CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR #2
“The suffrage meetings, consorting with criminals and Negroes—what happened to the woman I thought I married?”
“It’s understandable,” the pompous doctor went on, “with her grief for her friend, the melancholy would overtake her mind, manifesting in the thoroughly inappropriate pursuit for a phantom justice. And her worry for you, Mr. Gladney, and what this Varney character has put you both through. Mrs. Gladney, your husband loves you very much. The events have made you excitable, and we don’t want that. ”
Another warning.
“I shall write you a scrip for laudanum, two drops taken at bedtime. And other times administered as needed. Now, what is that delicious aroma I smell? Is it goose?”
***
A FTER A PROLONGED AND uncomfortable dinner, she escaped.
Writing did not make her feel better. How long must they go on like this? She missed marital intimacy and, she must confess, the temporary oblivion their union wrought. But it was becoming less unbearable as her heart hardened against her husband. Blackwell’s Island, indeed.
We have come to the end, she wrote. There will be no turning back.
***
L EONA AWOKE IN A SWEAT , her limbs tangled in the sheets. The scraps of her dreams blew away in the morning light, leaving behind the taste of gunpowder and the scent of sulphur. Her heart thrummed too loudly. Her skin felt thorny, hot, and pinched.
It had become even more imperative to speak with Helen.
Leona rose and dressed in deep blue wool over flannel petticoats, with a heavy brown and yellow plaid shawl over her head and tied at the neck.
She slid the flask of whiskey into the reticule next to the derringer.
She took Gil’s wallet from the nightstand and went through it, hoping it held enough money for a cab to Cobble Hill and back.
She stuffed a few bills into her reticule.
On second thought, she placed the whole roll of bills in there, just to spite him.
The money was coming from somewhere, wasn’t it?
She crept down the stairs as quietly as she could, nerves on fire.
He would be angry when he found out she’d spoken with Helen.
Hell to pay, she feared. But she’d have those answers one way or another.
Then a far escape to the mountains with her grandfather or a walking tour in the Highlands or Tuscany.
She’d bring Ruth with her on a real adventure.
She yearned for fresh air and deep rivers, for hard climbs surrounded by dizzying peaks and open sky—
“Leona.”
She nearly leaped out of her skin. “Abigail. I was just coming into the kitchen for breakfast. Has grandfather gone out?”
“An hour or so ago,” Abigail answered with a sideways glance away.
Why did she look so furtive?
“Where’s Gil?”
“He’s locked himself in his study. You’re going out?”
“I am. Is there something you need?”
Leona followed Abigail through the kitchen door and inhaled the homey scent of cinnamon rolls and coffee. Before Gil came looking for her, she ate quickly and drank the steaming coffee as hot as she could bear.
“Leona, my dear, you know you can trust me, aye?” Abigail spoke in an agonized whisper.
“I only want what’s best for you. And far be it I come between a man and his wife.
But, my darling girl, I will hide you from that man in my own home until your grandfather finds a lawyer.
He wants me to pack you a bag, to warn you to be at the ready. ”
“Ready for what?” Leona kept her voice low in case Gil had taken to skulking. “What are you two up to?”
“Leona—” Abigail cast a furtive, guilty glance down the hall. “Until the issue of the two brothers can be resolved, he wants you away from here.”
Did they not trust her to take care of this herself?
“I don’t know how this will end.” Despite the coffee, her throat still felt dry and sore. “Though I didn’t expect it to end at all. I’m going to speak with Helen and get the truth from her. Then we shall talk about lawyers from there.”
Helen held the key. If Leona could get her to confess to an affair, Leona herself could sue for divorce. It would be difficult and ugly but not impossible.
Leona tightened the knot in the shawl beneath her chin. “But we shall see what the day brings. When Gil asks, I’m lunching with Charlotte Montgomery.”
“You don’t look well, Leona, I—”
“Leona!” Gil shouted from down the hall.
“Oh, dear,” Abigail said.
Well, she’d had just about enough, hadn’t she? Leona stormed toward him, where he stood at the half-open door to his study. The day was a gloomy one, and the gaslight lamps glowed too brightly.
“Gilbert Gladney,” she scolded. “There is absolutely no need to shout. I am right here.”
“Where are you—you’re not going anywhere. I told you—”
She ignored his half-spoken question. “Why are you shouting for me?”
“My notebook, the small brown leather one, is missing. Have you seen it?” He stepped away from the door so she could walk in, sweeping his arm open toward the disheveled office. It looked like he’d turned the room upside down in his hunt for the notebook.
Leona glanced around, trying to remember the last time she’d seen it. “The other day, I think. You were working on it after breakfast.”
He scrubbed his hands across his pale face. His eyes were red, and he smelled of last night’s cigars and whiskey.
“Did you check the water closet? Under the bed?” She tried to pick up a pile of books and papers from his desk, but he put his hand down firmly on them, forcing her own hand back down.
“It’s not here. I’ll ask Mrs. McCarthy, and then I’ll look upstairs. Where were you going?”
“To see Charlotte,” Leona replied. But by the look on his face, she really wasn’t going anywhere.
“Your face is flushed.” He put a hand to her forehead. “Well, no fever yet. But I think you’d best go back to bed.”
“Gil, I need to—” She didn’t like the pleading tone in her voice.
He gently removed the shawl from her head and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Please stay home. It will be my turn to take care of you, darling.”
Even as he spoke the familiar words, they appeared to catch in his throat, and he didn’t sound like himself. Hurried, impatient with her, a tremor in his hands as they brushed against her face. Gil would make her stay home, cold or no. Out of the way, out of sight.
She could stay and fight with him or do what her body wanted her to do—retreat to her bed with a flannel to keep her throat warm. Her eyes felt swollen in their sockets. How was it possible every hair on her head ached?
“All right,” she agreed with a sigh.
He kissed her on the forehead and pushed her toward the door, calling out, “Mrs. McCarthy, come here, please!” as he did so. She made her weary way up the stairs and back to bed as their hushed tones receded. She removed her dress and corset and cocooned herself under the quilts.
Maybe it was Gil who came up and sat beside her on the bed, but she doubted it. The distinct comfort of Jack, his solid silence, his worried love, surrounded her, and she really did sleep. At last, the mad clock had retrieved for her a quiet idle with Jack.
It’s not over, he whispered. Remember the letter.
She awoke with a start to a glimmer of afternoon sun behind a gap in the closed curtain.
Getting out of bed in the cold room made her want to burrow under the comfort of the quilts again, but her heart had begun a slow and steady tattoo of dread in her chest. What had she done with the letter besides forgetting about it?
And why did it sit in her thoughts now like a house on fire?
It'd been too long since she’d seen Helen. Granted Leona had been busy with Christmas, the attempted murder of her husband, and all that came after. But she could have gone back to see Helen.... So why hadn’t she?
Her reticule sat in her top dresser drawer among her petticoats.
She pulled the letter out and examined it.
It’d been sent back in October, by the postmark.
The address was correct, but it had still been delivered next door to the Caldwell-Jones’.
Could the handwriting be—Henry’s? She was slightly familiar with his handwriting, having seen it on documents, cheques, and in ledgers at the business office.
She had only glanced at it when the old woman had asked her to hold onto it for Helen.
He'd disappeared in October. Had he sent more letters? Not from the way Helen had behaved all through the rest of the month and into November. If she had another letter from him, could she be with him right now? Had the two of them been planning for Helen to escape all along?
She opened the letter and began to read.
By the time she’d done, a red, red rage had taken hold of her.
A dangerous rage she’d last beheld at Gettysburg following the death of the drummer boy.
That anger lifted her from her exhaustion and her fear.
Losing her fear had been the most dangerous, as she threw herself at the gray enemy with a demonic intensity.
Until she lay unconscious on the battlefield from a head wound, her blood mixing with friend and enemy alike.
Until Jack excavated her out from under the mound of inert flesh and bone.
Worse than the road of emptiness and nothingness or the black pit of endless despair, this stupidly dangerous rage. She took the gun from her reticule in the drawer, tucked it into the waistband of her skirt, and covered it with her shawl. Crossing the hall to her study, she locked the letter away.
Darius Varney was right.
Engulfed in the cloak of blood and fire, she went down the stairs to confront the man pretending to be her husband.
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