The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel (21 page)

"Why, Mr. Landor," she said, in a softly nasal voice. "I have heard so much about you. I'm so delighted to make your acquaintance!"

"All mine," I said. "The pleasure, I mean. All--"

"I understand from my husband that you are a widower."

The sally came so quickly it caught me in the throat.

"That is so," I managed to say.

I looked to the doctor, waited for him to--what?--blush, maybe. Look askance. But his eyes were shiny with interest, and his big ruined lips were already rehearsing the words to come.

"All due sympathies," he said. "All due... goes without--without... May I ask, Mr. Landor, was it recent?"

"Was what?"

"Your wife going to her reward. Was it--"

"It was three years ago," I said. "Only a few months after we came to the Highlands."

"A sudden illness, then."

"Not sudden enough."

He had to blink away his surprise. "Oh, I'm--I'm--"

"She was in great pain toward the end, Doctor. I could have wished her a faster reward than she got."

This was deeper, I think, than he wished to go. He turned his face to the river, muttered his consolations to the water.

"Must be... almighty lonely and all that, where you... if you should ever..." "What my husband means to say," said Mrs. Marquis, smiling like the sun, "is that we should be honored to have you in our house. As our esteemed guest."

"And I'd be delighted to accept," I said. "In fact, I was going to propose the same thing myself."

How I expected her to react, I can't say, but I never expected this: her face--every part of her face--sprang open, as if it were held together by trip wires. And then she squealed--yes, I think squealed is the right word--and even as the sound came out, she was slapping it back into her mouth.

"Propose? Why, you sly devil. Oh, what a devil you are."

Then, lowering her voice, she added:

"I believe you are the gentleman charged with inquiring into Mr. Fry's death, is that so?"

"It is."

"How fascinating. My husband and I have just been discussing the matter. Indeed, he now informs me that despite his own"--she squeezed his bicep--"heroic efforts, the body of that unfortunate Mr. Fry has been judged too far along for public display and has at last been shut away, in accordance with all decent sensibilities."

This I knew already. Word of Fry's death had been late getting to his parents, and the decision had been made to shut him up for good in his six-sided pine box. Before sealing the lid, Captain Hitchcock had asked me if I wanted one last look.

I did. Though, for the life of me, I can't say why.

No longer bloated, Leroy Fry's body had shrunk back on itself. He floated in a swamp of his own fluid, his arms and legs were black cream, and even the maggots had taken their fill of him, they came scurrying out of every cavity, leaving the rest to the newly hatched beetles that stirred beneath his skin like new muscle.

One thing else I noticed before they sealed the box: the final reservoirs of fluid had swelled into Leroy Fry's eyelids. His yellow eyes had, after eighteen days, closed.

And now I stood in Kosciusko's Garden and stared into the bright brown irises of Mrs. Marquis' eyes, which were open as wide as they could be.

"Oh, Mr. Landor," she said. "This whole affair has left my husband quite shaken. It's been many years since he has had to witness such carnage. Not since the war, I think. Isn't that so, Daniel?"

He nodded in grave assent and slowly curled his arm round her tiny waist, as though to reassert his claim over this--this trophy, this wren of a woman, with her crinkling, overawed brown eyes and her calico pockets.

I mumbled something about needing to get back, but my two companions declared themselves ready to walk me as far as my hotel. And so, having failed to leave my message for Poe, I found myself carted back to Mr. Cozzens', the good doctor following behind and his wife alongside me, her hand coiled round my arm.

"You won't mind, I hope, if I lean on you just a little, Mr. Landor? These slippers have given my poor feet such a pinching. How the female sex tortures itself in the name of fashion."

Spoken like a post belle at her first hop. And if I were a young cadet at such a hop, I would say... I would say...

"You may be sure your sacrifices aren't lost on me."

She looked at me then as if I had uttered the most original sentence ever conceived. Which, I seem to recall, is how young women look at you when you're a young man. And then out of her mouth came the strangest laugh I have ever heard, high and echoing and broken into even segments, like stalactites dripping in a vast cavern.

"Why, Mr. Landor, if I weren't. And that's all I will say, if I weren't!"

Saturday night, I went back to my cottage, where Patsy was waiting for me. Of all the pleasures she promised, the one I think I looked forward to the most was the chance she would give me to sleep. I figured, you see, that a stretch of lovemaking might ease me out of that half-waking state of mine. What I'd forgotten was how much she awakened me, even as she spent herself. Once she was done with me, she just... glided off to dreamland, didn't she?... with her head resting on my breastbone. And me? I lay there, still aflame with her, marveling at the thickness of her black hair, the strength of it, like nautical roping.

And when I could draw my thoughts from Patsy, I found them returning of their own accord to the Point. The evening tattoo would already have sounded, I thought, and the moon would have left its tracks everywhere. And from my hotel window, I would have been able to see the year's last steamers bearing south, leaving a train of glitter. Mottlings of shadow on the mountain slopes... the ruins of old Fort Clinton smoldering like the end of a cigar...

I heard Patsy's voice, slurry with sleep.

"Are you going to tell me, Gus?"

"Tell you what?"

"About your little investigation. Are you going to tell me, or will I have to... ?"

Catching me off guard, she swung a leg over me. Gave me just the softest pulse and waited for me to pulse back.

"Maybe I forgot to mention," I said. "I'm an old man."

"Not so old," she said.

Which was the very thing Poe had said to me, I remembered. Not so old.

"So what have you found out, Gus?"

She fell back on her side, gave herself a nice scratch on the belly. Strictly speaking, I wasn't to tell her anything. Total discretion, that had been my vow to Thayer and Hitchcock. But having already broken one vow--abstinence--made it much easier for me to break another. Without any more encouragement, then, I started talking about the markings by the icehouse and the visit to Professor Pawpaw and Poe's encounters with the mysterious Cadet Marquis.

"Artemus," she murmured.

"You know him?"

"Oh, certainly. Glorious look to him. He'd almost have to die young, wouldn't he? You wouldn't want him to age even a fraction."

"I'm surprised you haven't--"

She looked at me sharply. "You're about to embarrass yourself, aren't you, Gus?"

"No."

"Good." She nodded firmly. "Can't say I would've picked him for the violent sort. Always very cool."

"Oh, I don't know, maybe he's not our man, there's just--there's a quality to him. To his whole family."

"Explain yourself."

"I came across his mother and father yesterday in the midst of a very private talk, and they acted--oh, it sounds childish, they acted like people who were guilty of something."

"All families are guilty," said Patsy. "Of something."

And in that moment, I thought of my father. To be specific, I thought of the birch he used to take to my hide at regular intervals. Never more than five strokes at a time--never a need for more. The sound was all it took: the screaming whistle, always more shocking than the blow. To this day, the memory of it can set me sweating.

"You're right," I admitted. "But some families are guiltier than others."

I did manage some rest that night. And the next evening, back at Mr. Cozzens' hotel, I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow. Only to be awoken again at ten minutes before midnight by a soft rap on my door.

"Come in, Mr. Poe," I called.

There was no one else it could be. He opened the door with great care and stood there, framed in the blackness, loath to take even a step into the room.

"Here," he said, setting another sheaf of foolscap on the floor. "My latest installment."

"Thank you," I said. "I look forward to reading it." He might have nodded, there was no way of telling, for he carried no candle, and my lantern was out.

"Mr. Poe, I hope you're not... I'm a bit worried, you see, that your studies are being neglected."

"No," he said. "They're just beginning."

A long pause.

"And how are you sleeping?" he asked me finally.

"Better, thank you."

"Ah, you're a lucky man, then. I can't seem to sleep at all."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

Another pause, even longer than the one before.

"Good night, then, Mr. Landor."

"Good night."

Even in the dark, I recognized the symptoms. Love. Love had carved out the heart of Cadet Fourth Classman Edgar A. Poe.

Report of Edgar A. Poe to Augustus Landor

November 14th

It may hardly be conceived, Mr. Landor, with what fervor I anticipated my Sunday-afternoon tea with the Marquis household. My last encounter with Artemus had left me more than ever persuaded that seeing him embosomed in the comforts of hearth and home would go further toward determining his guilt or innocence than any other trial. And should he fail to incriminate himself in his boyhood domicile, I had every hope of snatching clues from those near relations whose unwitting utterances might bear more fruit than they themselves knew.

The family residence is situated among the stone houses that line the western rim of the Plain--"Professors' Row," so runs the bucolic sobriquet. There is nothing to distinguish the Marquis home from its neighbors-- nothing, I should say, but the sampler on the front door which bears the inscription "Welcome Sons of Columbia." I was admitted not, as I should have expected, by the housemaid but by Dr. Marquis himself. Whether or not he knew of the uses I had lately made of his name, I cannot say, but any qualms I might have experienced at the sight of his rubicund complexion were at once allayed by the air of abiding concern with which he inquired about my vertigo. Upon being apprised that I had made a full and complete recovery, he smiled in the most indulgent manner and expostulated, "Ah! Do you see, Mr. Poe, what a little knocking about will do?"

The excellent Mrs. Marquis was previously unknown to me, though I have heard sundry aspersions cast against her character, to the effect that she is of a highly unsettled and highstrung disposition. Against this judgment I must interpose my own observations, which found in her nothing that was neurotic and much that was enchanting. Upon making my acquaintance, she was, from the start, wreathed in smiles. It was a source of amazement to me that a plebe could prompt such a dentate effluence, and I was all the more amazed to learn from her that Artemus had spoken of me in terms reserved only for those of Highest Genius.

Two others of Artemus' class were also present for this occasion. One of these was George Washington Upton, the distinguished cadet captain from Virginia. The other--and how my heart sank at the sight!--was the belligerent Ballinger. Recalling, however, my duties to God and country, I resolved to put out of mind his shabby behavior and craven assault, and greeted him with nothing but fellow feeling. Soon a wonder came to light! This Ballinger had either undergone a marked change of heart or, more likely, had been instructed to show me a more fitting deference. I will say only that his conversation was easy and courteous and in keeping with a gentleman's upbringing.

The dismal fare purveyed by Mr. Cozzens in the cadet mess had left me in a state of high anticipation regarding the Marquis victuals. In this respect, I was not to be disappointed. The hoe cakes and waffle cakes were of the first order, and the pears, I was delighted to ascertain, were liberally spiked with brandy. Dr. Marquis proved himself to be the most congenial of Hosts and derived a particular enjoyment from showing us his bust of Galen, as well as some of the more curious and intriguing monographs which bear his authorial imprint. Miss Marquis--Miss Lea Marquis, that is, Artemus' sister--performed on the pianoforte with a becoming fluency and sang a selection of those sentimental ditties which have laid waste to our modern culture--sang them, nevertheless, to charming effect. (It must be admitted that her voice, a natural contralto, was stretched rather too high by the prevailing keys. Her performance of "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," for instance, would have been the more exquisite for being transposed down a fourth or even a fifth.) Artemus had demanded that I sit beside him during his sister's recital, and at punctual intervals, he darted inquiring looks in my direction to assure himself of my admiration. Indeed, that admiration was mitigated only by the necessity of hearkening to his ongoing commentary: "Wonderful, isn't she?... Natural musician, you know. Playing since she was three... Oh, that was a pretty run, wasn't it?"

Eyes and ears far less attentive than mine might have perceived all there was to know about the nature of a young man's attachment to his older sister. And by certain signs he was given during the recital's interludes, by certain smiles that were vouchsafed for his eyes alone, it became apparent that his affection was wholly reciprocated, and that there indeed existed between them a sympathy--a sibling rapport--such as I have never been blessed to know (raised as I was in a household separate entire from those in which my brother and sister were reared).

You, Mr. Landor, have doubtless experienced sufficient of these afternoon entertainments to know that when one performer has done, another is more often than not called up to plug the breach. So it was that upon the conclusion of Miss Marquis' performance and at the vociferous urging of her mother and brother, I was exhorted to favor the assembled guests with a sample of my own humble verse. I confess that I had half expected such an eventuality and had taken the liberty of preparing a brief selection, composed during last summer's encampment and titled " To Helen." It is not my prerogative here to share with you the entire text (nor do I suppose it to be anything you desire, O great Poetical-Inimical!). I pause only to remark that it is my own favorite among my efforts in the lyrical line, that the Woman of the title is likened variously to Nicean barks, Greece, Rome, Naiads, etc., etc., and that upon reaching the closing lines--"Ah! Psyche, from the regions which/Are Holy Land!"--my labors were remunerated with the sound of a pervasive and well-nigh percussive sigh. "Hang it!" cried Artemus. "Didn't I tell you the Beast was a prodigy?"