Louisa and the Crystal Gazer (17 page)

“It is important,” insisted Cobban.

She glared, then ushered us in.

Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Deeds resided at 6 Newbury Street in a large, cluttered house filled with acquisitions: cuckoo clocks from the Black Forest, rows and rows of glass vases and paperweights from Venice, painted fans from the Japans, tapestries of peacock feathers from India, huge bouquets of silk flowers. Her home felt like the interior of a shop, the type that
sells mementos and gifts and never a truly needed item. The windows were hung with four layers of lace and draperies; each table—and there were many, all located where more sensible people might wish to circulate—was covered with three cloths each, one atop the other.

“I trust this will be brief?” she said when we were seated in her back parlor, where the furnishings were less fussy and had a slightly worn quality that better suited me. “I am expecting guests.”

I hazarded a guess then as to why she was dressed so plainly. She was not expecting guests, at least not guests of the usual variety. At last, my luck had changed, but I could not inform Cobban until we had a more private moment.

“We’ll need to speak with Mr. Deeds as well,” said the young constable.

She glared, knit her brows, decided a veneer of politeness would work well in the situation. “Very well. I’ll go bring him in. He is working on his insect collection. He discovered a strange moth in his wardrobe last evening.” Her smile was forced.

“Yes?” asked the beleaguered husband a few minutes later. He stood in the doorway of the parlor, his stooped posture and genuine surprise indicating he rarely was summoned from his collection to the parlor, even the back parlor.

“Please be seated,” said Cobban. “I have some questions for you about Meh-ki.”

“Who?” asked Mr. Deeds, scratching his head, ruffling the thin gray hair that fringed out from a bald circle like a monk’s tonsure.

“Mrs. Percy’s cook,” I said.

“Oh, that woman!” Mrs. Deeds exclaimed. “Bad enough that her séances were a bore, and then she died and upset my schedule for a week, for I had counted on her to come and do a private séance for a party I was giving.” Mrs. Deeds seemed very put out that her crystal gazer had had the bad taste to die before fulfilling her social engagements.

“Mrs. Percy’s cook’s name is Meh-ki, and I believe that Mrs. Percy gave you a message regarding her,” Cobban said to Mr. Deeds, who had begun wringing his hands.

Mrs. Deeds glared at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“Couldn’t have,” said Mr. Deeds. “I don’t know her.”

“The message was from Michaela,” said Mrs. Deeds, still staring at the clock.

“So we thought. Actually, I believe Mrs. Percy said Meh-ki,” I said. “The exact message was…” I took out my notebook, in which I had recorded the séance the evening I returned home, the better to have the details should I wish them for one of my “blood and thunder” stories. “…was that Meh-ki was afraid of something, that she had a secret, and there was a cost. Ring any bells, Mr. Deeds?”

“No,” he insisted, looking genuinely perplexed. “How could she have a message for me, if we have never met?”

Cobban, who had taken out his own notebook, slapped it shut and rubbed his fingers over its worn leather cover. Mrs. Deeds cleared her throat and made a show of looking at the timepiece pinned to her dress. She cleared her throat. “I am somewhat pressed for time,” she said again. Mr. Deeds shrugged and looked confused.

We rose. Cobban shook Mr. Deeds’s hand in a way that seemed to indicate sympathy, I thought.

Outside, the snow fell heavily, a beautiful snow that made me joyous with one breath and anxious with the next, for it reminded me of Christmas, and the presents I wished to buy for my family, and the shirts that must be stitched before such presents could be purchased.

“I think we should wait a bit across the street, behind that shelter for the omnibus,” I said, for I had formed a speculation about why Mrs. Deeds had forsworn all jewels that afternoon.

“It’s cold, Louy!” complained Sylvia.

“It will be worth the wait, if I am correct. Button your coat, Sylvia, and pull the collar tighter.”

Cobban undid the muffler from about his neck and put it around Sylvia’s. She gazed at him with adoring eyes.

We stood in silence for ten minutes, shifting our weight back and forth from foot to foot and wrapping our arms about ourselves for greater warmth. Because I had given away my gloves my fingers were numb, and I longed for the warmth of Auntie Bond’s hearth. But I was correct; the wait in the cold was worthwhile.

At exactly three o’clock, a closed carriage pulled up in front of Mrs. Deeds’s home; a man in a high-collared coat and low-brimmed hat descended from the carriage. He looked furtively about before climbing the steps to Mrs. Deeds’s door.

“It is Eddie Nichols,” I said, “come to sell her some jewelry. That’s why she was wearing none. When you are to bargain for a good price, it is better not to wear your wealth about your neck.”

Cobban let out a low whistle. “Ladies, return to your homes. I’ll take care of this.”

“L
OUY
, I
HAVE
never seen you stitch with such determination,” Lizzie said to me later that evening. I was finally warm, with dry stockings and house slippers, a thick shawl over my shoulders, and a cup of hot chocolate on the table at my side. When I had returned home Auntie Bond’s house smelled of cloves and oranges, for she had been baking her famous fruitcake, and the scent of that seasonal delight drove me to a frenzy to finish the reverend’s shirt order—or at least diminish it, so that I might move closer to the reward, the promised payment.

“I am far behind,” I told her. “There. Two shirts done. I shall finish the third this evening, I think.”

“Nine more to go. And the cuffs need double-stitching, and there should be a touch of embroidery on the button placket. I shall do that.”

“It doesn’t seem fair, Lizzie,” I confessed. “I am sewing shirts to purchase a Christmas present for you, yet you are doing the work as well!”

“Oh, Louy.” She came and knelt by me and put her blond head on my knees. “Don’t you know it is gift enough to have this time with my sister? I have you, and letters from Father and Marmee, and a piano, and a hearth. What else could I need?”

A red leather portfolio of Liszt, I thought. And to help read the music, a series of lessons with Signor Massimo, who
teaches only the best of the best and has agreed to work with the winner of Mr. Crowell’s lottery.

“Speaking of letters, there is a note just arrived for you, Louisa,” said Auntie Bond, coming in to join us. She handed me an envelope and sat down in her favorite chair, a soft chenille one near the hearth.

“From Constable Cobban,” I said, recognizing the writing on the envelope. I tore it open. “Mr. Edward Nichols has been detained for questioning about certain thefts and the distribution of jewelry of questionable provenance.”

“Justice is done,” said Auntie Bond, who had been following my adventures in the aftermath of Mrs. Percy’s death.

I had half expected Constable Cobban to write me that there had been a fond reunion, albeit brief, between Suzie Dear and Eddie Nichols, but it had not fallen out quite that way.

Poor Suzie, I thought. She had thought herself in love, I suspected. And poor Mr. Cobban. Did he realize yet what was in store for him?

I
SAT UP
stitching long past the moment when Lizzie, sighing, stretched and yawned and went up to her bed; long past Auntie Bond’s cheerful, “Good night, Louisa, sleep tight,” till the last embers in the hearth had turned gray and cold, till my fingertips were numb, picking pieces of white linen from the basket and matching sleeve to shoulder, front seam to side seam, doggedly stitching what are known as French seams, twice-stitched first on the right side then outside in so that the stitches don’t show and there are no unfinished edges. It is, in the correct frame of mind, satisfying work, almost meditative, though I doubt Father and Mr. Emerson have so meditated despite their passion for Transcendence.

One thought ran through my mind over and over: If the message about Meh-ki wasn’t for Mr. Deeds, as I strongly suspected it was not, since he seemed incapable of guile, then for whom was it meant? And why had Mrs. Percy taken such a roundabout path to deliver the message?

I put down the shirtsleeve and took my notebook out of my pocket.

Mrs. Percy had first asked Meh-ki with whom she wished to speak. Meh-ki’s spirit or presence, or whatever Mrs. Percy pretended it was, did not answer. She had then asked Meh-ki if she had a secret, and there had been two taps. Yes. And then the only other part of that “message” had been from Mrs. Percy herself: “When the soul’s ether is so unwilling to make itself known, it desires only continued secrecy. There is a cost. Am I understood?”

There is a cost. Am I understood?
Was Mrs. Percy threatening someone in the room? Asking for payment? Who?

Immediately after had come the “message” for Sylvia: “Marry,” and then that strange garbled deep voice that had issued from Mrs. Percy saying, “Marry in haste, repent, repent; marry out of your station, woe, woe. But marry well, and prosper after. None will know.”

None will know. There is a cost. Am I understood? None will know
. The secret message had been hidden in the others. I flipped two pages back, to the message to Mr. Barnum: “Forgiveness rather than vengeance. Women are easily led astray and abused by those with power.”

Tomorrow, I decided, I would pay a visit to Miss Amelia Snodgrass, and then to Mr. Barnum. I looked at the pile of unstitched linen shirts next to my chair and sighed. I was making such little progress! Nine more to go before the full order could be delivered to the reverend and payment made. Nine more shirts before I could purchase Lizzie’s sheet music and lessons with Signor Massimo; how long would Mr. Crowell be willing
to hold them for me? Mrs. Percy, I complained to her in my thoughts, why couldn’t you have waited till after Christmas?

She answered immediately. At least, the voice that was revealing the story of “Agatha’s Confession” answered:

For this is the truth of human nature, kind but imperfect reader. We speak in half-truths and know not even our own selves; we mistake fear for virtue and are foolishly surprised when passion turns to violence.

Another hour later, exhausted by the long day but with four more pages added to my story, finally I joined Lizzie in our shared bedroom and slept deeply, dreamlessly.

T
HE NEXT AFTERNOON
Sylvia joined me for the visit to Miss Snodgrass. During the walk there we did not speak of Constable
Cobban, but she did speak of her father, whom she insisted again was visiting her in dreams and speaking to her.

“Father sees my loneliness,” Sylvia said quietly, putting her arm through mine.

“Are you so lonely?” I asked.

“I have not mentioned this before,” said my friend, “but when I see the joy on your face as you think of the Christmas gifts you wish to purchase for your family, then I think, ‘And what gifts will I present, and to whom?’ Mother has everything. Who has need of a gift from me? Other than you, of course. Poor Louy, your hands are blue from the cold. You should not have given away your gloves.”

“Gloves are easier to replace than a heart that has been given,” I said gently.

“He is a good man. Kind and honest,” Sylvia said. “As for those plaid suits, I will see to it that they are replaced. Ah. This is the house, isn’t it?” We climbed the steps of the porch and knocked.

Miss Snodgrass’s maid, an ancient, hobbling creature who muttered constantly, opened the door of the old Beacon Hill home and took our coats. She admitted us to a back parlor, where Miss Snodgrass sat before her tapestry frame, working a pretty scene of woodlands and pheasants. Miss Snodgrass wore bright green and purple; in her own home, it would seem, she abandoned that strange taste for nondescript brown garments. In fact, she looked quite festive compared to her parlor furnishings, which were ancient and mismatched, of excellent quality but in need of new upholstery. The stenciled walls were faded, the leaded windows dull and distorted with great age.

“How kind of you to visit,” said Amelia Snodgrass with evident lack of sincerity. She paused in her stitching, her right hand holding needle and crimson thread poised over the frame. The rules of calling would be rigorously followed, I assumed. For ten minutes we would have to make small talk and drink tea before I could announce the purpose of the visit.

The tea tray was brought in. Miss Amelia Snodgrass poured tea in a way I could only dream about. Not a drop missed its mark. When she passed me the cup and saucer, there was no rattle of china on china. Her aim was sharp, her hand absolutely steady. For the required ten minutes we spoke of the weather, which was nasty, and the Christmas decorations in the store windows, which were lovely.

Of course, the tea was appallingly weak, more dirty water than orange pekoe, but I had come to expect that in houses where the family tree had more items in it than the family bank account.