The Infamous Miss Ilsa

by Laine Ferndale

  He picked up his cane. It was, honestly, too ornate for good taste. The handle was a golden eagle’s head—which meant that Theo had to curve his grip uncomfortably around its pointy, hooked beak—and the shaft was inlaid with mother of pearl, ebony, and rosewood, ending in an embossed golden ferrule. He knew it was gaudy, but that meant he could pass the thing off as an affectation rather than a necessity.

  The runner on the grand staircase that led to the lobby was made of slippery red plush carpet, and he gripped the bannister tightly to keep his footing secure. Falling on his face in front of all these people probably wasn’t the kind of first impression Dr. Greyson was expecting of him.

  The ballroom was filled with a surprisingly large crowd of people in their Sunday best. A banner proclaiming “WELCOME DOCTOR” hung across the far end of the space. As one, they all began clapping, and a five-piece brass band broke into a rendition of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” played with more enthusiasm than skill.

  Being the centre of attention made his heart pound and his palms sweat. He’d loathed his birthday as a child, because it’d meant awkward stares and lectures from his mother if he failed to make the correct facial expression when receiving a gift. But everyone here obviously meant well, and it wouldn’t do to seem anything less than gracious and professional. “Hello?” he said over the sound of the tuba, waving with his free hand and trying to smile warmly.

  One middle-aged woman in an enormous, extravagantly plumed hat separated herself from the general mass and began to sail towards him. Theo’s smile faltered as he realized that she was clutching small notecards in her gloved hands. Oh good God, would he be expected to give a speech? The only thing worse than being the centre of attention was being the subject of introductory remarks.

  He stepped forwards without devoting his full attention to the movement of his legs or the precise placement of his feet. His gait hitched and he lurched sharply. It took him two more steps to recover his stride, and by then the damage had been done. The music stopped. The enormous room with its tray ceilings and inlaid mosaic floor fell silent. The woman in the ridiculous hat was staring at him.

  He knew that stare. It started at his cane, then it moved to his leg, and before it reached his face, the starer’s mind was made up. That was the maddening thing about his condition. When people looked at him, they didn’t see that he’d graduated at the top of his class at Victoria College. They didn’t see that he could stitch a wound in a way that would leave no scarring, that he could recite Tennyson from memory. No, the only first impression anyone ever seemed to have of him was that he was a cripple. Well dressed and expensively educated, yes, but a cripple all the same.

  In the excruciating silence, a few people had begun whispering behind their fans and cups of punch.

  The Hat Woman had managed to snap her eyes back to his face, but her own round face was now very red. Theo extended his hand, but instead, she placed her arm gingerly on his shoulder, as one would do with the very young or the very old.

  “You must be Dr. Whitacre!” She mispronounced the name—“White-ay-kur,” rather than “Wit-ucker”—but he nodded without correcting her. “Welcome, welcome, welcome!” Her voice was high-pitched and cloyingly sweet. “I am Mrs. Robert McSheen, madame president of The Society for the Advancement of Moral Temperance, chairwoman of the Women’s Charitable Brigade and Civic Life Contingent and head of the Convalescence and Spiritual Uplift Brigade. We are just so delighted to have you in our town!”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Theo said. “It is a pleasure to be here.”

  Her smile had a bit of a panicked glitter to it. “Yes! Well. That is . . . yes! It’s so very good to have you here, of course. We had planned a small . . . gathering . . . to allow you to meet the town. No dancing, of course!” She tilted her head at his cane, and her hat magnified the motion so that her subtlety was painfully clear to everyone in the room.

  At this, a disappointed murmur went through the crowd, and the band traded uneasy glances before loudly shuffling through the sheet music on their stands. Everyone was dressed for a dance, Theo realized. He was the only one in formal evening wear—even Dr. Greyson had on a short coat and practical-looking shoes. He had only arrived two hours ago, and Theo was already ruining their fun.

  “That’s entirely unnecessary, I assure you,” he said in an undertone, hoping to keep any further embarrassment to a minimum. “There’s no reason not to continue with your dance.” He tapped his cane on the ground, a nervous habit that was especially ill-timed just now. “I do enjoy listening to popular music.” Popular music? He sounded like an old man. Pathetic.

  “Oh, but we hadn’t planned a dance at all! Just a quiet social reception,” Mrs. Robert McSheen replied, her voice still overloud for the hushed room. “These gentlemen here,” she motioned to the uncomfortable looking band, “were just leaving, and then we’ll have cake and punch—non-alcoholic, of course—and then wrap up before too long, because you must be terribly tired from your journey.”

  “I feel quite well, ma’am. And I look forward to meeting everyone.”

  It was no good. Within fifteen minutes, the band had been shuffled off and the citizens of Fraser Springs were standing in clusters around the edges of the room, whispering. Theo made polite conversation with Mrs. McSheen, although her idea of conversation was mostly a loud monologue that spanned topics as diverse as her secret for a moist coffee cake (applesauce) to the rash that plagued her younger daughter (eczema) to the streetlamps (so modern) and her thoughts on the future glories of Fraser Springs. She uttered the phrase “our beloved Fraser Springs” so often that the town began to seem like a Catholic saint: Our Lady of Perpetual Dullness.

  Theo suggested she might introduce him to some of the people in the room, so Mrs. McSheen led him on a whirlwind tour of a collection of the Finest People in Our Beloved Fraser Springs. He couldn’t remember any of their names, but they all had one thing in common: a smile that did not extend to their eyes. It was the expression one would address to an outsider and ruiner of dances. They all tried to assure him they had a brother or great uncle or aunt once removed who had been crippled, and they knew exactly how Theo felt.

  He could say with complete certainty that they had no idea how he felt.

  Still, he shook hands. He tried his best with small talk. He sipped the punch and praised its flavour, though the sugar left a film on the roof of his mouth. Within half an hour, the gathering had mostly petered out, and one side of the banner had slumped onto the floor. Empty of people, the ballroom looked cavernous, dwarfing the attendees who remained.

  It wasn’t long before even the Finest People in Our Beloved Fraser Springs melted away, and Mrs. McSheen declared that the reception had been a great success and it was time for Theo to get some much-needed rest. He said his good-nights.

  Upstairs, he undressed and performed a series of stretches, followed by strengthening exercises. Someone had left a complimentary bottle of Restorative Vitality Water, which, according to its label, was brewed from the hot springs water and promised to “restore Good Health and Youth” and cure everything from skin conditions to extreme nervousness. Theo uncapped the bottle and took a drink, then spat it out all over a silk potted fern. It tasted like the devil’s bathwater. He looked around for something to rid the taste from his mouth.

  Finding nothing, he walked over to the window, which brought in more foul-smelling air. It was dark now, and the streetlamps could only manage small pools of light. Despite the mugginess, he closed the window and lay down on the bed. Fraser Springs was shaping up to be a disaster: not just boring, but actively unpleasant. How would anyone trust him to treat them if he couldn’t even manage a welcome dance?

  Well, at least he hadn’t had to give a speech. Thank God for small blessings.

  • • •

  Ilsa arrived home to Wilson’s Bathhouse just before nine o’clock. She took her time opening the creaky porch door. Sometimes the hinges made a shrieking, grinding no
ise that set her teeth on edge, and she didn’t want to wake anyone.

  She managed to ease the door open and shut without a peep, but when she made her way into the dimly lit kitchen, she discovered that she needn’t have bothered keeping so quiet. Josephine Sterling was still up and about in the kitchen, crushing sharp-smelling herbs into huge bowls of oil for the next week’s massages.

  “You’re home early,” her employer—and best friend—noted. “Did something happen?” Jo may have gotten married two years ago and now was expecting her first child, but she hadn’t slowed down in the slightest.

  Ilsa sighed and began unlacing her dancing shoes. Her dancing shoes were, in fact, also her church shoes; she only owned two pairs. But tonight they should have been her dancing shoes. “The whole thing was cancelled.”

  Jo stepped back from the scarred wooden table and collapsed into a kitchen chair next to where Ilsa wobbled on one foot, tugging angrily at her laces. “Cancelled? Mrs. McSheen’s been planning that reception for weeks.”

  Ilsa chucked a shoe across the kitchen. Jo’s eyebrows rose at this petulant display, but damn it felt good to throw something. “Apparently the new doctor disapproves of dancing.”

  “Why? Is he religious?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He complained as soon as he stepped into the room, and Mrs. McSheen cancelled everything. We just stood around drinking watered down punch.” She lobbed her other shoe to join its mate next to the potato bin. Stupid punch. Stupid shoes. Stupid potato bins and stupid doctors with their stupid opinions on stupid dances.

  “It’s not fair. Those high-society women finally relaxed enough to let us have a little respectable fun in the St. Alice, and now they’re going to be ten times as bad. I definitely heard Mrs. McSheen saying that Fraser Springs ‘abhors’ dancing.”

  Jo groaned. It didn’t take much to send Mrs. McSheen on a moral purity crusade, and the last time that happened, the entire staff of the bathhouse had found themselves on the wrong end of an angry mob. “Oh Lord. Well, was he handsome? It’s the least he could do.”

  Ilsa smiled in spite of her foul mood. “You know, I don’t think I should answer that. You’re a proper married lady now.”

  Jo shook her head, smiling. “So he’s handsome.”

  Ilsa shrugged. “Dark hair, overdressed. I didn’t get much of a look at him, honestly. I missed his grand entrance, and then Mrs. McSheen backed him into a corner. Her hat blocked every angle.” Jo let out a decidedly unladylike snort; Mrs. McSheen’s elaborate hats were the stuff of local legend. “I snuck out with Annie as soon as we could.”

  “Has Annie given up on her charming prince so easily?”

  Annie, another of the bathhouse’s employees, had been cheerfully declaring her intention to propose marriage to the new doctor, sight unseen, for weeks now. “Annie might still want him—she’s that desperate—but she couldn’t very well push herself past Mrs. McSheen.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I know how much you were looking forward to tonight. The poor man isn’t going to make many friends at this rate.”

  “Yes, we’re all terribly sad for him.” Ilsa sighed again. “I should go get out of this dress before I manage to spill something on it.”

  “You look so pretty in it, though. Is it new?”

  “New to me. I got it secondhand.” And then spent her precious few free hours for two weeks pulling it apart and remaking it into something a little more flattering, a little more modern.

  “I’m jealous anyway. It’s nothing but shapeless sacks for me.” Jo rested her hand on her swelling stomach with a little smile Ilsa tried not to resent. She was happy for her friend, after all. Jo had wanted a baby for so long.

  “I’m glad you’re jealous. It’d be a shame to waste my dress entirely.”

  “Ha. You are very clever and I hate you.”

  Ilsa smiled her most innocent, angelic smile. It worked on almost everyone, with the exceptions of Jo and the bathhouse’s dour handyman, Nils. She’d missed this lately, these late evenings in the kitchen, tossing insults and advice back and forth with Jo. That friendship had been slowly changing ever since Jo’s marriage. Not necessarily for the worse: Owen Sterling was a good man, and his love had made Jo happier and more relaxed. But he had undeniably taken over some of Ilsa’s old role as confidante and partner. That was only natural, but it still stung from time to time. And now, with Jo about to become a mother, Ilsa was subjected to daily scenes of domestic bliss.

  “I still think you should have come tonight. Enjoyed one last week of looking like a lady and not a sleepy whale.”

  “Too late. I already feel like a whale. Owen went, anyway.”

  “If you’d been there, you could have made him overrule Mrs. McSheen about the music, and we could all be dancing right now. And then everyone would have had a nice new bit of gossip about your outrageous behaviour.”

  Jo smiled; Owen’s authority to “overrule” decisions in Fraser Springs had been a running joke in the bathhouse ever since he’d been elected mayor last year. “You may be right. The Wilson’s Bathhouse girls are entirely too respectable these days. Drama at a public dance might have be just the thing to restore our reputation as a den of sin and vice.” She yawned.

  “All right, Mrs. Whale. It’s past your bedtime.”

  “Bossy. That’s what you are,” Jo grumbled. “Who’s in charge here?” But she rose anyway and pulled Ilsa to her feet with her. “I hereby declare it bedtime.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ilsa smiled. They headed towards the stairs together, and she rescued her shoes from their exile among the potatoes. It wasn’t the shoes’ fault they’d had nothing to do tonight, poor things.

  Ilsa slept in a room in the steeply pitched third floor. Usually, the upstairs rooms were filled with girls laughing and whispering, and she would fall asleep to dozens of half-heard conversations and the private dramas of the eight other women who lived and worked at Wilson’s Bathhouse. Today, however, all was quiet. Everyone was either already back in bed or had snuck off to enjoy the rest of the holiday evening at Doc’s Saloon with beaus and sweethearts.

  As the senior attendant, Ilsa had a room all to herself. It barely fit a narrow bed, her sky-blue wash basin, and a little white armoire, but it was home, and she treasured the bit of privacy it provided at the beginning and end of each day. She undressed and hung her pretty frock on its peg in the armoire. Even in the dim light, its leaf-green shimmer stood out in stark contrast to the row of identical white shirtwaists and smocks and her serviceable grey and blue skirts. She ran her hands over the silky, slippery fabric of the dress, so much softer and lovelier than anything she’d ever owned before, and then closed the armoire door with a snap.

  Why did she care about some stupid dance anyhow? As if a dance organized by Mrs. McSheen had ever had the possibility of being any fun. Best-case scenario, she would have spent the evening dodging the clumsy feet and even clumsier advances of dozens of married, elderly, or just plain desperate men. The promise of a fresh addition to the limited pickings of a small-town marriage mart had also lured the few unmarried ladies of Fraser Spring’s upper class away from their endless tea and crochet. At least she hadn’t had to stay long enough to endure their condescending looks.

  Ilsa slipped into her nightgown, sat on the edge of her bed, and brushed out her pale hair until it crackled with static electricity. She was just bored. That was all. She’d been working at Wilson’s Bathhouse for five years: long enough that her hands could do the work without her brain even attending to it. The same regular clients. The same treatments. The same girls with the same gossip. And Jo had been so distracted and tired lately. Still, Ilsa was lucky to have this work. She knew that.

  Hair brushed and braided, she reached under the bed to begin the final ritual of the night. She pulled out a hatbox, a lovely pink-striped thing that had helped to justify the amount she’d spent on her Sunday hat. Lifting its lid, she carefully took out a plain, black-covered photograph album, a stack of fashion pla
tes, a little packet of letters bound in ribbon, a pot of glue, scissors, last Saturday’s newspaper, and a pencil: all innocuous items in their own right, but all representing two years of hard work and one very big secret.

  She opened the newspaper first and flipped to the advertisement section in the back. Bolts of ribbon were going for ten cents a length, with a discount for “the trade,” and scrap lace could be had “at a fetching price.” What constituted a fetching price? A sale on feathers offered ostrich plumes from five cents each.

  The ribbon could be purchased wholesale for three cents, but the price of lace varied so much depending on the quality. As for ostrich feathers, the fairness of the price probably depended on your proximity to an ostrich. Did ostriches live in Canada? She had never seen one. She circled the ad and underlined “ostrich feathers,” then clipped it out neatly and pasted it in the album beside an ad for the price of paste jewels in bulk and one for “Mortimer Hayley, dealer of bulk goods, no order too small.” The glue stunk like furniture varnish, so she worked quickly to keep the odour from seeping into the rooms next door.

  Most of the stores were on Hastings or Georgia Street; the shopping district for women was probably still concentrated there, around Woodward’s Department Store. When she’d lived in Vancouver five years ago, she certainly hadn’t had the free time to wander town comparing prices and locations. She flipped to the “Rentals for Commerce” section. It would cost her fifty dollars a month for a storefront no bigger than this room. Hastings Street was more expensive, but if the customers were there . . . Or maybe there was a side street, a little less pricy. She really needed to go to Vancouver and see it all in person.