AND SO THE DAY passes into evening and thence into night while the claustrophobic fall of snow upon snow encompasses the city. The stout walls and tall windows of Martha’s stately mansion are cut off from her neighbors’; the street fronting her house is isolated from the lanes beyond; well-tended parks become no more than a dot or two of sulfur-colored light where the gas lamps glow; back alleys devolve into their own icy worlds.
At length, she sleeps, but her dreaming mind provides no respite from her waking thoughts. She envisions mountainous ocean waves: white-streaked, white-flecked, roiling green walls that blot out half the sky. The sound they produce is a bellowing growl that obliterates all other noise.
The waves crest and fall, spitting out yellow spume and shards of black seaweed; everything below is crushed. Barques, schooners, gaffe-rigged fishing boats, men of war, paddle-wheel steamers: all succumb to the mammoth swells until the splintered masts and spars, the shattered keels, and the broken bodies of the dead voyagers are tossed upon a distant shore. Thomas is among them, but unlike the blanched corpses surrounding him, his is covered in gore as crimson as the brightest sunrise. Martha screams out in the strangled voice of slumber, but is powerless to help.
Chapter 3
On Callowhill Street
THE TEMPEST CONTINUES unabated for eighteen hours longer, whipping snow across the city as though the stuff were so much fondant icing. When the winds gust—and they do mightily—the icing billows up to half-obscure ground-floor shop windows, carriage doors, the entries to iron-works and tanneries, and the broad marble stairs leading to the mansions facing Washington Square. The shrubberies in each park and esplanade disappear; the subterranean entrances to the town’s ubiquitous oyster houses vanish; even the fire gangs that tear through the city are forced to keep indoors with their horses and wagons stabled. It’s fortunate no kitchen blaze erupts for many blocks would be consumed before the conflagration could be subdued.
Throughout it all, Agnes remains ensconced with her new gentleman friend. His house on Callowhill Street is new and pleasant and delightfully warm. Coal cobbles glow in every grate, so she can wander, half-clothed, from upper room to upper room as though the ice spattering the window panes were of no more concern than an unpleasant dream. She washes herself by squatting in a copper hip-bath in steaming water provided by a dour (and, Agnes suspects, disapproving) female servant who never utters more than a grunt or two as she clatters the large urns upstairs and down until Agnes deems the temperature to her liking.
Refreshed, she dresses in one or another of the expensive peignoirs her anonymous admirer has provided, sips port wine until her head grows dizzy and her words issue forth in plumy giggles every time she speaks, then stretches out upon his bed and sleeps—or tries to. He’s a most amorous person, for all of his refined manners and speech.
Several times she experiences pangs over quitting her Oscar in such an abrupt and unfeeling manner, but these she quickly squelches by promising herself she’ll return to him some day.
Or perhaps she won’t. Well, she’ll certainly send word advising him not to worry. Then again, maybe she won’t, because that act would be certain to produce jealousy or even a hunt to find her.
Or the gentleman might tire of her earlier than she’d like—like the last one, who only wanted her company for a day and half a night—and then she can creep home pretending to have been lost in the storm and rescued by a widow lady who spoke not one word of English.
Or she could have fallen into the hold of a ship bound for Wilmington or Baltimore and not found ready passage home. Certainly Oscar would forgive her misfortune if something as terrible as that were to occur! Even a week or longer would be excused if she were floating away on a creaky boat. And doesn’t Oscar always pardon her forgetful, little absences? Nor ask how sometimes she returns attired in finer garb than when she vanished? Her husband has always been the kindliest of people.
These strategies build in Agnes’s brain and evaporate just as rapidly while she hums to herself or nibbles at the preserved French plums the gentleman keeps in a handsome box or the colored sweetmeats layered so prettily among them.
The falling snow, she decides, is as beautiful as an imaginary elfin world. She hopes the blizzard never ends. Not until the very end of time.
Then she prays that her lover doesn’t tire of their escapades too soon, and that when the sun again shines, he’ll dress her in a fur-lined cloak and take her out for another ride in his snug and comfortable carriage. She’ll insist he reveal his name, too; and she’ll call him Mr. So-and-so, as if she were to the manner born. And he’ll call her Mrs. Munder. Or maybe even Miss.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MY ABIDING THANKS TO MY enthusiastic editor, Marcia Markland, to her equally supportive assistant, Diana Szu, to India Cooper, copy editor extraordinaire, and to David Baldeosingh Rotstein for his magical cover art. I am fortunate indeed to have such a caring, savvy, and attentive team. You allow Martha Beale to walk into the modern world.
Gratitude also to Jax Lowell and Pozi Jensen, fellow artists, hand-holders, and advisers without par. And, of course and always, to Steve.
About the Author
Cordelia Frances Biddle is the author of the Martha Beale Mystery series. A member of one of Philadelphia’s oldest families, she uses many of her actual ancestors as characters in her historical mysteries. She also cowrote the Nero Blanc Crossword Mystery series with her husband, Steve Zettler, with whom she lives in Philadelphia.Her website is www.cordeliafrancesbiddle.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Cordelia Frances Biddle
Cover design by Tracey Dunham
ISBN: 978-1-4804-9071-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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THE MARTHA BEALE MYSTERIES
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Deception's Daughter (The Martha Beale Mysteries, 2) Page 26