“It is warm, this close to the fire,” observed the widow Donovan, who Matthew figured might have burned her dearly departed to cinders under the sheets. But anyway, it was up to Greathouse now to brave the flames, for the woman stood close against him and stared desirously at the side of his face, so much so that Matthew wondered how a week might pass so intensely heated for some and yet so frozen with blue ice for others.
“Excuse us,” Greathouse said at length. He shifted his balance, perhaps because he had to reposition his stick. “We’ll be going now.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” Matthew said.
“Oh,” said the woman with a lift of her blonde brows, “when Hudson gets going, there’s no stopping him.”
One week! Matthew thought. And here he was, brooding over the great one’s disabilities! Perhaps it was true, Greathouse could no longer dance. Standing up, that is. But otherwise…
“Goodnight,” said Greathouse, and he and his new kitten—cat, really, for she was likely in her late thirties but very well assembled for her age—went out of the room as close-stepped as two people could be who were not in a military parade. Then Matthew got upon his mind the matter of salutes of a certain kind, and so he was redfaced again when a female voice beside him quietly said, “Matthew?” and he turned to set eyes upon a person whose presence he would not have predicted from now until the impossibly distant twenty-first century.
Three
THE girl had her hands clenched before her, either revealing she was nervous or that she’d taken a posture of supplication. “Hello, Matthew,” she said, with a trembly smile. “I did what you said. I come here to find that Number Seven Stone Street.” She swallowed hard. Her blue gaze, which he recalled to be nearly crackling with energy, now seemed timid and fearful, as if she was sure he must have forgotten. “Don’t you remember? I’m—”
“Opal Delilah Blackerby,” Matthew said. Of course he remembered. She was one of the girls on the staff at Paradise, the ‘velvet prison’—as she’d called it—for the elderly operated by Lyra Sutch in her incarnation of Gemini Lovejoy. If it were not for Opal, the black heart of Lyra Sutch’s operation would not have been revealed, and Tyranthus Slaughter would now not be in his grave. So, Matthew thought, all praise to this brave young girl who’d really risked her life to help him.
He reached out and took her hands, at the same time offering her his warmest smile. “How long have you been here? In New York, I mean.”
“Just one day,” she answered. “Well, not a whole day yet. I got here this mornin’. I know you told me ’bout comin’ to that Number Seven placey, but I was kinda fretful of just showin’ up there. So I been askin’ around ’bout whose place that is and all, and a fella told me your name. Then I seen the broadsheet ’bout this dance, and I thought maybe…” She shrugged, hopeless in her explanation of why she was here.
“I understand.” Matthew remembered she was the girl who’d longed for warmth in Paradise, and perhaps a dance was the place she could find it on a cold winter’s night in New York. As thanks for her help, he had given her a gold ring with a small red stone that may or may not have been a ruby; whatever it was, it had been part of Slaughter’s hidden treasure that had led Matthew and Greathouse nearly to their deaths.
“It’s so good to see you,” Matthew said, and he meant it. He took quick stock of her and saw that she’d decided to alter her appearance somewhat, by removing the small metal rings that had ornamented her lower lip and right nostril. She was a small girl, slim and wiry, and when Matthew had met her she’d been nearly quivering out of her shoes with what might be termed indecent energy. Now her jet-black hair had been brushed back and was decorated with a modest tortoise-shell comb. Her blue eyes, so eager to get Matthew behind Paradise’s church for a tryst in the woods, were diminished by lingering doubt that, he surmised, she had no place either here or at Number Seven Stone Street. She wore a gray dress with a white collar, not very different from her uniform at Paradise, which made Matthew wonder if she’d made use of the gold ring and red stone.
He was about to ask her that question when Hell broke loose.
Or, at least, a small portion of Hell confined to the other room, for in the next instant there was a tremendous crash, the sound of breaking glass, and a chorus of startled cries both male and female. Matthew’s first thought was that the floor had given way, or that a cannonball had smashed through the ceiling.
He rushed past Opal to see what had happened, and she followed right at his heels.
The floor was still firm and no cannonball had come sizzling from the night, yet certainly disaster had struck. The table that had been holding the fine glass bowl of cider, the clay cups and the Indian-blood platters of sugar cakes had, plain and simply, pitched over like a horse with a broken leg. Apple cider spread in a small flood across the planks. The sugar cakes were being crushed under the feet of dames and dandies alike. Glass and broken crockery was everywhere and it was truly a mess.
“I swear!” came the agonized voice of Effrem Owles. “I hardly leaned on the table! Hardly at all!”
And Matthew saw Berry standing there beside him, blushing to the roots of her hair, her eyes darkened by the events of the moment. He knew what she was thinking: her bad luck, which had knocked the stuffing out of so many of her suitors and otherwise complicated her life in a series of misfortunes, had reached out and—like Mr. Vincent’s glove—given poor innocent Effrem a smack on the noggin. And what a smack! For someone who was for the most part very shy and wished to be anywhere but at the center of attention, this was truly Effrem’s nightmare. And him trying to impress Berry so much! It hurt Matthew’s heart to even think of it, much less witness it.
“It’s all right! We’ll get it cleaned up!” said Sally Almond, who was already summoning a serving girl to bring a towel.
But Matthew saw the tears of shame jump behind Effrem’s glasses. He started to go forward and put a hand of comfort on his friend’s shoulder but he was nearly shouldered aside by Opal Delilah Blackerby, who waded into the cider, knelt down to the floor and started gathering up pieces of broken glass into the apron of her dress.
“Opal!” Matthew said, pushing his way to her. “What are you doing?”
She looked up at him, and then at Sally Almond who was also staring dumbfounded at her. Opal stood up, clutching glass fragments in her dress. She had a hazy expression in her eyes, as if for a moment she’d forgotten where she was. “Oh!” she said to Matthew. “I’m sorry! I just…I mean to say…I’m so used to cleanin’ up messes…I just…that’s what I do, y’see?”
“You’re a guest here,” said Sally. “Not a servant.”
“Yes’m.” Opal frowned, perplexed. “I’m sorry, but…I don’t think I know how to be a guest.” She was still holding the front of her dress with the pieces of glass in it, and as the regular serving-girl came to sop up the spilled cider with a bundle of towels Opal reached out to take one of the cloths and, startled, the girl pulled away.
“Opal!” Matthew said, grasping her elbow. “You’re not expected to clean up anyone’s mess. Come on now, let’s get out of the way.”
“But…Matthew,” she said. “That’s what I do. That’s what I was doin’ just yesterday, at a tavern on the pike. I mean…that’s all I’ve ever done. Oh,” she said, and she looked at the fingers of her right hand. They were leaking blood. “I suppose I’ve cut myself a little bit.”