The School of Night

by Louis Bayard

  The whole way back they are silent. And, to speak plain, there is nothing about the Syon House landing that should loosen their tongues. Not a single torch to light their way, for the Earl of Northumberland and the rest of his household fled hours ago. No hope of finding Harriot’s cottage in the dark. The two travelers must take their lodging where they stand. Where they fall. Straight into the cool, wet, waiting grass.

  From there it is a matter of seconds until they fall into each other. And is that not both meet and right? Have they not rolled the dice against death and won?

  In their elation, they lie newly revealed to each other. All the thrill of their first meetings comes back trebled. The subsiding is as exquisite as the joining. The world has left them alone.

  —Virginia, he murmurs.

  Even in the dark, he can see the color rising to her skin.

  —Don’t, Tom.

  —But I love it.

  —It was my father’s notion. He dreamed of presenting me to the queen one day. It was silly of him.…

  He puts a finger to her lips. Kisses the hollow just above her collarbone.

  —Virginia.

  * * *

  He wakes to find the dew on his face. A butterfly is descending in spirals. In the meadows, a rabbit is chewing blackberries. Swans rock on the water. From the west comes the sound of a lute. She is sleeping on his arm. Harriot envies no one.

  * * *

  With the Gollivers discharged, the cottage is now entirely theirs. They plunge into bed, doze on and off through the morning. After lunch, Margaret gets up and draws water from the well, heats it in the kitchen hearth. She tears off her shift and, with a glad heart, sets to scrubbing London off her.

  One thing won’t scrub away: a smudge of soot on her left shoulder, about the width of a silver penny. Weirdly resilient, no matter how hard she goes at it.

  She touches it with her finger. Not soot at all, but something rising up within. Something that wasn’t there last night.

  Her skin runs cold all the way down to the feet. But the cry she hears is not her own. Harriot is standing at the kitchen door, staring at the token on her shoulder.

  In the next second, he has dropped straight to his knees, and the sobs are exploding from him in an unbroken sequence. She has to wrap herself around him for fear he will burst.

  * * *

  The fever comes on that night. Comes on hard and breaks just as hard. She alternates between hugging the coverlet to her and throwing it off in a fury. And he … what more can he do than moisten or dry her brow, as needed, coo in her ear, assure her she will be well … soon … soon.…

  And when her entire body begins to buck and thrash like a demoniac’s, he holds her until she is spent, then lays her back on her pillow.

  Her neck and groin and underarms are wells of agony now. Knives rasp beneath her skin. His most glancing touch has become a torture. Everything he would do, he cannot. Even the syrup of poppy he gives her for pain is vomited up in short measure. She writhes and wails, she wets her garments, she tears holes in the linen … his helplessness only thickens around him.

  If only it had been me, he thinks. How much stronger she would have been.

  * * *

  He used to have closely reasoned theories on the plague. While at Oxford, he concluded that dust-laden wind, coupled with field smoke and putrefying earth, created an unwholesome atmosphere that, under the impress of severe heat, erupted into poison.

  In later years, struck by the cyclical nature of the pestilence, he began to turn his attention to astrological causes. The previous January, he spent three days attempting to link plague outbreaks to conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter in Sagittarius.

  How arid and useless these abstractions prove in the hour of need. Theory gives way before practice: the changing of dressings, the washing of sheets, the mopping up of vomit and bile and blood.

  How little he has ever known.

  * * *

  The black tokens spread across her body like tiny footprints. He tries every remedy he has ever heard of: peeled onions around the bed; oranges and cloves; garlic, butter, and salt. He mops her skin with rosewater. He burns treacle, tar, old shoes. He dips a red-hot brick in a basin of vinegar. He makes a small pyre of juniper and bay leaves and carries it in a chafing dish from room to room.

  There is no suggestion he wouldn’t entertain. If a quack were to stop by with armfuls of dragon water and angelica root, Harriot would buy up every last vial. And when his supplies ran dry, he would take up a musket and hunt down the nearest unicorn.

  * * *

  She screams without any awareness of being watched. And when she is done, she doesn’t fall asleep as he hopes but waits, glassy and shivering and impatient, for the next round.

  One night, she mistakes him for the cartman, actually makes a wall with her hands and shoves him out of the bed. When he tries to get back in, she rises up, white-faced, and begs him:

  —Drive on … Not yet …

  On the morning of the third day, her delirium fades enough that she is able to sit up and take sips of purging beer. Her face is a burnished blue-white, like a block of marble hammered on through the night.

  —Paper …

  He grabs the sheet closest to hand. The letter that has lain atop his papers all these days, still waiting to be packed. He never looks to see who the author is. He simply turns it over and places it in her lap and dips the quill in the ink.…

  And waits.

  Her hand hovers over the page. And then, as though she were taking the letters straight out of the air, she scrawls a single word:

  pneuma

  The pen falls to the floor. She will write no more, but she has told him all he needs to know.

  Strange to imagine that their thoughts, under cover of darkness, should have been migrating in the same direction. Or is it that, with this single ray of light, she has managed to align their courses?

  The pneuma. The spark of original creation that lies at the heart of all things and can never be extinguished. Surely, in the moment of dying, that spark, freed of its clay, will hang suspended—if only for a second. Surely, a skilled alchemist can lay hands on it, claim it, transmute it into the pure and true and eternal, cheating death of its prize.

  Surely, if a man is to save a woman, that is the way to do it.

  He kneels by her bed. He presses his wet, wet cheek against her hand.

  —I am not ready to send you on, Margaret. I would have you here. With me.

  Speaking is an ordeal for her, but he needs her to speak. One last time. And so she opens her parched lips and whispers:

  —Tom … you must.…

  * * *

  The apparatus is much as she left it. The racks. The pans and pots. The clay-luted glass. The coals, the stones.

  One last survey he makes. Then, with sinking steps, he goes to her.

  He lifts her from the bed, groaning not at her weight but at the truly terrible lightness of her. Carries her to the laboratory and sets her on the straw mattress. Her old pallet, smuggled down from the attic.

  He takes his position by the brazier. He lights the coals, watches the flame gather and rise. Much as he has seen her do, much as he himself was wont to do.

  His brain heaves with terror. Streaks of sweat have formed across his brow and neck. He has wandered out of his province; he feels that now. A transformation like this cannot be effected by a natural philosopher. He must make himself a priest.

  Reflexively he bows his head … only to hear Ralegh’s jesting voice circle back to him.

  And to whom are you praying, Tom?

  I don’t know.

  What, then, is your prayer?

  I don’t know.

  The only words that come to him, finally, are the ones he printed on her ring. The ring that wobbles now like a loose wheel on the fifth finger of her left hand. It was his assurance that nothing could ever be fully lost. Whatever was, is. Whatever is, will be.

  A lie! For, with each
second, she is more lost to him. He kneels alongside her. Feels the pulse fading, beat by beat, from her wrists. Watches the eyes subside into an enameled glaze. Listens to the intervals of silence, longer and longer, between each rasp.

  —Margaret …

  She is silent.

  —Margaret!

  Stunned, he lurches to his feet, gazes wildly about him. She is here. All around him. Waiting for him.

  Hurriedly, he throws the lapis stones in the copper pan.

  “Ex nihilo…”

  He lights the tallow flame beneath the copper.

  “… nihil…”

  He listens to the stones crackle into life.

  “… fit.”

  A pewter mist billows up, then resolves into a powder. The air grows heavy with current. Harriot thrusts up his hands and roars. Four centuries later, he is roaring.…

  WASHINGTON, D.C. AUTUMN 2009

  51

  THIS IS WHAT I saw.

  A large man with rounded shoulders walking up the back stairs of the Cathedral Arms. Wearing sunglasses and, unusual for a summer day, a knit stocking cap. Moving slowly, almost ruminatively, his left hand trailing after him on the stair rail.

  All in all, he took up no more than three seconds of the jerky, shadow-swamped security-camera footage. Detective August Acree, by contrast, was a far more substantial figure. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Now I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Wax,” he said, pushing his laptop across the desk to me. “So I want you to take another look and let me know what you think.”

  “What I think?”

  “I’d like to know if this particular gentleman resembles Alonzo Wax.”

  I pursed my lips. Leaned forward and made a show of studying that shape-shifting form.

  “Oh, you know what?” I said. “I can see why you thought it might be.”

  “You can, right?”

  “He’s roughly the same size.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “As for the rest…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, looking at the various particulars, I’d have to say definitely no.”

  “Particulars.”

  “See, I’m looking at his face right now. I mean, what you can see of it. It’s a little rounder than Alonzo’s. And he just—he moves differently, too. More of a rolling gait.”

  “Rolling.”

  “And the hands and a lot of little things, really. I don’t know what to tell you, Detective, I’ve known Alonzo a long time, and this isn’t him.”

  “Best you can tell.”

  “Given the—you know, quality of the image.”

  “Would you mind looking again?”

  “Sure, I’d be happy to, it’s just … yeah … no. I really don’t think so.”

  Detective Acree leaned back in his chair. Steepled his hands under his chin.

  “Mr. Wax’s sister,” he said, offhandedly. “We showed it to her, too.”

  “Is that so?”

  I was conscious now of entering a slightly steeper gradient. Conscious, too, of the three beta blockers I’d swallowed before coming here.

  “What did she tell you?” I asked.

  “She took one look and said, Don’t be ridiculous. Said, My brother’s dead.”

  “Ah.”

  Detective Acree stroked that luxuriant mustache of his, so at odds with the small-gauge eyes.

  “Do you want to take one more look, Mr. Cavendish?”

  “No. Really. I’m sure.”

  “Well, okay.”

  We stood up. I half extended my hand. His arm didn’t budge.

  “Appreciate your time,” he said.

  “Happy to do it.”

  “How was your trip?”

  “My trip.”

  “England, I think it was.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It went well?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Good.”

  No nod. No formal dismissal. One second, he was looking at me; the next, he was turning away.

  I watched him open his desk drawer and pull out a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes. He didn’t light them, just weighed them in his palm, like a bag of gold dust. A window, I thought, into August Acree’s shitty job.

  “Detective,” I said.

  He raised his unsurprisable eyes to mine.

  “If you want to know what I believe,” I said, “I believe Alonzo Wax drowned. I don’t believe he’s coming back.”

  * * *

  Being intelligent and occupationally suspicious, Detective Acree might have made a point of calling up that day’s London papers. But would he have paused over the accounts of an unidentified man throwing himself from Kew Bridge? Would he have guessed Alonzo Wax would use the same exit strategy twice?

  The body had yet to be found, according to police reports, and the eyewitness details were contradictory enough to leave the reporter with no more than two hundred words for his efforts.

  As for the other story—well, this, too, took up far fewer column inches than I would have guessed. Syon House had been broken into, no question, but the building staff made a point of declaring that nothing had been taken. All that was left to write about was the dismantling of the alarm system and the hole in the northwest tower and a mysterious crater blown in the old abbey wall—not a word about who had done any of this or why. Or the dead bodies that had been left behind.

  Which left two possibilities: Either the London police were deliberately withholding any mention of homicides … or, to the list of Clarissa’s talents, I would now have to add corpse disposal.

  And if that were the case, how did she manage it? Moving Halldor alone would have taken half a day. Despite a broken nose and possible concussion, she had somehow wiped the crime scene clean and spirited herself away. So cleanly that when the news of Bernard Styles’s disappearance broke three days later, Clarissa Gordon was among the very first to be interviewed.

  The news stories identified her variously as aide, assistant, and consultant, but whatever the job title, she struck the same note. “It’s completely baffling” (The Guardian). “We’re obviously very concerned” (The Times). “We haven’t given up hope” (The Telegraph). She was politic to the end, but the real proof of her delicacy lay in the sentence that uniformly concluded each article: “Police still have no leads.”

  It was more than I had dared to imagine. After everything had transpired, could I really have escaped without so much as a traffic citation?

  By now, I figured, Clarissa would have gone through Styles’s electronic files, erased any mentions of the School of Night or the Ralegh letter, deleted incriminating phone records … wiped the history clean. There were times I wished she could wipe me clean, too. The ghosts in my head—Styles and Halldor and Amory and Lily and Alonzo—all made for pretty thoughtless tenants. Some nights, it was a real racket. And no one but me to hear it.

  * * *

  In late October, I received a special-delivery envelope from Dominion Guaranty. Inside was a check, made out in my name. In the amount of $3,400,062.

  I set it on my side table and stepped away, as though it were actually ticking. Then I took out my cell phone and called the Dominion help line.

  “You are Henry Cavendish, are you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this is your Social Security number?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then there can be no mistake, sir. You are the designated insurance beneficiary for Mr. Alonzo Wax. The lump sum in question is the estimated fair-market value of Mr. Wax’s collection.”

  Mr. Wax’s collection.

  Alonzo’s missing books. Missing, too, from my thoughts all these days and weeks. Coming home at last to roost.

  “So this is for real?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I had gone so far as to place the check in my hand. I could actually feel the numerals pressing through the paper.

  “Will there be anything else, Mr.
Cavendish?”

  “No.”

  * * *

  I slept poorly that night. The next morning, I went to Peregrine Coffee and, feeling slightly extravagant, ordered a three-shot latte with a fleur-de-lis of scalded milk on top and sat outside in my sweater, hunched over my mug, listing all the reasons I had for keeping the money.

  1. Alonzo was dead. For real this time.

  2. I had never asked to be his beneficiary.

  3. I had played no part in the disappearance of his collection. Had known nothing of it. Had never once imagined I would benefit from it.

  4. I had no idea where the collection currently was and no idea of how to find it. The only people who did know were dead.

  Seen strictly in legal terms, my claim seemed secure. As for extralegal considerations … wouldn’t Alonzo have wanted me to have the money? Me above all others?

  Which is where my house of ethics came crumbling down. For if this was truly what Alonzo had wished, how could I square it with what was good and just?

  I emptied my cup, set it on the table a little harder than I should have. And then I watched as the chair on the other side of the table moved away.

  Moved by itself, or so I thought, until I saw the small hand resting on top of it.

  Clarissa Gordon—Dale, as was—in her car coat. Pale and drawn but also quickened by autumn, her lips redder, the black of her eyes richer.

  “Is this seat taken?” she asked.

  52

  BUT THE SITTING part didn’t work too well: We didn’t have enough shelter from each other. So we got up and took a walk.

  The weather was much cooler than the last time we’d strolled across Capitol Hill. The sun was small and mellow; only the maples were blazing. And yet, just as before, Clarissa stopped after a couple of blocks.

  “Mind if we sit down now, Henry?”

  She didn’t seem remotely tired.

  “Um … I don’t see any…”

  “How about there?”

  She pointed to a tiny stone bench with carved animal curlicues, sitting in front of an old farmhouse. It was one of those benches you picture your kids sitting on during long July afternoons, laughing, drinking lemonade, forming memories. Only you know they never will.