beautiful portrait that Sweeney knew was of Patch’s mother, Delia Gilmartin Wentworth. It had been painted just before she got married, Britta had told her.
There was a small bookshelf over by the window, filled with antique volumes of poetry and drama. They looked fragile, their spines frayed, the gold-leafed pages covered with dust, and Sweeney hadn’t dared to touch them, but now she ran a finger along the old books and read the titles, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Works, The Roman Century, Aristophanes, Tennyson’s Collected Poetry. She carefully lifted the Tennyson from the shelf and opened the thin, red fabric cover. On the title page was a woodcut of Sir Lancelot, and the words, “Lancelot said ‘That were against me; what I can I will;’ And there that day remain’d, and toward even, sent for his shield.”
Tennyson! What was it about Tennyson?
Sweeney replaced the little book and looked again at the portrait of Delia Wentworth. She was a beautiful woman, a real blushing bride, Sweeney thought, smiling.
That phrase, blushing bride. It rang a bell somewhere. The diary. Sweeney sat down on the couch and flipped through the photocopies she’d made of Myra Benton’s diary.
July 6, 1890—The girls and I went for a lovely picnic today at the pond and asked the Denholm girls to come along as they do not have much fun on account of their father’s strictness. We brought cold meat and drank water from the little spring on the way and Ethel said it was the first picnic she had ever gone on and that she was enjoying herself immensely.
It is just the time of year when the wildflowers are blooming and as we walked, we saw flowers of every variety. They were so beautiful, I could hardly believe they were of nature and we plucked them up and made little crowns for ourselves. I came upon Mary picking the petals from a daisy and saying, to herself, he loves me, he loves me not, and I asked her who her sweetheart was and she said she would not tell me and then flushed so deeply I could not help but laugh and tell her that she looked exactly like a blushing bride.
There it was, a blushing bride. Had Mary had a lover? Sweeney had assumed the first time she’d read the section that the love was unrequited. But why did brides blush? Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but it was about sex, wasn’t it? What if Mary’s love wasn’t so unrequited, after all? She thought about what Dammers had said about the sexual appetites of the colonists, about what Sabina had told her about Gilmartin.
So perhaps Mary had been involved in a sexual relationship with Gilmartin. If she had gotten pregnant and threatened to reveal the relationship, maybe he’d decided that killing her was the only option. Under that scenario, Morgan and Jean Luc Baladin would have helped him cover it all up, pretend that Mary had drowned.
She paced around the room, trying to think it through. What about Morgan and Baladin? Maybe Mary had been having an affair with one of them. She thought back to the picture of Baladin and Mary, the way his hand gripped her shoulder, his handsome face and flowing mustache. He was much nearer her age. Maybe they had been having a relationship and she had gotten pregnant. But why would Baladin have killed her? He was presumably a single man . . . but then she didn’t know that. It was entirely possible he had a wife back in Europe, wasn’t it?
There was also the possibility that he wasn’t married, but had no intention of marrying a poor girl from Vermont. How would Mary have reacted to the news that she was to be abandoned, pregnant and alone?
Might she have killed herself? It was possible that she had drowned herself in the river, wasn’t it? But if Mary had committed suicide, then why had someone resorted to murder—twice!—to prevent the truth getting out. Suicide had been considered somewhat shameful in those days, but, really . . . The only person who might have a reason for keeping it quiet was Jean Luc Baladin. But none of his descendants lived in the colony.
Or did they? She hadn’t thought about that. What if . . .?
Sweeney thought about the three deaths that were now all a part of this. Her father had loved engines and had entertained himself when the painting wasn’t coming by buying small appliances