The Queen of Bedlam by Robert R. McCammon Page B

people jammed up in the doors and out upon the cobblestones where no one could move so much as Ebenezer Grooder in his pillory. And all these personages, it appeared to Matthew, had gone home after lunch to pull from closets and chests their finest bits of peacock feathers to stand out from their fellow peacocks in a riot of color, fancy breeches, lace-collared and cuffed shirts, waistcoats of every hue from sea-green to drunkard’s purple, rolled-brim tricorns of not only stolid black but also red, blue, and a particularly eye-inflaming yellow, embroidered coats and stockings, thick-soled chopine shoes that made men of medium height tall and tall men nearly topple, elaborate walking-sticks of ash, ebony, and chestnut capped with gold and silver grips, and all the rest of the fevered fashion that supposedly illuminated the signature of a gentleman.
    It was a true carnival. With all the hollering of greetings, hail-fellows, and laughter meant to be heard in Philadelphia, the meeting room was quickly devolving into a Saturday eve tavern scene, made only more common by the number of pipes being smoked and not just a few of those fist-thick black Cuban cigars that had recently arrived from the Indies. In a short while smoke was billowing through the streams of sunlight and the slaves stationed around with large cloth fans to cool the air were having a hard time of it.
    “How do they look?” Solomon Tully asked, and when both Matthew and Powers gave him their attention he grinned widely to show his bright white set of choppers.
    “Very nice,” the magistrate said. “And I presume they cost a small fortune?”
    “Of course! Would they be worth a damn if they hadn’t?” Tully was a stout and gregarious citizen in his early fifties, his face hard-lined but chubby-cheeked and ruddy with health. He, too, was a clothes-horse today, dressed in a pale blue suit and tricorn and a waistcoat striped dark blue and green, the chain of his London-bought watch gleaming from a prominent pocket.
    “I suppose not,” Powers replied, for the sake of conversation though he and Matthew knew full well that Mr. Tully-as friendly as he was and as charitable to the public welfare-would soon move from conversation to braggadocio.
    “Only the best, is what I say!” Tully went on, as expected. “I said, give me the finest, cost be damned, and that’s what I got. The ivory’s direct from Africa, and the springs and gears were made in Zurich.”
    “I see,” said the magistrate. His eyes were beginning to water, with all the smoke.
    “They surely look expensive,” Matthew offered. “Rich, I should say.” He had to admit that they helped strengthen Mr. Tully’s face, which had begun to recede in the mouth area due to an unfortunate set of decayed God-given dentals. Tully had only returned from England two days ago with his new equipment, and was justly proud of the compliments that had lately set him beaming.
    “Rich is right!” Tully grinned more broadly still. Matthew thought he heard a spring twang. “And you can be sure they’re of first-rate quality, young man. Why do anything if not first-rate, eh? Well, they’re fixed in there all right, too. Want to look?” He started to tilt his head and stretch his mouth wider for Matthew’s inspection, but fortunately at that moment one of the few women to arrive for the occasion came along the aisle in a parting of men like the miracle of the Red Sea and Tully turned around to see what the sudden lack of uproar was about.
    Madam Polly Blossom was, like the Red Sea, a force of nature. She was a tall and handsome blond woman aged thirty-something, with a square no-nonsense jaw and clear blue eyes that saw all the way through a man to his wallet. She carried at her side a rolled-up parasol and she wore a bright yellow bonnet fastened below her chin with blue ribbons. Her silvery-blue mantua gown was covered, as was her custom, with embroidered flowers in hues of bold and subdued greens,