The Lion's Courtship: An Anna Kronberg Mystery

by Annelie Wendeberg

  ‘Quite naive,’ she answers. ‘Do you know who he is? Or how I can find him?’

  ‘What’s on that message you hid in your sleeve when I entered the pub?’

  ‘Nothing of interest,’ she says.

  ‘Very well, then. If you don’t tell me, I won’t help you.’

  She smoothes the front of her skirt, nods, and walks away.

  ‘Dammit!’ she hears Garret growl. Footfalls approach and he is at her side again.

  ‘What happened to your sister?’ she asks to distract him.

  He stops and gapes at her, then opens his arms wide in puzzlement. ‘She…died.’

  That worked well, Anna scolds herself when Garret turns and walks away. She increases her speed and touches his arm. ‘I am sorry.’

  He pulls up his broad shoulders, then lets them slump. ‘She had consumption. Mother still had years ’til she died. But my sister…’ He sighs and comes to a halt. ‘Ena was only four. It was quick.’

  His brow in crinkles, he nods decisively, then sets one foot in front of the other again.

  Anna touches his elbow. ‘Thank you for offering your help.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he answers and trots on. He stops at the front door to her home, takes her hand and squeezes it, then says, ‘You will not find the girl, Anna.’

  ‘Why do you believe that?’

  ‘What do you think happens to a whore who’s of no use to the madam?’ he asks softly, as though the truth, if spoken harshly, could knock her out.

  ‘She’s still a virgin,’ she protests. ‘She has perfect teeth. Only that scar—’

  ‘Listen to yourself!’ Garret barks. ‘Whores pay rent for the room they live in, fuck in, and wash their customers’ juices from their quims! If she cannot take a man, she cannot pay rent. She’ll be thrown out. That girl’s face is a mess! Everyone knows she didn’t want a cock in her mouth. She isn’t worth a farthing!’

  At his last word, Anna slaps him hard in the face.

  ‘Dammit! That’s not how I meant it!’ he growls, holding his stinging cheek.

  ‘How did you mean it, then?’ she snarls back at him.

  ‘To the madam, she has no value. That girl didn’t leave. She got kicked out, and another girl will take her place tonight. Probably already has.’

  They stare at each other. Anna knows he’s correct. She pictures herself showing up at the Bow Street Police Station and telling the bobbies a prostitute has disappeared. They’ll laugh, clap her shoulder, and tell her that this happens every day. Whores move to another madam, go back home to their mothers, or to a workhouse. Who cares? The police would probably tell her it was the girl’s own fault that a customer lost control when she wouldn’t satisfy him.

  Anna sighs. ‘I know. And yet…’

  ‘And yet,’ he agrees. ‘You wish you could use your head to bang a hole through the wall.’

  She graces him with a smile, softly places her hand on his reddened cheek, then disappears through the door.

  The stairs up to her room seem unusually steep tonight. She locks her room and gazes through the window until Garret’s back disappears. Then she spreads the crumpled note on the kitchen counter.

  ‘Useless,’ she mutters, wishing she could return to Clark’s Mews and shake all required information out of the woman.

  Herbs

  Somewhere far away, church bells are banging. Respectable people get themselves a set of painful knees each while praying in church pews someplace other than St Giles. Here in the slums, morals have left long ago, or never actually arrived in the first place. Hence, this is no place for God-fearing folk. Or so the God-fearing folk believe.

  Crossing the street and not even thinking of wasting her time with prayer, Anna bumps into Garret.

  ‘Oy, Anna! Where’re you heading?’ He eyes her rucksack.

  ‘Outing,’ she provides through a bit of apple in her mouth.

  ‘Did you hear that Maclean tried to kill the queen?’ Garret begins in the hope she’ll stay a little.

  ‘That was in March.’ She stops, swallows, and looks up at him in puzzlement. ‘Three years ago.’

  ‘I know.’ He pulls his eyebrows together. ‘I was just trying to chat you up.’

  His honesty and drooping shoulders make her laugh. ‘I took a holiday. I want to collect medical herbs.’

  ‘What? Where?’ His face lights up from the unusually large amount of personal information she provides.

  She smiles — more to herself than to anyone else and walks ahead.

  Feeling oddly invited, he trots along.

  ‘I’ll take the train from Victoria Station down to Purley. It’ll be a nice day in the countryside.’

  As though it needed checking, Garret looks up into the pale blue sky and nods, then sets eyes and nose at the potato man selling his wares out of his basement window. ‘Did you have breakfast?’ he enquires.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, and waits while he haggles for a particularly large and steamy specimen, which he begins to devour at once.

  As they commence their stroll, Anna observes the man next to her and her reactions to him. Her fear of him has long disappeared. The curious mix of hard-boiled wisdom and child-like naivety, his heart at the tip of his tongue whenever they meet, make her feel safe. She feels respected despite his urge to protect her. He often appears out of nowhere, obviously keeping an eye on her, but all he has ever tried in terms of approach was to hold her hand. Whenever she withdraws it, he usually doesn’t pick it up for the remainder of the day. Not once has he attempted a kiss, a hug, or a touch anywhere other than her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she says softly.

  ‘Huh?’ he grunts through baked potato stuffed between his teeth.

  ‘For your company.’

  His food lands in shrapnels on the pavement as he blurts out, ‘Fo Furley, foo?’

  ‘Would you like to come?’ She knows exactly that he does, but she wants to make him talk with a full mouth once more.

  He nods. ‘Offcorffe!’

  She tugs him along, tilting her face away from him to hide a smile.

  The train is full and the two remain standing close to the door. At their feet is a stack of three small cages, four chickens squeezed into each one of them. Garret sticks out of the crowd because of his height, and Anna because of her hair. He tugs at a curl. ‘Why did you cut it so short?’

  ‘Because I wanted to,’ she says, and myriad memories roll over her. She looks up at Garret, and for the first time she feels a little sorry that she cannot tell him who she is. ‘Garret?’ she whispers and he lowers his head to hear her better over the rattling of wheels, chatter of passengers, and clucking of hens. She leans into him and sees his pupils dilate, his gaze travelling down to her lips. ‘There is a lot I cannot tell you about me.’

  His urgent need to kiss her evaporates. He straightens up and looks out the window, sees London fly by, and curls his arm around the woman he suddenly fears to lose, although he’d never had her to begin with.

  Surprised, she notices that his arm feels warm and pleasant where it rests. Her brain begins to scold her, lists the reasons why she shouldn’t let him get so near. Her heart, however, beats quicker and lets her know that she’s a human made of brain and heart and flesh and soul — wouldn’t it be a waste to nourish only part of oneself?

  She lets the two sides argue and decides to form an opinion some other time.

  Unspeaking, Garret and Anna walk out of Purley Station and through the small town out onto the meadows. He lies down in the grass and gazes up at the clouds while she picks yarrow and ribwort. Gradually, she drifts towards him and soon joins him in the shade of a lime tree. He watches her slender figure stretching up to pick blossoms from the tree. Finally, he dares to ask the question that has kept him silent for the past hour. ‘How often did you lie to me?’

  ‘Often.’ A matter-of-fact voice, directed not at him but at the tree — mute, safe for the buzzing of hundreds of bees.

  He observes her calm moves, her set chin, and
knows she won’t budge.

  ‘Why am I here?’ he asks.

  She feels a stab in her chest, one that expels all air from the lungs and makes her realise that what she is choosing now will one day destroy their friendship, should they ever have one. Do they have one, already? Perhaps they do.

  She drops her linen bags in the grass and sits down next to him. ‘When we met for the first time, you were but a stranger. Why would I reveal my secrets to a stranger?’

  He puts this aside with a dip of his chin, then repeats his question. ‘Why did you cut your hair short, Anna?’

  When she opens her mouth to answer, he interrupts. ‘I don’t want to hear it if it’s a lie.’

  ‘Because I wanted to.’ Her voice is soft.

  ‘Have you been in an asylum? Or gaol?’

  The most natural conclusion. Women with short hair are either lice-ridden — which she obviously is not — or have spent time as inmates.

  ‘Of course not,’ she says indignantly.

  He nods. ‘Are you married?’

  She sees how hard this question is for him to ask. ‘No. I’m not married.’

  ‘Are you a widow?’

  This is what she has told everyone. She presses her lips together and stares hard at him. ‘Garret, for you and everyone else, I am a widow. I will never state anything else, not even here in this remote place. It does not matter whether I was married to him’ — them, her mind corrects — ‘or not. So, please, it is easier if you accept that I am a widow. It protects me.’

  His eyes widen, then he drops his gaze. ‘May I court you, Anna?’

  Her innards contract with a jolt. ‘No,’ she breathes.

  He sees her pale face and doesn’t know what to make of it. Does he repel her so? But why would she allow him to hold her hand? Was that some kind of lie, too? ‘I don’t know who you are,’ he whispers.

  ‘You know me better than anyone else, save for my father.’

  He shakes his head, two slow fractions of a movement. ‘Why do you do this? Why all the secrets? No friends? No husband?’ He squints, feeling angry, helpless, and at the same time, sorry for her as well.

  ‘If people knew my secret, I’d have to leave England and spend a few years in gaol.’

  Garret sits erect like a stick, eyes wide, mouth straining not to gape. ‘Did you murder someone?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I would be hanged, not deported.’

  ‘Yeah, true.’ He slumps back down in the grass.

  ‘I would like to be your friend, Garret. But you would have to accept me the way I am.’

  His eyes light up for a moment at the thought that this woman likes him. Then, heaviness spreads when the realisation sinks in that he might never know her secrets.

  He nods anyway.

  Testing the newly won freedom, or closeness, or sort-of-honesty, or whatever this is, he dares to ask, ‘What was on that note you hid in your sleeve the other day?’

  ‘A rough and rather useless description of the man who injured the girl.’

  ‘You’re still looking for him?’ He rubs his face and gets all cross-eyed from his impatience with her.

  ‘I believe he’s dangerous. The girl said that he loves his knife — an expensive thing, with mother-of-pearl inlays. He ran the blade over her body, even across her vulva. He seems to revel in the terror he causes. But what I really want to know is what happened to her.’

  He inhales slowly; his chest expands until a grumble pushes though his throat. ‘And after that you plan to do what? Save all whores?’

  ‘It’s as hopeless as attempting to eradicate all disease. But healing one ailing person at a time, is that not worth the effort?’ She sees his face relax. Only a small frown curls his mouth. ‘Would you help me, Garret?’

  His eyebrows pull together. One might interpret his expression as inviting, so she continues. ‘The woman who gave me the note. I’d like to ask her a few questions, but obviously I cannot march into a brothel and interrogate a prostitute. She might lose her room. So I thought…perhaps you could go. As a customer. I’ll give you five shillings, if that’s what she asks for. I don’t even know how much…’ She trails off. Garret hides his face in his sleeve.

  ‘You ask me to visit a whore whom you pay? Did I just hear that? Did I?’ He shakes his head and looks at her.

  She nods.

  ‘Goddammit, Anna.’ He jumps up, wondering whether he ought to regret this trip to the countryside, but he cannot bring himself to do so. ‘Tonight?’

  ‘If it’s possible.’

  ‘Do you want me to ask her your questions before or after I used her services?’ He wants to shake her by her shoulders, but all he comes up with are acidic words.

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend bedding her,’ she whispers, the small sores at the corners of the woman’s mouth brightly visible in her mind. ‘I believe she has syphilis.’

  His jaws are working. Not knowing how to reply without shouting or ripping his own hair out, he turns and walks away.

  She watches him for a moment, weighing the consequences of her actions. If he walks away from her for good, it might have been worth hurting him.

  Garret

  His back presses lightly against a wall. Perhaps a bad idea, considering the daily flow of piss down the plaster. Anna stands next to him with her arms crossed over her chest. ‘This is the woman,’ she says quietly without pointing. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘Never seen her before.’ Garret pushes away from the house and crosses the street. The woman’s skirts are frayed, her shirt too loose around her bosom, a scarf conceals nothing and warms nothing. Her face is powdered, her lips painted blood red. A fake smile cracks open her mouth.

  ‘Ten minutes in heaven for only two shillings,’ she rasps.

  Garret nods towards a dark corner — there, behind that flimsy billboard.

  Her face falls. ‘I have a room, sir. I’m a respectable woman!’

  ‘No need to call me sir,’ he grumbles.

  She nods, resignation stiffening her moves. His bulk and height frighten her. But then, she always has Butcher who would come at once should this man… On the other hand, Butcher hadn’t come when… She stops for a moment, then shakes off the fear. So what, her mind rattles, I’ve dealt with worse.

  Once in her room, she takes off her shawl to expose more of her shoulders and the flesh of her freckled bosom.

  ‘No need to undress,’ says Garrett, lays the fee on the table, and sits down on the only chair in the room. The bed looks too conspicuous to him.

  Before he can utter another word, she hikes up her skirts and shows him her bush. ‘You are the practical kind. I do like that.’

  ‘Bloody Christ!’ slips out of Garret’s mouth. Shock holds his buttocks to the chair when the woman swings a leg over his knees and purrs, ‘Pull the stockings down, dear. They scratch a little.’

  To cover her nakedness, he grabs her by her waist and plops her down on his lap. Perhaps a little too abrupt. And perhaps a bad idea, considering the sudden proximity. She squeals in fake delight.

  ‘Listen,’ Garret begins in an attempt at gentlemanly behaviour, then swallows when she grinds her privates against his crotch. ‘While I very much…’ She begins unbuttoning his trousers. ‘…appreciate the effort…’ She tries to extract his manhood from the confinement of his drawers. ‘I’d rather ask you a question or two. So if you please, let go of my cock?’

  Her head jerks up. ‘Yer havin’ the clap?’

  Butcher tips his knitted cap in farewell and Garret is out the door in an instant. He spots Anna’s silhouette at the other side of the street. Anger wells up his throat. Not only did she find it utterly natural to ask him to visit a whore — a woman who now believes he has a disgusting disease because all he wanted to do was talk — Anna even insisted on paying for the adventure, and, if the woman didn’t have syphilis, Anna wouldn’t have cared much whether he used her or not.

  Garret feels very dirty all of a sudden. Knowing that her eye
s are on him, he pretends to close the last button of his trousers, wiggles and arranges the waistband, then turns on his heels and walks home.

  He kicks open his door, grabs a bucket, and walks down to the pump. Back in his room again, he indulges in a very thorough scrubbing until his skin begins to burn. Just before he dunks his head into the bowl, he hears a knock.

  ‘Garret?’ she asks softly.

  Dammit, woman, his mind bellows, stop pretending timidity!

  Ignoring the rapping, he vigorously rubs soap onto his scalp. The following handfuls of icy water can’t cool his mind a bit.

  ‘Garret, could you please tell me why you are angry at me?’

  That one question tips him over the edge. He slaps the flannel into the bowl, crosses the room with two stomps and jerks the door open.

  ‘Because you make me feel naked,’ he barks, ‘and you don’t even care.’

  He sees her gaze slip from his face and his wild and sopping wet hair, down along his body.

  ‘You are naked,’ she observes, just before the door slams in her face.

  ‘Balls!’ he mutters, ‘balls, balls, balls!’ and frantically searches for a pair of trousers. He hops into them and opens the door again.

  Her arms are protectively crossed over her chest.

  His jaws are clenched to forbid his mouth to utter a peep.

  ‘I apologise,’ she says hoarsely.

  The door opens farther, allowing her to step in.

  He observes her moving to the window at the other side of the room, observes her chewing on words, and then, opening her mouth reluctantly. ‘Washing doesn’t help. Did you not listen when I told you that she has syphilis?’ She speaks the last sentence quietly and pleading.

  His shoulders sag. ‘You are an idiot.’ He fetches his towel and rubs his hair dry. ‘Don’t you want to hear what she said?’

  She narrows her eyes, and he can’t make anything of her scrutinising expression. ‘Garret, are you aware that there is no cure for syphilis?’

  His anger gets the better of him. ‘I don’t even know what you mean with syphi… what did you call it?’ he lies.