Spectris Read online

  As the doorman sweeps, I try to form a plan. I cannot demand entrance to Griffin House based on a supernatural vision. They’d take one look at me—dusty and rumpled from the gutter—and send me straight back to Ironwood Asylum, or another hospital like it. I must resemble a beggar to the average person . . .

  Sunlight blazes down from the August sky, and the straw boater on my head itches something fierce. I push it back a little and scratch the damp skin above my eyebrow. A breeze blows over me as inspiration strikes.

  A beggar, eh? Well, why the hell not? I have been worse, a lot worse.

  As people stroll along the sidewalk, I stand back against the fence surrounding Griffin House and listen to them pass. The tapping of women’s high-heeled slippers, the slap of men’s boot soles. A pronounced tread for the stout, while the small boned are more subtle. All seems placid, my presence largely ignored as the footsteps continue on their way.

  That’s right, citizens, move along.

  The fence feels like wrought iron, heavily ornamented, but not too tall. I slip my cane between the iron spokes in the fence and lay it flat on the ground inside the property lines, followed by my straw boater and dress sash. Last to go are the spectacles. I feel almost naked in public without them. Squatting down, I reach through the fence again, running my fingers over the soil near my cane. The dirt feels soft and warm, and I smear some around the bodice of my dress, on my chin, and right cheekbone. After rubbing another handful into my hemline and boots, I take out the pins in my hair and run my fingers through the waves.

  That should do it. Beggar disguise complete.

  One thing I have learned about the rich is that they’re made uncomfortable by the poor. To appease her better angels, as President Lincoln said, my mother sponsored a free lunch each week for the less privileged. They’d form long lines at the scullery door, near the servants’ quarters, and Cook would feed them soup and bread. ’Til the food ran out an hour or two later. I heard my mother’s society friends discussing it with her once.

  Feed the people if you must, Lenore dear, but keep them out of sight.

  The last bit of that statement resonates with me. While Griffin House isn’t a home per se, the club does serve meals to its members. My father loved to take tea there in the afternoons. And if, perchance, a certain beggar approached said establishment with her palm out, they wouldn’t care for an embarrassing scene. Or the publicity caused by a visit from the coppers.

  If I could just get inside, I’m sure I’d gain some useful information.

  With Scarlett away recovering from his injuries, I’ll be safe enough from harm, and I doubt anyone in his employ is aware of our true relationship. Besides Father, the only other person who knows is our aunt Mary Arden, and she hates Scarlett almost as much as I do.

  Thinking about them makes my head hurt, and I grow cold in the sunshine. Sometimes the headaches last for hours, and I must lie down until the pain goes away. Deus misereatur. Please don’t let it happen today. I have a lot going on just now.

  Left hand extended before me, I walk down the block to the entrance of Griffin House. The doorman must have gone inside, but I trust he’s hovering somewhere within the foyer, glancing out at the street every so often, determined not to get in trouble again with Lennox.

  I position myself at the front gate, blocking anyone who wishes to enter Griffin House. I smell terrible, baking in the sun, coated in dirt, but I hold out my hand to the sidewalk, turning my pitiful face toward any person who has the misfortune of walking by me.

  “Please,” I rasp in my wraith-like voice. “Please.”

  In addition to the voice, my sightless, iridescent eyes must add an eerie touch, and a few people speed past, smelling of fear. Do they think me a soothsayer, reading their souls in my blindness? Some freeze in place like startled rabbits and then scamper on. Perhaps I’m more Medusa than soothsayer, minus the snakes.

  I count the time silently, concluding that I have begged for about fifteen minutes in total. As the donations are dropped into my outstretched hand, I store them in my boot, sliding the coins into the space by my ankle. A whole dollar in a quarter hour? There might be a future for me in begging if the Visionary field takes a downward turn.

  The door to Griffin House swings open on well-oiled hinges. “You there,” says the doorman. “Go away. Beg somewhere else.”

  Ignoring him, I stretch my arm out farther, showing my empty palm to the world. “Please. Please. ”

  He runs down the steps. “Stop. I can’t have you here. The boss won’t like it.”

  Turning around, I rest my gaze upon him. “Hungry.”

  “What’s that? I can’t make out what you said.”

  I repeat the word as loud as I possibly can.

  “Oh,” the doorman says. “You want food?”

  And he’s right, I do. Those plums weren’t filling at all and breakfast was nonexistent.

  The doorman hesitates and then gives in. “Go around back. They’ll give you a plate. But just this once, and don’t tell your beggar friends.”

  Having never been to the back of the club, I proceed slowly across the lawn, to the South and then West—hands lifted, arms extended. I miss my cane more than I can say, fearing that I will slip and fall at any moment. At length, I reach a stone patio, my boot heels clacking against the hard surface. Voices come from inside Griffin House. Two women argue about the best way to pluck a chicken—one handed while holding the bird on your lap or two hands and the poultry slung over a table.

  Dominus providebit.

  I trip over a small, unexpected step and regain my footing, only to walk forward into a solid, flat panel. A door? I knock a few times and footsteps pound out toward me. I smile as someone steps outside.

  “Go away, you filthy cow! We run a respectable establishment, not a soup kitchen.”

  May I say another hell no? Few people on earth are as intimidating as an angry Englishwoman. I would take a ghost over one any day, given the choice. And this is a true East Ender, probably lives in the Victoriana neighborhood of Stonehenge.

  “Are ye daft as well as ugly?” the Brit shouts.

  “Hungry,” I say, authentically trembling. “Food?”

  “Is that right, skin and bones? Well, you’ll have to work for it.”

  The air stirs in front of my face, as though she’s waved a hand before my eyes, testing my blindness. I notice the smell of cake batter about her—which should be a comforting scent but isn’t in this circumstance. She puts her hand on my shoulder and pulls me across the threshold. It’s difficult to imagine the mad, bad James Scarlett as the boss of this lady. Does she make him cower in terror? I would if she worked for me.

  “The name’s Fannie, and I’ll feed you a meal. But you owe me for it. I don’t give naught for free.”

  How did I lose control of this situation? Things were so much simpler with the doorman. He was malleable, easy to work with.

  Fannie stops and picks up something that smells delicious. I step closer and fragrant steam rises to my face. Deo gratias. There’s a trace of savory meat, a hint of cream sauce, and my taste buds begin salivating. Chicken and dumplings? Forgetting my mission entirely, I curse the fact I have no fork.

  The English tyrant puts the food down and takes hold of my ear. “You’ll not eat a bite until you’ve washed.”

  She drags me away from the table, via my ear lobe, and directs me to wash my face and hands in a basin. I follow her instructions to the letter. Nothing but nothing is getting between me and the chicken and dumplings.

  After Fannie checks under my nails for dirt and tucks a napkin at my neck, the food is mine. I consume it with relish, hardly noticing the wound on my tongue from when I bit it earlier. The planet shakes, the angels sing, I nearly weep for joy. She is an artist, a cooking savant for the ages. Fannie pulls my hair back as I eat and ties it with a ribbon of some kind. “You’re a wisp of a thing, but you have an appetite. I’ll give you that.”

  “Poor little wret
ch,” the other woman says. “So alone in the world.”

  “Beggars like her all over nowadays,” Fannie grumbles. “Town’s going to hell in a handbasket.”

  I shamelessly lift my empty plate, wanting more. “Let’s not be greedy,” she says. “Up you get from the table and over to the sink. It’s time to pay the piper.”

  Fannie teaches me to scrape leftover food from the plates, as though the task is beyond the average guttersnipe begging door to door. I dip them in hot water and brush the softened particles away. Fannie says this is the pre-wash wash. Once the slimy waste is gone and the plate feels smooth, I stack it on a different counter for someone else to finish at the other sink.

  Beginning to recover from my blissful food haze, I scrub the dishes and extend my hearing throughout Griffin House. The headache I’ve been trying to ignore flares a bit, but I push the discomfort aside. Rich men are everywhere: playing billiards, drinking at the bar, chatting with their mates in the library. I tune out the voices I don’t recognize and search for Charcoal Suit Lennox. He’s upstairs, speaking with a group of men, and some of them are angry.

  “What do you mean Scarlett’s raised the prices?” one asks. “With so much labor involved, we hardly make a profit as it is.”

  English again. Yorkshire bred.

  “And if we pay more, do we get anything extra in return?” a second fellow jumps in.

  He’s pure Birmingham.

  Charcoal Suit laughs lightly. “Why, you get to live, Benedict. Can anyone ask for more than that? I think we’re done here, don’t you?”

  Benedict from Birmingham pounds on something. “Not nearly, Sam. There’s much to be straightened out. What you did to Shaw and Abernathy cannot be repeated.”

  I understand his reference to Shaw, the deceased lace factory owner, but who in creation is Abernathy? Was he killed as well? Furthermore, Charcoal Suit’s first name is Sam? Really? Not Phillip or Winston or Rafael—to match his stylish apparel. Sam Lennox. How anticlimactic.

  Chair legs slide back against a wood floor. “It’s really quite simple,” the killer says. “Pay Scarlett’s demands.”

  “Or?” the Yorkie asks.

  I hear glassware clinking, liquid being poured. “Or you might find yourself in the late Mr. Shaw’s predicament, Morris. Out with a bang. Up in smoke. Falling to pieces . . . Need I continue with the ridiculous puns? Enjoy your brandy, gentlemen. It’s a gift from Mr. Scarlett.”

  My attention is pulled away from the meeting when Fannie shrieks at me. “Stop daydreaming and work! We’re waiting on those dishes.”

  She monitors my speed and accuracy of scraping but soon grows distracted by another poor sot. I develop a nervous tic while she harangues the deliveryman as he carries parcels through the kitchen. The only person she treats well is a footman named Fred. Fannie pours him a cup of tea, and they walk outside to sit in the garden as he drinks it. With Fannie otherwise occupied, the scullery girls begin to gossip.

  It’s ridiculous nonsense about Lennox; that he wears his silk drawers once and then casts them into the trash at the end of the day. How they suspect the footmen of taking the drawers from the trash and adding them to their own wardrobes. The suspect footmen make a swishy sound as they walk about in their appropriated undergarments. Evidently, Fred is one of the swishiest in the bunch.

  How can one unhear a conversation?

  I won’t forget a word of this drivel. Or maybe I will, my memory hasn’t been very reliable lately. Distracted by these wayward thoughts, I am wasting time and must get out into the club while Fannie is away.

  The counter area beside me is now clear, and I step back from the sink, drying my hands on a piece of toweling. The other workers are scrubbing plates, chopping onions, and stirring things at the stove as they talk. Amid the socializing, they’re rather industrious servants. Seems my evil half-brother runs an efficient ship.

  Servers have been using a certain door with great frequency, to deliver food and drink to private parties throughout Griffin House. I take a few steps toward it and a herd of busboys hustle past me like so much cattle. Tarnation. Those young men nearly trampled me.

  Cringing, I wait for another herd, but there is none. The area around the door sounds quiet now. I move forward another two steps, then three, four. I hesitate, expecting to hear Fannie, or one of her underlings, yell for me to stop.

  Keep walking Hester. A little farther, and you’ll be in the hall.

  It works! I escape the kitchen without anyone saying a thing about it. From this hallway, the entire club is accessible. Perhaps I can learn more about Lennox—something of greater value than the silk drawers, at any rate—and gather evidence of his guilt in the bombing. Turning left, I start down the hall, and filter out the kitchen noise at my back, concentrating instead on the other rooms within the club.

  Due to my appearance and lack of sight, people often expect little of me. Many think my mind is impaired. If I encounter more of the staff or patrons who question my presence in the club, I can always pretend to be confused and lost. A deficient beggar who took the wrong turn.

  I run my hand along the wall. Velvet paper? It has a wide vertical pattern, like damask. A group is milling about in one of the rooms up ahead. Sounds like a dozen or so gentlemen—laughing and drinking. A handful of them are flattering a small group of women. Who would fall for such insincere twaddle?

  One man says that a lady’s eyes are like limpid pools—limpid pools of what?—and another fellow praises his consort’s full lips, saying they are bowed enough to charm Cupid himself. Obviously this human does not know the Roman god. Cupid is a vain show off and never has treated Psyche as well as she deserves. He is not popular among magic people, and it gives us all a good laugh that modern society associates him with a corpulent infant. Sir Death, in particular, chuckles over the engravings of Cupid on candy boxes and Valentine’s Day cards.

  I sigh as I listen to the intended seducers grow louder and more effusive. They are obviously drunk, and the men seem to be laughing over their own compliments, as though they consider them more ironic than true. It’s rather insulting to those poor women at the party. The gentlemen in question hardly deserve the title, notwithstanding the culture and education of their voices. Then it dawns on me that they might be going through the motions of seduction, knowing guaranteed success awaits them at the end of the night. Are the women soiled doves, already bought and paid for?

  Does my brother trade in human flesh as well as his other contraband? I know he is capable of terrible things, but this disappoints me further than his previous depths of depravity. What greater evil is there than owning another?

  7

  Macte virtute.

  Bless your soul.

  High heels stride out of the room with the mocking gentlemen and their ladies. The movements sound light and graceful, like those of a slender woman. If she challenges my being here, shall I act the part of a lost fool? Making myself fearful, witless, and weak? I hate this role—people are so ready to assume that it’s true.

  Turning around quickly, I backtrack a few feet and find a set of doors. The wood is satiny to the touch and smells well-polished. For such a hard-hearted man, my brother surrounds himself with smooth surfaces and soft luxury. I adopt the attitude of a busy employee—turning the handle of the first door and pushing it inward—but the woman reaches me before I can escape.

  “Hold on, honey,” she drawls. “I need a match. You got one?”

  Her voice is bright and warm in tone, as though she must act charming, no matter whom she speaks with. I suppose a female dependent upon her appeal for a living can’t risk being disliked. Even by a nothing like me. Patting my pockets, lifting my empty hands, I show her that I have no matches.

  Interestingly, she’s another American. My luck in finding them is remarkable of late. Tom, Kelly, and Willard are technically Americans, but they don’t sound it. One grew up on a ranch with Scottish parents, picking up a slight brogue, and the other comes from a
very Irish section of Boston. Kelly speaks a little of the old language—particularly the Irish curse words. The doctor taught a few of them to Willard who in turn shared his favorite Arapahoe obscenities.

  This lady, however, sounds like she’s Southern. With the scent of lilies and slightly burned hair floating about her, one gets the impression she tried to use styling tongs with less than stellar success. I also detect talc and an undercurrent of perspiration.

  “Well, that’s my luck, ain’t it?” she murmurs. “And I’d kill for a smoke.”

  The woman seems both very young and old beyond her years. Bored by the men’s company and still somewhat anxious to perform well, hoping that a cigarette will calm her nerves.

  I hate my brother a little more now as I stand next to this girl. And yet, what can I actually do to help her?

  Feeling inadequate, I gesture toward the kitchen—she might find a match there—and then lean on the door behind me, pushing it back a few inches. If Fannie catches me here, I’ll lose my new job and this excellent opportunity to snoop. The girl stops me again by touching my sleeve and then brushes the material, laughing.

  “Why, you’re as dirty as a mud dauber. Jimmy lets you walk on his Persian carpets like that? I can’t even bring little Lupo here into the club if he hasn’t bathed. And Jimmy bought me the damn dog in the first place.”

  A dog named Lupo? A small breed, I think, and rather well behaved. In fact, Little Lupo smells more of lilies than his owner does. And did she just call my awful brother Jimmy? Sakes alive, the woman is fearless. Or maybe it’s the fact he’s a thousand miles away.

  Somewhat flabbergasted, I hold my throat and rasp. “Kitchen has matches.”

  “Bless your soul. Do you work in the kitchen with Fannie? What a dragon! And I thought I had it bad.”

  Guilt forms in my gut. She has no idea that I possess the freedom to stroll out of this establishment any time I like. James Scarlett does not own me as he does this girl. My mouth tries to form a smile, but it feels crooked and slips off my face. I point to her, indicating that she definitely has it worse.