Conjurer (14 page)

Abruptly, she takes up her damask napkin and fans herself. “The fire in this room is too steeply banked,” she manages to murmur.

“What's that you're saying?” Her husband goggles at her.

“I said the fire is overhot, John. Whoever laid it has been remiss. We are not tropical flowers requiring searing heat.”

“Searing …?”

Emily forces a smile. “Do you not feel it is too warm in here, John?”

He looks around him in perplexity. “Too cool, I would have said.”

“Ah. Then we hold two differing points of view.”

“Differing …?” John echoes again. At this point, during similar past conversations, Emily would have thrust away her napkin and stood impatiently, her blue eyes spilling wrath at her husband's stupidity and incompetence. Today, she remains in place, venturing a hesitant:

“I hope the gray mare is quite well, John?”

“Yes” is the uninformative reply.

“You will … you will not eat, then?” Emily tries again.

“If you'll excuse me, no, I will not.” But instead of moving away, John Durand turns heavily back to his wife. “I've been thinking, you know, my dear … that we should … that we should entertain more often …”

“Here?” Emily cannot conceal a look of dismay.
Not in this sober and outmoded little dwelling
, she thinks.
What can John be proposing?

“No … no, not here … Or, well, wherever you see fit, of course … Here … or in town … This is a nice, pleasant place, though …” Her husband flounders again while Emily finds herself staring at him. Guilt makes her brain tear through his words.
John wishes me sequestered in the country
, she tells herself.
Perhaps he suspects something is amiss but doesn't yet know for certain and wants to keep me within easy sight
.

“… In truth, Emily, I've been hoping to expand our circle a bit. Broaden our group of acquaintances, don't you know … Invite some folk we haven't heretofore included …”

It's a trap
, Emily decides as her husband rambles on, although she has no clue how the mechanism of this particular snare might work.

“We could … we could include the Roseggers, for instance …”

Emily stares wide-eyed at her husband; she's still uncertain where his conversation is leading them, and her lack of authority rattles her severely. “The Roseggers! Why would we invite them? They're nothing but the most obvious
arrivistes
.”

“He's an important man of affairs, Emily—”

“John. You cannot be serious. We might as well ask a fishmonger and his wife to dine.” Even as she forms these words of protest, Emily is desperately trying to detect what her husband's motives might be. Certainly it's not the purported expansion of their social sphere.
The Roseggers
, her brain repeats,
the Roseggers … What on earth can John be getting at?

“Oh, come, my dear Emily! That is an unchristian remark.”

“But true,” she counters with a familiar stubbornness. “The wife is unbelievably drab. Besides, everyone knows she was once—”

“She's very devoted, my dear. On the occasions when we've seen them both together, she strikes me as—”

“Dogs are also devoted, John, and yet human beings do not marry them.”

Durand clears his throat and struggles with his cravat, but Emily, focused on her own concerns, fails to detect his deep unease. “Not every lady can hope to sparkle as you do, my dear wife.”

Emily tilts her head. She perceives the pretty words as both manipulative and a covert warning, and searches her husband's eyes, but they remain inscrutable.

“We could ask Martha Beale as well, don't you think, Emily …?” He clears his throat and fidgets with his cravat a second time. Despite these outward signs of anxiety, moment by moment, John Durand feels himself growing more confident in the deception he's arranged. For not one second has he recognized the strangeness of his wife's behavior. “Yes … have her to sup and so forth … her and the Roseggers …”

“Martha Beale's in mourning, John” is all Emily can think to reply.

“Oh, not yet, my dear. What I mean to say is there are no funerary arrangements—”

“Not as such, no, although given the circumstances of her father's disappearance—”

Durand won't concede his wife's interruption. In fact, he now seems quite sure of his position. His thick body almost swells with pride. “Which there won't be, of course, unless a body is found … So, yes … You could write to Martha Beale
and
the Roseggers, and … and …” Then he suddenly realizes that he's grasping at straws with this suggestion. “… And … and that Italian johnnie the Ilsleys had … Make a bit of a stir, don't you know … Have another of those … what do you call them? Private séances? Is that it …? Yes … yes, and you could easily outdo the Ilsley set …”

Emily opens her mouth to reply, but no matter how much she wishes to sound calm and nonchalant, no sound comes.

“After all, why should Henrietta Ilsley outshine you, my dear? Your
soirées
are ten times more scintillating than hers.”

Again Emily can only remain mute and immobile.

Without his wife's definitive answer to his proposal—a response John accepts as agreement—he nods agreeably, then strides quite purposefully from the room.

Left alone, Emily forces her gaze to return to the table but finds she cannot see anything; the linen, the silver, the porcelain, the now-chilled egg cup: All are blurred and meaningless.
Oh, what has John discovered?
her mind demands.
What can he mean by this peculiar scheme?
If Emily could lay her head upon the table and weep and scream aloud, she would, but that's not an act she's ever permitted herself. Not as a child, and certainly not as a married woman. So she remains rigidly still, thinking and thinking.
I must outmaneuver this man
, she decides.
I must
.

In the stable, however, Durand's show of self-confidence deserts him. He leans heavily against a box stall and releases a long and troubled sigh, then attempts unsuccessfully to regain some measure of remembered peace. He concentrates on the customarily companionable smells and sounds of the horses surrounding him, but solace eludes him. He sinks down onto a three-legged stool, carelessly letting his coattails sweep the ancient wood floor. He has little fear of being discovered in this unusual pose; the groom and undergroom have long since finished their duties of currying the animals and cleaning out their stalls. John sighs anew; his wide chest constricts, and his neck and face grow hot. He has lied to his wife; the new groom is an excellent man. It's he, John Durand, who's at risk.

He listens to the crunch of oats, the papery mastication of hay, the crackling of fresh-strewn straw, the contented blowings and mutterings of the horses taking their fill, the occasional peaceable whinny. He reaches out toward the iron bars surrounding a nearby storage bin and shuts his eyes. In his tortured imagination, he sees the very metal ripped from his hands, the box stall and its eleven neighbors yanked away beneath his feet, the barn gone, the paddock gone, the fields and orchards sold, the venerable stone house auctioned, and all the possessions in it: family portraits, porcelain and silver tea services inherited from long-dead great-grandparents, tables and chairs and bedsteads commissioned long before the War of Revolution: everything carted off by strangers. And all because of his despicable deeds.

John groans and reaches for the flask he always carries on his person. He sips at the fortified wine, then sips again until the flask is empty.

A Dinner Interrupted

H
E
'
S CALLED MR. ROBEY
,”
JOSIAH
, the tailor, tells his young charge, “although I don't believe that's his true name.” Josiah sets forth two bowlfuls of sausages cooked in brown gravy as he speaks, the aroma spilling into the air and perfuming every crowded corner of their one-room home on lower Fitzwater Street: a “trinity” matching similar “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” dwellings that line the block and contain an entire family on each of the three ten-by-twelve-foot floors.

“Eat, Ella.”

The girl's eyes mirror her delight. “Sausages,” she whispers. She might as easily be saying,
Silver and gemstones: Are they for me?

“Sausages,” Josiah answers her with solemnity. “It is a special occasion. I've received a gift from Heaven. A client of my own. And you know what that can lead to.”

“No,” Ella responds. She gazes at her plate and the hallowed food resting there. She thinks she might like to bury her nose in the wondrous stuff, just like a dog would.

“It means that if I'm careful, and more attentive to my work than the others are, that if I remain respectful and discreet, one day I may own a shop myself.”

“And I will be your wife.”

The tailor turns on her angrily. “You must cease that kind of talk, Ella. You are yet a child, and I am as old as any father you could have. As any father you
do
have. As any mother, too.”

“But I—” she begins.

“Stop, Ella. I do not wish to hear more. Your past is your past, as is mine. We will not speak about such things. Eat your supper, and be still. Besides, you must remember that you're supposed to be my young cousin now, the child of a relative living in the country.”

“Yes, cousin.” Ella's voice is meek.

“And my name?” he prods.

“Jo … Daniel,” Ella corrects herself. “You are my cousin Daniel.”

“And he is?”

“A … a cousin to an aunt who has been rearing me after my own parents died … but … but my aunt could no longer afford to keep me”—Ella recites the tale she's been supplied—“and … and so you kindly agreed to take me into your home in Philadelphia in order that I might learn good stitchery and so prove helpful to your work.”

“Excellent, Ella.” The tailor's nervous anger gradually begins to dissipate, and he lifts up his spoon. “That is very good. Is there more to your history, perhaps?”

Ella thinks for a second only. “Yes … My parents moved so many times when I was living with them that I can no longer remember where I was born.”

“Perfect.”

Ella beams. “Thank you for the sausages, cousin,” she answers. Except for the falsified relationship, this statement is altogether true.

“Let us hope that we have many, many more.” Daniel who was once Josiah also smiles; and as he does he reflects on how well his newly chosen name suits him: Daniel, who in the biblical tale was rescued from the lions' den; Daniel, whose friends survived the fiery furnace of King Nebuchadnezzar. The stories are excellent omens, he believes. Besides, Josiah, the escaped prisoner, must cease to exist if Daniel, the tailor, is to remain a free man.

“Now, let us eat before our suppers cool.”

They eat; a baby cries on the floor above; a baby bellows on the third floor, too. A chicken, escaping the depredations of a roving dog, hurtles itself against the window; a pig snorts greedily near the door. Ella jumps in fear when she hears it, and Daniel attempts to laugh away her terror.

“That pig cannot enter our door, little cousin. I won't let it.”

“Pigs eat human babies. Dead ones, that is” is her still-addled reply, to which Daniel adds an unexpectedly bitter:

“You've seen too much for your age, Ella. We'll have no more talk about pigs and their food … Now, let us finish our own good meal.”

She bends to her bowl, eating slowly and sparingly. “Is he a fine man, your client?” she asks after several more silent moments.

“I think he is.” Daniel considers his response. He puts down his spoon and leans back from the table. “He could be a thief, though. The chief of a gang. His fingers have never seen hard work.”

Ella shivers involuntarily at this description, but Daniel doesn't notice. “I'm inclined to believe he's a fine man, a gentleman who's found himself in an uncomfortable position. A debtor in hiding from his creditors, perhaps. He has an odd and secretive manner about him.”

Ella knows all about odd manners among men. She nods in empathy. “He's demanding, Cousin Daniel?”

“No, that's the very problem. He's not demanding. And I expected he would be, given the elegant clothing he's ordering from me. But I have yet to elicit more than a few words from him at one time.”

“What do his servants tell you?”

“I've never seen one. Mr. Robey opens the door to me himself.”

Ella has already finished her marvelous supper. She knows she can't ask for more; if scraps remain, water will be added to the leftover gravy, making a thin soup for their meal the next day. “Perhaps he's a foreigner.”

Daniel considers her suggestion. “He has no accent that I can detect.”

“Maybe he's disguising it—and is residing in a strange and hidden house as a spy. Maybe ‘Mr. Robey' is an invention. You just said you thought it might not be his true name.”

This suggestion is uncomfortably close to Daniel's own situation, so he returns to his bowl, scraping the last morsels as he says a dismissive “You're a very fanciful child.”

Ella is about to protest this additional reference to her youth and explain how knowledgeable life has made her when a calamitous noise erupts from a street nearby. There are screams and oaths, and a fierce and heart-stopping rumble as if the earth beneath the city has suddenly burst open. Then the night sky turns into a scorched and angry yellow.

“They must be firing the Negro houses” is Daniel's astonished exclamation. “A riot like the one six years ago! Stay here; bolt the door after me, and do not leave under any circumstances. I'll see what help I can render.”

Before Ella can protest, Daniel hobbles out the door. She hurries to do his bidding as the clamor increases and the neighboring babies wail louder in response. For no reason that she can understand, an image of Mr. Robey and his gentleman's hands comes into her thoughts. She pictures him lurking outside in the deafening air, watching and waiting as her “cousin” Daniel leaves her all alone.