Breath and Bones (51 page)

“Surely there is something that needs doing?” he protested to Beachly.

The doctor scratched his bald spot, glad at least that Versailles was no longer trying to force his crackpot “cure” on the medical staff. “Well,” he said, “the reception room wall still needs a painting.”

Thus Edouard was finally forced to confront the memory that had been nibbling away at him like a small phantom left after its greater sister had been exorcised.
Hygeia
, Goddess of Health. Was any part of the picture salvageable, or should Edouard order another from a reputable dealer? He supposed he would have to look.

He could not quite face the painting alone, however, and he summoned one of the maids to unlock the door. He did not care which one might come, for he was displeased with them both now: They had watched Famke's progress with the canvas and had done nothing to warn him so that he might have prepared a more politic critique for her—though of course it was for the best that Famke had left, as he might now hope his beautiful glass house would be spared.

Mankind's hopes are fragile glass . . .

Edouard walked in and saw the curtains sagging, the sun beating through the walls to illuminate the easel. Everything was as it had been when last he spoke to Famke, when he told her the painting needed polish.

That is, the room was just as it had been, but the enormous easel was empty. Edouard looked around the room's few furnishings, inspected Famke's art supplies, and even checked behind those limp curtains before shouting out, “Life's Importance!”

It was Precious Flower who was waiting down the hall, but she didn't bother to correct him. She came scurrying from her hiding place and looked at him unblinking, ready for instructions.

“Where is that painting?” he asked, his own voice ringing loud in his ears.

Slowly, Precious Flower turned to the easel, and she saw, too, that it held nothing. Or almost nothing:
Hygeia
's gilded frame still sat hugely on it, bumping the ceiling, reaching toward a wall. During his search, Edouard had stepped right through without noticing.

Precious Flower tottered over to stand behind the empty frame, as if the painting might be of her. She waved her hands before her face. “Paint gone,” she said.

We have regarded John [Chinaman] as a sort of overgrown boy, a kind of cushiony creature. You can thrust your finger anywhere into his character. You withdraw it, and he retains no print of it, any more than the water into which you plunge your hand. Within that apparently yielding characterlessness is a spine of heathen iron, and tough as the worst of it. A bridge made of such material would last the world out
.

B
ENJ
. F. T
AYLOR
,
B
ETWEEN THE
G
ATES

When Edouard dismissed her from the glass house several days earlier, Ancient Jade had felt a cold, stony anger creeping over her for perhaps the first time in her life. She who had been raised to have no feelings, to obey her parents and eventually the mother-in-law and husband she had never had, then to do exactly as her uncouth customers demanded—she was almost blind with rage now, and she cursed Edouard for paying the missionaries to take her out of her crib, for curing her (or so he thought) of both the syphilis and the opium addiction that might have ended her life sooner. For now what was she to do?

She tried to imagine what it was like to be Edouard, to have this power over other people. And then it occurred to her that, in a limited way, she did have that power: She could bequeath him the same helpless feeling he had given her.

Just before sunrise, she climbed the stairs to Famke's room and turned the gaslight on just bright enough to see.

A hand on her shoulder shook Famke out of a long dream in which she was taking a bath in a tubful of her own blood, and it was the most relaxing, refreshing bath ever. She knew that she would never cough again, that she was just about to achieve her heart's desire; the lovely, shimmering feeling had just begun—and then, that hand.

“You. You,” Ancient Jade was whispering in her ear—for once, not
using the honorific “Missy” that Famke had come to expect. “You wake up now.”

Famke groaned and rolled onto her other side.

“You.” Did Famke imagine it, or did Ancient Jade actually slap her? Yes, her cheek was tingling . . . “You wake up. Something important.”

“What is it?” Famke demanded, sitting up with her hand to her cheek. It had better be important, she thought, or else it might be worth speaking to Edouard again—just think what he would do if he heard one of the maids had dared—Famke's thoughts changed course when she felt the blood in her body resettle, finding equilibrium after her change in position, expelling its excess. The feminine flow that had come upon her Down There during Edouard's critique had kept her sluggish and in bed, feeding her sulks and making her wish to punish Edouard for his opinion even more; it was diminished now, but it still ran from time to time and reminded her of the nastier side of health. The blood was bound to come out from one opening or another. And to think that some women suffered this revolting condition every month.

“Versailles knows everything,” Ancient Jade said in surprisingly fluent English. “All you secrets.”

“
Fanden!”
Famke's hand dropped to her lap. “How?”

“He read about you.”

“Read about me?” Famke repeated, thinking of the small nameless mention that had appeared in the
New York Times
the day after she immigrated.
Not without a share of youth and beauty, although the beauty was high in the cheekbones
. Or perhaps it had been as the “flame-haired Atropos” of the silk enterprise . . .

“
Rubble on the Rails
. One book, you and Dynamite Gang. He took from me.” Ancient Jade waited, and when Famke continued to look confused she continued, “You tell boys, ‘Steal from these rich men. Burn houses.' They do everything you say. Versailles does not like this.”

“Who wrote that book?” Famke asked as understanding began to dawn.

“Hermes.” She pronounced it
Herms
, but Famke had no trouble understanding whom she meant.

So Harry Noble had written a book, and he had put her in it. When she thought back to their last conversation, she realized she should have expected as much.

This was annoying, yes, but not dire. She yawned and burrowed deeper into the pillow.

“None of it is true,” she said. “I never met any Dynamite Gang, but I did meet Hermes. He is a liar.”

“He write different. Anyway, this is what Versailles believe,” Ancient Jade said. She sounded smug, certain that she had a window into Edouard's convictions. “He write to man from yellow paper. Wanted, with you face.”

It took Famke only a few seconds to understand: Edouard had written to Heber. The blood rushed around her body again and spread itself somewhere beneath her.

Ancient Jade poked Famke in the arm to get her attention. “I not finish this book,” she said. “What happen at the end?”

“How should I know?” Famke said, and she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She could hardly bother with the maid now. If Heber had gone to the trouble of distributing those posters, he must want her back so badly he would be here on the next train. “I need to leave right away, so you had better fetch me the dress I arrived in. The purple one. You must know where it is.”

Ancient Jade did not respond. She just stared at the woman in the bed, her brown button eyes unblinking, her mind working very fast.

“Do you know where the plum silk dress is?” Famke asked.

Ancient Jade came to her decision. She tossed Famke the bedroom key and said, “I not maid here anymore. You find you own clothes.”

And while Famke was too taken aback to speak, Ancient Jade hobbled out, collected her bundle in the hallway, and kissed her singsong sisters good-bye.

The dark house—with Edouard sleeping off his laudanum and milk—was impossible for Famke to navigate. The maids had the advantage of their invisibility; they were accustomed to walking in the shadows, locating rooms in the dark. But she had been almost exclusively confined to her room, and when she ventured elsewhere there had always been someone else to take her arm and help her along. She had no idea now where she might find clothes and shoes and money; she wasn't even certain of finding
the front door. She wandered, candle in hand, looking for the plum silk dress—for any dress, really, as she needed to vanish before these blue hours turned gray. She was somewhat reassured to look through the glass of Edouard's office and see him deep in slumber beneath the gas globes; but he would not slumber forever.

As she went, she thrust her hands into the depths of armchairs and sofas, got down on her knees and felt behind chests and potted plants. She found two nickels and a penny this way; the maids were too conscientious, or too thrifty, to leave anything more lying about. Well, there were ways of getting money, so long as one had the right clothes with which to move through the world. Only this cotton nightdress was not the garment for it.

Eventually Famke remembered the system of steam heating that had kept the house so pleasant even on the long winter nights. Feeling resourceful and independent, she found a pipe in the ceiling and began tracing it downward. Her months as a maid in Skatkammer's magnificent house had taught her that the laundry room was most likely to be found near the boiler, where wet clothes and linens would dry most quickly. Perhaps the silk dress was there; perhaps something else, equally good.

She was right. She found the laundry in the cellar, in a hot room that smelled of mothballs, and there was indeed an assortment of clothing hung upon the drying lines. The trouble was that all those garments belonged to the maids: three gray tunics, three gray sets of trousers, six black stockings with tiny, attenuated feet. White cloths that Famke deduced must be for binding the feet, to give them the support that their slippers would not.

Famke chewed her lip and coughed to get the smell of camphor out of her throat. She had been hoping that if she could not locate the purple dress she could at least find some of Edouard's clothing, which would hang on her frame but would take her out of town; failing that, one of Miss Pym's uniforms. This was almost the worst that could happen, but it couldn't be helped. She would escape in the costume of a Chinese maid, a former hundred-men's-wife.

With a pair of scissors she found by the washtub, Famke cut her nightgown into a chemise. The skirt would make a good set of feminine cloths—how vexing that she had to think of such things
now
—or then again, for that purpose there were the maids' foot bindings, already cut. She tied on the trousers, buttoned up the tunic, and wrapped the nightgown's skirt
around her head, to disguise her hair. She would keep her eyes lowered; perhaps she could find a hat. In any case, no one was likely to look close enough to see that this Chinese maid had blue eyes and an uncommon height, or that she was wearing felt bedroom slippers instead of proper shoes. To most Americans, Chinese were just Chinese.

She followed the pipes upstairs again to the back door, and she was on the threshold when she pulled herself up short. She could not leave now. Not without what she had come for those many months ago.
Had we but world enough and time
. . .

Famke climbed back up to the infirmary wing and used the scissors to jimmy the lock on her studio door.
This parting, darling
. . .

She opened up the scissors and ran one blade around the four sides of
Hygeia
, then rolled the stiff canvas into a cylinder.

. . .
would be no crime
. She tied the nymph up with a lock of hair she cut from the top of her head, where it was longest.

Now
she could go. With eleven cents jingling in her borrowed pants pocket and a ruined oil in her hand, she sped out into the early morning, where the honeybees were already dipping into the last of the daffodils and the first of the violets.