City of Ash (43 page)

“Oh no,” I said. “How do I know you won’t walk off with it?”

“How do I know
you
won’t?”

“Because I can’t be seen. Not if I’m supposed to be dead.”

She was quiet for a moment. “All right. Keep it then.”

We lapsed into silence. I thought she’d drifted to sleep, but then she said, “How long have you been married to him?”

The question surprised me enough that I answered her. “Six years now. We married when I was twenty-three. But … Nathan was different then.”

“Did you love him?”

“Oh yes. We were very … passionate. Then we were married and … things changed.”

“Because of that sculptor?”

Such private things she wanted to know, questions I would have considered insolent only a few days ago. But I wanted to tell her my reasons, to justify myself, so I said, “Claude was the final thing, but it all started before then. I’d thought Nathan was the perfect man for me. He loved theater and art—we used to talk for hours. I thought he understood who I was. But … he became different. I thought at first it was because he was so busy working for my father. But then I began to realize he’d only pretended to
be the man I wanted. He’d used me. As you said, he’s ambitious, and I was only a step on the ladder. I was lonely, and angry. I felt trapped. And then Claude came along, and he was everything I’d thought Nathan was. When he asked me to pose, I thought it was the perfect way to end my marriage.” I sighed. “I thought I would be free.”

“How spoiled you are,” she said.

I felt as if she’d slapped me. How had I ever expected her to be sympathetic? “Of course, how beyond reproach is your life! How sanctimonious you sound.”

“I wouldn’t have expected any man to understand me or any other woman,” she said calmly. “If you weren’t so used to getting your own way, you would never have made such a mistake.”

Her words startled me; my anger fled. They were true, I realized, and was surprised at it. I had been wrong again: she
did
understand. I found myself asking, “Your own husband—?”

“The Mrs. is only a sign of respect,” she said drily. “Haven’t you ever noticed? Most actresses use it if they’ve been around enough. Lucius started putting it on the program two years ago. I’ve earned it too, believe me.”

“You never married?”

“No.” Short and to the point.

“Have you ever wanted to be?”

She said, “Managers pay a married actress less on the theory that their husbands will provide. I’ve never met anyone I liked enough to take a pay cut for.”

“How … practical.”

“I’ve lived on my own a long time, Mrs. Langley. If I don’t watch out for myself, no one else will.”

And in spite of everything I thought about her, those words sounded oddly lonely.

She rolled onto her side with a sigh. The hay gave beneath her; some of it was dislodged, poking into my arm. “I’m tired,” she said. “Good night, Mrs. Langley.”

I hesitated, but in the end there was nothing more to say. “Good night,” I answered.

Beatrice

B
y the time I got back from the relief tent the next morning, Mrs. Langley was huddled outside the far wall of the stable behind a pile of straw and horse manure. She took the parcel of bread I gave her gratefully.

“It’s all there is,” I said. “Unless you can think of a way for me to carry soup.”

“This will do.” She opened the paper and tore off a piece of the bread. “Where’s the gown?”

“I didn’t want to carry it around, but it’s safe enough.” I’d buried it that morning in the pile of hay, deep enough that none of those who lived here would find it for a few days if I had to leave it that long. I didn’t quite trust her—who knew but that I might return to find her gone and the clock and the dress with her? Which might have been a relief, you know, but that dress was the only currency I had just now, and I didn’t want to lose it.

“I’d best be off again,” I told her, and she nodded and said she would wait for me there. I headed off toward the ruins of the theater, glad to be away from her and worried about her in the same breath. I’d dreamed last night of murder and Penelope and Macbeth all twisted up together, which left me tired and irritable.

It wasn’t just that making me nervous as I made my way to rehearsal. I’d half hoped that I would see Sebastian DeWitt at the relief tent this morning, but he never showed. I’d been more disappointed than I’d expected at that, especially because I was fairly sure he would be angry with me for not coming to his tent as I’d promised. Or he would be hurt, which would be worse, and I didn’t really want to face that in front of everyone else. It was none of their business, for one thing, and for another … I didn’t
want it getting out that he did anything more than just admire me, at least not until I knew what the hell I was doing.

The city looked alive again in a strange way. Even more foreign than it had yesterday: the harbor without its wharves and without the trestles that crisscrossed it, but with boats gathered in the water like ants waiting for a picnic to end; the colliers still burning; tents going up amid telegraph poles sticking bare and charred into the air and the remnants of brick walls and gnarled horsecar rails; the sounds of hammering and pounding and the spray of water from great fire hoses constant and loud. Now and then there was an explosion that made me flinch, the crash of brick as men brought down weakened walls and raised clouds of dust. The streets were hazy with it. Men coughed as they hammered together makeshift frames, sneezing as the flapping canvas duck caused little tornados of ash. One or two places were already open again. I passed a doctor’s tent, and two that advertised lawyers, but I hadn’t seen a store since the one where I found Brody; there was no clothing to be had and no steamer had been able to land supplies enough to start up a grocery or a dry goods store or a restaurant.

When I got to what had been the Regal it was to see something so astonishing that I stopped short. I recognized three of the set carpenters hammering together a frame of charred wood studded with nails, but beyond them were Jack and Brody and Aloysius, wearing only their shirtsleeves as they hammered alongside them. Next to them was Lucius doing the same, calling out orders to the others as he straddled a beam. Susan sat on a trunk off to the side, laughing as she watched them, and Mrs. Chace reclined on a wagon in the street, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand.

I laughed as I came over. “Why, I never thought to see you do an honest day’s work, Jackson!”

He flashed me a quick smile. “You’d best get an eyeful then, as it won’t be happening again.”

“And I had no idea Lucius was so handy with a hammer.”

Lucius paused, wiping his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “You wound me, my dear! I was building sets when you were little more than a weanling.”

I sat on the trunk next to Susan. Affecting as casual a tone as I could, I asked, “Where’s Mr. DeWitt? I thought Lucius told him to be here today for rehearsal.”

“He’s been here and gone.”

“Gone? Where?”

Susan gave me a sly look. “Don’t worry, Bea, he’ll be back any minute. Lucius sent him off to get breakfast. He looked ready to swoon for the lack of it. He was so eager to see you I guess he forgot to eat.”

I felt myself go hot, and I looked away from her to hide it, and as I did, I saw him coming down the street, his frock coat flapping, his hand curled around the leather strap of the satchel over his shoulder. I went nervous as a schoolgirl. When he approached I looked away, suddenly wishing he wasn’t yet here, when all I’d wanted the whole damn morning was to see him.

He came up to the trunk where we sat, ignoring the fact that I meant to ignore him, and said in a very cool voice, “There you are, Mrs. Wilkes. What happened to you last night?”

I refused to meet his eye. “What do you mean?”

“I thought we were to meet. To”—he glanced at Susan, who was watching us both avidly—“to go over the new scenes.”

I made the mistake of looking at him just then, and he was staring at me as if he couldn’t decide whether to hit me or kiss me. “I’m sorry. I was … delayed.”

“Delayed?” His gaze sharpened.

“Yes.” I looked at Susan, who was not even pretending not to listen. “By our mutual patron.”

“Is that so?” There was not a trace of jealousy in his voice. “I would have thought him too preoccupied.”

“With what?”

“Why, with his wife’s disappearance. There was a search party up at the camp this morning. The rumor was that he’d sent it.”

“I take it they didn’t find her. Or her body.”

Sebastian shook his head.

“The only bodies they found so far were some bones in Wa Chong’s,” Susan put in. “And those Celestials were already dead and waiting to be shipped back to China.”

“I hope they
don’t
find her,” Sebastian said softly. “I hope she somehow escaped it.”

“Then why hasn’t she shown up?” Susan asked. “I think she’s dead, Mr. DeWitt.”

He sighed. “I wish I could disagree with you. I’d give my entire fortune to see her alive.”

My stomach tightened. “Your entire fortune? I had no idea you cared for her so much.”

“We were friends, as you know. And I wouldn’t wish that kind of death on my worst enemy. Certainly not a friend.”

“I bet Bea’s glad enough of it,” Susan teased. “Ain’t you, Bea? Now that she’s gone, you got Penelope back.”

I looked away, back to Jack and the others, feeling more than a little sick.

“Oh, I doubt Mrs. Wilkes is so spiteful as that,” Sebastian said—and damn if he didn’t sound as if he thought exactly the opposite.

“Of course I’m not,” I snapped.

Lucius cursed once more and rose, kicking at the framing, so that Jack called out, “Steady, dammit! I can’t hammer a wiggling board!”

Lucius strode toward us. “Ah, back again, DeWitt.”

Sebastian began to take his bag from his shoulder. “I’ll come help.”

“No, no.” Lucius held up his hand to stop him. “No need. We can finish it well enough on our own, and you need your fingers, I think. I’ll require the first act of
Much Ado
by tomorrow.”

Sebastian nodded and settled the bag again. “As you wish.”

“I thought you called a rehearsal this morning,” I said. “Where are we to rehearse?”

“I had thought we would be further along than this by now. Ah, ‘delays have dangerous ends,’ but in this case, I think them inevitable.” Lucius glanced ruefully at a swollen finger. “Rehearsal will be tomorrow instead. You are excused for today. Off with you now, or stay and be amused, as you wish.” He strode back to the frame, picking up his hammer.

Susan wiggled off the trunk. “As funny as this is to watch, I got a whole morning off and a miner to see to. Tomorrow then!”

In the wagon beyond, Mrs. Chace settled back and lowered her hat over her eyes as if readying to take a nap.

Sebastian stepped closer. “Come with me.”

“Really? You care to be with someone as spiteful as I am?”

“I already know what a villain you are, remember?” he said with a smile that whipped away my irritation.

“To where?”

“My tent. It’s quiet there, now the search party’s gone.”

It was what I’d meant to do, of course, but now I was nervous.
Stupid, stupid girl
. I was already feeling guilty. I thought of the secrets I kept: Mrs. Langley alive and our plan and the fact that I needed to see what happened in the new version of
Penelope Justis
, and that was half the reason I would go with him. The way he looked at me was so damned disconcerting. “I thought Lucius wanted you to work on the play. Won’t I be a distraction?”

His gaze riveted to mine. “I’m hoping so.”

That gaze, those words, stole my voice.

He went quiet, watching me as if he could somehow read my thoughts. To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure he couldn’t. He readjusted the satchel over his shoulder and said, “Well. Let’s go, shall we?”

I followed him down the street, and I was afraid and excited at the same time, as if the thing I most dreaded was also the thing I wished most to do, which wasn’t such a bad way to put it, I guess. I
did
dread Sebastian DeWitt; I had this feeling that he was too much for me, that I couldn’t control him. But I wanted him too, and I’d never felt like that, and that feeling was so damned
new
that I didn’t know what to do with it—except maybe to fuck him until it was gone.

He walked quickly; I kept taking these running little steps to keep up with him, but he showed no signs of slowing. My corset gripped until I couldn’t catch my breath. It was impossible to speak; I didn’t have enough breath to form a single word, but that was a relief too. I didn’t want to talk to him. I was afraid of the things he might say.

I was sweating and panting by the time we reached the camp. Dozens of tents settled on the vacant lot, the smoke from small campfires drifting, dogs barking and dodging, people moving
about, cooking or drawing water from four huge barrels along the camp’s edge. Women and children mostly—I supposed most of the men were gone for the day, looking for work or food. A few militiamen patrolled it, but they had a laxer air than those down in the burned district; they laughed and joked with the children following them, and the whole place had a strangely homelike feel.