An Acquaintance with Darkness - Ann Rinaldi [51]
He gave me a down-turned smile. "Why don't you ask your uncle to let you in?"
"I told you. I want it to be a surprise. Do you think that after we play chess this evening, you could take me in there?"
He was thoughtful for a moment. "A paper, you say?"
"Yes. Mrs. McQuade said she wants to see more initiative on the part of her girls. She says that science is all around us, if we open our eyes and pay attention. She suggested we try our backyards and come up with a topic." I was warming to it, proud of my lying. "Well, I looked in my backyard and I saw Uncle Valentine's shed. And so that's when it came to me. Of course, I might not understand everything he's got out there. But you could explain it to me. If you would, I mean. Would you, Robert?"
I'm starting to sound like a Southern belle, I thought, the one thing Daddy wanted me never to be. But it was for a good cause. Wasn't it?
"I don't see any harm in it," Robert said. He said it casually, not realizing what he'd done for me.
I could breathe again. There was no evidence in the shed. If there were, Robert wouldn't have agreed. Not unless he was planning on slipping away from me sometime this night to remove the evidence. But he'd not be able to. I'd watch him tonight, every minute. I wouldn't let him out of my sight. Then at some future date, I'd slip Miss Sly Boots into the shed. And watch her disappointment. She'd have to go to her father and tell him he was wrong.
She'd be so angry, she'd stamp her foot and go right through the floor like Rumpelstiltskin.
15. The Inside of the Shed
SO FAR I HAD managed to do very well. Robert hadn't been out of my sight once and we were at dinner. I watched Maude take away the soup dishes, wondering if I could manage as well for the rest of the evening.
"Do you like the fish, Emily?" Uncle Valentine asked.
"Yes. I love the stuffing Maude made. But I'm afraid I ate too much turtle soup."
"Eat the fish. Fish is good for you. It's brain food," Uncle Valentine said.
Robert winked at me. "Eat the fish and you can swim better," he said. "Do you swim, Emily?"
"Yes."
"Where did you learn?"
"In Maryland. We had a creek."
"Who taught you?"
"Johnny Surratt," I said.
"Oh." Robert scowled. I knew what he was thinking. Did everything in my life go full circle and get back to Johnny Surratt? "I hear he's still in Canada. There's a twenty-five-thousand-dollar price on his head."
I picked nervously at the fish. I hadn't thought about Johnny all day. I felt disloyal to him. All I could think of was if I'd really get into the shed this night.
The table was set beautifully. Night-blooming cereus, their white petals down because it wasn't dark yet, were in a bowl as the centerpiece. Candles glowed. Even though the house was equipped with gaslight, Uncle Valentine preferred candles. There was, in addition to the fish, roasted potatoes, green beans, pickled preserves, cheddar and Gloucester cheeses, a chicken pie. And a whipped syllabub.
Where Mrs. McQuade had her Wednesday Morning Discussion Group, Uncle Valentine had his Thursday Evening Dinners. I hadn't lived with him long enough to experience the range of guests, but I had lived with him long enough to know he hated eating alone. Tonight it was just Robert. What with the Lincoln funeral, everyone was exhausted.
"I heard that Booth was arrested in Toronto," Robert said.
Toronto? I looked up quickly. If they'd caught Booth in Toronto, did that mean they'd also catch Johnny? Then I realized Robert was joking.
"I heard he was arrested in Massachusetts. And Pennsylvania. And Chicago," Uncle Valentine said.
"How can you make sport about it?" I asked him.
"It's becoming quite the thing to come up with new and absurd stories about where John Wilkes Booth was last seen," Robert said.
"It's no joke to any handsome man with a black mustache," Uncle Valentine said. "The paper said today that dozens of them have been seized and rushed off to jail." He sighed. "The funeral is over here in Washington, but I don't think the country