The Horse You Came in On (14 page)

The walls, from which portraits of two censorious women (sisters, surely) looked down, hugging their prayerbooks to their chests and wearing lace mittens, dripped curses and benedictions: nasty looking African masks hung between old prints of pale saints, their heads ringed in milky aureoles. A plaster Virgin Mary in faded blue seemed unaware of the fat cherubs playfully dragging at her gown and apparently trying to call her from her matins.

On a mahogany desk lit by a green glass-globed floor lamp were a stereopticon, some slides, and a small pamphlet, ribbon-tied. This was a souvenir booklet—or so it announced itself—of the St. James Hotel, on Charles Street. There was a picture of that hotel on the front.

Melrose read the introduction, written by the St. James's then-manager, a Mr. Adams, who had taken some care to detail the many pleasant hours that awaited the visitor to the St. James Hotel. Mr. Adams's prose was languid, almost British in its wordiness, as though he were in no special hurry to survey the many advantages of staying in his hotel.

To help the guests in their visit to Baltimore, Mr. Adams had thoughtfully included photos of points of interest in the city. One could stroll through the booklet's text and pictures, stopping here at Druid Hill Park, there at Monument Square, in strangely untrafficked places, when one thought of the vast crowds now to be seen in Harborplace. A tiny ensemble of people against the snowbank of Monument Square and a child with a hoop on the corner.

There were pictures of the lobby and of the dining room, where one could obtain dinner with wine for one dollar. And a room for a dollar and a half.

Melrose took some change from his pocket. He looked at the several quarters, dimes, and nickels. Imagine! For this one could stay at the St. James Hotel. One could have a complete meal with wine!

He picked up the stereopticon and wiped it and the dusty brown pictures with his handkerchief. Then he inserted one in front of the shovel-like lens. A railway station, the old Baltimore and Ohio station, sprang into three-dimensional relief. A little group of four—no, five—people had either just got off the train or were about to board it.

He slotted in another picture and saw a hansom cab carrying several people—it might even have been the same group—along the cobbled street, the station now in the far distance.

Next there was a shot of a wide lobby, potted palms against pillars and another little band of people, who might easily have been guests at the
St. James, he thought; they might have come, pleasantly full, from their one-dollar table d'hôte dinner.

Had these old pictures been arranged to tell a sort of tale? Or was the story purely accidental, the order supplied by himself? The point, he thought, was an important one, although he didn't know why.

Yet he wanted to join the little group, to pick up his bag, climb into the cab, feel the wheels' rackety progress over the cobbles, and find himself, together with the others, disgorged from the cab into this well of sunshine that lay across the pavement in front of the St. James. The six of them would walk through its cool lobby up to the desk, where Mr. Adams would greet them cordially and hand each a ribbon-tied souvenir.

Then down to the dining room. Half the tables would be full, and all would be white-clothed. There would be a broth to start, followed by a roast. He enjoyed his new companions' conversation, though he could not hear what he or they said to one another. In the silence, curtains billowed, lips moved, waitresses darted—

He came out of this fugue to see that although he still held the stereopticon, he had not replaced the last picture, so that he was looking through the shovellike holder at the face of a girl who seemed to have sprung up in all of her dimensions in the same way as the station, the horse and cab, the people. Her face was caught in the latticework of shadows created by the effect of a lighted wall sconce.

“Oh. Hullo,” he said to her, embarrassed he'd been caught dreaming.

“I put those that way,” she said.

What was she talking about? Ah, the photographs. So the question was answered; the arrangement hadn't been random.

She was standing at his side, fingering the pictures. “The ones who got off the train look like the ones in the hotel. She's wearing this hat.” The girl slotted a picture into the wire holder and held it up for Melrose's inspection.

Melrose frowned. Was he to validate this child's fantasy? To appease her, he sighed and looked through the stereopticon. “Well, but how can you be sure they got
off
the train? Maybe they're
waiting
for one.” Oh, good lord, why was he arguing?

“Because,” she said patiently, “their suitcases are already on the cart.”

Annoyed with himself for not noticing this clue, he refused to verify it as he looked into the three-dimensional past. She was under twenty-one, which put her in the child category, that group from which one could exact intelligence only after gummy bears had changed hands. Reluctantly, he abandoned the stereopticon, and with it the past, to set about getting his information. No one else was about, so it would have to be this child.

She must have been left in charge, for she asked him if he was looking for something particular.

“Yes—books,” he said. “First editions.”

She walked over to a bookcase and stood before it. “Here are some old ones.” Her face was peaked, her expression sad, perhaps from cohabitation with grim reminders of hellfire and the almost equally unattractive prospect of heaven, given the pallid look of the saint in the tarnished frame above the bookcase, who certainly didn't appear to be looking forward to the place beyond the ceiling toward which his eyes were raised.

“These look a bit newer than what I want,” said Melrose, fingering the cracked bindings. “Actually, I deal in old manuscripts. I don't expect you have any?”

“Are you English?”

“Yes. How did you guess?”

“From the way you talk.”

“It's a dead giveaway, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

He wished she'd stop answering his rhetorical questions. She must be awfully literal. He opened a copy of an Arthur Rackham-illustrated version of
Peter Pan
. The cover was shabby and the endpapers spattered, but the pictures were lovely: fairies flitting about in the faded blue and pearl-gray dawn or dusk of Kensington Gardens.

“That's my favorite book.”

“It's very nice. I'm more interested in American writers, though.”

“I was in England once . . . I think,” she added meditatively.

“You mean you're not sure?” He wished she'd stick to the subject.

She positioned herself where she could see the open book in his hands. “This looks familiar.”

“That's a statue of Peter Pan.”

“Maybe I dreamed it.”

The macaw chose this moment to squawk. It sounded like “Eh-more.”

“Be quiet,” she said to it, quite sharply.

“You mean it's alive? I could have sworn it was stuffed.”

The damned bird, awakened now to the fact of its own life, decided to celebrate itself with a squawking iteration of “Eh-more,” which was apparently the sum and substance of its vocabulary. It preened, flapped its wings, danced along its perch to the sound of “Eh-moreehmoremoreehor.” Did it think that would excite someone into giving it a biscuit? Not even the cat was interested. It slumbered away on its camouflage of rags and pillows, only mildly disturbed when the girl pulled a large square of material out from under it and set about draping the blood-red shawl
part-way over the cage. “If I don't do this, he'll just keep it up. It's supposed to be saying ‘Nevermore,' but all it can get out is the ‘more' part. One of my aunt's friends tried to teach it. I wish he'd just left it alone.”

Melrose decided that the girl was, after all, quite sensible, if that was her verdict on the silly business of teaching birds to talk. “Is this your aunt's shop, then?”

“Yes, but she's gone to the store.” She turned to a rack of old jackets and gowns and outmoded frocks and wedding clothes. There was a stiff, white wedding dress, folds creaking with age. These, he supposed, were euphemistically termed “vintage clothing.” She took a dark green velvet gown from a hanger and held it up to her small frame, inspecting herself in the mirror.

“And when will she return, do you know?”

“Not for hours. It's her shopping day. I'm in charge.” She had turned to look at the sweep of the skirt. “Does this look like Scarlett O'Hara?”

“Not particularly. Look, have you any old manuscripts?”

In her
Gone with the Wind
mood, she wasn't interested in old manuscripts. Perhaps, he thought, seeing her slight scowl, he should have told her yes, she bore a strong resemblance to Scarlett O'Hara. Actually, observing her closely, as if he were again gazing through the stereopticon, there
was
a resemblance, for she had very dark hair and a slightly tilted nose. Her eyes were an unusual shade of brown, something like the color of the Russian amber necklace he had seen on the jewelry tray. He picked up a dark green bonnet and stuck it on her head. “Now you do. Look like Scarlett, I mean. If you tie that ribbon under your chin.”

The hat was much too big and nearly engulfed her face, but she seemed to think this was a grand idea and tied the velvet ribbon in a bow.

The several long-casement clocks started chiming, each coming in a split second after the other, and she said, “It's time for tea. We always have tea mid-morning. I guess you want some because you're English. I'll be back after I put the kettle on, in a minute.”

He took the minute to inspect the inside of the lid of the trunk she had opened. But lightning doesn't strike twice.

In a very short while she was back, still wearing the bonnet, rooting through another of the several trunks stationed around the shop. Over the top of the raised lid were draped various garments of white—or what had once been white—linen and lace. She picked out a blouse and tried it on over her T-shirt.

Why, he wondered, was he bothering to be so circumspect in his questions? It wasn't as if she had any reason to be on guard. As she was putting a green jacket on over her jumper, he said to her, “Someone told
me that a very important manuscript was found in a trunk here. By accident, by one of your customers.”

She became suddenly very still, as she turned away from him, buttoning up the green jacket.

“Very valuable,” he repeated. He thought, seeing her reflection in the mirror, that her face looked white and drained.

She shrugged her apparent indifference to the turn this conversation had taken.

He did not think she was indifferent. “Did you happen to see this trunk?”

“Yes.” A larger silence drew out, and then she said, “She's dead.”

A kettle screamed. Melrose started.

“I'll get the tea,” she called back as she rushed from the room.

The macaw, which had been in a flurry of excitement when the kettle whistled away, had jostled the shawl part-way from the cage. Now, seeing there was only Melrose left to entertain him, it dozed on its perch. A dish of little white biscuits sat on a plant stand beside the cage, and Melrose pinched one up and through the open cage door. The bird ignored the proffered biscuit and the door to freedom. If the only thing on the other side of a cage was Melrose Plant, it might as well stick to its perch.

“Suit yourself,” said Melrose and turned to the cat, who shivered himself awake, arching his back and yawning widely. He sniffed at the biscuit and recoiled himself on the cushions.

Once more she was returning, this time balancing two mugs and a teapot on a tray; a bowl of sugar and a jug of milk sat beside them. There was also a plate with lemon slices, cakes, and stacked-up biscuits. The cakes were round and thick with icing and coconut; the biscuits were chocolate with creamy centers.

“What,” Melrose asked, conversationally, “is your name?”

She answered, “Jip,” in a flat tone, as if she'd rather not have answered him at all. They were silent for a moment as she offered the sugar, which he spooned out, and the lemon, which he refused, pouring out a bit of milk instead.

“Well. Mine's Melrose. How do you do?”

Unhappily, he thought, she drank her tea, her deep golden-brown eyes regarding him over the rim of the cup. “Jip. That's an interesting name. What's it a nickname for?” For he assumed that it was.

“Nothing. It's just Jip.”

Her expressive face was now solemn, as if she too knew it did not sound like a real name, like a name one would be likely to find on any birth certificate. Was it possible, he wondered, that she did not know her real name? Her face, under the fold of the ridiculous wings of her bonnet,
was woeful. She replaced the biscuit and yanked off the hat. Playtime was over. Or something was over.

“It's probably a patronym,” said Melrose, taking a seat in a very low old chair with a cushion through which you could see the shape of the springs.

In the process of licking the icing from another biscuit, she stopped. She frowned. “A what?”

“Oh, you know,” he said breezily, “the Russian thing. You find it in the Russian novels. Patronyms. They have this affectionate way of referring to people. I have one. A patronym, I mean.” Oh, why was he saying this? He hadn't any name at all except Melrose. His parents hadn't even given him a middle name. He became unreasonably irritated by this. Why couldn't they have named him Melrose Fyodorovitch? A middle name—several middle names—might have come in handy in the circumstances.

“What is it?”

“Melrovitch.” He cleared his throat. “You see it's rather like, say, Petrovitch for Peter; or Anna Petrovna, say.” He smiled and consulted the biscuit-plate. “And then there's the diminutive. In my case it's Melshi. What are these?”