She walks and walks some more; and at length her shambling steps carry her to a rum cellar where the sound of laughter emanating from its depths arrests her.
“It’s a penny a glass, missus,” a voice beside her whispers. “I’ll show you some happy times, if you’ll return the favor.”
Ruth nods in dumb acceptance, then moves down the stairs, stepping onto an earthen floor.
“Or perhaps you have a place you’d like to take me?”
“I have no place.”
“Ah, well, we’ll resort to a quaint little alley I know of. You and me will be Adam and Eve—out in the open air.”
Ruth bobs an imitation of a coquette’s curtsy, then drains the proffered glass in one swift gulp and follows the man back up the stairs—only to follow a second and third back down the same steps and back into the same fetid lane.
When she emerges from her final encounter, her benefactor remains behind. He doesn’t speak a word of parting; nor does she. She merely dusts the dirt from her skirt, straightens her shawl, and reenters the street. The sunlight spreading down this broader concourse makes her squint and jerk her head in surprise.
She turns toward the source, the west and the slowly reclining sun. Her head is spinning, her footsteps none too steady, and the smile that has affixed itself to her face is practiced and empty. She puts out a beggar’s palm to a married couple that pass and comes away empty-handed. She tries again with a young gentleman walking toward her at a brisk pace, and again with an older and stooped fellow hobbling rigidly along. It’s at that moment that she suddenly remembers the lame tailor and the girl, Ella. Why, it’s so simple, Ruth’s woozy brain declares. How many pairs like them can be living hereabouts? I’ll find those two if it takes a week—or a month. I’ll discover where the tailor’s hiding and alert the day watch. And the night watch, too. That I will. And I’ll be rewarded. Handsomely rewarded for helping to recapture a dangerous prisoner. How else could I be treated except as the good and loyal Ruth that I am?
Assuring herself of that happy future, Ruth lurches down the street on her determined quest.
Silently and Without Question
THE MAN WHOM THOMAS KELMAN, Pliny Earle, Daniel the tailor, and his young charge, Ella, call Mr. Robey unlocks the door to his private domicile, enters and then quickly replaces the key in the latch. Inside the house, all is silent—as it should be. Robey hesitates in the foyer, making certain this is the case. The first rule he imposed upon Daniel after installing him and the girl in the residence was that quiet should reign whenever their master was present. He didn’t wish to hear the sound of speech from either of them; if they moved about in their quarters at the top of the house or in the kitchen or pantry or laundry, they must do so with stealthy steps.
“My dictums are for Mary’s edification,” he’d told them. “I aspire to teach her to be a lady, and ladies are composed and meek in everything they undertake. The child cannot hope to comprehend or appreciate what my actions mean now; she’s too raw, too fresh from the … from the countryside, but she’ll understand and thank me when she grows older.”
Ella—or Mary, as she’s now called—had listened to this speech in disbelieving silence. She remembered everything about her first encounter with the man, and although she would never reveal the ugly tale to Daniel, who depended upon his patron’s largesse, she guessed Mr. Robey meant her harm. She also suspected, although nothing had been said, that her new master intended to remove his tailor from the house as soon as he was certain his “ward” would not escape. Daniel wondered about that, too—although the two didn’t speak of the possibility. Not even during the nights and daytimes when Mr. Robey was gone from the house.
In fact, they seldom spoke more than a few monosyllables even when their master was absent. Fear kept Ella constantly watching and waiting. Remorse tortured Daniel into a near-catatonic state; and the pallid hope he had of providing Ella with a better future began ebbing away until he grew to fear that Robey’s claims for his ward’s eventual betterment might well be false.
In the attic rooms where they reside, Ella and Daniel now hear Mr. Robey enter. Both have been stitching him a glorious new wardrobe, fashioned of the finest fabrics and cut in the latest style. Immediately, they put down their needles and scissors; then, without a sound between them, Daniel creeps down the rear service stairs toward the kitchen while Ella pulls off her warmer dress and dons the flimsy garb Robey wishes her to wear while in his presence.
Daniel has told her that the gown makes her “look like an angel” and that “Mr. Robey likes it because he’s a most religious man”; Ella believes otherwise, but then she heard a number of odd tales about gentlemen and their unusual desires during her days at the fancy house. What she knows for certain is that the thin white garment—without the flannelette chemise and pantaloons she wears under her other dress—is no protection against the cold.
In her bare feet, she tiptoes down the chilly front stairway until she stands outside the shut parlor doors behind which Mr. Robey has ensconced himself. She can smell pipe tobacco and eau de cologne and soap. He’s a gentleman who’s extremely particular about cleanliness. She recalled that vividly from their first unhappy meeting, but he’s reminded her many times since as if she were too stupid to learn such a simple lesson.
She raps once upon the door as she’s been instructed to do, and waits discreetly as she’s also been told she should. And then waits, and waits some more until her icy toes grow numb from standing, and she finally sinks down into a crouch, hugging her knees to her chest in order to keep off the dreadful cold of the hall.
Robey, inside his cozy lair, listens to her knock, and then eventually hears the small creak of the floorboards that means she’s slipped into a sitting position while attending his summons.
He considers calling her; he aches to have her in the room: her transparent little gown flicking around her naked body, her eyes wide and grateful when she stands, at last, by the health-giving fire, her mouth growing pinker and wetter as the blood floods back into her cheeks, her childish odor returning while she basks in the heat.
And then what? Will he tell her to climb onto his lap? And will she soundlessly wriggle close at this command, caressing him with her small and willing buttocks, playing innocently with his shirt and trouser buttons while he whispers “Mary … my beloved …” into her ear? Will she then keep silent as he exposes himself, and finally thrusts upward between her soft, thin legs?
But no, she will not. He knows it as well as he knows his own true name; and the beautiful vision bursts apart like a vase falling onto a marble floor.
His Mary will not keep quiet; she’ll draw back in alarm and pain as he seeks to enter her; then she’ll scream aloud and try to squirm away, while he’ll be forced to lash out and hit her in order to stop her dreadful squawks.
And then the loving act will turn unspeakably sordid. In her escalating panic, she’ll claw and bite him, then soil herself like a fox in a trap, all the while grunting and yelping and heaving her body one way and another as if she were fighting off the devil instead of welcoming her savior.
Reliving this ugly picture, Robey stifles a moan. His right hand flies to his pocket and the pearl-handled knife he keeps there. He moans again and, in his despair and fury and bitter disappointment, is all at once aware that the girl outside has heard him. The floor creaks. He knows that she’s risen to a standing position.
“Go up to your room, Mary,” he calls out sharply. “I don’t want you here.”
No noise. She’s hesitating, unsure of what to do. Robey hears her shallow, uncertain breaths.
“Go away, Mary. I don’t want you.” His voice maintains its harsh and angry tone.
He listens, and, at last, she scurries away. I must train this one properly, he thinks. As a dog is taught by a firm and deliberate master. I must take my time and wait until she’s ready to obey my every command, exactly as a hunting dog would: silently and without question.
The
Courtroom of Judge Alonzo Craig
THE COURTROOM OF JUDGE ALONZO Craig is filled to overflowing. Spectators crowd every bench both on the floor and in the gallery: the ladies crushed in among the gentlemen; the aristocracy of the city rubbing elbows with shopmen and milliners and actresses and pie sellers. Noise is everywhere as everyone clamors at once. With the fickleness of all public opinion, the recent headlines concerning the slaying of Lemuel Beale are now of far less consequence than the trial of the conjurer and necromancer Eusapio Paladiono.
Naturally, all of those who’ve managed to gain access to the room hope to witness one of the mesmerist’s spectacular performances. Perhaps he’ll succumb to one of his celebrated trances and reenact the crime, shooting his victim in the head and then creeping away in the dead of night. Perhaps he’ll “speak” in John Durand’s voice, reviling Emily from the grave for her wanton infidelity. Perhaps somnambulism will grip the Great Paladino, and he’ll lapse into an unnatural sleep and revisit the scenes of his amorous entanglements. Or perhaps, perhaps, the mesmerist may prove to have been an unwitting dupe, and the crime will have been not one of passion but a hired assassination by a woman who’d grown tired of her married state. The other rumored charge against Paladino—that he may also have slain two young ladies of pleasure—is of lesser importance to the spectators today. Such deaths among the impoverished of the city occur, perhaps not in such a bloody fashion, but they’re part of daily life. The downfall of a woman who held herself above even her most exalted peers is not.
The circus atmosphere would have appealed to Emily Durand, but she’s not there, of course. Her widowed state will not permit her to be abroad in the public eye, so the scandal she’s engendered must carry on without her. However, Rosegger, as they’ve agreed, is in attendance; the private pact he made with Emily supersedes his wife’s mysterious malady. It’s important that the tale he’s devised, and that Emily has agreed to be bruited about: a heart-wrenching fable of a distraught lady who now bitterly repents her follies, who will no longer appeal for Paladino’s release but instead insist that his strange mind must have concocted the cruel murder of her dear husband—a crime she knew nothing of. According to this scheme, she’ll bemoan her manifold transgressions in letters sent to the mayor (the contents of which will then find their way into the penny press) and declare she would trade all she had in this world to have her dearest helpmeet and soulmate returned to the land of the living, and herself returned to her formerly blameless state.
Rosegger’s public role in this charade is to stoutly denounce Paladino while forgiving his foolish and misguided paramour. Yes, the lady was dreadfully wrong to have entered into an illicit liaison, but ladies are weak and must be protected from their coarser instincts. Perhaps, Rosegger will continue to suggest, Durand was a harsh mate. The marriage was never blessed with children; perhaps their empty home led her to impulsively place her affections elsewhere … The final and obvious consequence of these arguments being that the conjurer seized upon poor Emily’s frailty and, in his arrogance and overweening jealousy, murdered a respected member of the community.
It’s a neat play Emily and Rosegger have prepared to enact, although Rosegger understands his role to be assured while Emily, at home, is experiencing several degrees of terror. The impulse that led her to accept Rosegger’s protection now seems both foolhardy and dangerous; the only constant is her realization of how beholden to him she’s about to become. Everything in her existence, her homes, even the clothes upon her back, will be subject to his whims and caprices. And when he tires of this game and of me? she thinks, but her brain stops there. When Rosegger casts her off, Emily knows full well she’ll have nothing.
“What say you, Ilsley?” Rosegger now asks as the professor and his wife make their way through the crowd. “The conjurer’s guilty, of course.”
Ilsley stares at the speaker. “I did not believe I’d see you here, sir.”
“But surely we both counted the Durands as friends, Professor,” is the genial reply.
“It’s not that to which I refer, sir, but to the frail health of your wife. My sympathies to you both. I’d heard—”
“Yes, yes. My poor, dear wife … In truth, she’s gravely ill, gravely ill.” Rosegger repeats the phrase with a heavy sigh. “But she insisted that I attend today to show my support for Mrs. Durand—”
“Ah, then your wife has regained full use of her faculties?” Henrietta Ilsley asks. “Oh, I’m so happy for you. It’s an answered prayer. We share the same physician, as you may know, and he told me she was quite unable to communicate.”
Rosegger stares down at the little woman. “No, I did not realize that we had a medical doctor in common, Mrs. Ilsley.”
“Oh, yes, and he was most terribly concerned. Tainted food can often prove fatal—even to those with robust digestions. I know he feared greatly for her life. It was tainted food, was it not?”
“Mrs. Rosegger—and I—are fortunate indeed to have so many concerned friends” is the surprisingly cool response, and Ilsley interrupts what he believes is becoming an awkward conversation.
“My wife did not intend to pry into your and your wife’s personal affairs, sir. It was her natural compassion that led her to question our physician. She wanted to help in any fashion she could. Her nature is one that is greatly affected by the welfare of those around her.”
Rosegger accepts this apology with a nod but doesn’t otherwise reply, and Ilsley continues with an equally conciliatory:
“In fact, it’s because of my dear wife that we’re here today. Were it not for her generosity of spirit, we would have avoided such a spectacle, but, you see, she feels much to blame for introducing the prisoner to the Durands. I’ve tried to convince her otherwise, but—”
Rosegger again looks down at Henrietta, a convincingly compassionate smile now spread across his face. “You mustn’t criticize yourself, dear Mrs. Ilsley. Your lady friend was misguided, terribly misguided, but surely all culpability rests on the charlatan we shall soon see in chains before us. He cast a spell upon her as he does with all his audiences—”
“Oh, Mr. Rosegger, that’s kind indeed of you to say …” Henrietta dabs at eyes that are misty with regret.
“It’s not kindness but the truth, Mrs. Ilsley.” Then he turns to the professor. “True ladies have such tender hearts. Our task as gentlemen is to safeguard our wives and sisters and mothers from actors who spin tales in order to further their own gains.”
“And what gains would those be, Mr. Rosegger?” Henrietta asks.
“Dear lady, I hardly think it appropriate to discuss this in your presence … but imagine Mrs. Durand left a sorrowing widow—which she is. Imagine, then, the mesmerist freed from prison by some fluke; and finally, ask yourself to whom she might turn in her distress. Mrs. Durand has been left a wealthy woman. I need hardly say more.”
“Oh!” Henrietta gasps. “You believe—?”
“I do. And all the more reason Paladino should hang. He did not envision himself as an aide to those seeking news of loved ones long deceased—but was hoping to assume the role of John Durand. And, though I apologize for mentioning so base a subject, we cannot disregard the other two reputed charges against him.”
“Oh!” Henrietta gasps again.
Further speech is curtailed as the prisoner and his assistant are brought into the room. Both are manacled; both are under guard. A thrilled hush falls across the crowd, so that when Judge Craig’s slumberous voice calls out a weighty “Silence!” the throng is already stilled; and the only sound is the occasional creak of whalebone stays or the rustle of silk as the female spectators in their blinkered bonnets strain for a better view.
Rosegger looks around him. He spots the Shippens, to whom he briefly nods in greeting, and Owen Simms, whom he also acknowledges. Thomas Kelman is there as well, although his part in the proceedings seems to be as spectator rather than participant. Rosegger observes, however, with what keen attention Kelman regards Simms. The
behavior strikes him as curious, and he makes a mental note of it. It will not be beneficial to continue in partnership with a man under scrutiny by the police.
Then the trial begins.
After two hours of intense questioning, the case against Paladino is no further advanced. The prisoner behaves like a man asleep; his eyes close when the barrister is finished querying him, and when open, they’re listless and unresponsive, roving aimlessly among the crowd, seeing nothing. No wonder that those gathered in Judge Craig’s courtroom are growing restless, and that his solemn, patrician voice must remind them over and over to keep silent.
The orders, coming as they do from an obvious member of the gentility, begin to rankle with the poorer members of the crowd. “He’s related to the Cadwaladers and Rittenhouses and such. He can’t tell me what to do—not in my free time, at any rate,” they mutter with increasing discontent until Alonzo Craig growls out a loud “Silence in the court!” and either the commanding tone or the suddenness of the declamation so startles Paladino that his body jolts in the prisoner’s box and his manacled hands strain to reach into the air before him as though caressing an invisible human form.
“I will call you Mary, the beloved of the Lord,” he murmurs in English while he swings his head around to stare at the crowd, picking out females in the audience to affix with a leering stare. “Do not speak, my child, my little one.”
The courtroom erupts in noise. Nothing Judge Craig can demand nor the warders shout can halt the gasps of surprise and horror or the cries of delight. A number of ladies faint, and their male companions call for aid, for smelling salts, for space in which to move.
“Mary, Mary!” a trio of young toughs chants. “How does thy pretty little garden grow?” The song is greeted with such obstreperous cackles and hisses and cheers that it spawns another version; and the back of the room replies with a lusty “Little maids all in a row!”
Conjurer Page 25