by Parry, Owen
“Hold on.” He chose a tool that might have done for a blacksmith’s shop. It stretched my cheeks when he forced it into my mouth. I tasted metal. And rust.
He leaned his bulk against my chest, grinding my ribs with his elbow. One paw held my jaw open, while the other applied the tool.
Fastened down, the chair creaked under our weight.
“Think about something happy,” Dr. Fielding said.
Then he yanked.
Now, I am small, but strong in the chest and shoulders. I am no weakling. It remains an amazement to me that I did not topple the fellow over and rip the chair from its moorings.
He turned away to grab a rag, which he held under my mouth. Then he picked up a spittoon from the unswept floor.
“Spit out the blood,” he told me.
“Ith it out?” I gasped. I felt as though a navvy were going at my skull with a ten-pound hammer.
“Part. It broke off. Rotten through. Spit out that blood. I have to dig out the roots.”
“Tomollow,” I told him. “Do it tomollow.”
“Can’t wait. You’ll get blood poisoning, I leave that in there. Maybe gangrene.”
I tried to think of happy things. But my concentration failed me.
“Open,” he commanded. He raised a pair of implements that might as well have been a pick and a shovel.
I did my best to be manly, but did not meet success. I have been shot and stabbed and sliced. My bones have been broken and I have been burned, as well. But I do not think I ever knew such misery as I met in that dentist’s chair.
There is a place in Mr. Shakespeare’s Scottish play where the murderess says, “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” She might have been speaking of Abel Jones, not her victim.
Blood exploded over my clean uniform. Twas the last I had in reserve. Blood splashed over the dentist himself. Blood splashed across the floor.
“Almost done,” he assured me.
I began to feel sick and faint.
“Cut a little deeper,” he said. “Then we’ll have it.”
He did some work down deep that made me wail.
“Thought you didn’t mind pain?” he said disdainfully. “Just another minute. I need to trim away the extra meat.”
“Pleath,” I begged. Tears blurred my eyes. Cold though it was in his rooms, I was soaked with sweat.
He peered into my mouth again. Twisting my neck to find the light from the window.
“Deepest roots I ever saw,” he said.
He bent to his labors. To my shame, I bawled like a baby.
“There now,” the fellow said at last, flicking bone and flesh into a bowl. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Ith all out?”
“Have to charge you double. Complicated operation.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “Sure you don’t want to take the rest of ’em out? While you’re here?”
Speech pained me. So I shook my head. Extravagantly.
“Well, all right,” he said. “If your mind’s made up. Just sit there and rest while I put in a few stitches.”
I STAGGERED BACK toward the hotel, drenched with sweat and blood. I must have appeared as wild-eyed as a recruit after his first battle. People stared, but I barely registered their alarm. I was stunned by pain, both present and remembered. My head seemed the size of an observation balloon.
A patrol stopped me, afraid that I had been a victim of crime. It cost me painful speech to assure them that I had merely visited a dentist. The guards at the hotel stared.
But the most alarmed of them all was Mr. Barnaby, who awaited me in an armchair in the lobby. He jumped to his feet and rushed between the loiterers to assist me.
“Dear me!” he cried. “I knew I should have come earlier! Who was it this time?”
“Toof,” I explained. “Dentith.”
At first, he looked relieved. Then his expression darkened.
“Which dentist?” he asked quietly, as if fearing the answer.
“Fielthink.”
He winced in sympathy. “Oh, dear. I wished you’d consulted me, I do. You needed to go to Dr. Dostle, on St. Joseph’s Street. ’E’s the Union dentist, Dr. Dostle is. Dr. Fielding’s a terrible Confederate, sir. ’E don’t like Union blue even when ’e’s sober….”
SIX
I DID NOT FOREWARN MR. BARNABY OF THE WOMAN who had slipped into my room. My jaw hurt too much when I tried to speak and the side of my face was nearly immobile with swelling. Were the lass still present, the fact would be self-evident and Mr. Barnaby could help me solve her riddle. Had she deserted the premises, report of her could await my jaw’s recovery.
I was not thinking clearly, if at all. That is the truth of it. Pain empties the mind of all that is not immediate. The voodoo devils fled my thoughts, along with the serpents and killers. I hardly cared a fig for the late Miss Peabody. Or even for Mr. Lincoln and the war. I only wanted the misery to stop.
It hurt worse than the cutting I got in the Khyber.
As I dragged myself up the stairs to my room, Mr. Barnaby prattled. “Dr. Fielding’s known as a famous prankster, sir. Especially when we comes up to the Marty Graw. Which ain’t to be this year, it ain’t to be! Oh, ’e’s bound to be in a wicked mood, after your Yankees ’as banned outdoor assemblies. It’s the same as forbidding the carnival itself! Not that there’s money or spirits to do it proper. It wants a certain outlay, for balls and such. But that’s all by the by, sir, by the by. Spilt milk. It’s a glum year, robbed of merriment. But what can a body expect, sir, with more bankrupts than beaver hats between the New Canal and the Place d’Armes?”
When I opened the door to my room, the chamber was empty, the young woman gone. But the queerest thing occurred.
Mr. Barnaby lifted his nose like a hound catching a scent. His expression of anxious cheer grew perplexed and wary.
I will report my speech as I intended it, not as it sounded with my mouth all ravaged.
“What is it, Mr. Barnaby?”
He shook his head and said nothing. His eyes stared through the walls as he sniffed and snuffled.
“Smell something, do you?”
He lowered his face and spoke in a tone of bewilderment. “It’s nothing, sir, nothing at all. Only … I thought I detected a fragrance.” He took a last, wistful sniff. “A scent as I ain’t smelled these many years …”
Tucking away his interest in the matter, his face resumed its usual affability. “All’s one, sir, all’s one. But would you like a shave? I’m quite the barber and ain’t ashamed to say it. I used to scrape Master Francis and the senator. I could parse your whiskers in such a way as your poor jaw wouldn’t feel it.”
It was his polite way of saying that I did not look my best. But when I touched my fingers to my cheek, I decided to elude the snares of vanity.
“I will do without shaving, thank you.”
The grand fellow understood me, though I lisped and lagged and slurred like an Irish drunkard.
“Better part of valor, sir, the better part of valor. But I suspects you’ll wish to change your uniform? Before we goes out, sir?”
“Out?”
“To the Garden District,” he told me, “on the American side. To see Mrs. Aubrey, sir. Who don’t take time for just anyone.”
“I do not have another uniform, Mr. Barnaby. This was the last, see. Anyway,” I snarled, having just suffered a knockabout wave of hurt, “I do not recollect asking to be taken anywhere this afternoon. Who, pray tell, is this Mrs. Aubrey of yours?”
“Rich as Croesus!” he exclaimed. “Or Mrs. Croesus, to put a feminine point on it. Even now, sir, even with the war. She could buy and sell us all like a slab of bacon. Oh, they’re clever sorts, them Aubreys. Never put their faith in Secession banknotes, if the world’s report is true. Pounds sterling and Yankee dollars. Golden guineas and London shares, all listed on the ’Change. I believe ’er ’usband made ’is fortune at sea. With the Royal Navy, sir, the politest pirates what
ever sailed the waves! But that’s all by the by, sir, by the by. She’s old as the ’ills and rich as a duchess and won’t even offer us tea.” He looked at me pityingly. “Not that you’d be in quite the mood to drink it, sir.”
“But who is she, man? Why would I want to squander my time in her company? There’s work to be done!”
My grump was much too harsh. The poor fellow looked crushed.
“I only meant to ’elp, and nothing more, sir. Sorry if I overstepped my bounds. Know better next time, I will. It’s only that I asked about and made inquiries, begging your pardon. Mrs. Aubrey’s said to be the last person in New Orleans to see your poor Miss Peabody alive …”
WE DID NOT go directly to Mrs. Aubrey’s manse, which lay on the far side of the American town, where things were done proper and only the servants spoke French. First, Mr. Barnaby conducted me to a shop where he oversaw my outfitting as a gentleman. With his background in haberdashery and such matters, the fellow was particular about fit and fabric to a degree that would have done credit to my darling wife’s establishment. Although she would have been mortified by the sums Mr. Barnaby challenged me to spend.
“You ’as to look a gentleman, sir, or no one in New Orleans will acknowledge you,” he explained. “It don’t ’ardly matter ’ow black your crimes, as long as you looks a gent from top to bottom.”
Now, do not think that the new-gained wealth of my Mary Myfanwy’s inheritance had led me to corruption of the spirit. Parting with such a sum to a clothier pained my pocket almost as cruelly as dentistry wounded my jaw. But I must admit that after Mr. Barnaby was done fussing and criticizing and generally terrorizing half a dozen anxious clerks and tailors, I was fond of what I saw in the shopkeeper’s mirror. Despite the gross distortion of my cheek.
I will never pass for Edwin Booth, whose visage so impresses all our ladies. But properly fitted out and viewed from a winning angle, I believe that I am a most presentable man.
“It’s all in the cut, sir, all in the cut and the pattern! Vertical stripes on a waistcoat is most lengthening. As is the stripes in the trousers. You almost looks the normal height of a fellow! And there’s nothing like a black frock coat to bring it all together into a parcel. While lessening the disproportion of the chest. Begging your pardon, Major Jones, you looks less like a runty bull and more like a regular person.” He stepped back to admire the result. “You doesn’t look ’alf so queer now. A fellow might think you was president of a bank,” he told me. “And an honest-run bank, at that.”
Mr. Barnaby arranged for my uniform to be cleaned up proper and sent back to the hotel—where my greatcoat, left with the Ursulines, had been delivered. So off we went, with me garbed in my finery and the fellows who had attended us fawning like Mrs. Mickles before the Queen. Yet, for all the crackling green dollars we left behind, I believe the clerks were glad to see us go. For Mr. Barnaby knew their trade too well. A clerk prefers to find himself more knowledgeable than his customer, which guarantees the riddance of poor merchandise, along with a tidy profit.
As we sauntered down Canal Street toward a rank of cabs, Mr. Barnaby sighed and said, “A lovely thing it was to ’ave my own shop, sir. We only carried the best, and nothing less. That’s what I offered the gentlemen, the crème de la crème of cloth and cut and finishings! They used to come from Natchez, even Memphis. That’s ’ow I come to know Senator Raines and Master Francis. Before the fever took Marie and the children.” A tear crowded his eye. “You would’ve ’ad better quality of me, sir, than anything you see in the shops these days. Things ain’t what they used to be, and sometimes I thinks the world’s going to the dogs …”
“Mr. Barnaby,” I said, or tried to say, for my mouth remained recalcitrant, “before we go on I need to replace my cane.”
“But you didn’t want none back there, sir. Not that the quality offered was quite, quite. Although that one with the silver ’ead of a duck—”
“That is not it, Mr. Barnaby. I did not wish to speak before the tailors. But I have learned the advantages of a sword-cane. I thought you might know of a shop where such might be found.”
“I did think you was being particular mindful,” he admitted. “Now I understands it, sir.” He thought for a moment. “We’ll ’ave to walk into the Quarter. But I knows just the place.” He glanced at my bothered leg. “But would you kindly step out a bit? If you can, sir? We mustn’t keep Mrs. Aubrey waiting too long… .”
We hastened across the boulevard and followed Royal Street. The complexions and the characters grew darker—I do not mean they were negroes, only Frenchies—and passersby showed more suspicion of strangers. Even without my uniform, I did not feel much welcome. But many a man tipped his hat to Mr. Barnaby, who seemed to enjoy a fine report in the city.
“I ’as to warn you, Major Jones … don’t try to drive a bargain with Monsieur Beyle. He don’t even sell to a fellow ’e don’t take to, ’e’s that particular. If you likes ’is wares, just pay ’is price and let ’im know you’re grateful.”
Easy for an Englishman to say. A Welshman is born with a sense of his pounds and pennies.
“I’ll tell you this, I will,” Mr. Barnaby continued, lifting his hat and bowing to a withered lady in a worn-out carriage. “You’ll find ’is goods better than anything sold by those riff-raff Yankees on Poydras Street. Begging your pardon.”
“Mr. Barnaby,” I said, or tried to say, “won’t your friends judge you harshly? If they see you associating with a Union man?”
He brushed the thought from the lapel of his coat, as if it were a crumb. “Not at all, sir, not at all! ’Aven’t the least cause for worry, we doesn’t. Business is business, that’s ’ow they sees things in New Orleans, sir. They’ll calculate as I’m making a tidy profit through our association. And where profit starts, the convictions of the best sorts doesn’t mind resting. The creole adores a proper return on investments, almost as much as ’e loves ’is neighbor’s secrets. Which is almost as much again as ’e loves ’is own. Oh, the lack of funds restricts their pleasures awful, sir. And a creole’s pleasures count more to ’im than most anything in the world. They won’t assume I likes you, Major Jones. Only that your acquaintance is a benefit.”
“That … does not sound high-minded.”
“Right you are, sir! And the world’s a better place for it, begging your pardon. Call it ’ypocrisy if you likes, down ’ere we calls it manners.” He nodded approvingly into his double chin. “A beautiful girl tears friends asunder, that’s what Barnaby B. Barnaby always says. Just as ’is father and grandfather said before ’im. But a profit shared makes friends where none was expected. Why, if you—”
He stopped so abruptly he almost tripped up a delivery boy. With a swiftness that would not have disgraced a practitioner of Thuggee, my companion presented me with a fancy handkerchief, handsomely worked but frayed.
“You’re bleeding at the mouth again,” he told me. “And you doesn’t want to spoil your lovely new garments.”
MR. BARNABY STOPPED AT a narrow lane. Twas worrisomely like the one down which I had been lured the day before. By Marie Venin.
He began to grant me precedence, then thought better of it and squeezed into the passageway ahead of me.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, as he led me between brick walls. A faded sign read:
H. BEYLE
LUXURIES AND CURIOSITIES
We passed through a courtyard strewn with broken effects and cast-off furnishings. Beyond a litter of potted plants that would not wake with April, a windowfront bore the same advertisement as the sign at the alley’s mouth.
“Be so kind as to remember, sir,” Mr. Barnaby begged. “You musn’t even think of bargaining, don’t even think of it! You either wants what Monsieur Beyle ’as to offer, or you doesn’t. And none’s the worse thereafter.”
Stepping into the shop itself, twas hard to imagine why I would wish to buy anything. No bigger than a proper Pottsville parlor, the room was cluttered wall to wall
and floor to ceiling with gilt furniture, gilt frames and gilt-limned pots and vases. Gilt shone in every variety, from mottled orange and gold rubbed smooth to decayed yellows struggling to hide an underlying blackness, reminiscent of a harlot’s hair. If you will excuse the comparison. Angles, curves and planes, the legs of chairs and tables and fancy cabinets gleamed and glittered, noisy to the eye. Such merchandise could only appeal to libertines or Catholics.
An oil lamp sputtered on a desk beyond the gaudy tumult, protesting weakly against the gloom of the day. But the shop made its own false sunlight, despite an impressive accumulation of dust. I found the place repulsive, yet compelling, like a morally unkempt beauty in repose.
Behind the desk that bore the lamp an ancient fellow watched us make our way. He did not rise an inch until we closed on him. And when he rose his height hardly increased.
Lean as famine, the proprietor’s figure assumed the shape of a question mark, curved from mid-spine to the bottom of his skull. His face, sharp as a chevron, hunted upward from his body’s ruin, hardly rising enough for his eyes to find us. Yet, framed by white hair falling to his collar, those eyes held steady as the finest marksman’s. Blue they were, and impenetrable.
“But Monsieur Barnaby! Welcome!” he rasped in tainted English.
“Monsieur Beyle, your servant, sir, your servant! How many months and years, how many years … but may I present Major Abel Jones? Of the Federal persuasion? Pardon ’im if ’e don’t do a great deal of speaking, but ’e’s been through a terrible slaughter with Dr. Fielding.”
The proprietor turned uncanny eyes on me. Examining my person the way a Jew looks at a gemstone, revealing nothing of his swift assessment.
“A mirror for your wife, perhaps?” His voice had been scraped by time and beaten low. “A genuine Louis XV bedframe, Monsieur le Major? Perhaps the cloth-of-gold bedcover made expressly for the niece of the great Pompadour? A set of chairs that belonged to no less a man than the Bishop of Autun?”
“Major Jones is after something different,” Mr. Barnaby corrected him. “’E’s not at all the usual sort of Yankee and ain’t involved in selling cotton or contraband. ’E’s looking for a sword-cane, Monsieur Beyle. To replace one what ’e lost in a to-do.” My companion paused, then added, “The major’s to be trusted, sir. As certain as I’m Barnaby B. Barnaby.”
