her lap. She had come early so that she could sit well to the back, but not so early that people would talk. She had hesitated at the back of the church for only a moment, to take a deep breath and put her head up proudly, and in that moment old Mr. Finn had swooped down on her, taken her arm, and led her to the empty pew behind the one tied off with black ribbon for the mourning family.

I should not have come alone, she thought. I should have made my father come. Even as she thought it she saw her father’s red and angry face as she tied on her black bonnet.

“You are going to the funeral, then?” he had said.

“Yes, Father.” She had buttoned her gray pelisse over her gray silk, tied her chip bonnet under her chin.

“And not even wear black?”

She had calmly put on her gloves. “My black cloak is ruined,” she had said, thinking of his face that night when she came in, the black wool cloak soaked with frozen rain, the hem of her black merino heavy with mud. He had thought she’d killed Elliott even then, before the news that he was missing, before they had started dragging the river. He still believed it and would have shown it in his red, guilty face when he walked her down the aisle at the funeral. But he would at least have walked her to a safe corner, protecting her from the talk of the townspeople, if not from their thoughts. Perhaps they thought she had murdered Elliott, too, or perhaps they only thought she had no pride, and that at least was true.

She had lost what little pride she had that night, waiting on the island for Elliott. She had not even thought what it would mean when she agreed to meet him. She had thought only of wearing her warmest clothes against the November rain, the black merino, the black wool cloak, her sturdy boots. Only after she had stood in the rain for hours under the oak tree, its bare branches no protection from the wind or the approaching dark, had she thought what a terrible thing she was doing. When he comes, I must say no, she thought, the winter rain dripping off her ruined bonnet.

He had no intention of throwing Victoria over as he had thrown her over. Victoria was small and fair and had a wealthy father. The marriage was set for Christmas. Victoria’s brother, now at sea, had been sent for to be best man at the wedding. Elliott had not even been kind enough to tell her of his engagement. Her father had told her. “No,” she had said, and thought as she said it that it must be true because she had never, in all the time she had loved Elliott, been able to say no to him.

Was that why she had agreed to meet him on the island? Because she still could not say “no,” even when it meant her downfall? It did not matter. He had not come. She had waited nearly all night, and when she crept home, chilled to the bone, she knew she would not have been able to say no if he had. She could summon no anger at him, and when they found his boat, no grief. She did not feel anything and that had helped her to walk with old Mr. Finn to the front of the church, her eyes dry, no guilty color in her cheeks.

But I cannot, cannot sit here and face Victoria, she thought. I cannot do that to her. She has never done anything to me.

It was already too late for her to walk back down the aisle. There was a side door quite close to her that the minister entered by. It led down a hall to the choirs robing room and the vestry. There was a door just outside the vestry that led to the sideyard of the church. If she hurried, she could escape that way before Reverend Sprague brought the family in.

Escape. Was that how it would look? The murderess overcome by guilt? The discarded sweetheart overcome by remorse or grief or shame? It doesn’t matter what they think, Anne thought. I cannot do this to Victoria.

She put her gloved hand on the back of the pew in front of her. Behind her a man coughed, trying to muffle the sound with his hand. Anne pulled her handkerchief from her muff and put it to her mouth. She coughed twice, paused, coughed again, and stood up and walked quickly to the side door.

She shut the door behind her and hurried along the drafty hall, shivering in the thin silk and the light pelisse.

“Let us pray,” Reverend Sprague said, and she found herself almost upon the family. They stood in a dejected little knot, their heads bowed, Victoria and her father and Elliott’s father. The face of Elliott’s father was gray, and he leaned heavily on his cane, his eyes open and staring blindly at the wall.

Ann backed hastily down the hall to the robing room. The door was locked, but there was a large key in the keyhole. She turned it, rattling it loudly in her haste. “Anne,” she could hear Reverend Sprague say, and she pulled the key free, opened the door and slipped inside, pulling the door to behind her. It was very dark. Anne felt along the wall for a lamp sconce. Her foot brushed against something, and she bent down. It was a candle in a metal holder. Two phosphorus matches lay in the candleholder, and she struck one, lit the candle, and still kneeling, looked at the room.

It looked as if it had not been used in years. Reverend Sprague did not approve of robes and other “papist trappings” except at Christmas. The black robes hanging on their pegs were heavy with dust. Two black-varnished pews stood against one wall, and several wooden chairs. Anne stood up, holding the candle. She shook the dust from the hem of her dress and went to the door. The organ had begun.

She blew out the candle and set it on one of the dusty pews, still listening. The organ stopped, and then started again, and she could hear the low rumble of the congregation singing. She felt her way to the door and opened it a little to make certain no one was in the hall. Then she let herself out and replaced the key in the lock. The organ ground into the amen. She nearly ran down the hall.

Anne was almost at the door before she saw the man. He had just come in and had turned to close the door gently behind him. Anne did not recognize him. He had reddish-brown hair under a soft, dark cap and was wearing a short dark coat and heavy boots. Victoria’s brother, Anne thought, and waited for him to turn.

He seemed to be having some trouble with the door. He could not seem to shut it, and when he straightened, Anne could see a thin line of light where the door was still open. The man turned around.

“Elliott,” Anne said.

He smiled disarmingly. “You look as though you’d seen a ghost,” he said. “Did I frighten you?” he said, as though he were amused at the idea. The organ began again.

“Elliott,” she said. He didn’t seem to hear her. He was looking toward the sanctuary. Under the dark open coat he was wearing a white silk shirt and a black damask vest. Anne thought of her own ruined cloak. He had not come to meet her after all. He had left her standing on the island in the rain all night long. He had left them all thinking he was dead. “Where have you been?” she whispered.

“Away,” he said lightly. “When you didn’t come to meet me I decided to go up to Hartford. What’s going on in there? A funeral?”

“Your funeral,” she said. She could not get her voice above a whisper. “We thought you were drowned. They dragged the river.”

“I have always liked funerals,” Elliott said as if he had not heard her. “The weeping fiancee, the distraught father, the minister extolling the deceased’s virtues. Are there flowers?”

“Flowers?” Anne said blankly. “They found the boat, Elliott. It was all broken apart.”

“Of course there are flowers. Hothouse lilies. Victoria’s father will have sent all the way to New York for them. Well, he can afford it. Tell me, are little Vicky’s pretty gray eyes red from weeping?”

Anne did not answer him. He turned suddenly away from her. “As you won’t tell me anything, I shall have to go see for myself.” He started down the hall, his boots making a terrible noise on the wooden floor.

“You mustn’t go in there, Elliott,” Anne said. She started to put her hand on Elliott’s arm, but she drew it back.

Elliott wheeled to face her. “First you won’t meet me on the island, and now you keep me from my own funeral. Yet you never said no to me when we met on the island, our island, last summer, did you, sweet Anne?”

“I did meet you…” she stammered. “I waited all night—I—Elliott, your father collapsed when he heard the news. His heart—”

“—might stop at the sight of me. I should like to see that. You see, sweet Anne, you give me even more reason to attend my funeral. Unless you are trying to keep me to yourself. Is that it, Anne? Are you sorry now you didn’t meet me on the island?”

She stood there, thinking miserably, I cannot stop him. I have not ever been able to stop him from doing anything he wanted.

He had turned again and was nearly to the door of the sanctuary. “Wait,” Anne said. She hurried to him, brushing past the door of the robing room as she did. The key clattered out of the lock, and the door swung open.

Elliott stopped and looked at the key on the floor between them. “You would lock me in a hideaway and keep me all to yourself, is that it?”

“You mustn’t go in there, Elliott,” she repeated stolidly thinking of his father leaning on his cane, of Victoria’s bent head, of Elliott’s easy smile when he went into the sanctuary to greet them. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost,” he would say lightly, and watch the color leave his father’s face.

“I won’t let you,” she said.

“How are you going to stop me?” he said. “Did you plan to lock me in the robing room and come to me at night, as you came to the island last summer? If you long for me so much, how can I resist you? Very well, sweet Anne, lock me in.” He stepped inside the door and stood there smiling easily. “It is sad that I must miss my own funeral, but I do it to please you, Anne.”

The organ had stopped again, and in the sudden silence Anne knelt and picked up the key.

“Elliott,” she said uncertainly He folded his arms across his chest. “You want me all to yourself. Then you shall have me. No one, not even Vicky, will know that I am here. It will be our secret, sweet Anne. I will be your prisoner, and you will come to me.” He gestured toward the door. “Lock me in, Anne. The funeral is nearly over.”

Anne looked at the heavy key in her hand. There was a sudden burst of music and singing from the sanctuary Anne looked uneasily toward the sanctuary door. In a moment Reverend Sprague would open that door.

“You will come, won’t you, Anne?” Elliott said. He was leaning against the wall. “You won’t forget?”

“There’s a candle on the pew,” Anne said, and shut the door in his face. She turned the key in the lock, and then, not knowing what else to do, thrust the key into her muff, and ran for the sideyard door.

She was too late. People were already spilling out the double doors onto the dead brown grass of the sideyard. The biting wind caught the door and slammed it shut. Everyone stopped and looked up at Anne.

Anne walked through them as if they were not even there, unmindful of how she held her head, of how she looked in the gray pelisse and the guilty chip bonnet. She did not even hear the light footsteps behind her until a soft voice called to her.

“Anne? Miss Lawrence? Please wait.”

She turned. It was Victoria Thatcher, her pretty gray eyes red with weeping. She was clutching a little black prayer book. “I wanted to tell you how grateful I am you came,” she said.

Anne was suddenly furious with her tearstained face, her gentle words. He doesn’t love you, she almost said. He wanted to meet me at night on the island, and I went. He’s in the robing room now, waiting for me. He isn’t dead, but I wish he were and so should you.

“Your kindness means a great deal to me,” Victoria said haltingly. “I-my father has just now gone to Hartford to attend to some business of Elliott’s, and I have no friends here. Elliott’s father has been kindness itself, but he is not well, and I-you were very kind to come. Please say you will be kind again and come to tea someday.”

“I…”

Victoria bit her lip and ducked her head, then looked straight up at Anne. “I know what they are saying about Elliott’s death. I want you to know that I don’t believe them. I know you didn’t…” She stopped and ducked her head again. “I know you pray for his soul, as I do.”

He doesn’t have a soul, Anne thought. You should pray for his father and for yourself. And what is it that you don’t believe? That I murdered him? Or that I met him on the island?

Victoria looked up at Anne again, her gray eyes filled with tears. “Please, if you loved Elliott, too, then that is all the more reason to be friends now that he is gone.”

But he isn’t gone, Anne thought desperately. He is sitting in the robing room laughing to think of us standing here. He is not dead, but I wish that he were. For your sake. For all our sakes.

“Thank you for inviting me to tea,” Anne said, and walked rapidly away.

Anne went to the church after supper, taking ham and cake wrapped in brown paper. Elliott was sitting in the dark. “I had to wait until my father had his supper,” Anne said, lighting the candle. “I had to sneak out of the house.”

Elliott grinned. “It’s not the first time, is it?”

She put the parcel down on the pew next to the candle. “You cannot stay here,” she said.

He opened up the package. “I rather like it here. It is dry at least, too cold, but otherwise very comfortable. I have good food and you to do my bidding. There will be few enough tears of joy at my resurrection. Why shouldn’t I stay here?”

“Your father has taken to his bed.”

“From joy? Has the bereaved fiancee taken to her bed, too? She never would take to mine.”

“Victoria is caring for your father. Her own father has gone to Hartford to settle your affairs. You can’t let them persist in thinking you are dead.”

“Ah, but I can. And must. At least until Victoria’s father pays my debts. And until you pay for not meeting me at the island.”

“It is wrong to do this, Elliott,” she said. “I shall tell.”

“I do not think so,” he said. “For I should have to say then that I had never gone on the river at all, but only hidden away with you. And then what will happen to my poor stayabed father and my rich Victoria? You will not tell.”

“I will not come again,” she said. “I will not bring you your supper.”

“And leave the minister to find my bones? Oh, you will come again, sweet Anne.”

“No,” Anne said. “I won’t.” She did not lock the door, in the hope that he would change his mind, but she took the key. In case, she thought, without even knowing the meaning of her own words. In case I need it.

Anne’s father answered the door before she could get halfway down the stairs. She saw the sudden stiffening of his back, the sudden grayness of his ears and neck, and she thought, It is Elliott.

She had gone to the church every night for three days, taking him food and candles and once a comforter because he complained of the cold, taking the same useless arguments. Victoria’s father came home, spent a morning at the bank, and left again. Victoria went past every morning on her way to visit Elliott’s father, looking smaller and more pale every day There was still no word from her brother. On the third day she wrote asking Anne to tea.

Anne had shown the note to Elliott. “How can you do this to her?” she said.

“To you, you mean. You accepted, of course. It should be rather a lark.”

“I refused. You must think about what you are putting her through, Elliott.”

“And what about what I’ve been through? In an open boat in the middle of the night in the middle of a storm. I don’t even remember getting ashore. I had to walk halfway to Haddam before I was able to borrow a horse at an inn. Think what you’ve put me through, Anne, all because you didn’t choose to meet me. Now I don’t choose to meet them.” He fumbled with the comforter, trying to cover his knees.

Anne had felt too tired to fight him anymore. She had put the packet of food down on the pew and turned away.

“Leave the door open,” Elliott had said. “I don’t like being shut in this coffin of a room. And tell me when Victoria’s father comes in again with all my debts honored.”

He will never come out, Anne had thought despairingly, but now, standing on the landing watching her father, she thought, He has come out after all, and hurried down the steps. When she reached the foot of the stairs, her father turned to her and said accusingly, “It is Miss Thatcher. She has come to call.” He walked past her up the stairs without another word.

“It was improper of me to come,” Victoria said. “Now your father is angry with me.”

“He is angry with me. You have done nothing improper, unless showing kindness is improper.” They were still standing in the wind at the door. “Won’t you come in?” Anne said. “I’ll make some tea.”

Victoria put her hand on Anne’s arm. “I did not come to call. I—now I must ask a kindness of you.” She had not worn gloves, and her hand was icy even through the wool of Anne’s sleeve.

“Come in and tell me,” she said, and once more she thought, It’s Elliott. Victoria stepped into the hall, but she would not let Anne take her black cloak or bonnet, and when Anne went to shut the door, she said, “I cannot stay I must go to Dr. Sawyers. He—a body has been found in the river. Near Haddam. I must go to see if it is Elliott.”

A tremendous wave of anger swept over Anne at Elliott. She almost said, “He is not dead. He’s in the robing room,” but Victoria, once she had started, could not seem to stop. “My father has gone to Hartford,” she said. “There was some trouble about gambling debts of Elliott’s. My brother is still at sea. We have had no news of his ship. Elliott’s father is too ill to go. My father went in his place to Hartford, and now there is no one to see to this. I cannot ask Elliott’s father. It would kill him to see. I came to ask your father, but now I fear I have angered him and there is no one else to—”

“I will go with you,” Anne said, throwing on her gray pelisse. It was far too light for the cold day, but she was afraid to take the time to go back upstairs for something heavier for fear Victoria would be too distraught to wait. I cannot let Elliott do this, she thought. I will tell her what he has done.

But there was no chance. Victoria walked so fast that Anne nearly ran to keep up with her, and the words flowed out of her in great painful spurts, as if an artery had been cut somewhere. “My brother should be here by now. There’s been no word from New London, where they are to dock. He cannot have been delayed in port. But the storms have been so fierce I fear for his ship. I wrote him on the day that Elliott was first missed. I knew that he was dead, that first day. My father said not to worry, that he was only delayed, that we must not give up hope, and now my brother Roger is delayed, and there is no one to tell me not to worry.”

They were on Dr. Sawyer’s doorstep. Victoria knocked, her bare hands red from the cold, and the doctor let them in immediately. He did not take their wraps. “It will be cold,” he said, and led them swiftly down the hall past his office to the back of his house. “I am so sorry your father is not here. It is no work for young ladies.” If they would only stop, she would tell them, but they did not stop, even for a moment. Anne hurried after them.

The doctor opened the door into a large square room. It made Anne think of a kitchen because of the long table. There was a sheet over the table, dragging almost to the floor. Victoria was very pale. “I do not like this at all, Victoria,” Dr. Sawyer said, speaking more and more rapidly “If your father were here—It is a nasty business.”

Anne thought, As soon as she sees it isn’t Elliott, I will tell them. Dr. Sawyer pulled the sheet back from the body.

It was as if the time, so hurried along by them, had stopped stock-still. The man had been dead several days. Since the storm, Anne thought. He was drowned in the storm. His black coat was still damp and stained like her cloak had been when she had tried to wash away the mud. He was wearing a white silk shirt and a black damask vest. There was a gray silk handkerchief in the vest pocket, wrinkled and water-spotted. He looked cold.

Victoria put her hand out toward the body and then drew it back and groped for Anne’s hand. “I’m sorry,” Dr. Sawyer said, and looked down at the body lying on the table.

It was Elliott.

“It’s about time you got here,” Elliott said, getting up. He had been lying on the pew, his coat folded up under his head. He had unbuttoned his shirt and opened his black vest. “I’ve been wasting away.”

Anne handed him the parcel silently, looking at him. There was a gray silk handkerchief in the pocket of his vest.

“Did you go to tea at Vickys?” he said, unwrapping the brown paper from the slices of bread, the baked ham, the russets. He was having some difficulty with the string. “Comforting the bereaved and all that? What fun!”

“No,” Anne said. She watched him, waiting. He could not untie the string. He laid the packet on the seat beside him. “We went to Dr. Sawyer’s.”

“Why? Is my revered father Sinking or does pretty Vicky have the vapors?”

“We went to see a body to see if we could identify it.”

“Ugh. A grisly business, I should imagine. Pretty Vicky fainting with relief at the sight of some bloated stranger, Dr. Sawyer ready with the smelling salts—”

“It was your body, Elliott.”

She had expected him to look shocked or furtive or frightened. Instead, he put his hands behind his head and leaned back against them, smiling at her. “How is that possible, sweet Anne? Or have you been having the vapors, too?”

“How did you get from the river to Haddam, Elliott? You never told me.”

He did not change his position. “A horse was grazing by the riverside. I leaped upon his back, the true horseman, and galloped home to you.”

“You said you got the horse at an inn.”

“I didn’t want to offend your sensibilities by telling you I stole the horse. Perhaps I overjudged your sense of delicacy. You seem to have no qualms about accusing me of—what is it exactly you’re accusing me of? Murdering some harmless passerby and dressing him in my clothes? Impossible. As you can see, I am still wearing them.”

“My cloak is ruined beyond repair,” she said slowly. “My boots were caked with mud. The hem of my dress was stained and torn. How did you manage to ride a horse all the way from Haddam in a storm and arrive with your boots polished and your coat brushed?”

He sat up suddenly and grabbed for her hands. She stepped back. “You did all that for me, Anne?” he said. “Waiting on the island, drenched and dirty? No wonder you are angry. But this is no way to punish me. Locking me in this dusty room, telling me ghost stories. I’ll buy you a new cloak, darling.”

“Why haven’t you eaten anything I’ve brought you? You said you were famished. You said you hadn’t eaten for days.”

He let go of her hands. “When should I have eaten it? You’ve been here all this time, badgering me with silly questions. I’ll eat it now.” He picked up the paper packet and set it on his lap.

Anne watched him. His hands were windburned to a dark red. The body’s hands had had no color. It was as if the river had washed it away.

Elliott fumbled with the brown paper on the bread. “Bread and cake and my own sweet Anne. What man could ask for more?” But he still didn’t open the packet, and after a few minutes he replaced it on the seat. “I’ll eat it after you’ve gone,” he said petulantly “You’ve made me lose my appetite with all this talk of dead men.”

When she went back the next day, he was fully dressed, his gray handkerchief neatly folded in his vest pocket, his coat on. “What time’s the funeral?” he said gaily “The second funeral, of course. How many funerals shall I have, I wonder? And will I have to pay for all the flowers when I return?”

“It is this afternoon,” Anne said, wondering as soon as she said it if she should not have lied to him. She had dressed for the funeral, thinking all the while she would not go see him, that it was too dangerous, concentrating on dressing warmly in her brushed and cleaned wool merino, on taking her muff. But the key was in her muff, and as soon as she saw it, she knew that she had meant to go see him all along. It was just like the night she had gone to meet him on the island. She had not cared about warmth then, only about not being seen, and she had dressed in her black cloak and her black dress, her black bonnet, as if she were going someplace else altogether. As if, she realized now, she were dressing for a funeral.

“This afternoon,” he repeated. “Then Victoria’s father is back from Hartford?”

“Yes.”

“And my father, is he well enough to attend? Leaning on his cane and murmuring, 'A bad end. I knew he would come to a bad end.’ Is it to be a graveside service?” Elliott said, picking up his hat.

“Yes,” she said in alarm. “Where are you going?”

“With you, of course. To the funeral. I missed my first one.”

“You can’t,” she said, and backed slightly toward the door, clutching the key inside her muff.

“I think,” he said coldly, “that this little game has gone on long enough. I never should have let you dissuade me from walking in on the first funeral. I certainly shall not let you keep me from this one.”

Anne was so horrified she could not move. “You’ll kill your father,” she said.

“Well, and good riddance. You shall have someone to bury then besides this poor stranger who is masquerading as me.”

“We are burying you, Elliott,” she said, and there was something in his face when she said that that gave him away “You know you’re dead, don’t you, Elliott?” she said quietly.

He put his hat on. “We shall see if my fiancee thinks I am dead. Or her father. How glad he will be to see me alive and free of debt! He shall welcome me with open arms, his son-in-law to be. And pretty Vicky; she shall be a bride instead of a widow.”

Anne thought of Victoria’s kind gray eyes, her little hand holding Anne’s hand in the doctors kitchen, of Victoria’s father, grim-faced and protective, his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Why are you doing this terrible thing, Elliott?” Anne said.

“I do not like coffins. They are small and dark and dusty. And cold. Like this room. I will not let them lock me in the grave as you have locked me in.”

Anne sucked in her breath sharply.

“They will be so overjoyed they will quite forget what they have gone to the cemetery to do.” He smiled disarmingly at her. “They will quite forget to bury me.”

Anne backed against the door. “I won’t let you,” she said.

“Dear Anne, how will you stop me?”

She had not locked him in, not since the funeral. She had left the door unlocked each night in the hope that he would come out. “Leave the door open,” he had shouted after her, but he had not opened it himself. When she went back the door was still shut, as if she had locked him in. “I will lock you in,” she said aloud, and clutched the key inside her muff.

Elliott laughed. “What good will that do? If I am a ghost, I should be able to pass through the walls and come floating across the cemetery to you, shouldn’t I, Anne?”

“No,” she said steadily “I won’t let you.”

“No?” he said, and laughed again. “When have you ever said no to me and meant it? You do not mean it now.” He took a step toward her. “Come. We will go together.”

“No!” she said, and whirled, opening and shutting the door behind her in one motion, pulling on the knob with all her strength till she could get the key into the lock and turn it. Elliott’s hand was on the knob on the other side, turning it.

“Stop this foolishness and let me out, Anne,” he said, half laughing, half stern.

“No,” she said.

She put the key in the muff, and then, as if that had taken all her strength, she walked a few steps into the sanctuary and sank down on a pew. It was the one she had sat in that day of the funeral, and she put her arms down on the pew in front of her and buried her head in them. Inside the muff, her hand still clutched the key.

“Can I be of help, Miss Lawrence?” Reverend Sprague said kindly. He was wearing his heavy black coat and carrying The Service for the Burial of the Dead.

“Yes,” Anne said, and stood up to go to the cemetery with him.

The coffin was already in the grave. The dirt was heaped around the edges, as dry and pale as the grass. The sky was heavy and gray. It was very cold. Victoria came forward to greet Reverend Sprague and speak to Anne. “I am so glad you came,” she said, taking Anne’s gloved hand. “We have only just heard,” she said, her gray eyes filling with tears, and Anne thought suddenly, He has already been here.

Victoria’s father came and put his arm around his daughter. “We have had word from New London,” he said. “My son’s ship was lost in a storm. With all hands.”

“No,” Anne said. “Your brother.”

“We still hope and pray he may not be lost,” Victoria’s father said. “They were very near the coast.”

“He is not lost,” Anne said, almost to herself, “he will come today,” and she did not know of whom she spoke.

“Let us pray,” Reverend Sprague said, and Anne thought, Yes, yes, hurry. They all moved closer to the grave as if that could somehow shelter them from the iron-gray sky “In the midst of life we are in death,” Reverend Sprague read. “Of whom may we seek for succor, but of thee, O Lord?”

Anne closed her eyes.

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” It was beginning to snow. Reverend Sprague stopped to look at the flakes falling on the book and lost the page altogether. When he found it, he said, “Pardon me,” and began again. “In the midst of life…”

Hurry, Anne thought. Oh, hurry.

Far away, at the other side of the cemetery, across the endless stretch of grayish-brown grass and gray-black stones, someone was coming. The minister hesitated. Go on, Anne thought. Go on.

“That every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.’”

It was a man in a dark coat. He was carrying his hat in his hand. His hair was reddish-brown. There were flakes of snow on his coat and in his hair. Anne was afraid to look at him for fear the others would see him. She bowed her head. Reverend Sprague bent and scooped up a handful of dirt from the edge of the grave. “Unto the mercy of Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we commend the soul of our brother departed and commit his body to the ground, earth to earth—” He stopped, still holding the handful of earth.

Anne looked up. The man was much closer, walking rapidly between the graves. Victoria’s father looked up. His face went gray

“Unto the mercy of Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed,” Reverend Sprague read, and stopped again, and stared.

Victoria’s father put his arm around Victoria. Victoria looked up. The man began to run toward them, waving his hat in the air.

“No,” Anne said. With the toe of her boot she kicked at the dirt heaped around the grave. The dislodged clumps of dirt clattered on the coffin. Reverend Sprague looked at her, his face red and angry. He thinks I murdered Elliott, Anne thought despairingly, but I didn’t. She clenched the useless key inside her muff and looked down at the forgotten coffin. I tried, Victoria. For your sake. For all our sakes. I tried to murder Elliott.

Victoria gave a strangled cry and began to run, her father close behind her. Reverend Sprague closed his book with an angry slap. “Roger!” Victoria cried, and threw her arms around his neck. Anne looked up.

Victoria’s father slapped him on the back again and again. Victoria kissed him and cried. She took his large hand in her small gloved one and led him over to meet Anne. “This is my brother!” she said happily. “Roger, this is Miss Lawrence, who has been so kind to me.”

He shook Anne’s hand.

“We heard your ship was lost,” she said.

“It was,” he said, and looked past her at the open grave.

Anne stood outside the door of the choir room with the key in her hand until her fingers became stiff with cold and she could hardly put the key in the lock.

There was no one in the church. Reverend Sprague had gone home with Victoria and her father and brother to tea. “Please come,” Victoria had said to Anne. “I do so want you and Roger to be friends.” She had squeezed Anne’s gloved hand and hurried off through the snow. It was nearly dusk. The snow had begun falling heavily by the time they finished burying Elliott’s body. Reverend Sprague had read the service for the burial of the dead straight through to the end, and then they had stood, heads bowed against the snow, while old Mr. Finn filled in the grave. Then they had gone to tea and Anne had come back here to the church.

She turned the key in the lock. The rattling sound of the key seemed to be followed by an echo of itself, and she thought for a fleeting second of Elliott on the other side of the door, his hand already on the knob, ready to hurtle past her. Then she opened the door.

There was no one there. She knew it before she lit the candle. There had been no one there all week except herself. Her small heeled footprints stood out clearly in the dust. The pew where Elliott had sat was thick with undisturbed dust, and in one corner of it lay the comforter she had brought him.

The toe of her foot hit against something on the floor, half under the pew. She bent to look. The packets of food, untouched in their brown paper wrappings, lay where Elliott had hidden them. A mouse had nibbled the string on one of them, and it lay spilled open, the piece of ham, the russet apple, the crumbling slice of cake she had brought him that first night. A schoolboy’s picnic, Anne thought, and left the parcels where they were for Reverend Sprague to find and think whatever it was he would think about the footprints, the candle, the scattered food.

Let him think the worst, Anne thought. After all, it’s true. I have murdered Elliott. It was getting very cold in the room. “I must go to tea at Victoria’s,” she said, and blew out the candle. By the dim light from the hall she picked up the comforter and folded it over her arm. She dropped the key on the floor and left the door open behind her.

“So there I was, all alone,” Roger said, “in the middle of a rough sea, my shirt frozen to my back, not one of my shipmates in sight, when what should I spy but the whaling boat.” He paused expectantly.

Anne pulled the comforter around her shoulders and leaned forward over the fire to warm her hands.

“Would you like some tea?” Victoria said kindly “Roger, we’re eager to hear your story, but we must get poor Anne warmed up. I’m afraid she got a dreadful chill at the cemetery.”

“I’m feeling much warmer now, thank you,” Anne said, but she didn’t refuse the tea. She wrapped her hands around the warmth of the thin china cup. Roger left his story to jab clumsily at the fire with the poker.

“Now then,” Victoria said when the coals had roared up into new flames, “you may tell us the rest of your story, Roger.”

Roger still squatted by the hearth, holding the poker loosely in his rough, windburned hands.

“There’s nothing else to tell,” he said, looking up at Anne. “The oars were still in the whaling boat. I rowed for shore.” He had gray eyes like Victoria’s. His hair in the firelight was darker than hers and with a reddish cast to it. Almost as dark as Elliott’s. “I walked to an inn and hired a horse. When I got here, they told me you were at the cemetery. I was afraid you’d given up hope and were burying me.”

His smile was more open than Elliott’s, and his eyes more kind. His windburned hands looked strong and full of life, but he held the poker clumsily, as if his hands were cold and he could not get a proper grip on it. Anne took the comforter from around her shoulders and put it across her knees.

“You haven’t eaten a thing since you got home,” Victoria said. “And after all that time in an open boat, I’d think you would be starving.”

Roger put the poker down on the hearth and took the cup of tea his sister gave him in both hands. He held it steadily enough, but he did not drink any. “I ate at the inn where I hired the horse,” he said.

“How did you say you found the horse?” Anne said, as if she had not heard them. She held out a slice of cake to him on a thin china plate.

“I borrowed it from the man at the inn. He gave me some clothes to wear, too. Mine were ruined, and I’d lost my boots in the water. I must have been a sorry sight, knocking at his door late at night. He looked as though he’d seen a ghost.” He smiled at Anne, and his eyes were kinder than Elliott’s had ever been. “So did all of you,” he said. “I felt for a moment as if I’d come to my own funeral.”

“No,” Anne said, and smiled back at him, but she watched him steadily as he took the slice of cake, and waited for him to eat it.