by Alex Reeve
He sniffed and cast a look around the pharmacy, apparently not liking what he saw. No doubt he patronised bigger places on Regent Street or Park Lane, or had the pharmacist come to him with a case full of remedies and the respect he was due.
But Constance wasn’t made that way. She reminded me of me.
‘You must have made a mistake. We don’t have any Miss Pritchard here.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Captain Pritchard gave me this address for his sister. I believe her Christian name is Lottie, short for Charlotte, I suppose.’
‘Are you sure it was his sister?’ I blurted. ‘Not a man?’
He stared at me, clearly wondering why I’d spoken. I suppose he’d taken me for a customer or, more likely, hadn’t noticed me at all. ‘What are you babbling about? I know what I was told. Is Miss Pritchard here or not?’
No, I thought. She really isn’t.
Alfie continued tugging away at the pig’s mouth. ‘Do you know anyone by that name, Leo?’
‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘What’s it in connection with? Perhaps you could tell me about it?’
The fellow shook his head. ‘Captain Pritchard said to speak to no one else. He was explicit on the point. It’s a delicate matter.’
‘Delicate?’ said Constance, ever curious, and he studied her again. If he does it once more, I thought, I’ll clamp him to that chair and see how he enjoys the drill.
‘Thank you, Constance,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you know if I need any help.’
She pressed her lips together and absolutely flounced out.
I turned to Thorpe. ‘I can pass a message to Miss Pritchard for you.’
‘Where can I find her?’
‘I’m sorry, but I’d prefer not to give her address to anyone without her consent. What message should I pass on to her?’
He thought for a second. ‘Tell her that she and I should meet. But not here.’ He glanced at the chair with distaste. ‘Let’s say St James’s Park on Sunday, on the bridge over the lake. Noon will be fine. My name’s Thorpe. Major Thorpe.’
There was a sudden, wrenching crack and Alfie staggered backwards, grinning like a loon, holding up his pliers with a tooth clutched between the jaws.
‘Got it!’ he shouted.
Thorpe leapt towards the door, a sudden expression of shock on his face. Realising how panicked he must look, he took a breath and regained his composure.
‘Make sure you pass on the message. Noon on Sunday.’
As soon as he’d gone I went upstairs and lay down on my bed, staring at the ceiling.
What have I done? How can he meet Lottie when she doesn’t exist?
15
It was Sunday morning, and Alfie and Constance had gone to church. Helena had always been rigid with regards to attendance, every week no matter what, and Alfie was continuing the custom. He never said so, but I sensed he was no more devout than I was, and only went to honour his late wife’s wish. Like me, he had good reason to shun the Almighty.
I was sitting in my room, holding a new wig.
My first idea had been to meet with Thorpe myself and convince him to talk to me. But he’d asked so specifically for Lottie. Would he talk to anyone else?
I considered that someone might impersonate Lottie. Thorpe wouldn’t know the difference, never having met her. But who?
I thought of Audrey. She might be excited to do it, and would welcome a small payment. We could rehearse in advance what she should ask. But Audrey was a street sparrow and Lottie was a turtle dove, a vicar’s daughter, and no army major would be fooled.
I surprised myself by thinking of Mrs Flowers, whom I’d largely cast out of my mind. But I dismissed the idea – her accent was little better than Audrey’s, and besides, there was something else about her: she didn’t dissemble. She was direct, even rude. I didn’t believe she could be convincing as someone else.
Which left only one person I could think of who was well-spoken and convincing enough to pass as Lottie. And that was why I had bought myself a wig.
The shop on Floral Street had been overwhelming, with row upon row of wooden heads wearing ladies’ wigs of all styles. They had an unsettling, vaguely taxidermical quality. I couldn’t decide what kind of wig I should get. Should it be something similar to the hair I used to have, nondescript brown and mildly wavy? I kept telling myself the wig was just a tool, a disguise for a purpose, and that the aesthetics of the thing weren’t important. Thorpe was hardly going to confess to the crime, or not, depending on my choice of hair. I should just buy the cheapest one and leave. But still I stood there, frozen by indecision.
I wasn’t helped by the obsequious assistant, his own hair contrarily full and lush. ‘Perhaps this one, sir?’ He picked out a stiff lump of a wig in the style one imagines the Queen might wear. ‘It’s long-lasting and very reasonably priced.’
My mistake had been to make up a lie on the spot, that I was buying one for my aged aunt to cover up her creeping baldness.
Eventually I chose something akin to my old hair. I didn’t know why, and regretted it almost as soon as I left the shop. The assistant plainly found my choice inappropriate, and kept suggesting alternatives even as I was walking out of the door. ‘Sir’s aunt will wish to look her best for her age, and his choice is far too youthful. Sir should reconsider. We don’t accept returns once the item’s been worn.’
Now, sitting in my room, alone in the house, I loathed the thing. It felt as if I was holding someone’s scalp in my hands, and that someone might be me. I was transfixed by my pounding resentment of Jane for putting me in this position. I was certain it was her doing, an act of spite. My brother wouldn’t have the wit or inclination for such a scheme; his nature had always been to set his eyes on the horizon and stride straight forward. I doubted he’d changed all that much.
But I could afford no more delays. I had already scrubbed my cilices and hung them up to dry, tidied my few possessions and scraped a dried pool of wax off my shelf. Alfie and Constance would be back soon.
I put the wig over my head and pulled it tight. It was uncomfortable, clinging to my skin. When I shook my head vigorously, the hair swished from side to side, and when I bent forward, it fell around my face in a way I could vaguely recall.
I had bought some powder from the pharmacy, unbeknown to Alfie. He wouldn’t care that he had one less pot and one extra sixpence. It was cold and itchy, but it covered up what was left of my bruise. I removed all my clothes and stood naked in the centre of the room, a woman to anyone who could have seen me.
I had already decided to wear Maria’s clothes, and had sponged them clean, or some approximation of clean. I laid them out on the bed: petticoats, a bonnet, the dress and a pair of combination drawers of a type I’d never worn before.
I started by pulling on the combination, doing up the buttons over my breasts without a cilice for the first time in ten years. It was a plain, practical garment, and comfortable enough. I didn’t hate it – how could I when it had been Maria’s? But I hated me in it: my narrow waist and the bare white of my breastbone, my slender shoulders and skinny neck. Everything.
I had a sudden urge to rip it off and give up the plan entirely – let no one meet Thorpe, let me forget that I had ever wanted to know why Maria had died. For a while I just sat on the bed. Then it came to me; how I could do this. I took a cilice and rolled it up into a sausage, and pinned it into the crotch of the combination. It was a ludicrous thing to do; a pretend cock for a cockless man pretending to be a woman. It made no sense. But as long as I could feel it there, that pressure against my thigh, it would remind me who I truly was.
I breathed deeply and picked up the dress. It was cream-coloured, simple and pretty, with lace around the neckline and pleats and a bow at the back. It wasn’t elegant enough, but it was all I had. It was designed for some kind of bustle, but I didn’t have one. Maria must’ve still been wearing it when she left Madame Moreau’s house. She was probably wearing it when she died, and it might even be in
the grave with her. That thought chewed at me until I had to pinch my palm between my nails.
I cast around my room for a reasonable facsimile, spending some minutes experimenting with clothes hangers before settling on a folded towel, held up by a belt over Maria’s petticoats. It was uncomfortable and apt to come undone. Why on earth did women tolerate such paraphernalia?
The dress didn’t truly fit. The material hung from my shoulders, gaping loose across my chest and drooping at the back over my towel bustle. It was also a fraction short. My mother would have let down the hem and refashioned the bodice completely, but my sewing skills were limited to buttons and corpses, so I tugged down the petticoats and hoped that would be sufficient to appear proper.
The fact that the dress was Maria’s made it easier, as if she and I were colluding. It smelled sweet, of her. I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging the dress to me, and could almost imagine she was hugging me back.
I straightened the waistband and smoothed the neckline with practised fingers, these rituals returning more easily than I would have thought possible. I searched through my drawer and found the only thing, aside from a few books, that I’d kept from my time as Lottie: a brooch my mother had given me on my eleventh birthday, a silver rose with a curved stalk and just a hint of a thorn. I pinned it to my dress.
I disliked looking in mirrors, but I wanted to check I had everything right, so I went into Alfie’s room and stood in front of his with my eyes shut. I counted down from ten, and when I got to three, I opened them.
There was Lottie, in the flesh, with her long chin and awkward stance, and her fidgeting fingers that never knew what to do with themselves. I almost felt sorry for her. She put her hands on her hips, accentuating her waistline. I glared at her, and she glared straight back.
If my mother could’ve seen me now, she would believe her little girl had returned to her. It was an uncomfortable thought. Would it have killed me to continue wearing a dress for a few more years, for her sake? Was my sex such a fragile thing that I couldn’t hide it for a little longer beneath powder and petticoats?
‘Why should I?’ I said out loud. ‘Why should I seem other than what I am?’
I was right, but it didn’t make me feel better. No matter how I justified it, I hadn’t been there when my mother died.
I gathered up my own clothes and shovelled them into the carpet bag, and then went into the kitchen and took the biggest knife from the drawer, wrapped it up in a cloth and dropped it in as well. I’d spent an hour the previous day honing it to a glistening sharpness.
I arrived at St James’s Park before eleven, shivering despite the navy riding jacket I’d purchased from a pawnbroker on Drury Lane for five shillings and sixpence – half a week’s rent. The man insisted it was of the highest-quality wool and I didn’t have time to argue with him, and it at least covered up my ill-fitting bodice and some of the makeshift bustle, which had a tendency to migrate around my waist and slip down. I’d already had to rearrange it twice on the short walk from the pharmacy, and I hoped it was now under control. I’d also purchased a wide-brimmed hat, which was more in keeping than Maria’s flimsy bonnet.
I had an hour to practise being a woman.
The park was wonderfully elegant, and I was quite the clumsiest thing in it. I attempted to promenade along the shore of the lake, but kept tripping over Maria’s petticoats. I realised I was walking far too briskly, fairly rushing round compared with the ladies I passed, whose pace was little more than an amble. Once I had slowed down, considerably, I was better able to stay upright.
The lake slunk along the park with black railings all around, and people with parasols strung along it like beads on a necklace. At one end there was a little island, and on it was a cottage and some net enclosures where stately storks and pelicans were picking their way between chuckling mallards and geese. I had wanted to bring Maria here after the Opera Comique in the hope it might become a regular arrangement. I had wanted us to walk arm in arm, stopping from time to time to sit on a bench and talk about our life together, and what we might become. I had wanted us to be just like other people. What a foolish fantasy.
Halfway along, the lake narrowed, girded by a bridge, too low for anything larger than a rowing boat to pass underneath. This was where I was due to meet Thorpe at noon. If I was honest, I was surprised he’d responded to Oliver’s request. He was a major from a good family and Maria was a dead prostitute born in a theatre, so she’d said. I wondered what his reasons were.
On the bridge I practised my perambulation, taking care on the greasy wood underfoot. Many gentlemen met my eye, and more than my eye. Even if they were with a lady they still cast a glance, as if I was part of an exhibition they were viewing. I wondered if I ever behaved that way. I didn’t think so. I certainly never called out to passing women or put a hand on their forearm while pointing out a moorhen floating by, as one fellow had done. Such confidence he had! I wondered how one develops it. And he’d been wrong about the bird, which was a coot. I didn’t correct him because, I supposed, a lady has to be demure, even to the extent of allowing such heinous ignorance to go unchallenged.
After an hour I was exhausted and anxious, and decided to take some refreshment. I hurried over Birdcage Walk to an Aerated Bread Company tea shop, which was crowded even on a Sunday. I sat in their privy with my head in my hands, and after five minutes I did indeed require the use of the facility, and had to disrobe completely, having no idea how to cope with the arcane mechanics of Maria’s combination drawers. Afterwards, I tightened the belt around my waist so the bustle wouldn’t slip, although I could barely breathe.
Passing as a lady was queerly hard, especially in view of the difficulty I usually had passing as a man. It seemed absurd not to be able to do either.
When I returned to the tea-shop lounge it was almost entirely full of men. A young fellow clicked his fingers and pointed to a sign saying that the Ladies’ Tea Room was downstairs, grinning and adding that he’d be delighted if I would prefer to join him and his party at their table. He seemed quite taken aback when I declined.
By the time I actually had a cup of tea in my hand, downstairs in a dim corner where no one could see me, I was shaking so badly I could scarcely hold it. When I closed my eyes I was still the same as ever, but when I opened them again I couldn’t ignore the hair around my face and the lace trim on my dress.
I studied my hands. They were the same hands I’d always had, the same fingers, the same rosy, prominent knuckles. I still had the same soreness in my wrist from punching the weasel-faced man, and I could still feel the pressure of my fake cock pinned inside my drawers. I was still me.
I checked the bag, touching my thumb to the fine point of the knife through the cloth I’d wrapped it in. It was reassuringly sharp. I shook myself, feeling silly for having allowed Jane’s little ploy to unman me.
I drew a deep breath and brought my knees back together. I was determined, for Maria’s sake, to be the best woman I could.
At five to twelve, I was waiting on the bridge. On the dot of the hour, Thorpe came striding towards me from the north side of the park in full military uniform: red jacket and epaulettes, white belt, black trousers with sharp creases, black boots and an imposing black hat. The path was crowded with children and their parents watching the birds on the lake, but still they parted for him. His gait seemed to demand it: head up, shoulders back, forward march.
‘You must be Miss Pritchard.’
‘Yes. It’s very nice to meet you, Major Thorpe.’ I was conscious of the modulation of my voice. I’d been practising by humming in a higher register.
He removed his hat and gave me a minimal bow. He didn’t appear to recognise me or Maria’s dress, although the latter was hardly surprising. I wouldn’t have recognised it either.
‘Please, call me Augustus. I know your brother, after all. And may I call you Lottie?’ He smiled and offered his arm without waiting for a reply.
The last time I’d appea
red female I’d been fifteen years old, and even then no boy had ever offered me his arm. There was something about me that repelled them, perhaps my tallness for a girl or my tendency to pull faces at the hogwash they spouted. Yet here I was, walking with this gentleman as if it was the most natural thing in the world, being led by him down from the bridge towards the Queen’s palace like the lady my mother had always hoped I’d become.
Beneath his uniform, I could feel the cadence of his walk, an intimate contact that made me shudder. That hand might have held the weapon that killed Maria. That bland face might have watched her die, teeth clenched, brow dripping with the effort of the kill.
The bag tugged on my hand, heavy with the kitchen knife.
‘He’s a good chap, your brother,’ Thorpe was saying. ‘And the finest shot in the regiment. He made a bet with one of the other chaps he could hit a china jug from forty yards. And he did it too. Second shot, clipped it as neatly as you like. The chap had to pay up a guinea in the mess while your brother drank from the self-same jug, with a great piece of it shot away. Can you believe that?’
‘He always did love to shoot things.’
‘And another time, in India, he hit a coolie who was hiding behind some bushes from as far as, well, do you see those trees over there? As far away as that. Pop, and down he goes, with a surprised look on his face. Never seen anything like it.’ Thorpe briefly clutched his elbow to himself, squashing my hand against his jacket, but it didn’t seem to be an overture, more a memory, an involuntary flinch. ‘We did two years together in Bombay and Peshawar. You get to know a chap. Brothers in arms and all that. I must say he’s never spoken of you before. You’re not his twin, are you?’
‘No. That’s Jane. I’m younger.’
‘Yes, quite right. And that other chap I met, who passed on the message?’
I shrugged. ‘Someone I know. Oliver must have made a mistake with the address.’