Picture the Dead Page 12

  “A June wedding would be beautiful,” I mention to Mavis on the ride back, quietly enough that Uncle Henry doesn’t hear. “But I’d prefer something modest. Anything extravagant might be dishonorable to Will’s memory.”

  Mavis pulls on her agreeable face, though I know she thinks I ought to do just as I please and have as sumptuous a wedding as I want. Honor be damned.

  I have to wonder if Will would have paid me the same courtesy.

  26.

  On the afternoon of the party, the house is hushed. Expectant. It’s a change. All week, until this morning, it churned with activity. But now the florists and confectioners have gone, dropping off their arrangements, their bowls of trailing ivy and hothouse roses, their iced petits fours, their candied lavender and orange-blossom petals, and other delicacies beyond the household’s practical expertise.

  Though our humble kitchen has been busy, too. The lobster bisque, the dripping, spit-roasted beef, the waft of potatoes broiled in tarragon and butter have been planned, prepared, and executed under Mrs. Sullivan’s scrupulous eye. She has chosen most of her recipes from before the war, and I can’t help but worry that they are too extravagant for the sober climate. Certainly they are tastes that I have not sampled in years. The aroma alone sets my stomach into embarrassing gurgles of anticipation.

  The table is set with the best lace and linens. Every stick of silver has been polished to luster. Passing through the dining room earlier, I imagine that the very walls and windows hold their breath, as if nothing less than a coronation is taking place tonight.

  Quinn calls this evening his mother’s folly, but he’d never trust Aunt Clara to make it a success, so he himself has paid personal attention to every detail. From the wording on Aunt Clara’s carefully penned invitations to the order of the dancing and the proper moment, just before the port and cheese, for announcing our engagement.

  Such a delicate evening couldn’t be left to Aunt. We’re both well aware that our news must be managed with grace. “And with respect for our dear brothers, William and Tobias. They are our very own guardian angels, and we pray that they will guide us with temperance and protect us from life’s unhappy vagaries,” Quinn had recited late last night as we’d sat together, watching the dying embers in the sitting room. Quinn had wanted to practice some of his speech out loud to me before he faced down Brookline society.

  “Yes, quite right,” I’d answered.

  “Then, what’s wrong?”

  “I suppose I’m fearful that people might judge me harshly,” I admitted. “One brother, now the other. Geist said my heart might not have caught up to ”

  “Ah, to hell with whatever Geist says.” Quinn’s brows had knit as he’d folded the paper into his pocket. “He’s a moldering old bachelor and a gypsy swindler to boot. You know that many wartime widows are remarrying, Jennie. People aren’t meant to live lonely.” But then he’d turned boyish and clinging, dropping from his chair to rest his head in my lap. My hand had reached to stroke the ginger curls, soft as a child’s. I am taken aback. Quinn was so rarely given to acts of vulnerability. I think of how Will used to waggle and bounce, throwing himself at me like an excited puppy.

  “You are right, of course,” I’d whispered.

  “We’ve been far too isolated here, haven’t we?” he’d whispered back. “It’s bound to make us worry over how we’ll conduct ourselves in society. But a reintroduction to our friends and neighbors ought to do everyone some good. I’ll mourn both our brothers for the rest of my life, but let us resolve to shine some light in each other’s lives as well.”

  “You’re right, dear Quinn. Let’s.”

  How I’d wanted to put my faith in this thought, how dismayed I’d been that its comfort doesn’t hold.

  That night, as I’d lain awake, I’d made a secret prayer that this party will be the prelude to a farewell. Of one thing I was certain: for as long as I remain at Pritchett House, I will live in anxiety and dread.

  When the time is right I’ll suggest to Quinn what has weighed heavy on my mind that we need to move from here. We can live in Boston or Hartford, away from Aunt and Uncle. Away from this house of nightmares. No Bible, no prayers or blessing by Father Sheehan or Reverend Meeks could possibly drive out the vengeful spirit in the house. We will escape it instead. I want Mavis to come with me, too, though I haven’t dared put the question to her yet. Pritchett House is all she knows. For now I will keep my plan secret.

  That night and the next day pass uneasily as I help Aunt Clara with the minute arrangements of seating charts and music selection.

  “Do you think everybody will come?” I ask.

  Patches of angry pink appear in Aunt’s cheeks. “Are you implying that anyone would dare refuse?” she snaps. “Jennie, we are Pritchetts.”

  Not I, not really, not yet. But I use her dudgeon to take quick leave, retreating to my room, where I wait for Madame Broussard, who will be making Aunt’s and my last-minute alterations.

  Sunlight has ignited my bedroom, but the room itself is cold just as it had been in my attic. I build up the fire and settle back with some lacework.

  Percy, the calico kitten that Mavis has given me in secret, looks up at me from his basket. So far, the kitten has not seemed the least bit troubled by malevolent spirits. In fact, he seems quite content with his flannel-lined bed and yarn mouse. He is a sweet thing with unblinking amber eyes, and what Aunt doesn’t know of his presence won’t hurt her.

  The kitten’s belled collar tinkles faintly as he jumps into my lap. His purring is warmth and music. My eyes close into memories of a long-ago sled ride. I am waiting my turn on the top of a hill as Quinn prepares to launch Will and me. Quinn had pushed hard and fast, and the sled’s bells jingled as we’d whooped our delight turning almost instantly to terror as one runner caught a buried rock and sent us jettisoning into the air, flipping over the sled, slamming our bodies through space to land hard and skid against the ice-packed earth.

  “You did it on purpose!” Will had accused his brother in a spitting fury as we’d collected ourselves. “You wanted to scare everyone off the sled why, you probably planted the rock, too and I’m gonna tan your arse for it!” Invoking the stable boy’s rough language and tone so aptly, it shocked us all.

  “Toby, stop him!” I called through my drenched, mittened hands as Toby chased Will, who was chasing Quinn up and down the meadow. Afterward we’d all trod back into the house for cider and molasses cake. The chaos of the event soon forgotten as we’d all indulged our sweet tooth. Later Quinn admitted to us all that he’d wanted to see what would happen if he pushed us with all his strength “but I didn’t hide the rock, Will. And I can’t apologize for something I didn’t do.”

  Yet Will had refused to accept this, looking daggers at his brother for the rest of the day.

  “Mon dieu!” I wake with Madame’s eyes on me. “This room is freezing! How do you sleep in such condition? But we must hurry, it’s nearly four.”

  “Oh…” I wince. Strangely, I feel bruised all over, a phantom pain as if I’d taken that fall from the sled only minutes ago. I glance at the mantel clock, and I see with shock that it is stopped at half past two.

  The undertow, catching back my past, drowning me deep inside it.

  The room is like ice. The fire has died and the window is frosted. Percy has left my lap to shiver in a ball in his basket.

  “Let me light the fire. Il fait si froid ici than outdoors, but I am not sure how that could be.”

  Outside, the afternoon sun is a butterscotch blaze, sinking fast and igniting the outline of the tree.

  “Alors, we have one last fitting,” says Madame. “I pray you have not lost more weight.”

  She will be disappointed. I take my position, standing on the ottoman in my whalebone corset as Madame unwraps the bottlegreen silk dress along with its pounds of accompanying petticoats plus metal-hooped crinoline.

  “These latest French fashions are the tiniest bit scandalous, especially wit
h that neckline dipping ever so slightly off your shoulders,” Madame murmurs. “You will be the talk of the soiree.” She sinks to her hands and knees, the better to make last-minute adjustments to the point-jupe cords that pick up my skirt.

  “So heavy. I feel as if I’ve doubled my weight,” I remark.

  “Eh, I wish.” Madame pinches some of the dress fabric, loose at the waist, though she’s taken it in once before. She works in silence, saving her thoughts until she finishes. “You’re a sparrow in peacock finery,” she pronounces lightly, but there’s truth in the joke. My collarbone juts, my eyes are hollowed, even my hair lacks the luster for my upsweep. Like the rest of me, it seems to wilt, and when I slap at my cheeks they look as garish red as gypsy kisses in my wan face.

  I drop my eyes to the dressmaker, who is knotting her needle. “I’m sorry that you won’t be staying on for dinner, Madame.”

  “Non, non I’m not one for crowds.” She stands, gathering her spools and needles into her sewing basket. “But I’d advise you to test your shoes, Mademoiselle,” she says, as we both glance over at them. Ivory kid leather in a pouched silk box. “Two inches off the ground will alter your perspective. You must learn to walk before you can waltz in them.”

  “Quite right.” I jump down from the ottoman, and Madame assists with the shoehorn and binds the straps then sends me tottering down the corridor. I wobble up and down the flight of stairs. At the end of the hall, I try a curtsy, then brave a dip and twirl. Madame applauds.

  “À bientôt,” she says as she kisses each of my cheeks. “Young Mr. Pritchett desires me to return next week to plan your wedding trousseau.”

  “Thank you, Madame.” My heart lifts. A trousseau. I’ve imagined mine since I was a young girl. The trunk trays of delicate undergarments, the nightcaps and linens, the yards of laces, the variety of fabrics pongee and pique, silk and velvet and Swiss muslin. For a moment I am almost envious of Madame, who presides over the arrangements of so many trousseaux while a bride must settle on only one. But now I will heed her advice and learn to walk in these ridiculous shoes so that tonight I might be a gazelle on Quinn’s arm.

  Lemon-oil polish holds a strong scent of expectation. Everything has been aired out, sudsed over, or plumped up for the party, even rooms where no guest will tip a toe inside. I pause on the landing to stare out the window, where Madame’s trap waits. Soon this view will be filled with carriages. A rare spectacle. Toby loved dinner parties, though he could be mischievous. So many voices to eavesdrop in on. So many secrets to absorb.

  A spy must never let down his guard.

  Pritchett House is a theater before the curtain rises, with the principal actors offstage. Aunt and Uncle are in their respective rooms, dressing and presumably bickering, while Quinn has rushed off in the carriage to the newspaper offices to personally submit the announcement of our engagement.

  “The most precious errand of my day,” he’d spoken in my ear, sending sparks up my spine.

  Servants pass me with quick deferential bows. Some unfamiliar faces have been hired on for just this evening.

  As I try my heels on the next flight of stairs, I run into Mavis. Her arms are weighted with the tea tray. “Why, you’re a picture, Miss,” she breathes. She herself looks exhausted and can hardly perk up a smile or wait for my response before she disappears into Aunt’s lair.

  At the end of the hall I pause at the entrance to Uncle Henry’s study. Though this is his private sanctuary, I dare myself to enter. After all, no room should feel off-limits to me. Not as the future Mrs. Pritchett.

  Defiant, I brace myself. I open the door and loop the room, one pinched step at a time. The room carries a whiff of authority, of old scotch and pipe tobacco and leather-bound books, and of Uncle’s own pine-scented cologne. I am drawn to the clutter on Uncle’s desk. Perhaps there is an opened ledger where I can see for myself what sort of expenses have been incurred this month.

  The morning newspaper partially obscures the letter. But I recognize the handwriting. I pick it up.

  It’s a formal request for a meeting at the bank and for an explanation of the details of his trust. Quinn had told me he’d be composing just such a note to Uncle Henry. The contents aren’t what I see. There are no magic words here.

  My chemise has gone damp with sweat. Phrases stab my eyes; I snatch the paper, balling it so tight that my fingernails bite my palm. I am stuck and bleeding with the knowledge. It can’t be undone. I back out of the study and run, my heels catching and digging into the carpet. On the landing I nearly sprain my ankle as I rush into my room, locking the door behind me.

  “Please, dear Lord. It’s not true. Don’t let it be true.”

  Will’s last letter from Camp Sumter is kept with his others safe inside the pages of my scrapbook. So many times I’d knelt before the hearth or grate, intending to destroy it. To torch its physical reminder. Turn it to ash. At the last minute, I never could. It was Will’s final clutch of contact with me before I’d lost him altogether. Or so I’d thought.

  Steeling myself, I unfold it. Then I smooth out Quinn’s note to Uncle Henry and place it next to Will’s prison confession.

  The blocks of paragraph, the cutting strokes of his uppercase letters, the back slant of his lower loops. My finger traces these same words as my lips repeat them, hearing their fierce braggadocio. I’d never found Will’s identity in that final letter. His words had never imprinted as the young man I could claim as my own. So I clung to the assertion that he’d changed from the war. How could he not have been changed?

  I’d read that letter with my own pain surging through me. I’d read that confession with hardly a thought to the writer. For it hadn’t struck me, not once, that it wasn’t the same man at all.

  Right-handed, Quinn’s letters had been elegant as a woman’s. In readapting to his left hand, his style has taken on some of his brother’s traits. The narrow loops, that blown-back slant. Some of Will, but much of Quinn remains on the page.

  With shaking hands, I tuck both letters into my skirt pocket and hurry from my bedroom. Wheeling around the staircase and gripping the banister for balance, I see Madame in her cloak at the mirror, making fastidious adjustments to her hat as she prepares to leave.

  “Madame,” I whisper. But new doubts strangle my breath.

  Here it is, laid out in front of me. The sense of what I ought to have seen all along. And yet, staring into the horror of the moment, I’m numb. I need to force myself to action, but I am paralyzed by what that means for me.

  A monster. He is a monster.

  A cry escapes my lips. Startled, Madame looks up and catches my eye in the mirror’s reflection. “Why, Mademoiselle Jennie, what is it? What has happened?”

  I want to hide, but instead I run, hurtling down the stairs to grasp hold of the dressmaker’s wrists, my eyes beseeching her. “Take me away from here, Madame. Please, I must go at once!”

  27.

  In the mirror, the right hand becomes the left. In everything I saw, I now find its reflection. A young man looks into the mirror and another looks through. In replacing one brother with the other, the lock of the mystery comes unclasped. Now I smooth out the chain of the narrative, link by link.

  A spy is foremost a code breaker.

  Two brothers went to war. The older was a natural soldier, an optimist, and an athlete. Adored by everyone, invincible in his confidence. The younger brother was reserved, an acid wit with a taste for gambling and fine clothes. He stood in disdain of the elder’s good and trusting nature while secretly craving all that his big brother had. Sometimes to the point where he pretended he had those things, too.

  Away from home the younger brother befriended a soldier, another rogue like himself, who became a happy substitute when his blood brother loomed too disapproving or expected too much. Together, Quinn Pritchett and Nate Dearborn played cards, rolled dice, drank whiskey, and invented stories of their sweethearts back home Franny Paddle and Jennie Lovell. The fact that Franny didn’t
exist, or that I was engaged to Will, didn’t matter to these brothers-in-arms. The battlefield was not reality.

  The friends honed their talent for gambling and then, inured by the monstrous horrors of the Wilderness, for grave robbing what use has a dead man for a watch or a ring or a pair of thick boots… Thieving from corpses of fallen soldiers meant a wealth of treasures to barter, and others must have known of their cache. Rounded up with their company and forced into Camp Sumter, they would be naturally attracted to a gang of thieves, and the thieves to them. Charles Curtis, the leader of such a gang, knew how to put these young men’s talents to good use for a time. We picked the adventure knowing there’d be no end but a bloody one…This was my true self.

  I can’t complete the entire shape of this chain. It is not laid out flat in front of my eyes. What was Will’s role in all this? Why did he end up a thief and Raider? What specific crime had he committed that he was delivered to the gallows at Camp Sumter? Why couldn’t he have escaped with Quinn?

  Madame had asked nothing of me when I’d asked her to take me away and given her Geist’s address. I suppose the fear in my eyes had been enough. She’d simply tossed my cloak over my shoulders and hurried me out the front door to her coach. We hadn’t spoken a word on the trip into Boston, though I’m sure her questions burned in her head.

  My own mind is surprisingly lucid. I think of Viviette’s baleful gaze on me all over again. I’d been mistaken. Viviette hadn’t called me the demon; she had warned me of the demon. And Quinn’s second visit had confirmed her suspicions.

  “I’ll wait for you.” Madame finally breaks her silence as the carriage turns down the modest rectilinear block to stop in front of Geist’s townhouse.

  “No need. Mr. Geist will bring me home in his carriage,” I dissuade her. “Truly, I’ll be fine.”