Chapter 12 #2
He watched with wide eyes as I bit into the chewy candy.
Bitter, salty astringent filled my mouth.
It tasted of tar. Of factory grease. Of an ancient plague.
It was the absolute worst thing I’d ever eaten, and over the years I’d eaten some pretty questionable things cooked up in my grandfather’s tenement.
“O-oh,” I managed to say around the vile confection. “Never had salt in candy.”
“Dubbel zout. The strongest of the salty licorices.” He beamed as if he’d made it himself. “Agnes’s favorite candy. What do you think?”
I’d managed to swallow it, but it threatened to come back up. “It’s the most interesting thing I’ve tasted in a good while,” I said diplomatically.
Voss chuckled. “You’ll become accustomed to its strong taste—even crave it. The gods sent you to me, Molly O’Rinn.”
“Funny, I thought it was Sister Helen at the hospital.”
He guffawed, drawing the attention of other shop patrons, and patted me on the shoulder.
Anxiety bloomed when I briefly thought of his manic laughter on the night his sister died, but he didn’t repeat that in the shop.
Instead he just sighed pleasurably and said, “I do love a bold girl. Let me show you some other things in the shop…”
We snaked around the crowds together, him pointing out other things that his sister liked.
A particular stationery, imported from Europe.
Lace samples. The arrows she preferred for her bow.
At first, I thought this behavior was a little odd.
I even wondered if he were testing me, wanting to know if my preferences matched his sister’s.
“That smells lovely,” I assured him when he demanded that a shop employee let me smell his sister’s favorite rose face powder. “I bet it makes you think of her.”
He squinted at me, and then his face relaxed. “She’s never far from my thoughts,” he murmured.
I reminded myself that Agnes Voss had only been dead and buried for about six weeks. More than likely, all of this had to do with grief. He was just keeping his sister’s memory alive by sharing it with me.
The letter to Sister Helen sat heavier and heavier inside my wool shawl as I continued to entertain Voss’s conversation, trying to judge his moral worth while avoiding the stares and whispering of shop patrons.
It was as if I were walking around with a celebrity, the very president of the United States.
Did Voss endure these stares everywhere he went?
Surely the townspeople were accustomed to seeing him.
I could tell that Voss was aware of the hubbub his presence was causing, but he chose to ignore it.
Maybe he hated the attention, I wasn’t sure.
But he was being so kind to me, so very… normal, if a little awkward. Seeing Voss here, amongst the crowds, it was hard to believe he could be someone who’d trap a boy in his basement.
Nin had gotten it wrong about me being a prisoner. Maybe he’d been wrong about Voss altogether.
A shop employee caught his eye at the far end of the main counter.
“Well, there’s Mr. Livingston,” he said. “I hope my order from New Orleans is intact.”
“That’s a long way from here. What did you order, sir, if it’s not too bold of me to ask?”
“Never,” he whispered close to my head. He gave me a little wink. “I had some cascarilla chalk specially made for me, the finest in the world.”
I remembered seeing a chalkboard near the desk in his rooms. “I didn’t know there were different kinds of chalk, sir.”
“Most people don’t, my dear. I’ll go check on my order now—I won’t be a second. And I’ll ask Mr. Livingston to wrap you up some rose powder and a few licorices.”
I shook my head emphatically. “Oh, goodness, you mustn’t, sir. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do that for me.” Not that awful candy, ugh…
“Nonsense. It’s my pleasure, Miss O’Rinn,” he said, flashing me a benevolent smile.
“Thank you, sir. I don’t know what to say, honestly.”
He made a gesture as if it were nothing to him. “Oh! While I’m taking care of this, you can mail your letter with that lady in gingham over there, if you’d like…”
The letter. Crap. “Um, here? Not at the post office?”
He shrugged. “They carry it over to the post office for you. The lady’s name is Mrs. Beekhof. It’s up to you.”
Voss then waved to the tall man behind the counter as he made his way over to him, leaving me on my own to consider what to do. I’d written some shocking things in that letter. Were they legitimate concerns, or had my paranoid brain invented problems that didn’t really exist?
Did Nin exist?
You know he does, I told myself. And just because a rich man had been kind to me for a couple of hours didn’t mean I could ignore my gut instincts and all the things I’d experienced inside Riverbend Manor.
But my doubts lingered when I spotted this Mrs. Beekhof he’d mentioned. I retrieved my letter from inside my wool shawl, still debating. Still telling myself that I should take the time to rewrite the letter without all the scandalous accusations.
The room was crowded, so it took me some time to weave my way over to where Mrs. Beekhof was working at a small desk.
Men and women queued nearby, waiting by the long counter to purchase goods, settle tabs, or order supplies from a fat catalog.
A shop employee was grinding coffee beans inside a painted iron grinder.
As I passed by, I caught bits and pieces of everyone’s conversations.
Patrons requesting various goods. Complaints about the long line.
And gossip from two finely dressed middle-aged ladies…
“—was telling Mrs. Spaan that she saw him at the attorney’s office last week, and that he didn’t recognize her. She might as well have been a stranger. Something has happened to him.”
Surely they weren’t talking about Voss? Though, he had left the manor to see an attorney last week…
“First his parents died overseas, and then his sister died. Losing your entire family would affect anyone.”
“Agnes died this summer, Jane. He stopped courting Miss Lila Jansen before that, in the spring. No reason given, just called off the engagement. He devastated that girl, and I’m telling you, that is why she died—from a broken heart. She had already made plans to redecorate that manor.”
Holy shite. These ladies were talking about Voss! My heart pounded rapidly as I shuffled a little closer to the gossiping women to hear better. Voss had been engaged? That sure didn’t match with what Hoffmann had told me, that the master would never marry.
Just how many people had died around Voss? His family and his fiancée?
Darkness and death.
A chill ran down my arms.
“I still blame the sister,” the first gossiper said. “He was unnaturally attached to her. I think something wicked was going on at that estate.”
A chilly soberness overtook me, and the spell I’d been under—Voss buying me things, being kind to me, feeding me candy—it lifted immediately.
There was something wrong with Voss. Period. No more wishy-washy feelings about him. Going forward, I had to be on guard, utterly and completely.
The letter in my hand definitely needed to be mailed. I turned toward the gingham-clad lady to make my way over to her as the gossipers finished their conversation.
“—could be true,” the first woman was saying. “But why did he send that awful new German servant to end his engagement for him? What kind of cruel person does that?”
They’re talking about Hoffmann!
The gossiper asked her friend, “Where did that servant come from? He makes my skin crawl. Voss is almost never without him. I’m surprised the man isn’t here with him today. And what happened to poor Mr. MacTavish? He was such a lovely valet, had practically raised Voss himself.”
“My maid says none of the staff has even heard of this Hoffmann fellow, and Voss fired the rest of his help when he brought Hoffman on. That big estate and no one to care for it properly?” The woman shook her head in disdain.
“The old Voss would have hired additional staff when his parents died. I don’t understand this ‘new’ man he’s become. Nor do I like it.”
How very odd.
Someone bumped into me from behind, and I stumbled into one of the gossiping women. My nerves went haywire when she turned around with a scowl on her face. “So sorry, ma’am. It was an accident.”
She gave me a once-over before curtly nodding; then the pair of women quickly left to exit the shop.
Had they seen me shopping with Voss? They might suspect that I’d been listening to their conversation.
Stop caring about these women! I scolded myself internally. It’s him you should be concerned about.
As anxiety grew in my chest, I hurried over to the woman that Voss had pointed out and, looking over my shoulder, handed her the letter to mail, requesting postage. She was happy enough to sell me a stamp, which I paid for with the few pennies I could scrounge in the pockets of my skirt.
“It will get taken to the post office to be postmarked today,” she assured me.
Godspeed. I turned to spot Voss coming toward me with a brown-paper package in his hands and a smile on his lips.
But I knew one thing from listening to all that gossip.
Hoffmann had lied to me. He had said he’d been serving the master for so many years, he couldn’t remember how long it had been.
The ladies in town remembered. And now all my previous fears about him resurfaced—the strange behavior on the train journey, and how I was sure he’d poisoned me with the orange tea.
I’d buried too many fears in that house, overlooked too many oddities.
I needed to watch my back around Hoffmann and Voss. Maybe the women, too.
Was there anyone at that estate I could trust?