The Moon by Night (5 page)

The man was ill, no doubt about that, Shiloh realized. And he likely did have a concussion; the pupils of his eyes were still dilated to twice their normal size.

“Well, I'm going to go eat breakfast and read the papers, Sketes. Er—do I have any breakfast?”

“Eggs fried with cheese, just as you like them, and bacon and chops and biscuits and fried potatoes is all, sir,” Sketes answered saucily.

“Oh. Good, good. Thanks, Sketes,” Shiloh said, heading for the dining room. “Never mind, Fiona, I can serve myself. You just go ahead and finish with his…whatever.” Over his shoulder he tossed carelessly, “I'll check him over when you're finished, Sketes. No sense in the doc starting in fussing over him as soon as she opens her eyes.”

“Who is the doc?” Phinehas Jauncy asked warily.

“Dr. Cheney. You remember from last night?” Sketes answered.

“Oh, that beautiful young person who was so kind? Loud, but really very kind…and such a lovely, fiery young person. I thought I was having an odd dream, only the great huge knight and the dragon were chasing me, and the fiery woman was rescuing me….” He dropped off, his chin falling on his sharp chest.

“There, with his brains all scrambled, poor thing,” Sketes said to Fiona. “And him such a well-spoken gentleman too.”

Shiloh did have a delectable breakfast as he read the papers. He was a big man and he ate a lot, but he never wolfed down his food. To this day he could still hear Miss Linde Behring's cool voice at the orphanage:
You are not a starving dog. You are a young gentleman, and you will always remember your manners
. And so he did.

In the
New York Herald
he read about publisher James Gordon Bennett's noble—much publicized, of course—undertaking of mounting an African expedition to locate Scottish missionary David Livingstone. Bennett and the Welsh-American correspondent he had commissioned to the expedition, Henry Morton Stanley, were getting a lot of press. Idly Shiloh wondered if the courageous missionary could possibly still be alive. Shiloh doubted it. There was no place in the world as dangerous as the wilds of Africa,
except, of course, Five Points,
he reflected with grim humor, thinking of the filthy, crowded, lawless area of Lower Manhattan that even the Metropolitan Police rarely ventured into.

He turned to the
New York Times
. It still was covering the Suez Canal, which had opened on November 17. A number of dignitaries from New York had been invited to the opening, so the papers continued to follow the festivities still going on along the canal and in Port Said, Egypt. Many of the uppertens were still idling along on their steam yachts from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and back. The canal was a sign of the end of an era to men like Shiloh, who loved the tall ships—the clippers, barkentines, and brigantines and the great military man-of-war sailing ships that had ruled the seas for centuries. No tall ship would ever sail the Panama Canal; it was too narrow to tack against head winds, as a sailing ship must.

Dismissing his sad thoughts, Shiloh reflected,
Funny, a thug like me, and I've met some of these distinguished citizens…the Vanderbilts, Mason Brackett Forbes, Peter de Sille, Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Croly, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Andrew Steen IV—Mrs. Buchanan's parents. I wonder if Dev and Victoria are going to cruise the canal. Might not be such a bad thing to dawdle down the Mediterranean to the Red Sea….

On page two Shiloh saw an article about President Ulysses S. Grant.
I've even met the president of the United States! Fancy that! How would you ever say that without sounding like the worst kind of poof?
By the way, the last time I saw President Grant, I remarked…
Nope, I'd never carry it off. Ain't it just the greatest, though, how my life changed when I met the doc? Talk about luck!
Ruefully he added quickly,
I mean, it's a blessing, Lord. Sorry 'bout that. Old habits die hard
.

Finally, with fresh peach preserves and dripping butter on the last biscuit, he skimmed over the
Sun,
which was more spectacular and scandalous than either the
Times
or the
Herald
. Here he saw with amusement that Peter de Sille, a gentleman in his sixties who had been married for over forty years, was leaving for Port Said today to meet a rather notorious British rake, Sir Vyvyan Oglesby, and sail the canal on his yacht. De Sille was leaving on the SS
Manhattan,
and a heavily veiled woman with red hair had accompanied him onto the ship. The
Sun
correspondent had somehow gained access to the ship's passenger manifest and noted that the two shared a stateroom under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Peters.

Old lecher,
Shiloh thought darkly. He remembered Peter de Sille only too well. At a Steen cotillion de Sille had danced with Cheney and had positively drooled on her. Shiloh couldn't say much at the time—he and Cheney were on the outs in the long days leading up to Victoria and Dev's wedding—but he had determined that he would never allow the man to get within a mile of Cheney ever again.

He recalled how sorry he had felt for plain, unhappy little Mrs. de Sille, sitting in a corner by herself, watching her husband with pained eyes. Now as he looked back on it, he recalled that he had taken the time to get Josefina Steen to introduce him to Mrs. de Sille and had given her an extravagant compliment on the necklace she was wearing—three long ropes of exquisite pink-toned pearls. Then he had asked her to dance. She had been embarrassingly grateful and painfully coquettish. But still Shiloh had taken great pains to be kind to her, even though he was extremely busy those days in digging a big black dark hole to jump into. After all, it had taken him only ten minutes to do a good deed, although he didn't think of it that way; he just hated to see ladies that were sad. He had promptly forgotten the matter until now. He had no way of knowing that Mevrouw de Sille had never forgotten him, and that he had unknowingly saved her from an almost suicidal depression that night.

Sketes came in and started cleaning up.

“Is he awake?” Shiloh asked.

“He was, but he drifts in and out, like,” Sketes answered. “Will there be anything else, Mr. Shiloh?”

“No, thank you, Sketes. As always, breakfast was delicious.” He rose and stretched, then took one last sip of coffee. Only Sketes could fix it as he liked it best: fresh-roasted beans, fresh-ground real fine to make a thick brew, scalding hot and black.

“I've put your doctor's bag in the butler's pantry, sir,” Sketes said.

Shiloh nodded. “What do you think, Sketes?” Shiloh had respect for Sketes's nursing abilities and her bedrock common sense.

Stacking dishes on an enormous tray, she sucked her lower lip with concentration. “He's got a bad bit of catarrh, sir. And fever. It's not high, but you can tell by the heat of his forehead and his hands. And o' course, there's his brains all a-scrambled.”

“He'll live,” Shiloh grunted, starting toward the door into the parlor. He stopped and turned, a thoughtful look on his face. “Sketes, do you think he might have influenza?”

She considered. “Might be, sir. It sure might be.”

“Great. Do we still have any carbolic soap?”

“Yes, sir. Dr. Cheney's told us to keep a good bit of it on hand.”

“Better break it out, Sketes. And wash your hands with it every time you touch him, all right? With the hottest water you can stand and work up a good lather.”

“Like the typhus, is it?” Sketes sighed. “I remember, sir. Oh—but here now, I've touched all these plates and this leftover food.”

“It's all right, Sketes. I didn't think of it either,” Shiloh said quickly. “Just wash the dishes with borax—and his dishes too—and toss the food. Don't give it to any of those little newsboy monkeys. That's all I need, to start taking in every sick ne'er-do-well in the whole city.”

He went into the parlor and could see that Phinehas Jauncy had heard every word he'd said. The dining room was off the parlor, connected not by a door but by an open archway. Shiloh felt a slight twinge of regret, for the sick man looked ashamed and also fearful.
How come I'm in hot water and slinking around feeling guilty?
he thought sourly.
That's what I get, living with a parcel of soft-hearted females
.

But his voice was kind when he said, “Okay, I'm going to look you over and make sure you're not going to die on my sofa.” He fetched his satchel from the butler's pantry, a clever little storage room with many drawers, cupboards, and shelves just off the dining room. His medical bag was old, the leather scuffed, the brass catch pitted. It was a used one of Cheney's that she had given him on their first journey together, to Arkansas, and Shiloh treasured it.

Firmly, with sure hands and a professionally blank expression, Shiloh checked the man's vital signs—listened to his heart, his lungs, percussed his chest and back—then examined his head injury. The previous night, as Shiloh had finished his bath and dressed, Cheney had shaved Jauncy's head and neatly stitched up the crescent-shaped cut made by Balaam's hoof. The wound looked clean, with no ominous redness or pus.

Shiloh sat back in the chair Sketes had placed by the sofa and said with relative good humor, “Bet that stung like the dickens when Sketes washed your hair.”

“Yes, sir,” Phinehas Jauncy answered, watching Shiloh closely.

Shiloh watched him.

Phinehas Jauncy blinked first. “What is the verdict, sir, if I may ask?”

“On your illness? Or on your nefarious criminal activities?” Shiloh couldn't help but jibe at him, he was such a funny starchy little man.

Swallowing hard, Phinehas managed to say weakly, “Both, sir, if you please. Always keeping in mind, sir, that I am a very sick man, and also that I am prostrate with grief and regret for—er—my incommodious behavior.”

Shiloh grinned. “You can sure say a mouthful. I'll give you that. Listen, uh…Jauncy—by the way, don't you have another name? One for everyday use, I mean?”

With the most minuscule touch of stiffness he replied, “Phinehas Jauncy is my real name, sir, and I have always found it to be perfectly usable.”

“Um…don't you have a middle name, maybe a little less of a mouthful?”

“Beddoes is my middle name, sir,” he said with a touch more frost.

“Phinehas Beddoes Jauncy,” Shiloh repeated, shaking his head. “What a moniker to be stuck with your whole life.”

“Yes, just so,” Jauncy said, two spots of red coloring his sallow cheeks. “This from a man named Shiloh née Locke Alan Irons-Winslow.”

Shiloh stared at him in surprise and then laughed.
“Touché, monsieur.”

Jauncy looked defiant for a few moments and then smiled weakly. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he mumbled. “I meant no disrespect.”

Shiloh waved his hand, still grinning. “Glad to see you've got some grit left. I really don't like to see a man beat all the way down by life and circumstance. Speaking of which, what's your story, PJ?”

Jauncy looked pained at his new nickname, but obediently he told Shiloh his story. “I was in service to Thomas Rawlings IV, sir, and he was here in New York on holiday with some friends. We were lodging at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and two weeks ago Mr. Rawlings and his friends decided to go to the opera—”

“Yeah?” Shiloh said with interest. “At the Academy? Or Steinway?”

“Mm…I believe the Academy of Music, sir. The opera was
Dinorah
.”

Shiloh nodded. “Go on.”

Jauncy's sorrowful hound-dog gaze grew even more soulful. “Well, sir, as the Fifth Avenue Hotel has gracious accommodations for servants in small connecting suites, I had a room next to Mr. Rawlings'. And there was a young person who I had met, a most lovely and fun-loving young person with black eyes and curly black hair—”

“Ah yes, the lovely fun-loving young persons,” Shiloh said gravely. “They'll get you every time.”

“Just so, sir,” Phinehas Jauncy said with a deep sigh. “And this young person also
got,
as you so prosaically express it, Mr. Rawlings' best brandy
and
the decanter with the silver medallion. And his best gold cuff links,” he added mournfully. “Mr. Rawlings was so upset that he dismissed me summarily, without even a character. And my family has been in service to the Rawlings baronets for four generations!”

“Kicked you out on the street, did he?” Shiloh asked with some sympathy. “Tough break. So you had no money and in desperation decided on a life of crime?”

“I don't like to say that this young person actually stole my money,” Jauncy said mournfully, “but I was unable to locate it that terrible morning. So, yes, after a few days of wandering the streets—and I did try to find honest work, sir, but it is simply impossible to go into service without a character, and naturally as the days and nights went by, I grew less and less presentable. Sheer hunger forced me to resort to thievery. But I was singularly unsuccessful, sir. I could never get the knack of presenting a credible threat, it seemed. No one ever followed my instructions and gave me money. In fact, small children—children!—stole my valise and my greatcoat and my hat and my watch, and they would have stolen my umbrella too if I hadn't struck one of them with it.”

“Well,” Shiloh said generously, “you scared Balaam. My horse.”

“Yes, but he certainly didn't take too kindly to it, now, did he?” Jauncy said rather crossly, tentatively touching the bare spot on his head. “Sorry, sir,” he added rather perfunctorily. “I'm hardly in a position to complain.”

Shiloh frowned as he considered the man. “PJ, I'd say you're a man in a terrible position right now.
Except
for the fact that the females in this house seem to want to adopt you. So what do I do with you?”