A Most Personal Property (Ganymede Quartet Book 1) (20 page)

Baffled by this outburst, Henry overturned the tin onto his bedspread. Wadded bills spilled out, followed by a trickle of coins. He reached in and pulled out a dense mat of crushed bills which loosed a deluge of coins. “Don’t worry about the money, Martin. It’s fine; you can keep it.”

“I shouldn’t, Sir.”

“Why?” Henry reached into the tin and pried a stray coin out of a seam in the metal. “I gave it to you. Slaves carry money all the time.”

“Slaves who have earned their master’s trust, Sir. You don’t know me well enough to trust me.”

Henry blinked at him. “I think I get to decide that, not you,” he said coolly.

Martin looked abashed. “Of course, Sir.”

“I’m not worried about you stealing, Martin. Keep the money. You can buy more music or something.” He gestured at the pile of money on the bed. “Count out a dollar for your bets.” Henry began counting out his own pennies.

On the shelf with all the board games Henry had outgrown there was a soft-edged deck of well-used cards. They sat down cross-legged on the carpet, facing each other, each with a pile of grimy coins. Martin shuffled the deck and said, “Ante up, Sir.”

They each put a penny into the pot and Martin dealt them each five cards. Henry tried to remember the different poker hands, the difference between a full house and three of a kind, or even what constituted a straight flush. He had the two of hearts and the two of spades, eight of clubs, queen of clubs, jack of diamonds. So, a pair. He put another penny into the pot.

Martin smiled. He apparently did not have a poker face, which actually wasn’t surprising. He moved the cards around in his hand looking very pleased and put two pennies into the pot.

Henry didn’t have a poker face, either. He frowned at his hand. He’d keep the pair, obviously, and discard the rest. He drew the four of clubs, seven of diamonds, five of spades. So, he had a pair. He put two cents into the pot anyway.

Beaming, Martin put in two cents and laid down his cards. “Full house, Sir!” Nine of hearts, nine of clubs, nine of diamonds, king of clubs, king of spades.

“Lucky deal.” Henry laid down his pair. Martin swept up the pennies and added them to his pile. It was Henry’s turn to deal then.

They continued to play, Martin winning most hands. Henry had no particular strategy and frequently discarded exactly the wrong cards or placed bets when he should have folded. He didn’t much mind losing, though. He watched Martin’s animated face, his glee when he got a good hand, his outsized sadness when he had bad cards. Henry was utterly taken with him. He wanted Martin for a friend, a real friend, and not just someone obligated to put up with him. He could not think of a way to ask Martin if such a thing could be possible under the circumstances.

Martin won yet another hand—his straight to Henry’s pair—and collected his winnings. “Sir,” he began hesitantly. “Sir, may I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“It’s about your family, Sir. If it’s none of my business, of course—”

Henry picked up the cards and dealt them. “You’re part of the family now, too,” Henry pointed out. Then, “Ante up.”

Martin tossed his penny into the pot. “It’s kind of you to see it that way, Sir.” He looked at his cards and wrinkled his nose as if something smelled bad. “I’ve just been wondering about your mother. Mrs. Blackwell, Sir.” He added another penny to the pot.

“What about her?” Henry liked this hand all right: three threes. He put two pennies in.

“Is…is she unwell, Sir? She seems very, uh, delicate, if you don’t mind my saying so.” Martin discarded four cards and drew replacements; he looked much happier with the results and met Henry’s bet.

Henry discarded two cards and thought about his mother for a moment. He supposed he could be frank with Martin; Martin would eventually understand anyway. He drew his replacements and was delighted with a fourth three and the ace of spades. He put in three pennies, a little giddy. “Show your cards.”

Martin had a flush; Henry had won! Martin looked downcast quite out of proportion to the situation.

“As you’ve noticed, my mother
isn’t
well,” Henry said. “She and my father haven’t got on for years. She’s lost a lot of babies and it’s made her very melancholy—which is understandable, I think.” There had been two babies before Henry and both had died. He didn’t even know how many miscarriages there’d been between himself and Cora. “My father doesn’t have any patience for her at all. He wanted a big family, as you can tell from the size of this house, and she wasn’t able to give him that.”

“How sad for them, Sir.”

“Besides Pearl, her best friend was her brother, Reggie, but he’s been living somewhere in Europe since I was just little, and I know she misses him a lot. So do I.”

“What’s your Uncle Reggie like, Sir?” Martin dealt out another hand.

Henry had a pair. “Well, I haven’t seen or heard from him since I was 7, so I don’t really know anymore. All my mother’s people, the Wiltons, are dark and good-looking, so Uncle Reggie was, too. He was a very dramatic person, I’d say, not in a troublesome way so much as in his speech and gestures. He always wore interesting clothes—kind of dandyish—and he dressed his slave Benjamin like a prince from a fairytale. He’d come over and he’d have Benjamin in a frock coat and knee breeches, and his hair in these long red curls. He made my mother laugh like no one else could—certainly not Father or me. He brought me great presents, things I absolutely loved, even though they were all just cheap, funny little toys, and he’d bring presents for Nurse, too.”

“For Nurse, Sir?” Martin seemed intrigued by the idea of a man giving gifts to another master’s slave.

“Yes. Candy and posies, just things that no one else would ever think to bring her, and they made her so happy. He’d always come up to the nursery to see me, and he’d make sure to give me a hug and a kiss on the forehead. He paid more attention to me than either of my parents did. He was definitely my favorite person besides Nurse.” Henry discarded and drew three cards; he still had a pair.

“But you haven’t seen him in…nine years, then, Sir? That’s too bad.”

“I barely see my other relatives, either. My father doesn’t have any people at all, I guess, and he doesn’t approve of my mother’s people, so I only see them at Christmas, even though they live right here in town.”

“Your father doesn’t have any people, Sir?” Martin won the hand with three sevens.

“None that he’ll claim. He’s an orphan, I know that much, but he never talks to me about stuff like that. He had a hard life up until he started making money. His is a real rags-to-riches story, I guess, but I don’t actually
know
the story.”

“What about the Wiltons, Sir? What are they like?”

Henry took a moment to deal out more cards. “Well, my mother has two brothers, actually. Reggie is the baby, and my Uncle Gilbert is the oldest. He’s married to Aunt Virginia and they have two children, my cousins Bette and Jesse. They’re both older than me and I like them as far as I know them, but I never get to see them, so we aren’t close.

“The Wiltons used to be fairly rich. They had six stores: a big department store downtown, and five smaller stores in other cities. When Grandfather Wilton died, Uncle Gilbert mismanaged the business and it failed. I don’t know the details, of course. Neither Uncle Gilbert nor Uncle Reggie was ever any good at business. I know Father gave Uncle Reggie the money to start businesses and they all failed. He gave Uncle Gilbert money to start businesses, too, but Uncle couldn’t make a go of it, and finally Father just gave up and gave him a job in one of his companies.”

“Well,” Martin said a little hesitantly, “that was nice of your father, wasn’t it, Sir?”

“Everyone says that that’s why Mother married him,” Henry told him. “Because the Wiltons were broke.”

“That can’t have been the only reason, Sir. And really, who would say such things to you?”

Henry shrugged. “Boys at school. Their old families know the old side of my family. My father is quite scandalous, actually. He bought a society wife, and then he…” Henry’s voice trailed off. He hadn’t ever discussed this next bit with anyone, even Louis, though Louis knew, of course. Louis knew the gossip. However, it seemed right to talk about it with Martin. In a low, confidential tone, he said, “My father has a mistress, and I’m nearly certain he has a son with her. In fact, I think he’d like to replace all of us with her and her boy.”

Martin looked very concerned. “Oh, surely not, Sir!”

“Mother is just so sad. Father is quite sociable, you see. He likes to go to the opera and to parties, and Mother won’t leave the house. She stays shut up with Pearl and takes too much laudanum and her only socializing is having Spiritualists in to talk to the dead babies. It’s horrible. I can see why Father prefers Mrs. Murdock.”

“Is that…the mistress, Sir?”

Henry nodded. “Phoebe Murdock. Her little boy is called Calvin, and he must be 4 or 5 now. She tells people he’s adopted, but I’m sure he’s my half-brother. I hear he looks like a miniature of Father. I’ve never met him myself, of course.” It felt good just to talk about this.

“That fight I told you about? With Adam? He was the one who told me about her, and that’s why we fought. He said my father was running around with ‘that Murdock whore,’ and of course I thought he was lying, but then I started hearing the name ‘Phoebe Murdock’ or just ‘Mrs. Murdock’ from my father or Timothy from time to time, always when no one thought I was listening, and never in front of Mother. Louis told me his mother said she was a widow, and that didn’t sound too scandalous to me. I figured she had to be old if she was a widow.”

“But she’s not old, Sir?”

“Not at all. She’s younger than Mother. She was an
actress
, a
showgirl
, and she married a rich society fellow, and there was a big scandal about that because she was so far beneath him. They’d been married only a little while before he fell off a horse and broke his neck.”

“Oh! Well, Sir, that’s…terrible for her.”

“His family didn’t want her to get any money, so she ended up with very little. She went way, way up, and then back down again, and I’m guessing she liked being up better…and that’s where my father comes in.” Henry shrugged. “Like I said, it can’t be fun being married to my mother, but the whole situation is embarrassing. Everyone knows, though no one says anything, at least not where I can hear. No one wants to make my father angry, of course. But it makes all of us look bad. I mean, couldn’t she have found a rich man who didn’t already have a family?”

“Well, Sir, I—”

“My mother knows about Mrs. Murdock, of course. Once they even fought about her in front of me.”

Martin seemed properly shocked at the idea of people of the Blackwells’ class fighting in front of their children. “Surely they didn’t, Sir! Not really!”

“They did. It was just after I turned 10, right after I started eating dinner with my parents, and we were there at the table when my father cleared his throat in this really self-conscious manner and announced he was going to the opera on Friday. Mother asked if he was going alone, and he asked her if she wanted to go. She said he hadn’t answered her question and they went back and forth for awhile, and Mother told him he could go to the damn opera with that Murdock woman for all she cared, and it all ended up with Mother taking a shot of laudanum and Father doing whatever he was going to do in the first place.”

Martin’s eyes were very wide. “Oh, my, Sir…I-I don’t know what to say…”

“I was terrified just because they were fighting,” Henry admitted. “But of course I noticed that Mrs. Murdock’s name had come up again, and I had to really question if Mother would get so upset about Father being friends with some old widow. I couldn’t really ask either one of them, of course. I mean, I’ve never had conversations with either of my parents about much of anything, certainly not stuff like
that
.”

Henry paused here. “So that was when I started learning things here and there through my friends, about who Mrs. Murdock was.” He shrugged again. “I guess she must make my father happy, since he’s been carrying on with her for at least seven years that I know about. I can’t help thinking that she doesn’t help my
mother’s
mood any, though.”

Martin sat silent a few seconds, thinking. At last he said, “But, Sir, even if there is no longer any love between your parents, you mustn’t think your father doesn’t love you!”

Henry shrugged. “I don’t think he does, actually.”

“He is very generous with you, Sir, that’s a fact. I was a very expensive gift, if it’s not out of line for me to say so.”

Henry was grateful for his father’s generosity, but he didn’t think it necessarily meant anything. “My father has so much money, Martin, that we could never spend it all, even if we tried. He likes to do things big, wants the best of everything. He would never have scrimped on a slave for me—it would have reflected very poorly on him to have done so.” Saying this, Henry realized it was true: despite his own nerves, there had never been any question as to whether he would take Martin home from the auction.

“It might be pride, Sir,” Martin conceded, “but there might also be love there, too, don’t you think?”

Henry shrugged again. “Maybe. Whose turn is it to deal?”

Martin took his watch out of his waistcoat pocket. “Actually, Sir, it’s time for my dinner, if that’s convenient.”

“Count your money first,” Henry said. He looked at Martin’s pile of coins and then his own. “Though clearly you’ve won.”

Martin had a dollar and sixty-four cents to Henry’s thirty-six cents. Martin looked extremely uncomfortable with this outcome, which made Henry laugh.

“You’re very easy-going, Sir,” Martin offered. “Some masters wouldn’t like being beaten by a slave.”

Henry couldn’t tell Martin that he’d enjoyed himself just because he’d been able to sit across from him and watch the play of emotions across his beautiful face. “I don’t much care about things like that,” Henry told him. “I had fun anyway. Go on, have your dinner.”

Before he went down, Martin helped Henry put all the money back in the tea tin. After Martin had left, Henry flopped down on the bed and found a stray quarter and two pennies which he put on the nightstand. He picked up his book and began to read, but after a minute turned it face down open on his lap, absently holding his place with his finger.