“Why don’t we just take a stroll in the park?” she suggested. “ I think I’m too done in to make a decision just now anyway.”
The young man’s bored demeanor immediately transformed itself into a smile of genuine pleasure. He offered his arm to escort Evangeline away from the raucous commercial streets. “At your service, Miss LeClair, to the ends of the earth, if necessary.”
Smiling invitingly, the lady took the proffered arm, and the couple strolled toward the Lincoln Park Zoological Garden. “Oh, aren’t the flowers lovely.” She pointed to the rows of summer blooms that lined the walks. The conservatory, which housed a collection of exotic plants, stood to their left. Evangeline led in that direction with Roland, enthusiastically, in tow.
As they stepped into the humid, tropical air of the conservatory’s fernery, Evangeline pretended to notice for the first time the black armband that Roland wore over his coat sleeve as a grim reminder of his aunt’s death. It seemed entirely out of keeping with the rest of the apparel he had chosen—a light linen suit and a straw boater. The suit was expensive and carefully tailored. The shirt was raw silk and the sleeves studded with gold cufflinks. Evangeline speculated that if Roland had shown the same meticulous devotion to matters of business that he displayed in matters sartorial, he would be have been a millionaire in no time.
Indicating the armband, she said quietly, “I’m sorry about your aunt. Mr. Waxman said that Martin didn’t want you with him up in Shore Cliff.”
“Uncle didn’t seem to feel the need to have me nearby to console him in his time of sorrow.” There was a slight hint of sardonic humor in the youth’s voice. “He said he wanted me to keep an eye on the townhouse while he’s away. That’s just fine with me.”
“Aren’t you sorry your aunt is dead?” Evangeline deliberately kept her tone of voice casual.
Roland shrugged. “I’m sorry it was Miss Serafina who did her in. I heard she was arrested. Much too pretty to be a murderer.” He shook his head with regret. “Then again, auntie was all right, and it’s too bad that she’s the one who’s the dearly departed. It’s uncle I don’t much care for. He’s always going on about the family honor until I feel as if my head is going to explode. He’s a crashing bore.” Roland yawned languidly, no doubt remembering his last lecture from Martin on the subject. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Let’s talk about you.” Roland roguishly tilted his head to get a better look under Evangeline’s hat brim.
As she returned his gaze, Evangeline noticed an unruly lock of hair had escaped the confines of his boater and flopped over his right eyebrow. He looked all of eighteen. Summoning up whatever faint enthusiasm she could muster, Evangeline smiled. “And what could you possibly want to know about me?”
“What’s a lovely lady like you doing unattached? You know you could have your pick of any fellow in this city.”
“That’s very flattering, Roland, but just because I might have my pick, doesn’t mean I’m in any hurry to make a choice.”
“So much the better for me.” The youth smiled in self-satisfaction. “I’m still in the running.”
Evangeline decided not to set him straight on the matter of just how far out of the running he actually was. Instead, she maintained a tactful silence as they wandered through the ferns and palms and examined the celebrated fiddle-leaf rubber tree. Eventually, they found themselves at the entrance to the summer flower exhibit. The blooms were dazzling—a living rainbow of color. Red roses, shocking pink geraniums, and yellow marigolds all clamored greedily for the attention of the eye.
As they stepped through the door of the exhibit room, Roland paused and, without warning, snapped a sprig from a crimson hibiscus plant. Smiling jauntily, he handed it to Evangeline. “Allow me to present this as a tribute to your beauty.”
The lady looked at him reproachfully. “It hardly seems fitting to ruin one form of beauty to honor another, Roland.” She took the flower and placed the broken blossom back gently in the pot where it came from. “Besides, the gift wasn’t in your power to bestow, was it?”
Unfazed by the rebuke, Roland shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to find some other way to catch your fancy.”
Evangeline’s gaze swept appraisingly over her companion. “Serafina was certainly right about you. You like the ladies, don’t you?”
Roland threw back his head and laughed. “Like isn’t the right word, Miss LeClair.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Or may I call you Engie, the way Freddie does?”
Evangeline bit back the retort she would have preferred to make and responded evenly. “Of course you may call me Engie, if you like.”
Encouraged, Roland stepped closer and folded her arm under his to escort her forward. “Oh, I do like...” He squeezed her hand ever so slightly. “...Engie.”
Evangeline, incensed at his audacity, decided it was time to go in for the kill. “Did you also like Nora Johnson?”
Her words caught the youth off-guard. He stopped dead in his tracks, at a loss. “Nora? My God, I haven’t thought about her in weeks. Poor Nora.”
Evangeline simply stared at him. “You didn’t answer my question.”
For the first time, Roland seemed flustered. He looked at the ground. “Sure, I liked Nora just fine. Liked her so much, I think that’s why uncle fired me.”
“What?” Evangeline was taken by surprise. They resumed their walk through the flower exhibit. An artificial waterfall trickled somewhere in the distance. The scent of lilies hung heavily in the air.
“I told you how he was forever harping on about the family honor.” The youth rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I got a proper lecture about, how did he put it, ’forming an attachment beneath my station in life.’ Yes, those were his words. The pompous windbag!” Roland muttered the last sentence under his breath. “Well, I wasn’t about to give up the game just because uncle didn’t like my choice of lady friends, so I kept on seeing her until...”
“Until he fired you?”
The youth grinned ruefully. “That’s about the size of it, though he’d never admit that’s what he did or why he did it. He just found me a job with Waxman because he said he thought I could utilize my talents better elsewhere!”
“Did you continue to see Nora after you left Hyperion?”
At her question, Roland’s jaw became set. When he turned to stare directly at her, Evangeline thought she saw a dangerous challenge in his eyes. “Let me tell you something, Engie. I don’t like having my fun spoiled by anyone, especially not by him! I decide when it’s over, and it’s never over until I say so!” His eyes bored into her face with a ferocity that shocked Evangeline. The intensity lasted only a moment and then Roland caught himself. He shrugged and attempted a casual smile. “Besides, I couldn’t resist the urge to tweak the old goat’s whiskers!”
“What do you mean?”
Roland chuckled, apparently quite pleased with himself. “I mean that I kept on seeing her on the sly after I got my walking papers. She liked it at first, but then she started acting cold toward me. She said it would be better if we didn’t see each other anymore. She told me that just a few days before she had her... accident.”
He enunciated the last word with such pointed emphasis and precision that it startled Evangeline. The two had paused in the center of the summer exhibit, sunlight streaming down through the glass ceiling panels and intensifying the kaleidoscope of colors that surrounded them. The scene stood in jarring contrast to their conversation. Everywhere around them, flowers dazzled the eye with exuberant life, while she and Roland spoke of nothing but blighted hopes and death.
“Did you love her, Roland?”
The youth stretched lazily in the afternoon rays. “I’m always in love, Engie. I might even be falling in love right now.”
“I was asking about Nora.” Evangeline refused to be dissuaded from the topic.
“Ah yes, Nora. Poor little Nora. Not good enough for u
ncle. I’ll tell you one thing I know for sure. Nothing fuels a romance like somebody trying to keep you away from a girl! Even when Nora said goodbye, I wasn’t ready to end it. Just on principle.” He added angrily, half to himself, “I couldn’t let him win!”
Evangeline said nothing as the two resumed their promenade through the last of the floral exhibit.
“And here’s another thing,” Roland said, “if I didn’t know his veins were filled with ice, I’d almost think the old man wanted to keep her for himself.”
“What? You actually think Martin might have had designs on Nora?” Given the elder Allworthy’s horror of impropriety, Evangeline could scarcely credit the possibility.
Roland shrugged his shoulders. “He’d never admit it to me even if it was true. I’m not sure he could even admit it to himself. If auntie ever caught him mixed up with another woman, you can guess what would have happened!”
Emboldened by Roland’s apparent candor, Evangeline ventured into deeper waters. “Do you think Nora was murdered?”
The youth turned to stare directly at her. “Well now, there’s an interesting idea. It never crossed my mind before. Let’s see. Here, I’ve got it! Maybe uncle was so mad when he couldn’t stop me from seeing Nora that one night he just heaved her into the river. Do you suppose that’s how it went?” Roland’s eyes were a mask of calculated innocence as he posed the question.
Evangeline returned his gaze evenly. “Where were you the night she died, Roland?”
A sly expression distorted the youth’s features. He put a finger to his lips. “Shhhh, it’s a secret! Not supposed to tell.”
Evangeline hoped that baiting him might draw out the truth. “Perhaps it’s because you were the one who killed her.”
Roland snickered. “That’s a good one!” He seemed delighted at the thought. He leaned toward her and murmured in a low voice, “Would you like me better, Engie, if you thought I was dangerous?”
Evangeline made no response. She had begun to tap her foot impatiently.
Seeing that his question was not about to receive the favor of a reply, Roland relented. “Well, just so you won’t think the worst of me, I’ll give you a hint.” He leaned in even closer and whispered in her ear. “I was in a place no respectable lady should ever know about.”
Realizing how much amusement he was deriving from playing cat-and-mouse with her, Evangeline gave him a pained look and began to walk toward the exit of the conservatory. The humid air inside the greenhouse was oppressive. The moisture seemed to stick to her skin and weigh her down. It had become as cloying to her as Roland’s company. She stepped outdoors and drew in a deep breath of cool, dry air. The youth followed close behind. They made their way silently up the path that led from the park to Clark Street.
Seemingly apropos of nothing, Roland finally said, “You know, there’s a very clever fellow who set the poems of Edgar Allan Poe to music. One of them keeps running through my head right now. Let’s see if I remember it.” He hummed a few notes off-key until he could find his pitch. “That’s it.” He began to sing a dirgelike tune:
“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December
(or was it April?),
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow,
From my cards surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenora.
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenora. Nameless here for evermore.”
He stopped and looked at her to gauge the effect. “What do you think of that? Catchy, isn’t it?”
“Quite.” Evangeline was completely out of patience. By this time they were standing by the curb at Clark Street, and she was attempting to hail a cab to take her back home. His song had belatedly reminded her that she had a literature class to teach that evening at Mast House. Despite her investigation, she was trying to maintain her regular classes, but very little time remained to get to the townhouse, change clothes, and have Jack drive her to Polk Street.
Roland whistled sharply as a hack came into view. He handed her into the carriage and leaned in to say, “Good-bye, Engie. I’ll be seeing you again soon.” With a last rakish smile as he closed the carriage door, he whispered, “Quoth the raven evermore.”
***
Evangeline raced up the stairs to the second floor of the Mast mansion where the classrooms were located. She had wasted so much time with that idiot Roland that she was nearly late for her literature class. By the time she arrived breathless at the door of the classroom, several of her students were already seated and waiting for her. A chorus of greetings in Italian, Greek, Polish, Irish, and German began the minute she entered. She waved distractedly as she rushed to the chalk board to write her somewhat disjointed lecture outline and tried to regain her composure.
The class consisted of twenty students—boys and girls, men and women ranging in age from fifteen to sixty. Some had finished their grammar school education and were taking the class to learn more about literature. A few were still struggling with the basics of English and hoped that reading poetry and prose in their adopted language would improve their vocabulary. Most lived in the neighborhood surrounding Mast House, and all worked in the factories and slaughterhouses on the west and south sides of the city. The one trait they all shared was an intellectual tenacity that matched their physical stamina. Evangeline wondered if she would have had the energy to work a ten-hour shift in a factory and then travel on foot to attend an evening class in literature.
Breathing calmly at last, she turned away from the board to face her students. After taking a quick count of attendance, she consulted the clock on the wall, and launched into her lecture.
“Good evening, everyone.”
“Good evening, Meees LeClayer,” they all replied with enthusiasm. The pronunciation of her name suffered a variety of deformities in the process.
She opened a large volume on the desk before her. “As I mentioned last week, we’re going to begin a new phase of study with a literary form called the short story. The author I’ve chosen to illustrate this form is Mr. Edgar Allan Poe. He is credited with writing one of the first detective stories, and his lead was admirably followed by Mr. Wilkie Collins in England.”
Many of her students looked at her blankly. Realizing she was moving beyond their depth, she smiled and retraced her steps to a more literal, if not literary, level. “We’re going to start with the story I assigned you to read this week. It is called ‘The Purloined Letter,’ in which Mr. Poe introduces a very clever man who solves a mystery. For those of you who have read the story, can anyone tell me the name of the detective?” Several hands shot up in the air.
“Mr. Rosetti, would you like to try?” Evangeline pointed to an older man seated in the back row who deemed it appropriate to rise before answering.
“Yes, Signora. I know this name. It is C. Augustus..., C. Augustus... Il mio dio! Un momento...” Mr. Rosetti began to mumble to himself, apparently running through an extensive catalog of alternatives before selecting one.
“Un momento, Signora! Conosco questa parola. I know this name. It sound like a beega feesh.”
“A what?” Evangeline had lost whatever phonetic association Mr. Rosetti was trying to make.
“Si, si. Now I remember. It sound like a... a... come dite! How you say... like a dolphin. The name, it is C. Augustus Dolphin.”
Evangeline smiled. “Oh, I see, Mr. Rosetti. Even though your etymological reference may not be entirely accurate, I can’t help but admire your unorthodox mnemonic technique.”
“Che cosa, Signora?” Despite reading Poe, Mr. Rosetti’s English vocabulary did not extend easily to five-syllable words.
Evangeline smiled again as she explained to her bewildered pupil, “In short, sir, you’ve come quite close.”
She wrote on the board, “C. Auguste Dupin,” at the same time pronouncing the name: “See Awgoost Doopan.” When she turned back round to face the class,
Evangeline could see several students silently mouthing the words.
“Very good, Mr. Rosetti.” The man was still standing and beaming proudly at his classmates. “You may take your seat now. Can anyone tell me what the story is about?”
Several hands shot up in response to her question. “Yes, Jan.” Evangeline pointed to a Polish boy seated near the door.
“This story, it is about a letter that is stolen, yet I think it does not look stolen.”
“Excellent! Exactly the point. The letter has been stolen, but concealed in a place where no one would think to look. Can anyone tell me where that is?”
“Why, miss, it’s right there under their bloomin’ noses,” replied an Irish boy seated in the front row. At that response, the entire class laughed.
“Right again. Thank you, Sean. And what point is Mr. Poe trying to make, do you think?”
Everyone fell silent. Evangeline waited a few seconds before giving them the answer. “It’s all about perception, isn’t it? When you expect to see a certain thing in a certain place, you don’t pay any attention to it at all, do you? It’s very easy to trick the mind into thinking a thing is one way when, in fact, it’s just the reverse. Do you see?” A few heads nodded slowly.
“It isn’t what we know that trips us up. It’s what we think we know, that isn’t so. It’s as if...”
Evangeline cut herself short as a new thought struck her. She furrowed her brow and began flipping through the pages of The Collected Prose And Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe on her desk.
“A moment, if you please,” she muttered. Finally locating the page she wanted, she scanned it feverishly. “Aha!” she exclaimed in triumph, poking at the text for emphasis. “Exactly as I thought! It’s what we think we know, that isn’t so.”
She slammed the book shut and leaned forward over her desk to gaze out at the perplexed sea of faces before her. “Quoth the raven, indeed!”
“Che cosa, Signora?” Mr. Rosetti asked timidly from the back row.
Chapter 20—Flat Notes
Shrouded In Thought (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 2) Page 20
