Matthew Corbett 02 - The Queen of Bedlam mc-2

by Robert R. McCammon

  “Dr. Vanderbrocken tells me…that there is nothing he can do except try to keep her comfortable. She may have a week or two, he says, and how she’s holding on he doesn’t know.”

  “She may be holding on,” Matthew said, “because she’s waiting for a visit from her father.”

  “Me, go in that place? A man of God in a whorehouse? That would be the end of me in this town.” Wade’s expression was pained, and now he sank down to sit upon the boulder again. For a moment he watched the breeze moving across the hills, and then he said quietly, “I have wanted to go in. I have wanted to see her. To speak to her. To say…I don’t know what. But something to comfort her, or bring her some peace if that is possible. Evidently…when she arrived here in May she was sick, of course, but she hid her condition very well from Madam Blossom and Dr. Godwin as well. She always had a silver tongue, even as a child. I’m sure she talked her way right through that odious examination. Then, according to Andrew, the exertions of her…occupation…wore her down. She collapsed in that house, Dr. Godwin was summoned…and to keep from being thrown out into the street, she told Madam Blossom who she was. I presume Andrew was taken into confidence because of his credentials. As a lawyer, I mean, not as a whore-monger.”

  Equally qualified in both areas, Matthew thought, but said nothing.

  “An agreement was drawn up,” the reverend continued. “Andrew kept me informed of Grace’s condition, and as I understand he even went out after her a few times when she managed to talk someone into setting her loose. She particularly liked the Thorn Bush, he told me.”

  Matthew had realized this: Kippering thought Matthew had seen the lawyer and Grace together inside the Thorn Bush on one of those occasions, instead of just staggering out the door that night, and had put together in his mind the idea that somehow Matthew, the sammy rooster, had discovered her identity.

  “The night of Mr. Deverick’s murder,” Matthew said. “You were summoned by Dr. Vanderbrocken because Grace had taken a turn for the worse? And he feared Grace might die that night?”

  “Yes.”

  No wonder, then, that Wade had said he and the doctor were travelling to different destinations, Matthew thought. It would have been hard to explain to High Constable Lillehorne where they were going together on such an urgent mission.

  “And one of Madam Blossom’s ladies went to Vanderbrocken’s house to tell him?”

  “Yes. She came with him to fetch me, and waited at the corner outside my house.”

  That accounted for the woman Constance had seen, but it raised another question. “You said Andrew Kippering was the go-between. Where was he that night?”

  “I have no idea. I do know he enjoys his liquor far more than a Christian man ought to.” Wade took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. His dark brown hair was thinning on top and gone to gray at the temples. “Yes,” he said, as if thinking of something he should have reacted to but had let pass at the moment. “I did say to Constance that the problem would be solved, soon enough. And it will be, by the strong hand of God.”

  Matthew decided he wasn’t going to let the reverend off so easily, and may the Lord forgive him for his audacity. “Did you think that, all those nights you stood outside Madam Blossom’s house? Knowing that your daughter was on her deathbed in there, and at any time she might pass? I saw you shed more than one tear, Reverend. I know you were trying to gather the courage to go inside. Did you think that one night you might free yourself of the social bridle? Of what the church elders would say, if they knew a father could still love a daughter who was a prostitute?” He paused, to let those wasp-stings settle. “So I believe that even if the strong hand of God does solve this problem-soon enough, as you say-a broken man may be left behind, if you fail to see her.”

  “I’ll be broken if I do see her,” came the firm reply. “If I stepped into that house, I would be putting at risk everything I’ve devoted my life to. You don’t know how some of those Golden Hill families would swoop down on me, if they were to find out.”

  “You couldn’t do it in secret?”

  “I’m already keeping one secret from my flock. You were present at the church, weren’t you, when I had my little moment up there? I couldn’t bear to keep another secret. I’d be no good for anyone or anything.”

  Matthew sat down on a boulder near the reverend, but didn’t wish to crowd him too closely. “May I ask how your daughter came into her profession?”

  “She was born with a willful spirit.” Wade looked Matthew full in the eyes, his cheeks reddened, and Matthew wondered if this willfulness wasn’t inherited. “Early on she delighted in disobeying, and in running with boys day and night. What more can I say? I don’t-and never did-fully know her heart.” He clasped his hat between his hands and stared downward, a vein ticking at his temple. “Grace was the first child. Eight years older than Constance. We had a boy, in between, who died. Hester-yes, that was my wife’s name-passed a few days after Constance was born. A complication, the doctor said. Something unforeseen. And there I was, with two daughters and my Hester gone. I tried. I did try. My sister helped, as much as she could, but after Hester died…Grace became more and more undisciplined. At ten she was out in the streets, throwing rocks through storefront windows. At twelve, caught with an older boy in a hayloft. And me, trying to advance my career and the word of God. The plans for success that Hester and I had made…they were coming apart, because of Grace. How many times did someone come to my door with a complaint against her, or a demand for money because she’d lifted an item from a shop and taken to running!”

  Wade was silent, lost in his memories, and Matthew thought for a moment that the reverend looked eighty years old.

  “When she reached the age of fourteen,” Wade said, “I had to do something. I lost a position at a church because Grace attacked another young girl with a knife. In a more primitive time, she might have been considered demonic. She was beyond control, and her spiteful attitude was affecting Constance, too. God protect Constance, she was never fully aware of all the problems. I tried to shield her, as best I could. A six-year-old child should be shielded from wickedness, shouldn’t she?” Wade glanced at Matthew, who remained quiet. “I…arranged for Grace to be sent to a boarding school, a few miles out of Exeter. It was the most I could afford. Barely a year went by before I received a letter from the head-mistress to the effect that Grace had taken her belongings and left in the middle of the night…unfortunately, according to another girl, in the company of a young man of dubious reputation. A few months later, I received a letter from Grace with three words: I am alive. No address, no intent to seek reconciliation or intent to return to either school or my house. Just those words, and then nothing else.”

  The reverend had been working the shapeless hat with his hands, and Matthew wondered if it had been a dignified tricorn before being molded just like this, into a fisherman’s topper.

  “My star did continue to rise, after I had sent Grace away,” Wade continued. “I was on the verge of realizing the success that Hester and I had imagined. Then came the opportunity to take the pastorship at Trinity Church, with the understanding that I would return to England in four or five years when an opening presented itself, preferably in London. Grace must have been following my progress from afar. She must have read in the Gazette of my assignment here. And so she took a handful of dirty money, boarded a ship, and proceeded to New York. To spend the last days of her life doing what she has done so well for so many of her twenty-five years…dealing out pain to me.”

  The reverend aimed a bitter smile at Matthew. “Yes, I did weep. Many times, and many tears. Whatever Grace is, she is still my daughter and I am fully aware, thank you, of my responsibilities. But I have so much to consider now…so much at stake. Hester and I…our dreams of making a shining example of a church and advancing God’s plan…all of it could be destroyed, if I walked into that house. There is Constance to think of. She knows only that her sister fled the
boarding school and disappeared. And if John Five knew, what would he say?”

  Matthew recalled John Five’s reluctance to bear witness against Eben Ausley, for fear of what Reverend Wade might say. “I think,” Matthew countered, “that John would say he loves Constance, no matter what her sister is, and no matter that her father will struggle with this decision for the rest of his life if he doesn’t do what he knows to be correct.”

  “Correct,” Wade repeated, his head lowered. “What is correct in this situation?”

  “My opinion?”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Constance has to be told, first thing.” Matthew saw the reverend wince when he said it, but he knew Wade had already figured out it had to be done, since Constance had followed him to the Blossom house. “If she tells John, so be it. How she’ll react to the news, if you’re asking my opinion, will be a mixture of sadness and relief, with relief winning the day. Now to Grace herself: it seems to me she may have journeyed here for no other reason than to say goodbye. Or perhaps she came to test you.”

  “Test me? How?”

  “To find out if you still had any love for her. Enough to make you-a man of God-walk into a house of prostitution, for the sake of a wayward daughter. I doubt if she planned to die here, but I imagine a sea voyage did not help her condition. For all she may be, she must have tremendous strength of will.”

  “Willful, as I said,” the reverend agreed.

  “I think,” Matthew said, “as you’ve asked my opinion, that your eldest daughter does not need a minister, a pastor, or a reverend, but a simple and honest father.” Wade gave no response to this. “At least, the attention of a father for…say…ten or fifteen minutes?”

  “So you’re suggesting I walk into there and throw my and Hester’s dream away, is that it? To give fifteen minutes to a daughter I haven’t seen for eleven years?”

  “I would point out, sir, that your wife has long departed to the gardens of Paradise and I’m sure only wishes the best for her husband and both her daughters who must remain on this less-than-perfect earth. And I am suggesting that you do what you feel to be correct.”

  Wade was silent. At last he put his crushed hat back on. “Yes.” His voice was distant. “I thought that might be your suggestion.”

  They sat together for a further time but said nothing, for all had been said. Matthew stood up, and Wade retrieved his fishing rod. He reeled the line in and watched the river moving toward the sea. “That carp,” he said. “I’ll get him, someday.”

  “Good luck,” Matthew told him, and started across the rocks, back the way he’d come.

  “Matthew?” Wade called, and when Matthew turned around the reverend said, “Thank you for your opinion.”

  “My pleasure, sir,” Matthew replied. He continued along Wind Mill Lane and then across to the east side to the little dirt-floored dairyhouse he was beginning to think of as home.

  A little plume of smoke rose from the kitchen chimney of the Grigsby abode. Matthew went into the dairyhouse, soaped his face, and began to shave by lamplight, as he had neglected to do so in his haste to see John Five early this morning. He had no idea what Reverend Wade would do. The correct thing? And what really was the correct thing? To enter the whorehouse for a few minutes with a dying girl he probably wouldn’t even recognize, or to continue-as Wade put it-the dream of advancing his career and the plan of God? Well, what was God’s plan, anyway? Who could say, from this side of the veil? It seemed to Matthew that it took a man with a full belly of himself to say that he knew what was the plan of God. But Matthew did know that Reverend Wade had a conscience to go along with his heart, and that if Wade went to see Grace he couldn’t keep it a secret even if no one from his congregation saw him in the rose-colored house. The reverend would sooner or later either tell the church elders or speak the truth from the pulpit, and then what might the outcry be? To send the father of a whore packing, or commend him for his fatherly concern? Matthew mused, as he finished shaving, that this situation might become a test of the mettle of Trinity Church as well as a test of strength for Reverend Wade. The correct thing? God only knew, but the reverend would have to decide.

  Matthew washed his face and dried it on one of his shirts, remarking to himself that it would be wise to go shopping for a handtowel. He determined to see the Stokelys today, to see how they were holding up. Thinking of all of Stokely’s work that had been destroyed was wrenching, but if anything Stokely was an industrious man and if he could keep his bearings away from melancholy over the wreckage he would soon get to rebuilding the place. Hopefully this time it would be strong enough to withstand a maddened bull, which seemed vital for a pottery shop.

  Matthew started to pull the canvas away from the archery target to get at Ausley’s notebook again, but somehow his hand was diverted. He grasped the rapier’s ivory handle and lifted the sword. It was about the same length and weight of the sword he’d used in training with Hudson Greathouse. He’d wished to have a sword of his own for further exercise; here it was, if he wanted it. He stepped back, positioning himself as Greathouse had directed-Make your body thin. Show only your right side. Feet not too close. Sink down as if you’re about to sit. Left arm behind you, like a rudder. Step forward with your right foot, keeping left arm, body, and sword in line. Thrust!

  Matthew hesitated. What else? Oh, yes. Keep that thumb locked down!

  He thrust forward with the sword and then came back to the first position. He began to repeat that movement over and over, aiming for speed and economy. From time to time he varied the motion, by thrusting to left or right and then always bringing himself back to the center, everything in control and steady. It quickly became an effort of mind over muscle. As he continued his exercise, he thought of the question that had come out of his talk with Reverend Wade. Where was Andrew Kippering the night Wade and Vanderbrocken went to the Blossom house? Of course he might have been anywhere. At his boarding house, for instance, or at one of the taverns. Even working in his office. But Matthew couldn’t help but wonder if Kippering hadn’t been available to go fetch Reverend Wade or Dr. Vanderbrocken personally, in his role of go-between, because he’d been involved with another pressing appointment. Namely, the murder of Pennford Deverick.

  Thrust left, return to center. Thrust right, return to center. A little quicker now, and keep the sword tip up.

  He drinks himself into stupors, throws his money away gambling, and almost has his name burned on a door at Polly Blossom’s. Doesn’t that sound to you like someone who pretends to enjoy life but really is in a great hurry to die? the widow Sherwyn had asked.

  Take care of your footing. Not too close, or your balance suffers. Thrust center, return to first position. Again, more smoothly.

  Wantin’ to know when Godwin was here, and what time he left and all that, said Missy Jones.

  And from Kippering himself, the night of Ausley’s murder and the discovery of the blood smear on the cellar door: I think the Masker might also be a gambler. Don’t you?

  Thrust right, return to center. Steady now, don’t weaken! Thrust left, return to center. Make your body thin, moonbeam. And keep that thumb locked down!

  Matthew stopped. His shoulder and forearm were thrumming. How did anyone get used to the weight of these things? A swordsman had to be born, he’d decided. It had to be in the bones.

  He pushed the rapier’s tip down into the dirt and leaned on the sword. In spite of the dairyhouse’s coolness, he felt the sparkle of sweat on his face.

  He was thinking that Andrew Kippering had shown a great interest in Dr. Godwin, possibly for the purpose of timing the man’s visits to Nicole. Why? To choose the right time for a throat-cutting?

  Who do you think the high constable should be looking for? Katherine Herrald had asked.

  And Matthew had answered, A gentleman executioner.

  Someone who had approached Pennford Deverick on the street, and caused Mr. Deverick to offer a hand of greeting. Someone Mr. Deverick kn
ew. Someone who wanted the doomed man to see his face.

  And what, then, of Eben Ausley? Why those three men, throat-slashed and cut about the eyes?

  I would look, Ashton McCaggers had said, for someone who has experience in a slaughterhouse.

  Was Andrew Kippering that man? A gentleman executioner? With experience in a slaughterhouse? Was the man who pretended to enjoy life but really was in a great hurry to die also a gambler with the lives of other human beings? The Masker?

  But for what reason? If execution was the sentence, what had been the crime? What linked Godwin, Deverick, and Ausley together in such a fashion that they should be put to death for it?

  Matthew rubbed the rapier’s ivory handle. He thought once again that all roads led to the Queen of Bedlam, who sat locked at the center of a secret. The masks on the walls. The painting of Italy. The furniture defaced so as to prevent identification of the maker. Deverick. The rich trappings of a wealthy woman. The mysterious client, who hid in the shadows behind Icabod Primm. Has the king’s reply yet arrived?

  “Matthew?”

  He came out of his brown study. Someone was knocking at his door. “Yes?” he called.

  “It’s Berry. You have a visitor.”

  “One moment.” He put the rapier back where it had been. Then he opened the door and found himself looking not just at one pretty girl, but at one pretty girl and one beautiful lady.

  Berry wore an apron over her dress. Her hair was pulled back from her face by a red scarf. She looked a bit flustered, her cheeks ruddy, and Matthew wondered if she’d been helping her father with lunch in the kitchen. In contrast to Berry’s homespun clothes, the elegant lady who stood just beside and behind her had stepped from a Parisian portrait of modern fashion. She was tall and willowy, with thick curls of light blond hair and eyes the color of the bittersweet chocolate cakes in the window of Madam Kenneday’s bakery. She wore a pale blue gown with fine white lace along the sleeves and billowing at the throat. On her head was a small and very fashionable curled-rim hat, of the same fabric and color as her dress, adorned with a white feather. Matthew couldn’t help notice that she was indeed a striking-looking young lady, about the same age as he if he judged age correctly. She had fair unblemished skin, high cheekbones, perfect cupid’s-bow lips brushed with pink, and a lovely slim-bridged nose. Her blond eyebrows lifted as she saw him take her measure. A beauty mark dotted her left cheek, and at her side she held a white parasol.