Conjurer (30 page)

Her husband's loud laughter interrupts her. “Gentle Marguerite! You and your fine morals.”

“You will do this, Rosegger” is her staunch reply. She squares her shoulders as she speaks, and this bit of bravado surprises them both.

He laughs again, but more hesitantly this time. “What would make you imagine you could dictate my actions?”

“I know about you and Owen Simms. I know about you and Lemuel Beale.”

The object of Marguerite Rosegger's concern paces in growing anger through her brittle and perfect mansion while she rages at the hideousness of her current state.
Shunned by all, and a widow as well! I might as well be dead as face this odious existence. I might as well have never been born
. Emily sighs in pent-up fury and gnashes her teeth.
Will Philadelphia ever forgive me? Will my acquaintances ever forget? Probably not
, she realizes.
No, not probably, but decidedly. I've become a pariah. I've become no better than a whore
.

No better than a whore:
The thought sends bile burning into her throat as she rushes from the parlor into the foyer.
And Marguerite Rosegger sending me that ridiculous and poorly phrased note hinting at indiscretions on my husband's part! As if any gentleman worth his salt didn't have entanglements he'd rather keep concealed! And thank God for that! Thank God for men robust enough to keep secrets from their wives!

Emily Durand takes momentary comfort from this latest image, envisioning her dead husband as a private Lothario, a man with a string of hidden mistresses. But the pleasure is short-lived, because, surely, if that had been the case, he was putting his wife at risk of disease.

“Damn him!” she swears aloud. “Damn every last one of them!” Her feet in their silken, high-heeled slippers slap hard and spitefully on the floor. She marches up the stairs. She has no thought as to where her footsteps are leading—only that she must keep moving. Then her furious ruminations round back on Martha Beale and Thomas Kelman.
They're certainly welcome to each other
, she fumes.
They'll make a fine pair if they ever arouse enough passion to wed. Cool. Polite. And so bloodless, they'll certainly never find enough heat to enliven any conjugal bed. Or perhaps old Lemuel will arise from his grave and forbid his daughter to marry below her station! The
notion makes Emily laugh aloud. The sound is close to hysteria.

When this brief and nervous spate of humor passes, she realizes she's entered her dead husband's chambers. It's the first time she's approached the rooms since his demise; and she halts, all at once at a loss as to what she currently is—or should be—feeling. For a brief moment, she experiences pity for the man who married her.
It wasn't his fault that he didn't have the passion of Eusapio Paladino; it wasn't his fault he was often tedious and countrified in his tastes. It wasn't his fault he chose a tempestuous wife
. Guilt makes a small hole in Emily's heart, and she stands, staring about, picturing the ghost of John Durand drifting aimlessly through the chambers. Then the very vacillation of this imagined specter makes her again grow wrathful.
Why did my life become so hateful?
her soul cries out.
Why am I not free? Why was I never free?

Then the silent scream turns practical. She looks at John's armoire, at the highboy and chest-on-chest that hold his personal linens; and a sudden revelation takes hold.
If I dressed as a man
, she tells herself,
I could go out into the world at will instead of sitting pent up in my supposedly tragic widowhood. I could attend the theater; I could walk the streets, frequent oyster cellars and any number of other rowdy and hedonistic places. I could become an observer of the foibles of both friends and foes, because no one would recognize me as Emily Durand, spurned society maven and grieving wife of a murdered man
.

She laughs again. This time the sound is a gush of rapture as thrilling as a fulfilled sexual liaison. Emily hurries across the room, yanks open the drawers in a chest-on-chest, and begins riffling through John's shirts and folded waistcoats, his cravats and undergarments. Her eyes shine with delight, and she holds up each item, measuring it against her body as she tries to determine whether she'd prefer to be accoutered as a dandy or a quiet fellow visiting from the countryside. She hums aloud, then attempts a low and mannish whistle, but the unfamiliar sound fades on her lips when she catches sight of a letter hiding beneath her husband's effects.

So John had a secret admirer after all
, Emily thinks with malicious pleasure while a smile of complicity curls around her lips. She removes the letter and carries it toward a lamp sitting atop a table. There she unfolds the paper and reads until all joy vanishes from her face.

“Oh, my dear God,” she murmurs as she turns the page face down, then as rapidly rights it and peruses it afresh. “It's not possible …” she whispers below her breath. “Tell me what he's divulging isn't possible.”

Caught in a Trap

M
ARTHA SITS BY HER BEDROOM
window, her face turned toward the glass but her eyes glazed and unfocused. She's been thus posed longer than she remembers. Indeed, she has a difficult time recalling how long it has been since she walked through the Shambles in order to purchase oranges for the orphan children. A day? More? Less? But no, it cannot be less than a day. Surely she has only recently arisen; and the excursion into the world—her last—was in the morning. So, an entire day, at least. One day or perhaps more of the twelve months she must remain sequestered in mourning for her father.

Martha can't remember when she last spoke or what she said. She's dressed, which leads her to assume she must have spoken a few words to her maid. And there must have been supper, or suppers, with Mr. Simms. Surely conversation as well … Unless Simms was not at home for the evening meal, which is a possibility as he's often away, although she has no recollection of whether or not that was the case.

Gradually her glance drifts toward her escritoire, and she tells herself she should settle herself there and commence some of her correspondence. There are letters of sympathy to respond to. Or she believes there are. There should be, should there not? Messages from the Ilsleys and Shippens, perhaps from the Roseggers or Emily Durand, or others with whom her father was acquainted but she was not.

But the move from one chair to the next seems more taxing than she can currently bear. She would need to stand first, then cause her feet to move, and then … It doesn't bear considering. She will remain as she is.

Martha feels a great weight pulling her eyelids closed.
As I am
, she tells herself.
As I always have been and always will be: the compliant and docile daughter of Lemuel Beale
.

Owen simms has awakened in fine fettle. His plans are moving apace; his personal business dealings with Rosegger will make him a wealthy man, which, in turn, will provide him with the appropriate status to join in holy wedlock with the daughter of his former employer. The heiress to Lemuel Beale's great fortune would never be permitted to marry a man with meager assets; such a union would not find favor in the eyes of the world.

Holy wedlock. He considers the term as he rings for Beale's valet—now his own; Simms likes the word “wedlock” better than its religious partner; the physical finality of it suits his frame of mind.
Martha locked to me
, he tells himself,
wedded as metals are melded together
.

The valet appears, shaves his new master, and helps him to dress.

“Is Miss Beale still abed?” Simms asks the man as his jacket is dusted and his cravat straightened.

“No, sir. Her breakfast was delivered to her rooms an hour past.”

“Ah, then I am the tardy one today. You may send my own meal to her chambers. I will join her there.”

“Very good, sir.”

The valet withdraws, and Simms smiles at his reflection in the looking glass. When his own period of formal mourning is past, he must order up new suits of clothes. He'll need more costly fabrics, livelier colors, too. There will be no point in maintaining the drab costume of a confidential secretary.

“But you haven't touched your breakfast, Martha my dear.”

Martha hears a voice near her shoulder and turns lethargically to see Simms bending near her chair. He almost looks as though he's about to kneel on the floor beside her. “You must eat, you know.”

Her eyes drift to the tray. “I thought I had …” What a lot of effort that short speech requires! She falls silent again, then again listens to Simms speaking: this time in a sterner tone.

“And you're certain she has not been given too much of the sleeping draught.”

“It was what you told me the doctor prescribed, sir.” A female voice utters these words, although Martha doesn't recognize the accent as belonging to her lady's maid. “I'm always very careful with my dosages. My references—”

“Yes, yes, I know all about that,” Simms's voice interjects, this time at a further distance from Martha's chair. “But does the lady not seem to you peculiarly insensate?”

“Perhaps it is her great grief, sir, that has rendered her so impassive.”

Simms frowns. “Ah, yes, her great grief … Still, I think we must lower the dosage.”

The nurse curtsies. “I will do as you say, naturally, sir. But, in my experience, sorrow takes many forms; and her father was missing for some time before his death was officially declared. Perhaps her hopes were inadvertently raised, which might, in turn, make her feelings of loss all the greater.”

“Of course,” Simms responds; then he sends the nurse away and returns to Martha.

“You need not speak, my dear. I know how weary you feel with the medication the physician recommended. However, simply know that I am near you. And that I shall be with you always. Till death us do part … Ah, but I'm forgetting myself. We must not anticipate our happy union yet.”

You will dead
, Martha thinks, suddenly remembering the conjurer's words, but her sole reply to Owen Simms is to fix him with her sluggish gaze.

Emily durand silently receives Rosegger into her drawing room. She neither speaks nor offers him a chair but watches him advance across the carpet with what she hopes is an expression of haughty disdain. In fact, it's earth-shaking fear that rattles through her already nerve-wracked body. “I know why you wish to see me, Mr. Rosegger,” she states in a harsher and less controlled tone than she'd wished. “I understand that my husband had some … some private conversations with you.”

“May I sit, Mrs. Durand?”

“Please.” The word is nearly a yelp.
From Emily Durand
, she thinks,
a cry approaching pain!

Rosegger chooses a chair opposite hers and regards her as he takes his place. “Your husband came to see me just before he died.”

Emily makes only the slightest of nods; her neck is so straight and tight it looks as though it might break off if touched.

“He was not as lucid as he might have been. In fact—”

“My husband, as you might have surmised, Mr. Rosegger, was a deeply troubled man.” Her tone has the icy, still quality of the defenseless and hopeless.

“Yes.”

“I have a letter John penned to me that same day. I understand the nature of his visit to you.”

“I see.”

“Would you care to know what he wrote?”

“That is not necessary, Mrs. Durand.”

“If you knew about this, why did you not seek me out before?” Emily demands; the sound is like a muffled scream.

Rosegger studies her. Never did he imagine finding a woman as arrogant and intractable as Emily Durand made so helpless. “I did not believe this was the type of news a wife ordinarily welcomed—”

“And I welcome John's death, Mr. Rosegger?” Emily lashes back at him. “Because surely, you must perceive that his distress caused him to take his own life. His own life! Have you any notion what the reaction will be when the world discovered that fact? When the city learns that he was not, in fact, murdered but did the deed himself …? But of course, you do know just what will occur. You must have anticipated his decision when he left you.” She suddenly lowers her head, but the gesture is one of fury rather than grief or self-pity or even despair. “Now, instead of the penny press stating that I either specifically or tacitly inspired Eusapio Paladino to slay my husband—which I did not—I'll be excoriated for causing John such misery that he had no other choice than to …” The bitter words trail away. Emily stamps an irate foot. “Either way, I'm become no more than a whipping boy, but perhaps it's what I deserve.”

“You're accusing me of a monstrous lack of compassion, Mrs. Durand” is Rosegger's quiet response.

“You talked to John … watched him leave you. You must have recognized how dreadful his financial burden was.” Emily's fingers clench the chair arm, the fabric dented under the force of her grasp. “His own life, sir. Shooting himself with his own Derringer pistol … Nothing is worse than that, Mr. Rosegger! Nothing! Not one of my transgressions can equal that one fatal act—”

“The Derringer was not recovered—”

“What difference does that make?” Emily almost hisses. “I have the letter detailing his intentions! And when the news spreads abroad …!” She heaves herself back into her chair, all semblance of a noble society lady gone. “I didn't believe my circumstances could grow worse, but they have—”

Rosegger interrupts again, a covert smile beginning to slide into his careful eyes. “I have a proposal for you, Mrs. Durand—”

“That comes too late, surely!”

“Hear me out.”

Emily regards him, noting for the first time his hungry mouth and hooded eyes.
So
, she thinks,
we have a different man in my drawing room than the one I've encountered in public. How interesting
. “Your wife wrote to me last week … prior to John's death,” she says at length.