The Staircase (17 page)

I sat away from the other girls, near the hearth. In my lap, under my embroidery hoop, was Cleo, playfully swiping at my thread with her paws.

Upon entering the room, the other girls had put their noses in the air and shunned me. Exactly as they had threatened. Now they were supposed to be doing their beadwork, but instead they were whispering. I pretended not to hear. At first it was all about the shooting of Ramon Baca. They were
taken with the goriness of it, the drama. Of the fact that Delvina had been wed to such a man.

"I wonder what he did with all that money he stole," Rosalyn mused.

"Maybe it's hidden at the fort," Lucy conjectured.

I looked up. "There is no money buried at the fort. I go there all the time," I said.

Ramona nudged Consuello. "Did you hear something just now?"

"It was likely a gnat in your ear," Consuello told her.

"Maybe we'll get up a party," Lucy suggested, "and go look for the money at the fort."

"When?" Rosalyn asked. "You know what we have planned for this week. We'll have all we can do with fasting and praying to Saint Joseph."

"That's right." Elinora spoke. "Fasting and praying come first. And getting our petition signed tomorrow to give to my uncle."

They started whispering about the petition then.

"We must write it tonight and have everyone sign it tomorrow," Elinora was saying. "And we must fast tonight. Refuse to take food at supper. If anyone has any treats sent from home, hoard them. We don't have to really starve. Just give the appearance of it."

"Will your uncle accept a petition?" Lucy asked.

"He has to," Elinora assured them. "When the other girls stop eating, he'll have a crisis on his hands. Some of these girls are from important families. Their people give money to the school and convent."

My heart was beating like a drum.
Poor Bishop Lamy,
I thought. He might have fixed churches that were in disrepair
when he first came to Santa Fe, brought in badly needed priests and organized the diocese of Santa Fe, which took in all of New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of west Texas and Colorado, but he did not know what an adversary he had in his grandniece. I felt sorry for him.

Just then Elinora leaned forward to whisper something in Lucy's ear. Lucy leaned forward, too, and some of the beads fell off her lap and rolled across the floor.

Immediately Cleo jumped off my lap and pounced on them, racing about and scattering them all over the floor.

"Oh! She has a kitten in here! Everyone knows that isn't allowed!" Rosalyn was on her feet in an instant. She picked up Cleo by the back of her neck and suspended her in midair.

"Give her to me!" I stood up.

"No," Elinora ordered. "Hand her over here."

Rosalyn handed Cleo over to her.

"She's mine! The Bishop gave her to me! Give me my cat!"

"Did you hear something?" Elinora asked the other girls.

"A gnat in your ear," said Lucy.

I reached for Cleo but Elinora would not let go. She stood and faced the window, the wriggling, frightened kitten in her arms. I saw her doing something, then I heard Cleo howl. Then in the next minute, while the other girls held me off, Elinora opened the window and threw Cleo out onto the street.

I could hear Cleo outside, meowing in distress.

"You mean, stinking ... you, you, hoydens!" I shouted at them. "To take your anger at me out on an innocent kitten!"

"She's lucky," Elinora said. "The next time we'll drop her in the fireplace. Or see to it that she's drowned in a bucket of water."

I ran out of the room, into the hall, and out the front door to try to find Cleo.

I FOUND HER
—dirty, frightened, and cold—after a full twenty minutes of searching. She was huddled in an old pipe in the ground. I picked her up.

Blood ran from her eyes.

What had Elinora done to her?

I dabbed at Cleo's eyes and cuddled her and told her how sorry I was. I took her inside and ran with her into the kitchen to find Sister Roberta.

"
I'M REASONABLY SURE
she's blind."

Sister Roberta handed Cleo back to me in the infirmary, where I'd eventually found her working. She'd examined Cleo extensively, cleaned her, and given her something to quiet her. "She's been poked in both eyes by a sharp object."

I took the shivering kitten and cuddled her close. She nestled into the crook of my neck. "Elinora," I said. "She was doing embroidery and had a needle in her hand. Oh, Sister, how could anybody harm an innocent creature?"

"There are depths in the human soul that should not be fathomed," she said. "Maybe she'd be best put to sleep. I could do it. It would be painless, poor little thing."

"And if she lives?" I asked.

She shrugged. "In the company of an older cat, she could still learn to do cat things."

"I want to keep her," I said. "May I?"

"She's your cat. But you should tell the Bishop."

"How can I, without getting Elinora in trouble?"

"He will find out. You must find a way to tell him first."

"Is there any chance she'll get better?

"There are always miracles."

Somehow I didn't want to hear that word. I took Cleo back to her mother, who would lick her and feed her and comfort her, even as I wished I could go to my own mother for comfort now.

Were they all crazy in this place?

Was there something in the water here in Santa Fe that turned the mind? Why would Saint Joseph come here to make a staircase?

I settled Cleo back with her mother and decided to go seek out the one person who was halfway sane in this whole place, Mrs. Lacey.

MRS. LACEY WAS NOT WELL.
When I'd brought her breakfast she had been in the chair by the window, but now she was back in bed again. I decided not to tell her about the letter from my father.

I now brought her afternoon goat's milk. She waved the tray aside.

"Coffee," she said. "Get me coffee, Lizzy. It helps my neuralgia. More than this pillow they give me. Please, child."

I said I would, and left her to go to the kitchen. Ramona had the makings of supper cooking. It smelled delicious. I lifted one big pot lid and peered in.

Hare jardiniere.
Ramona's specialty. Everyone's favorite. I saw the carrots and onions floating in their own sauce. Let them try to resist this tonight.

One of the servants stood over that pot, nurturing the sauce. Ramona was making pastry.

"Could I have a cup of coffee, please?" I asked Ramona. "I have a headache."

She was so busy she scarce paid me mind. Just pointed to the pot. I grabbed a cup and filled it, put in plenty of milk and sugar, thanked her, and left the kitchen with my stolen coffee for Mrs. Lacey.

SHE DRANK IT AS
if it were an elixir, something to prolong her life, something that actually gave her strength. She sipped it, she inhaled its fragrance, she smacked her lips. "You saved my life, Lizzy. What would I do without you? My neuralgia is vanishing already."

"If it heals you, why won't they let you have it?"

"It's Mother Magdalena's way of punishing me for being Methodist. Sister Roberta allows it, but she sneaks it to me, too. Mother Magdalena says coffee isn't good for me. I'm old, I'm dying, what bad could it do me now?"

"You're not dying," I said.

"Oh yes, I am, Lizzy. By degrees. Every day I feel weaker and weaker. I have pains in my head, my back, my legs. Something is coming at me from all sides. It's all right, dear, I'm old; it's my time to go. And I must endure the pain, I suppose, to pay for my sins."

"What sins?" I said derisively.

She smiled. "I have many. Would you like to hear them?"

"I'm not a priest."

"Wouldn't tell a priest. Wouldn't tell the Bishop. But I'll tell you, so that maybe you can learn from my miseries. That's
the only kind of penance I believe in. Well, do you want to hear?"

"All right," I said.

She sighed and leaned her head back on the pillow. "I was not always a good person, Lizzy, if indeed I am good now. I come from the East, you know. From Virginia. Oh, I have long since lost any of the honeyed Virginia tones, but that is where I come from. Richmond. That is where I lived with my first husband and my Robert, when he was a child.

"My first husband was not a good man. He was many years older than I and thought me wanton, because I enjoyed life. He was very religious and ofttimes raised his hand to me."

"Like Delvina's husband?" I asked.

"Yes. Which is why I was so drawn to help Delvina. But in polite society, in Richmond, a proper lady did not run away. And she did not speak of such things. She suffered in silence. Oh, I wanted to leave, but he would not let me take Robert. You see, I had no rights, even to take my child out of such a situation. So I endured it for years and years while I put on a good face and Robert grew up.

"Well, soon Robert was grown—or, at least, fifteen—and tall and handsome. The war had come. Often Robert tried to interfere when my husband raised a hand to me, and he earned himself beatings for doing so."

She paused, unwilling, or unable, for a moment to go on. Then she recommenced talking.

"I loved that child, oh, so much. He was my pride and joy. I thought staying was the right thing to do. For him. If I ran, I'd have to leave him, and I couldn't bring myself to do that. Now I know I should have."

"Like my father left me?" I asked.

"Sometimes it takes courage to leave," she said. "To make a new life for those you love. But I didn't have that courage. I stayed, and one day when Robert was near sixteen, my husband started beating me rather badly. And Robert came to my defense." She fell silent.

"Was that so bad?" I asked. I wasn't even sixteen, and I knew I'd do that for my mother.

"In this instance it was. Robert killed him," she said.

I came alert. I looked at her sharply. "What?"

"He killed him. My husband had drawn a gun to hold Robert off. They fought over the gun. I don't know if it went off accidentally or if Robert shot him on purpose. Does it matter? Robert killed him."

"And then what happened?"

"I sent a trusted servant for Lieutenant Colonel Lacey—I had met him at a social in Richmond and he was a widower and so kind. We—Oh, how shall I say it? It sounds so trite. We fell in love. As much as I could trust the word. But it wasn't on this count that my husband beat me. He had never learned of my alliance with Lieutenant Colonel Lacey."

"And Colonel Lacey told the authorities?" I asked.

"No. He helped Robert out of town on the first train that went north. Then he arranged things so it looked as if my husband had been shot in a brawl in one of the gambling establishments in Richmond. There were many of them. They called them Hells, and my first husband was known for frequenting them. And then I came west with Colonel Lacey."

"And what of Robert?"

"The western posts were anything but comfortable. We lived, for a while, at Fort Filmore in the New Mexico Territory.
Always we feared an invasion of the Confederates from Texas, fearing they would not only capture New Mexico but seize the Colorado mines and even take southern California."

"Your husband was a Union man?" My eyes widened.

She laughed. "He wasn't yet my husband, remember? Oh, he was in spirit, but my husband was dead. Shot by my son. John Lacey took care of me. Back East, in peacetime, it would have been unforgivable. But this was the West, where everyone had a past life, a secret to hide. And wartime broke down so many of the old social rules. I was accepted as his wife. I became Mrs. Colonel John Lacey within six months."

"And what of Robert?"

"He joined the army. I didn't even know it at first. It took us awhile to find out where he was, and that came about only because of Colonel Lacey's efforts and connections. Robert didn't want us to find out, because he was too young to be in the army and he feared Colonel Lacey would effect a dismissal. By the time we located him, he'd been killed. It happened at Ball's Bluff in Virginia in the fall of sixty-one. And when word finally got to us out here, my John used all the power he had as an army officer to have Robert's body dug up and shipped here. It took months. We were at Fort Craig on the Rio Grande then. It was under Colonel Canby. John rode out with Canby and his men to engage Sibley's brigade at Valverde in February of sixty-two. The Confederates won and were marching to take Santa Fe when my boy's body arrived by wagon on the Santa Fe Trail. We buried him here and were ready to flee when we heard that the Confederates were beaten at Glorieta Pass here in New Mexico. John was assigned to stay, so we stayed."

"When did John die?" I asked.

"About eight years ago. We were very happy, but I never forgave myself, Lizzy, never, for what Robert was led to do. I know if I'd left my first husband, he and Robert would never have come to blows."

"Robert may have run off to war anyway, if you'd left," I told her.

I let her cry for a bit. I took the cup from her hands and set it down. "It wasn't your fault," I said.

"It's why I give money to the church," she said tearfully. "It came to me that it was a way to redeem Robert's soul. It's why I want the staircase completed. I know that once it is, my Robert will rest and be forgiven for killing his father and be allowed into heaven."

I said nothing, because there was nothing to say. She believed in her quest, and if it made her feel better, what harm in it?

"Promise me you won't leave this place until the staircase is completed," she said.

I promised.

"Even after I die."

I said yes.

"The Union may have won the war, Lizzy, but nobody ever wins a war. Do you know who wins?"

I said no, I didn't.

"Memory," she said. "And that means both sides lose. Because both sides are forever held hostage by memory."

IT WAS LATE IN
the afternoon, but I went to visit Robert's grave because Mrs. Lacey had asked me to. I'm glad I went that day. It got me out of the convent and away from the girls
who were set on making my life miserable. I'd discovered since Mama died that Sunday afternoons and evenings worked their own mischief on my soul. In my mind, they were connected somehow with family. And as late afternoon turned into evening, an anguish descended upon me each Sunday to which I could put no name.