The Moon by Night (29 page)

“I suppose,” he said carelessly. “There's some bread and cheese too. Eat as much as you want, Solange, but don't leave a mess. There's a good girl.” He came and, to Manon's shock, sat down on the edge of her chaise. “I brought some wine,” he said. “Would you like a glass, Manon?”

“Why-why, yes, I would,” she answered, bewildered. She made as if to rise, but he shook his head. “Solange, bring me the bottle of wine, please.” She hurried to set the half-full bottle of wine on Manon's side table, right by the whisky tumbler Manon used to take her laudanum, drink her brandy, and drink her absinthe. At the moment it was empty, and Marcus poured her a generous glass of the deep red wine and handed it to her. She took a small sip, savoring the dry bite. “It's very good,” she sighed. “I do miss good wine.”

A shadow crossed Marcus's face, but quickly his expression settled back into its customary lines of aloof politeness. “Listen, Manon. I got a new patient today. Her name is Mevrouw de Sille. Both her family and her husband's family are prominent members of the old aristocracy here—they call them the Knickerbockers—”

“Knocker-bockers?” Manon repeated, giggling. “This is what Americans call the
bon ton
?”

“Knickerbockers,” he corrected her with a shade of impatience, “and they are only the New York aristos. Anyway, Manon, she is very wealthy, along with moving in the very best circles. She is just the kind of patient I've been trying to get ever since we moved here! She can introduce me to all of the right people, and of course she will recommend me. At last I'm beginning to see some end to this horrible nightmare!”

“Oh, Marcus, how wonderful!” Manon breathed. “Did she pay you? Did she give you a great sum of money to retain you?”

He frowned. “No, Manon, she didn't pay me. She just became my patient today. But I will be able to bill her a substantial amount in a few days. Perhaps on the fifteenth. That would make sense if I bill her on the fifteenth and the first.”

“But, Marcus, the hired coach? And the box?”

“What about them?” he asked in a hard voice, his back stiffening.

“I just thought maybe you had some extra money, because of the coach and the stew,” Manon said, taking a generous drink of the wine. “I hoped so, because that horrible old Grimes came again today and beat on the door and shouted.”

It was Wednesday, and the rent of $7.50 per week was due every Friday. Marcus was paid $38.50 every week, on Friday. Generally he left the rent money with Manon for payment of the rent the following week. But on the previous Friday he had been at the opera with Star and then had spent the night with her and then had gone to the hospital early on Saturday morning, for it had been his on-call weekend. He hadn't come home until Monday night, and he hadn't given Manon the rent money that week. This was the first time since they had moved into the house a year ago that Grimes, the landlord, had come to collect the rent, and Manon hadn't had it. It had terrified her when he had come—Monday, Tuesday, and now Wednesday—and shouted when she wouldn't answer the door. She and Solange had cowered together in the hallway, away from the windows, until long after he had left. Manon couldn't understand a word he had said, but she knew he was making threats. Of what, she didn't know, but she was frightened just the same.

But not frightened enough to question Marcus. The one time she had questioned him about staying out all night, he had told her coldly, “I work. I earn the money for you to sit here day after day staring out the window like some addled old woman. Don't ever question me again, Manon.”

Now he was staring at her with that same cold expression that made her feel such waves of self-loathing wash over her that she actually felt nauseated. Closing her eyes, she downed the rest of her glass of wine and mumbled, “It's time for my medicine, Marcus.”

“Ah, yes, the elixir of life,” he said mockingly. “Will it be the liquor, the drug, or the better drug, my dear?”

She swallowed and refused to meet his eyes as she held out her glass. “The laudanum, please. I…I have a pain—”

“No you don't,” he snapped as he grabbed the big brown bottle and poured her glass full. It was enough to kill a grown man, but Manon's system was so desensitized to the drug that it barely had any effect on her. Still, she drank it as thirstily as if it were the only water in a desert.

Marcus tossed back the last of his brandy, then rose and went to pour himself another. Solange sat on the floor, eating stew from a crockery mug and munching bread with a slab of cheese on it. She kept cutting her eyes around warily, and Marcus reflected that she looked like a starved dog, sitting there terrified that someone would take her last bone. The thought made him angry, though he didn't know why. He had never cared for Solange, had never been able to warm to his stepdaughter.

Solange was finishing up her meal, carefully wrapping up her leftover bread and cheese in the cheesecloth. She gathered her mug and spoon to wash and went to Manon's side. “Maman, can you eat? The stew is very good, and it's still hot.”

“Maybe later,” Manon said vaguely. “You go ahead and eat, child, you're much too thin.”

“Yes, Maman,” Solange said, sighing. She went toward the door, then turned and asked hesitantly, “Dr. Pettijohn? Would you like some supper? I'll serve, if you want.”

“No, I'm not hungry,” he answered. “Go on and wash up, Solange, and come back and feed Lisette. You saw the formula?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered, then added hesitantly, “Thank you, sir, for the Irish stew. And the bread and the cheese. It was delicious.”

“I didn't cook it, Solange, I just brought it,” he rasped. “Hurry up. Lisette's stirring.” He went to stand by Manon again, and this time he didn't sit down companionably, but he tried to be as polite as he could, though he felt such resentment toward her that he could hardly control the tone of his voice. “I brought formula for the baby and also some diapers, a couple of new bottles and nipples, and some flannel that can be made into blankets for her.”

“That's wonderful,” Manon murmured, smiling foggily. “For the baby…”

“Yes. And you need to put away the rest of the food, Manon. Besides the stew and bread and cheese, there's a smoked ham and a couple of stewed chickens. It needs to be properly stored in the pantry,” he said slowly, with emphasis. “Do you understand?”

“Mm-hmm, I'll take care of it.”

“Now, Manon!” he said harshly, and she jumped.

“Oh! Marcus, don't shout at me,” she wailed, pressing her hand to her chest. “My heart is beating so fast. You startled me so!”

“I have to shout at you for you to hear me!” he snarled. “You're in such a fog I sometimes wonder if you have a brain left! Get up, Manon, get up and
do something
!”

“I can't,” she wailed. “I get so dizzy and confused, and my heart races so, I think it might burst, and I get so hot and nauseated and ill—”

Savagely he bent over her, his hand on the back of the chaise. The sudden movement frightened Manon, and she flinched and drew away. His face was so close to hers that his breath stirred her hair. “I came home tonight. I had good news. I wanted to try and make things better. But you only make things harder, Manon. Harder for me, harder for Solange, harder for Lisette. You've let yourself go until you look like the worst kind of sloven. You don't take care of your home, you don't take care of your children, and you certainly don't take care of your husband.”

She shrank even farther away from him. “I know, Marcus, and I'm so sorry. Please forgive me, but I can't. I'm ill. I'm truly ill!”

“You are not ill, you're just—”

There was a thunderous banging on the door, and a coarse voice shouted, “Pettijohn! I know yer in there, boyo. I can see the light through the crack in the curtain. If yer don't lemme in, I'm coming back wid a copper to haul you in!”

Marcus banged his glass down on the table and marched down to the door, throwing it open. “Be quiet, Grimes, there's no need to shout loudly enough to wake the dead!”

The short, swarthy man peered through squinted dark eyes that looked like black holes in the man's face. “I've come by here every day this week, Mr. Pettijohn, and I knows yer lady's in there hiding. Now yer've been good tenants, but I have to have my rent every Friday or out yer go.”

“Here. Here's your money,” Marcus snarled, shoving the bills and coins into his hand.

“Now looka here, yer being late and all this week, boyo, means I gotta have the penalty of one dollar,” he said craftily.

“Here, take your money and get off of my doorstep,” Marcus said, giving him another dollar and closing the door.

“It's my doorstep, boyo,” he called. “And I'll be back this Friday, so's you'd best have it then, Miz Pettijohn!”

Marcus went upstairs without another word to Manon. She took another generous “dosage” of laudanum, then settled back to drift into her opium-laced half sleep. Solange came back in, stared at her for a moment, then began preparing Lisette's bottle.

In a while Marcus came downstairs, holding a large bundle. “I'm going to take out the washing,” he told Manon, who didn't open her eyes. “I'll order coal too.” He waited.

Manon didn't move.

“Th-thank you, sir,” Solange said helplessly.

Marcus didn't look at her or answer.

After long moments of staring at Manon, he turned on his heel and left.

Solange picked up the baby and managed, with some difficulty, to get up into the armchair and settle Lisette on her lap. She gave the baby her bottle, and then both children fell asleep.

“Doc, I can explain,” Shiloh said urgently.

“I'm sure you can,” Cheney said, still giggling a little as she petted the smaller dog, which was leaning against her legs as if she were fighting a strong headwind. “But could it wait until I sit down? And since the whole household seems to be up, do you suppose Sketes could make us some tea?”

“Sure, sure, Doc,” Shiloh said hastily as he hurried to the stairs. “I'll just go and tell Sketes…”

Cheney looked down at the two dogs. The bigger male still had the top of his head butted against Cheney's knees, and the female was still leaning against Cheney, gazing around behind her. “Well, friends, shall we sit?” Cheney said lightly. Shiloh had built a monstrous fire, so Cheney took a roomy upholstered armchair with big comfy rolled arms that was on one side of the hearth and propped her aching feet up on the matching hassock. The dogs watched her, looking comically surprised, but then their native common sense prevailed, and they took their previous stations on either end of Cheney's sofa, resting their heads on their front paws. Cheney couldn't help but laugh again. Their expressions were so solemn, but one of the male dog's bright red stockings was falling and hung down like an odd long crimson beard below his chin. As Cheney laughed at him, he seemed to sigh with longsuffering.

Shiloh came back in. “Doc, I can explain.”

“I know. You said that already,” she said lightly. “So sit down, if you can find a place to sit, and tell me all about it.”

Shiloh turned to the sofa, hesitated, then went to the other armchair at the end of the sofa and pulled it up beside Cheney's chair. “I was down to the docks, see…” he began and told the whole story. He stammered a little in the telling because he didn't want Cheney to know that the entire exchange was in French, and it required a surprising amount of concentration to tell the story and skirt this issue. But Shiloh had a surprise planned for Cheney concerning his study of the French language, and he didn't want to spoil it. So the story did have a very slight tinge of falseness that Shiloh was completely unaware of. He had no experience in lying and very little in evasion.

“So I just promised the little boy that I'd take the dogs to a good home,” Shiloh said brightly. “O' course I meant the orphanage, Doc. Right?”

Cheney was looking at him in an odd way that made him nervous. He figured it was because of the dogs; after all, this was one of those domestic things that husbands weren't supposed to do to wives without talking about it first. He was pretty sure of that, and this must be why Cheney seemed so troubled, so he kept talking, and the more he talked, the darker her expression grew.

“You say you got them down at the docks,” Cheney said cautiously, watching his face.

“Uh—yeah…”

“From a not-so-little boy whose captain wouldn't take them on board.”

“That's right.”

She was looking at him in such a way that he began talking—
babbling!
one corner of his mind observed—again, but all the time he was struggling to understand exactly why Cheney had that peculiar expression on her face. Usually Shiloh was so attuned to Cheney's thoughts that he knew exactly what she was thinking, but now he had no idea. Unless she was upset that he brought them into the house. “So I was looking for something to make them a bed down in the kitchen,” he finished rather lamely. “But maybe I shouldn't have let them in the house. It's just that it's so cold, Doc, and by the time we got home, the pads on their paws were cracked, and the little girl's one paw was bleeding a little.”

Cheney frowned, then her expression softened as she looked back at the dogs. “Oh no, Shiloh, of course they don't need to be outside. The wind is brutal out there tonight. And you say their paws are injured?”

“Nothing that some carbolic salve won't cure. They just got dry and cracked running around on the paved streets in the cold.”

“Oh my, Shiloh, however did you get them home?” Cheney asked. She turned back to him, her green eyes bright and sparkling with amusement.