The Diviners (8 page)

Miss Lillian smiled. “Oh, how lovely. And what a sweet face. Doesn’t she have a sweet face, Addie?”

“Very sweet, indeed.”

The Misses Proctor wore their long gray hair curled like turn-of-the-century schoolgirls. The effect was odd and disconcerting, like porcelain dolls who had aged and wrinkled.

“Welcome to the Bennington. It’s a grand old place. Once upon a time, it was considered one of the very best addresses in the city,” Miss Lillian continued.

“It’s swell. Um, lovely. A lovely place.”

“Yes. Sometimes you might hear odd sounds in the night. But you mustn’t be frightened. This city has its ghosts, you see.”

“All the best places do,” Evie said with mock-seriousness.

Mabel choked on her Coca-Cola, but Miss Lillian did not take note. “In the seventeen hundreds, this patch of land was home to those suffering from the fever. Those poor, tragic souls moaning in their tents, jaundiced and bleeding, their vomitus the color of black night!”

Evie pushed her sandwich away. “How hideously fascinating. I was just saying to Mabel—Miss Rose—that we don’t talk enough about black vomit.” Under the table, Mabel’s foot threatened to push Evie’s through the floor.

“After the time of the fever, they buried paupers and the mentally insane here,” Miss Lillian continued as if she hadn’t heard. “They were exhumed before the Bennington was built, of course—or so they said. Though if you ask me, I don’t see how they could possibly have found all those bodies.”

“Dead bodies
are
such trouble,” Evie said with a little sigh, and Mabel had to turn her head away so as not to laugh.

“Indeed,” Miss Lillian clucked. “When the Bennington was built, in 1872, it was said that the architect, who had descended
from a long line of witches, fashioned the building on ancient occult principles so that it would always be a sort of magnet for the otherworldly. So as I said, don’t pay any mind to the odd sounds or sights you might experience. It’s just the Bennington, dear.”

Miss Lillian attempted a smile. A blot of red lipstick marked her teeth like a bloodstain. At her side, Miss Addie smiled into the distance and nodded as if greeting unseen guests.

“Please do excuse us, but we must retire,” Miss Lillian said. “We’re expecting company soon, and we must prepare. You will do us the honor of calling one evening, won’t you?”

“How could I not?” Evie answered.

Miss Addie turned suddenly to Evie, as if truly seeing her for the first time. Her expression was grim. “You’re one of them, aren’t you, dear?”

“Miss O’Neill is Mr. Fitzgerald’s niece,” Mabel supplied.

“No. One of
them
,” Miss Addie said in an urgent whisper that sent a shiver up Evie’s spine.

“Now, now, Addie, let’s leave these girls to their dinner. We’ve work to do. Adieu!”

The Proctor sisters were barely out of the dining room when Mabel convulsed in a fit of giggling. “ ‘After the fever, there were the paupers,’ ” she mimicked, still laughing.

“What do you suppose she meant, ‘You’re one of them’? Does she say that to everyone she meets?” Evie asked, hoping she didn’t sound as unsettled as she felt.

Mabel shrugged. “Sometimes Miss Addie wanders the floors in her nightgown. My father’s had to return her to her flat a few times.” Mabel tapped her index finger against the side of her head. “Not all there. She probably meant you’re one of those flappers, and she does not approve,” she teased, wagging her finger like a schoolmarm. “Oh, this really is going to be the best time of our
lives, isn’t it?” she said with such enthusiasm that Evie put Miss Addie’s upsetting comment out of her mind.

“Pos-i-tute-ly!” Evie said, raising her glass. “To the Bennington and its ghosts!”

“To us!” Mabel added. They clinked their glasses to the future.

Evie and Mabel spent the afternoon catching up, and by the time Evie returned to Uncle Will’s apartment it was nearly seven, and Will and Jericho had returned. The apartment was larger than she remembered, and surprisingly homey for a bachelor flat. A grand bay window looked out onto the leafy glory of Central Park. A settee and two chairs flanked a large radio cabinet, and Evie breathed a sigh of relief. There was a tidy kitchenette, which looked as if it rarely saw use. The bathroom boasted a tub perfect for soaking, but devoid of even the simplest luxuries. She’d soon fix that. Three bedrooms and a small office completed the suite. Jericho showed her to a narrow room with a bed, a desk, and a chifforobe. The bed squeaked, but it was comfortable.

“That goes to the roof,” Jericho said, pointing to a fire escape outside her window. “You can see most of the city from up there.”

“Oh,” Evie managed to reply. “Swell.” She intended to do more than watch the city from the roof. She would be in the thick of it. Her trunk had arrived, and she unpacked, filling the empty drawers and wardrobe with her painted stockings, hats, gloves, dresses, and coats. Her long strands of pearls she draped from the posts of her bed. The one item she did not put away was her coin pendant from James. When she’d finished, Evie sat with Jericho and Uncle Will in the parlor as the men finished a supper of cold sandwiches in wax paper bought from the delicatessen on the corner.

“How did you come to be in the employ of my uncle?” Evie asked Jericho with theatrical seriousness. Jericho looked to Uncle Will, whose mouth was full. Neither said a word. “Well. It’s
a regular mystery, I guess,” Evie went on. “Where’s Agatha Christie when you need her? I’ll just have to make up stories about you. Let’s see… you, Jericho, are a duke who has forfeited his duchy—funny word,
duchy
—and Unc is hiding you from hostile forces in your native country who would have your head.”

“Your uncle was my legal guardian until I turned eighteen this year. Now I’m working for him, as his assistant curator.”

The men continued eating their sandwiches, leaving Evie’s curiosity unsatisfied. “Okay. I’ll bite. How did Unc—”

“Must you call me that?”

Evie considered it. “Yes. I believe I must. How did Unc become your guardian?”

“Jericho was an orphan in the Children’s Hospital.”

“Gee, I’m sorry. But how—”

“I believe the question has been answered,” Uncle Will said. “If Jericho wishes to tell you more, he will on his own terms and in his own time.”

Evie wanted to say something snappy back, but she was a guest here, so she changed the subject. “Is the museum always that empty?”

“What do you mean?” Uncle Will asked.

“Empty, as in devoid of human beings.”

“It’s a little slow just now.”

“Slow? It’s a morgue! You need bodies in there, or you’re going to go under. What we need is some advertising.”

Will looked at Evie funny. “Advertising?”

“Yes. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you? Swell modern invention. It lets people know about something they need. Soap, lipstick, radios—or your museum, for instance. We could start with a catchy slogan, like, ‘The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult—we’ve got the spirit!’ ”

“Things are fine as they are,” Will said, as if that settled the matter.

Evie whistled low. “Not from what I saw. Is it true the city’s trying to take it for back taxes?”

Will squinted over the top of his slipping spectacles. “Who told you that?”

“The cabbie. He also said you were a conscie, and probably a Bolshevik. Not that it matters to me. It’s just that I was thinking I could help you spruce the place up. Get some bodies in there. Make a mint.”

Jericho glanced from Will to Evie and back again. He cleared his throat. “Mind if I turn on the radio?”

“Please,” Will answered.

The announcer’s voice burbled over the wires: “And now, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, playing ‘Wang Wang Blues.’ ” The orchestra launched into a swinging tune, and Evie hummed along.

The girl was exhausted and angry. For seventy-eight straight hours, she and her beau, Jacek, had loped through the dance marathon with hopes of winning the big prize, but Jacek had fallen asleep at last, nearly toppling her. The emcee had tapped them on the shoulder, signaling the end of the contest, and with it their dreams.

“Why’d ya have to go and fall asleep, you big potato!” She punched him in the arm as they left the contest and he staggered, barely able to stay awake.

“Me? I held you up four different times. And you kept stepping on my feet with those boats o’ yours.”

“Boats!” Tears stung at her eyes. She swung at him and stumbled, exhausted by the effort.

“Come on, Ruta. Don’t be that way. Let’s go home.”

“I ain’t going nowhere with you. You’re a bum.”

“You don’t mean that. Here. Sit with me on this step. We can catch the train in the morning.”

The exhaustion she’d fought for so long finally caught up with her. “I ain’t goin’ back like this, with everybody laughing at us like
I ain’t nothin’ special and never will be!” she half sobbed. But Jacek didn’t hear. He’d already fallen asleep on the stoop of a flophouse. “You can live there for all I care!” she shouted.

The tracks of the Third Avenue El formed a cage over Ruta’s head as she walked south on the Bowery looking for an El entrance where there weren’t bums lying on the rickety stairs, just waiting. With each exhausted step, she felt the bitter disappointment of returning empty-handed to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where her family lived in a two-room apartment in a crumbling building on a street where nearly everyone spoke Polish and the old men smoked cigarettes in front of store windows draped with fat strands of kielbasa. It was a world away from the bright lights of Manhattan. She looked uptown, toward the distant, hazy glow of Park Avenue, where the rich people lived. She just wanted her piece of it. None of this answering the telephone switchboard at a second-rate law office every day, making barely enough to go to the pictures. Ruta was only nineteen years old, and what she knew most was want—a constant longing for the good life she saw all around her.

Ruta Badowski. Ruta. She hated that name. It was so Polish, brought over by her parents, but she’d been born here, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A. She’d change her name to something more American, like Ruthie or Ruby. Ruby was good. Ruby… Bates. Tomorrow, Ruta Badowski would quit her job at the switchboard and Ruby Bates would take the bus to Mr. Ziegfeld’s theater and audition to be a chorus girl. One day, her name would be in lights, and Jacek and the rest could watch her from the cheap seats and go chase themselves.

“Good evening.”

Ruta gasped; the voice startled her. She squinted in the gloom. “Who’s there? You better get lost. My brother’s a cop.”

“I’ve always had a great appreciation for the law.” The stranger stepped from the shadows.

Her eyes must’ve been playing tricks on her, because the man seemed almost like a ghost in the light. His clothes were funny—hopelessly out of date: a tweed suit even though it was warm, a vest and suit jacket, and a bowler hat. He carried a walking stick with the silver head of a wolf at the top. The wolf’s face was set in a snarl and its eyes were red like rubies. Ruby—ha! That gave her a small shudder, though she couldn’t say why. It occurred to her that she wasn’t in a safe place. These dance marathons were usually held in bad neighborhoods, where they wouldn’t draw too much attention from the city.

“This is a dreadful place for a young lady to be walking alone,” the stranger said, as if he’d read her thoughts. He offered his arm. “Might I be of assistance?”

Ruby Bates might be on her way to being a glamorous star, but Ruta Badowski had grown up on the streets. “Thanks all the same, mister, but I don’t need help,” she said crisply. When she turned to go, her ankle gave way, and she winced in pain.

The stranger’s voice was deep and soothing. “My sister and I run an establishment nearby, a grand boardinghouse with a kitchen. Perhaps you’d care to wait there? We’ve a telephone if you wish to call your family. My sister, Bryda, has likely made paczki and coffee.”

“Paczki?” Ruta repeated. “You’re Polish?”

The stranger smiled. “I guess we’re all just dreamers trying to find our way in this extraordinary country, aren’t we, Miss…?”

“Ruta—Ruby. Ruby Bates.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Bates. My name is Mr. Hobbes.” He tipped his hat. “But my friends call me John.”

“Thanks, Mr. Hobbes,” Ruta answered. She swooned slightly from exhaustion.

“I have smelling salts, which might aid you now.” The man doused his handkerchief and held it out for her. Ruta inhaled. The scent was pungent and made her nose burn a little. But she did feel peppier. The stranger offered his arm again, and this time she took it. From the outside, he seemed a big man, but his arm was thin as a matchstick beneath his heavy coat. Something about that arm made Ruta cold inside, and she withdrew her own quickly.

“I’m good now. Them salts helped. I’ll take you up on that cuppa Joe, though.”

He gave her a courtly little bow. “As you wish.”

They walked, the stranger’s silver-tipped stick thudding a hollow rhythm against the cobblestones. He hummed a tune she didn’t recognize.

“What’s that song? I ain’t heard it on the radio before.”

“No. I expect you haven’t,” the stranger answered.