The Bone Garden Read online

  “And the college that Dr. Holmes and Norris Marshall attended?”

  “Boston Medical College was one of the better ones. But even their students had to scramble for cadavers. A wealthy student could pay a resurrectionist to obtain a corpse for study. But if you were poor, like Mr. Marshall, you had to go out and dig up a body yourself. It appears this was also the way he paid for his tuition.”

  Julia shuddered. “Now, there’s a work-study program I wouldn’t want any part of.”

  “But it was a way for a poor man to become a doctor. Not an easy way, by any means. To get into medical school you didn’t need a college degree, but you did need to be familiar with Latin and physics. Norris Marshall must have taught himself those subjects—no mean feat for a farmer’s son without ready access to a library.”

  “He had to be incredibly bright.”

  “And determined. But the rewards were obvious. Becoming a doctor was one of the few ways to advance in society. Physicians were respected. Although while in training, medical students were viewed with disgust, even fear.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they were thought of as vultures, preying on the bodies of the dead. Digging them up, cutting them open. To be sure, the students often brought condemnation on themselves by their antics, by all the practical jokes they played with body parts. Waving severed arms out the window, for example.”

  “They did that?”

  “Remember, these are young men, only in their early twenties. And men that age aren’t known for their superior judgment.” He pushed the book toward her. “It’s all in here.”

  “You’ve already read up on it?”

  “Oh, I know a great deal about the subject. My father and grandfather were doctors, and I’ve heard these stories since I was a child. Almost every generation, in fact, has produced a doctor in our family. The medical gene skipped me, I’m afraid, but the tradition continues with my grandnephew. When I was growing up, my grandfather told me a story about a student who smuggled a woman’s corpse out of anatomy lab. He put it in his roommate’s bed, as a practical joke. They thought it was quite hilarious.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “Most of the public would’ve agreed with you. Which explains why there were anatomy riots, when outraged mobs attacked schools. It happened in Philadelphia and Baltimore and New York. Any medical school, in any city, could find itself burned to the ground. Public horror and suspicion ran so deep that all it took was a single incident to touch off a riot.”

  “It seems to me their suspicions were well founded.”

  “But where would we be today if doctors couldn’t dissect corpses? If you believe in medical science, then you must also accept the necessity of anatomical study.”

  In the distance, the ferry’s horn bellowed. Julia looked at her watch and stood. “I need to get going, Henry. If I’m to catch the next boat.”

  “When you come back, you can help me bring up the boxes from the cellar.”

  “Is that an invitation?”

  He thumped his cane on the floor in exasperation. “I thought it was understood!”

  She looked at the stack of unopened boxes and thought of the treasures inside them, still unexplored, the letters still to be read. She had no idea if the identity of the skeleton in her garden might lie inside those boxes. What she did know was that the story of Norris Marshall and the West End Reaper had already lured her into its spell, and she was hungry to know more.

  “You are coming back, aren’t you?” said Henry.

  “Let me check my calendar.”

  It was close to dinnertime when she finally arrived home in Weston. Here at least, the sun was shining, and she looked forward to lighting up the barbecue and sipping a glass of wine in the back garden. But when she pulled into her driveway and saw the silver BMW that was already parked there, her stomach clenched so tightly that just the thought of wine made her nauseated. What was Richard doing here?

  She got out of her car and glanced around, but didn’t see him. Only when she stepped out the kitchen door into the backyard did she spot him standing halfway down the slope, surveying the property.

  “Richard?”

  Her ex-husband turned as she walked into the yard to join him. It had been five months since she’d last seen him, and he looked fit and trim and more deeply tanned. It hurt to see just how good divorce had been to him. Or maybe it was all the country-clubbing he’d been doing lately with Tiffani-with-an-i.

  “I tried calling, but you never pick up,” he said. “I thought maybe you were avoiding my calls.”

  “I went up to Maine for the weekend.”

  He didn’t bother to ask why; as usual, nothing she did really interested him. Instead, he gestured at her overgrown yard. “Nice piece of land. You could do a lot with this. There’s even room for a pool.”

  “I can’t afford a swimming pool.”

  “A deck, then. Clear out all that scrubby stuff down by the stream.”

  “Richard, why are you here?”

  “I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop by to take a look at your new place.”

  “Well, this is it.”

  “The house looks like it needs a lot of work.”

  “I’m fixing it up little by little.”

  “Who’s helping you?”

  “No one.” Her chin tilted up on a note of pride. “I tiled the bathroom floor myself.”

  Again, he didn’t even seem to register what she’d said. It was their usual one-way conversation. They both spoke, but she was the only one who really listened. Only now was she aware of it.

  “Look, I’ve had a long drive and I’m tired,” she said, turning toward the house. “I’m not really in the mood for company.”

  “Why have you been talking about me behind my back?” he asked.

  She halted and looked at him. “What?”

  “Frankly, I’m surprised, Julia. You never struck me as the bitter type. But I guess divorce brings out a person’s real character.”

  For the first time, she heard the ugly note of anger in his voice. How had she missed it earlier? Even his posture should have been a clue, with his legs planted apart and his fists balled in his pockets.

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Telling people that I was emotionally abusive to you? That I screwed around all during our marriage?”

  “I never said that to anyone! Even if it might be true.”

  “What kind of shit are you talking about?”

  “You were running around, weren’t you? Did she know you were married when you started sleeping with her?”

  “You so much as whisper that to anyone—”

  “You mean, the truth? Our divorce wasn’t even final yet, and you two were already picking out your new china. Everyone knows it.” She paused as it suddenly occurred to her what this was all about. Maybe not everyone does know.

  “Our marriage was over long before the divorce.”

  “Is that the version you’re telling everyone? Because it’s certainly news to me.”

  “You want the brutal truth about what went wrong? All the ways you held me back from what I could have been?”

  She sighed. “No, Richard, I don’t want to hear it all. I really don’t care anymore.”

  “Then why the hell are you trying to screw up my wedding? Why are you spreading rumors about me?”

  “Who’s hearing these rumors? Your girlfriend? Or is it her daddy? Are you afraid he’ll find out the truth about his new son-in-law?”

  “Just promise me you’ll stop it.”

  “I never said a word to anyone. I didn’t even know about your wedding until Vicky told me.”

  He stared at her. Said, suddenly: “Vicky. That bitch.”

  “Go home,” she said, and walked away.

  “You get Vicky on the phone right now. You tell her to shut up.”

  “It’s her mouth. I can’t control it.”

  “Get yo
ur fucking sister on the phone!” he shouted.

  A dog’s noisy barks made her suddenly stop. Turning, she saw Tom standing at the edge of her garden, holding on to the leash as his dog, McCoy, leaped and strained to get free.

  “Is everything okay, Julia?” Tom called out.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said.

  Tom moved closer, practically dragged up the slope by the insistent McCoy. He came within a few paces of them. “Are you sure?” he said.

  “Look,” snapped Richard, “we’re having a private discussion.”

  Tom’s gaze remained on Julia. “It wasn’t so private.”

  “It’s okay, Tom,” said Julia. “Richard was just leaving.”

  Tom paused a moment longer, as though to confirm that the situation was under control. Then he turned and headed back toward the streamside path, pulling the dog behind him.

  “Who the hell is that?” said Richard.

  “He lives down the road.”

  An ugly smile crossed Richard’s lips. “Is he the reason you bought this place?”

  “Get out of my garden,” she said, and walked toward the house.

  As she stepped inside, she heard her phone ringing, but she didn’t run to answer it. Her attention was still focused on Richard. She watched through the window as he finally walked out of her backyard.

  The answering machine kicked in. “Julia, I’ve just found something. When you get home, call me and I’ll—”

  She picked up the phone. “Henry?”

  “Oh. You’re there.”

  “I just got home.”

  A pause. “What’s wrong?”

  For a man who lacked even basic social skills, Henry had an uncanny ability to sniff out her moods. She heard a car engine start and carried the phone to the living room window, where she saw Richard’s BMW pull away. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said. Not now.

  “It was in box number six,” he said.

  “What was?”

  “The last will and testament of Dr. Margaret Tate Page. It’s dated 1890, when she would have been sixty. In it, she leaves her possessions to various grandchildren. One of them is a granddaughter named Aurnia.”

  “Aurnia?”

  “An unusual name, no? I think this confirms without a doubt that Margaret Tate Page is our baby Meggie, grown up.”

  “Then the aunt whom Holmes mentioned in his first letter…”

  “Is Rose Connolly.”

  Julia went back into her kitchen and looked out at the garden, at the same plot of land that another woman, long dead, had once gazed upon. Who was buried in my garden all those years?

  Was it Rose?

  Seventeen

  1830

  THE LIGHT THROUGH the grimy window had faded to little more than dull pewter. There were never enough candles in the workroom, and Rose could scarcely see her stitches as her needle plunged in and out of white gauze. Already she had completed the underslip of pale pink satin, and on her worktable were the silk roses and ribbons yet to be added to the shoulders and the waist. It was a fine gown meant for a ball, and as Rose worked, she imagined how the skirt would rustle when its wearer stepped onto the dance floor, how the satin ribbons would gleam by candlelight at the supper table. There would be wine punch in crystal cups, and creamed oysters and ginger cakes, and you could eat your fill and no one would leave hungry. Though she would never know such an evening, this gown would, and with every stitch she added some small part of herself, a trace of Rose Connolly that would linger among these folds of satin and gauze to swirl in the ballroom.

  The light through the window was barely a gleam now, and she struggled to see the thread. Someday, she would look like the other women sewing in this room, their eyes fixed in perpetual squints, their fingers callused and scarred from repeated needle pricks. Even when they stood at the end of the day, their backs remained stooped, as though they were incapable of ever again standing tall.

  The needle lanced Rose’s finger and she gasped, dropping the gauze on the worktable. She brought her throbbing finger to her mouth and tasted blood, but it was not the pain that vexed her; rather, she was worried that she had stained the white gauze. Holding up the fabric to catch every feeble ray of light, she could just make out, in the fold of the seam, a dark fleck so tiny that it would certainly not be noticed by anyone else. Both my stitches and my blood, she thought, I leave on this gown.

  “That will be enough for today, ladies,” the foreman announced.

  Rose folded the pieces she had worked on, set them on the table for the next day’s labors, and joined the line of women waiting to collect their pay for the week. As they all pulled on cloaks and shawls for the cold walk home, Rose saw a few goodbye waves, a halfhearted nod in her direction. They did not yet know her well, nor did they know how long she would remain among them. Too many other girls had come and gone, and too many other efforts at friendship had gone to waste. So the women watched and waited, sensing perhaps that Rose was not one who would last.

  “You, girl! Rose, isn’t it? I need a word with you.”

  Heart sinking, Rose turned to face the foreman. What criticism would Mr. Smibart have of her today? For surely there would be criticism, delivered in that annoyingly nasal voice that made the other seamstresses giggle behind his back.

  “Yes, Mr. Smibart?” she asked.

  “It has happened again,” he said. “And it cannot be tolerated.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. If my work’s unsatisfactory—”

  “Your work is perfectly adequate.”

  Coming from Mr. Smibart, perfectly adequate was a compliment, and she allowed herself a quiet sigh of relief that, for the moment, her employment here was not in jeopardy.

  “It’s the other matter,” he said. “I cannot have outsiders disturbing me, inquiring about matters that you should deal with on your own time. Tell your friends you are here to work.”

  Now she understood. “I’m sorry, sir. Last week, I told Billy not to come here, and I thought he understood. But he has a child’s mind, and he doesn’t understand. I’ll explain it to him again.”

  “It wasn’t the boy this time. It was a man.”

  Rose went very still. “Which man?” she asked quietly.

  “You think I have time to ask the name of every fellow who comes sniffing after my girls? Some beady-eyed fellow, asking all sorts of questions about you.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “Where you live, who your friends are. As if I’m your private secretary! This is a business, Miss Connolly, and I will not tolerate such interruptions.”

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “You keep saying that, yet the problem remains. No more visitors.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said meekly and turned to leave.

  “I expect you to deal with him. Whoever he is.”

  Whoever he is.

  She shivered as she fought the piercing wind that whipped her skirts and numbed her face. On this cold evening, not even the dogs were about, and she walked alone, the last of the women to leave the building. It must be that horrid Mr. Pratt from the Night Watch asking about me, she thought. So far she’d managed to avoid him, but Billy had told her the man was inquiring about her around town, and all because she had dared to pawn Aurnia’s locket. How had such a valuable piece of jewelry ended up in Rose’s hands when it should have gone to the dead woman’s husband?

  The fuss is all Eben’s doing, thought Rose. I accused him of attacking me so he retaliates by accusing me of being a thief. And of course, the Night Watch believes Eben, because all Irish are thieves.

  She moved deeper into the warren of tenements, shoes cracking through ice into stinking puddles, the streets funneling into narrow alleys, as though South Boston itself were closing in around her. At last, she reached the door with the low arch and the stoop where the refuse from various suppers, bones gnawed clean, bread black with mold, lay awaiting the attentions of some starving dog des
perate enough to eat a putrid meal.

  Rose knocked on the door.

  It was opened by a child with filthy cheeks, his blond hair hanging like a ragged curtain over his eyes. He could not be much older than four, and he stood mutely staring at the visitor.

  A woman’s voice yelled: “Fer God’s sake, Conn, the cold’s gettin’ in! Shut the door!”

  The silent boy scuttled off into some dark corner as Rose stepped in, closing the door against the wind. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness of the low-ceilinged room, but little by little she began to make out the shapes. The chair by the hearth, where the fire had burned down to mere coals. The table with its stacked bowls. And all around her, the moving shapes of little heads. So many children. Rose counted eight at least, but surely there were others that she could not see, curled up sleeping in the shadowy corners.

  “You brought your payment for the week?”

  Rose focused on the enormous woman seated in the chair. Now that her eyes had adjusted, Rose could see Hepzibah’s face, with its bulging double chin. Does she never leave that chair? Rose wondered. No matter what time of day or night Rose visited this grim address, she’d always found Hepzibah sitting like a fat queen in her throne, her little charges crawling about her feet like grimy supplicants.

  “I’ve brought the money,” said Rose, and she placed half her week’s pay in Hepzibah’s waiting hand.

  “I just fed ’er. A greedy girl, that one, ’bout emptied me breast with just a few sucks. Drinks more than any babe I’ve nursed. I should charge you more for her.”

  Rose knelt to lift her niece from the basket and thought: My sweet baby, how happy I am to see you! Little Meggie stared up at her, and Rose was sure that her tiny lips curled into a smile of recognition. Oh yes, you know me, don’t you? You know I’m the one who loves you.