The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel (41 page)

"Yes, I think Private Cochrane has another master now."

He nodded, not truly attending. "Well," he said, "it doesn't matter. I know the terrain well enough now. I won't be caught."

"You have been caught, Poe. We both have. And now come the consequences."

We looked at each other for some time before I said, "Maybe you'd better sit down." He forsook the rocker, his usual seat. Perched himself instead on the edge of the bed and let his fingers dance over the counterpane.

"Listen to me, Poe. In exchange for looking mercifully upon your conduct at Mr. Kemble's, Captain Hitchcock has asked that you step down as my assistant."

"He cannot do that."

"He can," I said. "He does."

The fingers were pirouetting now. Large wheeling moth arcs. "Well, now, Landor. Did you tell him all the--the--all the myriad ways in which I've been of assistance to you?"

"I did."

"And it made no impression upon him?"

"He's greatly concerned for your safety, Poe. As he should be. As I should have been."

"Perhaps we might appeal to Colonel Thayer..."

"Thayer agrees with Hitchcock."

He gave me his boldest smile then. The smile of a Byron.

"Well, what do we care, eh, Landor? We may meet as before. They can't stop us."

"They can dismiss you."

"Let them! I will take Lea and shake off the dust of this cursed place forever."

"Very well, then," I said, crossing my arms. "I dismiss you."

Just the slightest flicker in his eyes as he studied me. No words, though. Not yet.

"Tell me," I said. "What was the oath you made me? In this very room? Do you remember?"

"I swore to--to tell the truth."

"The truth, yes. It's a word that no one apparently has ever defined for you, Poe. Which presents me with a bit of a problem, you see. I can do business with a poet all right. But not with a liar."

He eased himself onto his feet and, after studying his hands for a bit, said in a low voice, "You had better explain yourself, Landor. Or I shall have to demand satisfaction from you."

"I don't need to explain myself," I said coolly. "You may cast your eyes on this."

Reaching into the side-table drawer, I drew out Henry Kirke Reid's stack of yellow sheets, bound with cord. Threw the packet halfway across the bed. Eyes wary, he asked me what it was.
"I had a friend of mine look into your history," I said.

"Why?"

"I was hiring you for a job," I answered, shrugging. "I had to know what sort of fellow I was dealing with. Especially if the fellow likes to talk of killing people. Of course, the report was compiled at great speed, so it's not as complete as it might be. But 'tis enough, "twill serve."

He shoved his hands into his pockets and took another tour of the room. And when he spoke again, I could hear the brittleness: a card player piling up bluffs.

"Well, Landor, I am glad I have given you an occasion to cite Shakespeare. You're not one for allusions, as a rule."

"Oh, I used to go to the theater quite a lot. As you know." Reaching across the bed, I gathered up the pages again. "But what are you waiting for, Poe? Don't you want to read it? If someone had taken the same trouble with me, I'd be bursting to see what was there."

A very large shrug then. A drawl:

"The usual tissue of lies, I'm sure."

"Tissue of lies, yes. That's the very phrase that came to my mind as I read it." I made a show of flipping through the pages. "By the time I was done, the only question left was this: what haven't you lied about, Poe?" I caught his eye for the merest second, then went back to scanning the pages. "It's hard even to know where to begin."

"Then don't," he said, quietly.

"Well, let's start small. You left the University of Virginia not because Mr. Allan cut off your funding but because you... let's see, how did Henry word it?... accrued ruinous gambling debts, yes. Does that jog your memory, Poe?"

No answer.

"I can certainly see," I went on, "why you like to tell people you spent three years there instead of only eight months. But that isn't the only thing that's got inflated. That old swimming feat of yours? Seven miles and a half up the James River? Appears it was closer to five."

He sat now. Sat on the very edge of the rocker. Utterly still.

"Never mind, that's just a bit of enlarging," I went on. "No harm in that. No, it gets really interesting right around..." My finger dropped like a meteorite. "Here. Your European adventures, yes. I'm afraid I just can't figure out where you fit them all in, Poe. Your whole life has been spent living with Mr. Allan or going to school or serving in the U.S. Army, with no breaks in between. So, let's see, where does that leave us? Fighting for the Greeks: a lie. Traveling to St. Petersburg: a lie. No diplomat ever had to rescue you because it's a safe bet you've never been anywhere but England. As for sailing the seas, I'm guessing you borrowed that from your older brother. Henry, I believe, is his name: Henry Leonard. Or is it Henri ?" He did just what I would have expected then. Took his finger and rubbed the region between his nose and upper lip, where that horsehair mustache had so lately resided.

"These days, of course, Henry's awash in other things," I said. "Booze, mostly. No one's expecting much from him but an early grave. Must be an awful disappointment, too, for a family like yours, with such a distinguished lineage. Frankish chieftains, wasn't it? And, oh, a Chevalier le Poer and maybe a British admiral or two thrown in." I smiled. "Shanty Irish, more like. Oh, I used to see plenty of your kind in my New York days. On their backs, usually: they always land on their backs. Just like Henry."

Even in the room's dim light, I could see the color rising in his cheeks. Or maybe I could feel it, like the heat from the grate.

"The funny thing is, you really do have a distinguished family member, and yet you never speak of him. Your grandfather, Poe. An actual general, for God's sake! Stalwart of the Quartermaster Department. Warmly remembered--shall I read it, Poe?--warmly remembered for his valiant efforts to clothe and requisition Revolutionary troops. An intimate of Lafayette's, it seems. I can't imagine why you wouldn't mention him. Unless..." I buried my head in the pages once more. "Well, now, I suppose his life after the war wasn't quite so heroic. A dry-goods store, I see, among other businesses.

None of them coming to much. And from there, let me see... Declared insolvent in 'oh-five. Died penniless in 'sixteen. Very sad." I looked up with a frown. "A bankrupt, I guess that's what we'd call him. And to think, Poe. You were so ashamed of him you preferred to let people think Benedict Arnold was your grandfather."

"That was a game," he said, shaking his head. "Having a bit of fun, that was all."

"Hiding a bit of truth, too. As it pertains to General David Poe and, of course, the Baltimore Poes. Who, as best I can tell, have never had more than two cents to rub together."

His head was beginning to sink now. Inch by inch.

"Which brings us to the final lie," I said, raising my voice. "Your parents."

And now I lifted my gaze from the paper. For I knew this bit by heart.

"They didn't die in the Richmond theater fire of eighteen-eleven. Your mother was two weeks dead by the time that fire broke out. Some sort of infectious fever, I believe, though the records are a little fuzzy on the subject."

I stood now. Advanced on him, brandishing the paper like a cutlass.

"And your father wasn't even on the scene, was he? Ran off two years before that. Left your poor mother in the lurch, the bounder, with two young children. Nobody ever saw him again. Nobody much missed him, either. Terrible actor, I'm told, never got the notices his wife did. And already drinking himself to an early grave. But then, in your family, that would seem to be a common--oh, how did you describe it, Poe?--medical condition. Corroborated by several eminent physicians."

"Landor, I beg you." "Well, my heart does go out to your poor mother. All alone in the world. First husband dead, second one gone, and two children to feed. No, I'm sorry, did I say "two'? I meant three." I riffled through the sheaf of papers. "Yes. Yes, that's right. A third child, name of Rosalie-- Rose, as she's now called. Grown up into rather a vague girl, I'm told. Not quite... not quite all... oh, well, that's strange." I squinched my brows together. "Seems she was born in December eighteen-ten. Which was--let me think now--more than a year after your father left. Humm." I smiled, shook my head. "Doesn't that beat all? I've never known a baby to take a whole year to be born. What do you make of that, Poe?"

His hands had curled round the arm of his rocker. The air was coming in slow, deep drafts.

"Oh, well," I said, lightly. " We must be modern about all this. What more can you expect of an actress? You know the old joke, Poe. The difference between an actress and a whore? The whore's job is done in just five minutes."

And now he sprang from his chair. Hands like claws, eyes like clouds, he came at me.

"Sit down," I said. "Sit down, poet."

He stopped. Dropped his hands to his side. Took a few steps back and resumed his place in the rocker.

Safe now, I turned and walked to the window, drew aside the curtains, and looked straight into the night: clear and even and purple-black, punched with stars. The moon hung flat and white and whole in the hollow of the eastern hills, and its light came at me in slow waves, first hot, then cold.

"There was only one matter," I said, "that my little inquiry couldn't resolve: are you a murderer, Poe?"

My own fingers, I was surprised to see, were trembling. The fire, maybe, I'd let the fire die down.

"You're certainly many things," I said, "but that? I couldn't credit it. No matter what Captain Hitchcock said." I turned round and stared at his ashen face. "But then I thought about that conversation you had with Lea at Fort Putnam. Shall I quote you? I know the words by heart, I think."

"You may do what you like," he answered, dully.

I licked my lips. Cleared my throat. "Words of Cadet Fourth Classman Edgar A. Poe, as addressed to Miss Lea Marquis: The dead haunt us because we love them too little. We forget them, you see; we don't mean to, but we do... And so they clamor for us. They wish to be recalled to our hearts. So as not to be murdered twice over." I looked down at him. "Your very words, Poe."

"What of it?" he snarled.

"Why, that's as close to a confession as a fellow can come. The only thing left to find was your victim. And even that took but a few moments." I began circling his chair now. Just as I used to do in my New York days, when I was interviewing a suspect: cinching him round. "It's your mother, isn't it?" I leaned over his shoulder. Whispered in his ear. "Your mother, Poe. Every time you forget her--every time you throw yourself into the arms of another woman--why, it's like killing her all over again. Matricide, yes. One of the gravest crimes in all creation."

And now I was up again and walking. Completing the last hoop of the circle.

"Well," I said, facing him head on, "you needn't worry, Poe. Forgetting someone isn't a hanging offense. Which puts you in the clear, my friend. It turns out you're not a murderer after all. You're just another little boy who can't stop loving his mama."

Again he sprang up... and again he faltered. Why, I couldn't tell you. Was it the difference in our sizes? (I could have laid him flat, I suppose, if I'd had a mind to.) More likely it was the difference in our power, which is another thing altogether. There comes a time, I think, in every man's life when he is forced to see his utter helplessness. He spends his last penny on a drink, or the woman he loves sweeps her plate clean of him, or he learns that the man he has trusted with everything wishes him only evil. And in that moment, he is bare.

That's how Poe stood now in the middle of that room, as though every last strip of skin had been peeled away. His bones wobbled inside him.

"I assume you are finished," he said, finally.

"For now. Yes."

"Then I will bid you good night."

Dignity, yes, that would be his last redoubt. He would hold his head high as he made his way to that door for the last time. He would carry this pose all the way into the hall and beyond.

Or he would try to, at any rate. Something, though, would make him turn back one last time. Something would make him speak, in a scalded voice.

"You will one day feel what you have done to me."

Narrative of Gus Landor

34

December 12th

I was still awake when the morning drumbeat came. Awake, but with a curious feeling of shuffled senses. It seemed to me, sitting up in my bed, that the cinder of dawn outside my window had a smell, like boot blacking, and that the coverlet tasted of mushrooms, and that the very air around me had the substance of clay. I was, in short, somewhere between clarity and exhaustion, and after a time, the exhaustion held sway. I fell asleep still sitting up, and woke a little after noon.

Dressed in a hurry and stumbled over to the mess hall and stood for a moment watching the cadet-animals devouring their dinner, so lost in my several thoughts that I didn't notice Cesar the steward approaching. He greeted me like an old friend and asked if I wouldn't rather eat with the officers in the ordinary upstairs, yes, sir, the ordinary was a much better place for a gentleman like me...
"And I'd be most obliged," I told him, smiling. "But I was looking for Mr. Poe, would you know what happened to him?"

Oh, Mr. Poe had told the mess-hall captain he was feeling poorly and might he be excused to report to the hospital. That was some half an hour ago.

Report to the hospital? Well, I thought, he'd used that ploy before. He hadn't prepared for his sectional, maybe. Or else he was haunting Lea's doorstep, begging for an audience.

Or...

Yes, it was an idea that might have been lifted from one of Mrs. Poe's melodramas. But in my defense, I had very little experience in breaking other people's hearts, and it threw me out of whack, I think--the idea that Poe might take the Romantic way out. And so I hurriedly thanked Cesar and pressed a coin into his palm and heard him say as I was turning: