The Moon by Night

by Lynn Morris

  Cheney didn’t notice. “Oh, I suppose you might call it that. He came in on Locke’s Day Dream, checked right into the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and sent a note by messenger notifying Shiloh where he was staying. He ended the note by saying, ‘I will see you Monday night.’ Shiloh’s been wearing himself out trying to decide whether to go call on him there or just to wait. I think he dithered so much he just exhausted himself and decided to wait. So I hope Bain will be here, for Shiloh’s sake.”

  Fiona finished Victoria’s hair and sat Solange down to fix her thin blond hair. But Fiona truly was a miracle worker, and with the skillful use of a curling iron and a tiny bit of lilac-scented hair dressing, she soon had a pretty curly coiffure. Fiona was gathering up the hairdressing articles when Cheney suddenly asked, “Fiona, if you’re not helping Sketes or Jauncy, what are you planning to do tonight? You are going to be here for the party, are you not?”

  “Well, Miss Cheney, I did think I would ask about the children’s care,” she said hesitantly. “I know Laura Blue is going to be here, and I was wondering, Mrs. Buchanan, about Dart and Lisette.”

  “Oh, of course they’re coming, and Mrs. Barentine is coming and bringing her own son, Alex, who is two years old. He and Dart are practically being brought up as brothers. But still, I’m sure that Mrs. Barentine would love for you to help her if you wish.”

  “I would like that, ma’am.”

  “Wait just a minute, young lady,” Cheney said. “If you’re coming to the party, you must have a dress too. No, Fiona, you will not fade into a corner in dreary gray wool and apron. It’s a party! Now let me see, what can I—”

  “Actually, Miss Cheney, Sketes and I did just finish a dress for me,” she said eagerly. “It’s for church, really, but I think I would like to wear it tonight if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Let’s see it,” Victoria said sternly. “And then we will dress ourselves while you do your own hair, Fiona. Certainly you deserve it!”

  It was a red velveteen dress with demure white lace trim. Cheney contributed some white satin ribbon roses for a corsage at her wasp-thin waist, and Victoria very skillfully applied a light rice powder, a translucent pink rouge blush, and slight smudges of dark pencil at the outer corners of Fiona’s eyes. She was a pretty girl, with a very fair complexion, dark brown eyes, and a modest Madonna face. The very slight highlighting of the cosmetics brightened her face considerably.

  “Oh my, are you sure—” Fiona breathed, shocked, when she looked in the mirror.

  “Yes, it enhances your lovely doe eyes,” Victoria said firmly.

  “Yes, it gives you a completely natural pink blush,” Cheney said.

  “Yes,” Solange said thoughtfully, “now you don’t look like a sparrow either.”

  ****

  By seven-twenty Cheney and Shiloh had eleven dinner guests gathered in the front parlor, talking, admiring the children and dogs, and drinking green China tea from tiny cups with no handles. “The Winslows’ servants in Hawaii are all Chinese,” Cheney explained to Allan and Jane Anne Blue, Dr. Lawana White, Cleve Batson, and Minerva Wilcott. “They often drink a tiny cup of tea in the middle of the afternoon as a refresher. Shiloh and I both like China tea, and we’ve found that it warms you wonderfully when you come in from the cold.”

  Across the room Shiloh was telling a funny story about Sean and Shannon to Richard and Irene and Dev and Victoria. He caught Cheney’s eye, however, and a current of understanding passed between them.

  I’m sorry about Bain.

  I’m sorry too, but I’m not upset…

  “Jane Anne, I must say that Laura looks wonderful. Has she gained some weight?” Cheney asked.

  “Yes, she has,” Jane Anne answered, “and I believe it’s that wonderful Nestlé’s Infant Milk Food. It’s the first food she’s ever seemed to like and hasn’t eaten it for just two days and then rejected it indignantly….”

  Richard was saying, “I never thought that Cheney would be so attached to dogs. Somehow I thought that if she had a pet at all, it would be a very beautiful, snobbish, standoffish cat.”

  “I like cats,” Shiloh said, “and the doc—Would you excuse me, please?” He jumped up and hurried to the door. He hadn’t heard a knock because the room was noisy, but out of the corner of his eye he had seen Jauncy pass by the parlor door and had felt the draft of cold air from the entryway.

  He almost caught himself running toward the vestibule, slowed himself down to a decorous walk, rounded the corner, and almost sent Jauncy flying as the man stepped back from the open door.

  Bain stood there.

  Shiloh stared at him. Bain stared back.

  He’s gained some weight, Shiloh thought. He looks taller and stronger. He’s tanned. His hair has those sun-blond streaks…. He doesn’t look at all like he used to when he was such a night crawler—

  “Locke, it is freezing out here, and I hate the cold,” Bain said in his cultured British voice. “Shall I produce my invitation?”

  “Huh? Oh no. ’Course not, Bain. Come in,” Shiloh said hastily. “Here, let me take—I mean, Jauncy will take your coat.”

  Bain shed his coat, hat, scarf, gloves, and walking stick. He was wearing the requisite black suit; Bain was always exquisitely tailored. He looked healthy, vigorous, as if he were growing younger instead of older.

  Shiloh reached out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation Bain took it. Shiloh shook hands, hard. “I thought you weren’t coming,” he said.

  “Provincial Americans. I’m fashionably late, Locke. I did tell you I’d see you.”

  “I know. I just—I’m just glad you’re here. I’m glad to see you,” Shiloh said with such warmth and honesty that Bain looked disconcerted for a moment.

  Cheney came up, smiling, and held out both her hands. Bain was a sophisticated, cultured man, and that was the sole reason he was able to greet her with equanimity. He took her hands, and Cheney, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, leaned up and lightly kissed him on his cheek. “Cousin, I’m so happy you have come. Please come with me. I want to introduce you.” She threaded her arm through his and led him into the parlor. She first introduced him to her parents, and as she knew they would, Richard and Irene treated him with kindness and respect. Her parents and Victoria and Dev knew about Bain’s past, but the other guests did not. But from the sincere warmth of everyone’s greetings, Bain might never have done the terrible things he had.

  Cheney had barely finished introducing him when Jauncy appeared at the dining room door. “Dinner is served, madam,” he said in the reverent tones used by the most uppity British butlers.

  Fiona, sitting with Mrs. Barentine on a settee by the front windows minding the children, watched Bain’s every move, her dark eyes brilliant, her mouth tense. Solange crawled up in her lap and began talking to her, but Fiona answered absently. Once Bain glanced her way, and the light of recognition on his face made Fiona’s heart pound so hard that it almost hurt. He made his greetings to everyone and seemed to be starting to come toward her when Jauncy made his announcement and Cheney took Bain’s arm again to usher him into the dining room.

  “Now, who exactly is that lovely young man?” Mrs. Barentine asked. “He looks like he’s been out in the sun, someplace warm and nice.”

  “So he has,” Fiona murmured. “His name is Bain Winslow. He’s Mr. Irons-Winslow’s first cousin. He lives on an island in the West Indies.”

  Mrs. Barentine, who was a simple woman but was not deaf and blind, asked politely, “And do you know him well?”

  “No, of course not,” Fiona said quickly, her cheeks blushing scarlet. “I mean, I-I was with Mr. Shiloh and Miss Cheney on their honeymoon, and we—I—” She was so obviously in distress that Mrs. Barentine, who at twenty years old was only one year older than Fiona but seemed to be much wiser, said, “It’s all right, Miss Fiona, I understand. It’s hard, isn’t it? It never works out, you know. Them and us.”

  Fiona dropped her head and murmured, “It’s work
ed out very well with Mr. Shiloh and Miss Cheney.”

  “Yes,” she agreed readily, “and that makes a total of one couple I’ve ever seen or heard of, and my family’s been in service for three generations now. But still,” she went on cheerfully, “times are changing. And he did look at you with particular interest, I noted.”

  Fiona’s head snapped up. “Did you?”

  Gently she said, “I did, Fiona. And though we haven’t been together to be very close friends, I do like you. All I’ll say is please try not to get hurt. Just that. Try very hard not to get yourself hurt.”

  Too late, a sad faint voice echoed in Fiona’s head. But all she said was, “Of course not. We just knew each other in a very difficult time. I’m sure he’s forgotten most of it. And so will I, I expect.”

  In the dining room the dinner was going marvelously well. Shiloh was at the head of the table, with Cheney at the foot. After long consultation with Jauncy, Shiloh had agreed to having Irene at his right hand and Bain seated beside her, with Victoria on his other side.

  “Considering the type of gentleman he is, sir, as you have described him, it is perfectly obvious that only Mrs. Duvall and Mrs. Buchanan would be suitable dinner partners for him. Surely you couldn’t expect the other lovely young persons—Dr. White, Miss Wilcott, or Mrs. Blue to…to—”

  “Box him in and keep him in his place?” Shiloh suggested dryly.

  “I was about to say provide the kind of mature conversation that a man of the world such as your cousin is sure to enjoy,” Jauncy said prissily. “The seating arrangements for a dinner are of such paramount importance that these considerations must be weighed very carefully.”

  “Jauncy, we’ve been talking about this for over an hour,” Shiloh said with exasperation. “Why don’t I just take twelve playing cards, shuffle ’em, and deal?”

  Jauncy sniffed. “An American joke, yes. Now, sir, for Mrs. Buchanan’s other partner, I believe Dr. Batson…”

  Shiloh was curious to hear the conversation between his mother-in-law and Bain, but as head of the table, he had obligations other than eavesdropping on two of his guests. One part of him was extremely happy that his cousin had made this gesture of conciliation—the first sign Bain had ever made that he might rejoin the Winslow family. Another part of Shiloh cringed as he wondered if his wild cousin might suddenly stand up, brandish the elaborate Boutet dueling pistols he and Cheney had given him, and shout, “Your money or your life! All jewels, cash, and coins on the table now, and let the women beware!”

  As if Bain were reading his mind, Shiloh saw Bain watching him with a familiar expression of cool amusement on his face. “I was just telling Mrs. Duvall, Locke, about the gift that you and Mrs. Winslow so kindly gave me when last we were together. I don’t believe I ever thanked you properly for the Boutet pistols.”

  Shiloh was so discomfited by Bain’s apparent mind reading that he just stared at him dumbly. Irene Duvall smoothly intervened. “Oh, so they are by Boutet? Such an interesting man, Boutet. He was Napoleon’s armorer, which was undoubtedly a position for a dedicated warmonger, but yet he was such an artisan, one may almost say an artist, in his creations of personal armaments.”

  Bain said with admiration, “Madame, I never knew a lady of such grace and distinction who could discuss arms so eloquently. Tell me, is your interest purely of an artisan nature, or historical, or could it be that you have a personal interest in Boutet pistols?”

  With an effort Shiloh turned his attention away from the guests on his right to the guests on his left, Allan Blue and Miss Minerva Wilcott. They knew each other well, of course, for Minerva had made many trips to the orphanage with Victoria. Minerva was saying in her wide-eyed naïve manner, “Captain Blue, I had no idea you had such an exciting role in the War between the States! Colonel Duvall just told me that you were a spy! How exciting!”

  On her other side Richard leaned forward to speak to Allan directly. “We were actually speaking of Charleston, Captain Blue, and I mentioned your famous exploits in making maps of the intricacies of the inland waterways.” He was signaling to Allan that he hadn’t spoken of any of the painful things in his past.

  Allan smiled at Minerva. He was a man with gentle features and a rather bookish demeanor, but he was no longer a weak man, as he once had been before he found the Lord. “Actually, I was what came to be termed as a ‘double agent,’ and I’m fairly certain all that means is that I was doubly deceitful, not dashing. Still, in spite of the terrible circumstances of that time and the darkness I was in, God brought much good out of what was a terrible mortal coil.”

  “Shakespeare, Hamlet’s soliloquy,” Minerva said dreamily, much to Allan’s, Richard’s, and Shiloh’s surprise. Shiloh saw that Bain and Irene had turned to listen to her. Beside Bain, Victoria watched Minerva with an affectionate, satisfied smile.

  Minerva went on in a soft hypnotic tone, “‘For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil….’ So do you, Captain Blue, believe in the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’? Or do you believe that our fate is writ with the finger of God?”

  “The latter, most certainly,” Allan said when he recovered his surprise at Minerva’s eloquence. “If you knew the entire story of my wanderings, Miss Wilcott, and the depths of the hole that I dug and then flung myself into as fast as I could, you, too, would see that only the strong arm of Providence could have ever made any good come out of my life again.”

  Shiloh saw Bain’s curiosity and turned to him. “If it had not been for Captain Allan Blue, I might never have found out about my father and mother, Cousin. Our lives became intertwined in ways so unlikely that it could only have been Almighty God who put us all together—me, Cheney, Captain Blue, his family. And how we met Jeremy, his son!” He shook his head. “I still can hardly believe it.”

  Bain’s eyes had glazed somewhat when Shiloh mentioned Almighty God, but in spite of himself he was interested. “I would very much like to hear this story, Captain Blue,” he said lightly. “As strange as it seems, I have never heard the entire recounting of how Locke managed to find us.” This last was said in a very dry satirical manner, but part of Bain’s genius was that it was difficult to be sure whether he was satirizing others or himself. Shiloh was still trying to work it out when Minerva Wilcott came through with her true colors and broke the tension.

  “At any rate Captain Blue, Colonel Duvall did say that you were a cartographer. So that must mean that you understand geometry, does it not?” she asked politely.

  “Well, yes, I suppose I do,” Allan said, mystified.

  “Oh! How simply amazing. Do you suppose that you could explain to me—in very simple terms, please—how one might look at a lake, for example, and use geometry to reduce it to a squiggle on a piece of paper?”

  Allan looked perplexed at this request. His mouth moved, but no sounds came out. From across the table Irene said, with an almost devilish twinkle in her gentle green eyes, “Yes, Captain Blue, please do account for this. I have often wondered about such squiggles myself.”

  “There, you see, I insist that you all are my witnesses that geometry actually makes no sense,” Minerva said with satisfaction. “If Miss Irene cannot account for it, then it must be so.”

  Allan, in the courtliest and smoothest manner ever imagined, bowed slightly to his dinner partner. “As you say, Miss Wilcott. I would never presume to disagree with either you or Mrs. Duvall.”

  “Another mortal coil uncoiled satisfactorily, Miss Wilcott. ‘To be or not to be’ geometrical is settled,” Bain observed with the merest hint of cutting his eyes toward Shiloh to share his amusement.

  Minerva smiled brilliantly and then shed it around so that it was more like a bright snowfall in general than a meaningful personal moment shared with Bain. Miss Minerva Wilcott may have been rather fluff-brained about some things, but she knew full well how to keep a proper distance from a man of such rakish charm as Bain Winslow. “Yes, Mr. Winslow, and is
n’t it amazing that one may find an applicable quote in Shakespeare for almost any true-to-life situation? Particularly in Hamlet, it seems to me.”

  As the dinner progressed, Shiloh very slowly relaxed and even began to actually taste the food he was eating. The courses, perfectly prepared by Sketes and perfectly served by Jauncy, went by, one after the other, to universal acclaim. After about a half hour Shiloh was intensely interested to note the cross-conversations of the guests. Irene, Bain, and Victoria were now sharing in a conversation across the table with Allan Blue and Minerva about theater.

  Shiloh also managed to comprehend something of what was going on down at Cheney’s end of the table. Cleve, Lawana, Richard, Jane Anne, and Dev were all talking together about the wide array of musical selections possible for dancing later, as Shiloh had engaged an ensemble of two violins, a viola, and a violoncello.

  He heard Jauncy’s voice in his head: “It will be very easy for your guests to engage the dinner partners on either side of them. But one way to judge if a dinner party is truly going well is to observe if people also carry on animated conversations across the table. The former conversation is artificial, a rule of polite social discourse. But the latter often signals the development of friendships rather than acquaintances making conversation….”

  Shiloh was acutely aware that Bain seemed to be truly enjoying himself, participating in the conversations with obvious interest.

  Shiloh glanced down the table and caught Cheney’s eye as she was laughing at something that Dev had said. In Shiloh’s eyes she was dazzling. Her eyes seemed so green that he thought he could see the emerald glint even from so far away; her cheeks were blushed a lovely deep peach hue; her auburn hair gleamed and glinted like fire in the candlelight; and the fine features of her face were as a flower in the height of bloom. In his head, as he often did, he knew her thought. I am so happy. I am enjoying this evening so much. Thank you, husband.

  He looked at her and mouthed, Welcome.