Lawless (83 page)

A breeze stirred the library curtains. A large wagon went rattling north on Fifth Avenue carrying fifteen or twenty young people on an excursion into the country. From the Park came the cheers and catcalls of a lively ball game.

Gideon was hardly aware of any of it. He felt as if someone had bludgeoned him. He raked a hand through his hair. Jerked the belt of his morning robe tighter. Finally, he erupted, “I don’t know what you mean, best for all of us. It certainly isn’t best for you. Girls your age don’t just walk in one morning and announce that they’re leaving home.”

“I’m sorry, Papa, but this could never be my home now. Not with Julia here most of the time.”

“I told you we weren’t going to stay in this house—” He was floundering.

“It would be the same no matter where we moved.”

“Eleanor—” He took a step forward, saw her go tense, and stayed where he was. He held out his hand. “Please. Come in. Close the door and let’s talk.”

Two more workmen grunted their way down the staircase with the secretary from Margaret’s room resting on their thighs. The desk had remained locked since her death.

When the workmen were out of sight, Eleanor shook her head.

“There isn’t any point. I’m going.”

“You are not of legal age! You don’t have permission to leave!”

She flared suddenly. “I don’t want or need your permission. I could have run away without telling you! I looked for Will but he and Carter must have gone to the Park. I left a note for him.”

Desperate now, he pointed to a chair. “Eleanor, sit down. I beg you. Tell me what brought this about. That blasted theatrical club you mentioned a few days ago?”

“I have no time to visit, Papa. I’m due at the New York Central depot in half an hour. There’s a hack coming for me. The manager of the troupe arranged for it.”

“Depot? When you said you were joining a theatrical company, I thought you meant here in the city.”

“No, it’s a traveling troupe.”

“Good Lord.”

“I don’t understand why that upsets you so much. You gave me scripts to read. You took me to see my very first play at Booth’s—”

“Taking you to Booth’s isn’t the same as encouraging you to run around the country with a bunch of immoral—what’s so funny? Damn it, Eleanor, answer me!”

“I’m sorry, Papa. I don’t mean to laugh. I can’t help it. Because of all the things you publish in the paper, everyone thinks of you as a radical. But here you are ranting against the immoral theater. Almost like Mama used to do—”

“My liberality doesn’t extend to allowing my fifteen-year-old daughter to travel with a pack of godless wastrels.”

She shrugged. “I’m going, though.”

How assured she sounded, in contrast to his own confusion.

“What—what’s the name of this troupe?”

“Bascom’s Original Ideal Uncle Tom Combination.”

“God in heaven—a Tom show? That’s even worse.”

“You’re making this very unpleasant.” She was beginning to anger. “It’s a grand opportunity. I’m to play one and perhaps two parts, and help backstage with the wardrobe. I couldn’t find better preparation for a career as an actress.”

“Who’s been encouraging you? My brother? Has he been filling your head about how fine it is to be a free-spirited artist?”

“No, Papa. Uncle Matt had nothing to do with my decision.” But the pink in her cheeks gave her away.

“I don’t believe you,” he shot back. “Whatever Matt said, it was nonsense. A painter’s existence—or an actor’s—isn’t glorious or noble. I know. My own mother tramped around the country with her second husband. She was miserable because Lamont was a typical actor. No sense of reality, or of responsibility—it’s a wretched, disorderly life.”

Very quietly, she replied, “It can’t be any more wretched or disorderly than the life in this house.”

“Eleanor, I don’t want to hear that again.”

She paid no attention, answering his anger with her own. “But of course you wouldn’t know anything about that. You were always too busy to care about your wife and your family. I don’t see why you’re suddenly doing a turnabout now.”

The familiar accusation defeated him for a moment. He lowered his head, covered his eye with his right hand.

He couldn’t let her go. Despite the flip way she brushed his arguments aside, actors were amoral people. And what did she know about men’s desires at her age—or how to deal with them? She knew nothing.

Unless—

Oh, good God. Had someone already—?

He could barely stand to think about it. If he ever discovered that some middle-aged man had sullied his daughter, he’d turn into a Tom Courtleigh himself, and do murder. Only he’d do it personally. He’d horsewhip the damned lecher to death.

Despite his panic, he tried to speak calmly. “All right. It appears your decision’s final. But you can give me a few more facts, can’t you? How long will this junket last? A couple of weeks? A month?”

“Two years.”

“Two years?”

“Three if we’re successful. Mr. Bascom, the proprietor of the company, wants to take the production all the way to California.”

He had a notion that he must look like an idiot, his mouth open and consternation on his face. And was that the hack clattering up Fifth Avenue this very moment?”

“Where did you meet these people? What do you know about them?”

“I met Mr. Bascom at the theatrical club, just as you guessed. We’ll be traveling together like a big family. There’s even a boy in the company whom you met once. Remember Leo Goldman?”

With a blank look, Gideon shook his head.

“In any case, trouping’s nothing new for most of them. They’re quite experienced.”

“And I don’t doubt they’ll use you to enhance that reputation.”

“That’s indecent, Papa.”

“It’s a matter of fact. A girl your age doesn’t know how to take care of herself. How to guard against—against—”

“I know what you’re trying to say and I want no part of it. Ever.”

There was such pain in her eyes, and such venom in her tone, that he was taken aback. What had happened to her? Had she been attacked when the house was invaded? Julia spoke of the secret grief she sensed in Eleanor. Was the cause something she dared not reveal to anyone?

He shot a frantic glance at the window. The hoofbeats of the hack horses sounded loudly outside, slowing down.

“Do you have an itinerary? At least tell me where you’re going—”

She reached for the valise. “Medium-sized cities and small towns, mostly. Our first three engagements are upstate.”

His helplessness finally overcame his rage, and he was no longer a father berating a child, but an adult pleading with another adult. “Will you write us, then?”

She broke his heart when she smiled and said, “Of course, Papa, just as often as you wrote to me after you left.”

And then she whirled and ran, one hand clutching the valise, the other holding her bonnet.

He rushed to the window as she dashed down the steps to the waiting hack. He watched the hack turn on Fifth and clip south again. After it was out of sight, he remained motionless at the window, a man who realized he’d grown old in an instant. Old, confused, and unexpectedly full of a sense of his eventual death.

Old. His child was gone from him. As all children left their parents.

No, that was wrong. Eleanor was different. She’d left with a heart brimming with hate that he hadn’t been able to overcome.

He heard workmen complaining out in the foyer. The smell of smoke hung everywhere. The breeze fluttered the pages of the fallen copy of 100 Years. Sunlight drenched Fifth Avenue, and the dust raised by the hack drifted away and dispersed.

“Julia? Julia!” He stormed through the main floor, searching for her. Cook hurried from the kitchen.

“She’s across the street, sir.”

He didn’t understand. “You mean in the Park?”

“No, sir. The vacant lot where they’re burning Mrs. Kent’s effects.”

Cook’s gray eyes hinted at disapproval. Julia had been spending almost every day at the house, but none of the servants was as yet fully accustomed to her presence.

“She went to see to their disposition,” Cook added.

“God
damn
it!”

Cook stepped back as he stalked by.

“I told her to leave all those things alone—” he said under his breath as he rushed to the rear stairs and into the coach yard. One of the hired men was dippering water from a bucket. He started to wave, but saw Gideon’s face and thought better of it.

“Julia?”

On the other side of Sixty-first, she turned and came toward him through knee-high weeds. The workmen had cleared a sizable area and trenched its perimeter to a depth of a foot and a half before igniting the fire. Gideon waited in the coach yard, his face thunderous, as Julia picked up her skirts with one hand and crossed the street. There was something black and square in her right hand. He paid no attention. He spoke before she was halfway to the curbstone.

“Julia, I specifically asked you to have nothing to do with the disposal of Margaret’s—”

“Asked?” she broke in. “You ordered me.”

He seized her wrist. “Whatever verb you care to use, you chose to disregard—”

“Of course I did.” She wrenched away. “What’s come over you, Gideon? I’m not some slavey, to be given orders and abused at your pleasure. If you think I am, I’ll be happy to go back to the hotel, pack my things, and leave New York before the day’s over.”

Trembling, she gazed up at him. His blustery wrath faded. He realized she was carrying some sort of charred book, and a packet of letters whose edges were burned. She went on in a firm tone.

“But as long as I’m here, I’ll continue to inspect everything before it’s consigned to that fire. Most of Margaret’s clothing is in perfect condition. It only wants a little cleaning, and it can be given to the poor. I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, but I can’t stand unnecessary waste. And it’s a good thing, because I found something important. That is, one of the workmen found it after I asked him to break the lock on Margaret’s—”

“Julia, Eleanor’s gone.”

“What’s that?”

“I said Eleanor’s left. For good. Didn’t you see the hack?”

“I noticed it, but I paid no attention. I thought the driver had gotten the wrong address.”

“Eleanor took it. She’s leaving the city. Going on tour with a Tom troupe.”

She understood, but it was clearly difficult for her to believe the news. She shook her head and uttered a low, ragged sort of laugh. Then she leaned against Gideon’s side.

“Dear God. Two such shocks in one morning is one too many.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She showed him the book, and the envelopes with blackened edges. The envelopes were bound in a piece of old twine that had somehow survived the fire.

Astonished, he recognized the handwriting on the top envelope. Then he saw the address. He snatched the packet and riffled through it.

“These are letters to Eleanor that I wrote after I moved out.”

“So I assumed.” Julia nodded. “We didn’t discover them until the desk was in the flames. As you can see, they haven’t been too badly damaged. Or this either.” She held out the blackened book.

He’d never seen it before. He returned his attention to the letters, speaking his thoughts aloud. “She must have intercepted them. Hidden them. But Samuel said—” He stopped.

“Said what?” she prompted.

“The day of the funeral, the subject of these letters came up with Eleanor. She denied ever seeing them. I questioned Samuel and he told me Margaret had frequently picked up the mail. He also said he’d never seen any letters like this. Not one.” He shook the packet. “But she couldn’t have intercepted this many without his cooperation—or without attracting his attention, at the very least.”

“You mean to say he lied to you?”

“Evidently.”

“But why?”

Gideon spun toward the house. “We’ll soon find out.”

She caught his arm.

“Take the book too.

He turned back. He didn’t understand why her eyes were so apprehensive.

She continued. “It’s a diary, Gideon—one which your wife must have begun several years ago. I—”

She dabbed at her upper lip with a sleeve kerchief. From across the street, the bite of a workman’s ax sounded, tearing into wood which another man proceeded to pitch into the translucent flames. A plume of inky smoke rose and drifted away.

“I only glanced at a few entries. I think it will require a good deal of courage for you to read the whole thing.”

He tucked the blackened volume under one arm. Then he stalked into the house. Julia followed.

They cleared the kitchen and confronted Samuel. Accused and confronted with evidence, he broke down almost at once. Yes, he’d lied to Gideon. Of course he’d seen some of the letters to Eleanor.

Looking miserable and speaking in a halting voice, he described how Margaret had informed him over a year ago that she wanted to see all the mail before anyone else did. He said she’d warned him against mistakes; threatened him with firing if so much as one letter slipped by. He’d weighed the ultimatum—it
was
from the mistress, after all, and Gideon was -gone—and from then on had made sure the postman put all deliveries into his hand and no other.

“But I didn’t realize she was holding back certain letters, Mr. Kent. I thought it was just another of her—peculiar whims,” he finished in a lame voice.

By then Gideon was almost drained of emotion. It was Julia who asked, “Why on earth did you lie to Mr. Kent the day of the funeral?”

Samuel shifted from foot to foot. “All at once I realized I’d gotten in too deep. I was afraid that if I confessed, I’d be sacked. I have a very large family—seven children. Jobs that pay as well as this one aren’t easy to find.”

Too weary for retribution, Gideon said, “All right, Samuel. I’m glad it’s cleared up. Perhaps I should discharge you, but I won’t. Just get out of here.”

The butler vanished without questioning his good fortune.

Gideon carried the letters and the book into the library. Julia closed the doors. She picked up the fallen copy of
100 Years
and placed it on a side table as Gideon opened the book’s browned pages. He read one short entry.