Fiction

The Silver Locket

Robert Boucheron

 

The shop in Mulberry Lane was no longer dangerous territory. Nora Devereux could browse the clothes, trinkets, and objets de luxe, feel a delicious flutter of possession, and leave empty-handed. Dr. Weissbart had convinced her that denial was painless, like smelling flowers and leaving them on the stem for someone else to pluck.

Nora picked up a little box inlaid with ivory, ebony, and colored woods. She pried open the lid and caressed the crimson velvet lining with a fingertip. Was it meant for jewelry? The lid fastened with a barely audible click. She replaced the box. No pang of buyer’s remorse would follow in the apartment, no crumpled tissue paper of embarrassment.

The shopkeeper watched. Isabel was a vigorous woman with copper hair and sharp green eyes. She recognized Nora as a kindred soul a generation older, fifty or so and well-preserved, if rather pale. Nora appreciated the finer things in life and took care not to break them. Her home was a temple of taste, lovingly arranged and spotlessly clean, of that Isabel was certain.

“Sorry,” Nora said. “I’m only looking . . . again.”

“Come in every day if you like,” Isabel said. “It looks better from the street to have people in the shop. Linger and loiter, if that’s your pleasure. And don’t mind me as I bustle. I can’t stand to be idle.” She stopped rubbing a small object with a cloth and held it up. “Tell me, what do you think of this silver locket? Isn’t it darling?”

“Where did you find it?”

“At an estate sale, my happy hunting ground. That’s where many of these things are from. The locket came in a leather satchel with more things. Here, see for yourself.” Isabel produced a battered black bag and laid the contents on the counter: old medical instruments and brass military insignia.

“These are Confederate insignia,” Nora said. “They may have historical value.”

“They’re not worth much in terms of money. Confederate items turn up all the time in this part of Virginia. A Civil War buff might be interested for his collection.”

“Does the locket have anything inside?”

“I never thought to check.” Isabel tried to open the locket and had no luck. She handed it to Nora, who found the catch at once.

“Oh, look,” Nora said. “It’s a portrait of a young woman, a photograph.”

“Probably by a traveling photographer. Is there a date?”

“April 24, 1860.”

“They tramped the back roads and set up shop for a week at a time. Before them, primitive painters did the same, and people who cut paper silhouettes.”

“I wonder who she is, or was.”

“The bag has some documents. I didn’t have time to read them. Here, rummage to your heart’s content.”

Isabel dumped a packet on the counter. Nora untied the ribbon and unfolded a letter dated a few days after the photograph, which it mentioned. The writer of the letter sent her portrait to her lover. Her name was Olivia Kearns. The favored young man was Nathaniel Raeburn, whose address was Meadow Grange, probably the name of a plantation.

The papers told a story. The only daughter of a Dr. Kearns in Staunton, Virginia, and herself a graduate of Geneva Medical College in Geneva, New York—here was the diploma—Olivia married Nathaniel a few months later. Nathaniel enlisted in the Confederate cavalry in 1862. The couple wrote letters to each other, and to Laetitia and Matthew Raeburn. These were Nathaniel’s parents. A letter from President Jefferson Davis in Richmond declared Nathaniel missing in action. To search for him, Olivia joined the army as a field surgeon, under the name of Dr. Oliver Raeburn—here was the commission. She was captured in battle, imprisoned and released, and made her way home through the devastated Shenandoah Valley in the autumn of 1864. Reunited, the couple had a daughter, also named Laetitia. Much later, this person collected the items left by her parents.

Absorbed in the adventure unfolding to her mind’s eye, Nora jumped when Isabel rapped on the counter.

“I need to run an errand. Can you watch the store?”

“Oh! Yes, of course.”

“I’ll only be a minute.”

Isabel was out the door before Nora could think of what might go wrong. Sure enough, as soon as the flame-tinted head was lost to sight, the telephone rang, a man in a stained overcoat wanted to leave a flyer, and a little dog rushed in on his heels and barked.

Nora exercised a presence of mind that lay dormant. She cut off the telephone salesperson’s pitch. She told the man in the shabby overcoat, who reeked of tobacco and had a facial tic, that the shop did not post ads in the window. She caught the terrier in both hands and threw it bodily out the door. By the time Isabel returned, peace was restored.

“Did anything happen while I was gone?”

“Not a thing.”

“What have you discovered about the mystery lady?”

“Dr. Olivia Kearns led an interesting life. The military insignia may have been her husband’s, or they may have been hers. I haven’t gotten that far.”

“She was an army officer?” Isabel was incredulous.

“So it appears. This material ought to be in a museum, or the Hapsburg Historical Society.”

“If someone wants to buy it, they can donate. After all, I paid for it.” Isabel took a firm stand whenever money was at stake.

“I didn’t mean to suggest . . .”

“I know, but Margaret Howe might, or Ella Eulalia Finch.” Isabel wrinkled her nose at the society’s president and self-styled historian.

“It’s a pity the family let it go.” Nora had an uncomfortable thought. “Unless . . .”

“The estate sale was for an elderly school teacher who never married. Miss Tharpe outlived her relatives. She was the last link.”

“Thank you for showing me the silver locket.”

“Any time. See you soon.”

For the rest of the day, Nora could think of nothing else.

 

Robert Boucheron grew up in Syracuse and Schenectady, New York. He has worked as an architect in New York City and since 1987 in Charlottesville, Virginia. His short stories and essays appear in Bellingham Review, Fictive Dream, London Journal of Fiction, New Haven Review, Saturday Evening Post.