The Vespertine

by Mitchell, Saundra

  "The ginger's grated," she said. She had no guile to her, just a frigid stiffness.

  "I've got apples." I lifted my polonaise in uneasy reply.

  She very nearly let me by, but at the last caught my elbow. "I thought I heard laughter in the yard."

  "It must have been the wind," I said.

  And truly, was that a lie?

  Eighteen

  A GREAT CRY WENT UP in Eutaw Place that morning. One that seemed to go on endlessly, echoing in agonies that spread from house to house as a plague. It reached our doorstep in the shape of Thomas Rea, whose countenance came so gray we thought he might expire at the door.

  "I need your father," he told Zora, brushing past her as he had never done, his eyes this once in search of someone besides his beloved. "I'm sorry to call so early."

  Grasping his arms, Zora tried to catch him and keep him. "Thomas, what's the matter?"

  "I need your father," he repeated. He pulsed with low urgency, and all but leaped at Mr. Stewart when he came around from the kitchen. Pulling him aside, he stole glances toward us, then had the gall to lower his voice.

  Zora trembled beside me, clutching the ribbons of her housedress and skittering up two steps with me when her mother appeared and joined the frantic conversation in the hall.

  "Oh, mercy," Mrs. Stewart said, then became her brusque self again, pushing both gentlemen to the door. "Breakfast can wait. I'll save a plate in the warmer, go on, go on."

  Thomas apologized again and threw one thin and anxious look in Zora's direction as he opened the door. But he said nothing to her. Neither did Mr. Stewart, who put his best coat over his shirtsleeves and left the house without a wink orajestor even a smile.

  The moment the door closed, Zora and I spilled into the parlor.

  "Mama!" Zora cried, our bare feet clapping against the kitchen floor. "Mama, what's all this?"

  Mrs. Stewart turned from the basin, smoothing wet hands over her face. There could be no mistake that she'd tried to blanch away tears. Her eyes were already red with them, her voice thick. "Sarah's taken a turn."

  A cold, iron bolt set my spine. "Is she ill?"

  When her mother said nothing, Zora slapped a hand on the table. The sharp sound startled all of us, for a ripple passed between us as Zora asked, "Mama, is she ill?"

  "It's a terrible pain she's been in," Mrs. Stewart said. Gathering herself, she held a hand out to take Zora in. Yet she spoke not, not until I had come into her arms as well. I trembled on the edge of crying now, just knowing that no good could come of this.

  "Please just say it, Mama."

  "The bottle said two tablespoons," Mrs. Stewart said. All ragged hell played in her voice, catching and clicking as she tried to wheeze out the rest of it. "She took it all."

  Zora cried out, a raw pain that ground into the bones. She clutched her mother's gown, sobbing into her shoulder. Grief so took her that she swayed the three of us. Every cry rocked into me, every heaving, gasping breath reverberated across my skin.

  "She doesn't suffer anymore," Mrs. Stewart said, emotion unraveling her again.

  In my numb horror, I stood still and stiff, as if I could escape an awful truth by hiding from it. But an awareness crept on me, a black thought winding like miasma to cloud my mind. I forced myself to speak, asking rather than guessing, because I prayed to be wrong. "What use is a lawyer to any of them?"

  Some of Mrs. Stewart's sternness returned. Slowly, carefully, she answered, for it was a direct question she could hardly dismiss. "Emily Holbrook's sent for the police. She says the prescription is to blame."

  "Oh, my poor Thomas," Zora cried, dissolving again. "His father is all he has!"

  Quickly, I wrapped my arms around Zora from behind. I wanted to be there to catch her, to squeeze her, to carry her to the ground when the poisoned thought that rose to my mind spilled from Mrs. Stewart's lips.

  "They're coming for Thomas, my duck. He wrote the prescription."

  ***

  As if mocking our tragedy, the sky refused to give up its startling clarity for mourning or burying. It relented not when the white crepe was hung to signify her death nor as our procession carried us through the heart of the city to Greenmount Cemetery.

  Summer seemed determined to see Sarah Holbrook buried in her own colors: golden, bronze, blue.

  Though I was family in abstract, I was only barely so. Thus, once we left our carriage, I let Zora go with her parents to the front and humbly excused myself to the back. I would have ample chance to give my regrets—but it was none my place to do it before even a single relation.

  When I finally did reach the casket, I laid my pretty bundle of delphiniums among the rest and pressed a kiss to the pewter plate that read At Rest. With a fortifying breath, I made myself look into the window above it. All those who said a body in death looked very like that dear friend in life spoke in lies.

  Though I recognized Sarah's face, it was quite clear she no longer lived behind it. They had disguised her well, turning her face away to hide her wound, fitting her with a veiled hat to wear for eternity. But she seemed almost melted. Not so much as to be deformed, but distinctly pulled toward the ground that would soon embrace her.

  Hurrying away, I couldn't be surprised when Nathaniel came to stand beside me. It was a voiceless comfort, without a sideward glance even in greeting—a single mark to prove I stood not entirely alone. Stripped of all color and gesture, we simply rested very near each other.

  But even that drew attention. Caleb, in his black hat band, and rummy as the rest of the pallbearers, took sight of us and interrupted the hymn.

  "Why don't you cry, Miss van den Broek?" Even across uncertain ground, and reeking of whiskey, Caleb walked fine and straight—and right to me. "Have your tears all been used up?"

  The blood in my veins thinned, running hot and fast. Clinging to my composure, I said, low, "Caleb, please."

  A tight and furious beast, Caleb stalked to me directly. "Surely you've had time aplenty to grieve, given your talents. "

  He spat that word at me. Beside me, Nathaniel hardened, but I splayed my hand, brushing his, warning him back. If Caleb ran his rawness out, then it would be done, and no more harm could come of it.

  Swallowing to clear my throat, I whispered to him, "I am so sorry for your loss."

  "Are you laughing?" Caleb threw up his hands, very like a ringmaster. My hope dissipated when he raised his voice, letting it carry above all assembled. There could be no ignoring the disturbance now. "Witness, everyone, the culmination of a prophet's wit!"

  Nathaniel stepped in, reaching for Caleb to still him. "You've come undone in your grief, sir. I beg you come with me."

  "Who are you to me?" Caleb shoved Nathaniel aside. Then he turned to me. Clamping hard hands on my arms, he seemed oblivious to the gasp risen up behind him—and, truth, I feared the crowd's shock would not save me.

  Caleb shook me hard. "Aren't you clever, Miss van den Broek, that you promised nothing, and no thing this is, indeed! Do You laugh at me?!"

  "I don't, I never—Caleb, I'm sorry!"

  Nathaniel crashed into Caleb, sending them both in a black tumble to the ground. My sobs turned to a scream, the imprint of hard hands upon me aching, every muscle in my body begging to collapse. In the chaos, I couldn't tell where one fist began, where the other ended.

  At last, they both terminated when Wills and Mr. Stewart pulled them apart. Caleb twisted as a rabid dog in Wills' arms, heaving with hard breath. Wiping blood from his mouth, Nathaniel murmured something to Mr. Stewart and made as if to walk away.

  Incensed, Caleb rose up like vengeance. Breaking from Wills' grasp, he struck once more, visiting his retribution on me. Oblivious to all, he ripped my lace sleeves and threw me down. Against the burning sky, he towered over me.

  Instinctively, I cowered against a blow I expected to come. Instead, this shadow spat at the ground and asked, "Are you laughing now?"

  Through my tears, I couldn't make out the men who drag
ged him off. And I barely knew that it was Nathaniel and another unknown to me who helped me to my feet. I swayed there, tattered and ashamed, burning under horrified scrutiny. I cast a look into the crowd to find one friendly face, or to at least make my first apologies to Zora, but I stopped in the middle of them, burned by blue eyes that, without tears, simply stared.

  A scarlet flush touched Mattie's cheeks, and then she turned away in silence.

  ***

  "I wish you'd stop apologizing," Zora said. She looked into the armoire, distracted as though she had come to it in search of something but couldn't recall what.

  Of course, I knew, and gently I brushed her aside to take out my cambric walking suit. It felt unreasonably heavy in my arms; it took great effort to lay it on the bed to be folded. By reflex, I replied, "I'm sorry," then shook my head. "Hand me the paper, would you?"

  Lost as she searched the room, Zora finally came upon the tissue in the chair and offered it to me. "I shouldn't know what to do with myself, now that you're going."

  "It's almost a weekyet you have me."

  Zora sighed. "Such that it is."

  Though yet another apology rose to my lips, I swallowed it. Folding the checked polonaise, I said instead, "I'm sorry I can't stay."

  The emptiness played endlessly between us. With the funeral done, Zora still moved as if beneath water, restlessly to the window, and then to the armoire again, making herself busy with walking. I wore myself out laying gowns, then paper, then gowns again in my trunk.

  A tap came at the door, and Mrs. Stewart let herself in. Even she had been hollowed—though she stood straight, yes, I could not imagine this woman pleasantly threatening a dock boy or driving her victoria like a charioteer.

  "I thought you might want these as souvenirs," she said. She held up the box of calling cards, and then put it beside my trunk. Slipping out again, she pulled the door only hard enough to make it bounce against the jamb, leaving it ajar in her wake.

  Zora reached into the box. "Alexis Stafford," she read, then added quietly. "I don't believe we ever had the chance to call on her."

  "I don't remember."

  "I know we never saw this one, Juniper Quisling? What an odd name."

  The shape and sound of that teased my ear. A brief, vague flash struck me, Burned by oil, and I raised Zora's hand to look at the back of the card. There, my handwriting confirmed my memory, a three-word prediction scribbled in pencil as a storm parted.

  "What?" Zora asked, then turned the card over. Her eyes widened.

  Pressing her lips together, she pulled another card from the box, reading one side, then the other. When she did, I hurried to the armoire, for that box was short a card, one I'd slipped first into my polonaise and then into an accidentally stolen glove.

  I couldn't be sure how many cards she had read as I stood there with Thomas' in my hands. I only knew—I only wondered, did she mean it, truly, when she said she would have no future seen for her? Squeezing the glove tight, I crushed the card in my grip.

  "When did you do this?" Zora asked.

  "The afternoon when you sat in with your aunt," I said, turning around. "There's one missing from the lot."

  "Just one?"

  If it were any other day, it seemed she might be amused at the specificity. How I hated to ruin that, but how much more would I hate myself should this prediction bear out like the others—should I have known the number of her heart's days and hidden it from her.

  "It's Thomas'. Would You have it?"

  With a delicate touch, Zora steadied herself. "Will I like it?"

  Heat spread cross my chest, burning beneath the charm that pricked at my throat. I wanted to say aloud, No! No! but I could only shake my head. Zora's figure smeared in my sight, and I fought hard to hold my tears. I couldn't cry. I wasn't entitled to cry, when I was that thing that caused the harm.

  When she came toward me, I thought she meant to take it. Instead, she kissed my cheek, then squeezed my shoulder as she passed. "Bear it alone. I love him, come what may."

  The door caught when she closed it, and I wept.

  ***

  "We can't celebrate it, but it's good news all the same," Mrs. Stewart said over supper. She doled out slices of pigeon pie with a fierce efficiency, quick to take up her own silverware as if urging us to hurry. "Mrs. Holbrook will come to understand that."

  "Have you asked Dr. Rea?" Zora held her knife and fork, a motion at eating a dinner she didn't intend to touch. Drawn and shadowed, she'd had little but tea and toast for days.

  "That's why it's leftovers," Mrs. Stewart said. "He'll be waiting for us at six o'clock."

  Cutting tiny bites of my pie, I wondered if there might be any way I could escape this. Though I wanted very much to be a party to Thomas' release from jail, driving the victoria straight into sunset terrified me.

  Since Sarah's funeral, I strayed from windows at the first set of light; I busied my hands with mending the last pieces that needed packing before my departure that week-end. Prophecy did none a service, and I refused its practice. Like an open wound on my thigh, I carried Thomas' card with me always, a reminder of what would come. A reminder that my portents blew nothing but ill.

  "They're a good sort, those detectives." Mr. Stewart broke a bit of crust with his fingers, a failure of courtesy he never would have made if we had no appointment to meet before us. "Said they shouldn't have arrested the boy at all. Had Emily listened to them that morning..."

  Humming, Mrs. Stewart finished her lemon water, then sat back. "Mr. Pemberton and Mr. Bayles were quite plain about it. Badly written instructions or no, you cannot mistake an entire bottle for two tablespoons."

  Chair legs squealed against the floor, and Zora took to her feet. She more than any was torn in this but put her napkin aside and summoned her grace. "I should like to change before we go. Excuse me."

  "Zora," Mrs. Stewart called, abandoning her seat to follow.

  Left alone with Mr. Stewart, I fished desperately for something to say. "Do you think I should stay behind to close the house?"

  "I think offering your friendship to young Mr. Rea would be more useful." His gentle voice rolled with the words, and I was struck again at how very between them Zora was, half spitfire, half teasing elegance. Did he see it, I wondered, when he looked at her? Had Mrs. Holbrook seen resemblances when gazing on Sarah?

  But I accepted his answer as counsel, and that's how I came to sit in the fore seat of the victoria with my eyes clamped shut. Like Nathaniel's gaze on me, I felt the sun slipping down to dusk. It came like a warm rain, cascading over me and dripping off as the moments passed. When the last glimmer of it drained away, only then did I look about.

  "Thomas," Zora cried, and nearly jumped from the carriage before it stopped.

  She took neither hand nor consideration of the public street when she threw herself into his arms. And dash propriety, he folded around her. Pressing his temple to hers, he swept her up, at last turning to mouth a kiss against her cheek.

  They fit so exactly that none protested, and, indeed, the parents three kept apace for a moment to give them their reunion. They fit so exactly that none at all seemed troubled when Thomas said to her, as we drove back toward Reservoir Hill, "When we are married, I think we should consider Annapolis for ourselves."

  "Close enough to visit," Zora said, without finishing the refrain that it was far enough away, as well. Gossip, unless very rich in blood, tended to dissipate on the road.

  The drone of the horses' hooves lulled as darkness descended. It was not so very far from the station house to Division Street, and evening came on a pleasant breeze. It seemed a good number of lights brightened when we parked in front of the Reas' door, but people were good enough to espy us from indoors instead of out.

  Caught in the moment, I spilled onto the walk before them, swirling out of their path as I asked, "You'll invite me, won't you?"

  "Shhh," Zora said, shaking her head. "We can't even think of it until mourning's done."


  She was right, of course. And reminded me still of the future in my pocket. That coming September bore into me—which September? It could be ten yet, or twenty—it could be the last ashen September of their old age together.

  It drove me to distraction, caught like a bone in my throat. I thought on it a moment. Mayhaps Zora chose ignorance, and I wouldn't be the one to sway her. But maybe Thomas would not. I clasped my hands together, then offered them to Thomas once Mrs. Stewart set him free.

  Leaning in, as if to murmur congratulations to him, I said, "Quick, would you know your future?"

  But nothing came quick to Thomas. He lifted his head and made the most curious face. It spoke of nothing, save realization.

  "Down, Amelia," he said.

  And the best gentlemen of all of them put his hands on me. Called me by my given name! He grabbed me—right on the street, before Zora and her parents, and I wanted to protest!

  An explosion came greater than thunder. Strange, astringent fire reflected in Thomas' eyes. In my confusion, I was mortified. Why would Thomas do such a thing? Why would he fall on me like a beast, and...

  Then, slowly, I realized. I lay beneath him on the walk while his light and his breath drained out. I felt death weigh him, making him stone across my breast. His blood didn't splash on me—it seeped into me, through my gown, into my skin, until it stained me irrevocably.

  And worst of all, the thing that echoed on was not the shot nor the silver peal of Zora's screaming. It was the words I heard in that last moment before the fire. A cold voice that I finally understood.

  "Are you laughing now, Amelia?"

  ***

  "We're searching for him," one man said.

  "It's going to take some time yet, I'm afraid," another said.

  Arms slung around myself, I stood on the back porch and stared numbly into the dark. I had met Thomas first through peeks at this yard. There was his line for laundry; there, his block for chopping wood. There, all still there, and he would never come back to it.