City of Ash (46 page)

“I’ve grown used to it by now,” I said. I cocked my head the way I’d seen her do it, a little flirtatious, a little arrogant.

“Have you been in Seattle long?”

I remembered what she’d told me that night in the stable. “A few years. I toured a great deal before that.”

“That must be hard too. Moving from town to town.” He raised the tent pole, jamming it hard into the ground.

“Not if you don’t mind sleeping in barns.”

He grinned. “Well, this tent will be a sight better than that.”

“A great deal better,” I agreed. “Thank you so much, Mr.—”

“Reynolds,” he said, stepping from the canvas. “Dr. David Reynolds.”

“A doctor?” I felt a sudden trepidation—I wondered if I would ever again hear the word
doctor
with equanimity.

“I’ve a practice on Front Street. That is, I
did
have a practice there.”

“You’ll be rebuilding, I hope.”

“So do I. As soon as I can.”

“Well, you’ve been very kind, Dr. Reynolds,” I said. “I shall ask Mr. Greene to hold a ticket for you when the Regal reopens again.”

“Why, that would be wonderful.” His eyes lit. “I appreciate that, Mrs. Wilkes.”

He said good-bye and disappeared into the maze of tents, and I told myself to remember to tell her his name and my promise, and then I spread the bedroll inside, making the tent as much a home as I could, and strangely enough, I found myself comfortable within it. I took the jeweled clock from my pocket and set it in the corner and let the tent flaps fall closed and lay upon the bedroll, staring up at the gently sloping canvas only a few feet above my head. Here I was, in a dress tattered and burned and smelling of smoke, in a tent on an abandoned lot, and yet, strangely, I felt more myself than I had in some time.

While thinking that, I fell into dreams. Dreams where Claude and I lay together in bed, and then it changed, then it was Sebastian DeWitt, crying out as he spent himself in me, and then, even stranger, the arms around me were not his arms, but those of Beatrice Wilkes, cradling me close, reassuring me, whispering in that resonant voice she used only for the stage, “We are the same, you and I. You know it to be true,” and then the dream faded and was gone.

Beatrice

I
t didn’t take long for me to realize that keeping Mrs. Langley’s existence from Sebastian was going to be nearly impossible. Even if we hadn’t meant to keep her in a tent only a few yards away, there was the little problem of keeping her fed. At the Tacoma Relief, I had to ask him to get me more coffee so I could wrangle an extra ration of bread from the waiter for “my friend,” and though I stuck it in my pocket, it wasn’t in there very well
and I thought it might fall out and I didn’t relish the thought of having to explain it.

We left the relief tent and I took him to the stable so I could retrieve the gown. I told him it was the only costume I’d managed to save from the fire, and he didn’t question it but waited outside as I asked him to. I was afraid she might still be there, but she was already gone. I hoped she was at the camp, safe in Sebastian’s tent. The gown was still where I’d left it. When I came out with it bundled in my arms, the jeweled butterflies glinting in the sun, Sebastian eyed it and said, “You bought
that
in a secondhand shop?”

“A gift from Nathan,” I said uncomfortably, because I couldn’t help remembering just why he’d gifted it. Sebastian said nothing else, for which I was grateful.

When we got to the Regal, the tent was up, just as Sebastian had said it would be, and there was a sign hanging there that looked like a board torn from a packing crate, with
THE PHOENIX
written upon it in thick black charcoal. Two of the carpenters were putting together what looked like a scaffold from bits of wood obviously salvaged from the fire.

Inside, the tent was long and narrow, maybe thirty feet wide and sixty long, canvas spread over a skeleton of a roof, exposed crossbeams only a few feet above our heads. The floor was dirt, the ashes of the Regal tamped down or shoveled out, and at the far end was the platform of a simple stage. There were no footlights that I could see, only a bunch of oil lamps sitting about, and no seats, and the wings were only a four-foot space on either side of the stage. Someone had strung a length of rope across the front of it and hung a big swath of bunting instead of a velvet curtain—where they got that, I had no idea, but then Aloysius came walking up and saw what I was looking at and said, “It’s something, isn’t it? We were lucky to get it.”

“Where
did
you get it? I thought there was nothing left from the fire.”

“A steamer came in yesterday with some dry goods.”

“A steamer? But Jack said the docks were no good.”

“They’ve fixed some of the damage to Schwabacher’s, and
it jammed itself in there, though they’d thought the wharf too small,” Aloys said with a smile. “Ah well, as they say: ‘needs must,’ eh? Now all we require are benches. Lucius is hoping to procure some at the charity ball.”

Sebastian asked, “What charity ball?”

“One to be given by Mrs. Wilcox,” Aloysius said. “Two days from now. We’re all to go. Didn’t Lucius tell you?”

“I haven’t seen him yet this morning,” I said, but all I could think was that Mrs. Langley had been right about the balls. This was what we needed, and it was to be in two days, which was sooner than I’d expected.

“They need players, it seems. For a tableau.” Aloys stroked his dark beard. “We’re to do scenes from great American disasters, I understand.”

“D’you think Johnstown too raw?” Jack stepped up from behind me. “I’d thought to stand at the side with a bucket of water and heave-to at the proper cue.”

I smiled. “Oh, how perfect! A little splash to show a great flood. I’ve a better idea: let’s do Noah’s Ark instead. You could spit on us to mimic a downpour.”

Jack snorted. “DeWitt, I see you’ve not yet managed to tame her wicked tongue.”

“I take too much inspiration from it,” Sebastian said, grinning. I went hot. Jack and Aloys laughed.

“Oh undoubtedly,” Aloys said, chucking my chin. “We all wish for
inspiration
such as that, eh, darling?”

Jack said, “Well, at least Bea is the proper muse for the writing of scenes of destruction. Thank God for that, as Lucius intends you to author it, DeWitt. And I stand ready to deliver if the flood takes your fancy.”

“Great American disasters,” Sebastian said wryly. “Well, I shall have my work cut out for me.”

“Oh, you needn’t spend all your time reenacting the Chicago fire, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Aloysius said. “They’re more intent upon the ‘heroes’ who rebuild. You know, the rich Astors and Vanderbilts and their
purely
humanitarian efforts.”

I smiled. “What a cynic you are, Aloys.”

“It is pretty to see what money will do,” he answered, grinning.

“Ah, there he is! The man of the hour, come at last!”

Sebastian and I both turned to see Lucius ducking through the open end of the tent.

“
Monsieur
DeWitt! I have great need of you.”

“So I hear.” Sebastian patted his bag. “I’ve the first scenes of
Much Ado
worked out.”

“Oh brilliant boy! We shall practice it anon, but for now, I must have something more brilliant still.” Lucius put one hand on Sebastian’s shoulder, gesturing with the other. “Can you see it? A tableau of our greatest calls to arms! The moments when the communities of America lived up to their philanthropic promise. Man helping his fellow man—”

“In other words, a fantasy,” Jack interjected.

I choked a laugh. Lucius glared at both of us. He took his hand from Sebastian’s shoulder. “There is to be a charity ball in two days at the Wilcox ballroom—given that all our usual venues have sadly turned to ash.”

Aloys folded his arms. “Mrs. Wilcox is opening her doors to the hoi polloi?”

“Good gracious, no,” said Lucius. “Only to those disposed to help and with the resources to do so. But their names are to be published in the
Post-Intelligencer
, so I think we shall have a goodly number. There is to be a donation at the door, a pittance of which I have been assured is to be given to the entertainers, that is, you and me, good ladies and gentlemen.”

“Who’s assured it, Lucius?” Aloysius asked.

“Our good patron Mr. Langley, of course, who is one of the sponsors of the event.”

Nathan. Perfect
. It all fell into place as if we’d planned it.

“He’s become quite the political darling, hasn’t he?” Jack asked.

I turned to him. “What do you mean?”

“This charity ball he’s helping organize, for one. And I hear he’s to be onstage with the mayor later this evening.”

“What stage?”

“Oh, not really a stage. A speech, on the site where the fire
began. You know, that ‘bear up, my good citizens, we have disaster well in hand’ kind of thing. I had no idea Langley had an eye for politics.”

“I believe he always has,” Sebastian volunteered. “But his wife made things … difficult.”

I looked at him, surprised he knew such a thing.

He shrugged. “It seemed a rather obvious bone of contention.”

“Well, now she’s gone, he can do as he likes. Until she shows up again,” Jack said.

“Have you heard something that makes you think she will?” Sebastian asked, and I didn’t think I was imagining the hope in his tone.

Jack said, “Nothing. But no one’s found her body yet. That seems a good sign, don’t you think?”

I said, before Sebastian could comment, “When did you say this speech was to be, Jack?”

“Dinner hour, I take it,” Jack said.

Dinner hour. And I thought: What if Nathan saw her at the speech tonight? The spirit of his dead wife wavering on the edge of the crowd, something to prime him for the ball? It seemed too good an opportunity to waste.

Lucius clapped his hands. “Now, let’s all to work, shall we? And you, Mr. DeWitt, shall put aside your labors on
Much Ado
for the time being to concentrate on writing a fine tableau for us, which we shall rehearse the moment it is finished.”

The others disbanded, going toward the makeshift stage, and I started after them. Sebastian grabbed my arm. When I turned in surprise to look at him, he said in a low voice, “You look like a cat who got into the cream.”

I frowned at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Something’s going on in that head of yours. What has you smiling so smugly about Langley and this speech?”

I was horrified that I’d been so transparent—and that he’d seen it. Quickly, I lied, “I wasn’t smiling. I was only surprised Nathan didn’t tell me about it.”

Sebastian raised a brow. “Should he have?”

“I
am
his mistress.”

“So you are.” He stepped away, but not before giving me a
puzzled look that said he knew I wasn’t telling the truth but wasn’t sure why, and I forced a smile and followed the others to the stage.

But I had trouble concentrating on the rehearsal. The ball, the speech, the plan I had with Mrs. Langley, Sebastian … there were a hundred things to think about, and none of them were Beatrice’s damn dialogue with Benedick.

Finally Lucius called for a break. “Two hours, children, and then we shall reconvene to start on our tableau. How are you progressing, DeWitt?”

Sebastian looked up from his papers. “I’ve a first part ready. There will be more in two hours.”

“Excellent!” Lucius boomed. “Two hours, children! No more!”

“Perhaps that’s enough time for Bea to get her head out of the clouds,” Jack teased as we stepped down from the stage.

I ignored him. Two hours was long enough to get to the camp and back, to tell Mrs. Langley about the speech, perhaps even enough time to get her the tent I’d promised. Sebastian would be busy with the tableau, so there was no question of having to talk him into letting me go alone. I picked up the gown I’d put at the far corner of the stage, away from the dirt. I felt Sebastian watching me—those disconcertingly transparent eyes, gray today—and so I made myself go over to him.

“I’m taking this back to the camp before it gets ruined,” I told him.

He said, “I’d go with you, but—”

“Yes, I know. Write away.” I leaned close, brushing my lips against his ear. “I’ll think of you while I’m gone.”

He looked a little stunned—it was an expression I liked, and I left him looking that way. Once I was on the street, I put Sebastian out of my mind. He was going to make things more difficult, but I would deal with that later.

When I stepped into Sebastian’s tent, it was empty. I saw no sign that she’d even been there. It was after noon, which was when I’d told her we were likely to be back, so I thought she must be in the woods in the lot next door. I bent to put the gown beneath the crate.

“He isn’t with you, is he? I didn’t see him.”

Her voice startled me so I dropped the gown and jerked up hard into the canvas ceiling. Mrs. Langley stood at the far end of the tent, peeking warily between the flaps.

“Is he here?” she asked.

I shook my head. “He’s down at the theater.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bread, handing it to her. “I’ll go see about getting a tent. But then I need to talk to you.”