The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson Read Free Book Online Page A

here?” They don’t know of any such scar, but they are ready to swear it is her. The paper mentioned the finding of a traveling bag with clothes marked F. Madison. It got them to thinking. Emma hands Richardson a folded-up red scarf and says her mother found it on their front hedges Saturday morning. Their house happens to be near the reservoir, which seems an odd coincidence. Richardson at first doubts the scarf has anything to do with the dead girl, then he begins to doubt the Dunstans. They don’t seem like the type who just want to see their names in the newspaper, but why would the girl’s scarf end up at their house? Unless she was going there. “Had she ever been to your house?” he asks.
    “Not that I’m aware of.”
    “What sort of person was she?”
    “A high-minded, ambitious sort of girl, I thought,” says the elder Miss Dunstan. “But not the sort that would ever do a bad thing or think a bad thought.”
    Uh huh, thinks Richardson. Nil nisi bonum . Don’t speak ill of the dead. “You know she was pregnant?”
    “I read that.” She glances down.
    “Anybody she was particularly close to?”
    “I didn’t know her that well, but you could ask her cousin Cary Madison. He’s a carriagemaker. He lives down on Fifth.”
    Richardson thanks the young ladies and shows them back to the hallway. People are still coming in, eyeing the body, making speculations. The Dunstan girls take another quick look in the coffin as they pass, then hurry back out into the gray rain.

• CHAPTER FOUR •

    T HE FIRST TIME he really noticed her was at his uncle Samuel’s funeral. It also happened to be the day he met Nola Bray. Tommie was fourteen and he and his brother had recently moved downcounty to live with their aunt and uncle. Uncle Samuel had been a wealthy merchant who knew nearly everybody in three counties—fine carriages were parked a mile up and down from Mount Olivet Baptist Church. After the service they went back to Cedar Lane, where Aunt Jane in widow’s weeds gallantly shook everyone’s hand, flanked by her two nephews.
    The children drifted to the back lawn with plates of food. Tommie found his brother out by the well talking to an older cousin from King William and two girls from a nearby estate. He stood quietly just beyond the little group until the older girl introduced herself. “Hello, I’m Nola Bray, your neighbor,” she said. She spoke with a precision and formality he had never heard in a person his age. Her little sister giggled at him, standing there like a statue, and he blushed. Willie and the cousin went off to the edge of the field, leaving him there with the two girls.
    “I’m so sorry about your uncle,” Nola said. “And I’m sorry you haven’t yet been to Upper Oaks. We’ll have to remedy that. I’ve been away a good part of the summer at White Sulphur Springs. The air is so much better there. A lot of people from Charleston go there. Some of them are nice, but some of them put on airs. Have you been there?”
    Not sure if she meant White Sulphur Springs or Charleston, but the answer being the same to both, Tommie shook his head. At that moment a swarm of younger children went dashing by. Leading them was a girl of about twelve who tagged him as she passed, and sang out, “Follow my leader.” After standing around greeting unfamiliar people, he was itching to shed his suit and run around like crazy, chasing after the girl. But, damn it all, he’d be thought rude to be carrying on so at a funeral.
    Nola was telling him what a good place Aberdeen Academy was and how lucky he was to be going there this fall instead of Locust, where his brother was going. Secretly he was proud that he had been chosen to go to the better school, but he had misgivings about boarding in a place a half-day’s journey away. So he pretended indifference. “I’d as soon go to Locust,” he said, shrugging.
    “Well, you’re wrong about that,” she insisted, tossing her thin nose. Her face