Chapter Thirty-One
TRACKING DOWN GRAHAM TOOK EZEKIEL all over Cincinnati—from Graham’s home, where Mrs. Linville was again not expecting him until late, to over a dozen of Graham’s favorite musical haunts.
When Ezekiel finally found him at New Theatre in Over-the-Rhine, the time was nearing supper and well past when he’d thought he’d be back at Nora’s side.
Heuck, the proprietor, pointed past the one-man act on the stage to a corner table where Graham sat hunched over his stein.
That didn’t look good. Ezekiel had ever only seen the man with a drink once in his life, about five years ago.
Normally he was a teetotaler, but he’d claimed it necessary to gain the courage to do something he didn’t want to do but needed to for the sake of a loved one.
If he had a drink now and he’d been worried over Ezekiel’s revelation about Nora yesterday, did that mean the two were connected?
Ezekiel ordered two coffees and carried them over to the table. “Liquid courage isn’t the answer for whatever you’re facing.” He switched the coffee for the full mug of lager, and placed the mug on a passing tray.
Graham grabbed it back. “If you’re here to press me about Nora and her family, then I certainly do.
” He took a gulp, made a face, then pushed the stein to the edge of the table.
“Never mind. Cof- fee works.” He followed the comment with a cleansing sip that he swished around his mouth before swallowing.
“You are here to talk about the Davises, aren’t you? ”
“What’s your connection to them? The whole truth. No evasion.”
“You truly must be taken with Nora.” When Ezekiel didn’t comment, Graham sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Katherine, or rather Constanza, is my half sister.”
“Your what?” How would Nora not know Graham if he was her uncle?
“My half sister. Our father was a man of many mistresses, and we are his illegitimate children. Katherine and I banded together to survive after our mums turned us out. She studied under an opera master in London while I supported us through working at the music hall where she got her start.”
That explained the familial connection but not the current lack of a relationship with the Davises. Until their walk yesterday, he’d never heard Graham mention Katherine Yates, Constanza Brisbane, or Mrs. Davis. “If you are related, how does Nora not know you?”
“Differences of opinion and eventually circumstances led to Katherine casting me out of her life.” Graham fell silent.
Ezekiel waited for the rest of the story, but when Graham obstinately studied his drink instead of speaking, Ezekiel pulled the mug toward himself. “The story, Graham. I want it all.” Until he understood Graham’s connection to Adler and Mrs. Reed, he couldn’t turn to him for help.
“It’s not a pretty story, and I’m certain you’ll never look at me the same.
I know I don’t.” He waited for Ezekiel to change his mind, then reclaimed his mug and took a long drink before beginning.
“Katherine was desperate to be seen and loved, and the stage promised that. Winston—or Adler, as you know him—took advantage of her ambitions and lured her into his traveling troupe with his sister, Ursula, and her husband, Xavier. They promised her fame, riches, and a sense of family. We fought like enemies at the Battle of Waterloo over the decision. I didn’t trust the man and demanded she refuse his offer.
She wanted more than the hand-to-mouth life of a second-rate music hall and argued this was her only chance for something bigger.
She won and went on to travel with the troupe.
I carried on with my own life, slowly making the connections that have served me since.
“I wrote to her on occasion with opportunities with reputable people, but she never returned my letters. All I ever received was one from Katherine saying she had no need of or desire for a half brother anymore, and it would be best to forget I ever knew her.” All the decades of hurt and anger were directed into a scowl as he glared at his mug.
“I washed my hands of Katherine. I didn’t write again.
The next time I saw her, it was when she came to me.
” Face still hard, he met Ezekiel’s gaze.
“How much do you know of the Katherine Yates scandal?”
“I only know that Nora’s ma claimed to be her, but nothing else.” Graham’s grip on the mug whitened. “Only God knows why I still love that woman. She’s made one poor choice after another, all at the expense of other people’s lives. How I pray this time it doesn’t end in another loss of life.”
“Another?” Ezekiel could understand the man’s secrecy about his connection to Constanza after the hurt she’d inflicted upon Graham, but this sounded far more serious than acrimony.
“I didn’t know it until Katherine came to me in desperation, but the life she wanted had come at a criminal price.
After helping Winston, Ursula, and Xavier to steal for years, she watched without interference as Xavier killed the maid who’d caught Katherine in the act.
Katherine claimed to be frozen in place as she realized what sort of person she’d become.
That’s when she came to me, begging me to help her escape from the life she’d trapped herself in.
When I told her to shove off because she didn’t have a brother anymore, just like she wanted, we discovered Ursula had withheld my letters to Katherine and written the other to keep me from luring Katherine back.
“I took Katherine to Scotland Yard, and we made a deal where she would return the stolen jewels and testify against Winston, Ursula, and Xavier in exchange for not being charged. Xavier hung. Winston and Ursula were sent to the Tower. We stayed in London working in those music halls Katherine once shunned until friends warned us of Ursula’s early release and the threats to Katherine’s life. We fled to America for a new start.
“She promised to stay off the stage, but that didn’t last more than a year.
She was terrible at all things domestic, and poverty nipped at our heels.
When she heard Marcellus Brisbane was putting together a troupe, she took it upon herself to save us.
She reinvented herself as Constanza, even though the opera world is so small everyone knew the scandal attached to her, and she took to the stage again.
I knew the risk she was taking. Ursula would have no trouble finding her.
But Katherine does what Katherine wants.
She married Marcellus and allowed me no further part in her life, and I went off to start my own family. ”
What a tumultuous life Graham had shared with Nora’s ma, but he must still be holding back pieces of the story. “Then how do you know Nora’s family as the Davises? After Nora’s kidnapping, her father had them disappear with new names and a new life.”
“No, her father and I worked together to make them disappear. I was there the night Nora was taken. As much as Katherine hurt me, when those same friends in England who warned us before contacted me again, I couldn’t not notify her.
The now-freed Winston and Ursula had gathered funds to sail to America, and I knew why they were coming.
I warned her, but neither she nor Marcellus were concerned enough to cancel her engagements and quit opera.
“If it weren’t for Nora, I might have left Katherine to suffer whatever plans they had for her.
But my own daughter was only a few years younger, and I couldn’t in good conscience allow Nora to suffer potential harm if I could prevent it.
I attended all of Katherine’s shows for the next week, trying to get another audience with her and to convince her that her family was worth leaving the opera for.
When Katherine didn’t come back on the stage that night, I knew something had happened.
She and Marcellus didn’t fight my presence.
Katherine was too distraught, so I helped describe Winston and Ursula to the police.
“The hours waiting were awful. I could see Katherine breaking before me. Marcellus wasn’t much better.
When the police said they had Nora but that Winston and Ursula had escaped, Katherine and Marcellus went to Nora while I set to work getting them packed and buying train tickets to Cincinnati, where I already lived.
I’d hoped to be a part of Katherine’s life again, for my daughter to know her cousin, but Marcellus was too afraid that my connections to the opera world would put them at risk.
I agreed but continued to quietly observe them and keep an ear out for trouble.
I watched Nora grow up . . . and my sister go mad with paranoia. ”
Graham turned the mug’s handle back and forth in his hands.
Deep wrinkles of regret aged him far beyond his years.
“The last time we met in person, I stopped Katherine’s attack on an innocent stranger.
Wild with fear, she attacked me instead, while Nora screamed and begged her to stop.
The police came, and I knew I could no longer allow Katherine the freedom to ruin her family’s life.
” He stopped twisting the mug and looked Ezekiel directly in the eyes.
“I pressed charges and suggested a ruling of insanity. I knew an asylum was the safest place for Katherine and would give Nora the best future. Marcellus was livid, but eventually even he could see the wisdom in it. He convinced Katherine to go willingly.”
Unfortunately Ezekiel understood the difficulty of needing to place a loved one in the asylum for their safety, but to believe that it was best for the child as well?
That showed an abysmal understanding of the weight a parent’s asylum stay had on a child, no matter the age.
“It might have been best for Nora’s ma, but it certainly did nothing to aid Nora’s future. ”