Conjurer

by Cordelia Frances Biddle

  “Martha, you’ve been informed that a man—or men—resembling your father have been seen at such and such a location. Quite naturally, you desire additional information. Should you press for further details, however, I fear you’ll be told that gold coins must cross certain palms if your wishes are to be met … Now, let us say that you agree and willingly share of your wealth. I assure you that you will learn nothing definitive.”

  “Oh …” Martha murmurs.

  “Such horrible frauds are committed continually, my dear. Why, just last year—”

  “But Mr. Kelman must also be aware of those cruel practices, Mr. Simms.”

  “And that is precisely why I question his motives in coming to you with these spurious claims. Now, come, regard the correspondence I brought you. It’s from the Roseggers, requesting your presence at tea this afternoon. Mrs. Rosegger mentions that she and her husband enjoyed meeting you last evening at the Durands’ home. In the circumstances, however, I think it best if I respond and say that you are indisposed.”

  “No!” Martha’s reply is more forceful than she intended. “I’ll act on my own behalf, Mr. Simms.” She glances at the sheet of paper in her hand. “Yes, I will go.”

  “Then I’ll accompany you.”

  “No!”

  “Martha, my dear. You must trust me to know what is best for you. Just as you trusted your dear father.”

  Tea, then. Tea at the Rosegger home on Chestnut Street. Martha and Owen Simms are admitted into the drawing room by a footman who then departs to seek his master and mistress. Martha doesn’t speak; instead, she withdraws into herself and wonders if her father’s confidential secretary must always accompany her in future. She ardently wishes she hadn’t displayed such a dearth of self-control. It’s certainly not how Emily Durand would behave: breaking statuary and exposing every fickle emotion that entered her heart. Pondering these reproaches, Martha feels the room begin to constrict; the suites of chairs, the statuary and paintings grow too cramped, the air too full of wood smoke and the heavy scents of pomander and bergamot. When the Roseggers enter the room, she almost rushes at them in relief.

  The husband, as she remembers from the previous evening, is a handsome man with an uncompromising stride and equally martial posture. He also has a predatory air that she didn’t detect at the Durands’ party. When he looks at her, which he does often and intently, she feels her skin begin to prickle in discomfort.

  Mrs. Rosegger, as was the case during their previous meeting, doesn’t shine. Martha recalls the gossip Emily shared when the ladies withdrew to an upstairs sitting room prior to the conjuring: Mrs. Rosegger’s father had been a successful grocer, the owner of several shops and the employer of many men, and he’d doted upon his daughter, raising her above his two sons—or so Emily had stated in a sotto voce tone—and at his death she’d inherited his entire estate, which was almost immediately transferred to the man who’d been her suitor and quickly became her husband, and eventually a person as affluent and influential as Lemuel Beale.

  “Rosegger married her for the father’s money, of course,” Emily Durand had murmured with a wicked laugh. “Why else would a man on the rise ally himself with a woman whose parent had been a mere merchant? At least those were the rumors … The others concerned the cause of the father’s demise. He was said to have unwittingly consumed a tainted piece of fish, but I ask you, if you were a grocer, wouldn’t you be able to detect good from bad?” Martha remembers Emily’s arch smile as she uttered these words, as well as the whispered assents of the other ladies who’d joined their small group.

  “So pleasant to see you again, Miss Beale,” Rosegger himself now states. “And you also, Mr. Simms, an equally pleasant surprise.” It’s the husband rather than the wife who takes the lead, and he gestures formally toward two chairs for his guests while Mrs. Rosegger hurriedly assumes her place at the tea table and begins focusing her full concentration on her hostess tasks. “I trust you were not overburdened by that charlatan’s quackery last night, Miss Beale,” he continues.

  Martha takes the proffered cup of tea as she forms a response. She notes that Mrs. Rosegger never once looks at her face although Martha tries to give her a smile of gratitude. “It was … odd, sir. In truth, I cannot say I was immune to Signor Paladino’s remarks, however—”

  Rosegger interrupts with a brief, sardonic laugh. “There’s no such thing as clairvoyance or second sight, Miss Beale. I’m sure your father’s estimable secretary has already assured you of that fact. Why, John Durand told me later last evening that an equally unpleasant spectacle occurred at a previous conjuring. The fellow pretended to see a dead child with its tongue cut out.”

  “Oh!” The sound of protest that issues from Mrs. Rosegger is over almost before it begins.

  “My wife is a delicate creature,” her husband announces flatly before returning his potent gaze to Martha. “Such a preposterous occurrence cannot be, of course, Miss Beale, but we must remember that this purported necromancer makes his living as a performer, and that his public audiences are generally of the most ill-informed kind. Naturally, they desire spectacle and melodrama, and he’s obviously adept at providing what they want.”

  Martha waits, expecting either wife or husband to say more, but when neither speaks she sits straighter in her chair, urging herself to ask the questions foremost in her mind. “Mr. Simms tells me you know my father, Mr. Rosegger.”

  “The entire city knows of your father, Miss Beale.”

  Martha remains silent, thinking her host will continue, but he does not; instead, he sips his tea, eats a piece of seed cake, and carefully crosses his legs. She is beginning to wonder why she was invited when suddenly Mrs. Rosegger hurtles into a rapid and peculiar conversation:

  “An unskilled laborer earns at most sixty pennies a day, Miss Beale, did you know that? When that person can find work, that is. The cheapest of lodgings is a single room shared with a number of other people and costing an exorbitant twelve cents daily—”

  “Miss Beale isn’t interested in life among the derelict of our city.”

  “Oh, but I am!” Martha protests, although it’s really for her hostess’s sake that she makes this boastful claim.

  “A meal of scraps costs a penny,” Mrs. Rosegger continues in her skittish rush.

  “So does a glass of rum,” her husband interjects with some brutality, “and I’m told the rum is often substituted for food. Let’s have no more of this, Mrs. Rosegger. We’ll have our guest and her guardian running for the door.” He turns his attention to Martha. “My wife, as I indicated, has a delicate heart. As you must have heard, she was raised by a man who gave employment to many. Some were deserving; some were not. I fear his daughter inherited his natural kindliness, which makes it difficult for her to detect the good from the bad.”

  Throughout this little speech, Rosegger’s wife scarcely moves, while Martha inadvertently recalls Emily’s innuendo concerning the father’s demise. Good fish from bad, Martha thinks, then pushes away the unpleasant suggestion, stating a conciliatory “I suppose, sir, that our purpose on this earth is to discover the virtue in all people—even those whom society considers wicked or corrupt.”

  “Prettily said, Miss Beale,” Rosegger states, while his wife’s response is a small catch of her breath that almost sounds like a sob. She covers her mouth as though she’d hiccoughed only, then pastes on a watery smile as she turns to Martha.

  “More cake, Miss Beale? Or would you care to sample some of my ratafias? I make them myself.”

  Martha can hear a note of mutiny in this last statement, but Mrs. Rosegger’s bland expression registers only wifely responsibility; and her husband makes no comment of either approval or disapproval of her sojourns in her kitchen.

  With the plight of the city’s poor exhausted or eliminated as a subject, Rosegger then expresses his formal sympathies for her father’s death. “But it’s not certain he is dead, sir,” Martha counters softly, at which observation her host rises
abruptly from his fancifully carved and brocaded chair and strides to a window, where he stands, hands clasped behind him, regarding the little traffic on the street. “It’s winter, Miss Beale; surely there can be no hope of surviving a fall in the river” is what he says while Martha screws up her courage to pose another question. She avoids looking in Owen Simms’s direction as she speaks.

  “Do you know of any enemies my father might possess, sir? Someone … someone who would wish him ill … Perhaps even murder him—?”

  “Goodness, Martha!” Simms protests. “Have we not had enough of this unfortunate chat before now?”

  But Martha hasn’t finished. “I’m asking you, Mr. Rosegger, because of what Mr. Simms tells me of your stature in the community.”

  “Why don’t you pose the question to your father’s confidential secretary then, Miss Beale?”

  “I already have …”

  “But you don’t trust the response?” Rosegger laughs his dismissive laugh again.

  “That’s not my meaning, sir—”

  “No?”

  Martha is growing increasingly flustered. “I’m not here to discuss Mr. Simms, sir.”

  Rosegger eyes her with his shrewd and mocking stare; his wife remains focused wholly on her tea tray.

  “You and my father are two men of affairs, sir—”

  “And as such we engender our share of envy, Miss Beale.” He produces another laugh; then the sound abruptly vanishes. “I suppose there have been those who wished me dead and gone. There will probably be more. I cannot describe your father’s situation unless it were the mirror image of my own.”

  “A rumor, perhaps—”

  “Martha, come, my dear,” Simms interposes, but their host’s domineering voice cancels even Simms’s objections.

  “I do not indulge in gossip, Miss Beale. And I would suggest you do not, either.” Then he turns to the door. “Mr. Simms, shall we leave the ladies to their own devices? I have some excellent port laid by.”

  But Martha cannot let Rosegger go. “Can my father have been in debt, sir?”

  “Anyone who trades in commodities is in debt at one time or another, Miss Beale—”

  “I mean in serious debt,” Martha interrupts.

  “My suggestion, madam, is that you consult with someone closer to home.”

  Then the door to the drawing room opens; Simms exits with their host, and Martha and Mrs. Rosegger are left with a cold draft where once stood the lady’s husband.

  In his absence, Mrs. Rosegger begins tidying away the tea things, devoting so much attention to her chores that it seems she cannot both speak and act. Taking the cup from Martha’s hand, she suddenly leans close. “I believe you’ve met Thomas Kelman,” she murmurs, then adds a hasty “Listen to him” before continuing in a louder and more public voice. “Shall I show my children to you, Miss Beale? While my husband visits with Mr. Simms? My young ones are their mother’s pride and joy.”

  Dreaming or Awake

  MARTHA’S DREAMS THAT NIGHT ARE tortured. She revisits the scene of her mother’s deathbed, where she sees adult faces floating above her through the gloom. Their features are as bland as milk pudding, pasty white and utterly unrecognizable; the words they speak have no more meaning than the wind rushing down a chimney. She wanders among these tall, moving forms as if she, and not her mother, were the ghost. She asks a question, tugs at a sleeve, but no one responds, and so she stands apart, staring at the surface of a table, at a silver tray with a glass and spoon resting upon it. The contents of the glass are cloudy and pale. Martha, the child, thinks it looks like snow, if snow were liquid. She lifts the spoon to put it to her lips, but a large, angry hand snatches it away; then the spoon and the glass also disappear.

  Next the dream shifts; she’s still a child, but dressed in bed attire—a flannelette gown without a woolen wrapper—and standing in the night-dark hallway of her home. There’s a solitary candle lit at the far end, but this small version of herself is too frightened of unseen demons to reach the safety of its orange glow. She hears a lady crying out; the sound makes Martha want to run toward the voice and offer aid, but she’s far too terrified to move. Instead, she begins to cry, weeping with a noise that sounds like a puppy whimpering. A hand touches her shoulder; another takes her arm, and all at once she can’t move, cannot run away, and the hands move to her chest, covering her mouth until she feels she can no longer breathe. She gasps, tries to shake free, but the constraining fingers only grip her tighter. She’s so very young and helpless, and the person holding her so large.

  Martha awakes from this nightmare, panting. The noise of her own fear follows her from sleep into consciousness. Her pillow is wet with tears. For a long moment, she believes that she’s still a young girl escaping from a faceless foe.

  Then the door to her bedroom opens a crack, and the light from the hallway knifes yellowly in. “Martha, are you quite well? I was passing in the hall and heard you cry out.”

  Still lying on her back and staring at the lace canopy above her head, Martha finds herself caught between the vivid reality of her dream and a peculiarly trance-like wakefulness; and so she answers with an automatic “Yes. Yes, of course, Mr. Simms … But I must ask you to leave my chambers … It’s not appropriate that—”

  Instead of complying with her wishes, however, he moves toward her bed and the bellpull that will summon her maid. “You’re agitated, Martha. Let me ring for your servant. She can prepare a sleeping draught.”

  “No,” Martha orders before he can reach her. “I won’t have you awaken her.” She pulls herself upright and drags the coverlet up to her throat. It seems wrong indeed that she can’t convince Owen Simms to quit her rooms. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, but I ask you again to leave. I’m sure it’s very late.”

  “Sometime after two, I believe.”

  She looks at Simms more closely. “You’re wearing one of Father’s dressing gowns.”

  “It’s very similar to one of his, Martha. Your father kindly had it made for me by his own tailor. You’re observant to notice how alike the two garments are … Now, let me summon your servant so that you can get a peaceful night’s slumber.”

  “I won’t have the household disturbed because I had a foolish nightmare, Mr. Simms. I’m quite well, I assure you, but you must go away. It’s not appropriate that you remain with me at this hour.”

  “Nonsense, my dear. I’ve known you since you were a girl. I’m as close to a family member as any you might have.”

  “I have no family except my father.” Martha frowns, remembering pieces of her dream. “Have I, Mr. Simms …? I seem to recall a lady—”

  “Your mother, I presume—”

  “No, not my mother … another lady … Did my mother have a sister, Mr. Simms? Or my father?”

  “If you had female relatives, Martha, don’t you think your father would have introduced you to them? Or male family members, for that matter?”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Of course it does.” He smiles benignly down at her. “Do you imagine your father purposely withheld aunts and uncles and cousins who could have lightened his own burdens as a parent?”

  Martha doesn’t reply. She pictures the twin parts of her dream, but this illusory fiction is no match for Owen Simm’s logic.

  “There,” his calm voice continues, “you see? It only takes a modicum of common sense to provide solutions to all our queries—whether large or small. There were no uncles or aunts, no young cousins with whom you could play, my dear; instead, your father provided his singular care and support. And that was ample indeed …” Simms pauses. “Now, Martha, I will do as you request and leave you to return to your slumbers as you can, but before I do, I have a request to make. It’s a serious one, and I want you to consider well before responding.”

  Martha’s heart thuds in her chest. For a horrible moment, she imagines Owen Simms is about to ask her hand in marriage, but the notion is so absurd she quickly c
asts it aside. “What is it, Mr. Simms?”

  “Take as much time as you wish before making your decision, but know also that I will continue to press my case—”

  “Yes, Mr. Simms?” Again Martha experiences a hard thump that feels like panic. Again she reminds herself that the furthest thing from Owen Simms’s thoughts is a union with his master’s daughter.

  “Your father, dear Martha, has been missing for some time—”

  “Sixteen days.”

  “Yes, quite so. Sixteen days. I realize that what I’m about to say may seem to disregard the delicacy of your emotions … but in fact, it is to those very sensibilities that I appeal.”

  Oh! Martha thinks. Oh, no! I was correct in my unlikely conjecture, after all! What should I do? What can I do? “Mr. Simms,” she begins, “I believe I know the request you wish to make of me.”

  Owen Simms lays his head on one side while he continues to gaze down at her. “Ah, then you’re as wise as your father. It is he—as well as you—that I’m considering when I make my suggestion. He would not wish us to continue in this vague and ambiguous mode forever—”

  “Pray, Mr. Simms, let us talk no more of this, but say a peaceable good night to one another.”

  Owen Simms stands still and tall. “And so you agree that we declare your father drowned and so proceed with an announcement and funeral service?”

  “What?” Martha is so astonished at these words that her body leaps in surprise.

  “You told me you understood the nature of my request …”

  “Yes … Yes … So I did …”

  “Then we will proceed as I suggest? And place the household in an appropriate state of mourning?”

  “Mr. Simms, I beg of you. Let us discuss this in the light of day—”

  “You cannot stave off the inevitable forever, Martha.”

  “Good night, Mr. Simms.”