Decorum (21 page)

C
HAPTER
26

“Where were you yesterday afternoon?”

Nell’s confrontational tone took Tracey by surprise. She was pacing the peacock-blue, beige, and gilt drawing room in Gramercy Park.

“I had another engagement,” he said.

“With whom?”

“I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”

“Yesterday afternoon was our regular time together.”

“I know. I apologize. I had planned to come, but something came up unexpectedly.” Blanche’s appearance in New York had indeed been unexpected; in some respects he and Blanche had picked up where they left off so long ago, though the complications of the intervening years made true resumption nearly impossible.

“Huh,” she said with a toss of the head. “That’s evasion if I ever heard it.”

“Nothing like,” he said. “I had some other things I had to do, that’s all.”

“You saw the Chickadee then?”

“I have seen her, naturally.” His tone was unconvincing, even to himself.

“What
things
did you have to do?”

“Nell, I have apologized for not coming yesterday. I was engaged in business that could not be delayed. I don’t believe I owe you further explanation. I do have a life apart from you, you know.”

Tracey had only seen Nell genuinely angry once or twice, and not at him. Lucky, too, because her tongue could lacerate like nothing he had ever heard before. Hearing her unleash it on someone else made the comparatively mild sarcasm she used with him enough to make him squirm. This was different. There was a hardness that spoke of more than anger. Defensiveness would avail him nothing. He fell back on masculine incredulity.

“Nell,” he said, approaching her, his hands spread in a gesture of supplication, “what’s wrong?” He tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to let you know beforehand. It isn’t as if neither of us has missed our engagement before—you as well as I.”

“Where were you?” She wasn’t budging. She stood with her arms folded, her pile of hennaed hair reflected in the gilt mirror. He turned away from her and ran his fingers through his thick hair. The opulent room with its gilt and art glass became gaudy and oppressive. How he could have stood this mausoleum for so long, he couldn’t think.

“I was visiting friends. It was the only time that would suit.”

“What friends?” Nell was annoyingly astute when it came to the question of “friends.” Tracey tried to hide his discomfort.

“Do you happen to know everyone I know? Do you keep a list of my approved acquaintances?”

“Stop avoiding the subject. If you weren’t with me—and you certainly weren’t—whom were you with?”

He put his arms around her again and spoke more softly. “I thought we had settled that problem long ago when I became engaged. You know full well that nothing stands in the way of our arrangement, not even the Chickadee. Furthering my future prospects doesn’t mean restricting myself to spending time with her, does it? God forbid that it should.”

Nell broke from his embrace and marched to the other side of the room, arms still folded.

“You can’t have it both ways, Nell,” he said, trying to speak with authority. “I can’t be here amusing you and be cultivating any other acquaintance or prospects elsewhere at the same time, can I? Do I have to account for the time when I am away from you?”

“When it’s time normally reserved for me—time I’ve amply compensated you for.”

He would happily have throttled her for that. She had never flung it in his face.

“What the hell does that mean?” He felt his body begin to tighten with anger, as if preparing to withstand a blow.

“You know perfectly well what it means.” She eyed him viciously and retreated farther and paced back and forth in short steps like a panther. “You don’t think I shell out that money for you to be entertaining your, your
friends.
”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, maintaining his icy control.

“Don’t try that with me. What kind of a fool do you take me for?”

“I never thought you were any kind of fool, until now.” A thought struck him, far-fetched as it seemed to him. “Surely you can’t be jealous of Francesca? I am engaged to her, you know, a situation encouraged by you, if you recall. That does put some demands on my time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t give a damn about that and neither do you. Marry her. Let her support you. I don’t give a damn about your time, as long as it isn’t time that belongs to me.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I’ve never seen you behave this way.”

“You’ve never betrayed me before.”

“Betrayed? Are you accusing me of disloyalty?” He had never been strictly faithful to Nell and was equally sure that she had seen other men besides him. She even seemed to take pleasure in watching other women be smitten by his good looks and Southern charm.

“What would you call it?”

“I don’t know what I’d call it because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What a barefaced liar you are.”

“All right, then, how have I been disloyal to you?”

She stopped her pacing. “Blanche.”

Tracey tried to conceal his amazement. Was she just fishing?

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why don’t you just admit it? You and Blanche are old friends, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I told you that.”

“Dear old friends. Intimate friends, wouldn’t you say?”

“We did have feelings for each other once. But that was a long time ago. You seem to forget that her loyalty is elsewhere too.”

“Loyalty. A blind man could see that you two still harbor feelings for each other. You’ve started seeing her, haven’t you? I know you have.”

“You know nothing of the kind.”

“Then
where were you? Whom were you with?
”

“I’m telling you it’s none of your damn business. You don’t own me, Nell. I don’t care what you think about our arrangement. I don’t care about your timetables and your afternoon amusements. You don’t own me. You never have.”

“Oh, you’re wrong, sonny. You’re dead wrong. I own you from your felt hat down to the soles of your boots. And I can fix it so your loyalty to me will be guaranteed.”

“Don’t threaten me, Nell. It’s a waste of time.”

“Is it?” She leaned one hand against the back of the divan and placed the other hand on her hip. “Think again.”

“If you think it’s only the money, I’m perfectly capable—”

“Of finding someone else to support you? Yes, I’m sure you are, but you won’t dare. You’ll dance to my tune and like it. Or would you rather that your dear little Chickadee, your goose with the golden egg, learn a thing or two about her intended?”

“You mean about you? She’d never believe it. I’d only have to deny it.”

“Would you? Then maybe I can offer her a more potent bit of scandal. How do you think your Chickadee would receive news about Henriette?”

Tracey stood transfixed. Never in a million years would he have reckoned on such a threat from Nell.

“I’m sure you thought that little secret was safe. Oh, yes. That’s right. That little problem was disposed of long ago.” Slowly, Nell’s anger metamorphosed into a superiority that nearly crackled. She became more self-assured, the posture he hated most. She tossed her head back and stood with her weight on one foot. “You didn’t think I knew you were married, did you? Does Blanche know, by the way?” She waited.

He would admit or deny nothing. He wanted to stop his ears—or her mouth—yet he was dying to hear how she had dredged up that long-buried bit of his life.

“Who said I was?” His voice was steady.

Her words were blade thin. “Let’s not be coy.” She crossed the drawing room to the table next to the overstuffed chair, drew a cigarette from the silver box, and lit it so quickly it seemed to have been accomplished in a single motion. “You don’t cover your tracks as well as you think.”

“Why should I be covering my tracks about anything?”

“You can be tedious, Edmund.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Stop it,” she said as she drew on the cigarette. She walked back to the fireplace and made as if to flick the ash into the hearth, but it fell onto the rug. She tossed her head back again. “You could at least do yourself the dignity of admitting it gracefully.”

“I admit nothing,” he said. A smirk curled itself in the corner of his lip as he considered the absurdity of his situation. He suddenly felt amazingly relaxed, like one who has just witnessed a fire destroy all he owns and feels a giddy release of an enormous burden before the shock sets in.

“I’m sure.” Nell guffawed. “I don’t know why I should expect any different tactic from you than the one you’ve employed for the last—how long have we been together now—four years? Five? You certainly haven’t done too badly in that time. Had yourself a comfortable affair—more than one, I daresay. Hooked yourself a rich woman. You’ve evaded the law quite prettily.”

“And why should I want to do that?” He felt silly and schoolboyish, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“Oh, come, come, Edmund. You may as well admit it or we’ll be here all day.” She crossed to the sideboard and lifted a glass decanter. “Drink? You may as well be comfortable.” She poured drinks for them both. As she handed it to him she said, “Now, let’s try it again. Surely you wouldn’t want me to go spreading ugly stories that aren’t true.” She crossed to her favorite chair. “I’d much rather spread ugly stories that are true.”

“To be married isn’t such an ugly story.”

“Indeed not. Marriage is such a fine, upstanding institution, don’t you think? At least I’ve always found it to be so.” She took another drag upon the cigarette and crushed it out. “Love, honor, and obey, you know.”

 

By a circuitous route that avoided Maywood’s plantation house and the crumbling village of the sugar refinery and the slave quarters, McNee and Shillingford picked up the road. In the years since Henriette’s death, it had become a disused and overgrown track that wound through wild stands of trees and long-untended fields, giving way to patches of open country, then closing again where Nature had reclaimed her territory. The dark sky threatened rain and the black-on-black clouds surged overhead. The air was thick and close in spite of gusts that freshened it. Finally they came to the tethering place of live oak trees whose twisted trunks rose like writhing spirits and spread their supplicating branches heavenward. The men slipped from their saddles and secured the horses, grabbing their rifles, lanterns, and bags of tools. They made for the edge of Maywood’s little city of the dead where the low box tombs were closest to the road. Stone slabs lay in weathered shards. Two headstones were barely distinguishable above the weeds.

They cleared away debris from one box tomb with a scrolled tablet at its head and raised the lantern’s cover long enough to read the inscription. A name, though worn and dirty, was clearly inscribed and did not belong to Henriette.

“I hope to God this isn’t it,” whispered McNee as they regarded a second with an obelisk atop it. “I wouldn’t put it past Henri Gerard to make entry nigh impossible.” But hasty examination of the obelisk’s inscription laid that cruel joke to rest.

“Your logic seems to have failed you,” taunted Shillingford after two more box tombs yielded no result.

“I thought they would have taken the first tomb nearest the road,” whispered McNee. “The priest didn’t say where, did he?”

“Not that I recall.”

Then McNee gestured toward the statue of an angel whose outstretched arms might have protected a grass-enshrouded box tomb, had the angel not been moved aside, as if rejecting whatever lay beneath the stone slab. The men applied their lantern’s light to the slab. No name appeared upon it. They jimmied it loose with pickax and crowbar and put their backs into moving the slab.

Shillingford’s spade hit something that was neither earth nor stone, that resisted but with extra force might yield. “Here,” he said, and McNee drew closer to concentrate their efforts. They felt their spades scrape this surface and Shillingford pulled up the cover of the lantern again to give McNee light while he continued to dig.

They both stopped to look. McNee dug away with his hands and exposed a much-deteriorated length of wooden plank. He stepped back along the muddy trench that they had made and took up the spade again to resume digging. The coffin lid, which had been made of two heavy planks joined in the center, had collapsed. One side of the coffin had come free and was filled with dirt and mud. McNee yanked at the lid. Six years’ burial was sufficient to ensure that whatever was buried in the coffin was well past putrefaction. Death is death nonetheless, and McNee was prepared to recoil at the sight and the dank smell. McNee pitched the planking out of the hole and Shillingford lowered the lantern. Both men bent to look.

At the side of the coffin that had caved in, up at the head, a tiny skull was just visible through the dirt, snuggled almost, at the shoulder of its companion in death. The larger skull leaned in toward the tiny head. Shillingford moved the lantern along the entire coffin’s length. Though Mother Nature had done her best to return the bodies to dust, it was clear that the figure was not the diminutive
papillon
. The large figure had worn a waistcoat with silver buttons and a man’s belt with a heavy silver buckle bearing the initials PRL.