The Moon by Night

by Lynn Morris

  It was one of those diamond-bright winter days, with a hard blue sky and garish sun. Shiloh had already been down to the docks to see about Locke’s Day Dream, which was scheduled to sail on a favorable 11:50 tide that night. However, Captain Starnes had said that they may be becalmed if the night was as still as the day. Not a breath of wind stirred the bare branches or the snowdrifts.

  Sketes returned and tucked a small coverlet around Cheney’s feet.

  “Thank you,” she said, then cocked her head. “Sketes, is this cashmere? Or alpaca?”

  “No, ma’am, it’s just plain sheep’s wool,” Sketes answered uncertainly. “Why, did you want cashmere or alpaca instead?”

  “Do we have cashmere or alpaca throws?”

  “No, ma’am, but your black shawl with the lovely long fringe is cashmere, and the quilted plaid carriage robe is alpaca.”

  “You like cashmere,” Shiloh said with amusement, “but you think alpaca is itchy if it’s worn next to the skin.”

  “I do?” Cheney said blankly.

  “You do.”

  “However do you remember things like that?” Cheney asked plaintively. “I can’t remember things like that.”

  “You’re interestin’,” Shiloh drawled. “Even when you’re talkin’ about Schoenleinian Epigones or dissectin’ people’s feet or itchy stockings.”

  “Am I?” Cheney asked with real pleasure.

  “Sure are,” Shiloh assured her. “So speaking of your interests, in a way, how is our patient Mrs. Green?”

  Cheney frowned and took a cautious sip of coffee. “I suppose as well as can be expected, under the circumstances. But since I’m not allowed to see her, it’s hard to tell. I must talk to Dev today. I wonder if he’s coming to the hospital.”

  Shiloh narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, you can’t see her? Is that more of Ira Green’s nonsense?”

  “Yes, but never mind, Shiloh. Dev’s handling it. You don’t have to worry about it,” she said hastily. As always, Cheney avoided discussing her professional life with Shiloh. Stubbornly she told herself that Shiloh didn’t want to be a doctor, so he didn’t want to hear about anything concerning medicine. Guiltily she thought that he would certainly be interested in the Cornelius Melbourne case, and since he had played such an important role in Rebecca Green’s surgery, it could be argued that he had a perfect right to know about her progress—especially that, after all the problems, they still hadn’t gotten all of the tumor. Then Cheney thought of getting locked in the morgue and how amused Shiloh would be by the story. But still she ducked her head behind her magazine. She knew very well that there was an element of spiteful payback to her reticence, but she quickly shoved the uncomfortable knowledge aside. “So what’s your schedule for the day?” she asked brightly.

  A shadow quickly passed over Shiloh’s face—he recognized Cheney’s abrupt withdrawals for what they were—but in his normal careless drawl he said, “I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do today, but what I wanted to talk to you about is this. Locke’s Day Dream is leaving for the West Indies tonight with her new Duvall’s iron hanging knees and braces. At least there’s a fair tide at 11:50, and with just a bit of wind Captain Starnes says she won’t be becalmed, wallowing around in circles in the East River.”

  “You want to go see her off, don’t you? Go, Shiloh. If I’ve told you once, I know I’ve said a thousand times that I don’t need a nanny. I can take care of myself.”

  “You sure?” Shiloh asked uncertainly. “I don’t like it, Doc. Not because I think you need a nanny, but because of the weather. When Captain Starnes and I were talking, he thought the wind might come in strong tonight, with the temperature dropping, and he usually knows about the weather. I just worry about Eugènie.”

  Cheney looked rebellious, but then she said regretfully, “You’re right, Shiloh. She is too delicate for freezing weather. Very well, I’ll take a hackney coach, and before you even say it, I’ll tell you that Officer Goodin will be able to find me one tonight no matter what time it is.”

  “Okay,” Shiloh said with relief. “I would like to see if the barky makes it out tonight because…see, that’s what I need to talk to you about.”

  He frowned and shifted uncomfortably.

  “What’s the matter?” Cheney said alertly.

  “Nothing, nothing bad,” he answered quickly. “I just need to ask you something. I thought—I’d like to give a party. On New Year’s Eve. I mean a fête, because what I’d like to do is have a dinner, then go to the park for the band concert and fireworks, then come back here and have music and dancing and a buffet. What do you think?”

  Cheney was surprised, but then she smiled. “Why, I think that’s a wonderful idea, Shiloh. But giving a party like that takes an awful lot of planning and preparation—”

  He waved his hand. “No, no, Doc, you don’t have to do a thing, not one thing, except show up, o’ course. Me and PJ are going to handle all of it.”

  “PJ?” Cheney said blankly.

  “Phinehas Beddoes Jauncy,” Shiloh said with emphasis. “Short, mustache, umbrella, concussion?”

  “Oh—PJ! Yes, yes, I remember….” Cheney looked around the room, her brow furrowed, as if he might be lurking in a corner. “He’s still here?”

  “He is my gentleman’s gentleman, m’dear,” Shiloh said with a thick snobbish British accent. “He’s always around, being gentlemanly.”

  “Well, I never see him,” Cheney sighed. “Us ghouls on the night shifts rarely meet the respectable people. Anyway, Shiloh, I think a New Year’s Eve fête is a marvelous idea, particularly if you and Jauncy are going to do all the work. So whom shall we invite?”

  “Your mother and father, Dr. and Mrs. Buchanan, Allan and Jane Anne Blue, Cleve and whoever—probably Miss Wilcott, if she’s still in town. And maybe Dr. White?”

  “I’d love to have her. You might say that we’re becoming friends,” Cheney said tentatively. “But then you’d have to invite another man, you see, to make the seating come out right.”

  “Yeah, I know all about that stuff now,” Shiloh said blithely. “PJ told me. It’s just so the geometry comes out right, like Minerva Wilcott says.”

  Cheney giggled. “Exactly. But what about the odd man?”

  “The odd man, yeah, that’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about.” He came to sit in the chair next to her, then leaned over and took her hand. It was cold, and he warmed it between his own hands.

  Cheney was conscious of his hands; they were big and battle scarred, with outsized knuckles, particularly on his right hand. And though Shiloh now certainly could be put in that amorphous class of gentlemen, he still had the rough muscled hands of a laborer. Cheney expected he always would.

  “Doc, I’d like to ask you something, but if you don’t want to, just say no, and I won’t bring it up again,” he said quietly.

  Cheney looked up into his eyes. She had seen them turn dark midnight blue with anger, light sparkling blue with amusement, deep royal blue with kindness, and hard icy blue with coldness. Now they were a gentle gray-blue, a thoughtful expression, when he was unsure of something. Cheney was coming to know her husband’s moods very well.

  “Ah, so now we come to it,” she teased him gently. “About the ship and the fête. You want to send an invitation to Bain, don’t you? And the only way to get it there in time is if Locke’s Day Dream makes a straight fast run to Bequia?”

  “That’s about it,” Shiloh said. “What do you think?”

  “Of course you—we—should invite Bain, Shiloh,” she said softly.

  “You…you think so? Are you sure? I mean, with your parents and all—”

  “He’s your family, Shiloh,” she said simply. “He will always be welcome in my home.”

  ****

  Shiloh rode up to Slip 15 of the South Street Seaport just in time to see the jibboom of Locke’s Day Dream clear the wharf. The steam tugs were pulling her to the sea, for it was about eleven-thirty and she must catch her tide. The
wind screeched and shrieked, biting into Shiloh’s bones and making him feel sorry for Balaam. He dismounted and stood on the dock, watching his beloved clipper slip her moorings and glide away. It was a sight no less beautiful to him, even if she was being pulled backwards. A sailor—Shiloh recognized one of his favorite old sea salts, Calvin Lott, as he was doing something complicated with one of the countless rigging ropes—suddenly stiffened and thundered out, “Mr. Locke, sir! Ahoy! You wasn’t trying to board, was you, sir?”

  “No, Lott, sail on!” Shiloh shouted. “God be with you and give you fair sailing!”

  “And with you, sir!” he called. Captain Starnes appeared at the bow to salute him, and Shiloh returned the courtesy. He watched his clipper until she was out of sight, past the stern ends of the ships docked close alongside her berth. “The tugs will be busy tonight,” he told Balaam. “Bet everyone wants to catch this tide.” There were five sailing ships docked here, and all of them had their sailing lanterns lit. Shiloh could even hear snatches of two tug men yelling and cursing each other as they competed for leeway to pull the great barks and brigs out into the current.

  And he suddenly heard snatches of something else: a great deep voice roaring in French, and a child wailing. Hurriedly Shiloh rounded the bow of the ship berthed in number 14. It was a French brigantine, Le Cheval du Mercredi. A French company, Tourneau Shipping, had four brigs that regularly brought in French soap, perfume, medicine, wine, and brandy and shipped out lumber to wood-hungry Europe. The name of this particular ship was The Wednesday Horse. Shiloh had seen the other three, and sure enough, they were the Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday horses. Shiloh’s shipping agent had told him, “Mr. Tourneau let his wife name his ships, and there you are.”

  Shiloh had, of course, closely observed the other ships around his berth. The shipping agent for Winslow Brothers Shipping, Levy & Levy, were also agents for Tourneau Shipping, and Mr. Levy had told Shiloh practically everything about them, along with almost everyone and everything else that went in and out of the South Street Seaport. Mr. Levy—Shiloh had only seen one Levy—was ancient and still as sharp as could be. Shiloh was grateful to have him, for he kept Locke’s Day Dream going back and forth to the West Indies as often as they could make a turnaround, and always with the holds full. It was difficult, in a way, for Shiloh, because Mr. Levy was so efficient and had the shipping business so well in hand that Shiloh was practically like an extra appendage. But Shiloh still came down to the shipping office at least three times a week, mostly to sign forms and authorizations and look over the ledgers, which were always very favorable for Winslow Brothers Shipping. Old Mr. Levy was very polite, of course, but Shiloh knew he was actually more in the way than anything else. So he tried to fill up his time with his clubs and visiting Behring Orphanage and helping out with the children and taking French lessons from Allan Blue. In particular, it seemed that those lessons might be of use to him right now.

  Shiloh had never talked with any of the seamen from the four French brigantines, though he saw them often. The officers had always seemed arrogant and disdainful to Americans, and the seamen seemed to be perpetually drunk. Mr. Levy said Frenchmen would wither and die if they didn’t drink wine all day and night every day and night. It had been Shiloh’s experience that drunks either cried or fought. So now as he rounded the prow of the brig to investigate, he got ready for a fight.

  Sure enough, a man in a double-breasted blue coat with epaulets and a captain’s insignia loomed over a small boy, shouting and cursing down at him. The boy knelt on the pier, his arms encircling two dogs.

  Shiloh’s French was still very sketchy, but now that he could see the tableau, his mind clicked and he could understand much of what the man was shouting about.

  “I told you, you little fool, that you couldn’t keep the three dogs! Not three! I told you not to bring these two back on board! And now, here, look at you! Right now, Jaime, come back on board, or I swear I will throw those two into the sea and carry you on board myself!”

  The little boy clung to the dogs and cried pitifully.

  The captain, a short, round, red-faced pudding of a man, took a step toward the child and the woebegone dogs. He did not raise his hand, but he looked as if he were about to yank the child up.

  Shiloh moved as fast as he ever had, grabbed the man’s arm, and gritted out, “Capitaine, ne faites pas ça.” He wasn’t even conscious that he spoke in French until the man looked up at him, startled, and then began a stream of rapid liquid French of which Shiloh could not understand one word except the oft-repeated s’il vous plaît, monsieur.

  Shiloh grimaced, then deliberately lowered the man’s arm, which he was holding up in a death-grip. “Slow down, slow down…uh…lent. Lentement. Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”

  Both the man and the little boy, who was about six or seven years old, started talking in such a passionate torrent of French that Shiloh gave up and concentrated on piecing the story together from the occasional word that he caught. It seemed that the boy, Jaime, was the captain’s wife’s sister’s husband’s cousin—Shiloh’s mind reeled as he tried to hasten his translation—and the captain, only by the goodness and charity of his heart, had agreed to take the boy on as his cabin boy. But the boy had smuggled on board not one, not two, but three dogs! The outraged captain held up three pudgy fingers in front of Shiloh’s eyes in case he didn’t understand—trois chiens! Un, deux, trois! Up popped his fat thumb, forefinger, and middle finger.

  Shiloh frowned. “C’est ça? Mais où est le troisième chien?” This was delivered in a distinctly unfriendly tone, and to emphasize it Shiloh reached out and grabbed the man’s thumb and yanked it down so that he felt it pop.

  Both the boy and the man started wailing. They seemed to be saying that the big dog was on board the ship—yes, yes, the sweet, loving captain let the boy keep the big dog—but the two little dogs must go. This made no sense to Shiloh—the two dogs were obviously full grown mutts. They looked alike, one slightly larger than the other, with big heads and floppy ears and short colorless coats and long stringy tails. As he frowned down at them, listening to the captain swear over and over how he loved the boy, he loved the big dog, but he could not take three dogs on his ship, and so on, the boy looked up at Shiloh with great tragic dark eyes.

  One of the dogs lifted his drooping head and looked up at Shiloh too. One long listless ear had flopped over onto the top of his head, and he looked tragic and comical at the same time. Then he seemed to sigh, stood, and took two steps right up to Shiloh. He lowered his head and gently butted Shiloh’s knees.

  The rest of Shiloh’s heart melted.

  “Zut alors!” he muttered as he got down on one knee, threw an arm about the dog’s neck, and then reached over to lift the boy’s chin. Ignoring the torrid flow still erupting from the captain, he said softly, in halting French, “Jaime, I’ll take care of your dogs. Now tell me, do you want to go with this man? Do you want to sail with him? Because if you don’t, I might be able to help you find a place to live here in New York.”

  The boy, whose eyes lit up at Shiloh’s words, swiped his sleeve across his wet nose. Shiloh took out his handkerchief and offered it to him. The captain had fallen silent and was carefully doing a toe-heel-toe-heel backward slide to put a little distance between himself and the tall dangerous American.

  Jaime honked into Shiloh’s handkerchief and then answered, “No, sir, if you please, I want to go home, and Captain Lille, he will take me and my big dog, Nina. So you will take care of these, the little dogs?”

  “Sure, I know a place with lots of children, where they’ll have a very good home,” Shiloh said kindly. “I own that clipper that berths right over there. So when you sail back here, you come find me if my ship is in, and I’ll take you and show you where the—er—little dogs live. All right?”

  The boy recovered quickly, hopping up and offering Shiloh back his handkerchief, then bowing with a surprising grace. Shiloh stood and noticed that the other dog now cam
e and leaned against his legs, as if it were a ship heeling in a strong wind. Captain Lille was already at the gangplank, and the boy was holding his hand. They seemed to be affectionate toward each other, and now Shiloh doubted very seriously that the man would have tossed the dogs into the sea or beaten the boy.

  “You never can tell about Frogs,” he grumbled down at the dogs, who were still leaning, head-down, on him. “Hope you two aren’t Frog dogs. I’ve never seen any except those little ugly ones with the smashed-in noses in the old paintings of the guys with the funny wigs. You look more like American mutts to me.”

  The two dogs didn’t look up. Shiloh noticed with pity that the smaller one was shivering. It sank in that it was very cold—Shiloh was fairly immune to such discomforts—and that Balaam, too, looked forlorn and chilled, standing with his head down, occasionally stamping his feet.

  There was much screaming and shouting in French as the ship prepared to cast off. Shiloh looked up at the bow, and Jaime stood there, waving. Shiloh saluted him, then turned and led Balaam away. The dogs trotted alongside, pressing close against his legs. Shiloh knew it was for what warmth they could get, for their coats were short and he thought their paws, which were huge, must be freezing.

  It struck Shiloh that he was more than a hundred blocks from Behring Orphanage, where he had thought he would take the dogs.

  It was only about thirty blocks to Gramercy Park.

  It started to sleet.

  He led Balaam and his two new friends over to Dover Street. He saw three hansom cabs, those small open buggies with the passengers in a hooded seat in front and the driver up behind. He had hoped to get a hackney, the larger coaches with facing seat benches that could comfortably accommodate four persons, or perhaps one person and two big mutts. But there was not a single hackney coach to be found.