The Moon by Night

by Lynn Morris

  “No! Give it to me! Right now, Solange, you wicked little girl!” Manon shrieked, her voice rising to a cracked high-pitched ruin.

  “Give it to her, Solange,” Marcus said as he came into the room. “Who could bear to listen to that harpy’s screech? And to think that men and women alike wept when they heard you sing.” He was carrying a crate piled high with coal. He banged it down on the floor by the fireplace and began to build a fire.

  Manon took another long drink, shuddered, and cleared her throat. “Marcus, dearest—” she began in a weak whisper.

  “Shut up.” He said it so coldly that it frightened Manon more than anything. He hadn’t even sounded like he was alive when he spat out those two small words.

  Solange, too, was unnerved. Slowly her small, icy, grimy hand clutched her mother’s. Manon’s was limp and clammy and hot, but Solange clung to it as if it were keeping her alive. They watched Marcus’s stiff back as he built up a sizable fire. He never turned around or spoke until he had watched the flames for several minutes. Neither Solange nor Manon moved nor spoke.

  Finally he straightened and turned, clasping his hands behind his back as if he were on a social call. His face was set in chiseled lines. His blue eyes might have been stone marbles for all of the life in them. When he spoke, his voice was uninflected and frozen as before. “I’m changing and leaving. There is food here, there is coal here, there are matches here. You even have your beloved medicine, my dear. So if anything happens, Manon, it will be on your head, not mine.”

  He went toward the door in an odd wooden march, his back stiff and unyielding.

  Manon’s heavy-lidded eyes could barely follow him as he walked away. Solange yanked on her mother’s sleeve in alarm, mouthing the words “Ask him!” But it was as if Solange wasn’t even there. Her mother blinked slowly once, twice, and closed her eyes.

  Solange’s heart hammered in her thin chest, but she managed to say, “Sir? Dr. Pettijohn?”

  He kept walking.

  Panicked, Solange ran to his side. She dared not touch him—she had never touched him—but she came as close as she dared and looked up at his face. It was so distant and closed that she wondered if he could hear her. “Sir, please,” she whispered. “What about the rent?”

  He stopped and his head swiveled down and to the side.

  Solange was so frightened she took two stumbling steps back.

  With slow deliberate movements, his blank eyes set unblinking on the little girl at his side, Marcus reached inside his shirt. He drew out two bills, five-dollars each. “Here,” he said, handing them to Solange. She stepped forward and took them with shaking fingers. “Maybe I owe you,” he intoned. “Don’t forget this, Solange.”

  “I-I won’t, sir,” she gulped.

  “Good. Go on back to your mother and don’t bother me now.”

  She turned and fled back into the parlor.

  Her mother slept—or was passed out—but Lisette woke up and started crying. Almost paralyzed with fear, Solange tried to shush the baby but realized that Lisette would cry until Solange could get her bottle ready. She jumped up and pulled the parlor door closed, praying that the doctor wouldn’t hear Lisette’s shrieks.

  Sometime after that Solange heard Marcus’s measured tread on the stairs and then the front door squeak open and close quietly.

  She wondered if she would ever see her stepfather again.

  ****

  If Solange had seen Marcus’s face as he took the last step out of the flat and the first step onto the stoop, she might have been even more frightened than she was. Perhaps even a grown man passing by might have been unnerved. For Marcus’s face was so set, his gaze so blank, his eyes so unmoving and expressionless as he stepped outside that he hardly looked human anymore. He looked like some animated machine encased in human skin.

  But as soon as he had closed the door behind him in a slow measured movement, he looked up, his eyes came alive, and he grinned. He even chuckled. The metamorphosis was more unsettling than his earlier appearance had been.

  However, no one witnessed this step from shadows into darkness, and Marcus Pettijohn himself had no idea of the enormity of the step he had taken.

  He made his way blithely to Lord and Taylor department store.

  He bought the cheapest tailed coat and tried to tell himself that his own black breeches would do. But as he slipped the coat on and looked into the full-length mirror and saw the attendant behind him with a disdainful look on his face, Marcus thought savagely, I know what you’re thinking, and who do you think you are, anyway, you little nobody? It’s not like you’re a Saville Row tailor. You’re just a shop clerk!

  “Different shades of black,” he said, sniffing.

  “Beg your pardon, sir?” asked the clerk, who actually was thinking only of how he might satisfy this demanding customer and had no inkling of looking down on him.

  “I was just remarking how odd it is that even black, which is actually the lack of color, comes in different shades,” Marcus said in a lecturing tone. “One doesn’t notice until two shades of it are together, as when one tries on a suit coat with the black trousers he’s wearing, or as when one replaces the breeches of a suit later, after the original has worn out, as you, I believe, have done. The new pair never completely matches the old, does it? Now show me the breeches again.”

  “Yes, sir,” the meek clerk said, his cheeks flaming.

  Marcus had both the suit coat and the breeches altered to fit him perfectly, staying in the store and nagging the seamstresses mercilessly until the alterations were done to his satisfaction. He did splurge and buy a silk top hat. He had one, but it was worn and shiny. He bought kid gloves instead of the finer chamois. It was difficult to tell the difference at a glance, although the feel of them was wildly different; kid was stiff, much less supple than chamois.

  He thought, with a peculiar hot-cold chill, Besides, when one takes a lady’s hand to kiss it…Certainly Mrs. Buchanan—Victoria—would understand the continental manner of greeting. She’s so elegant, so sophisticated, so unbelievably gorgeous and desirable—

  What was I thinking?

  Oh yes, the gloves. A gentleman always removes his gloves to take a lady’s hand, so she probably won’t even see them, much less touch them.

  His mind rocketed off again, but with an effort he concentrated on the task at hand.

  He bought a pair of the finest black silk socks that Lord and Taylor had, for he believed that they must feel absolutely luxurious. When he saw how much the leather pumps he wanted cost, however, his almost manic exuberance diminished a little. But then he told himself that he would collect his hospital pay again in only one week, so spending so much money for one suit strictly for formal evenings was so pivotal to his plan that it was completely justified. He bought the shoes.

  When the alterations were done and Marcus was paying the clerk, he said with elaborate carelessness, “I live downtown, but I have several more errands to do uptown. I’d like you to hold everything—don’t wrap it up—until I return to pick it up. I may not have enough time to return home to change for the opera this evening, so I might be obliged to do it here to be on time.”

  “That will be fine, sir,” the clerk said carefully. He’d heard such stories before, usually from men sneaking around spending money, going places, and doing things they didn’t want their wives to know about. It was none of his concern, and his face gave no hint of his thoughts, but now he felt the disdain that Marcus had only imagined before.

  Marcus had no idea, however. He thought he had presented the very ideal of a successful, busy gentleman with a demanding social schedule. As he rode the train to Wharton Street, to Star’s flat, he rehearsed what he would say. Unlike his wife, Star was a cunning, demanding woman, and Marcus had a hard time deceiving her. He decided to give her ten dollars, and he knew she would be so happy that she wouldn’t question him when he told her that he had to return to the hospital to work late.

  It did work. St
ar, whose real name was Elsie Broderick, snatched the bills out of his hand and started gloating over the hat and dress she was going to buy that would “do Clemmie right in the eye.” Marcus didn’t know who Clemmie was, nor did he care. He only wanted Star, first because she was in love with him and let him stay in her flat, and second because she helped him forget his wife and daughter.

  The situation at 23 Morton Row had gotten unmanageable, the problems insurmountable, the pressure unbearable, so Marcus simply decided to purge them from his mind. He had done this very successfully while he was in Paris. He had managed to completely forget his father, a humble little uneducated apothecary. As Marcus had fallen in love with and pursued the much-sought-after opera star Manon Fortier, he had convinced himself that he was a dashing cosmopolitan young blood whose antecedents were, with compelling mystery, somewhat cloudy. This self-constructed fable had worked very well for Marcus, who was intelligent enough, but who was able to evict uncomfortable realities from his brain while establishing the desirable fables as truth. Accordingly, because his father did not fit into his life and history construct, Marcus evicted old Mr. Pettijohn, the humble apothecary. This had worked very well until his father had died and Marcus had been obliged to at least admit to himself that he had a father and that he had died. But still Marcus created a little bubble world to encompass him and Manon. When they had come to New York after old Mr. Pettijohn’s death, they had moved into a five-room suite in the luxurious Corinthian Hotel. The fact that neither Marcus nor Manon had an income at the moment didn’t bother Marcus at all, for he simply refused to acknowledge the fact. He only saw that he would—he must—be a wealthy, much-sought-after physician, since he had been trained in Paris, which was obviously much superior to anything American. His plan was to be a successful physician to the wealthy American arriviste boors, so therefore it must be so.

  Manon Fortier, now Pettijohn, pregnant and making a new life in an exciting new city with the young man who had pursued her so passionately for so long, was blissfully ignorant of Marcus’s lack of judgment and his lamentable self-deception, especially where finances were concerned. After years of being the dutiful consort of a much older, supremely unexciting man, she had finally, after a full two years of Marcus’s impassioned courtship, succumbed to what she thought was an eternal, selfless love. She saw no shadows on this rosy view of the future.

  But, of course, the bubble had burst. Manon had found solace and then escape in laudanum, brandy, and wormwood. Marcus had simply constructed another bubble world and had moved into it, once again leaving the others far behind and forgotten.

  ****

  Marcus Pettijohn watched the Steen box as intently as if his life depended on it. He had arrived early so that he could take the most advantageous seat in the first gallery. It was close enough to the Steen box that he could see them clearly, and if Mrs. Buchanan looked this way, he was close enough that she would be able to recognize him.

  He had hoped fervently that Victoria Buchanan would look around with her glasses and see him. If she did, he had told himself, she would certainly make some signal of recognition, and that would mean that he was invited to their box. That was his first and best plan.

  But even if Victoria did not look at him and give him this unspoken invitation, Marcus had determined that he was going to drop by the Steen box anyway. After all, he knew Dr. and Mrs. Buchanan and Cheney Duvall and her big thug of a husband—he couldn’t recall the man’s name, for it didn’t factor into any of his plans—so as an acquaintance, it would not be impertinent for him to visit the box at intermission. He thought, hoped, planned that Mrs. Buchanan would ask him to stay in their box if he managed to time his visit just before the lights went down to signal the end of the intermission. Certainly she would. Certainly she must. For then he could say exactly the right things in exactly the right offhand, devil-may-care sophisticated manner so that Victoria would respond exactly as she should, and then he would be invited to join them in their box, and that would be opening the door to paradise, and he would never have to huddle in the nether regions again with poor, crude, loud women like Star.

  But as he watched the Steen box during the first and second acts of the opera, he realized that neither Dr. Devlin Buchanan nor Dr. Cheney Duvall were there. They must be busy at the hospital, he reasoned. I heard Dr. Duvall talking with Victoria about the dress she would wear…and doesn’t Victoria look absolutely luscious in that violet…. I heard Victoria say that for once her husband had definitely left tonight open.

  He ruminated. He fretted. He debated. He considered his course of action.

  If I go over to their box, they’ll tell me how busy it is at the hospital and I’ll have to work this weekend, but Victoria will see me as the man of action, the man who moves in and takes care of the problems, the man she can lean on, trust, who won’t neglect her and leave her to attend the opera alone and…to sleep alone…

  Marcus lost several valuable minutes as his mind slipped off into a crimson-colored jumble of visions. When he finally settled down enough to regain his senses and resume his planning, he knew that the time for action was almost gone.

  But in the clarity following the confusion, he realized that his plan was undone anyway. Now there was no chance that he could take that first step into the heady world of the rich and privileged and begin the process of getting Victoria Buchanan to see him as a man worthy of her attentions. If he went to the Steens’ box now, Victoria would be glad to see him, but it would only be because he would dash off to work at that dreary hospital so that her husband, and probably her friend Dr. Duvall, could take their leisurely weekend off while he ignobly toiled. Victoria would think him valuable, yes, but for the same reason she did now: as an underling, one of many boring clerks who were connected to her only by the tenuous drab gray line of business.

  It would gain me nothing, he told himself with a furtive satisfaction. He didn’t want to work that weekend. He had new clothes, he had money, he had a woman waiting for him who had no grace nor elegance but who could be incredibly exciting.

  As the ushers began lowering the gaslights, signaling the end of intermission, Marcus made his decision and formulated his new plan.

  I’ll watch the rest of the performance, he thought indulgently. I’ve always loved Fidelio. Then I’ll go see Star and take her out. And tomorrow we shall see what the day brings.

  Twenty

  Stop, Traveler

  It was almost two o’clock on Sunday afternoon before Cheney could get away from a mountain of duties at the hospital to have luncheon in her office with Shiloh. As she wearily made her way up the stairs to the office, she lifted her head and sniffed—a perfectly heavenly aroma of hot bread.

  “Doc? Come on, I’m getting this timed just right,” Shiloh called.

  Suddenly Cheney didn’t feel so tired. With a light step and a smile she ran up the stairs.

  The offices of Devlin Buchanan, Cheney Duvall, and Cleve Batson were located in a small free-standing house facing Sixth Avenue. The two floors had exactly the same floor plan: two bedrooms, a parlor, a kitchen, and a large bath with modern plumbing. Though Cheney and Dev had left the kitchen intact while they were the only two physicians in the partnership, when they had brought Cleve Batson in and both Cheney and Dev had located permanently to New York, they had renovated the downstairs kitchen as an office for Cleve.

  Cleve had lived upstairs in the flat for about a year and a half, until his practice had established him financially well enough to buy the house, exactly like the offices, two doors up the avenue. Now as Cheney ran up the stairs, she knew, from following her nose, that the delicious fresh bread fragrance was coming from the parlor, not the kitchen.

  Shiloh was sitting on the floor in front of the generous fireplace holding a long-handled grill pan over a deep bed of glowing embers with very small intense blue flames dancing above them. It was a cheery, warming sight that contrasted sharply with the dreary icy day showing through the double windo
ws in the small but comfortable room. Sean and Shannon were sprawled on two settees, one done in crimson velvet, the other in gold velvet. When Cheney came in, Shannon lifted her head in greeting, giving Cheney a voluminous yawn. Sean’s long skinny tail thumped twice, but he was evidently too exhausted to raise his head.

  “Try to contain your excitement, you two,” Cheney said dryly as she first patted Shannon’s head and then Sean’s. Throwing herself down on the carpet in front of the fireplace, she grabbed Shiloh and noisily planted a kiss on his hot cheek. “I can’t believe it! Crumpets! They smell so delicious that if the aroma drifts out into the street, we’ll have people coming here instead of to the hospital!”

  “They’d better not,” Shiloh grumbled. “I’m going to eat everything that you leave.”

  “How many do we have?” Cheney asked, peering into the covered basket on an enormous tea tray at Shiloh’s side.

  “Six,” he answered.

  “Oh! You fibber! There’s eight, and I’m making no promises about leaving any,” Cheney cried. “Where in the world did you get fresh crumpets?”

  “PJ taught Sketes,” Shiloh said with pride. “He loves ’em too. Said his mum got so tired of making them for him all the time that she finally made him learn how to make ’em.”

  The soft light bread, rather like American muffins but not sweetened, was cooked on a griddle. It took a skillful cook to learn how to griddle a leavened bread. Shiloh and Cheney had learned to love them on their honeymoon when they visited the West Indies islands that were British colonies. Most of the islands had English high teas. Generally crumpets were best when they were split and buttered and toasted, hot from the fire. Cheney poured tea while Shiloh finished toasting four of them. After saying grace, they hungrily ate crumpets and drank several cups of tea while they talked.

  “I was so late last night I was too tired to even ask you about Fidelio,” Cheney said. “I’ve never seen it. Did you like it?”

  “Sure did. The music was kinda grand, epic, like Beethoven’s symphonies. You know what I mean?”