Conjurer (36 page)

“Silence, man! I need no speechifying from you. Now fetch what's already cooked.”

“Yes, sir.”

Martha listens to Daniel scuttling around the dinner table; then there's a splintering crash as he bumps into what she imagines must be an unlit paraffin lamp. She can smell the oil and hear it dribbling from the table to the floor, as well as the man's awkward steps as he tries to daub up the spill.

“Leave it, tailor! I and my guest are hungry. You may clean this mess away later. This is the second lamp you've overturned in this very room in two short days, and upon this new and handsome carpet. The repairs will come from your wages if you cannot set the matter aright yourself.”

“Oh, sir. Yes, sir. My apologies for my awful clumsiness. It's my foot, sir. It's made me ever thus—”

“Enough, tailor! Now bring us our meal.”

“Sir. Yes, sir,” Daniel mumbles, stumbling away.

When he returns to the butler's pantry, he reeks of paraffin oil and bears a look of such single-minded vengeance that Martha's heart congeals.
He means to work some mischief here
, she realizes.
That's the “plan.” That's how he intends to free Ella
—

But Martha has no sooner formulated this assessment and risen to her feet in protest than a yelping scream erupts from the kitchen, and Daniel comes hurtling back, running into the dining room, followed by a line of fire. In his hands are clutched the promised meats, which also spark with flame. “Now, Ella, now!” he calls behind him.

Rosegger shouts out an oath at this sudden attack; Simms also swears, but Daniel's cries are louder as he hurls himself and the blazing food upon the table. Martha hears candlesticks overturn and set alight both cloth and napery; she hears yelps of pain, bodies grappling, chairs falling with heavy thuds, and then the roar of the growing fire as it shoots up the new curtains and blisters across the carpet. The wall at her head turns hot; the air fills with smoke. The cries emanating from the dining room become shrieks. Then she's aware of Ella calling:

“This way, miss … Daniel will join us.”

Martha lifts her skirts, leaps over the stream of flame, and throws herself bodily through the kitchen and into the rear alley. The neighbor's dog is barking ferociously, yanking hard against its chain, but Martha and Ella dart past the corner of a privy building; and soon the animal is growling not at the strangers but at the heat that pulsates from the burning house.

“Daniel will join us,” Ella states again as she gazes at the terrible spectacle. “I'm to wait for him here. At a distance, he told me, so as not to be in harm's way. He was very careful in his instructions.” She pauses in her small speech. “He had friends who once escaped a fiery furnace, and he understands how such miracles are done.”

Martha can think of no reply; she's aware of the clatter of a fire wagon approaching, then of the arrival of another, of shouts and oaths and the nervous whinnies of horses echoing in the street beyond, of flames shooting from the building's windows, and finally of water hoses hissing and pinging, and of charred wood splintering. In all this noise, never once does she hear the voice of Owen Simms or of Rosegger or the tailor, Daniel.

She wraps her arms around Ella's shoulders, and her sole thought is how fortunate it is that she gave the child her fur-lined cloak.

Dream, to Wake

S
PRING HAS COME TO PHILADELPHIA
. Spring, bursting with pale narcissus blooms and orange-bright daffodils, with purple crocuses, with the hazy-pink buds of apple and cherry trees, with the marvel of green leaves unfurling from branches that once seemed dead.

In St. Peter's churchyard, this manifestation of earth's renewal and abundance rolls across the graves, spiking fresh shoots of grass around the weathered bases, dropping petals upon the gray stones, charging the air above the markers with the acrobatic loops of bees and baby birds, with the insistent, clamorous noise of life reborn and glorious.

As has become her habit, Martha Beale strolls along the memorial garden's old brick walks and amongst its venerable trees and showy blossoms. With her is Thomas Kelman, and with the adults, sometimes standing excitedly between them, sometimes dashing off in pursuit of a fat-tailed squirrel, are two children, both of whom Martha has now adopted as her wards. One is Ella; the other is the boy called Cai.

There is deep peace among these four. Despite the rules dictating Martha's period of mourning, she's been in Kelman's company many, many times during the months that ended winter and brought the fullness of spring. And although she knows her behavior has been causing gossip, she doesn't care.

Let the world talk
, she thinks now, as she has repeatedly.
Let my friends and acquaintances speculate upon why I brought two outcast children into my home, or why my father was murdered by a man he trusted, or what Ella's sordid history entailed. Let people critique my defense of Emily Durand, as well as my ill-fated visit to Rosegger's infamous abode. Let them carp about the source of my wealth
—
as they certainly will
—
or say I'm too old to wed, or that my inheritance is my only attraction. I know the truth, and I know what matters is that I've learned to do those things that I believe are fitting and right … And I'm happy, truly and endlessly happy for the first time in my life
.

As if Kelman can read her thoughts, he presses the fingers of her hand that rest in the crook of his arm. If they weren't in a public place, he would put those fingers to his lips.

Martha smiles at him, then briefly frowns, adding a quiet “Poor Marguerite” as if her own joy must be tempered with the worries of others. “It's still impossible for me to believe Rosegger would poison his wife … And to what end? To what end?”

“He killed his sister in the same fashion, Martha,” Kelman states in a somber tone. “And he may also have had a hand in his father-in-law's demise, although we'll never know for certain … There are many things about the man and his motives we'll never understand. Nor should, I suppose … not unless we wish to enter his twisted brain.”

She nods. For a moment she doesn't speak; instead, her mind considers how much evil exists in the world—not only murderers like Rosegger or Simms but people driven by greed and envy. Parents who sell their daughters and sons, the buyers who take and then discard them, landlords who profit by providing shoddy housing to the poor, merchants who grow rich on the backs of starving children: the list of injustices and cruelties seems endless, while the fight for compassion and fairness seems almost too daunting a task to consider undertaking. “I don't know how you do it, Thomas,” she says with a slow shake of her head. “Encountering so much that is vile and sinister in our city, and yet continuing to battle on the side of goodness and mercy.”

“We effect what changes we can, Martha” is Kelman's quiet reply. “Just as you've taken Ella and Cai into your house. We address what wrongs we're able to. We cannot fix them all.”

Martha again remains mute, thinking, while around them robins twitter, hopping with showy exuberance from gravestone to gravestone as if there were only mirth and merriment in the world. “And those tragic Rosegger orphans. What a cruel legacy they've been given. To know their mother died by their father's hand.”

Kelman also pauses before speaking. “Hopefully, the children's uncles will be able to allay their sadness. And remember, my dearest, they haven't been left destitute. Perhaps, in time, they'll devote themselves to some admirable work, and so alleviate their own distress.”

“Yes,” Martha answers, then says no more, and both she and Kelman turn and walk to where Lemuel Beale's marble marker stands.

I KNOW MY REDEEMER LIVETH
. She reads the words in silence, as she's done many times before. The passage she ordered engraved upon the stone seems fitting for a man whose body was never found, but Martha also has a personal motive in choosing the words. Redemption, she's come to realize, is not only about securing a place in a far-off Heaven. Redemption can be found much closer to home.

“Oh, Thomas,” she says as she eventually turns her head away from the gravestone, “you know, that day, when I overheard Owen Simms so casually discussing both Father and you … how he'd ‘arranged' to have Father's rifle discovered, and thereby lay blame on another man … and then what his intentions were toward you, oh, my brain envisioned the most awful scenes. Truly, I didn't think to see you alive again.”

“I'm sorry you had to listen to that conversation, Martha. And endure that catastrophic fire.”

“It was nothing compared to the grim thoughts my imagination created.” She closes her eyes for a long moment. “Poor Father.” She looks back at the marble tablet, touching it with one hand while the other stays firmly in the crook of Thomas Kelman's arm. “Betrayal is a terrible thing, isn't it?”

“It is. And so is murder.”

Martha sighs. “I wish …” she starts to say, but doesn't finish the sentence. In fact, she's not sure what she wishes: That her father were still alive? Certainly. That he hadn't witnessed the treachery of Owen Simms? Of course. Or that he hadn't allied himself with a man like Rosegger? Which is also true. But what her secret heart is whispering is the wish that Lemuel Beale had confided in his daughter rather than his numerous acquaintances, that he'd recognized her value and instead of discipline and disapproval had chosen to show love and admiration. “If I'd been a better daughter—” she finally begins.

“Oh, Martha, my dearest. I'm certain you were the best daughter anyone could wish.”

She doesn't respond, and so Kelman continues with a more soothing “If you gave your father half the joy you give me, then that was great indeed.”

“You're kind to say so, Thomas.” Then she permits herself a small smile. “But then, you are always kind.”

“To you” is Kelman's simple response. “I'm not so certain others who know me would agree with that assessment.”

Martha's thoughtful smile grows, and she tilts her head and looks up into his face. “I know you claim not to believe in the gift of clairvoyance, Thomas, but if you'd asked me last January where April and May would find me—or Cai or Ella or you—well, I could never have imagined we'd be here strolling together, arm in arm, our hopes and futures shared.”

Kelman's eyes shine down upon her. “And you think that
Signor
Paladino could have?”

“No … No, his mind seems capable of conjuring only the darkest of images—”

“Or inventing them—”

“Oh, they weren't inventions, Thomas. I'm not certain what his strange visions were, but I don't believe he created those scenes. They were too close to the truth to be mere fantasy …”

Kelman doesn't answer. He has no response to this assertion; his conversations with Pliny Earle concerning the phenomenon of second sight have produced more questions than solutions, and Kelman's not a person comfortable with the nebulous and vague. “I'm glad the man's life was spared,” he says at length.

Martha nods. “Yes. It took true bravery on Emily Durand's part to confide what she did. Escaping such a stigma will be difficult, even with a new life in Europe.”

“You were a good friend to her.”

“Oh, no, Thomas, she was the one who rescued me!” Martha laughs, then leans her head against Kelman's shoulder and stares up into the blue, blue sky. “In all my life, I never realized that humans could experience this kind of joy. Or love. Above all, love.”

At this point, despite all propriety, Kelman would have turned her toward him and kissed her full on the lips, but a shout arrests them both. “Mother!” Ella calls out from the other side of the churchyard. “Come. Quickly! Come here!”

Hurrying to the child, Martha and Thomas find Cai with a stick in his hand. He'd been poking it into a bundle of rags lying within the shadow of the high brick wall when the bundle stirred, revealing the face of a beggar woman, her dark skin so besmeared and stretched over her shrunken flesh that she looks no more than black bone or coal.

“Oh!” Martha says, bending down while the woman strains to lift her head and stare at Cai, who whimpers a fearful “Mother!” then yanks on Martha's hand as she impetuously kneels on the ground.

“Hush, Cai … Hush … You're quite safe.” She holds the boy close, then looks up at Kelman. “Find the church sexton, Thomas … No … No, bring Dr. Percival. And take Cai with you. Ella and I will wait here, and I'll try to comfort this poor wretch.”

The beggar stares at Martha. “C …?” The sound is no more than a croak.

Repellent and ill-smelling as the creature is, Martha's better instincts guide her. She smooths the stiffened rags around the bony face, then lays her hand on the fevered brow. “In truth, the boy is named Caspar … the inspiration being the physician who attends the children at the orphanage. Cai has suffered much and is now my ward, for which I am most grateful …” Then words fail her; they seem overgarrulous, overbright, too full of hope where none is found. Why would Dr. Walne or an asylum for colored children matter to a person who's obviously dying? “Help is at hand,” she adds in a subdued tone.

“C—” is the woman's muffled response, but Martha interrupts with a gentle appeal:

“Hush, dear lady … Don't attempt to talk. You're weak now, and tired and ill. But when you're well—”

The woman stares at Martha. Her lips part. With great difficulty, she opens wide her yellowed eyes. “C … is …”

“Yes, the boy is my ward. We call him Cai although his given name is Caspar—”

“Which he couldn't say,” Ella interjects while Martha attempts to hush her with a soft:

“We must allow this lady to rest, dear—”