Emily French (32 page)
Authors: Illusion
They stood quite still, not touching. Her pulse beating one-two, one-two, tiny tremors in the hollow of her throat, on the insides of her wrist. Sophy tried the only weapon in her arsenal.
“What about the money?”
As soon as she said the words, she wished them unsaid. She waited tensely to see what effect they would have. He was so close to her, she could feel his heat, the passion, leaping through him. He seemed immense and invulnerable.
“If you used your head for a minute, you’d realize that no man in his right mind would put up with what I’m tolerating for the sake of a dollar or two!”
Sophy chose to take that head-on. “Force of will is an infinitely better weapon than money because it works all the time!”
Seth’s eyes tracked upward to her pale face. Their eyes locked for an interminable time. There was a peculiar, tense silence.
Seth studied the rigid stance of the slender figure and the storms swirling in the wide gray eyes for an eternity before saying softly, “You’re not going to win this skirmish, Sophy. So don’t try my patience any more this evening. For both our sakes!” His voice, if not exactly filled with menace, had taken on a steely edge.
Sophy said nothing. There was no sense providing him with more weapons at this point. Instead, with an effort that made her gasp, she turned and ran upstairs to the security of her bedchamber.
Once there, she gave in to stubborn indignation, whirling to lock the doors behind her.
When Seth came down to breakfast the next morning he looked as though he had not slept at all. The lines upon his face seemed to have been cut more deeply, as though graven there, and his blue eyes seemed to have a touch of gray in them. His lips were tight and grim, making Sophy wonder if he had spent the night beset by pain.
“Do you have anything especially important to do today?” she began cheerily, trying to gauge his temper.
“I have to go to Brooklyn,” he announced dryly, glancing up briefly from his newspaper. “The baseball league I played for before the war, the Knickerbockers’ Club, has organized a meeting to discuss next season’s games. I should be back by six.”
Sophy poured his coffee, and handed it to him with a bright smile. Dressed in a violet-colored wool velour gown, and with her hair drawn into a snood decorated with ribbon of the same shade, she was a cool and determined little figure, sitting in the pale sunlight streaming through the shell-shaped morning room window.
“Mr. Dunwoody says you’ve changed since the war,” Sophy heard herself say involuntarily, willing him to answer her. Watching him with wide eyes, she thought she saw him wince.
“Sure.” Seth put down his paper. It seemed a very deliberate gesture. He accepted the fine china cup, blinking a little, as if trying to assess her mood.
Sophy searched his face. She knew instinctively that he was on the verge of telling her something that she very much wanted to know. Then he closed his eyes slowly, almost reluctantly, as if he were giving up a precious object.
The light, thin and diffused, slanted through the window as white and fragile as porcelain. Again Seth saw the gleam of her shining hair through the snood, a network of sea jewels, a flotsam of tiny shells. Captured light. Netted light.
Sophy’s eyes seemed to be pleading with him, as if to say,
Tell me. Share yourself with me
. He took a deep sip of his coffee, then lifted one shoulder as if shaking off an unwanted memory. After a time, his voice came soft and slow, each word measured with equal, leaden force.
Tell me. Share yourself with me
. He took a deep sip of his coffee, then lifted one shoulder as if shaking off an unwanted memory. After a time, his voice came soft and slow, each word measured with equal, leaden force.
“How could you survive the essential hell of a civil war without being changed? The only way not to be changed by the war was to die.”
What could she say? War must be an incredibly traumatic experience. Head down, her liquid eyes on her cup, the only outward sign of her agitation was the constant stirring of her coffee.
“You mustn’t think of that. It’s not good to store up such sad thoughts.
We
continue.
We
live. You know what you want All you have to do is reach out and grasp it. That is all that matters.”
We
continue.
We
live. You know what you want All you have to do is reach out and grasp it. That is all that matters.”
Seth stood up. “Why does changing me matter so much?” he challenged bluntly.
Sophy blinked warily. Something in his tone nagged at the corner of her mind. She let it go and took another sip of coffee, locked in that frustrated state where reason fails utterly to convince.
“I’m not trying to change you,” she retorted, feeling the pull of her stomach as it tightened. She sucked in her breath, her emotions in a state of confusion such as she had never known. They were affecting her stomach, which was definitely feeling a trifle queasy.
He watched her expressionlessly for a moment. When he spoke his voice was a sea of seething emotion, as if the words, like individual bricks, falling from his lips, anticipated the crumbling of some strong wall.
“I never in my life envisaged marrying a woman for her money, or having a wife who is richer than I am myself.”
Her insides felt like a beehive. Sophy felt too weak to do more than mutter, “Does it matter?”
He was staring at her in a very peculiar way, his eyes hard and dark and filled with a quicksilver anger. “I was just going to tell you that one of the lessons you have taught me is that money is of no importance at all beside love.”
Sophy was too busy fighting down a paroxysm of nausea to hear him. She scowled in uneasiness. Even her lips felt numb.
Seth narrowed his eyes and grasped the silver knob of his walking stick. He smiled compassionately at her wary expression, and laughed, a short strange sound.
“Do you know what love is, Sophy? In the words of St. Paul,
Love should not be just words and talk. True love must show itself in action.
There is imagined love, which is illusion, and real love. The two should not be confused. Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.”
Love should not be just words and talk. True love must show itself in action.
There is imagined love, which is illusion, and real love. The two should not be confused. Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.”
He swung around when he reached the doorway and leveled his finger at her. “To be loved as you are loved in this house is above all bargains. You know what you have to do. When you’re prepared to give all of yourself to me, I’ll give all myself to you!”
He spun on one booted heel and strode out of the room. The door closed shut behind him with a resounding slam.
Stomach churning, Sophy fled to her room for a chamber pot.
Sophy heard Seth’s words repeating themselves over and over inside her head as she went through the morning’s routine. What did he mean? She was assailed by questions that led to riddles that, in turn, brought her to enigmas.
She tried turning the situation around in her mind and looking at it from his point of view. He wanted her, had said she would have all of him if she was willing to give all of herself to him in exchange. All of him. What an overwhelming notion.
The idea of a baby hung in her mind as if slung in a shining web. It was all too confusing, she thought miserably. One of these days she was going to understand him, she vowed, as she stared blindly at a miniature of Nicholas van Houten, which stood on her
secrétaire
.
secrétaire
.
The writing desk had been a gift from her father on her sixteenth birthday. Sitting there trying to check off the stock market reports, she could still sense the vitality of the man. Feel his big, square, builder’s hands grip her waist and lift her for his kiss. “I’m home,
lief dochter.
Want to check some figures for me?”
lief dochter.
Want to check some figures for me?”
Sophy closed her eyes, and soaked in the strong, comforting presence of her father. She could smell his warm scent, a little tangy with lumber dust, a bit musky with tobacco. How she had loved it when, laughing with delight, he let her fill his pipe for him!
He, too, had used Seth’s words when she had rejected suitor after suitor.
You know what you have to do.
Her mind slowly probed the problem until the idea crystallized and took shape. The idea that Madame Bertine might know what he had meant.
You know what you have to do.
Her mind slowly probed the problem until the idea crystallized and took shape. The idea that Madame Bertine might know what he had meant.
Madame Bertine did not. Nor did she think it important. “It is best to face reality. You can’t fight it. Life isn’t ‘earts and flowers, Sophy, even if the vagaries of the ’uman ’eart are what makes life unforgettable.” Madame’s lilting voice crooned gently.
Sophy said nothing and, by some unspoken mutual consent, they left the subject, and shared tea and biscuits. As she was leaving, she handed over the title deeds to the house in Greene Street.
“You should have had these years ago.”
“Do not delude yourself with romantic or fanciful notions.” Madame’s voice was thick, her accent heavy, as if her throat had closed over. She deliberately looked away for a moment and her shoulders shook.
“Love has different definitions... different limits... depending on the person.” Madame’s head was slightly bowed, throwing her face into shadow.
Sophy looked at her levelly. “This has nothing at all to do with your relationship with my father or any other man. It is business.” Her voice was like a wisp of smoke, gently drifting. “I think you could operate an Academy for Good Manners and Etiquette quite successfully.”
“I am a professional ’ostess specializing in providing polite but exciting entertainment only for select gentlemen of financial quality.” It was a gentle reminder.
“It does not always have to be so. I have seen what you are capable of when you want to share your knowledge and experience,” Sophy corrected carefully, thoughtfully. “Such an academy would be security in old age, and an honorable occupation. It would be a shame not to share your knowledge of etiquette and your fashion expertise with others”
They stood facing each other. Two people from opposite sides of society. Two individuals drawn to each other precisely because of that gulf. Two people who, but for the whims of fate, would have been on the other side of that great divide.
The humor caught fire in Madame’s eyes. “It would be a good thing to give tone to this neighborhood,” she agreed, slowly smiling. “Open this when you get ’ome. Everything you need is inside.”
Madame Bertine picked up a parcel and delivered it into Sophy’s hands. “The first lesson a young lady must know. It is a precept attributed to the daughter-in-law of Pythagoras....” She put her hand over Sophy’s.
“In going to bed with a man, a woman should put off ‘er modesty with ’er skirt and put it on again with ’er petticoat. Now,
ma fillette,
this is what you’ve got to do....”
ma fillette,
this is what you’ve got to do....”
There was a fire burning in the study, but Seth was not in his usual spot. Sophy crossed the expanse of carpet to where his huge desk stood, prim and proper and glossy, in one corner, surrounded by a series of biblical prints telling the story of the Prodigal Son.
Hands trembling, Sophy stared at the note addressed simply to
S. Weston.
In Charles Lethbridge’s handwriting! She opened the missive, read slowly.
S. Weston.
In Charles Lethbridge’s handwriting! She opened the missive, read slowly.
Somehow it all seemed unreal. It was like finding herself inside a circuitous maze and, breaching a hidden doorway, suddenly discovering a cryptic puzzle that stretched away from her like ripples in a pond.
Shock waves had begun to radiate outward from the spidery writing, revealing real worlds and false, hitherto unknown. Sophy knew the deviousness of Charles Lethbridge all too well. She had sufficient evidence against the man to finish him forever.
The only thing that had stopped her was that it was all too neat, too foolproof, not to be the figment of a convoluted mind. That, and Seth’s solid belief in the constancy of his friend.
Walls of Jericho!
Sophy suddenly went cold. Her fingers tightened. Was this another of Charles’s ruses? A chill ran down her spine. How could she be certain?
Sophy suddenly went cold. Her fingers tightened. Was this another of Charles’s ruses? A chill ran down her spine. How could she be certain?
Alas Babylon!
The second annotation was in George Dunwoody’s handwriting. This time she felt a jolt, as if she’d been hit.
The second annotation was in George Dunwoody’s handwriting. This time she felt a jolt, as if she’d been hit.
Splinters of memory surfaced like the returning jetsam of some enormous wreck. Coalesced. A solid weight thrusting her into the path of a tram. Blunt fingers, half-seen, on a silver urn.
A vision of the agent’s ransacked office danced in front of her eyes. The sudden flare of the curtains. A moving shadow. Hurried footsteps. Her mind raced. The conversation overheard. The near accident at the shipping yards.
Doubt struck her. Had she made the wrong choice? Perhaps she should have shared her anxiety over the agent’s mental stability with Seth as her first impulses had urged.
Did Seth know the reasons behind these coded messages? If he did, he should be notified immediately.
I should be back by six
. She glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. It was still early enough to catch him at the ferry.
I should be back by six
. She glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. It was still early enough to catch him at the ferry.
A light snow was thickening into whirling flurries that nearly obscured both shores of the murky East River. Strident whistles penetrated the gloom as vessels of varying size and description abruptly loomed into sight.
A lane of fast-running dirty, gray water opened among jagged, grimy ice cakes interspersed with patches of semi-frozen slush- The crowded and uncomfortable ferryboat crunched its way between ice-coated pilings into the slip and came to a halt.
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