The Spiritualist: A Novel by Megan Chance

Author:Megan Chance [Chance, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Rich People, Spiritualists, Murder, Mystery & Detective, United States - History - 1815-1861, New York (N.Y.), Fiction, United States, Mystery Fiction, Historical, Crime, General
ISBN: 0307406113
Publisher: Broadway
Published: 2008-05-26T03:00:00+00:00

16

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THE WAYS WE DELUDE

OURSELVES

THE OFFICES OF ATHERTON AND RAMPLING

I fled to the kitchen, where I startled the cook and the scullery maid, and Lambert, who did not show any surprise, but merely looked up from packing tobacco into his pipe. I asked him to call me a carriage. Then, to the discomfort of the cook and the maid, I waited there, a place I was fairly certain Michel would not follow.

When Lambert returned with my cloak and the message that the driver was in front, I hurried from the kitchen.

“Will you be home for supper, ma’am?” he asked as he followed me to the door.

“No. Please give my apologies to Mrs. Bennett.”

I rushed outside. It was growing late into the afternoon, and the sky was darkening, the air growing colder. Dorothy’s driver bundled me into the carriage and asked politely, “Where to, ma’am?”

“Pearl Street,” I told him. “To the offices of Atherton and Rampling.”

I had no idea if Benjamin would be at the office, but my rush was to be away, to be safe, and I could think of no one safer than he.

The nightly exodus out of downtown had not yet begun; as we made our way into the business district, the sidewalks were not yet crowded with men hastening to catch the omnibuses and horse cars uptown. Carriages for hire waited along the side of the street, the horses dipping their heads in tired resignation, the drivers smoking as they waited for their fares. Merchants rolled barrels back into their stores. Boys sweeping the walks with more vigor than efficiency raised dust that only added to the constant cloud already raised by the city’s building boom. Like fog, it grayed everything, and fell again like dew on the bruised apples of the pushcart peddlers on the corners, who were beginning to appear now with the ending of the day, lighting their oil lamps to show off the produce that hadn’t sold at market.

The city was changing so quickly that parts of it seemed to become unrecognizable overnight, and it had been a long time since I had made the journey to Peter’s office. I was disoriented until the driver pulled up before an old Federal-style stone mansion that, like many in this area, had been converted into counting-houses. The driver opened the door and helped me out, holding securely to my elbow as he directed me past the refuse and sewage until we were safely on the flagstone walk, where he left me to make my own way into the building.

Atherton and Rampling was on the second floor, up a wide and winding staircase that had once displayed women floating down it in silk and satin splendor, but now held only black-suited clerks and accountants who were oblivious both to its elegance and to me as I went past them to the door of my husband’s office.

I paused at the sight of Peter’s name still stenciled on the glass in black and gold. Then I pushed open the

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