The Sea Peoples(71)
Now I realize why Wrath is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, he thought shakily. And like all of them, it hurts the sinner first.
“Yes,” Louis continued, smiling happily. “Married, and to the sweetest girl on earth.”
“Constance Hawberk,” Hildred said mechanically.
“How did you know?” he cried, astonished. “I didn’t know it myself until that evening last April, when we strolled down to the embankment before dinner.”
“Think me mentally infirm if you will, Louis, I’m not stupid and I’m not blind,” Hildred said, and barred unseen inner teeth as Louis laughed again. “A blind man could have heard it in your voice, or hers. When is it to be?”
“It was to have been next September, but an hour ago a dispatch came ordering our regiment back to the Presidio, San Francisco. We leave at noon tomorrow. Tomorrow,” he repeated. “Just think, Hildred, tomorrow I shall be the happiest fellow that ever drew breath in this jolly world, for Constance will go with me.”
Hildred smiled and offered him his hand in congratulation, and he seized and shook it like . . .
Like a good-natured puppy, John thought. He obviously didn’t grow up at a court, even one as well-conducted as the one Father and Mother ran, much less a snake pit like the stories about Todenangst in Grandfather Norman’s day. He doesn’t seem to be long on wits, but hasn’t he ever read Shakespeare? That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain . . .
“I am going to get my squadron as a wedding present,” he rattled on. “Captain and Mrs. Louis Castaigne, eh, Hildred? It’ll be a brief ceremony—just the Colonel and my brother officers from the regiment at the chapel, but you must come and be my best man! Do say you will, old boy.”
“Certainly,” Hildred said quietly.
Inside he felt nausea, and a hatred so deep it made the blood beat in his temples with spikes of pain.
“Then I must go,” Louis said happily, springing up with a jingle of spurs. “Thank you again, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“There’s one thing I want to ask of you,” Hildred said quietly.
“Out with it, it’s promised,” he laughed.
“I want you to meet me for a quarter of an hour’s talk tonight.”
“Of course, if you wish,” he said, somewhat puzzled. “Where?”
“Anywhere, in the park there.”
“What time, Hildred?”
“Midnight.”
“What in the name of—” he began, but checked himself and laughingly assented. “I won’t be sleeping much tonight, in any event!”
Hildred watched him go down the stairs and hurry away, his sabre banging at every stride. He turned into Bleecker Street, and his cousin knew he was going to see Constance.
He waited ten minutes, pacing and muttering—John thought he wasn’t even aware he was literally growling part of that time, and muttering disturbing fragments of The King in Yellow the rest of it—and then followed in his footsteps, taking with him the jeweled crown and the silken robe embroidered with the Yellow Sign.
? ? ?
Pip felt horribly exposed as she crouched at the third-floor landing of the building that held Hawberk’s shop . . . and the offices of the Repairer of Reputations. It was dark now, and stuffy up here, smelling of old wood and plaster and nameless forgotten things sold in shops, and the turned pine dowels of the railing she leaned against were rough and splintery against her shoulder. The turpentine smell of the disused artist’s studio they were hiding in once more was strong, and the stale catbox from Wilde’s rooms.
And there was a feeling of pressure, not quite like waiting for a ship-to-ship engagement or walking down a jungle trail waiting for a shower of blowgun darts or Iban headhunters trying to remove yours, but more like that than anything else she was familiar with. Something was going to happen, and soon.
I wish I could leave feelings like that to Deor. But considering where I am . . . for certain values of am and where . . . it’s not surprising.
And if Wilde opened his door . . .
Fortunately he didn’t seem to do that very often. From here she’d extended a mirror—bought as part of a local powder-puff arrangement— on a stick that gave her a good view down the stairwell. The outside doorbell jingled softly. Pip craned her neck, and saw the thin pale-faced form of Hildred Castaigne hesitate for an instant outside the door to Hawberk’s armory and then head for the stairs. She snaked backward across the worn boards, rising with swift economy to pad on stocking feet to the door of the old studio next to Wilde’s rooms.
“Hildred’s here,” she said softly.
Toa grunted. “Nobody out back,” he said.
Deor nodded and held up one of the wineglasses. Pip walked over to the wall and pressed the glass to it and her ear to the base, while Thora took her stance near the door and put a hand to the gun in her bag.
? ? ?
John read:
MR. WILDE,
REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS.
Third Bell.
As Hildred’s eyes flicked across it and his thumb came down on the button and a faint remnant of the chime reached him. The madman’s determination had settled into a focus like the edge of a knife. He could see Hawberk moving about in his shop, and he heard Constance’s voice in the parlor; John thought he could have learned more, if he’d been in control . . .