The Stockholm Octavo

by Karen Engelmann

  “But what can we do?” I asked.

  “I would like to pretend that I do not know, to say this is in God’s hands. But we must choose to be those hands, Emil. The devil thrives on our indifference.” Master Fredrik stood, his clothes stained and rumpled. “We need to learn exactly what she plans to do and when. Perhaps we can continue our alliance, but now it will have a more . . . noble goal.” He smiled at his own joke.

  “It is true one has better odds with a partner,” I said.

  “It would be prudent to buy time and favor, but there is only one currency The Uzanne will accept.”

  I felt that same need to buy time; I needed time to contact Mrs. Sparrow to ask when the fan should be sent on its way and where. And Master Fredrik’s sincerity seemed genuine, but there was no guarantee of its longevity. He might be more inclined to follow the teaching God helps those who help themselves.

  “A promissory note, perhaps,” I said to Master Fredrik. He furrowed his brow. “Send word to The Uzanne that you sat with me these last three days, at great risk to your person of course, and obtained my promise to secure her fan at once. But finding you at my bedside, the great Doctor Pilo imposed a brief quarantine on us both, for fear of spreading the contagion. Tell her you will come to Gullenborg as soon as it is safe. Meanwhile I will recover the fan, and you will try to learn more of her dark matters.”

  “Excellent! Even The Uzanne will not cross the quarantine this winter; the dead are stacked like a barrier of icy faggots out in South Borough, waiting to be buried.” He took on his overcoat and gloves, and wound a scarf around his neck.

  “One thing more,” I said, taking hold of his sleeve. “What of Miss Bloom?”

  He looked at me askance, as if my question held a tone he had not heard from me before. “Well, she is not Johanna Bloom, but Johanna Grey, and while she is clever she is in no way noble—in no way a match. I used her distress to my advantage, I admit. Her mother holds fanatical religious convictions and sacrificed the girl to a hideous marriage. The groom was a violent brute, and the neighbors seemed sad they would miss the beatings.” He shuddered. “Miss Grey ran away and stuck to me with the slimmest of connections this past August. Pity her, Emil; she is now climbing the tower as I once did and has made it well inside, but does not comprehend that there is no escape for a woman.” Master Fredrik rose slowly and stretched. “Now I must go home to Mrs. Lind. It has been too many days, and she is my rock. It is crucial that I remain tethered to her good graces.”

  I propped myself up on one forearm. “Master Fredrik, I am grateful for your visit.”

  “We are thrown together in this event for some reason, as if we had no choice,” he said. “People are sometimes pushed to friendship by circumstance, but it does not make them lesser friends.” With that Master Fredrik bowed and took his leave, his shoes clicking across the floor. He stopped in the front room and turned back to me. “Grasp the hand that you can reach, Emil Larsson.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Faith

  Sources: E .L., Mrs. M., Mikael M.

  A NEARLY THREE-WEEK CONVALESCENCE had returned the better portion of my health, but I feared a relapse, and so remained in bed. I woke to a square of blue sky in the window and the sight of Mrs. Murbeck hovering over me with a note that had arrived in the early post. “This should seal your recovery. Never have I seen such paper, such wax!” she exclaimed.

  “Let’s open it,” I said, knowing she would never leave without learning at least the name of the sender. I took up the envelope to inspect the writing. I had hoped for word from Mrs. Sparrow, but I knew her crabby hand and had seen nothing of it for weeks. I sniffed at the flap to see if some signature perfume escaped, but there was none. A signet had been pressed into pea green sealing wax, but it showed only a beaded rim around an empty circle. I pulled open the flap, cracking the edge of the wax, and pulled on the card. The notepaper was soft, snow flecked with silver, and the edges had been trimmed into scallops. There was a fresh green border but no message. “Blank,” I said, holding up the card. “It is blank, isn’t it Mrs. Murbeck? I hope that I am no longer prone to hallucinations?”

  I handed her the note, and she peered closely at it, then ran her forefinger over the face. “Something sharp has traveled here,” she said. She took the blue glass votive and held the paper close to its mouth. “I once went to the theater, only once mind you, but what I do remember is a dark blank wall that came to life when the lamps were lit behind.” She peered at the paper in her hand. “I can make out a line. No, two.”

  “And what does it say?”

  She pressed it closer to the votive. “Oh! The heat from the flame is making the letters appear. Not many letters, Mr. Larsson. It says Visit. A date, let’s see, February eighth. Today! I cannot read the hour. Here it is, here it is—Wait for me, it says, then . . . I cannot read the next few words. Then initials. I think it is a C, or perhaps a G. No—a C with flourish.”

  “Carlotta!” I said happily, and at that moment the note caught fire. Mrs. Murbeck screamed and dropped the paper on the floor. I jumped up from my bed and, taking the bottle of Pilo’s syrup, doused the flames, the thick elixir smothering the tiny fire. Mrs. Murbeck stood gulping air, her hand over her heart.

  “You have saved the house,” she said, tears in her eyes. “And given up your precious elixir to do so.”

  “Come now, Mrs. Murbeck,” I said, resting again on the bed. “It’s small payment for all that you have done on my behalf.”

  She calmed herself with a great breath. “The note, though, it’s gone,” she said.

  “No matter,” I said taking her hand and kissing it gallantly. I felt the note ignite the thoughts that had been set like sticks in a brazier. “The C tells me everything; it means I will be reborn!”

  “But why would this Carlotta choose to write in secret?” Mrs. Murbeck asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “She was sent away from the Town most cruelly and does not wish her tormenter to know of her return. Perhaps word of my near brush with death has reached her in her exile,” I said, and thought of my Octavo, filling itself in. Mrs. Sparrow had urged me to be patient, and now Carlotta was the one after all! She would return my old self to me: my red cloak secured, carefree nights of cards, groaning bed and board. “Send the house girl to scrub my rooms at once, Mrs. Murbeck. Boil water for a bath—I am as crusty as last week’s cauldron and smell just as rank,” I said, pushing myself from the sickbed for good. “If there are paperwhites for sale in the market, have the girl bring up a large crock. And a bundle of willow branches to force. It will be spring here now.”

  I flung open the windows and aired the rooms to the point of freezing while I prepared for my visitor. There was the promise of a clear sky and afternoon sun. The paperwhites that the housemaid brought up added not only beauty but a fresh and lovely scent. Mrs. Murbeck bustled in and out as though I was her second son and she was to meet my intended. “My comfortable chair looks very nice here. I think that you should keep it for your visitors, now that you have some. I have brought my best paisley shawl to throw over it and a soft cushion. It’s lucky that you have a mirror. A lady always likes to have a looking glass in the room. I have made a hasty sand cake, and there is cream ready. I will take up the whisk after I escort her to your room. Should I send up my boy with a warning? He climbs the steps three at a time and can hide on the landing.”

  I shook my head. “No need, no need, Mrs. Murbeck. I am ready enough, and you have done more than your share to help me.” I paused. Perhaps it was a clandestine visit. Carlotta would not want The Uzanne to know she had returned. “In fact, Mrs. Murbeck, it might be best if you whipped the cream and brought the tray now, so I am ready to greet my guest alone and without interruption.”

  “Oh, I see.” She stopped and stood so still for a time that I felt she had been struck with a curse. “Ah. Well then, Mr. Larsson.” She blinked and turned to me. “I believe you to be an honorable man, but as landlady I must ask for your
solemn word that you do not intend to sully the reputation of this house with illicit liaisons.”

  “Never, dear lady. I have no notion of the purpose of my friend’s visit. We are not romantically involved at this time,” I said, aching for an illicit liaison.

  “Good, good, for I would not want gossip,” she said firmly, then a look of intense disappointment clouded her face, and she sighed. “I confess that based on the lovely paper with its spring green wax, I hoped God might grace you with romance.”

  “One moment I am to be chaste and the next moment do Cupid’s bidding. Which would you prefer, Mrs. Murbeck?”

  “You are too long a bachelor, and will soon be too sour for any but a paid nurse. Perhaps your lady visitor can help you to avoid that sorry fate.”

  “She may only wish to return a glove I once left at her father’s shop.”

  “No one sends a secret note for a glove,” Mrs. Murbeck replied, heading for the stairs. “I will whip the cream when I hear the door and present myself when I bring the tray. It will spare us the wagging tongues.”

  Of course Mrs. Murbeck’s was the tongue likely to wag, I chuckled to myself. The clock at the German Church had already tolled eleven, and I sat down to wait in my armchair, practicing different greetings in a whisper, wondering how Carlotta wore her hair now, and if she still used that pomade that smelled of oranges. I wondered if I would ever get to eat another orange. I had only eaten one: a Christmas gift from Mr. Bleking’s table. I had bitten straight into the skin, the bitter taste a sharp but not unpleasant surprise. Mr. Bleking laughed and cut the peel off in one long strip. I ate the fruit and saved the skin, hanging it in a window. The scent lasted for many months before it became just a dry, brown curl. I must have dozed off to the memory of oranges, for I woke with a rivulet of drool on my chin and a gentle tapping. The light in the room showed that it was late afternoon, but it was not Mrs. Murbeck at the door, for she usually pounded like a bailiff. I rose, wiped my face, and went to greet my Carlotta.

  Chapter Forty

  Hope

  Sources: M. F. L., Louisa G., kitchen girl

  “AND YOUR BROTHER LARSSON?” The Uzanne sat at the opposite end of the room, fiddling with the gray fan that lay open on her desk. Her back was turned and a handkerchief pressed over her nose and mouth.

  “He promises to attend on you as soon as the pustules on his face and neck have healed, as they are likely to burst at any moment and spread the illness,” Master Fredrik said gravely from under a large fur hat, the lower half of his face wrapped in dark silk.

  “He has procured my Cassiopeia?” She twisted her head around to look at him.

  Master Fredrik closed his eyes, as if she were a Gorgon. “Yes, we would hope.”

  “Hope is for the weak, Mr. Lind.” The Uzanne turned back to her desk. “I suspected you would succumb and have already decided to employ something stronger. You are no longer quarantined, so go be useful.”

  “How might I be of service . . . precisely?” Master Fredrik asked.

  “I want three sample invitations for the debut sent to me by the morning post,” she said. Master Fredrik exhaled audibly; paper and ink were harmless enough. “I must choose at once as I will be traveling in a few days time and they are to be ready upon my return.”

  “Where are you venturing in this desolate month, Madame?”

  “I have business at the Parliament in Gefle.” she said. Master Fredrik tilted his head, as if he had not heard correctly. “Now go, Mr. Lind. You needn’t come to Gullenborg again . . . until I need you.”

  “I wish you a safe and successful journey, Madame.” He bowed again and exited the room, his stomach grumbling with nerves.

  A maid rolled past with a tea tray, trailing the scent of warm rice pudding. “Best head to the kitchen to quiet your belly, Master Fredrik. Cook won’t have anyone go hungry in this house,” she said as she disappeared into the study.

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “Cook!”

  The kitchen smelled of vanilla and milk mixed with the pungent scent of a well-hung rabbit splayed on a large maple block. At Old Cook’s elbow was a glass with a finger of clear crimson liquid, a single white blossom drowned and floating toward the top.

  “I have been ensorcelled by your culinary skills again, enveloped by the perfume of your pudding as it passed me in the hall. Would you grant me a traveler’s portion to sustain me on my journey?”

  Old Cook snorted out a laugh. “Have you seams enough to let out?” She wiped her hands on her apron then dished up a large bowl of pudding and house gossip in exchange for the coins that Master Fredrik always gave her. “Madame is in a troll’s rage since she heard about the Parliament and quit her vittles, so you may have seconds if you like. She is worked into a frenzy, rushing off to see the duke then storming home at all hours. She has her Bloom concocting all manner of enchantments.” Old Cook was overcome by a thick, hacking cough, and Master Fredrik pushed aside his pudding, his appetite suddenly gone. She drained her glass and then gave a sigh of relief. “I am still wary of the Bloom girl’s medicines, mind you, after what happened to Sylten, but Madame will have no slander and made the girl drink this first to show there was no harm in it. The rest of the house will take anything she will give them. I think she gave Young Per a love potion; he would eat horseshit and sawdust if she asked.” Old Cook pulled a clear bottle of red tonic from behind the water barrel, filled her glass, and took another mouthful. “And the whole house begs for her night powders.” Old Cook glanced around again and whispered, “I knows where one or two of her canisters is hidden.” She winked at Master Fredrik. “If you need help in bed, I can be persuaded.”

  “No no, I seldom take elixirs, and never inhalants, not even snuff any longer,” Master Fredrik said, standing and backing away. “But I am happy to hear that you will remain in good health, Cook. I am devoted to your cuisine.” He cleared his pudding into the slop bucket while she turned to look for a pan. “Where is our little apothicaire now? Mrs. Lind has a case of the gripes, and I hoped she might compound a tincture for me.”

  “Oh, the Bloom girl left an hour past with a basket. Meant for a Mr. Larsson on Tailor’s Alley.”

  “I believe he is a brother from my lodge,” Master Fredrik said, his voice a pitch higher.

  Old Cook came over, cleaver in hand, and leaned close to Master Fredrik, her hot breath smelling of elderberry schnapps. “I confess the girl has healing skills if she pleases, but best you watch out for your brother. I have never seen such charity for the sick: crumb cakes, fine pâté, a fat sausage, soft white rolls with a butter crust . . .” She licked her lips and chopped the rabbit with expert strokes. “But then there were the medicines. Miss Bloom took two bottles; Madame oversaw the first, a fine, golden syrup in a blue glass bottle. The second one Miss Bloom filled alone, but for I was spying.” Old Cook put the cleaver down and pulled a copper pan from the pot rack, shoving in the raw meat with one bare hand. “It resembled my own red tonic, but we cannot be too sure, can we?”

  “Indeed, we cannot,” Master Fredrik said, gathering up his coat and scarf. “Thank you, Cook. I am indebted to you as always.” He left a handsome pile of coins and rushed up the stairs to his waiting sleigh. “To the bottom of Tailor’s Alley, with all good speed,” Master Fredrik said to the driver, gathering his coat around him in the damp and freezing air of the cab.

  The driver turned around. “Tailor’s Alley can’t run a sleigh to the bottom. The smithy at the top of the hill melts all the snow.”

  “Come as close as you can then,” Master Fredrik said. He pulled the coach blanket up and left his hands to worry one another beneath it. The right hand insisted he should go at once to Emil Larsson’s, but the left hand pushed him to the stationery shop. Olafsson would bolt the door promptly at half past four o’clock. If he arrived even one minute late, he could not complete his work in time for the morning post; Madame needed little encouragement to ruin him. “Oh, Mrs. Lind, my boys, you have done nothing wron
g,” he cried aloud. He leaned out and called to the driver. “If you get me to Queen Street before half past and deliver a message to the Murbeck house on Tailor’s Alley by five, I will double your fare.” Master Fredrik heard the whip crack and was pushed back into his seat by the rush of the horses.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Charity

  Sources: E. L., Mrs. M., Mikael M., J. Bloom

  THERE WAS ANOTHER QUIET TAP on the door, but this time more urgent. That Carlotta had gotten past Mrs. Murbeck was testimony of her desire! Glancing first in the looking glass to smooth my hair, I went to the door and opened slowly, smiling in anticipation of Carlotta’s delicious honey coloring, the smell of orange pomade, her apricot lips begging for a kiss. And there she stood—but only in my imagination. On the landing was someone altogether different: the girl with a pale oval face, a strand of ash brown hair escaping her cap, her cheeks crimson with the cold. She was dressed all in gray, much more the girl from The Pig than The Uzanne’s aristocratic protégée. I felt my eager smile droop into an O of disbelief. “You?!” I said rudely. “I have little time, Miss . . . Bloom. I am waiting for an important visitor.”

  “Mr. Larsson,” Johanna said calmly, “I am your visitor.”

  “No, there was a note just this morning, signed with her C.” My voice rose in disappointment.

  “I sent the note.”

  I leaned in to her flushed face, “Ah, but I have been told you are Miss Bloom. Perhaps you have another name?”

  “You know it already, Mr. Larsson. My name is Johanna Grey, but it is one I left behind for good reason.” She turned her face away. “I wondered that you didn’t tell.”