Page 79 of Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Margaret put the vase she was holding down. “Why are you here?”

I held out the letter. “This will explain things, but I believe all it says is that they sent me back early because they knew you needed help with spring cleaning.”

She looked surprised. “They thought I would need help?” She put a hand to her chest. “I never thought that would occur to them. I never thought they would ever think of what I might need.” She blinked back tears as if she was truly touched. I would never tell her Emily’s true motive for sending me back early.

My heart swelled with compassion for Margaret. She had been left behind to work day and night while the family and I were gone. Had she taken any time to rest at all? How would anyone know if she snuck in a nap here or there while the house was empty?

I set my carpetbag on the floor, removed my cloak, and hung it on the back of a chair. “Let me finish here. You go make yourself a cup of tea and put your feet up.”

“I—I don’t know what to say...” Her Irish accent was thicker than ever with emotion.

“Say yes. You can come back and check my work before we put the vases away.”

She stood up and hurried out of the room as if she was afraid I would change my mind. And with Carlo by my side, I got to work.

By the time Margaret returned, I had polished all of the vases until I could see my face in them, and Miss Lavinia’s four cats were lying around the dining room each in their own ray of sunshine. Carlo’s large head was on my feet.

“My,” Margaret said. “You work quickly.” She picked up a vase. “And well. These are ready to be put away. The ones we use in the winter months can be packed right away. We will not use them in this house again. The family will be moved before winter comes. After you do that, you can get yourself settled from your travel until it’s time for supper.”

I thanked her, and after I put away all the vases in various chests and cabinets around the house and packed the few winter vases into a crate to move to the home on Main Street, I went up to my little room in the servants’ quarters. I sighed with relief when I sat on my bed. It had been a very long trip from Washington and an equally long day when I arrived back in Amherst.

The first thing I did was remove Henry’s diary from my carpetbag and tuck it between the wall and the bed for safekeeping. I didn’t know what else I could glean from the little book, but I wanted to keep it close. Tomorrow, under Emily’s direction, I would begin my investigation.

—

I’d hoped to go to town and start asking questions the next day, but Margaret had other plans. She put me through my paces as I removed everything from the kitchen cupboards, scrubbed them out, and polished the wood with oil soap before putting all the dishes, pots, pans, and countless utensils back where they belonged.

Part of me wished that I could just put them all in packing crates right then to move to the house on Main Street, but it would not be for several months that the house, in the middle of renovations, would be ready for the family, so back into the cupboard everything went.

On the third day I was home, Margaret sent me to the general store for more lye so that we could make soap. I was relieved to be given the task and the ability to go outside.

In the time that I had been in Washington, the weather in Amherst had taken a turn. There was still a chill in the air, but there was also a freshness to the breeze. Trees began to bud, and crocuses at the edge of gardens and around the base of the trees bloomed. While the small crocus blossoms came into their full bloom, the daffodils and hyacinths just began to poke their bright green heads out of the ground. Spring was on the way.

As spring brought new life, it was difficult for me to fathom that my brother had been gone for well over a month now. And other than knowing that our prime suspect, Mr.Elmer Johnson, was actually Henry’s employer and had nothing to do with my brother’s death, Emily and I had learned very little that would give us answers.

I decided that before I bought the lye, I would go to the post office and see if I could learn anything from the old men who sat outside of it.

Emily asked me to write her and tell her how the investigation was going, but as of yet, I had nothing to report. I hoped that I would be able to change that this afternoon and send her a letter.

As I walked down the sidewalk, I heard the old men’s laughter long before I saw them on the benches outside of the post office. It seemed that they were enjoying the turn in the weather to more springlike days.

“Well, if it’s not the great traveler who is back in our midst,” a gravelly voice called.

I looked over my shoulder to see if the old man sitting on a makeshift bench outside of the Amherst Post Office was speaking to me.

“Yes, Willa, I’m talking to you. Don’t go looking over your shoulder like there is someone else there.”

I stopped in front of the three men. “You know my name?”

“Course we do,” the second man said. “Amherst is really a small town.”

I recognized him as the man with the yellow mittens I had seen when I came to the post office with Emily weeks ago. “And what is your name?”

“I thought you would never ask,” he replied. “I’m Holden, and my esteemed friends are Salinger and Beard.”

Beard had a long silver beard and brought the story of Rip Van Winkle to mind, so it wasn’t difficult to know where his name came from.

“We were all fond of Henry,” Beard said.

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