A World Elsewhere (37 page)

“I have a present for you,” Goddie said, grunting as she dragged out from beneath the dinner table a large box wrapped in blue paper and tied with white ribbon. Deacon wondered if it was Captain Druken’s hat, but it seemed much too large for a hat.

“A present?”

“It’s for your birthday. Don’t you know when your birthday is?”

“Not really. No one knows for sure.”

“Well, Mother told me it’s your birthday on Sunday when we don’t have dinner together, so I’m giving you your present now. You’re not to open it until you get back to The Blokes. Do you think they’ll have a party for you at The Blokes?”

“They might.”

“So here’s my present for you. Mother’s not as mean as you think she is, is she?”

“No. What’s in the box?”

Goddie shook her head. “Mother says she knows I can’t keep surprises. But I hope you like it.”

“I’m sure I will. Thank you, Goddie.” He pulled the box to his side of the table.

“I was going to wait until you’d finished dinner, but I don’t think you’re ever going to finish it. Henley will carry the box back to The Blokes for you.”

“I’m not very hungry.”

“Deacon Carson Druken isn’t hungry? You’re not sick, are you?”

Deacon shook his head.

He looked at the ribbon-wrapped box. There was a card attached that said “To Deacon from Godwin.” Mrs. Vanderluyden’s handwriting. It scared him that Mrs. Vanderluyden had given it to Goddie to give to him.

“Maybe we can have a party for you, Deacon. I’ll ask Mother.”

Deacon nodded.

“You’ll be lonely on your birthday unless we have a party.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry I’m mean to you sometimes.”

He wasn’t sure if he was soon to be her brother, but knew he wasn’t supposed to say that. He got up, walked around the table, put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. She threw her arms around his waist and pressed her head against his stomach.

The butler carried the box. He went the wrong way again. He didn’t make a beeline for The Blokes. He didn’t make one for the Rume.

They went down long hallways until they came to a closed door. “This is the convalescent suite,” the butler said, putting the box down. “Stay put until someone comes out for you.” He quickly went away.

The first words Deacon ever heard him say. It was like hearing Palmer suddenly piping up.

The door opened and a man came out. They were indoors, but his hat was on. His coat was buttoned even though the house was warm. He looked like a constable but he didn’t have a badge or a billy club. He had a big moustache like an upside-down horseshoe.

“You go ahead of me,” he said, and picked up the box. He nudged the door open with his shoulder just wide enough that Deacon could slide through.

The butler had that morning brought word to Landish that Van was not feeling well and wished to meet him and Miss Esse in the convalescent suite later.

“I will return for both of you at seven,” he said formally.

With Landish and Esse behind him, the butler tapped on the door. Gertrude opened it and motioned them inside. Landish noticed Deacon first—sitting, upright, looking white, forsaken, confused—beside a large blue box, and then a man he had never seen before. Then Van sitting wide-eyed on the side of a bed, his arms bound behind his back, his mouth gagged, his feet tied with rope. The stranger was standing with a pistol in one hand, the other hand behind his back.

“Oh my God,” Esse exclaimed behind him.

Deacon came across the room to Landish in a rush. Hugging his leg began to cry.

“Captain Druken’s hat box,” Gertrude said. “As well as what you call Gen of Eve. Packed so that the glass won’t break. And also the ring box that Van’s father gave to him that contains the missing button from Van’s shirt. Presents for all of you. From Van.”

“Don’t leave me, Landish,” Deacon wailed into his trouser leg. “I won’t be a constant runt. I’ll be nice to Esse. I’m sorry I’m a curse. I liked it more than you did when we lived on Dark Marsh Road. If you
have
to leave me, it’s all right. You can live here when I’m big enough to be in charge. I won’t be a nuisance then. Mr. Vanderluyden said I’d have lots of money and I can send you money in between—”

“Could someone please keep the child quiet?” the man said.

Esse knelt and took him in her arms. “Shhhh,” she said.

Gertrude began to remove the gag tied around Van’s mouth.

“Aren’t you afraid that he’ll shout and be overheard?” Landish asked.

“The convalescent suite is all but soundproofed. I told the servants that I would myself attend to my husband during his illness, which I
assured them wasn’t serious. Consequently, there is no one within two hundred feet of the suite. This section of the house has been sealed off, all of its doors closed and locked.”

“What about Trull?”

“He’s at the main gate lodge. As always. Keeping an eye out for you. My husband told him, Mr. Druken, that you and Esse would be leaving in a couple of days, alone. But it seems that Mr. Trull trusts you less than Van does.”

“How stupid,” Van said, shaking his head free of the gag. “All four of you will hang for this. And then I will have Godwin and Deacon and be rid of you, Gertrude, and you, Landish, just as I’d planned.”

“I had nothing to do with whatever
this
is,” Landish said.

“We won’t be caught,” Gertrude said. “I’ve told Godwin that we’re leaving Vanderland. She’s delighted. You don’t want her. You want merely to deprive me of her. Just as you want to deprive Mr. Druken of the boy.”

“In my own house,” Van shouted. “Landish, you’re involved in this!”

“I came to the convalescent suite because I was told you asked me to. I have no idea what’s happening. I only know that that gentleman’s gun would work as well on me as it would on you.”

“I have no plans to harm my husband,” Gertrude said. “I mean only to prevent him from taking Godwin from me and the boy from you. He will soon be the sole permanent resident of Vanderland. He will be miserably alone. That is how it should be.”

“Don’t be a fool, Landish,” Van said. “The police do the bidding of the Vanderluydens.”

“LANDISH,” Deacon wailed again. He tasted the tears in his mouth and began to cough. He clung to Landish’s leg as Landish dragged him farther away from Van.

“You have to be quiet, Deacon,” Landish said. “We’ll be leaving Vanderland soon.”

“Don’t worry, Deacon,” Miss Esse said. “This man and Mrs. Vanderluyden are helping us.”

“Are they taking you against your will, Deacon?” Sweat ran down Van’s forehead. “He’s too young to understand, Landish. Imagine what he’ll think of you ten years from now when he realizes what he might have been, what he might have had, if not for you. And Vanderland is ruined,
ruined
. I should have shored it up completely, plugged up every crack and crevice. Everything that I despise and have all my life opposed has seeped into Vanderland. It slithered in with Gertrude. You and the boy tracked it in on your boots. It was smuggled in and left here by this traitor who holds me at pistol point. Thorpe. Yes, Landish, this is Thorpe, Godwin’s father. Landish, help me!”

Thorpe. Landish wondered if the moustache was a disguise. Richard Hunt’s second-in-command was back at Vanderland, back from wherever he’d been banished by Van. “Van, I am, like you, being held at gunpoint.”

“I have all my life been betrayed by those who were closest to me. My every act of generosity has been answered with contempt. And you, Thorpe, you don’t have the nerve to look me in the eye. He once worked for me, Landish. He betrayed me with my wife. In this very house. Gertrude, you’re going to run off with a scoundrel who has only come back to you because he has spent the bribe—”

“Sir, we have been in constant correspondence—” Thorpe began, but stopped when Gertrude raised her hand.

“Why bother to argue with him?” Gertrude said. “It’s not as if we need his blessing or approval.” Thorpe was red-faced but he held the gun firmly. Landish couldn’t account for Gertrude’s demeanour, her complacent certainty that she and Thorpe and Goddie would somehow evade the Vanderluydens for the balance of their lives. Landish couldn’t imagine either of the threesomes living inconspicuously enough to do so no matter where on earth they went.

“With a pair of fools for parents,” Van said, “what else but a fool could Goddie be?”

Gertrude smacked Van across the face so hard that he fell back onto the bed.

“Don’t,” Deacon said and began to cry again.

“Thank you, Deacon,” Van said, his voice barely audible as he struggled upright again despite his bound hands and feet.

“Are you and Goddie going to New York?” Deacon said to Mrs. Vanderluyden.

“We’re going somewhere. Mr. Druken, the Packard is waiting for you three on the road beside the servants’ school. We have to be going. We’ll take the service elevator to the basement. You’ll leave the way the darkies come and go. That’s as far as I’ll take you.”

“Deacon, stay here,” Van said. “You’re like your father, Carson of the
Gilbert
, who stayed with his men even though he thought they were done for. So that he could do what? Hold their hands? They had each other’s hands to hold.”

“Stop it,” Landish said.

“What a
waste
. All you had to do at Princeton was accept my invitation. How different things would have been for both of us.”

“That’s Just Mist,” Deacon said.

“Yes,” Van said. “Just Mist. Soon your very lives will be Just Mist. Except yours, Deacon. Where are the dead, Deacon? You told me once.”

“The Tomb of Time.”

“That’s right. Gertrude and Thorpe and Landish and Esse will soon be in the Tomb of Time. And you will be brought back to live with Goddie and me at Vanderland. Not everything is lost. Something can be salvaged from the wretched Mist. Gertrude—”

“I mean to leave you with nothing but what you had the day we met.”

“It won’t be hard for me to find you, Gertrude. You must know that. How fast can you travel? What ship or train will you take? The Vanderluydens own them all. How far can you go? You’ve destroyed yourself. In no time Goddie will be back at Vanderland. You’ll never set eyes on her again.”

“Goodbye, Van,” Landish said.

Van averted his face. “That day I sat beside you on the bench, I thought I would forever remember it as one of the great days of my life.”

“You still can if you choose to,” Landish said.

“Go away, Landish. Leave me as you did before.”

“Goodbye, Van,” Landish said. “Come, Deacon, Esse.”

Deacon turned to look at Mr. Vanderluyden as Landish took his hand.

“Don’t listen to the chimney witch, Mr. Vanderluyden,” he said. “Sometimes you’re nice, you picked us from the attic. You should have made a contribution.”

“Watch him carefully,” Gertrude said to Thorpe. “I’ll be back soon. Landish, take the box.”

They made their way through parts of Vanderland that no guests and few Vanderluydens had ever seen—narrow, dim, musty hallways with low ceilings, doors just a few feet apart that reminded Deacon of the stable doors, row after row of them, none of them lit. Now and then he heard the sound of snoring or coughing or the murmuring of the voices of domestic staff from inside a room. The floor was made of loosely interlocking stones, some of which wobbled noisily beneath their feet.

The way the darkies come and go
. It was a tunnel that had no ceiling and no floor, just loose planks above your head and a narrow footway made of stones. Drops of water trickled from the whitewashed walls.

There was no one around, as if word had silently spread through the tunnels and hallways of the servants. Esse took Deacon’s hand now and said they had to hurry. Landish carried the box containing Captain Druken’s hat, Gen of Eve and the ring box in both hands. It was still partly wrapped in blue paper. “Don’t say a word or make a noise until we get outside,” he said. Light bulbs that were far apart hung from bits of string. Deacon saw a rat, but Landish said that was the least of their worries.

The hallway narrowed. They made their way single file, Mrs. Vanderluyden first, then Landish. Deacon kept a grip on the hem of Landish’s coat and Esse kept one hand on Deacon’s shoulder.

There were no more rooms. The tunnel came to an end at a wooden door.

“Esse, take the boy outside and wait for Mr. Druken,” Mrs. Vanderluyden said.

“It’s all right, Deacon,” Landish said. “Go outside with Esse.”

“It’s dark outside,” Deacon said. “And you said we had to hurry.”

“I’ll be out soon,” Landish said.

Esse pushed open the door and she and Deacon went outside. Gertrude took hold of Landish’s arm, restraining him, and pulled the door shut. She stepped closer to him, close enough that, even in the near darkness, he could see the fear and desperation in her eyes.

“Van is right,” Landish said. “Sooner or later we’ll all be caught. Why did you involve the three of us in this? Why didn’t you just leave with Godwin and Thorpe?”

“Because, you see, there’s been a dreadful accident. Mr. Vanderluyden had a pistol in his coat in case he needed to protect himself from you. I will confirm that he always carried a pistol when he went to visit you—a man your size of whose loyalty he had always been unsure. He was not accustomed to firearms. It discharged while he was in the suite with you and me. I am a witness to how, while Van was bending over to retrieve a piece of paper from the floor, the gun went off. A bullet from close range, straight through the heart.”