by Andre Norton
I was disturbed by that. My purse, safely pinned in my petticoat seam pocket, must then have its contents changed. Sould I seek out a bank to do that, or could I apply to Mr. Cantrell? I disliked being without ready funds. Not that I expected to shop for myself tomorrow, but if an emergency arose—
Mrs. Deaves got to her feet. Noticing the deepening flush of her face, I speculated as to whether she was beginning to regret the combination of an ample meal, those glasses of champagne, and her tight lacing. She made a slurred excuse and went to her room.
Victorine yawned. “Me—I am sleepy also. But in the morning”—she smiled as might a small child promised some treat—“we shall then explore this city. Shopping I love!” Her full lips (which sometimes with their ever-moistness seemed at variance with her girl’s face in a way I found odd but could not explain why) curved into one of those smiles with which she could ever entrance. “We can dream tonight of what is to be seen tomorrow.”
I entered my own room to discover someone there before me. Laying out my lawn nightgown was a maid I had not seen before. She was a Negro of middle years (though it is difficult to judge the age of those of another race), plain of face and thick of body under a dark blue cotton dress. Her apron was no froth of ruffled lawn such as Amélie wore, but plainly serviceable, and her cap hid all but a fringe of hair on her forehead.
She bobbed a curtsy. “I’se Hattie, Miss. I do for ladies does they want—” With her eyes cast down, she waited for orders. Something in her air of patient submission made me uncomfortable. It reminded me of those times before the war when my father, a man opposed to slavery and all it stood for (considering that it demeaned both master and slave), had engaged in secret actions I had not understood. The India Queen had several times carried dark-skinned passengers, not on any official listing, from such ports as New Orleans and Charleston.
CHAPTER FOUR
I was quick to assure Hattie I did not need her assistance but was careful to thank her for the offer. As she left with a soft-footed tread, I unhooked my bodice, my memory going back through the years to things my father and I had never discussed.
There had been a woman then, a very strange person with an air of authority, though she had worn the plain dress of an upper servant. She had dined with us twice on board the India Queen in the port of New Orleans, and afterward my father had sent me to my cabin while he talked with her in private. She had been introduced only as Mrs. Smith, a name which did not fit her, and her serene manner had been accented by the oddness of her eyes, one being blue, the other hazel. Her skin had been olive, her hair dark, and she was handsome, with soft and pleasing manners.
Afterward my father had cautioned me not to mention her visits, and I had always been sure that she had had something to do with the escape of slaves. Since those days I had never seen her, but now I recalled her as plainly as if she had been the maid I found in my room.
I firmly dismissed that particularly clear flash of memory as I picked up my hairbrush. The top of the dressing table was not littered as the one that served Victorine, which I had last seen in the greatest confusion. I had no set of scent bottles with blown-glass butterflies for stoppers, nor any other of the pretty clutter she gathered so easily. My possessions might be termed schoolmarm neat and so I could detect that they had been moved.
One of the first things I had unpacked was a curious box, my father’s last gift to me. It had been made somewhere in the Far East of carved wood, parts of the design inlaid with mother-of-pearl. In it I always kept mementos of my family—the miniature of my mother which my father had given me, one of himself he had had painted at my urging, a few old letters, my mother’s wedding lines, a letter to her from my long-dead grandmother. None of these had any value save for me.
The box had been moved. I set aside my brush to pick up the coffer. Its catch was a secret one, or so I had believed. For it was located in the carving where one must insert a fingertip to release it.
I needed only to glance within to know that the order in which my oddments had been left was changed. Someone had opened the box, made free with the contents. Anger flared in me. I could expect a thief to search for a jewel case, but mine was locked inside my trunk. Unless the thief thought this to be such, perhaps a natural assumption.
Who? Hattie? No, I had no right to make such a quick, damning judgment. The reputation of this hotel was such that they surely hired no employees of whom they were not certain. And I had no proof; nothing had been taken. But I did not want it to happen again.
As I continued to prepare for bed I realized that I could not entrap anyone unless I proposed to spend the day hiding in, say, the large wardrobe. And that made me smile in spite of my anger and uneasiness.
If not Hattie, or some other servant, then who? Amélie? I found in spite of my effort to be fair I could believe this of her. In my opinion she was sly and untrustworthy. But why she wished to rummage among my things—that I could not understand.
I held the box closer to the lamp to see if there was any sign it had been forced. When I did this, my face very close to its surface, I smelled a sickly sweet odor—a familiar one. Yes, that was similar to the scent from the contents of the tiny bag sewn into my shawl.
That absolved any servant here, but it pointed the finger more firmly at Amélie.
I must speak seriously to Victorine. The causes for my suspicions were thin, but taken together they should make her listen to me. Drawing on my wrapper I went back to the parlor.
The room was dark, but there was a faint reflection of light from the street below. At my tap there was no answer from Victorine’s chamber. Surely she could not have fallen asleep so quickly? My second tap was delivered with more force and the door swung open as if inviting me to enter.
Emerging from the shadows was a massive bed possessing a pretentious tester. A subdued night light on a side table showed Victorine lying quietly on the bed, not in it. She had indeed removed her dress, but still wore a whirl of petticoats, her fine chemise slipping wantonly from one shoulder to show more of her breast than was modest.
Even her hair had not been unpinned, though some locks had shaken free. She seemed asleep, but so strange was this collapse (for so it seemed to me) that I caught up the night lamp and carried it to the bedside, holding it over her.
That her deep slumber was normal I doubted. I touched her shoulder. Her flesh was chill, yet there were tiny beads of moisture on her upper lip. She uttered a low moan and turned her head.
Now I hurried to light the larger lamp, then drew the covers up over her. I could not be sure, looking back, how much of the wine she had drunk. But where was Amélie and why had she left her mistress in such a strait?
As I came around the end of the bed, heading for the bell pull, I collided with a small table. A glass rolled onto the floor, the spoonful of liquid still in it dribbling onto the thick carpet. But something else fell and I stooped to pick up a fan.
The guard sticks were very thick, making it seem much heavier in consequence. And in one of these guard sticks a portion of the surface had slid to one side, to uncover a small compartment. There was a dust inside and I touched fingertip to that, raising it to my nose.
Again that sickly odor!
I shivered at what my imagination suggested. But surely Victorine had not been drugged against her will, or such evidence would not have been left in the open for the first comer to discover.
I gave the bell pull a vigorous jerk. Since Amélie was not here I had no idea where to find her. But Hattie or some other servant answering my signal could locate the maid.
As I paced nervously back and forth waiting, I twisted the fan in my hands. Then realizing what I did, I pushed the lid back over the compartment and laid it down just as a tap sounded at the door.
At my call Hattie entered.
“Do you know where Miss Sauvage’s maid is? Her mistress is ill.”
“ ’Deed no, miss.” Her capped head swung from side to side. “Mebbe I can
do fo’ the lady. There’s Doctuh Beech—he’s right down the hall a ways. Though it’s early for genlemens to be comin’ up yet—”
As she spoke she joined me by the bed, leaning forward to stare at Victorine with what I thought was avid curiosity but little compassion. Then I was sure it was not at the face of the girl that Hattie was gazing so intently, but at the ugly necklace Victorine so favored that she wore it almost constantly—the gold and enameled snake.
Drugged, or under the influence of too much wine? In either case I hesitated about calling an unknown doctor. But I could summon Mrs. Deaves. As I opened my mouth to order Hattie to do just that, someone brushed by me, swung around to face us both, as if to protect her mistress. Amélie, holding a small pot in both hands, eyed me fiercely, her attitude one of outrage.
“What do you here?” she demanded in French. “My lady—why do you come to disturb her?”
I refused to be intimidated. “She is ill. This is no normal sleep.” I replied in the same language.
“But, of course, she has taken one of her powders. Her poor head, it was aching. I went to fetch her this tisane, I know how to make her comfortable. Now you will wake her and the pain will return—” Amélie crowded us away from the bed, the pot still held before her as if that were a weapon she might use in Victorine’s defense.
I heard a loud gasp from Hattie. The older woman was cowering away, her attention upon the girl’s wrist, her eyes wide. She was staring at that gruesome spider bracelet which Amélie wore with the same devotion to the piece as her mistress showed in her preference for the snake necklace. With an inarticulate cry Hattie ran from the room.
Amélie smiled and said something in her patois. But the smile was gone in an instant as she looked once more to me.
“It is true what I say. My lady is asleep. Soon she will wake and want her tisane. Then her head will be better and all will be well with her.”
I was sure that I was not reading concern for her mistress so much in her eyes now, as a cold and calculated dislike for me. However, her explanation had such logic I was forced to accept it. There were yet some days before Mr. Sauvage would join us, but I intended to report this scene to him when I could.
Amélie, her attitude near open impertinence, followed me to the door. That she closed firmly behind me, like one raising a drawbridge of a castle against the enemy. I still wondered if it was the wine or something else which had affected Victorine but I did not have the knowledge or the opportunity of proving any suspicion.
When I awoke in the morning memory flooded back. As I dressed I stared at the long wardrobe mirror, without being the least aware of my own reflection therein, but seeing in my mind the fan with its hidden compartment. How foollish had I been not to bring that with me when I left Victorine’s room. I recalled now there had been initials inlaid over the compartment—but I somehow did not think those had been either a V or an S.
The room was chilly. Both Mrs. Deaves and Mr. Sauvage had warned that spring in San Francisco did not mean warmth and balmy air. Rather ladies here held to their furs long after those were laid aside elsewhere. So I chose a heavy dress, one of violet silk and worsted, its drapery and bodice trimmed with bands of deep purple velvet. And before I went into the parlor I took Mama’s shawl, the cheerfulness of its color, as well as its warmth, heartening me.
Victorine was already posted at a window. The fog was gone this morning, but the day was gray and overcast. She, however, was in a sunny mood, her gaiety heightened by the bright blue of her dress.
“The shops—they are already open. Do you not long to visit them, Tamaris? See”—she gestured to a settee where rested a small hat of beplumed sapphire velvet, a loose gray jacket banded and collared with chinchilla—“I am prepared.” She whirled around so the flounces and ribbons of her dress were a-flutter, a child excited by a promised treat.
But Mrs. Deaves did not share her enthusiasm. Victorine fidgeted during our breakfast when our chaperone did not appear, watching her bedroom door, which remained shut.
“How does your head feel this morning?” I asked one of the questions at the fore of my mind.
“My head?” Victorine repeated a little blankly. “Oh, you mean the aching. That is gone. Amélie always knows what to do for me. I think”—she was now prettily penitent—“that I drank too much champagne. For when I went to my room—poof!” She raised her fingers to her temples. “There was such a pain here, and the room—it was spinning around and around. So Amélie had me quickly lie down and gave me one of my powders before I had taken off more than my dress. She told me you were much alarmed for me, Tamaris.”
“I was,” I replied shortly. Her explanation was logical, yet something within me still questioned.
“I promise that never again shall this happen. I shall be most abstemious. Like you I shall say ‘non’ and ‘non’ to much wine, and then I shall not suffer. But this morning, thanks to Amélie, I am not in the least ill. Poor Augusta”—she looked again to the door—“do you think she now has a head which aches? Perhaps I should offer to her Amélie’s remedy—”
Maybe the thought of shopping revived Mrs. Deaves. When she did issue forth from her chamber shortly thereafter she was her usual self, showing no traces of a disturbed night. Also she was in excellent humor, smiling at Victorine’s excitement. When Mr. Cantrell sent up his card with the message our carriage waited, she was as quick as the girl to draw on her gloves, peer in the mirror to assure herself that her hat was securely anchored well to the fore of her remarkably puffed chignon.
Victorine took a small ivory-leafed tablet from her belt purse, glanced over some notes as we went.
“Embroidered stockings,” she murmured in French. “Buff with violets, or pale green—Tamaris, was it the pale green which had strawberries worked on them? I have a sad memory and Augusta told us so much last night.”
I laughed. “There were also pink ones mentioned—with blackberries in floss work. Those seem a little startling, I think.”
Victorine made a face. “Me, I do not think blackberries are in the least chic. But the poudre sachet of Flowers of California—that I must certainly have. Oh, Tamaris, is this not most exciting!”
I had to admit that visiting the notable shops of San Francisco did attract me. But when Mr. Cantrell bowed us through the damp chill air of the street into our carriage I was not so sure. I could not guess whether dampness was the last of the night’s fog, or a promise of rain to come, and the general drabness of the day was depressing.
Luckily our barouche was closed. The carriage was smartly turned out and, if representative of Mr. Sauvage’s stables, I could see he chose always the best. Once we were seated Victorine leaned forward to study the luxurious appointments of the yellow satin upholstered interior, uttering exclamations of surprise at each new discovery. Though Mr. Sauvage had, since the marriage of his sister, kept a bachelor establishment, the barouche suggested that he was not unmindful of female needs. In various small pockets and compartments Victorine discovered, and displayed to us, a card case of tortoise shell, a vinaigrette containing smelling salts, a mirror, a box of hairpins, and a pincushion.
“We are so well provided for every eventuality,” I commented.
“Perfectly ordinary and in good taste,” Mrs. Deaves returned coldly.
Victorine laughed. “How very clever of my brother! Though it may be that he does not care at all, and it is the duty of some servant to see this is kept in order. Now here, Augusta, where do you conduct us?”
“First I think the Chinese Bazaar. You shall find that most unusual, my dear.”
We threaded through traffic as thick as any choking a busy New York street. Here, in addition to the horse cars for public transportation, were those peculiar to this city, traveling on a cable of chain, which was in turn controlled by steam engines at either end of the line. Victorine, enchanted, wanted to take a ride. But our chaperone appeared so shocked at such a departure from ladylike behavior that even the impetuous M
iss Sauvage was subdued.
We drew up to one of the sidewalk posts intended to aid the descent of carriage passengers and she was smiling again. A Negro footman handed us down and we stepped almost immediately into what was indeed a very different shop. There was a huge banner across the front above the entrance, on it a prancing, fiery dragon, a vast scarlet tongue lolling from its jaws. And from the open door issued a heavy scent of incense. From here, too, came the chirping of birds as a number of canaries swung in fanciful cages from the ceiling.
A Chinese wearing a blue merchant’s robe ushered us within and I, too, was lost in viewing rare and unusual wares. Nor did Victorine leave empty-handed. About one wrist was a bracelet of cool jade. And carried behind us, wrapped in the red paper of good omen, was a shawl of ivory white silk patterned with branches of flowering plum embroidered in thread only a shade or two darker than the background.
From the Bazaar we went to the Ville de Paris where one feasted eyes on velvets, French brocades, airy-light pineapple gauze from the Sandwich Islands. Then to Wakeless’s so Victorine could indulge her fancy for the Flowers of California sachet, as well as a bottle of frangipani—which I found too cloying for my taste.
There was lace to be viewed at Samuel’s, and so on, but before noon we came to a smaller shop—that of Madame Fanny Perier. Though she dealt in small fripperies, laces, and trimmings only, her shop was artfully designed to soothe clients wearied from such activity elsewhere.
The turkey red carpet was in cheerful contrast to the drabness of the outer day. And many stateroom-sized lamps were screwed to the walls, artfully intermingled with mirrors framed in gilt which reflected and magnified the room. We were seated by a small table on three gilt-legged chairs. Madame herself brought in a tray of elegant gold and white chocolate cups, together with small plates on which lay thin slices of Droste to melt on the tongue.