Things in Jars

by Jess Kidd

  From a distance, the average-sighted could be forgiven for mistaking Mrs Peach to be in the first flush of wide-eyed, pink-cheeked, white-toothed youth. Mrs Peach is, in fact, somewhat beyond flowering age. Her freshness has been retained – the years rewound, even – by sheer artifice. Face creams, powders and paints – all applied with an unstinting hand. This cosmetic artistry is supplemented with the pinning of wigs and postiches and the donning of false dental bridges.

  Close up the effect is disturbing; Bridie is disturbed.

  The parrot shakes its ancient wings and lets out a series of low-throated croaks as it watches Bridie from its perch. Mrs Peach takes the lending library docket and looks at it for a while, sucking at her unsteady teeth.

  ‘Well, Mrs Devine,’ she says, in the polite voice reserved for company (whereby every syllable is stressed and the vowels are elongated, all refined-like), ‘I can confirm that no such persons as Miss Fanny Squeers took rooms here.’

  There is a slow batting of her cerulean eyelids and a general shaking of her powdered jowls. ‘And I can’t for the life of me think why someone should give out my little address if they ain’t boarding here.’

  ‘It’s a fictional name, Mrs Peach,’ says Bridie. ‘A character in a popular novel by Mr Dickens.’

  ‘Popular novels and fictional names are all very well, but I never take them, Mrs Devine.’

  ‘You let rooms to lodgers?’

  Mrs Peach is affronted. ‘Lady guests, if you please, of which I’m down to three and one of those is on an occasional basis.’

  ‘Occasional friends,’ screams the parrot, with a sudden resentful shriek. ‘Occ-asion-al friends!’

  Mrs Peach ignores it. ‘And then only respectable ladies, like myself.’

  ‘Up your nose,’ assents the parrot, looking Bridie dead in the eye. ‘With a rubber hose.’

  In the chimney-breast, Ruby laughs.

  ‘Have you, or have you ever had, a respectable lady guest who also goes by the name of Mrs Bibby?’

  Mrs Peach purses her lips. ‘I’m not sure as I can tell you. With all due respects, Mrs Devine, I don’t know you from Eve.’

  ‘Mrs Peach.’ Bridie smiles. ‘I am conducting an important investigation: crimes have been committed, of a serious nature.’

  The parrot ducks its head and whistles low.

  ‘Whilst I can’t divulge the particulars of my investigation,’ Bridie continues, ‘I can assure you, madam, that your assistance would be greatly valued.’

  Bridie gives this a moment to sink in. Mrs Peach remains impassive, the mask of her face set solid. The parrot shuffles up and down its perch muttering mutinously.

  ‘Would you prefer I sent a member of the constabulary to converse with you on this matter, Mrs Peach? I am very good friends with Inspector Valentine Rose. You’ve heard of him?’

  ‘Hide the candlesticks!’ answers the parrot.

  Mrs Peach’s expression doesn’t change, only her nose-tip starts to redden, despite its thorough dusting.

  ‘That won’t be necessary, Mrs Devine.’ The landlady smoothes down her skirts pettishly. ‘My two permanent ladies, Miss Figgs and Miss Flash, are clergyman’s daughters, governesses currently between positions.’

  ‘I should cocoa—’

  ‘And my occasional lady, Miss Windsor—’

  ‘Hop-along pirate!’

  Mrs Peach’s nose burns brighter. ‘Is a very respectable lady, clean and most pleasant.’

  The parrot cackles derisively.

  ‘Would Miss Windsor happen to have a limp and colourful language?’ suggests Bridie.

  Mrs Peach gives an imperceptible nod.

  ‘DIRTY PUZZLE! CRUSTY TWIST!’ shouts the bird. ‘RUDE JUDY!’

  Mrs Peach subdues the parrot with a gorgonising glare. It drops its head and rocks from claw to claw.

  ‘When did you last see Miss Windsor, madam?’ asks Bridie.

  ‘Some weeks,’ says Mrs Peach, tartly. ‘Or months.’

  ‘Would you happen to know Miss Windsor’s whereabouts?’

  Mrs Peach nearly swallows her teeth. ‘Miss Windsor’s whereabouts are none of my concern, madam!’

  Bridie waits for Mrs Peach’s jowls to settle. Then: ‘Did Miss Windsor receive any visitors?’

  ‘Muck snipe.’ The parrot coos. ‘Fruited bun!’

  The pencilled arcs of Mrs Peach’s eyebrows reconfigure into an expression of offended astonishment. ‘I run a decent house, Mrs Devine!’

  ‘Show us your drawers!’ whistles the parrot.

  ‘With every propriety observed, of course,’ adds Bridie.

  Mrs Peach rearranges her face to display supreme disapproval. ‘I really could not say. Will there be anything else, Mrs Devine?’

  ‘I’d like to see Miss Windsor’s room, if you don’t mind.’

  The parrot shuffles sideways along its perch and cocks its head. ‘You’re ’aving a laugh, ain’t ya?’

  ‘Miss Windsor may not be agreeable to that—’

  Bridie looks the landlady in the eye. ‘Madam, Miss Windsor may not be back.’

  ‘In the clinker,’ whoops the parrot. ‘Lock ’er up!’

  The landlady’s lips draw a hard line. Her painted brows shutter down.

  ‘Bye bye, Naughty Nancy!’ sings the bird, with glee.

  Mrs Peach’s maid escorts Bridie to the attic room where Miss Windsor stayed on an occasional basis. When Bridie tries to talk to her, the girl flees downstairs.

  Miss Windsor’s attic room is sparsely furnished. The smell of breakfast kippers haunts the painted rafters.

  When searched, it yields nothing but a meat pie (not fresh), a pot of mustard and a skeleton key. Bridie pockets the key.

  ‘So, this room hasn’t been turned over. But then what’s to turn, once you’ve made it past Mrs Peach?’

  ‘Where are they?’ Ruby stands at the window watching two cats chase each other on the jumbled rooftops below.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mrs Bibby and the doctor; they’re in this together, up to their oxters.’

  ‘It appears so.’

  ‘They may yet have the child?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Bridie inspects some likely-looking floorboards but they are nailed down. ‘I think they’ve gone to ground, waiting for a buyer. Or else they’re running scared.’

  ‘Of being caught? The police aren’t after them.’

  ‘Someone in the business, perhaps.’ Bridie turns to the fireplace, checking up the chimney, poking in the grate. She pulls out a half-burnt object.

  In her palm: a cigar butt.

  ‘Hussar Blend?’ asks Ruby.

  Bridie nods. ‘Curate Cridge really gets around.’

  May 1843

  Chapter 23

  Bridie had her head all but in a hedgerow watching the nesting bird. It was a wren and she was fond of these tiny birds. Only she wasn’t really watching the bird, she was thinking. And apart from the thinking, she was letting the errand she was running for Mrs Donsie keep her out for hours. It was a relief to be away from the house. The atmosphere in the servants’ quarters was bleak. Gideon had been sent down for some misdemeanour and would not be returning to college this time. Talk ran to leaving Albery Hall and of finding new positions. Even Mrs Donsie had her eye on an inn along the coast there, where she could serve beer and stews and be queen of her own little kingdom.

  Bridie, with her head in the hedgerow and the wren long gone, wasn’t ruminating on this news about Gideon as much as her friend’s reaction to it. Eliza barely seemed to care.

  She had changed since her meeting with Gideon in the stable. She was sullen, distracted, and often nowhere to be found. Edgar toddled behind her, as he always did, his arms outstretched, pulling on her skirts. But Eliza just stared down at the child, as if trying to place him, before lifting him wearily to her hip.

  If Eliza knew it had been Bridie hiding in the hay barn that day, she didn’t say. And neither did Bridie, although a few times she had wanted to, not least bec
ause of her fear of Gideon’s retribution. But then, Bridie reasoned, how could Eliza defend her against Gideon if she couldn’t defend herself? Bridie was not certain about what had transpired between the two of them that day, but she knew Eliza had been afraid. It was there in her voice and in the sound of her fleeing footsteps.

  And so Bridie was considering the root of all this evil – Gideon – when she heard a gig come down the road. With her head still in the hedgerow she heard it before she saw it.

  Had Bridie realised who was approaching, she would have thrown herself into the hedge. She ought to have heeded old Gan Murphy’s advice: Don’t bring the bad to mind else you set it galloping towards you.

  Gideon brought the gig to a halt. ‘Get in. I need a helper with strong nerves.’

  Bridie hesitated. There was no one on the lane, before or after her. She thought of running. She was fast. She could be through the hedge and across the field before he climbed down.

  ‘Hurry, Bridget, someone is gravely ill.’

  Maybe it was the way that Gideon said her name, plainly and without sarcasm, or his open expression. But to her eternal regret Bridie came out from the hedge and climbed up into the gig.

  The cottage was beyond the village of Cranbourne. When the road ran out they abandoned the gig and continued on foot across fields. Gideon carried the case he’d brought with him, leather, not unlike the one his father took to the hospital. Bridie carried the parcel Gideon had handed to her, something soft wrapped in brown paper. Their journey took them along overgrown tracks tangled with weeds and briars. Bridie knew not where she was. Finally, they reached a dwelling, a tottered old cottage.

  A woman was sitting alone on the porch with a bowl on her lap and a shawl around her shoulders. When she saw them approach, she tried to stand and the shawl slipped and she let it. Bridie had never seen someone so exhausted.

  ‘She is going to have a baby,’ said Bridie, who knew this from the shape of her belly, for Gan had told her about such things.

  Gideon shook his head. ‘No, she isn’t. She has an ovarian tumour.’ He glanced at Bridie. ‘I’m here to remove it.’

  Bridie stared at him. ‘Should we not take her to a hospital, sir?’

  Gideon flushed red. ‘We’ll give her the choice, shall we?’

  ‘But you’re not a surgeon, sir.’

  ‘I will be.’

  ‘How would you even know how to begin?’

  Gideon looked aggravated. ‘I’ve read about it and practised on a pig.’

  ‘A woman is one thing and a pig is another.’

  ‘Have you heard of Ephraim McDowell?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘American physician, vastly successful removal of ovarian tumours: his patients survived post-operatively.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘They didn’t succumb to peritonitis.’ He spoke with barely concealed excitement. ‘His first attempt, the removal of a mass from one Jane Todd Crawford, was in 1809. She was back on a horse in a month and lived to be seventy-eight.’

  Bridie frowned. ‘Should you not ask your father to help this poor woman, sir?’

  ‘No. I am here to operate on this poor woman.’

  Bridie stared at Gideon with horror. ‘Ah, no, please—’

  ‘If McDowell did it, Bridget, it can be done.’

  ‘I urge you, sir—’

  ‘You are here because I need a pair of steady hands, not for your fucking opinion,’ he said. ‘Stifle it.’

  Her name was Della Webb and she lived alone in the cottage and tended her plot and kept herself apart. Della was sallow of complexion, white-lipped and drawn ragged with pain and fever, so that it was hard to tell how old she was. Her eyes were large, grey and baffled. Gideon was her young forest buck, she said. He was her gentleman visitor. Bridie knew it was best not to ask, even if she were allowed to speak. Della told Bridie this, between retching into the bowl and trying to get up to offer them wine, whilst Gideon watched from his chair on the veranda.

  She turned to him. ‘Your best advice, sir.’

  ‘We’ve been over this, Della: you are less likely to die under my hands than in the hospital.’ There was a note of irritation in Gideon’s voice.

  ‘And you can get this out of me, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gideon.

  Della nodded grimly.

  The cottage had two rooms and neither was ideal. The first was light but too narrow, the second was bigger but dark. Gideon opted for the brighter space and, with Bridie’s help, cleared the room and dragged a sturdy table into it. He unwrapped the parcel, unpacking a notebook and clean sheets. He spread the brown paper down on the mantelpiece and laid out surgical instruments.

  Between them Bridie and Gideon helped Della onto the table. She shook with pain, and cursed and apologised. When Bridie stepped forward to help her with her clothes she began to cry very softly.

  Gideon showed Bridie the notebook. ‘We follow my notes to the letter. Read this while I am readying the patient.’

  Bridie tried hard to concentrate on Gideon’s clear and perfect copperplate. The words were difficult but she knew that you could read anything if you went slowly enough. It instructed: midline incision, wash intestines, evacuate blood from abdominal cavity.

  Gideon fastened strong bands of his own design about Della’s legs and torso, then he checked the bands, then he drew a cross with chalk on the wall. He told Della to turn her head and keep her eyes on the cross. He would be finished, he said, in less than half an hour.

  Gideon came close and spoke low in Bridie’s ear. ‘You do everything I ask quickly and calmly, no matter what. Do you understand?’

  Bridie was too frightened to nod.

  *

  Bridie waited for Gideon on the veranda, heart-mauled, fear-dulled. She could hardly say what had just happened in the room, whether it had been quick or slow or in what order. She saw it as if through a series of pictures, each with its own vivid, awful detail. Della Webb with her face turned to the chalked cross on the wall. A pulse of blood as Gideon worked to tie a ligature. The bowl of warm water Bridie held ready and then Della’s insides half in it and the weight of them and how in God’s name could the woman still be alive staring at the wall with her eyes demented and her mouth moving and some unhearable sound coming out. A broken howl.

  If the sight of such lavish gore disconcerted Gideon, he didn’t show it. Nor did he show uncertainty. As he fought to close the wound. As he wrestled Della closed. As he bandaged her, sealing the wound tightly against the air. As he dosed her, still as she was, with laudanum. Bridie wiped Della’s face; she was already cooling to the touch. Bridie bent near and felt no breath. Then Bridie rolled blankets either side of her, following Gideon’s directions. They would leave her on the table. She could not be moved yet.

  Bridie left Gideon stripping off his shirt. Wiping his face and neck and arms with it, bundling it up with the worst of the blood-soaked sheets. She heard him come outside and splash at the butt of rainwater along from the door.

  Bridie waited, sitting on her hands on the veranda.

  Gideon came round the side of the house. He had on a clean shirt, open at the neck. His fair hair was dark with water, plastered to his head.

  ‘She has every chance. I followed McDowell’s account and my own notes to the letter.’

  ‘She is not breathing,’ Bridie said.

  Gideon ignored her, finding tobacco, setting to smoke. ‘You did well, surgeon’s little helper.’

  Bridie surveyed Della’s garden, the wigwams of climbing plants, the flowers and the shell-decorated path. The few chickens picking around and a tortoiseshell cat stretched out in the spring sun.

  ‘Tell no one what we did here today, Bridget.’

  Bridie said nothing.

  ‘You are complicit. Do you know what that means? You were involved: you assisted me. There would be consequences for you, too.’

  Bridie looked at him.

  ‘Ask it,’ said Gideon. ‘The question you
have on your mind.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask your father to help her?’

  ‘Do you know what she is? What she does?’

  ‘She lives alone and tends her garden.’

  Gideon laughed. ‘She was a barmaid at the Fleur de Lys – before she was dismissed for entertaining the customers. She isn’t someone a man of good character would know.’

  Bridie watched the cat in the sunshine and fought the urge to cry.

  ‘The truth is: I wanted to see inside her,’ Gideon said.

  ‘She belonged in the hospital.’

  ‘They would have turned her away, even if she had survived the journey.’

  Bridie knew this was a lie.

  ‘I’ll take you back.’ Gideon stood and held out his hand. ‘They won’t miss me but they’ll send out a search party for an Irish street stray.’

  Bridie ignored his hand. ‘What about Della?’

  ‘I’ll return, stay with her. See her out of the woods.’ He folded his arms.

  They walked back to the gig in silence and drove back through the lanes in silence too, as the day began to dwindle.

  As Bridie turned to dismount Gideon laid his hand on her arm.

  ‘You are thick with Eliza. I see you always together, whispering.’

  ‘Not lately,’ said Bridie. ‘She has been busy,’ she added quickly.

  ‘Does she ever talk of me?’ he asked.

  Bridie caught something behind the carefully careless tone. She met his eyes. ‘No, why would she?’

  Gideon studied her with interest, then suddenly smiled.

  September 1863

  Chapter 24

  Cora Butter peers out into the road. There is no sign of the person who has just banged on the front door so frantically, bringing her running, be-floured, down the stairs. On the doorstep is a parcel the shape and size of a gentleman’s hatbox. Cora takes a look around: just Denmark Street going about its usual. Even so, Cora has the distinct feeling she’s being watched as she stoops to pick up the parcel, which is surprisingly heavy for its size.

  Cora sets the parcel on the table in the parlour where her mistress is dining on tobacco, coffee and Frau Weiss’s leftover pastries. Cora cuts the string and unwraps the brown paper.