Conjurer (38 page)

THE JOURNEY BACK INTO PHILADELPHIA
consumes over two hours; a man on horseback would require an hour or a little more, but the roads in the area known as Falls of Schuylkill are often no better than cart tracks, and the large, laden carriages must go slowly. Inaccessibility is precisely what drew Martha's father to the spot where he built his grand and aloof mansion. In the Philadelphia in which he rose to fortune and fame—as in the current city of 1842—the country estates of the prominent were customarily chosen for their convenience to visiting friends and acquaintances; such was not the desire of Lemuel Beale. When he removed himself and his only child from their house in town, he expected no one to follow.

Within the drowsy heat of the carriage, Martha alternatively watches the passing scenery and the children, who are now asleep. As he slumps in a doze, Cai's expression remains fearful, his brown face wizened and preternaturally aged as if no amount of healthy sustenance and kindly encouragement will ever be enough to satisfy or fully cure him of his brain disease. Ella looks merely vexed; her legs kick in time to the coach's jouncing motion.

Martha sighs and shakes her head, wondering again—as she does at least once every day—how she can gain the necessary wisdom to raise these two needy children. For a moment, she considers whether her decision to bring them into her home was a wise one, then immediately counters the question with a brisk
But what could I do? Leave them on the streets? Let them starve? Kittens and horses are rescued; shouldn't children be, too?

So debating with herself, she removes her bonnet, gloves, and mantilla, tosses them aside, then briefly touches the elaborately curled braid that lies at the base of her neck. Finding the plait has come unpinned and the chestnut-colored locks in which she takes secret pride are tumbling down her back, she mutters in frustration as she stabs the long hairpins back in place.
Ringlets, braided bands, hats, capottes, petticoats, and stays despite this grueling heat … an underskirt and overskirt, and a flannelette chemise. It's a wonder ladies do not expire in such voluminous and ill-considered costumes!
She fans herself energetically, switching her skirts from side to side, but instead of cooling the coach's cabin, the cloth turns as dusty as the air, which increases her irritation. At the august age of twenty-six, she knows she should behave with greater decorum. No man wishes a wife who's as careless and precipitous as a child. Not even the daughter of the illustrious Lemuel Beale.

But that reminder leads directly to her quandary over Thomas Kelman. For Ella is correct in guessing that her adoptive mother is far happier in his company than without it.
Oh, Thomas!
Martha's brain demands.
Where do we stand, you and I? I believed we'd reached an understanding, but was I wrong? Has your time in my company been no more than empathy for my father's death? Or a noble sense of duty? Or can it be that the great Beale wealth prevents you from seeking my hand? Or … or perhaps, the opposite is true, and my sole attraction is
—
?
Here her thoughts crash to a halt, leaving her to stare disconsolately at the passing scenery until she becomes aware that the carriage has reached the northwestern outskirts of the city.

Where the road winds close to the river's tree-dotted banks, the Schuylkill is clearly visible. In the small, rock-strewn pools that lap the stream's earthen borders lie puddles of yellow sycamore leaves. Against the slowly swirling water and the dense green of the reeds and riverine grasses, the leaves gleam like purest gold, and Martha cannot help but feel her spirits start to revive. She's ordered the coachman to follow the river rather than turn eastward into the heart of the town, reasoning that Ella and Cai would enjoy the longer journey, but it's Martha who takes pleasure in the sight.

As she watches, a figure catches her notice—a woman on the opposite shore, standing upstream from where the ferry crosses from Philadelphia's prosperous environs toward the almshouse built in the pastureland along the Darby Road. She's yellow-haired and hatless in the sun, and although her clothes are drab she carries herself with purposefulness and pride. In her hands is a new wicker-ware basket; she lowers it to the water's edge, then bends to reach inside. As she does, the light from the liquid at her feet spills upward into her face, turning it an incandescent white.

Wading ankle-deep in the water, the woman propels the basket along, then spins backward, startled; and Martha follows the unknown female's gaze. On the promontory above her ranges a group of boys. All are raggedy; all are barefooted; all are thin. They call down to the rocky strand, and the object of their attention appears to respond before turning away and continuing her progress through the shallows.

Then the sight is lost as the carriage and river road part company, and the city's streets begin in earnest. Martha straightens her spine against the horsehair cushion, then reaches for her cast-aside bonnet and mantilla, pulls on her gloves, and begins to awaken the sleeping children.

WHEN THE PAIR OF RESPLENDENT
coaches with their equally grand steeds and obviously wealthy passengers vanish among the trees, the boys' shouts intensify. In frustration, they throw clods of earth, stones, sticks, and handfuls of brittle grass down upon the wading figure, howling for her return.

Her response to their shrieks is to sing in a soft, unfocused lilt.

“Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber;

Holy angels guard thy bed
…

Soft and easy is thy cradle;

Coarse and hard thy Savior lay
…”

The boys know the hymn well. They're forced to sing it every night by the warders in the children's asylum of the almshouse as they pace among the rows of beds, exhorting their charges to greater heights of ardor with a rod each man carries in his right hand. The fact that their quarry can so heedlessly warble the detested words makes the boys all the more fierce in their determination to call her back. None can venture down to the river, however, because none can swim, and they've learned by heart the tales they've been taught: how devils lurk in the Schuylkill's depths waiting to snag a foot from a slippery rock, or suck the mud beneath your legs; and how once you are pulled into the waves, the devils work in consort to drag you down to their black and lethal lairs.

The boys wail out their distress, their bodies crouching forward while their prey's indifferent voice continues to assail their ears.

“May'st thou live to know and fear Him
,

Trust and love Him all thy days;

Then go dwell for ever near Him
,

See His face and sing His praise
.”

With that, she sets the basket adrift, pushing it well beyond her reach with a mighty shove that seems to take all her diminishing strength. The basket bobs and spins, dips to one side as the burden within rolls in response to the sudden motion. The high-pitched mewl of a newborn infant rends the air; and the children on the embankment scream at the cry, raining down a fresh avalanche of missiles. “You will burn in Hell forever for what you've done!” the eldest of the pack bellows.

But the threat goes unnoticed. Her tormentors cannot know that her mind is envisioning not a river in Philadelphia on a hot September day but the far-off land of Egypt and the baby Moses set adrift on the stream. Set adrift to be discovered by the daughter of a mighty king.

“See His face and sing His praise,” she repeats in a singsong fashion that has now become tuneless and weary. Then she adds a whispered
“A morteper petua … ab omnipeccato
… That thou would'st spare us …”

She watches the basket take to the currents; she hears another milky cry, imagines the red and wrinkled face, the miniature hands, the legs still sticky with blood. Then she walks deeper into the water, slipping on the slimy stones, falling and righting herself until she sets herself adrift.

AS ONE BODY THE BOYS
run, then stop as one body. What can they do? They, who have defied all rules to follow the woman and her baby. Surely the punishment meted out for such an infraction will be terrible. Fear of those who rule the almshouse paralyzes them. Then the threat of eternal damnation sends them on their way again. If they say nothing, the infant and its mother will surely drown. Why, the two may be dying already! The devils might already have lured them to their nasty graves!

By now the bare and filthy feet are flying along. In panted breaths, it's agreed that the eldest among them, a runty and cunning boy who goes by the name of Findal Stokes, will sound the alarm alone—while the others creep away and return to such pastimes as they've stealthily forsaken.

As Martha's twin carriages arrive in noisy splendor at the equally grand house on Chestnut Street, young Findal reaches the less consoling destination known as Blockley House.

A TRICK OF THE LIGHT

T
HE BOY WAS ALONE WHEN
he came upon the mother and her child?” It's Thomas Kelman who poses this question while he, the constable in command of the day watch in Blockley Township, and the president of the Humane Society, whose mission it is to rescue drowning persons, wait on the almshouse portico. It's a space designed by William Strickland and so graced with Doric columns and commanding such a pleasing view of river and meadow that it appears to be fronting a country estate rather than an institution for the destitute.

The physical elegance of Blockley House combined with its distance from the city never ceases to perturb Kelman; one hundred eighty seven acres encompassing kitchens, washhouses, workhouses, a surgical amphitheater, and a chapel: all built of stone and at vast expense, although, the poor within its protection subsist on gruel and exhortations to improve their slothful habits.

“The boy was alone” is the constable's guarded answer. Unlike Kelman, who is tall and uncompromising in his stillness, the constable jerks with movement, like a hedgehog trying unsuccessfully to roll itself into a ball. True, he would rather the infant and mother had taken themselves to another part of the river—to be dealt with by another member of the day watch—but he especially wishes he weren't under the scrutiny of Thomas Kelman.

The man's black eyes and steady stare, his somber clothes, his habit of quiet vigilance would make anyone nervous, but it's Kelman's association with the mayor that causes the most anxiety. With no unified police force, the constable knows, the mayor privately relies upon Kelman to sort out criminal matters that lie beyond the scope of the day and night watches that have patrolled the city's districts and boroughs since colonial days. But who tells Kelman if he's correct or not when he claims a person is guilty? If he were to declare a member of the watch derelict, who could argue against the charge? Not a mere fellow who lives on sleepy Darby Road. No wonder the constable wishes he could transform himself into a prickly circle of fur and hide under the nearest bit of shrubbery.

Instead, he begins rattling off information. “Findal Stokes, twelve or thirteen years old according to what history the authorities were able to procure when the lad first came here. Of slight stature. He arrived malnourished, so his age is hard to gauge. One parent, a father, residing in the men's ward. Findal and his father have been at Blockley two years. The parent works now and then, sometimes displaying a strong desire to quit the place and resume his former trade, but more often succumbing to lethargy and drunken oblivion—which in turn depletes his meager coffers. The boy insists he was alone. He shouldn't have been wandering from the institution grounds, and has been disciplined for such infractions and other misdemeanors many times in the past.”

Kelman makes no comment, but the president of the Humane Society does. Easby is his name, and he's an avuncular figure, exceedingly portly, with a weakness for colored silks, elaborate waistcoats, and satin cravats. It's as if his nature were warring with itself, and he would rather organize a dancing school for cultured young gentlemen and ladies than urge his fellow missioners to retrieve the bodies of the despairing from the river. “We owe that boy a debt of thanks. It was most fortuitous that he spotted the woman and her baby when he did. Else we could not have rescued the child. It's tragic about the mother, of course. She must have filled her pockets with stones to have so successfully vanished from view, although I imagine her body will resurface. They generally do.”

Kelman doesn't respond to this final comment. Instead, he turns away from his examination of the deceptively benign vista—the far-off city no more than colored air, and the river like a soft silk sash. “And this young Findal Stokes can't describe the missing mother?”

“He said the glare was playing tricks on his eyes,” the constable answers with regimental swiftness.

“Is he poorly sighted, then?”

But any reply is interrupted as the main doors to Blockley House open, admitting the three visitors, who are then escorted to a second-floor office where the boy himself is waiting.

Amid the comfortable appointments provided for the institution's director, the handsome Turkey carpet and burnished mahogany of the furniture, Findal is an anomaly. It's clear he's been in this room before, for his eyes don't dash about in wonder at the richness of his surroundings. But neither do they rest. Fear is what Kelman reads in the child's expression. Fear whose refuge is deceit.

The boy looks at the constable with eyes that are as pale as standing water, then at Easby, sizing up the lazy girth of the latter and the fretfulness of the former, but the colorless eyes avoid Kelman's unflinching gaze. Kelman notes that the boy makes much use of his hearing, that his head tilts and twists with minute but intentional motions, and that his ears have an oddly pointed quality like those of a bat.