The River of Souls (6 page)

With that, Muldoon straightened his boulder-like shoulders. He cast his gaze around the ballroom, at the grinning faces in the guttering light. He let his gaze fall upon Matthew Corbett, who felt the weight of the moment. 

“You bested me,” said Muldoon. “I ought to hate your guts…but I don’t. I’m just gonna leave you here with ’em, all these fine ladies and gentlemen, and I’m gonna say…enjoy what you’ve earned.” He gave Matthew a slight bow, and then turning around he walked across the boards and exited the event by the way he’d come, through the filmy curtain and into the garden where no weed dared grow. 

In another few seconds Matthew found himself the hero of the moment. So many hands whacked him on the back—and some as hard as enmity—he feared he’d be bruised all the way to his lungs. Sedgeworth Prisskitt came up and clapped him on the back and said something unintelligible, because Matthew had ceased to listen to him. Fine ladies drifted up like pastel smoke to rub against his shadow. Highwigs puffing powder marched up and the chunky faces beneath them said how steadfast he was, and how cunning. And then Pandora Prisskitt came forward, radiant even in her darkness, and took his arm with the pride of ownership. 

“You are
so
smart,” she gushed, “and so brave too!” 

The musicians were starting to take their places again, and allow a few notes to issue forth as invitations to more dancing. “Thank you for your compliments and your company,” said Matthew, to Pandora’s puzzled expression as he dislodged her hand from his arm. “I shall have to take my leave now, as I’m feeling a little ill.” 

“Oh?” Sedgeworth had heard this, and came forward. “What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing very much,” Matthew replied. “Just a bit close in here for me. The air…seems oppressive.” 

“I’m sure a walk around the garden will help! Pandora, go with him!” 

But Pandora was very intelligent, and she knew and pulled back. Matthew gave both father and daughter the smile of a gentleman who has done his duty. “I shall indeed walk around the garden on my way to the inn. It seems to me that there are several fellows here who might like a dance with your very gracious and understanding daughter. Oh…would you take this, please?” And so saying, he placed the comb matted with Muldoon’s bloody hair into Sedgeworth’s palm. Then he offered a bow to the lady and glanced up one more time at the sword of Damocles to count himself lucky. He left the room by the garden exit to walk beneath the star-strewn sky over Front Street, ruminate on how quickly life could turn comedy into tragedy and vice versa, and consider that he might appear to be one of the chosen elites who occupied the ballroom yet he in truth he had been there on a task and in depth he was more an outsider than ever before. And tonight, after having escaped either death or humiliation and seeing the reality of things, Matthew was very much more than content with his position.

Four

It was a fine morning to walk along Front Street in the warm sunshine, which if Matthew knew anything about Charles Town in the summer—and he certainly did from past experience as clerk to Magistrate Woodward here in his younger days—the warmth of the sun would turn to wretched heat as the day wore on and the shadows grew small. By noon the smell of the swamp would ooze over the town’s stone walls and permeate the little shops selling coffees and teas and bon-bons for the genteel, and the odor of decaying fish afloat and abloat against the wharf would violate even the most sweetly-scented fragrance of a garden’s roses or the perfumes sold to dab behind a lady’s ear or upon a gentleman’s cravat. In other words, at high noon it was time to get out the silk fans and employ the nosegays, so Matthew walked the street early and wisely before such aromas could embellish the air. 

Besides, last night he’d gotten a strong enough whiff of this place. He had slept on a goosedown mattress in a comfortable bed in an inn owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Carrington, both agreeable people who were curious about New York and asked many questions concerning the life and manners there, and he had supped this morning on orange muffins with cinnamon butter followed by spiced ginger tea, and he appeared to be composed and content…and yet this was an illusion. For as he strolled along Front Street in his neat gray suit, his pale blue shirt and his gray tricorn with a dark blue band, even as he peaceably passed the shops and seemed to be at peace with all under God’s eye, he was at war with himself. 

He had come to this situation of internal combat sometime before dawn, just when the town’s roosters began to crow. One part of himself wished to directly return to New York upon the next packet boat leaving port, and the other part…

…perhaps not so quickly. 

He strolled on, from tree-shade to tree-shade. The scene—or rather, the
sense
—of last night’s festivity would not leave him. Several well-dressed gentlemen and ladies who passed him nodded in greeting. He wondered if they had been present at the ball, and if they still thought him such the hero for besting Magnus Muldoon with a comb. But the part of it that particularly galled Matthew was the truth of something the bearded mountain had said:
I kinda see you now. I kinda see how you brung this fella all the way from New York, for me to kill just ’cause you have to go to these fancy dances. That ain’t right, Pandora. Ain’t right, to use a person that way. 

And Pandora’s less-than-musical reply:
Get out of this world, you black-bearded monster! 

It was an ugly picture, Matthew thought as he walked. Made more ugly by the superficial beauty of the queenly Lady Prisskitt, which had beguiled him so completely and might nearly have crowned him as the king of his own coffin. 

He walked a distance further, mindful of other people strolling on the street and the passage of carriages, the horses clip-clopping along. In a moment he stopped to gaze into the window of a tailor’s shop that displayed some shirts and suits in light summer hues. He was thinking…thinking…thinking that thinking was often his undoing…but it seemed to him that Pandora Prisskitt should not get away completely free from causing the deaths of three men—however those deaths had been delivered by the hand of a man who loved her valiantly and in vain. Also, Matthew disliked the fact of being used, intended to be either the fourth corpse or another frightened fool running for his life. And there was also the issue of Magnus Muldoon, a sad and heavy-hearted soul who seemed to think himself more Lancelot than Luckless Lout. 

So…the question being, in his state of internal war…should he board the next packet boat heading north…or should he stay for a few more days, and stir up the muddy waters of love? 

A face appeared in the window. 

Rather, it was the reflection of a face in the glass. A woman in a pale green hat and gown the same color had come to stand just behind his right shoulder, and when she spoke Matthew felt both a punch to his stomach and a thrill course up his spine. 

“Matthew? Matthew
Corbett
? Is that
you
?” 

He turned toward her, for he already knew. He brought up a smile, but his face felt too tight to hold it steady. 

She was both the same and of course very different, as he also was.
Here is the witch
, he recalled her saying in the foul gaol of the fledgling town of Fount Royal, as she defiantly threw off her dirty cloak of sackcloth to reveal the woman beneath. He remembered the moment of her nudity quite clearly, and in truth he had carried that moment and opened it like a locket for a peek inside from time to time. His cheeks reddened a few degrees, which he hoped she attributed to the external temperature. 

“Hello, Rachel,” he answered, and he took Rachel Howarth’s offered hand and almost kissed it, but decorum prevailed. 

She had been weathered in her twenty-eight years, primarily by her ordeal of being accused of witchcraft in that nasty situation and her months facing the stake and the flames, but she was still very youthful and indeed as beautiful as Matthew remembered. Her heart-shaped face with a small cleft in the chin was framed by the fall of her long, thick midnight-black hair. Her eyes were pale amber-brown, verging on a fascinating golden hue, and her skin color was near mahogany as bespoke her Portuguese heritage. She was altogether twice as beautiful, Matthew thought, as Pandora Prisskitt considered herself thrice to be. And Matthew knew Rachel’s soul as well, which was also a dwelling of beauty. 

But also, he knew where the so-called “devil’s marks” were on her naked body, and these little dark marks and flecks that appeared on everyone’s flesh had almost sent her skin flaming. He had been her champion and had saved her from that imprisonment and from that fire, and the last he had seen of her was when he had left her to claim her own future in Fount Royal, and to find his own in the greater town of New York. 

“I am
amazed
!” she said, with a smile that might have been described as giddy. She appeared to be about to throw herself into his arms, yet she was restraining her forward motion. “Matthew! What are you doing
here
?” 

“On business from New York,” he replied, in a steadfast tone. “I’m a problem-solver now.” 

“Oh? People pay you to solve their problems?” 

“Yes, that’s about it.” 

“If so, then,” she said, “I owe you quite the chestful of gold coins. I cannot believe I am seeing you! Just out here, in the broad daylight!” 

“I was in attendance last night at the Sword of Damocles Ball.” 

Rachel made a face as if the midday odors had come early. “Oh, with
those
people? Surely you haven’t become—” 

“One of them? If I gather your meaning correctly, I hope not. I was hired as an escort for one of the local ladies. The story is a bit complicated, but I survived the sword.” And conquered with the comb, he thought. “But
you
…what are
you
doing here?” Did he feel his heart flutter just a bit, under her golden gaze? He had fought a bear to save her life, and bore the scar for that. Perhaps there was another scar that ran a bit deeper? 

“Well, I…” She suddenly looked to her left. “David! You must meet this young man!” 

Matthew followed her line of sight. A tall gent in a tan-colored suit and a darker brown tricorn was coming across the street. He paused to allow a carriage to pass by, and then he continued onward. He was smiling and healthy-looking and appeared to be in his early thirties. He walked with a purposeful stride, a man of energy and means. 

“This is David, my husband,” Rachel told the young problem-solver from New York. “I am Rachel Stevenson now.” She smiled again, a little awkwardly, as if she could hardly believe this herself. “A doctor’s wife!” 

“Ah,” said Matthew, whose hand extended almost of its own accord toward the approaching master of this beautiful woman’s heart. He said, with his own smile fixed in place, “I am Matthew Corbett, sir, and I am very pleased to meet you.” 

They shook hands. The doctor had a grip that might put someone’s hand in need of a doctor. “David Stevenson.” He had a sharp-featured, handsome face and very blue eyes, which now blinked with sudden recognition. “Oh!
You
are the one!” And so saying, he rushed upon Matthew and hugged him and clapped Matthew upon the back with such fervor that a half-digested orange muffin nearly popped out. Then the good doctor Stevenson seized Matthew by both shoulders and grinned in his face with the power of the Carolina sun and said, “I thank God you were born, sir! I thank God that you did not give up on Rachel, when others might have. And I see the scar, and I know what you did for the woman I love. I should bow down on my knees before you!” 

“Not necessary,” said Matthew, fearing the doctor might actually do such a thing. “I was glad to do my part in that particular play, and I am surely glad that now her time of woe and worry has come to an end.” And certainly it appeared so, for wife retreated toward husband and husband put arm around wife and wife who was once accused of witchcraft in a nasty little cell smiled very happily indeed, and the scarred champion nodded his approval for time had moved on and so must all men and women. She had made him what he was today, and because of her he had come very far from his first experience at “problem-solving”—though he hadn’t known it at the time—in Fount Royal. Still, it was a bittersweet moment for Matthew, who had never felt so alone in a place in his life. 

“We live on an estate just outside town,” Rachel said. “You must come to dinner with us tonight!” 

“We insist!” said Dr. Stevenson. “It’s the least we can do!” 

Matthew thought about it, but not too long. He had other business on his mind, and after this was done he planned on going home. There was no need to revisit his—or Rachel’s—past any further, and besides he reasoned really that Rachel herself would begin to feel uncomfortable about this invitation as soon as he accepted it. Therefore he said, “Thank you, but I have to decline. My time here is very limited, but—again—thank you.” 

“Solving another problem?” Rachel asked. Was it Matthew’s imagination, or did she look a mite relieved? After all, he recalled an event in an Indian village, when he was nearly insensible and recovering from the wounds inflicted upon him by Jack One Eye, in which he’d dreamed that this beautiful woman had crawled atop him to further the healing process by the heat of her body and passion of her kiss. But had it really been a dream? Only Rachel knew for sure, and though this was not a problem it was surely a mystery that Matthew knew he would never solve. Perhaps it was better that way, to keep some events in the realm of the mysterious.