No Mortal Reason

NO MORTAL REASON

Kathy Lynn Emerson

Chapter One

May, 1888

Diana Spaulding peered through the grime-streaked glass of the train window at rolling green countryside. Dotted with small farmsteads and numerous apple orchards, the landscape should have been a soothing sight. Even under overcast skies, it possessed the kind of pastoral beauty that appealed to artists and poets.

Diana was too nervous to appreciate it.

After they’d switched from the New York Central Railway to the Ontario & Western line at Oneida, the morning had passed with excruciating slowness. Their train had stopped at every tiny depot along the way—Fish’s Eddy, Cook’s Falls, Livingston Manor—all small, rural places Diana had never heard of. Now that she thought about it, she did not recall having seen a single factory since leaving Buffalo. She was out of her element here and she knew it.

“Lih-ber-tee! Liberty, New York, next stop!”

At the conductor’s call, Diana felt her already straight back go stiff as a ramrod. Her right hand clasped hard around the handle of the crocodile skin gripsack beside her on the plush seat of the parlor car. Only the feel of the carved wood biting into her palm brought her to her senses. With an effort, she loosened her grip and ordered herself to relax, but the silent command had little effect on the knot of tension between her shoulder blades.

“Regretting your decision?” Ben Northcote asked. He sat opposite her in one of the car’s reclining chairs, watching her face with an intensity that further unnerved her.

 “Which one?” she asked with an attempt at lightness.

Just now it seemed the height of foolishness to have postponed their wedding. Ben had wanted to marry her before they’d left Denver, and Diana’s mother had thought it would be a great treat to hold the ceremony in one of the parlors at the Elmira Hotel. That suggestion alone had made Diana reconsider. In the end, they’d decided to return to Ben’s home in Maine before finding a preacher. To do otherwise would have left Maggie, the formidable and somewhat eccentric Northcote matriarch, out of their plans.

Now, however, Diana worried that her single state might complicate their stay in Sullivan County. She had no idea how the locals felt about the propriety of a widow traveling with a bachelor, even one she planned to marry the following month. A proper sort of female would have taken the precaution of hiring a companion or, at the least, a maid. Diana hadn’t bothered with either. Then again, she hadn’t thought of herself as truly “proper” since she’d run away from the Young Ladies’ Seminary of San Francisco at the tender age of eighteen.

“It isn’t too late to change your mind,” Ben said.

“We’re getting married in Maine on the thirtieth of June and that’s that,” Diana said in a firm voice.

A wry smile kicked up the corners of Ben’s mobile mouth. His neatly-trimmed, midnight-colored beard and mustache twitched and the amber flecks in his dark eyes twinkled. “I’m glad to hear it, but I meant it’s not too late to change your mind about getting off this train at the next stop.”

“Oh.” She felt hot color rush into her face and ducked her head, pretending to smooth out the wrinkles in the newly-purchased, dark gray traveling dress she wore. “I confess I
am
nervous about meeting my uncles. What if they are cut from the same cloth as their sister? It’s likely, you know. And no one can hold a grudge like my mother.”

“If you’re convinced that this newly discovered family of yours won’t want to claim you, then stay on the train. New York is a few hours away. We’ll stop long enough to collect the trunk and boxes you left at Mrs. Curran’s boarding house and be on our way back to Maine before you know it.”

Diana permitted herself a wistful sigh but shook her head. As soon as she’d realized that her relatives lived only one hundred and twenty-five miles northwest of New York City, she’d known she’d have to visit Lenape Springs. It had not required much of a detour to do so, just the selection of a different railway line between Buffalo and Weehawken, the terminal from which ferries conveyed train passengers the rest of the way to Manhattan.

“My life would have been much simpler,” Diana murmured, “if Mother had never bothered to correct my mistaken belief that she was an only child.”

It had been a shock to learn that Elmira Grant Torrence had been cast off by her family for marrying Diana’s father, just as Elmira and William Torrence had later disowned Diana for her runaway marriage to Evan Spaulding. The recent end to Diana’s estrangement from her mother had been, in many ways, a mixed blessing. Elmira Torrence was a cold, selfish woman, incapable of showing affection, let alone love. While it was true that she’d insisted on buying her daughter a new wardrobe—her trousseau, she’d said—before Diana and Ben left Denver, Diana knew that her mother’s generosity came from guilt, not fondness.

As for the information about the Grants of Lenape Springs, she’d tossed that out with a careless laugh when Diana had remarked that she hoped her mother would come East for the wedding, since Diana had no other kin to invite.

“You’ve got a passel of kinfolk,” her mother had informed her, and had proceeded to reel off the names of all five of her brothers and sisters.

Another small sigh escaped Diana as the train slowed on a long curve. She didn’t see anything ahead that looked like a railroad station, which made her wonder just how tiny a village this Liberty, New York might be. She knew little more about it than that it was the nearest the O&W Railroad came to Lenape Springs.

“I should have written first,” Diana fretted.

“We’ve been all through that,” Ben reminded her. “We’ll arrive as paying guests. That assures us of a welcome.” He’d made all the arrangements by telegram before they’d left Colorado.

They’d been traveling for days, giving them ample opportunity to speculate about the welcome they might receive. Diana’s mother had not been able to tell them much except that her two older brothers, Myron and Howard, still operated the hotel their father had owned before them. Elmira Grant Torrence had left her childhood home thirty-three years ago and had never looked back. Truth be told, if she hadn’t become reacquainted with another former Lenape Springs resident, Ed Leeves, after moving to Denver, she wouldn’t have been able to tell Diana even that much about her family. 

“My married name will mean nothing to the Grants.” Diana squinted at the high point of land beyond the train window. There appeared to be a large building at the very top.

“Do you want me to play Devil’s advocate? Anonymity is to your advantage, or so you’ve been telling me for more than a week now. It will allow you to decide whether or not to introduce yourself as Elmira Grant’s daughter after you meet them. You can get to know them first, let them get to know you, and then—”

“—reveal my deceit?”

“If it troubles you that much, tell them who you are at once.” A hint of irritation crept into Ben’s resonant baritone. Even his equable temperament had its limits.

Diana repressed a third sigh. She couldn’t blame him for being impatient with her. They’d had this conversation before, and more than once. It wasn’t like her to be so indecisive, but in this case she could not seem to settle on what was best to do.

“We will go ahead as planned,” she mumbled. “I’ve come this far. I will at least satisfy my curiosity. If they appear unlikely to welcome their sister’s daughter back into the fold, we will simply depart with no one the wiser.”

“Do you want this?” Ben asked. While she’d dithered, he’d been collecting the books and newspapers with which they’d passed their time during the long journey. He held out a week-old copy of the
Independent Intelligencer
, the New York City newspaper for which Diana had once written a theatrical gossip column called “Today’s Tidbits.” More recently she had reported on crime, both in New York City and in Denver, and written a few pieces about her travels.

With a sound like the groan of a dying elephant, the steam engine’s air brakes brought the train to a stop at the station. Diana hastily stuffed the newspaper into the capacious tweed bag she carried slung over her shoulder.

They were the only passengers to disembark at Liberty on this early Friday afternoon in the middle of May, although several men wearing suits and carrying sample cases waited on the platform to board. The station agent emerged from a modest frame structure that looked more like a freight house than a passenger depot, gave Diana a genial nod, and headed toward the baggage car. The depot was small enough that the man who staffed the ticket office also served as baggage master.

Diana’s mother had showered her with so many gifts that she’d had to purchase two trunks to transport them all. When Ben went to reclaim these large pieces of baggage, she took charge of the pile of smaller ones—her tweed bag and gripsack, the hat box, two large Gladstone bags, one for each of them, and Ben’s doctor’s bag.

While she waited, she surveyed her surroundings. Except for the large white water tank to her left, she couldn’t see much. The depot blocked her view on one side, the train on the other.

Diana was glad of the warmth of her wool traveling dress. Now and then a feeble ray of sunshine penetrated otherwise gray skies, but the air stayed chilly. A stiff breeze stirred the hem of her skirt and made the crimson feather on her smart new hat dip and sway. As the train departed, the wind abruptly increased to gale force. Diana squeezed her eyes shut as a gritty haze billowed back to engulf her. So much for the O&W’s claim that anthracite coal-burning engines produced neither cinders nor dust!

When the air cleared and the last of the dark green passenger cars disappeared en route to points south, Diana could at last see what lay on the other side of the tracks. Just across from the passenger depot was the real freight house. A coal yard was situated adjacent to it. On her right and a short distance up a hill were a few scattered structures, but not enough to be the center of town. The only vehicular traffic was a single wagon slowly making its way toward the depot.

Diana had to walk to the edge of the platform and look downhill to find the village of Liberty. From that vantage point, her view encompassed a good number of houses and several churches. The high, white steeple of one of them dominated the scene. Beyond rose a line of hills. They were scarcely mountains compared to those she’d just left behind in Colorado, but she had looked at a map. It had told her that both Liberty and Lenape Springs were situated in the foothills of the Catskills. If this were a clear day, she suspected she might see a few peaks in that direction.

The wagon, a weathered buckboard, arrived at the depot. Apparently it was the house rig because the words HOTEL GRANT were emblazoned on signs attached to each side. The driver, a thin, stoop-shouldered man of indeterminate age, ignored Diana and spoke to Ben. “You Dr. Northcote?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Ben said. “How far is it to the Hotel Grant?”

“Five miles.” The words were clipped and he scowled at the two heavy trunks on the platform. “Won’t need fripperies. Lenape Springs don’t go in for fancy dress.”

The sound of a muffled chuckle made Diana turn. The station agent stood a little behind her. “Don’t mind him,” he said. “That’s just his way. Floyd Lyseth hasn’t had a good word to say about anything since his daughter ran away with a peddler ten years back.”

Diana wasn’t sure how to respond to this confidence, but she was struck by the fact that, just lately, she heard stories about runaway marriages everywhere she went. Perhaps she was simply more attuned to such tales. She recalled something her friend Rowena had written to her a few years earlier. When Rowena had first learned she was to have a child, she claimed to have seen babies everywhere she looked, when previously, or so Rowena swore, she could go months at a stretch without so much as a glimpse of anyone under the age of ten.

“Come to think of it,” the talkative station agent continued, unconcerned that Diana had made no reply, “Lyseth wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine before young Elly took off.”

“Does he work at the Hotel Grant?” Diana asked.

The station agent nodded. “He’s the handyman, driver, bell boy—whatever needs doing, Lyseth does it. Even came into town here and helped out with replacing the station roof when Myron Grant told him to.” He indicated the simple frame structure beside them. “Sure feels good to have something solid over our heads again. The old roof blew right off during the blizzard in March. Highest winds we’ve ever had in these parts. Took the chimney off that house over there, too.” He pointed to a nearby home.

“How terrifying for those inside,” Diana murmured. She’d had her own frightening experiences during that particular storm.

They exchanged the look of fellow survivors.

“Coldest winter anyone around here can remember. Should have expected something like that. March twelfth it was, and we had snow drifts twelve feet deep. There’s
still
snow on the ground some places.” He pointed toward a nearby wooded area. “Got a snowbank about two feet deep right over there.”