And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give me a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.
So unexpectedly, Constance stood at the refreshment table, fascinated at how this man held the silver ladle just so. It registered that he poured a small stream rather than dumping the punch all at once into a cup and overfilling it, so that the punch spilled down the sides, the way men often did. In this he was like her fastidious father. Within a few months of quite proper courtship, perhaps seven or so, he spoke to her father for her hand. As if it belonged to her father and not to her. Then afterward Benton asked her to marry him, a mere formality, it seemed. So, lacking other suitors on the horizon, at some level believing still in her marriage fantasy, she accepted.
Now, as she lay here on this chaise, Constance’s fingers roved the textured surface of the upholstery. At the edge, where the braid touched the carved wood, the sharp tip of a splinter brought her back into the dark room. She was cold. She rose and slipped under the bedcovers. Wrapping her arms around herself, she rolled onto her side, adjusted her pillow to support her neck, and fell into a fitful sleep.
She fought for balance on the moving train, shadowing Benton, who tossed cards into the passing void at each open-air juncture between cars. On and on they walked. On and on the cards flew out into the sky. She could see the leering faces: kings, queens, jacks, more kings, more queens, nothing but royalty sailing on the high wind of the train’s progress. She feared he would turn and see her, yet she wanted him to. Nothing changed. She followed on. At the next open vestibule between cars, Benton glanced at the last queen before he flung it into the void and turned. He grabbed her hand and pulled, forced his mouth on hers. As they stared into each other’s eyes, her back to the open, she lifted her feet and rose into the air, away from the train into silence, flying, holding him aloft as she rose. But he struggled, fought his way loose. He plunged into the black water below. She rose, weightless, with nothing to hold her to the earth, the speeding train and the black water far beneath her.
Somewhere between panic and the freedom of weightlessness, Constance woke, her eyes blinking fiercely against the morning light, hands grasping at the sheets and the mattress, fighting to hold herself steady against a continued sense of motion from the train. I killed him, she thought. No, he killed himself. She scooted over the edge of the bed, slid her buttocks down to the floor. I touched him. He’s dead. The thought became a silent cry inside her head. He’s dead.
Constance heard the competing giggles of her girls and their vying feet pattering on the hall floor. She turned to pull herself up and had her face barely above the edge of the bed when they burst in, their surprised voices in a jumble.
“What you doing, Mama?”
“Did you fall out of bed? I didn’t fall out of bed for a long time.”
“You hurted yourself, Mama?”
“No, no,” Constance said as she pulled herself upright. “You know, I heard some little girls running and laughing in my hall, and I thought I’d surprise them. A little hide-and-seek, but you found me before I could hide.”
“We can go back out. Maggie can count to ten now.” Delia, pushing at her sister, had already begun to pull the door shut again.
“No, no. It’s all right, girls. So much more fun to have you with me. Come in here and give me a kiss. Both of you.” She marveled at their upturned faces.
What have I done? she thought as she pulled her fingers through their loose curls. What in God’s name have I done?
CHAPTER 29
The front bell rang. Constance was ready. She waved a concerned Analee away and opened the door to Sergeant Pulgrum standing there in street clothes, at least the street clothes of a day workman, two unknown men beside him, one in similar clothing, unwashed, one in a rumpled suit. Each gave her a solemn nod. These men would accompany her. Keep her safe. Though she had kept her anxiety at bay with the children, now it ascended, spread through her chest like an oil slick without rainbows, and caught in her throat.
“Morning, Mrs. Halstead.”
He was fastidiously polite, but Benton’s name rammed through her.
“Good morning, sir.” No, not good. Not in any context. The many things we say from habit, she thought.
“I would introduce you, but there is no need. It will be better on the scene if they are just strangers, but I wanted you to see them, so you would be assured they are with you at the time.” Pulgrum pulled at the front bill of his workman’s cap. “Of course, I will be there, as well. I want you to be at ease that you are protected.”
Constance studied the men again. At ease? An impossibility, perhaps forever.
“Do you have the packet?”
Constance nodded, going weak. She trusted these men, especially Pulgrum. But could she trust herself? She should tell them how inadequate she felt.
“I have a tendency to faint,” she blurted.
“We will be close by, Mrs. Halstead.”
The name sent some fierce energy coursing through her. Her weakness diminished. She left the men at the door, turned to retrieve the packet Pulgrum had delivered to her yesterday, a thick envelope filled with papers cut to size, to which she had added a few required twenty-dollar bills. The thickness of it confounded her as she struggled to force it into the narrow neck of her tooled leather handbag.
Pulgrum realized the problem and stepped inside. “Here, it won’t hurt to remove a few of these.” He opened the envelope, pulled out several cut papers, and laid them on the table. “Try that now.”
The envelope slipped in. She clasped the bag shut.
“I am ready,” she said.
The men sauntered to the street corner as workmen might. As instructed, she waited until they reached the corner before descending the steps. Constance turned the opposite direction, took parallel streets as she made her way alone to the wharves. The way was not far. It had been a convenience to Benton to be located near enough that he could oversee the operations of the transports to and from the boats that brought the lumber from Mississippi and Tennessee to be milled, then reloaded and carried back up the river to Memphis, St. Louis, and other expanding cities. She had walked these wharves with Benton, their strolls beginning with her hand on his arm but ending with her standing alone, abandoned, as he rushed off, shouting both to and at men at work. Like a bevy of ants, she had thought once. Constance had cringed at his gruff treatment of these men, as if their sole function was to serve his will. But had he treated her differently? Perhaps in tone, if not in manner.
Constance brought her attention back to the overcast light and her turn onto Chartres. She was almost there when the Black Hand’s reputation for deadly, unthinking violence hit her. She hesitated. Then focused on her instructions. One mistake would give her away. The results too dire to think of.
Constance’s hands trembled as she stumbled on a cobblestone at the end of the street, then onto the uneven planks of the wharf. She must steady herself. On the periphery she noted one of the plainclothes walking at an angle in the general direction of the designated drop at the juncture of Spain Street and the wharf. At the edge of the wharf, she spied with relief Pulgrum’s tall back. The third man was not in her sight.
Constance took a deep breath, lifted her skirt, and stepped forward. As she made her way past a group of men lifting lumber onto carts, she heard someone call out.
“Mrs. Halstead. Mrs. Halstead.”