The Caged Graves Read online

  Not until Friday? That was four days away! She managed to bite back her first thought and shared only her second. “Why on Friday?”

  “The McClures expect us to attend a party.” Her father said the word party as if it meant having a tooth pulled. “Fanny McClure wants to welcome you home. That’s Nathaniel’s mother,” he added.

  “Yes, I know,” Verity replied. “He’s written me about his family.” Over the course of the last five months, they’d exchanged letters regularly. There’d been gifts as well: hair ribbons, and then kid gloves, and most recently a book of poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  “You’ll meet him then.” Ransloe Boone glanced at her. “That’s soon enough, isn’t it?”

  Verity smiled prettily, and her father took that as agreement.

  The rain started falling before they’d left the town. Verity glared at the sky, offended that it should rain on her homecoming. Ransloe Boone reached under the seat and hauled out an umbrella, which he handed to his daughter. She made an attempt to cover both of them, but he waved it off and settled his hat more firmly on his head.

  The country road passed verdant fields and hills, dairy farms, and orchards, interrupted by wooded areas of shrubs with long, folded leaves and bunches of white and pink flowers. She caught a hint of their sweet fragrance in the rain as they passed by. When the horse turned onto a narrow dirt road without a signal, Verity knew they must be nearly home.

  The first dwelling on the road was a green farmhouse with white shutters, immaculately tended. Rosebushes flanked the porch, and an arbor led to a garden in the back.

  “That’s the Thomas house,” her father said.

  Verity nodded. Her mother had grown up in this house, and her mother’s brother, John Thomas, now lived here with his family. Verity had no memory of the house or her uncle; she knew the Thomases only from their mention in letters. They were her father’s closest neighbors, although she saw this meant something different in the country than it did in the city.

  The Boone house was entirely hidden from view until they had gone nearly a mile down the mountain road and around a wide turn. The sight of it did not particularly cheer her. Small and plain, it had been painted a stark and serviceable white. She could see no speck of color anywhere, and overall the property seemed as unprepossessing as her stiff and distant father.

  A longing for Worcester and the family she’d left behind gripped her heart with startling intensity. She’d envisioned a happy—even romantic—arrival in Catawissa. Instead she was wet, bedraggled, and a stranger here.

  After hauling his daughter’s trunks upstairs, Ransloe Boone vanished, claiming an urgent need to store his farm equipment out of the rain. Verity surveyed the room she’d been given with dismay. She hadn’t expected anything like the bedchamber she’d shared with Polly and little Susan, adorned with personal mementos and steeped in laughter and shared confidences. But Aunt Maryett would have put out fresh flowers for a visitor, and no one had done that here. There was a bed with a plain counterpane, a wardrobe, a dressing table with a chair, a small washstand, and that was all.

  It was too quiet. She’d grown up in a house where the floorboards always shook with the vibration of running feet and the walls weren’t thick enough to muffle the mayhem caused by four boys. The Boone house, by contrast, was as lively as a tomb. Verity wandered downstairs to explore, hoping to find something that pleased her.

  The front parlor was clean and neat, but the curtains and furnishings were outdated. She doubted anything had been changed in the years since she’d left, yet not a single thing was familiar. I learned to walk here, she thought, looking around. I was an infant, and my mother rocked me—probably in that very chair. She touched the old wooden rocker with wonder. It was as if time had stopped in this house when Verity’s mother had died and Ransloe Boone had sent his only child away to be raised by distant relatives.

  In the old-fashioned dining room a framed photograph on the wall drew her eye. A dark-haired, dark-eyed woman with a luminous complexion and a knowing smile gazed out of the portrait—Sarah Ann Boone, her mother and the mistress of this house, dead these past fifteen years. Verity turned to look at her own reflection in the glass doors of the china cabinet. She took after her father, with light hair and green eyes.

  Returning her wistful gaze to the face of the mother she didn’t remember, she recalled Aunt Maryett’s strange farewell at the station the day before. The woman who’d raised her since the age of two had embraced her tearfully. Aunt Maryett had been opposed to this betrothal, arranged solely through letters. But Verity had been determined, and when her father sent money for the train tickets, Aunt Maryett gave in. At the last possible moment, she clasped Verity’s face between her hands and whispered, “Don’t mind anything you hear about your mother, dear. Sarah Ann was a generous and warm-hearted soul, but people can be spiteful, even after all these years. If it’s too terrible, you can always come home to us.”

  Verity had pulled back with a puzzled expression. But the train whistle was screaming, her chaperones eager to board lest they not find seats to their liking, and there’d been no time to ask questions.

  Now, after one last curious glance at the portrait, Verity left the dining room, heading for the kitchen, where she heard signs of life. When she entered, a tiny, white-haired woman turned to look at her with pursed lips and a wrinkled brow. Verity paused. She knew her father had a housekeeper—even knew her name—but hadn’t expected to be greeted with a scowl. “Hello. You must be Beulah Poole. I’m Verity.”

  “I know who you are.” The woman hefted a cast-iron pot onto the stove and returned to her work. She was dark skinned, perhaps part Indian, and her expression seemed no more welcoming than anything else in this house.

  “Can I help you with supper?” Verity peered over the woman’s shoulder. “I like to cook.”

  “I do the cooking.” The housekeeper scuttled sideways and looked at Verity in offense. “That’s my job.”

  “But—”

  “You’re probably tired from your trip. Why don’t you lie down, and I’ll call you when supper’s ready.” Beulah Poole dismissed her with a wave. Verity backed away, unhappy to be rebuffed but not prepared to quarrel with her father’s housekeeper in her first hour here.

  Retreating to her room, she started unpacking her trunks. When she came to a bundle of Nate’s letters, she sighed in relief. These, at least, were a comfort in this unfriendly place. Smiling, she opened the first one she’d ever received from him:

  My mother and your father would like to see us matched, and so I thought we should correspond and see if we might find each other agreeable. Your father has given me permission to write, but I will not presume beyond this one letter unless you write back and tell me I am welcome to send more.

  And, of course, there was the one in which he’d proposed.

  I am not often inclined to impulsive acts, but my instincts tell me we are of one mind on this matter. If I dare express myself boldly—I wish you would come home to Catawissa. And I will further expose myself to your mercy by venturing to offer you my heart, my home, and my hand in marriage.

  He’d included a formal portrait in one of his early letters. Nathaniel McClure was a solidly built young man with dark eyes and a stern gaze. His dark hair had been severely parted and combed down for the photograph. Verity thought he was nearly handsome and might be more so when he smiled. Surely a young man who read Elizabeth Barrett Browning would have a handsome smile.

  Friday, she thought with a little flutter of the heart. On Friday I will meet my future husband.

  Two

  WHEN VERITY’S first callers appeared shortly after noon the next day, she went out on the front porch to meet them. Several of them broke into a run at the sight of her, and she braced herself for the assault of a throng of small boys. “Cousin Verity! Cousin Verity!” they cried, elbowing one another out of the way in their eagerness to shove grubby handfuls of wilted flowers into her face.


  “Easy there, boys!” The man she guessed must be her uncle climbed up the stairs to the porch, holding a pie safely over his head. “You’ll knock her over! She might not be used to wrangling rascals like you.”

  “Oh, I’m accustomed to it well enough,” Verity assured him. The Gaines boys had been a rambunctious lot, too.

  “Welcome, Verity! I’m your uncle John.” He offered his free hand as soon as she was able to take it. John Thomas was a well-built, handsome man with dark hair and a bright, amiable smile. She saw the resemblance to her mother’s photograph at once.

  Verity glanced at the road, but no one else was in sight. Her uncle seemed to guess her thoughts. “My wife and my daughter couldn’t come this afternoon,” he explained. “They’re up to their elbows in blueberry pies. But I couldn’t hold back the boys any longer—they wanted to come up here last night, and I had to restrain them. So I availed myself of a pie and brought them for a visit, not knowing what mischief they might cause if I didn’t.”

  The boys rampaged past Verity, heading straight for the kitchen. Beulah took the pie from John Thomas’s hands, sliced it, and served it. As the children devoured the warm pastry, their father introduced them.

  The oldest and quietest of the lot was John Jr., who alone among the boys had not thrown himself into Verity’s arms upon arrival. At twelve Johnny seemed awkward and tongue-tied, although he held the promise of one day being as handsome as his father. By contrast the middle child, Piper, didn’t stop talking for a second. His face aglow with excitement, he bombarded Verity with questions about the trains she’d ridden from Massachusetts—what types of engines, how many cars, what speed, how much coal, and other queries she was ill-equipped to answer.

  The six-year-old twins, Samuel and Stephen, were indistinguishable even before they smeared blueberry all over themselves. “How will I tell them apart?” Verity exclaimed.

  “I can’t tell them apart,” her uncle admitted. He put a hand on the top of one twin’s head and turned it to face him. “Which one are you?” The child just grinned at his father with blue teeth.

  While the boys begged second slices from Beulah, John Thomas turned to Verity and raised the subject everyone was still talking about—the War Between the States. “Is Worcester recovering from the war? Did the city lose many men?”

  “There wasn’t any family unaffected,” she said. “Everybody lost a husband, a son, or a brother, or had someone return gravely injured.” Her uncle Benjamin Gaines had left for war in 1863 a strong and confident man and returned in 1865 with a permanent limp and a tendency to cringe at loud noises.

  Uncle John nodded his understanding. “The same can be said here. I’m just grateful the war ended before Johnny came of age. It would have cost us a fortune to keep him out.”

  Verity knew some men hired a substitute or paid a commutation fee to avoid conscription. Looking at the dapper and cheery man seated across from her, Verity wondered if he had done so. Her uncle didn’t look as if he’d ever seen a battlefield. The Gaines family hadn’t been able to afford such a luxury. Neither had her father, who’d served briefly at the end of the war.

  Mindful of Polly’s advice on tact, Verity kept back her opinion of men who paid their way out of service and agreed it was a very good thing her cousins would not have to go to war.

  Uncle John looked around. “Where’s Ransloe? Out in the fields working?” He turned and spoke to Beulah Poole. “Even with his daughter just come home after fifteen years away?”

  “He works hard,” Verity said in her father’s defense. John Thomas had his own farmland to tend but somehow found time to make social calls in the middle of the day. “I understand it’s a big property,” she continued. “He has only two men to help him. Beulah’s grandsons, I think.”

  “Grandsons, nephews, cousins,” her uncle said glibly. “They switch off periodically, don’t they, Beulah?” The woman nodded without even looking up from the sink. “We’ve got passels of Pooles around here; it’s one thing we’re never short of.”

  He spoke as if Beulah’s relations were weeds choking out the better crops. Verity frowned. She’d grown up among people committed to social reform and the rights of all men and women. She understood that country townsfolk might not be as enlightened, but her uncle’s comment had been downright rude. Verity glanced at Beulah, but the woman never turned around.

  “It’ll do Ransloe good to have Nathaniel here to help run things,” John Thomas went on, apparently unaware that he’d offended his niece and possibly his brother-in-law’s housekeeper.

  Verity nodded. She knew that her return and her proposed marriage were primarily a business arrangement between Ransloe Boone and the McClure family. The McClures wanted to acquire the land; her father didn’t want to let it go, but he was willing to pass it on to a son-in-law. It had been a frightening idea to Verity at first, but Nate had put her at ease with his letters and the book he’d sent as a gift. The volume of love poems, written by Elizabeth Barrett during her courtship with Robert Browning, had completely won her over.

  “Nathaniel’s a sensible boy,” her uncle said. “He’ll be an asset here, and it’ll be good to see life in this old house again.” A thought seemed to strike him. “Will you live here? Or with the McClures?”

  “We haven’t decided that yet,” Verity said. The subject had not come up in their letters.

  “You should live with Ransloe. Trust me, Verity; you don’t want to throw yourself into the stewpot at the McClure house.” Nathaniel had three older sisters, all married and living at the McClure house with their husbands and children. “You’d be better off establishing yourself here—wouldn’t she, Beulah?”

  “I couldn’t say, Mr. Thomas,” the housekeeper responded without looking up.

  Verity thought her uncle was probably correct, but she didn’t wish to speak for her intended—or her father.

  Beulah handed John Thomas the pie plate, now washed clean. The children had eaten every bite. “Not much of a gift, boys,” he remarked. “We bring it over and devour it ourselves. Verity will bar the door next time she sees us coming.” The proud expression on his face belied his words. “Clara and Liza will come calling in their own time.”

  “How old is your daughter?” Verity asked.

  “She’ll be fourteen this fall.” Then her uncle added in a thoughtless manner that Verity was beginning to suspect was typical of him, “Come to think of it, for a long time Liza had her cap set at your Nathaniel. I expect she’s shifted her affections to someone else now, since your engagement was announced.”

  Grand, thought Verity as she watched them all leave. A jealous cousin. That’s just grand.

  Perhaps Aunt Clara and Cousin Liza would come calling later, and there might be other visitors as well. She decided to bake a cake. Beulah put her hands on her bony hips and protested, “I’m expecting a delivery from the butcher. You’ll be in the way.”

  “I won’t take up much space,” Verity said, then promptly spilled flour all over herself, the table, and the floor. Beulah’s expression soured even more. “I’m not a very tidy cook,” Verity admitted, “but I clean up after myself when I’m done. I won’t leave it for you.”

  “I’ll get the broom” was Beulah’s only response. She left by the back kitchen door and let it slam shut behind her.

  Verity returned to her work, wiping flour off her nose with her sleeve and humming happily. She liked to bake. Once the war shortages had let up, she and Polly had spent hours cooking for the pure joy of it. There wasn’t a charity bake sale in Worcester that hadn’t held a table full of cakes and sweets prepared by Verity Boone and Polly Gaines.

  She heard the back door open again but didn’t bother to turn around until Beulah called her name. “Miss Verity!”

  Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Beulah standing in the doorway with a broom in her hand and, behind her, a young man lingering on the threshold. “Are you from the butcher?” Verity asked. “You can just put everything in the sp
ringhouse.” She used her sleeve again to wipe her face and went on beating the batter.

  Nobody moved. The fellow cleared his throat uncomfortably. “He’s not from the butcher, Miss Verity,” said Beulah.

  Her tone gave Verity pause. Very carefully, she laid down the spoon and turned around again, wiping her hands across her apron. The housekeeper smiled smugly.

  Verity took another look at the young man in the doorway.

  “Hello, Verity,” he said.

  “Oh,” she replied. “Hello, Nate.”

  Three

  BELATEDLY SHE recognized his face—those dark brows and that stern gaze. His eyes were a surprise. They had appeared dark in the photograph, but they were blue—the deep indigo of a stormy sky. He looked quite different dressed in the casual attire of a gentleman farmer, a shirt open at the throat and a coat that had been patched several times. His dark hair was tousled, as if he’d been riding or walking without a hat, and he had a rugged look, quite unlike the stiff young man in the photograph.

  At the moment Verity didn’t much resemble the formal portrait she’d sent him either. She forced herself to untie her apron slowly, with dignity, rather than ripping it off. Removing the apron wouldn’t help much. She was wearing her oldest dress, her hair was messily tied up out of the way, and her face was smudged with flour.

  “I’m sorry I came unannounced,” he said.

  She summoned a brave smile. “I didn’t expect to see you until Friday.”

  That seemed to puzzle him for a moment, but then he nodded. “Oh, the party. My mother wanted to welcome you home with a celebration. She also thought,” he added slowly, “that if you and I met for the first time in front of my family and yours and everybody in town, it would be highly amusing. For her and everybody else.” Nathaniel McClure watched her intently; Verity found herself unable to look away. “I decided I’d come meet you on my own terms.”