“It was Price who insisted on it,” says Gilbert, and Cecil just shakes his head.
Cecil looks like he’s aged a hundred years in the last few days. His shoulders are stooped, he’s got bags under his eyes, and his lips are dry and cracked.
“Help me sit up,” Gilbert says, and Cecil grips one of his hands and pulls.
When he is upright, Cecil sits down beside him. “You hear anything about Cecily?” he asks immediately. “Did she make it home from the theater?”
All Gilbert wants to do is tell his brother-in-law that Cecily’s all right. But there must be a hundred men in the cage. Some of them are still asleep, some of them are trying to be, and some of them are wide awake and hungry for any morsel of information that might help them get out of here.
“Lean in,” Gilbert says quietly.
Cecil’s so sure he knows what’s coming that he starts to choke on his words. “They couldn’t find her, could they?”
“Closer.”
When Gilbert is satisfied no one will hear what he has to say, he whispers, “For the benefit of everybody in here, I need you to act like I’m telling you she’s dead. She ain’t, but you act like she is. Understand?”
Cecil has to be confused, but he doesn’t show it. He just nods real slow.
“I’m sorry,” Gilbert says, this time in a voice loud enough for any eavesdropper to appreciate.
To anyone in the birdcage, it looks like Cecil’s just gotten bad news. But the thing is, relief and sorrow don’t look so different, at least in the beginning. When Cecil pulls his knees up to his chest, hides his face in his arms, and begins to weep, Gilbert can tell he’s not putting on a show. His daughter is alive, and he is genuinely moved to learn of it.
They sit like that for a long time—Cecil softly crying into the sleeves of his coat, and Gilbert looking up at the pale moon, still visible in the violet sky. When his brother-in-law finally raises his head and dries his eyes, Gilbert gestures at the men around them. “This all because of the theater fire?” he asks.
Cecil nods.
Gilbert’s never seen the jail so crowded.
“They just keep coming,” says Cecil. “Every man more confused than the next as to why he’s here.”
“Anyone been released?”
Cecil shakes his head. “Slavers been down here all day, with affidavits and witnesses, arguing for the release of one fellow or another. That man over there,” he says, tilting his head in the direction of an agitated youngman with a pockmarked face, “has a slaver and about twenty other witnesses saying he was serving at a dinner party on Thursday night, and it don’t matter.”
“Master Price show up?”
“Him I haven’t seen.”
“Well, he’s had his hands full with that eldest son of his,” says Gilbert.
“Oh?”
“I’ll let Della fill you in.”
Cecil leans his head back and closes his eyes.
“So, what are they gonna do with everybody in here?” Gilbert asks.
“Damned if I know. There was talk, early on, about the gallows. But now I’m not so sure.”
“They won’t do anything that drastic,” says Gilbert. “Not when they don’t got any proof.”
“Well, they got more proof than I’d like.”
Gilbert raises an eyebrow in Cecil’s direction.
“One of the actors came down here yesterday and started picking us out. Must have pointed to about fifteen or twenty of us. A clerk wrote down all our names.”
