City of Ash (42 page)

“Show everyone how mad you were, so that when he put you in the asylum no one would ask questions. He’s still doing it too. He’s telling everyone you’ve disappeared because you’re unbalanced—at least that’s what he told me.” I laughed wryly. “Did he read
Penelope Justis
? Because it’s as if he stole the plot.”

“Without the ghost,” she said softly.

“There didn’t need to be a ghost. Not when you were so obliging.”

“Well, you can be certain Nathan didn’t read it. That was his reason for bringing me Mr. DeWitt in the first place. I was to read the play, because Nathan didn’t have the time or the inclination. I was the one to decide whether it was worth investing in. And I was so excited about it. I hardly questioned it.”

“He bought the play because of me,” I found myself saying.

“Ah yes. I’d forgotten. Mr. DeWitt went to Nathan for you, didn’t he?”

I didn’t want to think of that. Not of Sebastian, nor the fact that I was supposed to be with him now. I swallowed and said, “Yes. But it doesn’t matter. What I want to know is how Nathan meant to get you into the asylum. Making everyone believe you were insane is one thing. Actually
committing
you—”

Her smile was very small. “I had a cough, you see, and Nathan brought a doctor to examine me, but I don’t think the cough was really the reason he was there. And Nathan said he had a friend who meant to come watch the rehearsal. I think it was to be another doctor. But he never showed.”

And suddenly I remembered the night at the Queen City Chop House. The way Nathan had urged me into performing. The man grabbing my arm.
“I’m a doctor.…”

I sagged against the brick wall. It was a coincidence, wasn’t it? It had to be. But then I remembered how the whole thing had felt like some game I didn’t know how to play, and I knew—I just
knew
—it had something to do with her. “There was a doctor. I think.”

Mrs. Langley frowned. “One who came to watch the rehearsal? When?”

I shook my head. “Not then. The night before the fire, Nathan took me to the Queen City. He had me … act out the mad scene from
L’Article 47
. I thought it was strange, you know, but he was insistent. And there was a doctor there. Everyone was watching. And … Nathan called me his
wife.
”

She went pale. “But surely no one would have mistaken you for me.”

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” I asked sharply. “It was dark in that restaurant too. And I wasn’t dressed like this. Nathan asked me to wear a cloak he’d given me, and these jeweled hairpins.”

She glanced at the gown in my arms. “I had hairpins made to match that gown. In the shape of butterflies. I lost them.”

I felt sick. “No, you didn’t. They were gold, weren’t they? With rubies and sapphires?”

She nodded, and we both went quiet for a moment before she said, “Dear God, what a fool I’ve been.”

“He said it was supposed to be over,” I whispered. “Nathan said that. Today, when I was with him, he said it should have been over by now, and that you’d ruined it.”

“By disappearing,” she said with a pathetic little laugh. “How inconvenient of me. No doubt he had them waiting to
take me away when I returned from rehearsal. But I’d discovered the letter, you see. I’d meant to run away that morning, with Mr.

DeWitt’s help.”

“Did you mention any of this to Sebastian?”

She shook her head. “He wasn’t at rehearsal. There was no time.”

“I don’t understand. It seems like such a lot of trouble. Why go to such lengths? If Nathan wants to be rid of you, why not just walk away?”

“Nathan would never leave me. He wouldn’t give up my money.”

“Your money? Hasn’t he any of his own?”

“Nathan comes from a very old family, but they lost everything when Cooke and Company went bankrupt. His father committed suicide. His mother went mad and died within a year. They left him nothing but debt.”

“So the money is all yours.”

“Yes. A trust from my mother. My father’s largesse. All mine.”

“I see,” I said, and I did. Even if I’d never heard of Stratford Mining, I would have known there was a great deal of money; I’d seen it all through that house.

“An asylum is the perfect solution for Nathan, don’t you see? He wants a political career. I’ve been a … liability. This way, he’s rid of me, and our social circle would fall over themselves in sympathy. Half of them would say they weren’t surprised. They would embrace him, and he would have control of my money. If they managed to commit me … I would never escape. Together, he and my father would keep me in an asylum forever.”

“Why are you a liability? Except for that affair with the artist, what have you done?”

She gave me a sideways glance. “There wasn’t an affair. But Nathan … everyone thought there was.”

“So they thought there was. Affairs happen all the time. Half the plays we do are about them.”

“In those plays, does the wife pose from life for a statue of a
woman waiting for her lover? Is it displayed to all of society in a special exhibition?”

I was stunned. I would never have expected it of her. “
You
did that?”

She looked away again. “Yes. Foolish, I know.”

I didn’t miss that despair in her voice—one more thing to surprise. And again I found myself feeling sorry for her.

“What do you intend to do?” I asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” she answered, equally quiet. “I must admit … I am sorely ill equipped to be anything other than what I am. But I can’t go back to Nathan. You must see that.”

I sighed. “Yes. I can see that.”

“I’d thought to gain some time. Perhaps go to the Continent until I could convince my father that things aren’t as he believes.”

“You’ll need money for that.”

“I suppose once the pawnshops reopen—”

“That clock? It’d buy you six months maybe. What would you do then?” The moment I said the words, the thought that had nagged at me returned. How rich she was. So much money. What I could do with even a fraction of it. Start my own company, build my own theater. No more relying on untrustworthy managers or patrons or keeping anyone happy but myself.…

I met her gaze. “There must be a way for you to keep your money. Without Nathan.”

“Without him? You don’t mean … kill him?”

I was startled. That had never occurred to me, but she said it so matter-of-factly it was disturbing. And what was more disturbing was how the thought gathered like a little knot in my chest, a possibility now that she’d mentioned it. “No. I’m no Iago, Mrs. Langley.”

“Then how?”

We both fell silent, thinking, but I was hungry, and the day had been long, and my mind did not want to untangle a knot, not this one, not mine,
but it is now, Bea, why not just admit it? You could walk away, and you aren’t
.

And on the tails of that thought came Nathan’s voice, as if
it had just been waiting for me to come around to it.
“I thought I saw her,”
and my own words:
“Did he read
Penelope Justis?
Because it’s as if he stole the plot.”

Suddenly I knew how we could have the money and be rid of Nathan at the same time.

“He said he saw you,” I said slowly.

“Yes, you told me that. I tell you he didn’t.”

“I believe you. But what if he does? What if we make
Penelope Justis
real?”

She gave me a puzzled look.

“A ghost who drives a man mad. Penny pretends to be a ghost to drive Barnabus mad. It’s fitting, don’t you think? Nathan meant to commit you. What if we turn it about and have him committed instead?”

She went very still. “That’s preposterous.”

“Yes, but what if we could do it? What if I could make him believe you were dead, and that it was your
spirit
he saw? What if he
keeps
seeing it?”

“No one would believe it.”

“We don’t need everyone to believe it. We only need Nathan to.”

“He won’t. He’s too rational.”

“Nathan’s angry as hell,” I corrected. “And ambitious. And desperate enough to do what he did. Ambition, anger, and desperation … look what it did to Macbeth.”

She hesitated. “That’s a
play
. Things like that don’t really happen.”

“You think not? Truth is stranger than fiction, isn’t that what they say? God knows I’ve seen strange things. And we don’t need to actually turn Nathan insane, anyway. All we must do is make people believe he is. It’s what he was doing to you. And once he’s safely in an asylum, you’ll have all the time you need. It should be easy to prove to your father that Nathan was lying—hell, he’s in an
asylum
. And you’ll have all your money. Except for what you give to me, of course.”

“Such a thing could take months. I would need to stay hidden for months.”

“Wouldn’t it be worth it? A life without him, Mrs. Langley—if
you end up with that, what’s a few months? And maybe it would be quicker. Sometimes he already seems half mad. And you said his mother was. Maybe blood runs true.”

“I’ve tried to manipulate Nathan before,” she said quietly. “It was … disastrous. The way he thinks … he never does what one expects.”

“But you never had
me
before. Together we can do this. You’ll have to do some acting, but I think you have enough talent to fool him.”

She glanced at me in surprise.

“Enough for that, anyway,” I said—and pretty generously too, given everything.

“It’s easy enough to say we could turn him mad, but the doing of it is something else.”

“Sebastian’s already thought of how to do it. We simply follow his play.”

“But it changes by the hour. And we haven’t rehearsed it in order. I don’t
know
what happens well enough to follow it. Unless”—said hopefully—“you’ve been privy to the whole revision?”

I shook my head. “No one has. He hasn’t finished writing it. When I last saw the full play, there truly was a ghost. Before Penelope became a villain and decided to invent one.”

“Then there is no plan to follow,” Mrs. Langley said.

“But there will be,” I assured her. “He’s revising it—all I have to do is read it.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“Well, he’s invited me to stay with him, hasn’t he? I suppose I’ll have to now.”

She went quiet, and her glance was thoughtful, and it made me remember her
friendship
with him, the way he defended her, and there it was, a jealousy that shook me.

Mrs. Langley said—a little irritably, I thought—“Yes, I suppose you shall. Where then will I be?”

“We’ll find a place,” I said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult.”

She nodded, and then she said, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For helping me.”

That gentle voice again, that voice she had like a wounded dove, so sweet and trusting, and I didn’t like the way it wiggled into me, the way it sat there, the way it pleaded.

So I said roughly, “It’s a lot of money. I’ll expect a piece of it.”

She said, “Believe me, I didn’t expect it to be free.”

Geneva

I
n the end, she did sleep in a haystack again, despite her protests. I was grateful; I did not want to be alone to think of everything that could go wrong. Her plan had not required a great deal of contemplation. There was so much at stake. And I was desperate. My money was in Nathan’s hands. My father was on his side. One step out of hiding and I would be locked away, with no chance to protest and no pardon, and I was more afraid than I had revealed to Mrs. Wilkes. So much depended on her, and I didn’t trust her, but for now she was my only hope. If this should not work … But it
had
to work. What else was I to do?

She stirred beside me, rustling the hay, raising the scent of sun-warmed grass and smoke. “Tomorrow I’ll go to the relief tent and get you something to eat. But I’ve got rehearsal after that. And then … I don’t know how long it will take, but I’ll have to leave you alone. I’ve been thinking about where we can keep you hidden.”

“I can’t stay here.”

“No. If they add another tent for women up at the Tacoma Relief, could you go there? Would you know anyone?”

“Probably. I hardly know. There were balls … suppers.…”

She snorted softly. “So not there, I guess.” She went quiet. Then she said, “Mr. DeWitt said there were families where he is, that they’d hardly notice me. We could get you a tent. At least for now. There might be people there who recognize me, but maybe … if people thought I was you, surely they would think you were me if they didn’t see us together. You can’t keep hiding out behind the Boston block. The militia won’t let you stay.”

“I don’t want to stay there in any case,” I said.

“We’ll have to think of somewhere for you to go until I can get a tent. Perhaps … I don’t know. I can’t think of everything. Just stay around here tomorrow. Stay out of sight. Do you think you can manage that?”

“I suppose I’ll have to.” I took the clock from my pocket and set it on the floor. “What will we do with this?”

“Hold on to it. We might need it. But I wouldn’t carry it around. I suppose you should give it to me. I’ll hide it.”