A Spark Unseen

16

The next on your list is Charenton, Miss Tulman. Would you prefer a carriage, or …”

“Walking is fine, Mr. Marchand, as long as we do it quickly.”

He grinned. “I think that wheels will get you there faster than your feet, Miss Tulman, though you do walk with such a hurry.”

I relented, ignoring his amusement — everything I did seemed to amuse him — and we boarded an omnibus, climbing up to the open second story. I paid little attention to our direction or Mr. Marchand’s occasional comments as the horses pulled us through the rain-washed maze of the city streets. But I did look at the faces around us, noting each in my memory. So far I had seen nothing that would make me suspicious, no one in the same place twice, no one that seemed particularly interested in my person. I looked carefully all the same.

We had visited two hospitals that morning, one for those who could not pay, little better than a street gutter, and one for those who could, a fine building with swept floors and nurses that wore white aprons and served red wine. Though when it came to the end of a life, I was no longer convinced that the misery for those in clean beds was very less than for those in the filthy. It was all death, disease, and pain, and it had sickened me. But there had been no sign of Lane. The idea of finding him immediately, on my first day of searching, was ridiculous, of course. The practical side of me knew this. But the illogical half, growing larger by the minute, could not help but be disappointed.

“Come, Miss Tulman,” said Mr. Marchand. I saw that the omnibus had stopped. He steered me out of my seat, down the narrow set of stairs, and onto the sidewalk. I looked behind as we walked, but if we were being followed, I could not see it.

Mr. Marchand led us up a narrow road that climbed a small cliff, dropping off to a creek and then a river below, stone buildings rising up on our other side. We reached a wrought-iron gate, and Mr. Marchand rang the bell. A burly man unlocked the gate, large and oxlike with his white sleeves rolled up — he gave me a twinge of homesickness for my gentle Matthew — and I silently handed him one of Mr. Babcock’s papers. A quick glance and he ushered us through a pleasant courtyard of orderly trees and summer flowers at the end of their season, then into a grim building of stone.

I was struck by the smell as soon as we stepped inside, much as I had been in the other two hospitals, the overpowering stench of human bodies and waste, here overlaid with a perfumed soap that was nothing more than a translucent veil. We were in a long corridor of closed doors, iron bars across their tiny windows. And then I became aware of noise, a constant jabbering like a pack of worried dogs, punctuated by the occasional yell or scream. I kept my eyes in front of me, feeling the knotted place inside me twist. This was not a hospital. It was an asylum.

The burly man was replaced by a tiny nun, head and body swathed in white and black, a crucifix swinging gently from her belt as we followed her down the hall. Mr. Marchand translated as we went, something about the numbers of rooms and classes of patients and bowls of soup, but I hardly heard. Through the bars of the fifth door, I saw a man in a bare room with grotesquely twisting limbs; behind the seventh, another systematically pulling out chunks of matted hair; and in the twelfth cell, a man tied to a chair obviously made for the purpose, his shrieks a large part of the disturbance in the hall.

My feet moved on down the hallway, my breath coming in shallow gasps. I thought I had belonged in an asylum once, for a time had thought I was going to one. And I had never even known how much I should fear it.

After twenty-four doors, we left the hall and stood in a garden. People were about in the morning sunshine, all women this time, either busy or indolent, several Matthew-sized attendants stationed around and about, still, but watching. It was more peaceful here, without the noise or smell, these cases obviously not requiring the prison-like conditions I had just seen. A little boy, perhaps four or five, sat in the dirt along the path we were walking, hunched over two piles of small stones. His hair was uncut, a scratch on his arm scabbed and a bit swollen. He did not look up as we passed.

The child’s silent play put me in mind of Davy, and the sight of him, alone, and in this place, set my teeth on edge. I tapped Mr. Marchand’s arm. “Ask the sister why there is a child here,” I whispered.

He spoke, listened to the little nun’s response, and said, “The child is débile, not normal, he does not speak or let the others speak to him, though she says he is well-behaved when left alone. He was found at the door …” He listened again to the nun. “… eight days ago, tied in a basket. He will be taken to the Hospice des Orphelins, the place for the orphans, unless the doctors decide it is better to keep him here.”

I watched the little boy with his stones, picking them up, putting them down, arranging and rearranging the piles while Mr. Marchand and the sister walked on down the path. I wondered if this was how Davy had been in that London workhouse, before Mr. Babcock brought him to Stranwyne, playing inside a shell of his own making to escape the horror of what lay just outside. I very much wanted to hit something. Or cry. And then I felt a touch on my hand.

A woman who had been sitting on a bench near the path now stood right beside me. She was small and bent, hair that might have once been blonde now graying, and she was lovingly stroking my hand. I suppressed the impulse to step away and instead stayed very still, afraid to upset her. Mr. Marchand and the nun were far down the path, deep in conversation.

“Such a pretty little girl,” she said, caressing my hand as if it were a baby. “You should know my Charlie. Do you know my Charlie?” She looked up at me expectantly, smiling, her round cheeks succumbing to wrinkles.

“No,” I said quietly, “I don’t know your Charlie.” And then I realized that this woman was speaking English, very good English, only a trace of French in her words. “Are you from England, Ma’am?”

She just smiled dreamily, staring at my hand. Her arms were covered in long, thin, running scars, disappearing beneath her sleeves. I shivered.

“My handsome Charles-Louis,” she said. “He would not come to see his little Charlie, such a fine boy.” She lifted two empty eyes to me. “Would you come to see him?”

Before I could answer, the tiny nun was there, speaking soothingly in French, helping the woman back to her bench. Mr. Marchand was at my elbow. “Could you ask the sister who she is?” I said, almost embarrassed by my relief.

He asked, and the nun shrugged. “Her name is Thérèse,” Mr. Marchand translated. “She is a … a …” He thought a moment. “She is unmarried, a woman who claims the father of her child to be Charles-Louis Napoléon. Our emperor,” he added, in response to my look. He listened again. “The sister says she is a quiet woman, but cannot be given sharp things and must eat with spoons.”

The woman settled back onto her bench, turning her attention to unraveling the threads from her fraying skirt while someone on the other side of the garden cried out in a long stream of gibberish. I looked back to the child, still arranging and rearranging his stones. I would keep Uncle Tully out of a place like this if it took my dying breath. I realized that Mr. Marchand was watching me.

“Do you wish to leave, Miss Tulman?”

I kept my eyes on the child. “Mr. Marchand, would you please tell the sister I do not believe that child is slow. Tell her that he is adding and subtracting, and that someone should give him a slate, and teach him numbers, so that he does not have to use stones.” I stood up a little straighter. “And no, Mr. Marchand, I do not wish to leave. I will see every room.”

Mr. Marchand spoke quietly to the nun as we stepped back into the dimness of the asylum.

When the iron gate had locked behind us, I pulled my map from my bag, but Mr. Marchand took my arm.

“I will buy you a coffee.”

I stiffened. “You shall not. I’ve no time for …”

“You will allow me to insist. I do not escort fainting young ladies about the streets of Paris.”

I resented that statement and opened my mouth to say so, but all at once I was not quite sure that he wasn’t correct. My head felt fuzzy, my vision swimming about the edges. I allowed myself to be pulled down the sloping street, around the corner, and to a shop with tables along the sidewalk. Mr. Marchand deposited me into an empty chair and took the one opposite, gesturing to a waiter.

“Deux cafés,” he said, “et deux brioches.”

“I want tea,” I said, sounding like a child.

“And yet this time, Miss Tulman, you will take coffee. And while we wait, you can tell me all about this man you look for.”

I sat still in my chair, the people on the sidewalk breaking around us like a wave, unconcerned pigeons scavenging beneath the tables. The dizziness in my head became a sharp pain behind my eyes. When I glanced up, Mr. Marchand had a coin in his right hand, making it disappear and reappear. It put me in mind of the Miss Mortimers’ delighted shrieks, and for the first time I wondered just how much of this man might be a trick.

“Well, Miss Tulman?”

I had stalled, but my brain had not used the time to supply me with an answer. “What makes you think I am looking for someone, Mr. Marchand?”

He smiled, the little mustache broadening, the wind ruffling the perfection of his slick hair. “You do not like me, Miss Tulman. I cannot think why that would be.”

“Because handsome young men should not act as if they know it,” I blurted, biting my lip in instantaneous regret. I had been thinking more of the Miss Mortimers’ opinions rather than my own. He laughed.

“You are very direct. About some things, that is. About others, Miss Tulman, you are not.” Our coffee and a plate with some sort of fat buns arrived. He put the coin on the table and lit a cigarette while the waiter set out the cups and plates. When the waiter was gone, he said, “But I am glad you find me handsome. Perhaps more handsome than this man you search for, yes?”

“I did not say I was …”

He blew his foul smoke into the wind. “You look in every room, in every bed. But always, your eyes, they skip over the women, the very young, the old, and the men whose hair is brown or yellow. Tell me who he is then, this dark young man.”

I sipped the bitter coffee, pondering the enormity of my mistake in being here with this man. Henri Marchand was not quite the idiot I had taken him for. I set down the cup. “If you wish me to be candid, then why don’t you tell me exactly who you are, Mr. Marchand, and why you insisted on coming with me? I would think a young man in Paris might have something better to do.”

“Than take a lady to a café? But that is exactly what every young man in Paris wants to do.”

I waited, eyes narrowing until he stubbed out the cigarette and shrugged. “What do you wish to know? I am Henri Marchand, and I have just inherited the house of my father, the house that was taken when my family went to the guillotine, returned when France once again had a king. I can only hope we do not lose it again under the regime of the emperor, as others have. I went to school in England, and for now I am what they call the ‘man of independence.’ I met the two Miss Mortimers at the opera, and the good Mrs. Reynolds wishes me to take one of them into my house, which I will not. In the meantime, she feeds me good dinners. And I meet the most interesting company, like sharp-tongued young ladies of whom I hear the strangest stories, who have the excellent arm for throwing and whose cheeks go pink with anger, as yours are doing now, Miss Tulman.”

He bit into a bun while I continued to stare. “So. Have you thought of the morgue, Miss Tulman? The day is ending, and it is on the way, more or less. I do not wish to offend, but it could be the more … what is the word? The more efficient place to start. You can look at the records, and rule that possibility from your search. And there is a viewing room for the public, for the latest finds, if your taste tends to such.” He shoved the buns toward me. “Here, eat.”

I ate, silent, as he knocked back his coffee like a shot of hard liquor, considering the morgue. If I could prove Mr. Wickersham a liar, if I could find no certificate of death, then perhaps Mr. Babcock might be more amenable to escorting me on my search, more willing to stay at home in the mornings. I certainly was not going again with the surprisingly observant Henri Marchand. He pushed back his chair.

“Come, Miss Tulman,” he said, making the coin I hadn’t even noticed was missing appear suddenly again on the table.

The morgue squatted near the banks of the Seine on a cluttered street, its chimneys belching black, gritty clouds. I did not wish to know what fuel made such a smoke. The tips of the towers of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame could just be seen through the hazy air, while below, people of all sorts milled about the morgue itself, a small but raucous crowd.

“The viewing room,” Mr. Marchand explained. “It brings them, like a show.”

I said nothing of my disgust. This was not where I wanted to look, to be, or to find. We threaded our way through the crowd and entered the building. A long, wide hallway extended to my left, its ceiling far above me, and I followed Mr. Marchand to the other side, going immediately to a door marked with a title in French that I could not read. Mr. Marchand’s knock was answered by a rather scruffy man in an ill-fitted suit, and after a few moments of explanation, during which the man’s replies took on the sound of irritation to my ears, we stepped into a small, paneled office smelling of stale cigars. I was thankful it smelled of nothing worse.

A long conversation ensued, the particulars of which I was not privy to. Several of Mr. Babcock’s papers were laid out and perused on a large, scratched desk, the scruffy man’s hands were thrown up in exasperation, and eventually he stormed out the door. Mr. Marchand grinned at me. Two minutes and the man was back, slamming a leather-bound book with brass clasps onto the desk. He marched back out again. I looked to Mr. Marchand, inquiring.

“It is the record,” he replied, “of the bodies brought for the past sixteen months.” His smile broadened as I immediately scooted my chair close to the desk and undid the brass clasps. “You would like my help, Miss Tulman?”

“No, thank you,” I said primly, unwilling to give him the name that I knew was all he wanted.

I opened the book, then briefly closed my eyes, stung by my own stupidity. The book was in French, of course. I looked down the page, at the paragraph-like entries, and then flipped to the back, where the pages were still blank. “Are you sure this is all? It doesn’t seem like much, for an entire city.”

Mr. Marchand went to the door and asked a question of someone outside. He came back inside, brows drawn together. “Only the bodies that have no name,” he said, “that is what is brought here.”

He shrugged once, as if to say, “How would I know?” and I frowned down at the book. Then this would prove nothing to Mr. Babcock and was a waste of my precious time. I saw Mr. Marchand watching me sidelong, waiting for me to give up or ask for help. I turned my attention stubbornly to the pages, studying their arrangement. I was here now and might as well make the best of it.

The column on the left gave the date — I could manage that much with the French I knew, while to the right a paragraph was written. I could not pick out much of this, though the writing was quite neat, but as I looked at the next stiff page, and the next, I saw that at the end of each paragraph there was a name, sometimes in a different hand or a different ink, and sometimes instead of a name, there was merely “non identifié.”

I smiled to myself. That was easy enough. With my smattering of French for colors and numbers, I could simply run through the names looking for either “unidentified” with its accompanying description of age and sex, or the name Moreau. The thought of seeing Lane’s name in that horrible book made me dread the turning of each and every page, and I had to remind myself over and over that this was only for whatever little good it might do me with Mr. Babcock, and for my pride in front of Mr. Marchand. That I would find nothing in this book because Lane was alive.

I sighed when I got to the end of the entries, slumping down slightly in my chair. I had thought the book small, but so much recorded death was difficult to comprehend. There had been only one “unidentified” that was a possibility, and that only because of hair color; I doubted Lane could be mistaken for a man of fifty.

I stretched, feeling pleased with my failure. Mr. Marchand was gone, I saw; I hadn’t noticed exactly when he had succumbed to boredom. And then I realized that the noise outside the office had gotten louder. Much louder. I left the book on the desk and stepped out the office door. The hallway was absolutely stuffed with people, a river of humanity flowing into the building, filling the long, wide space I’d noticed on my way in. I would have thought there was some sort of panic in the streets if it hadn’t all sounded so jolly. I craned my neck, trying to look over the shouting, laughing crowd for the scruffy French official or Mr. Marchand, when a woman in a stained purple bonnet gave me a good-natured shove from behind. I was jostled, pushed, and then swept away as if I’d stepped into a running tide.

I was surrounded by bodies, mostly cheerful, but also too hot and too unwashed, children darting disconcertingly past my feet. The noise was overwhelming. I could not see around the heads and shoulders, but I quickly learned that my elbows were useful and employed them, murmuring insincere apologies as I forced a path sideways through the crowd. What could be happening to bring such a surge of people?

Finally I found the wall, and began scooting back along it toward the dingy office. A few people were going my direction now, peeling from the front to give those complaining behind them a turn, and I finally grasped what they were here for. The entire end of the hall was spanned floor to ceiling by a wall of glass. The viewing room. There must be something sensational behind that window, I surmised, some murder made infamous in the papers. I could see none of it, thankfully, only three sets of clothing, displayed high on a rope behind the glass.

And it was this, of all things, that pulled my gaze, drew it as unwillingly as my body had been swept through the crowd. I moved, back the way I’d just come, pushing my way past arms and backs, stepping on feet, ignoring grumbles and curses in French. Someone knocked my bonnet from my head, and it was lost beneath the tramping feet. But I did not stop until I was pressed into the little iron fence that separated me from the glass.

Three bodies lay on display, slabs tilted to the crowd and heads propped up for our inspection. What the people had come to see was undoubtedly in front of me, a woman, bare-chested and cruelly cut. The part of me that was aware knew I was horrified by this, but the rest of me could comprehend nothing, because the body to her left had turned me into something made of stone, stone that melted in an instant from a rocklike numbness to fiery, liquid pain.

My chest squeezed, my throat clamped closed; I wanted to cry out, and could not. A woman in the crowd jostled me from behind and I pushed her back, hard, barely aware of what I was doing. All I could think was that I knew the head, the arms, every feature of the swollen, blue, and now lifeless face that lay on the slab behind the glass. I knew every flower of the horrible waistcoat, now mud-stained and dripping water to the floor from where it hung.

It was Mr. Babcock.