Ghosts by Gaslight (28 page)

Such a curious reaction—a consequence of the day’s travel?

IV

Given his response to the balloon in his chamber, Coleman did not expect that he would be able to sleep in its presence, and he intended to ask Dunn to have it removed after dinner. At the conclusion of the meal, however, Dunn retreated to the library with Cal, whose preparations for their imminent work together the man declared must be seen to, posthaste. Not to mention, removed from close quarters with the thing, Coleman’s initial antipathy towards it seemed vague, ridiculous. He could wait, he decided, for morning.

Once he was outside the door to his room, though, the self-assurance of minutes before felt cavalier, reckless. So he was relieved when he found the balloon had drifted to the window, where its presence was, if not pleasant, not as repellent.

V

“Do you believe Mr. Dunn?” Isabelle asked.

“Heavens, no.” Coleman laughed. “A meeting with old Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew himself, on the eve of the battle at Gettysburg? Tutelage in the secret arts of Simon Magus? A saving intercession in his later life by the spirits of his mother, Paracelsus, and Swedenborg? It’s like a distillation of every melodrama produced these last fifty years. No, I suspect Mr. Dunn’s narrative is no more than a way for him to align his past acts with his present practices.”

Isabelle frowned, but did not reply. She inclined towards a bush whose name Coleman didn’t know but on whose branches a large orange-and-black butterfly moved its wings.

“I am much more interested,” Coleman said, “in our host’s reluctance to describe the means by which he fashions his balloons.”

VI

“You are preoccupied today,” Isabelle said.

“Am I?” Coleman turned his gaze from the blue sheet of the Hudson.

She nodded. “Since Mr. Dunn’s recitation of his years as an arms merchant last night, your thoughts have been elsewhere, I believe.”

Coleman smiled. “I fear I am not as cryptic as I would like.”

“Or I am becoming more adept at deciphering you.”

One of Dunn’s balloons had drifted near. Coleman raised his hand to push it away, only to find himself once more hesitating before his fingers touched its papery surface, his skin literally crawling at the thing’s proximity. Instead, he stood from the bench upon which he and Mrs. Earnshaw had admired the view from Dunn’s garden and set off at a slow pace along its paths. Isabelle hurried after him. He preempted her question about his response to the balloon by saying, “You are correct. I have been distracted, and our host’s words were the cause of it—specifically, his account of the bargain he struck for the rifles taken from the so-called Paris Commune. I was in Paris during the Commune. I’d come in with the second or third shipment of food Great Britain sent after the Prussians lifted their siege of the city. I’d thought I might write a series of articles about the state of the capital, which during the siege had become a focus of international attention and sympathy. It was a project for which I was well suited. Not only was I fluent in the language, but I had visited Paris several times during my youth, and I had maintained my correspondence with several of the friends I had made during those trips. One of these friends helped me secure lodgings in the Vaugirard district, and I settled down to work.

“I was staying at the edge of the city, so each morning, I set out to walk into it. While I was cautious at first, I soon became more confident and was ranging far and wide. Some parts of the city seemed hardly to have been affected at all, others—I can recall my shock at seeing the Ministry of Finances, which had been pounded almost entirely into rubble by the Prussian guns, so that what remained resembled an antique ruin. Towards the end of the day, I would return home and record my experiences. Once a week, I would write a short essay detailing my impressions, which I sent off to Rupert Cook at
Howell’s
. He liked the pieces well enough, although he paid the bare minimum for them. To be frank, I did not expect Cook would continue to purchase my essays for very long, once their novelty wore off. For the moment, however, I was in Paris, gathering details for my next novel, which (I hoped) would meet with more success than either of my previous attempts had. If I harbored my resources, I judged I might be able to extend my stay by as much as another year.

“In the wake of the French defeat, the city—the country—was in tumult. Indeed, the new government chose to convene in Versailles, for fear of the Parisian crowds. One of President Thiers’s first moves was to pass the Law of Maturities, whose ostensible purpose was to refill the coffers depleted by the war, but whose not-so-secret intent was to bring Paris, which was to provide an undue share of the revenue, to heel. The Commune arose as an attempt by the residents of the city to administer their own affairs more justly. For the two months of the Commune’s rule, Paris was—it was no less turbulent, but the daily chaos was shot through with optimism, with excitement. There was a significant population of foreigners living in the city, exiles, many of them, from more repressive states—and perhaps because of this, what was taking place felt as if its implications went far beyond the city’s borders. I filled all of one notebook and most of a second.

“There had been some skirmishes between the forces defending Paris and those loyal to the national government, but nothing of consequence, or so I judged. How naïve do I sound if I say that I did not believe the dispute between the city and the country would be settled through force of arms? Yet the morning of May twenty-first, I awakened to the sound of the first of the national government’s forces marching through the streets. I had not appreciated the unhappiness the residents of the city’s western districts felt towards the Commune. This included one of my oldest correspondents, a former professor of the classics who I later learned had been passing information along to the president’s agents. In fact, he was among those to suggest the route by which the French army might gain access to the city, and to offer reassurance that the soldiers would receive a warm welcome when they arrived.

“Which they did: the avenue outside my window was lined with men, women, children, there to greet the troops as liberators. I stared down at the ranks of men in their blue jackets and red trousers, their kepi caps perched on their heads, their rifles shouldered, and it was as if I were witnessing a performance, some new variety of theater performed in the open air. I could not accept its reality. I kept thinking,
Surely not, surely not.

“The seven days that followed have come to be known as La Semaine Sanglante, the Bloody Week. In short order, Thiers’s forces took the western districts; the east, however, was the seat of the Commune, and the fighting there was fierce. Travel through the streets was difficult, sometimes impossible, but it wasn’t necessary to go very far to know what was happening. All you had to do was walk to your window to hear the crack of the rifles, the boom of the cannons. The sharp smells of gunpowder and burning wood stained the air. Later, I read that, at the president’s request, the Prussians had expedited the release of thousands of the French soldiers they had captured, in order to swell the ranks of the national army. The Commune had no centralized plan for defense; rather, each district was charged with its own security. This allowed the army to divide and conquer the Commune. I, who had missed the civil war in the land of my birth, found myself at the heart of another.

“Nor was the Bloody Week the worst of it. Following the army’s conquest of the city, the members of the Commune were subject to extended reprisals. Having been associated with the city’s government to the slightest degree might lead to trial and execution. The cemetery at Père Lachaise, the Luxembourg Gardens, were taken over by firing squads. I might have fallen under suspicion, myself, were it not for my old friend the professor of the classics, who testified to my character.

“I could have stayed, I suppose, but the prospect of remaining in the ruin of the Commune was too bleak. Rupert Cook had lost interest in my reports, so I judged the time right to depart Paris. I stopped at Geneva for a few months, spent the winter in Florence, and settled in Venice. There I remained for the next fifteen years, for the first five of which Paris remained under martial law. Needless to say, the novel I had hoped would emerge from my time in the city remained unwritten. It has only been the past few years that I have been able to return to Paris. I had thought I might live there again, but it was impossible. The ghosts of seventeen years past would not allow it.

“So to hear that Mr. Dunn had built his early fortune by trading in the Commune’s weapons was . . . unsettling. To say the least.” His smile was humorless.

Another balloon had drawn close to them. “I believe your husband’s afternoon session should be drawing to a close,” Coleman said. He walked away from the balloon, towards the house.

VII

“Were you of age during the War Between the States?” Dunn asked.

“I was,” Coleman said without turning his gaze from the swords racked between two of the library’s considerable bookcases. He touched the pommel of a rapier. “May I?”

“Of course.”

The sword was heavier than Coleman anticipated. It took him a moment to find its balance, after which, he slashed right to left, left to right, theatrically.

“You were an officer,” Dunn said.

“I was not,” Coleman said, replacing the sword. “I suffered an . . . injury a few years before the outbreak of hostilities. I was visiting family friends, and there was a fire in their barn, which I joined the effort to extinguish. I was standing too close to one of the walls when it collapsed and showered me with debris. The quick response of my fellows saved me, but I was left unfit for service. Both my older brothers, Will and Bob, distinguished themselves in the war; in fact, Bob became one of Grant’s aides.” He spared a glance at Dunn, who was studying him intently. Coleman went on, “Since moving to London I’ve taken up fencing as a way to hold the effects of aging at bay.”

“The effects of your injury have lessened with the years,” Dunn said.

“They have not hindered my exercise, no.”

“Perhaps they would have allowed you to join your brothers.”

“Perhaps,” Coleman said. “I was in England when Sumter was shelled, and my father insisted I remain there.”

“Due to your wound.”

Coleman felt his face redden. “If there is an inference you would like to make clear—”

“Nothing of the kind,” Dunn said, waving one of his massive hands. “You should be grateful—you should fall on your knees and give thanks to whatever God you venerate for that injury. Whatever discomfort, whatever pain it has brought to you has preserved you from an experience vastly more terrible, from wading knee-deep in a tide of blood and gore. It was something of a witticism among my fellow soldiers that should any of us fall in battle, he need have no fear of the Christian hell, because next to the sights we had witnessed, its famous torments would count as naught.” Dunn paused. “I beg your pardon: I don’t mean to bore you with an old soldier’s platitudes. Lunch should be ready on the patio.”

Coleman followed Dunn out of the library with the enormous oak table at its center, the handful of balloons floating amidst its bookcases. He was thinking that Dunn had uttered his description of the war in a tone not of horror, but nostalgia.

VIII

“I wonder, sir, what you regret,” Cal Earnshaw said.

“I beg your pardon?” Coleman looked up from his book.

Cal pushed himself slightly higher in his Adirondack chair. “You may imagine,” he said, panting from the effort, “a man in my position finds a great deal he wishes he could do or undo. Some of it is fairly obvious: Isabelle and I will never have a family. Some of it is more idiosyncratic: I will not see the pyramids, which has been an ambition of mine since I read about them as a boy. I’ve tried to reconcile myself to these facts, for really, what else can I do? Yet I am so far unable to rise above my frustration—my anger, if I am to speak candidly—at everything I am to lose. I keep hoping that the peace which is supposed to descend on those nearing death’s precincts will find me, but it has not.

“All of which,” he continued, “is preamble to my asking what regrets a man like you might harbor. You have lived longer than have I; you have traveled far, resided in places that are only names on a map to me. You have authored several novels, many more stories; you have written extensively for an assortment of periodicals. In short, you have had a life whose fullness, if not its exact details, I should have liked for mine. I know that you must have had your disappointments, but weighed against that fullness, I find it difficult to believe that any mistake or missed opportunity could matter that much.”

Coleman set his book on the arm of his chair. A quartet of balloons hovered in the near distance; he fought the urge to depart the porch with all due speed. He had promised Isabelle that he would sit with her husband while he recovered from his morning session with Dunn (which appeared to be hastening the end they were supposed to be preparing him for: in the last five days, Cal had gone from gaunt to skeletal, his skin stretched taut over his bones—his skin had become gray and papery, and a sour odor clung to him). Doing his best not to listen to the balloons’ soft, incessant rustling, Coleman let his gaze drift to the Hudson, full of craft large and small this sunny day. “When I was a young man,” he began, “not very much older than you . . .” His voice trailed off.

After a moment, Cal said, “Mr. Coleman?”

With a shake of his head, Coleman said, “Forgive me, Mr. Earnshaw. In many ways, you’re right: my life has been much as I wished it to be. What part of it I could control, at least. And what has lain outside my control, I have tried to cultivate a philosophical attitude towards. Often, I’ve been able to console myself with the thought that whatever reversal of fortune I was experiencing would serve as the germ of a future story. In fact, what I’m about to tell you made it to a rather lengthy opening.