Conjurer (5 page)

After nearly an hour of further conversation in which Henrietta minutely describes her adored relatives, Emily takes it upon herself to critique the conjurer for behaving so inappropriately. “I find it an outrage, dear, dear Henrietta, that this … Paladino should be so tardy. After all, he's been hired to entertain us. Not we to dance attendance upon him.”

“Oh!” is her hostess's wounded reply, and Professor Ilsley's snowy beard quivers in protective empathy.

“It appears that Mrs. Durand is a skeptic of the clairvoyant's art.” He leans back in his chair, affixing her with the caustic stare he gives his students.

But Emily is his match; she bends her tall, bare neck in her habitual pose of calculated flirtation. “Not necessarily, sir. Mesmerism, conjuring, and artificial somnambulism are
comme il faut, n'est-ce pas?
Ladies and gentlemen of society must acquaint themselves with all current fashions. It's no different than studying silver hallmarks or family pedigrees.”

Florence Shippen squeaks in her chair while their host continues to survey Emily Durand.

“But you are not a believer?”

“I am neither a believer nor a nonbeliever, Professor Ilsley. Breeding prevents me from taking a stance on any situation remotely cultural or political” is Emily's airy response.

The door to the salon blows open at that moment, and two men dressed in black evening attire enter. One is of medium height and of such transcendent grace and beauty that he seems to float forward rather than walk. His companion is miniature and elfin, twisted about the shoulders and neck, his high, thin chest bone poking upward within his waistcoat and jacket. “Rise for Eusapio Paladino,” he manages to wheeze, and the Ilsleys' guests swiftly struggle to their feet.

Eusapio turns his limpid gaze on Emily Durand. “Emily,” he says in densely accented English.
Aimilee
.

Shock at such effrontery causes Emily to momentarily lose her famous
sang-froid;
she sends a startled glance in Henrietta Ilsley's direction. The hostess merely responds by blinking astonished eyes.
No one suppled
Signor
Paladino with the guest list
, the look conveys. To Henrietta's thinking, the fact that he knew Emily's name is proof positive of his powers.

“Aimilee,”
Eusapio Paladino repeats more softly, then indicates that he wishes her to sit at his left, while their hostess will be seated at his right.

Emily looks at her husband, but he merely shrugs his own surprise and disbelief; and so she allows herself to be dictated to by a total stranger. An unknown man who has used her given name! She knows she should protest; she knows John should protest on her behalf. Both courtesy and pure bewilderment prevent her. She assumes the same motives are the cause of John's inaction.

Placed as she's been told, with the others also arranged around the table, Emily suddenly feels Eusapio's ankle pressing against hers. Her eyes widen; her heart pounds; she forces herself to sit erect. The pressure on her foot increases, and she experiences a panicky impulse to appeal to her husband, although, of course, such a reaction would throw the party into utter and unspeakable confusion. She chews the inside of her lip. She cannot bring herself to look into John Durand's face.

When Eusapio takes her right hand and Henrietta's left, Emily's mouth grows dry, and her lips feel as though they're about to crack in pieces. “Join hands—every one upon the table,” she hears the necromancer's assistant order. “We will begin with a single question, which you will write on one of the slates. Then turn the slate downward. The words will remain unknown to
Signor
Paladino. If—I stress the word
if
—the spirits speak to him, he will transcribe their responses on the other slate. However, you must understand that the great Paladino is not always in communication with the departed. If there are unbelievers present, vanished souls are hesitant to appear.”

Emily keeps her gaze affixed to the table, but not on her hand residing in Eusapio's own. If she had the strength of will to pull it away, she would, but her fingers no longer feel like her own. In fact, a more disturbing reaction occurs, and she begins to secretly enjoy the warmth of Paladino's hand. She wills herself not to shut her eyes in shame.

Then Florence Shippen's husband, a gangling and beak-nosed barrister, takes up the slate, passing it to their hostess, who writes in a shaking hand:
HOW DO YOU FARE, DEAREST MAMA
? The guests note the question, then return their attention to Paladino, who has remained aloof, staring thoughtfully into space.

“Aimilee,”
he repeats in a sleepy tone. His ankle and calf rub against hers; his fingers furtively caress her palm. “I see little girl,” he says in halting English while looking beyond Emily Durand's shoulder as if there were another person standing there.
“Bimba bianca.”

“Little blond girl,” translates the toad-like assistant.

“Oh, but I was never a blond—” Henrietta begins to state, but Eusapio's assistant silences her with a hiss.

“Bimba bianca
…” Eusapio murmurs.
“Bimba triste
…”

Beneath her dressed yellow ringlets, her braid entwined with pearls, Emily feels her scalp prickle and her forehead turn damp while her husband shifts his boxy frame in a creaking chair and clears his throat:

“What's this got to do with—?”

“Shhh,” the toad orders. “When the great Paladino speaks, it is a wonder.”

“Bimba triste. Perché piangi?”

“Sad little girl. Why are you crying?” says the translator as Emily finally turns to face Eusapio. In fact, she's now holding back tears, and she knows her face has turned scarlet with emotion.

Paladino gazes serenely at her, then suddenly jerks his head back; his hands leap away from the women's and fly to his neck. A strangled noise issues from his throat, then a scream that ends in a wail. “I am here! Do not search further!” Bobbing within half-closed lids, Paladino's eyes, entranced and otherworldly, race across an invisible horizon.

“Who is here,
signor?
” Henrietta Ilsley murmurs. “Is it my dear mama?”

Meanwhile Eusapio begins quivering in his chair, rocking spasmodically as if someone tall and cruel were shaking his lissome frame. “Damn you! You cannot kill me!” he shouts; and at once, in unison, the guitar, zither, and tambourine begin to play in wild and villainous discord.

“Hell has entered this home,” Florence Shippen whispers while her hostess repeats a plaintive “But my dear mama?”

Ilsley glares at Paladino's assistant. “This is most irregular—” he commences in a stony tone as Eusapio all at once collapses, ashen-faced and terrified, upon the floor. He works his mouth and claws the air, but no sound appears. Finally another male voice speaks through him, the tone smooth but autocratic. “Don't carry on so, Mary, child. It's better that you do not speak. Silence is golden in girls and women.”

John Durand utters a loud “What nonsense …” but the interruption goes unnoticed by the mesmerist, who then sits bolt upright, staring long and hard at Emily. “
Morto. Maria, morto. La sua linguetta sul origliere
.”

With paladino finally led faint and weak from the room, and dispatched with his assistant to their hotel in the Ilsleys' coach, the group reconvenes around the table. Unprompted, each hand is again spread upon the black velvet cloth; and it is the sight of so many pale fingers and such an expanse of lightly colored cloth that makes Frederick Ilsley at last voice his outrage.

“A hoax,” he insists as he gazes in concern at his deflated wife. “A patent fraud.”

“How can you suggest such a thing, Frederick? The man was deeply moved … although by whom we cannot know …” Henrietta closes her eyes; she sounds dangerously close to tears. “Do you think …? Do you think it could have been Lemuel Beale to whom—?”

“Not a bit of it, Henrietta,” her husband commands.

“But, Frederick, the voice was so very like—”

“A ruse, my dear. And I need not remind you that we must not permit ourselves to become the promulgators of such odious gossip.”

“But, Frederick—”

“We must not allow rumor and innuendo in this house, Henrietta.”

“Yes, Frederick, however—”

“The man is a fake, Mrs. Ilsley. We need say no more on the subject.”

The company fidgets in embarrassed silence following this pointed exchange before John Durand announces an authoritative “I agree that the Italian is an awful charlatan.” Then he shifts his attention to his wife. “Why did you let him single you out in that disgusting fashion?”

Emily stares implacably back. Not for the life of her will she permit herself to be drawn into a public argument like the Ilsleys'. “I was hoping to induce
Signor
Paladino to further revelations,” she states in a controlled tone.

“Well, I don't like to see a wife of mine hobnobbing with some unwashed foreigner.”

“Then please accept my deepest apologies, John. I did not intend to cause you dismay.”

If anyone notices how odd it is for Emily Durand to apologize to anyone or for anything, no one remarks upon it.

Then Ilsley waves at the air with irate fingers. “Paladino and his ‘familiar' were the only souls dressed in black. The playing of the musical instruments was no more than a magician's exercise; we didn't see human hands strike them because our concentration was directed elsewhere, and the arms creating that unholy din on the zither, guitar, and tambourine were cloaked in black to match the drapery—”

“But he knew Emily's name,” Florence Shippen interjects meekly.

“He must have had access to our guest list” is the professor's quick retort. “It is not unknown, albeit unpleasant, for servants to gossip about their masters' affairs.”

“But what do you infer
Signor
Paladino meant when he said that … that a tongue was placed on a pillow?” Florence persists, her fleshy shoulders now shivering in a combination of horror and excitement.

Ilsley clears his authoritarian throat. “Do you speak Italian, madam?”

“Why no, Professor. That is, only what I learn from the occasional libretto—”

“Then how can you—or any of us—be certain of what was said? A girl named Mary with her tongue laid upon a pillow. That makes no sense whatsoever, does it, Mrs. Shippen?”

“This is not the type of conversation that should occur in a decent household,” protests Henrietta with a small moan. “Bodily parts discussed in connection with the bedroom, and such like … Oh, I'd so hoped …” The words trail off. Henrietta Ilsley has no further speech.

Her husband regards her; compassion vies with matrimonial dominion, and he continues in a tone that brooks no further comment. “Heaven only knows what that mountebank was attempting to frighten us with—”

“But what if he were truly conjuring Lemuel Beale?” Florence Shippen murmurs, at which point her host abruptly rises from his chair.

“I extend regrets from my wife and from me for a most unproductive evening. And now, if you will excuse us, we must bid you good night.”

The other guests immediately take their cue, standing and offering words of thanks, but Emily remains apart.
Bimba bianca
, she thinks.
Perché piangi? Perché?
Unwittingly, her glance travels to a nearby looking glass, but the mirror has been shrouded in velvet for the evening's entertainment.

As Far as the Delaware

L
EMUEL BEALE ISN
'
T FOUND, ALTHOUGH
local constabularies from the several divisions that form Philadelphia's disparate police forces search both sides of the Schuylkill's storm-tossed banks, and even venture out upon the swollen river in punts and barges.

Thomas Kelman orders the joint effort; he's tireless in his involvement, calling in favors, even soliciting the help of the notorious fire companies: the brutally competitive gangs in Southwark that travel under the names of “the Moyamensing Hose Company,” “the Weccacoe Hose Company,” “the Killers,” and “the Irish Fenian Brotherhood.” When a simple kitchen blaze can produce a conflagration capable of razing many acres of property, the “fire boys,” tough, swaggering, hard on their horses and even harsher with rival gangs, are a necessary evil.

Thomas Kelman makes use of these difficult men, promising twenty gold dollars to the single person or company that finds Lemuel Beale. It's a princely sum and a great enticement; unskilled labor earns only sixty-three cents a day—when work can be found.

South and east, from the wild woods of Falls of Schuylkill all the way down to the river's tempestuous confluence with the greater Delaware at marshy League Island, men in boots and storm coats tramp for four solid days. They find the carcasses of cows, sheep, and pigs, and the partial torso of a horse tangled within the branches of a huge and fallen oak, its eyes still staring among the sodden acorns. There's no sign of Beale, although the effort does turn up the water-bloated body of a drowned hermit, thickly bearded and ageless—one of countless such people living in hiding within the city's outlying forests.

Weary, footsore, angry at being cheated out of the promised reward, the members of the fire brigades are the first to desert the quest, marching away from the city's twin rivers in bands that fan out through Gray's Ferry, Southwark, and Kensington. They nurse numerous grudges against their fellow searchers—especially the police forces, whom they view as being too holy for their own good.

Above all, these men bear a special hatred of Thomas Kelman, who they believe dangled delusions and fantasies in front of their eyes. They grumble that Kelman knew he'd set them an impossible task, that the “mayor and his legions of hellhounds” lie behind the charade of a search for a man obviously well buried in the river. Then their wrath swells to encompass Lemuel Beale and every “snatch and grab” like him: Matthias Baldwin and his damn locomotives, Nicholas Biddle and his vile bank, the vaunted Rittenhouses, Levis, Whartons, Cadwaladers, and “all the other swells who run the show.”