City of Ash (49 page)

“As do I,” I lied, trying to ignore that sick feeling in my stomach.

“After the ball then.” He stepped back again, meaning to leave me, I knew.

I said quickly, “Have you seen your wife again?”

He glanced away. “I don’t know.”

I was startled. “You don’t know?”

“My dreams …” He shook his head and then attempted a smile. It was a failure, and I saw a little fear in his eyes. “Well, let’s just say I begin to wonder if you might be right.”

“About the spirit, you mean?”

“Sssh, not so loud,” he admonished. He finished his drink. Then, it seemed, someone caught his eye from another part of the room, and his expression went blandly polite. He said, “I look forward to seeing you in the tableau, Mrs. Wilkes. Now if you’ll excuse me …”

“Of course.” I stepped back to let him go. Jack came up behind me, touching my shoulder, saying, “It’s time to change, Bea,” and I nodded in relief and went with him to the changing rooms, to trade silk for bunting, to take my turn onstage. It was time to put our plan into motion.

Geneva

I
knew it was time to go when I saw Mr. DeWitt return to his tent. He was the signal, Mrs. Wilkes and I agreed, because she’d said I should take his return to mean she’d gone on to the Wilcox house and the charity ball. I watched him surreptitiously from between the tent flaps, his weary stride, his head bowed so his hair came forward to hide his face, and for a moment I missed him so intently it was like a physical pain. But I forced myself to remember what I must do, and when he disappeared inside, I was out the back of my tent quickly, dodging among the others to the road as speedily as I could, glancing over my shoulder to be certain he didn’t emerge again to see me.

I knew where the Wilcox house was, of course. I had no idea when the tableau was scheduled, but Mrs. Wilkes had told me that the actors were to socialize with the guests beforehand, and I knew that sometimes the entertainment did not take place until late in the evening. Still, I did not dally. To mistime it would be disaster. I was tired of waiting; if tonight did not come off as we’d planned, I thought I might truly go mad with impatience and frustration.

Even if I hadn’t already known the Wilcox home, I would not have been able to mistake it tonight. Carriages lined the road before the three-storied, elegant house, their drivers leaning idly against the wheels, smoking or talking while they waited. The windows glowed from the light of dozens of candelabra, the romantic light I preferred, a necessity now, with the gas and electric works destroyed. The dormer windows on the top floor were
open; I heard the music of a quartet, talking, laughing, and I felt a sudden rush of yearning for the balls I’d once known.

I would have them again, and on my terms, I vowed, going determinedly to the back of the house, to the servants’ door.

I’d told Mrs. Wilkes that the servants would be too busy to notice another among their number, and that Mrs. Wilcox would have had to hire extra staff, so half of them wouldn’t know one another in any case. I knew the moment I crept around to the door that I was right. It was open to let in the air, because the kitchen was sweltering, bustling as it was with activity, two girls shucking oysters over a tub already mounded with shells, the cook reddened and sweating as she yelled at a man stirring a steaming pot, waiters moving in and out, reloading their trays.

I swept up a few loose strands of hair and took a deep breath, stepping into the kitchen, keeping my head down. No one noticed as I grabbed an apron from the hook and tied it on, except one waiter who caught sight of me and said brusquely, “You girl. Come here and help me set this tray.”

Obediently, I went over and helped him, loading oysters on the half-shell and trying to keep my mouth from watering and my stomach from growling. When the tray was full, he went off again, and I followed him as if I’d been ordered to, hesitating at the base of the narrow servants’ stairs until he had gone up—I did not want to take the risk that he would order me down again. Another servant was descending; he hardly glanced at me as I passed him, affecting my best servant pose—or at least as close to one as I could imagine.

I paused at the top of the stairs, where the sounds of the ball grew louder, and peeked around the corner and down the hallway, ready to pull back again if I saw anyone I knew, looking for the dressing rooms I’d told Mrs. Wilkes must be there. I spotted them immediately, two of them, one on each side of the hallway just before the entrances to the ballroom.

“What are you doing, girl?”

The voice startled me; I had not heard the servant coming up the stairs behind me carrying a tray loaded with little glasses of sherry. I jerked around, trying a smile. “Waiting for an empty tray. He told me to stay here.”

The man sighed and rolled his eyes. “Well, get out of the way then.”

“Has the entertainment started yet?” I asked.

He shook his head. “The actors’re all in there drinking with the rest of ’em. Watch that blond one. He’s got a roving hand.”

“I’ll remember that.” I drew back to let him by, smiling again to hide how quickly my heart was racing. Then I followed him, staying safely behind, bowing my head so that any guest coming into the hall would not notice me. When I reached the closed door of one of the dressing rooms, I slipped inside. I was lucky; it happened to be the one for the women. I could tell by the costumes hanging there, bunting draped in loose gowns, one single-shouldered.

There was no blue silk gown waiting for me, which meant I was early; she had not yet come in to change, and the tableau had not started. I glanced around the room, looking for someplace to hide until then. There was an armoire with a mirrored door, a dressing table, also with a mirror, as well as a settee and two chairs. Nothing else, nowhere to hide but the armoire, and so reluctantly I opened the door and climbed inside, pushing my way awkwardly past winter coats smelling of camphor, curling myself into a corner. It was cramped and dark and stinking, but given the coats, I doubted anyone would open it—at least not until winter came again, and so I made myself as comfortable as I could, and settled to wait.

It was a shorter time than I’d expected when I heard the door creak open, footsteps, a muffled laugh, “Well, who would’ve thought I’d ever say a word to Mrs. Denny? And there I was, slurping oysters right alongside her!”

“Good Lord, at least I can breathe now,” grumbled a voice I recognized as belonging to Mrs. Chace. “I vow it was hot as a steam bath in there.”

The door closed. “Will you help me out of this dress again, Susan? I think my shoulder’s bleeding. Damn pins.”

Mrs. Wilkes. I was relieved to hear her voice. It comforted me to know we were together in this.

But hearing her also reminded me that it was nearly time for my debut as my own spirit. I listened to them as they changed,
my nervousness growing with every passing moment, and then, finally, they were done, and Mrs. Wilkes said loudly, as if she knew I hid in the armoire, as if she meant for me to hear, “The music’s changed; it’s time to go out,” and the door opened and closed again, and it was silent.

I opened the squeaking door of the armoire. The room was a mess now, clothing abandoned on every surface, but the shapeless bunting gowns were gone, and there, draped over the settee, was the blue silk, the gold of the embroidery glistening. In the time I’d waited, night had truly descended; it was dark, the glow of the party from the windows lit the yard below in squares of light. I took a deep breath and went over to the gown, which still held her warmth, a little damp from her sweat. I stripped off the gown I wore and hid it in the armoire, and then I drew on the blue silk. It buttoned up the back, of course, and there was no maid, but I did the best I could. I took the pins from my hair and let it fall to hide the buttons I could not reach that were still undone—after all, Mrs. Wilkes was wearing her hair down tonight. For lack of pins, of course, but it gave her an alluringly bohemian air, and I meant to look as much like her as I could.

I glanced at myself in the mirror, shoving down the lace of my chemise that showed above the low-cut décolletage—I’d had chemises especially made for the Worth gowns, and I was not wearing one now. It was strange to see myself in the gown after so many months, and I felt myself to be Ginny Langley again, the woman I wanted to be.

How badly I needed that confidence now. I went to the door and opened it. The music had stopped; I heard voices, loud and projected—Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Metairie—coming from the ballroom, along with the sound of a storm, a shaken box of pebbles for rain, the crackling of a tin sheet to sound like thunder. I crept into the hallway, deserted now, as everyone had gathered in the ballroom to watch the show. Even servants had paused in their tasks. The laughter and talk had quieted. Only a muffled cough, the shifting of booted feet.

I reached the T—here the hallway split, each side going to a ballroom entrance. Before me was the wall on the other side of which the tableau was progressing. I had not thought exactly
how to do this—I could not go into the ballroom, obviously, and I could not be trapped, which meant I had somehow to lure Nathan into the hall. Not usually difficult; he had always disliked the hastily assembled entertainments at affairs like these. I had expected that he would excuse himself for a cigar or a drink. But there had been drinking all night—the profusion of empty sherry and wineglasses showed that—and because his mistress was in the tableau, he might linger to watch it. And that was half of our plan in any case, that Nathan should see her and me at the same time, while no one else did.

I heard her voice: “We are all destroyed!” and a great crash of thunder, and I took my opportunity. I turned down one hallway, went the few steps to the ballroom entrance, and glanced carefully around the corner. Everyone was rapt, watching the actors. Quickly I looked for Nathan. When I saw him I knew he would not stay long to watch. He seemed restless; he watched her with a kind of impatience. Then she stepped offstage, and whatever small bit of Nathan’s attention she’d held disappeared completely. He shifted; he glanced toward the window, and then the doorway—

I stepped fully out.

Whether anyone else saw me I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. It was her job to convince them they had seen only her. My job was to capture Nathan’s attention, and I did. I looked right at him; I caught his glance and held it. He froze. Even from this distance I saw the disbelief come into his eyes, and then I retreated.

I nearly ran down the hallway, grabbing up the train of the skirt so I didn’t trip upon it. He would come after me, I knew, and I knew also that I could not be caught, and he had the whole of the ballroom to cross, people to dodge. I fled to the end of the hallway, to the head of the servants’ stairs, just as I heard his racing footsteps behind me. I saw him as he turned the corner. I heard his anguished cry: “Ginny!” and I fled down those stairs, past the servants’ pantry at the bottom with its sideboard holding dishes and candlesticks and piles of napkins. I raced past the kitchen, past two servants who startled and called, “Ma’am!” and into the main of the house. No one was there, of course, not with the party going on. I dodged through the first door I saw
and into a darkened study. I heard him calling to the servants I’d passed: “Did you see her? Where did she go?” and the servants calling after him, “Sir! Please! The party is upstairs.”

I ran to the drape, slipping behind it, pressing myself up against the paned windows of a door it covered, trying to gain my breath, trying to be still.

“Ginny!” he called from down the hallway, and “Ginny!” again, and then he was at the door of the study, pausing, no doubt trying to stare down the darkness, and I held my breath and closed my eyes and prayed he would not choose to investigate.

“Did you see where she went?” he asked, such a plaintive voice. He sounded overcome, so much so that even I almost believed he was grief-stricken at the loss of me.

But I knew better. I knew it was only fear of his position that made him so, the thought that all my money could disappear, that he could not control what I would do next unless I was safely under his thumb, put away as long as he needed.

“Sir, please,” a servant’s voice, quiet now, cajoling. “Wherever she went, she’s gone now.”

“But you … you
did
see her?”

“No, sir,” the servant said. “But she’s probably already gone back to the ballroom. The main stairs, you know.”

“Yes, of course.” Nathan exhaled deeply. “The main stairs. Yes. I shall go back up.”

“It would be best, sir.”

There was a pause, then slow steps away, down the hall, and I let out my breath—too loud, but I couldn’t help it, and in any case, Nathan was gone. The servant closed the door to the study; the light from the hallway was cut, the darkness complete, and I stood there and waited, listening to a loudly ticking clock, counting the seconds, the minutes. It seemed I waited forever. Finally I crept from behind the drape. I did not want to go back into the hall; who knew what Nathan had taken into his head to do? So I opened the door I stood against and stepped out into the yard, breathing deep of the night, which smelled of smoke and the tideflats, and then I went around, back to the kitchen door again, still open, still with the hustle and bustle of the servants inside.