The Kingdom of Bones (30 page)

He also suggested that she might have the deeds amended to show title in her name. Did she have some way of proving transfer?

“I have this,” she said, and took out a letter.

They’d reached the carriage now. Standing alongside it, he opened up the letter and read it aloud.

“To whom it may concern. Please extend every courtesy to Miss Mary D’Alroy during her time of residence. She is a personal friend of the Patenotre family, formerly of Iberville, Louisiana.”

He refolded it and handed it back.

“Would that be enough to satisfy a lawyer?” she said.

“I expect so,” he said. “If you pick the right one.”

FORTY-FOUR

T
here was no looking glass in the room, but there was a mirror out on the landing. At this hour of the day there was barely enough light in the stairwell to see by, so Sayers took the mirror from the wall and brought it in. He had a
chambre garnie
on the top floor of a house kept by a colored woman on Dauphine Street. It was a
chambre
with very little
garnie
about it. It was, however, his for fifteen dollars a month, with gaslight and heat extra.

The mirror wasn’t a true mirror, but a framed piece of window glass painted black on one side. Sayers turned himself back and forth, looking critically at the fit of his tails.

In the glass, he looked like Pepper’s ghost. But he supposed he’d pass. This was the suit in which he’d fled Richmond after his night in jail, having no opportunity to change until he was safely out of town. Another of his many betrayals of trust; the suit should have gone back to the Bijou after use. Stoker had spoken up for him in court, but in his pursuit of Louise he’d let down many who could have spoken against.

He hadn’t imagined that he’d need it again. But tonight was the night of the governor’s ball.

For once, Louise had been easy to locate. Almost absurdly so. The New Orleans Transfer Company met all trains and steamships coming into the city, and would check and deliver baggage to private residences and hotels at twenty-five cents apiece. Sayers had gone to their offices, taking the part of an Englishman who’d traveled out to join his sister. She was supposed to have found them a place to stay, but he’d received no message. A little footwork to draw out the name she was using without revealing his own ignorance of it, and there she was—Mary D’Alroy at the St. Charles Hotel.

Mary D’Alroy? After Richmond, she’d have been safer with a change of identity. But she could not have known that Jules Patenotre had been found.

His first impulse was to run over to the St. Charles and make himself known. But the impulse was mixed with a tremendous and unexpected fear of the moment.

And it would not do. Haste could prove fatal—literally so, if the Silent Man should be there. So instead he found himself a spot across from the hotel to wait for a sight of her.

Time passed. They had not met in so long. What exquisite irony, if she were to walk straight by him with neither knowing the other! It could happen. In his heart and in his memory, she was forever the Desdemona of the photograph that he carried.

Then he saw her. Returning from somewhere. It lasted no more than a few moments; she came into view on the sidewalk and then, with a swish of her long skirts, she was entering the hotel and gone. As Sayers had predicted, the Silent Man was right behind her, the pistol in his waistband pushing his coat out of shape.

The brevity of the sighting was of no consequence. If it had been a second or an hour, his sense of shock could have been no more or less profound.

She was little changed. Not so thin, but only as might be expected in a grown woman rather than a girl. It took him a moment to match the two, one overlaying and replacing the other; and by the time the hotel doors had swung closed behind her, Sayers’ mental picture was revised and complete.

He felt shaken. He’d been wise not to attempt to confront her. He’d have been hopeless.

But now, with that moment out of the way, he could begin to prepare.

That evening, still new in town, he went looking for a game. He was broke, apart from an emergency five-dollar bill that he’d kept in his shoe for so long that he’d almost forgotten it. Gambling was no longer allowed or licensed in New Orleans, but it still went on. Secretly in the part of the city around Canal Street, and openly at Bucktown and along the Carrollton levee.

Sayers had learned his play from circus folk. By midnight he had nearly sixty dollars, a promissory note that he knew he’d never collect on, and a ticket for the governor’s ball that one card player had thrown in when his cash had run out.

The next morning, he mailed thirty dollars to the Becker family. Then he scratched out the owner’s name on the ball ticket and wrote in Mary D’Alroy’s before delivering it anonymously to the St. Charles.

Which brought him to this. Tonight.

The night of the governor’s ball.

Toulouse Street, down by the side of the French Opera House, was a jam of carriages and nervous horses. Men and women in spectacular finery were crossing into the grand old building. On the sidewalk opposite, a large crowd of people had gathered just to watch the arrivals.

Sayers walked on to the wing of the theater where the offices and dressing rooms were. There he joined a line of artistes and theater staff at the stage door. Some of the front-of-house people were in stiff shirts and tailcoats like his own. The line moved slowly as the doorkeeper checked off names under the eye of a private policeman. There was a lot of walking wealth in the French Opera House tonight, and nobody wanted any of it to walk off in some rogue’s possession.

Sayers was on the employee list; having no ticket of his own, he’d signed up as a waiter. His lack of experience wouldn’t matter. The moment he was inside, he planned to desert and join the revelers.

And so it went. Once backstage, instead of going to pick up his tray and an apron, he found his way to the pass door and entered the auditorium.

He had to stop and take it in. The opera house auditorium was a wide oval in shape, of extraordinary breadth. The house rose up in five gilded tiers to a high-domed ceiling of decorated panels. Sayers had never seen anything quite like it. It had to seat two thousand or more. Along with all the gilt the decor was crimson and white, and there were flowers set up everywhere. A temporary floor had been laid over the stalls, transforming the lower level into a ballroom. An orchestra was playing, and the dancing was under way.

There was enough jewelry on show to finance a small war. The men were all in dark evening wear rather better than his own, apart from a few in military uniform so gorgeous that it might qualify as fancy dress. The women wore the real plumage, and they glittered. Gems around their necks, diamonds on their wrists, jewels in their piled-up hair. As the couples danced, they swept by him in a wash of taffeta and expensive silk.

Sayers made his way around the dance floor, observing all the women as he went. After that glimpse of Louise in the entranceway of the St. Charles, he knew that he would recognize her. And this time he’d be better prepared. For a moment, she’d stopped his breath, and all but stopped his heart.

But he did not see her anywhere. At the back of the auditorium was a large foyer that was mostly used for promenading between acts. Now it was steadily filling up with new arrivals. As people came in, they spotted friends or groups of friends, or others that they merely wished to impress.

Sayers was conscious that he moved alone. Even the young men hunted in twos and threes. He felt a pang of envy for all of them: For years, he’d known no society other than the company of carnival folk, and even they’d merely accepted rather than embraced him.

When he finally spotted her, it was because she was a still point in all the free-flowing gaiety.

She was standing by a pillar, gloved hand raised to cover a small cough. Her effect on him was still powerful. Without taking his eyes from her, Sayers moved to a spot from where he could watch.

Louise.

Louise, Louise, Louise.

And no one to step between them.

Her gown was adequate for the occasion, but fairly plain. She seemed to be waiting for someone, and he found himself using this as an excuse to hold back for just a little longer.

Her manner was that of a person among strangers, aware of all around her, smiling briefly at anyone who met her eye. Sayers wondered who she might be waiting for. After a minute or so, she moved.

After watching her watch the dancing for a while, and then seeing her move again to another spot, Sayers concluded that she was alone and waiting for nobody. That was an act. She was changing her position lest it become apparent to all that she had no one to speak to, and nowhere in particular to be.

He was finally raising the nerve to approach when some man asked her to dance. She accepted with grace, but not before Sayers had seen her give a telltale glace around and beyond her would-be partner, as if checking for witnesses. They vanished onto the dance floor, and Sayers lost sight of her for a while.

He found her again about fifteen minutes later. Again, she was alone. The dance had been no more than a dance. The liaison had clearly not flourished.

Watching her was almost painful to him. Has this been your life, Louise? Your reward for the Wanderer’s burden? It was a strange kind of predator that waited to be asked.

He could hold back no longer, and moved forward from where he’d been standing.

He positioned himself on her eyeline, and waited to be seen.

FORTY-FIVE

L
ouise was idly studying the crowd all around her. For a moment, she was looking straight at him. Then her gaze moved on, and left him unrecognized.

Sayers started forward. He saw her become aware that someone was approaching. He saw her composing herself, the beginnings of a polite smile. Then he saw the smile fade as he drew nearer and recognition dawned.

“Tom,” she said as he finally stood before her.

No words seemed quite adequate to the moment, so he simply said, “I see that your eyesight hasn’t improved.”

She’d grown pale. “Tell me that this is just some incredible chance.”

He shook his head to assure her that it was not.

She went blank for a moment and then said, “You sent me the invitation.”

“How else would I catch you without a bodyguard?” he said, and then to reassure her he added, “I’m here alone.”

She studied him narrowly. He could see that she was trying to work out what his presence implied.

“How did you find me?” she said.

“Mary D’Alroy? The name of your part in
The Purple Diamond
? You might as well have sent me a signal. I was in Richmond. They found the man who died there. Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn you in. But there’s a Pinkerton man who will if he gets the chance.”

“You seem to have me where you want me,” she said, and glanced all around as if trapped.

“You don’t understand,” he said. No one was paying them any attention, but anyone close by might overhear their business. He said, “I’ve much to say to you. Can we go somewhere else?”

From the lobby behind the foyer, staircases led to all parts of the house. The various tiers were named in the French manner, from
les loges
for the Dress Circle all the way up to
le paradis
at the top of the house. They ascended one level and found relative privacy in the Circle.

The dance went on below. A few couples had come up here to rest and flirt. The great opera house stage loomed before them, its cloth painted and lit to represent a starry night sky.

She was tense and wary, but seemed to have recovered from the initial shock of seeing him. They took a couple of seats in an empty section but even as they sat, the Dress Circle was starting to fill. People were coming up from below in anticipation of the tableaux.

She said, “You’re looking well, Tom.”

“Am I,” he said, not really believing it.

“Yes, you are. I’m glad they didn’t hang you.”

“Not half as glad as I.”

She smiled for a moment, but it didn’t stay. “So, tell me,” she said. “Why, Tom? Why are you here?”

He hesitated, and glanced down at the dancers. Each couple moved with their own purpose but, seen from above, all combined into a swirling pattern like a stream passing over stones.

He said, “There’s something you have to know.”

“If you’ve chased me halfway around the world to declare your love for me,” she said, “don’t. It’s wasted on me. I can never deserve it.”

Sayers said, “I thought we were great friends, once.”

Her cheek twitched as she recalled. “My devoted servant,” she said.

“I know I had some small place in your affections then,” he said, “but I was no James Caspar. Do you still believe I took him from you?”

She looked away, out toward the stage. “No,” she said. “I know exactly what I was to him. And what he would have done to me, had I given him the chance. It can make no difference now.”

“I’m here to tell you that you can return to the world. If you’ll choose it.”

“Believe me, Tom,” she said. “There is so much you cannot know.”

“You thought you would marry. He seduced you ahead of the wedding. You saw no wrong in it and felt no shame. But in the weeks after he died, you found yourself with child. Whitlock procured an abortion for you.”

She seemed about to deny it, but he said, “I saw you, Louise. I followed you that night. I saw you go into that doctor’s house, and if you pressed me I could tell you exactly what went on inside.”

She stared. “You’ve always known this?”

“What do you think I would do? Consider you spoiled, and turn away? Caspar set out to destroy you for his own amusement. Whitlock continued the work so you could serve a purpose of his own. But Louise, you are not destroyed. You think you’re cursed beyond forgiveness. I know all about the life you’ve led since. But if I can pick myself up from in front of a train and forgive you…If I can face the loss of my name and my reputation and forgive you…If I can live in dirt and love no other and still forgive you…You don’t have to love me, but will you not do me the sheer common courtesy of at least trying to forgive yourself?”

She opened her mouth to speak. But he could see that she was at a loss.

She looked away. Her hand flew to her lips. She tried to draw a breath but could not take one deep enough. Her color had become alarming.

When she started to sway, he quickly gathered her up, catching her as he had on that moving train so many years before. She was now a little more substantial, and he was a little less spry.

No matter. Looking to remove her from public view, he carried her into the narrow passageway that led all the way around the backs of the loges.

He pushed open a door and took her inside, settling her onto one of the four ornate chairs that he found there.

These boxes offered more privacy than most. Each was screened from the rest of the Dress Circle by a lattice. Total seclusion could be obtained by the release of a velvet curtain that was tied back with a tasseled silk rope.

When Louise began to revive after a minute or so, Sayers said, “No wonder you fainted. Forgive me, but I loosened your stays.”

“The dress is a size too small,” she admitted. “I rented it.”

“This suit is from Wardrobe,” Sayers said. “I got in as a waiter.”

“What a sorry pair of frauds we are.”

Then, after the thought had sunk in, she said, “You loosened my stays? There was a time when you were embarrassed to look me in the eye.”

“Life with the carnival can knock the innocence out of a man,” he said. “I pulled three drunk women naked out of a river one Christmas Eve.”

“What were they doing?”

“They called it frolicking. I call it drowning. Or freezing to death. Take your choice.”

“Did they thank you?”

“With abuse the like of which you have never heard. Two of them had husbands. We were chased out of town.”

She sighed and looked down. “You’d still have your old life if it wasn’t for me,” she said. “I wish I deserved you.”

“Old life, new life, it’s all one,” Sayers said. “Nothing stands still. Don’t you hear yourself? How does that square with the soulless thing you suppose yourself to be?”

Down below, the waltz ended and the orchestra struck up a patriotic song. Attention began turning toward the stage.

Louise said, “I kept the name of Mary D’Alroy because of a document I needed to use. I had some foolish notion that I might be able to stop moving around and find myself a new place in the world. That’s the kick in the Wanderer’s curse. It’s not the commitment you make in a moment of self-hatred. It’s when the moment has passed, and you realize that you’ve traveled too far down your chosen road to go back.”

“Suppose there were no such road. I have a friend who would argue that the Wanderer’s contract is only a construct of the human imagination. One by which we once lived, but whose day has now gone.”

“What use is that to us, Tom? We’re creatures of our time.”

“What time would that be? I’ve been living for tomorrow. You for yesterday. You’re right, Louise. We
are
a sorry pair of frauds.”

The stage lighting came up on the first of the tableaux down below. The house applauded. Sayers barely gave it a glance. Something with ships and waves and Napoléon.

As the cheers rang out below, she said, “I think I knew that James Caspar was rotten when I fell for him. Then, when he died, I just continued to fall. I saw no way out. I came to consider myself a lost soul.”

“Lost to whom, Louise?” he said. “Never to me. In all these years, there has not been an hour in which I have not thought of you.”

“I’ve taken life.”

“With intent? I don’t think you have. Be honest, Louise. Name me one man that you’ve actively struck down.”

For a long time, she watched the stage. Her expression gave no indication of what was going through her mind, but he did not want to interrupt her. Down before the audience, the French army was on the march. Spain was involved in it, too, somewhere, and the Spirit of America under an enormous waving banner.

“I know how the games work,” he said. “I know how they die. No one seeks it. But sometimes it happens. The risk is the pleasure. And the risk is their own.”

“Tom,” she said. “I’ve told you I cannot love you. I believe that all possibility of love has died in me. But I do wish it were not so.”

She looked at him then. He understood that look.

While it was true that he had loved no other, his had not been a life entirely without female company and the occasional rehearsal.

“What are you saying?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if reaching deep into her memory, and said, “That there can be passions and appetites which are neither loathsome nor unnatural, but which celebrate God and the way that he meant us to be.”

Then she opened her eyes again.

“Here?” he said.

She looked around the box and said, “Why not?”

“No, Louise,” he said. “Not like this.”

“It’s not wrong.”

“It is if you feel nothing for me.”

“That’s my point. No other has loved me. I cannot say what I may feel.”

On the stage, the actor playing James Monroe was holding up a rolled parchment to represent the treaty. Louise stood up and unhooked the silk rope so that the box’s velvet curtain fell free. Then she drew the curtain all the way around and across, screening them not only from the Dress Circle but from the rest of the theater as well. That vast auditorium was suddenly reduced to one small and private space. Now they had no light other than that which spilled in from around the edges of the velvet, and the fan of yellow from under the door to the access passageway behind them.

She stood there, a shadow in shadows.

“Wait,” he said, and he got up and moved to the back of the box where he threw the latch on the door.

Then he turned to her and said, “Louise, you ought to know there is no way I can refuse you. But do not enter into this just to reward me and then walk away.”

“Tom,” she said. “That’s not my intention. I tried to extinguish my own spirit. You make me think it still lives. Bring me back. If anyone can do it, you can.”

Off came her gloves, and then she reached for the fastening on the rented gown.

“Help me with this,” she said.

He could barely keep his hands from shaking. A few moments later, the gown slithered to the floor of the box.

He said, “I have dreamed of this moment in one form or another.”

“I know,” she said. Stitches tore in his frock coat as he struggled out of it. On the other side of the door, there was a heavy-footed rumbling in the corridor; someone rattled it against the latch and then moved on to try elsewhere, with muffled voices and giggling.

“Please,” he said, “don’t be offended by the tattoo. A moment of folly from my drinking days.”

“I think that’s enough talking for now,” she said.

Sayers began to explain how the Chinese tattooist had come to misspell her name. But he seemed to lose the power of speech as she drew the last of her layers over her head and off. She held out the chemise and let it fall at arm’s length. It was not so dark that she did not glow, pale as white moonlight. With her arm outstretched and her weight resting on one foot, it was as if she knew exactly the effect that her pose would have on him. So profound was Sayers’ appreciation of it, he thought that he would faint.

The floor of the opera house box was of hard, painted boards.

As if that mattered.