His Brother's Wife
Jacob Van Orden exited the train car and stood on the long wooden platform, looking up at the sign that read TAPPAN ZEE. Although it had been nearly twenty years since he left the small town on the banks of the Hudson River, in that moment he felt as though he never left.
Nothing has changed, he thought as he walked through the station with a pronounced limp, a souvenir from Gettysburg.
He immediately realized the inaccuracy of his assumption.
That's not exactly true. I've changed.
Four years of war had taken an idealistic youth and turned him into a wiser but sadder man.
"Jacob!" a familiar voice called out.
He turned to see his brother step down from a horse-drawn wagon.
"It's been so long!" Nathan exclaimed, embracing his sibling.
"It's good to see you," Jacob replied. "I only wish the circumstances were different."
The look of joy on the younger man's face instantly vanished, replaced by one of anguish.
"Thank you for coming. I really appreciate your being here."
"Nonsense! What are brothers for? Has there been any news since you sent me the telegram?"
"No. I'm afraid she's still missing."
"Well, you known I'll do whatever I can to help you find her."
The two men got into the wagon, and Nathan headed in the direction of the family home where they had been born and raised. At the outbreak of the Civil War, eighteen-year-old Jacob answered President Lincoln's call for troops. Nathan, three years younger, remained behind to run the farm and care for the boys' widowed mother.
Eight months before Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, however, two events took place in Tappan Zee that would change the course of both men's lives. First, their mother passed away after a short and sudden illness. Second, Nathan Van Orden married Lydia Handley, the woman who had previously promised her heart and hand to his brother.
Although he did not bear any ill will toward either the bride or groom, Jacob did not wish to subject himself to the pain of seeing the woman he loved married to his brother. Thus, when the war finally came to an end, he built a new life for himself in the nation's capital rather than return to New York. Yet even now, more than fifteen years after peace was restored, he still felt the pain of losing Lydia. No one had yet to take her place in his affections.
"Since you've been employed by the Pinkertons, have you ever worked on a missing person's case?" Nathan asked.
"No. I usually work for the Department of Justice, investigating federal crimes."
"And to think you once planned on being a farmer," Nathan declared, taking pride in his brother's accomplishment.
"That was before the war. A lot has happened since then."
Although she had been missing for close to a week, Lydia was like an unseen passenger sitting between the two men. Nathan hung his head, feeling the heavy burden of guilt that he had married his brother's sweetheart.
To take his mind off his ill-fated romance, Jacob admired the green countryside of Westchester County. A man prone to daydreaming, he wondered about the settlers of the New Netherlands Colony who had set out to tame the New World on behalf of the Dutch West India Company.
All that hard work and then fifty years later the British come along and take the colony from them, he mused.
Having had something dear taken from him, he sympathized with the Dutch.
"You're awful quiet," Nathan observed.
"I was just thinking."
"About what?"
"How beautiful the countryside is around here. No wonder it inspired Washington Irving to write about it."
"I hardly think it inspired that tale about the headless horseman."
"Maybe not in the light of day but when darkness falls the countryside can be pretty frightening."
"You always did have quite an imagination. It's a wonder you never became a writer."
"Me a writer? If the war hadn't come, I would have been content to work the land. However, as Robert Burns wrote, 'The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.'"
Nathan knew nothing of the great Scottish poet or his works. What he did know was that Jacob was deeply unhappy and that he and Lydia were largely to blame.
Silence prevailed for nearly half an hour as the horse plodded over the country roads. When they drew closer to the Van Orden farm, Jacob felt a bittersweet wave of nostalgia flow over him. Many long-forgotten boyhood memories had been reawakened since his train pulled into the station at Tappan Zee, yet it was the first glimpse of the homestead that had the greatest emotional impact on him.
Home.
It was more than a word that rang in his head, just as the old clapboard farmhouse was more than a wooden building. It cast a strong physical and mental attraction similar to that of a magnet drawing metal shavings to itself.
As the wagon came to a stop on the gravel drive, Nathan turned to his brother and said, "Welcome home."
* * *
Jacob began his unofficial investigation into Lydia's disappearance immediately after settling in to his old second-story bedroom. Despite the mental torment it caused him, he thoroughly searched his brother and sister-in-law's home, beginning with the kitchen and making his way to the master bedroom. It was difficult to go through her dresser drawers, seeing her intimate apparel and personal keepsakes. Still, the invasion of privacy was necessary. Regrettably, the search failed to uncover a single clue as to her whereabouts.
Over dinner that evening, Jacob questioned his brother about the days leading up to his wife's disappearance.
"I want to know everything Lydia did and said the days before you discovered she was missing. Try to recall as much as you can, and don't leave anything out," he cautioned. "No matter how trivial a detail might seem."
Although Nathan told his brother everything he remembered, the information he gave him was of little help.
"I spend most of my time out in the field," he confessed. "And Lydia stays in the house, cleaning and cooking."
"All day?"
"I assume so."
"Did she receive any visitors?"
"Not that I'm aware of, but then I can't always see the house when I'm working."
"Did she go into Tappan Zee to shop?"
"No. I usually drive her into town once a week in the wagon."
"What about Sunday? Did she go to religious services?"
"No. I'm afraid neither one of us are regular churchgoers."
"And when exactly did you first realize she was missing?"
"My first clue was when I came in Saturday evening to eat dinner. We tried to keep to a schedule, and Lydia always had the meal prepared on time. That night there was nothing on the table or in the oven, and the kitchen was clean. I called out for her, but there was no answer. I then searched every inch of the house. She wasn't there."
"And where was the wagon?"
"In the barn, as usual. Wherever she went, she traveled by foot."
Or somebody gave her a ride.
Jacob did not share that particular thought with his brother, fearing Nathan might conclude that Lydia had run off with another man. It was an assumption that the detective himself already arrived at.
She left me for Nathan. She might just as easily have left him for someone else, he reasoned, taking no pleasure from the idea.
"It's getting late," he announced after looking at his watch. "I'm going up to bed to get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I'll go into town and see what I can learn there. Meanwhile, if you could write a list of all Lydia's friends and acquaintances, it might be of immense help."
* * *
Rather than take the wagon into Tappan Zee, Jacob saddled a horse and rode into town. Although there were a few new faces, most of the people he encountered remembered him from the days before the war and thus had no qualms about answering his questions.
Unsurprisingly, word of Lydia's disappearance had already spread through the grapevine. He hoped this might be to his advantage since people would have had time to formulate their own opinions on what had happened to her. With mild persuasion, Jacob convinced them to share those thoughts. Their suspicions ran the gamut from the mundane (she got lost in the woods while picking berries or mushrooms) to the more bizarre (she ran off to join a traveling circus that had recently passed through on its way to Boston).
There were a handful of people who offered the opinion that Lydia's marriage to his brother might not have been a particularly happy one, leaving Jacob to draw his own conclusions from their observations. Did Lydia run away with another man? Did Nathan—God forbid!—rid himself of an unfaithful wife, dispose of the body and subsequently claim ignorance of her fate?
No! Jacob emphatically told himself. My brother is a good man. He's not capable of murder.
Of course, there was a time when he would never have believed his brother would steal his sweetheart while he was away fighting to preserve the Union, but it happened.
Over the course of three full days, Jacob questioned the citizens of Tappan Zee, speaking with anyone who knew or might have encountered his sister-in-law in the days immediately before she went missing. He spoke to shopkeepers, the town's sole doctor, the schoolmaster, the minister of the local Dutch Reformed Church and his parishioners. He also stopped at both the town hall and the police station where he compared notes with the men conducting the official investigation into Lydia's disappearance. This did not take long since the authorities knew no more than Jacob himself did.
When he returned to the farmhouse that evening, the exhausted detective ate only a light meal before retiring to his bedroom for the night. Anticipating a good night's sleep, he turned down the quilt that his mother and aunts had sewn nearly four decades earlier. Seeing the piece of jewelry lying on the sheet beneath the quilt brought on a feeling akin to an electric shock. Jacob caught his breath and held it as his trembling hand reached out for it.
This is the necklace I gave to Lydia for Christmas back in 1860, not long before the war began.
She had been wearing the heart-shaped pendant when he last saw her: the day the two lovers parted at the train station.
How did it get here? he wondered. It wasn't here last night.
The answer was fairly obvious. Someone must have put it in his bed. But who?
Despite his physical exhaustion, Jacob slept little that night. He tossed and turned as his mind constructed and rejected various theories about the necklace. His blue eyes were tinged with red from lack of sleep when he rose before dawn to have breakfast with his brother.
"You're up early," Nathan observed.
Although he was clearly upset about his wife's continued absence, he was still a farmer and could not ignore his responsibilities. The animals needed to be fed, the cows milked and the fields tended.
"How's the investigation going?" he asked eagerly. "Have you found ...?"
His words were silenced when Jacob placed the pendant on the table in front of him.
"Recognize that?" the detective asked.
Face ashen, Nathan slowly nodded his head.
"It's the necklace you gave to Lydia. She never took it off," her husband said, his face awash in misery.
"You mean she was wearing it when she disappeared?"
"She had it on that morning."
An uncomfortable silence followed. Beyond Nathan's short letter that had announced the marriage, the two men never spoke of Lydia's betrayal. With the discovery of the necklace, both realized it was time to clear the air.
"After you left, she was inconsolable. Nearly all the news we received told of the South's victories, and she slipped deeper and deeper into depression with each Union defeat. At first, I only sought to console her, but then one thing led to another and .... Neither of us ever meant to hurt you."
Nathan's words gave his brother little comfort. However innocent the couple's intentions had been, their actions shattered Jacob's heart, destroyed his dreams and left him an empty shell of a man.
"If it's any consolation," Nathan continued, causing himself great pain, "she never stopped loving you. When the war was finally over and we learned that you survived, she ... she regretted what had happened between us."
Jacob remained standing, his grim, silent countenance making him appear as though he were carved from stone. Although his face was pointed toward the window, his eyes were looking inward at the cruel twist of fate that was his past. Nathan, having bared his soul, got up from the table and walked out the door to the barn.
* * *
Like the fabled serpent in the Garden of Eden, the heart-shaped necklace brought nothing but trouble to the farmhouse in Tappan Zee. It was instrumental in turning brother against brother. No harsh words passed between the two men. No punches were thrown. However, each suspicious of his sibling, Jacob and Nathan purposefully avoided one another. This proved to be an easy task since Nathan was up at dawn and in bed by nine, and Jacob adhered to a later schedule.
After finding the necklace in his bed, the detective suspected that his brother—the only other person living in the house—left the pendant there for him to find.
He told me himself that Lydia never stopped loving me. Jealousy might have been building for years, Jacob hypothesized. Then one day—boom! He explodes and kills his wife. After getting rid of the body, he tells everyone she has gone missing. He even goes so far as to request my help in searching for her, knowing full well I work for the Pinkertons. It's the perfect crime ... unless her remains are discovered, that is. If her body is found, my brother will be the most likely suspect.
That same necklace sewed seeds of doubt in Nathan's mind as well.
Lydia never took that pendant off. The fact that my brother has it in his possession means he's seen her since the morning she went missing. That story about having found it in his bed is an obvious lie.
What the wary husband did not know was where his wife was at the moment. Had she gone to Washington to be with Jacob? Although his brother had come to New York immediately after receiving Nathan's telegram, perhaps his offer of assistance was only a ruse to avoid suspicion being cast in his direction.
I'll bet Lydia is still in the capital, waiting for him to return.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the cold war that had developed between the two men, Jacob continued his investigation. No one he questioned, though, seemed to know much about the missing woman's personal life. Despite being known as a friendly, amiable person, she made no close friends and had no confidants. If his sister-in-law had a lover, either the two of them had been discreet or no one wanted to speak ill of the dead. The latter would mean the people he spoke to believed she was deceased and not just missing.
Where are you? he wondered as he recalled Lydia's face the last time he had seen her.
* * *
When Jacob returned home one evening after questioning the last of the train conductors known to have passed through Tappan Zee on the days immediately following Lydia's disappearance, he was surprised to find his brother sitting in the parlor.
"You're still awake."
"I wanted to know if you've been making any progress," Nathan explained coolly.
"I'm afraid not. I've spoken to everyone who might have seen Lydia, but no one knows what's become of her."
"Or they're not saying."
"I want to help you find her ...," Jacob began.
"But there's nothing more you can do," Nathan said, finishing his brother's sentence.
The words the two men spoke belied their true feelings.
"You've done all you could. I suppose it's time for you to return to Washington."
I'll bet you can't wait to get back to her, Nathan thought. Well, I don't suppose I blame you.
"If only there was something more I could do, someone else I could question, somewhere I could search."
I don't want to find her body, he told himself. Despite the love I once felt for her, I don't want to see my only brother hang for her murder.
"When will you go?"
"There's a train heading for Washington that leaves tomorrow afternoon."
"Do you need a ride to the station?"
"No."
"I suppose this is goodbye then."
"You will let me know if there are any developments?" Jacob asked.
"Of course."
Nathan turned and headed for the bedroom without embracing his brother or even shaking his hand.
When Jacob woke the following morning, his brother was already out working in the field. A profound sadness came over him when he realized they would most likely never speak again.
All because our country went to war, and we had the misfortune of falling in love with the same woman.
He briefly considered leaving a note but decided against it. Instead, he reached into his pocket, took out the heart-shaped necklace and placed it on the table where Nathan would find it. Bidding a silent farewell to his boyhood home, he picked up his suitcase and began walking toward town.
An hour after he lost sight of the clapboard farmhouse, Jacob began to feel fatigue. When he was serving in the Army, he had walked for hours on end with only brief stops for water or food.
But that was more than fifteen years ago, he told himself. I was a young man, a boy really.
With a twelve-mile walk ahead of him, he wished he had taken his brother up on the offer of a ride to the station. Recalling that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, he decided to abandon the winding road and walk across the meadow and through the woods. He would save considerable time by doing so. Although close to three miles would be shaved off his journey by the change of route, the rough terrain slowed him down. Worse, his old war wound was causing him pain.
Hobbling along on this bum leg, I might miss my train.
Despite his discomfort, Jacob forced himself to walk faster. He soon left the grassy meadow behind and entered the woods, thankful for the trees that offered welcome shade from the hot summer sun.
I wish I'd had the foresight to bring along a canteen of water, he thought feeling a powerful thirst. But if I recall, there's a stream not far up ahead.
Forty minutes later, perspiring from the heat, wincing from the pain in his leg and parched from lack of drink, he heard the bubbling sound of running water.
Thank God!
Jacob dropped his suitcase and ran toward the stream. So anxious was he for a cool drink of fresh water that he paid no heed to the ground beneath him and did not see the tree root lying beneath a cover of fallen leaves. Catching his foot on it, he became temporarily airborne, and then he fell to the ground with a heavy thud. The last thing he remembered before slipping into unconsciousness was the sharp pain in his forehead.
It was dark when Jacob came to. Too dizzy to stand, he crawled to the stream and drank his fill.
"What the hell was I thinking?" he asked himself aloud. "A man of my years running through the woods like that! Now I've gone and missed my train. It serves me right."
His thirst quenched, he managed to sit down on the same rock on which he had earlier struck his head. He considered his options. There were three, none of which appealed to him. He could continue heading toward town or he could return to the farm. However, both of these alternatives involved walking through the woods in the dark and risking further injury. The third option was to remain in the woods until daybreak. Unpleasant though it was, it seemed the best choice.
At least I've got a source of water, he thought optimistically.
Brushing away stones and branches, Jacob made himself a comfortable spot for the night. Unable to fall asleep, he let his mind wander. He was reminded once again of Washington Irving's writings.
"I can imagine Ichabod Crane riding through woods such as these, cowering at the memory of the terrifying tales told by Brom Bones."
"What a romantic you are!"
Jacob was startled by the sound of the voice, but his surprise was soon replaced by joy.
"Lydia!" he cried, barely able to make out her form in the dark. "Is it really you?"
"In the flesh," she laughed, her beautiful face suddenly illuminated by the light of the moon.
"I thought you were dead. I thought Nathan ...."
"You believed my husband killed me? Come now. Deep down, you know your brother is no murderer."
"Where have you been? We've been searching for you for more than a week now."
"I've been right here, waiting for you."
"I don't understand. What do you mean?"
"I've always loved you. Even though I married your brother, I waited for you to come back home to me. When the years passed and you stayed away, I knew I had to do something drastic. I needed to find some way to get you back here."
"So, you faked your disappearance, knowing my brother would ask for my help in finding you?"
"Yes. And my plan worked. Here you are."
Despite his pain, Jacob rose and faced her. He looked down into her eyes, and all the old feelings returned. Although he longed to kiss her, he could not forget that things were different between them. She was his brother's wife.
"It doesn't matter," Lydia insisted as though reading his mind. "I never loved Nathan. I never loved anyone but you."
"But he's my brother!"
"As you are his. That didn't stop him from asking me to marry him."
"It didn't stop you from accepting his proposal either."
"And I regretted doing so ever since," she said.
Tears glistened in her eyes, and the look of pain on her face caused him to become contrite.
"I'm sorry."
His gaze traveled from her eyes to her neck. She was wearing the heart-shaped pendant he gave her, the one he had placed on the table that morning.
"That necklace ...."
"I put it in the bed for you to find," she explained.
"And I left it back at the house for my brother. You went there and got it. Weren’t you afraid Nathan would see you?"
"The only thing I feared was that you would return to Washington without finding me."
Jacob's arms finally reached out for her. When his fingertips touched her skin, however, he abruptly pulled his hands back. The hot summer temperature notwithstanding, her flesh was cold as ice. She was completing lacking in human warmth.
"It'll be dawn soon," Lydia cried. "Hurry, we must go."
"Where?"
"To my parents' old house. No one lives there anymore, so no one will find us."
"Don’t be silly. I'm going back to Washington."
She tugged on his arm, but he pulled away, shivering from the coldness of her touch.
When the first rays of the morning sun penetrated the leafy canopy, Lydia disappeared, leaving behind only a cold chill in the air.
* * *
His mind dazed from his encounter with the supernatural, Jacob somehow made his way back to the clapboard farmhouse, despite his hunger and the pain in his leg. When he entered the house, he found his brother sitting at the kitchen table, holding his head in his hands.
"I thought you went back to Washington," he said, his voice choked with emotion and his face clouded with grief.
"No. I had an accident and spent the night in the woods. What's wrong?"
"They found her," Nathan announced.
He did not have to say any more. His brother already knew Lydia was dead.
"Where was she?"
"In the barn behind the old Handley place. Some kids went in there and ... and found her body."
"How did she die?"
"She hanged herself. The doctor says she's been dead for some time, most likely since the day she went missing."
"Are you sure it was Lydia?" Jacob asked.
"I identified the body myself. She ...."
He hesitated, a look of horror transforming his face.
"She was wearing this," Nathan announced and tossed the heart-shaped pendant on the table. "I distinctly remember seeing it in the kitchen yesterday when I came in from the fields, yet it was found embedded in the flesh of her neck beneath the rope."
As the two brothers stared at the necklace, they both admitted to themselves that they had been wrong.
Lydia never went to Washington, Nathan realized.
My brother didn't kill his wife after all, Jacob concluded.
Once the dead woman was placed in a grave on the Van Orden farm—as a suicide, she could not be buried in the church cemetery—Jacob left Tappan Zee. Although they would never meet again, the brothers parted on good terms. Within two years, Nathan remarried and went on to have a family of five children. Meanwhile, his brother returned to Washington, but he did not stay there long. Restless, he journeyed west where he hunted down bank robbers, train robbers and gunslingers for the Pinkertons. He never married, and to his dying day at the age of ninety-two, he never forgot his ghostly encounter with his brother's wife.
Salem had his image put on heart-shaped necklaces and sells them on eBay.
