The Seekers

by John Jakes

  “Trouble? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Legal proceedings.”

  “Yes, I heard you’d gone to see that old bastard Benbow—”

  “Amanda told you?”

  “He forced me, Mama.”

  “That’s all right, dear—don’t worry. It’s typical of Mr. Piggott to threaten a child. But we won’t be bothered with him any longer—”

  Hugging the wall near the front door, Amanda watched Piggott jump down two steps, whip up his fist. Harriet darted out of range. Piggott called her a filthy name.

  “Curse all you want, Andrew. That won’t change anything. I have indeed been to the offices of Benbow and Benbow. I’ve passed certain information about you into their hands—”

  “What information?” For the first time, he sounded shaken.

  “How you lied to me before our marriage. You’re not from a well-connected family. You never attended any college. You’re a tanner’s boy from South Boston—”

  “You set spies on me?”

  “Yes, and it was long overdue. This card game that’s occupied you all week—”

  “What about it?”

  “That too has been observed from the street outside. Women have been seen going in and out of those rented rooms. Women of bad character. I won’t be more specific in Amanda’s presence. But I have ample grounds for a bill of divorcement. Mr. Benbow senior will undertake the suit on my behalf. I have been victimized, Mr. Piggott. Deceived and victimized—”

  “It’s no less than you deserve, you harpy!” Piggott roared, darting down the last two steps. Harriet lunged aside as Piggott lashed the air with his fist.

  “Get out!” Harriet breathed. “Take your personal belongings and get out of my house. If you try to claim any of my property, Mr. Benbow will have a warrant drawn for your arrest.”

  Piggott laughed then, loudly.

  “You’ve developed a surprising amount of courage, Mrs. Piggott—”

  “Henceforward, my name is Mrs. Kent!”

  “Well, that’s all you’ll have henceforward—your name. After our—our chat last week, I had a feeling you might go to your lawyer. So I haven’t worried too much about the size of my wagers with the gentlemen from Maryland.”

  “The cardplayers—?”

  “We started with cards. Then we changed games. We tried a new one just introduced in New Orleans by a young sport named de Mandeville.”

  “What has this to do with—?”

  “Hear me out, Mrs. Piggott. I want you to hear every detail before I go. The game is played with dice—do you know what dice are, Mrs. Piggott?”

  “Of course I do. You will stop calling me—”

  “The gentlemen told me the game’s a variation of hazards—very popular in English coffeehouses, where Mr. de Marigny de Mandeville picked it up. The New Orleans gentry call it crapaud, after Johnny Crapaud, which I gather is a scornful name for Creoles. Wouldn’t you like to know how I fared at crapaud, Mrs. Piggott?”

  “Damn you, get out!” Harriet cried, raising her own hand.

  Piggott rushed at her, struck her forearm with his fist. Harriet let out a low cry. Piggott seized and shook her. “You’ll damn me ten times over before this day’s done, woman!” He let go, stood back, his smile vicious. “My luck ran against me. I kept losing. Heavily. But the gentlemen were quite pleasant about it. They accepted my note wagering the assets of Kent’s. They suggested the idea, actually. It didn’t pain me greatly when I lost the final rolls. As I say, ever since our chat, I suspected you were going to act against me—”

  In a whisper, Harriet said, “Wait, sir.”

  “I suspected some ploy like this bill of divorce. I’m sorry to inform you, madam—”

  “Wait. You said the assets of Kent’s—”

  “—because of my losses, you no longer own—”

  “What assets of Kent’s?” she screamed. Amanda covered her ears, buried her face against the wall.

  The kitchen door banged open again. Amanda heard a scurry of feet as several servants rushed to discover the cause of the new commotion. She wouldn’t uncover her eyes, though. She was too frightened.

  Piggott boomed all the louder. “The printing house, woman. The whole goddamned printing house!”

  Silence.

  Four of the servants watched from the dining room doorway, not daring to speak. Piggott chuckled. “Need I point out that I was still your husband when I signed my note? Your interview with your blasted Mr. Benbow is a mite tardy.”

  “You—you lost—?”

  “Everything.”

  “God in heaven,” Harriet said softly. “Oh dear God in heaven—” Suddenly her head came up. She stalked him. “You did it to spite me. You did it because you knew—”

  “Suspected,” Piggott broke in. “Suspected, my dear. Same thing, though, I suppose. There was precious little disappointment in losing what I didn’t own in the first place. But there was a great deal of pleasure, I don’t mind telling you. Of course, if the final rolls had gone the other way, I’d have taken the gentlemen’s money and left here with it. Whichever way the game came out, I’d already decided to leave. I can do so now with immense satisfaction. You’ll have to sell this house. Dismiss these cattle who fawn and wait on you—”

  One of the servants, the young gardener, took a step forward. Florence held him back. Harriet began crying. “It isn’t true—”

  “It is, and it’s what you deserve.”

  “No. It can’t be legal—”

  “As legal as the first wager. Entirely legal. If you don’t believe me, go down to Kent and Son this minute. My friends should be there with the same attorney who was engaged after I lost the press playing shemmy. They’re taking possession this very afternoon.”

  “You’re lying. Lying to me—!”

  Piggott could no longer contain his rage. He ran at Harriet again. Through fingers pressed over her eyes, Amanda saw the man lift his right arm to his left shoulder, then slash outward with his fist. He struck Harriet’s cheek, a loud, pulping blow.

  She fell. Amanda screamed, “Mama—!” and rushed toward her as Piggott roared, “If you don’t believe you’ve nothing left, go down there and see, you fucking bitch!”

  The family’s young gardener slipped from the group of servants, flung off Florence’s restraining hand, wiped his fingers on his leather apron. “You’d better take your things out of here quick, Piggott—”

  “Put a hand on me and I’ll break your spine,” Piggott said.

  The young gardener blinked, hesitated. In that moment, Andrew Piggott spun and ran up the stairs two at a time. His laughter floated behind him, heavy, rich, triumphant.

  iii

  Amanda pushed past Florence, knelt at her mother’s side. Cheeks wet from crying, she chafed Harriet’s hands. “Mama, get up. Please get up.”

  “We’d best help her into the sitting room, Miss Amanda.”

  “Yes,” Harriet breathed. “Help me up, Florence—”

  Her bonnet fell off as she tried to rise. She clutched the maid’s hand, pulled herself to her feet. Amanda gave her the bonnet. Her eyes widened in surprise as Harriet put the bonnet on, struggled to fasten the ties beneath her chin.

  “Come rest, Mama—” Amanda begged.

  “I must go to Kent’s. Now. This instant.”

  “No, Mama, wait—!”

  “This instant!” Harriet repeated, turning and moving unsteadily toward the front door.

  She jerked the door open, spilling gray light over the stricken servants and the almost hysterical child. Her step remained unsteady as she descended the front steps and disappeared. A moment later, Amanda heard a heavy rumbling, the snap of a whip, the rattle and ring of shod hoofs on the cobbles—

  A shout: “Watch out, woman!”

  The unseen horses neighed wildly. Then, through the open door, Amanda saw them plunge past, pulling a dray loaded with big barrels. The frantic driver was hauling on the reins and jamming a boot agai
nst the brake lever—

  The wagon shot out of sight, sparks spurting from the rear tires. Dazed, Amanda didn’t immediately understand why the servants gasped and rushed outside. But when the young gardener’s voice drifted from the street—“Christ, save us!”—she realized something terrible had happened.

  iv

  Amanda slipped through the doorway, blinked and shuddered in the bitter wind sweeping along Beacon Street.

  The servants had all left the stoop. She saw them down on the walk, to the left, huddling over someone fallen half into the gutter.

  To the right, the dray was stopping; the driver had gotten his frightened team under control. He leaped down, raced back, his leather cap flying off, his boots clattering.

  He checked at the edge of the crowd as people appeared from nowhere to surround the servants, hide Amanda’s view of the fallen body—

  Her mother. Harriet’s bonnet lay on the sidewalk, stained red.

  The dray driver shrank from the hostile eyes of the servants.

  “She—she come along the curbstone,” he stammered. “All of a sudden, she—fell right in front of the horses. I couldn’t stop in time—”

  Standing abruptly, Florence said, “We must carry her inside.”

  “I don’t know,” the young gardener said. “It might hurt her worse to move her—”

  Florence cried, “We can’t leave her lying in the cold—on the street—all these people staring—!”

  Sounding reluctant, the gardener said, “All right.”

  “Is she breathing?” the dray driver asked him.

  “Just barely.”

  v

  The servants lifted Harriet gently and bore her up the steps into the house. On the stoop, Amanda got a clear view of her mother’s head. It seemed to loll at an odd angle. Her cheeks were bruised and bloodied. Still numb from watching the awful scene with Piggott, Amanda couldn’t quite believe what she saw.

  The servants put Harriet in the front sitting room, on blankets spread on the floor. One maid rushed out of the house to fetch a doctor. Then the gardener dashed past Amanda who was watching from the hall, afraid to go in.

  The gardener ran upstairs. In a minute or so, he came back swearing. He informed the others that Andrew Piggott had vanished. Out the back way, most likely.

  “Why isn’t Mama getting up?” Amanda said in a hushed voice.

  The gardener began, “Her neck is—” Florence silenced him with a sharp look.

  Then the maid said to Amanda, “She can’t get up, child. She’s hurt. You’d best go to your—”

  She broke off as one of the other girls motioned.

  Florence knelt down. Put her ear close to Harriet’s mouth. When she rose, tears tracked her cheeks.

  She came toward Amanda, hands extended as if to gather the child to herself and comfort her. Gazing past her, Amanda saw the gardener pick up another blanket and cover Harriet’s face.

  “Amanda”—Florence could barely contain her misery—“come with me to your room. You mustn’t stay and look—”

  Amanda knew then. She knew the second blanket meant permanence—

  She tried to rush to Harriet’s body. Florence barred her way. “No, child!”

  Amanda’s grief burst out in a wild cry. “Jared? Jared, come help me—!”

  She fell against Florence’s skirt, wailing hysterically.

  Chapter III

  Act of Murder

  i

  “JARED? WE GOT A visitor. It’s that damn lawyer.”

  Jared barely heard the first words. But the last one struck him like an icy shower. He almost dropped the stack of untrimmed sheets as he deposited them on the pallet behind one of the thumping flatbed presses.

  He straightened up, the sound of his own breathing loud in his inner ear. His heartbeat quickened as he turned toward the open front door. Snow swirled there. He’d been too busy to notice when it had started falling from the dull Saturday sky.

  He scowled, recognizing the short, portly man just closing the door. In one hand the man carried a valise Jared had seen before.

  “You’d better fetch Mr. Pleasant,” he whispered to the pressman who had spoken to him.

  The pressman reached for a rag to wipe his inky hands. Jared grabbed the rag, flung it aside. “Right now!”

  The pressman didn’t protest being ordered around by a fifteen-year-old boy. He knew there was trouble looming. The presence of the well-dressed gentleman surveying the first floor work area charged the atmosphere with tension.

  Jared felt that tension with mounting intensity. His temper had flared when he spoke to the pressman. That mustn’t happen again. He had to stay calm until he learned the reason for the lawyer’s call—

  Instantly, his resolve was threatened. He could feel anger starting to simmer. A dull ache spread across his forehead as he studied the lawyer’s expression. Smug. Disdainful—

  One by one, the four other presses stopped. Two apprentices who had been cuffing each other quit suddenly. The pressman raced for the stairs.

  The portly gentleman continued to scrutinize the room. Lanterns hung from the ceiling beams stretched Jared’s silhouette across the floor as he walked toward the front. He recalled with bitter clarity the last time the man—and his infernal valise—had been on the premises. A large, empty section of floor space was a constant reminder of that visit.

  “Good afternoon,” the portly man said. His gaze jumped past Jared’s shoulder, a deliberate affront. The boy reddened.

  “What do you want?” Jared demanded.

  The portly man condescended to look at him again. “I’ll communicate that to the manager, if you don’t mind.”

  “You’ll tell me first! My aunt’s the owner.”

  The portly man was amused. “Not any longer, I’m afraid.”

  A knot twisted in Jared’s midsection. Surely he hadn’t heard correctly—

  The man brushed by and strolled down the aisle between the presses. Jared almost grabbed him, then literally fought his hand back down as the man passed. The lawyer seemed unperturbed by the hostile stares of the men and boys on both sides of the room. Jared thought of the pistol he’d gotten in case something like this happened again—

  No. Forget the pistol.

  Only hours after buying the secondhand weapon, he’d decided the purchase was rash. He’d gone to the gunsmith’s when the first press was taken, gone there with an almost drunken feeling of fury. But then, with the gun in his possession, he’d realized his mistake—

  For weeks, up until the lawyer called the first time, Jared had consciously struggled to keep a check on his temper. To disprove, through new patterns of behavior, his old fears about himself. He hadn’t succeeded completely. But he had made large strides, and he took pride in the fact. Then the lawyer arrived—and afterward, he bought the gun, and stored it in a niche up in the second-floor warehouse section.

  That’s where it must stay, he said to himself now. Don’t even think about it—

  Footsteps hammered on the stairs. No one moved save the portly gentleman, who propped his valise on one of the rails separating the central aisle from the work areas. The man opened the valise, fished out papers.

  Franklin Pleasant appeared on the stairs, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his cravat undone. The pressman who’d gone to find him was right behind.

  Wary, Pleasant approached the portly man. “I trust you’re not here to attach more of our equipment, Mr. Elphinstone.”

  “I’m flattered you remember my name, Mr. Pleasant.”

  “As I’d remember any thief’s.”

  Elphinstone met Pleasant’s glare with a smug smile. “I deplore your animosity, sir. I am only an attorney, hired by my clients to conduct business on their behalf. I have no interest in removing another press—”

  Franklin Pleasant looked relieved. Having lulled him, Elphinstone closed the trap. “I have come to inform you that new owners are taking over this establishment.”

  Pleasant gripped
the rail, his knuckles white. The ache in Jared’s head worsened instantly.

  “You must be insane,” Pleasant said.

  “Is that right? Be so good as to scan this document. Particularly the attached note. Signed by Mr. Andrew Piggott in the presence of my clients, and duly witnessed by two residents of the rooming house where Mr. Piggott and my clients were gaming. The document—and the note—will stand up in any court of law in this state. They’re just as legal as the note Mr. Piggott signed in connection with the press.”

  Outside, Jared heard wheels grind to a halt. A restless horse stamped and blew. Laughing voices blended with the slam of a coach door. Footsteps approached the front entrance.

  Jared didn’t look around. He was watching Pleasant’s face.

  The manager leafed through the legal sheets. Fingered a slip of paper waxed to the last one. Pale, he let his hand fall to his side.

  Elphinstone snatched the legal-size sheets and began to fold them. Pleasant looked at Jared, but his words were addressed to everyone. “Elphinstone’s right. This time Piggott’s lost the whole place.”

  Despite the effort of will that had held him “white-lipped and silent, Jared felt his anger loosed like a flood within him. In a tick of time, his mind swirled with distorted images of Uncle Gilbert. His throbbing head rang with remembered words, the promises he’d made about protecting the Kent interests. A faint inner voice of warning faded as he lunged forward with a shout.

  “I don’t believe it!” He seized the lawyer’s collar. “You’re a damned, deceitful liar—!”

  Elphinstone squealed as Jared shoved him against the rail. “Take your hands off me or I’ll have you clapped in jail!”

  “You’d better do as he says, Jared,” Pleasant warned.

  “But that paper can’t be legal—!”

  Pleasant shook his head. “The last one was.”