Furmidable Foes

29

June 27, 2019

Thursday

Blistering heat had not yet descended upon central Virginia. The daytime temperatures might reach the high seventies, even the low eighties, but a pleasant breeze kept summer lovely. Enough rain guaranteed leaves darkening in their green; those early summer flowers exploded; the grass felt like a thick carpet, springy.

Harry, Susan, Mags, Janice, Pamela, and Carlton Sweeny walked along the middle quad at St. Luke’s. Fortunately for Carlton, he enjoyed flexibility in his job. This doubled as a research trip for him as well as a helpful visit for the ladies of the Dorcas Guild focused on the grounds.

“Charles West had grown up among fabulous gardens in England. He was the younger son of a baron.” Harry noticed a chipmunk scurrying away, as did Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, who followed.

The dogs paid little attention to the chipmunk, a bit of a surprise, but perhaps they waited for larger game.

“How did your peonies do?” Carlton asked.

“Divine.” Harry beamed. “Such an old plant, shrub.”

“You know, really, there aren’t that many new plants. Humans have bred them for color and for size over the centuries but the fundamental properties of, say, a rose remain.”

“ ‘A rose is a rose is a rose.’ ” Pamela Bartlett quoted Gertrude Stein, which made the little group smile.

“Could you understand what she was writing?” Janice wondered. “I read one book in junior English at Sophie Newcomb. Didn’t understand one word.”

Sophie Newcomb was a college in New Orleans when Janice was young.

“All I can say about Gertrude Stein is I was force-fed the present participle.” Harry smiled, as she had read a lot of the unique writer while at Smith.

“I can’t stand fiction,” Mags grumbled.

“Oh, Mags.” Susan grimaced.

“Well, I can’t. None of it is true.”

Carlton stopped as they approached the large red oak, the dead tree nearby. “But it is the truth, Mrs. Nielsen. Nonfiction is the factual truth. Fiction is the emotional truth.”

“There you have it.” Janice couldn’t help but tease. “Mags is emotionally stunted.”

“What’s this?” Carlton stopped in front of Sheba’s grave. Mags gave him the story to the extent that they knew it and somewhat redeemed herself, if in fact she needed redeeming.

“I remember reading about the exhumation, the necklace and earrings. Who knows how many people we are standing on?”

“Carlton, that’s a scary thought,” Susan quietly remarked. “I, well all of us, were taught not to disturb the dead.”

“Standing on someone isn’t disturbing them.” Janice popped up. “Digging them up, yes. And didn’t you all dig up bones at Big Rawly? Bones related to these bones. It was in the news.”

Susan shook her head slightly. “We did. It was a surprise. We had no idea what was under that shed. If we are allowed to keep the bones, if no family members claim them, we will do as was done for this woman: provide a Christian burial.”

“I doubt anyone will claim them.” Mags stared down at the tidy area. “Too far back, and if anyone does share that DNA, there would have to be plenty of others.” She looked at Carlton. “Ever have the ancestry test?”

“No, but my great-grandmother, still here, and my grandmom are genealogy nuts. There are Sweenys littering all of central Virginia.”

They laughed.

Carlton walked past the grave to a brush area behind the red oak. He stared down, then knelt down.

“What?” Harry hoped he wouldn’t suggest more yard work.

“You know Solanaceae is one of the largest families in the plant kingdom. Potatoes, tomatoes, ornamental plants that you have mixed in here, Nicotiana, and some of the Datura genus. All over Virginia.”

“How big a family is it?” Mags inquired.

“Three thousand members. Big. Stuff you see every day. Mostly the members are good actors, either edible or decorative, but there’s the motorcycle gang element. Belladonna is probably the most famous, one called Purple Hindu, angel’s trumpet, large and showy, pretty, and then our own jimsonweed. Effects range from hallucinations to death.”

“Jamestown had a lot of jimsonweed.” Susan had done a bit of research. “In time, a short time, the settlers realized not to eat the stuff, although you can use it for medicinal purposes.”

“And something like that substance or deadly nightshade was what killed Jeannie Cordle,” Pamela recalled.

“The difficulty is, where did she ingest it? The first thought was some kind of potato, or something injected in a potato, God knows why,” Susan told them. “You can imagine the law enforcement people going through every bit of food from the AHIP fundraiser. They found nothing. Not one thing.”

Mags trudged along with the rest of them as they headed back up to the church. “She might have eaten something by mistake.”

“Well, if she did, it would have hit her either before or shortly after she reached Castle Hill. Whatever she touched or ate, she did it at Castle Hill.” Harry had been keeping up with Susan on research.

“Good. Maybe we can go to Reverend Jones’s office.” Pewter picked up her step. “Be good to see the cats.”

“I had no idea you were becoming so social.” Tucker caught up with her.

“We’ve eaten communion wafers together.” Pewter let out a puff of laughter in which Mrs. Murphy joined.

Some years ago the cats pried open a not tightly shut closet door in which were stored communion wafers. They ate every one, with a little help from Cazenovia, Elocution, Lucy Fur, and Tucker.

“We all ate the same food. Couldn’t have been that,” Carlton posited. “And if something had been altered just for Mrs. Cordle, wouldn’t the chef have known or someone working with the food? You’d have to grab her plate to make sure only she ate it.”

“That’s true.” Pamela agreed. “I wasn’t there, but I can imagine it was deeply upsetting.”

“It was,” both Mags and Janice said in unison, while Harry and Susan nodded their heads.

“Rev.” Harry tiptoed to Reverend Jones’s door, lightly knocked.

“Come on in. Saw you all out on the quads.” He rose as Harry opened the door, his three cats bounding up to meet the other animals.

“Drinks, cookies?” Reverend Jones offered.

“Catnip!” Pewter hollered.

Pamela took charge. “Reverend Jones, you sit down and entertain. I’ll take care of the libations.”

Susan and Harry joined her in the small kitchen as the others picked a drink.

“What do you think of our grounds?” Reverend Jones asked Carlton.

“Beautiful. And much of it is the original, or at least the original layout. I was here once in my early teens, when I thought I might like horticulture. Visited every old garden I could. The proportions of St. Luke’s are lovely and the quads in the back reflect that, too.”

Herb smiled. “We all benefit from those who have gone before.”

“I heard the story about the grave. It’s peaceful under that red oak.” Carlton stood up to take his drink, as the seat swallowed you up if you were on the sofa.

The chairs offered more support.

“Given that there are so many Sweenys, as you said”—Mags sipped a sweet tea—“maybe you’re related.”

“You know, Mrs. Nielsen, I bet if we all did the ancestry DNA thing, we’d all be related, especially those of us who have lived here for generations. It’s inevitable.” He, too, took a sip. “Just like finding members of the Solanaceae family in our gardens is inevitable.”

“Have them in mine. Well under the yews,” Mags confessed.

Harry, eyeing Pewter, who was about to jump on the large coffee table, stood up. “Don’t you even think about it.”

She walked to the kitchen, opened a cabinet drawer where the treats were kept, and tossed out tiny colored fish goodies to all the cats, fetched two bones for the dogs. “I’m stealing your cat and dog treats, Reverend Jones, but it’s the only way.”

Pewter, having gobbled her fish, purred to Pirate, “You know there might be poison in your dog biscuit. Think about what the gardener guy said about belladonna. You never know.”

The innocent youngster opened his mouth and dropped the medium-sized biscuit. That fast, Pewter dove toward it, picked it up, and ran out the opened door.

“Pewter,” Mrs. Murphy called. “You can’t steal in a church.”

Calling from the hall while she tried to eat the hard dog biscuit, refusing to admit defeat, she hollered back, “They’ll forgive me. They’re Christians, remember?”

Harry gave Pirate another bone. “Pay her no mind.”