The Infamous Miss Ilsa

by Laine Ferndale

  “Supposed to be?” Jo prompted.

  “It was. The cook was a nightmare and Mrs. Whitacre was worse, but I never had that kind of trouble there. But Theo was close to my age, and we were both so unhappy and so lonely, and—.” She indulged in a short sigh. “The short of it is, his mother found us in bed together. We weren’t even doing anything . . . you know. Not really.”

  “But bad enough?”

  “Bad enough,” Ilsa agreed. “His mother dragged us all into some kind of hellish family meeting and sacked me in front of everyone. He just sat there. Never said a word. Wouldn’t even look at me. So I left, and then I got work at the dance hall you hired me out of. And you know the rest. I never saw him again until he showed up here.”

  Jo’s expression was soft. “Did you love him?”

  “I was sixteen. It wore off.” She’d intended it as a joke, but it came out sadder than she’d meant it to.

  “Part of me has always felt bad for leaving him alone in that awful house, with those awful parents. Even if he deserved it.” Jo nodded loyally. “But I’m not angry anymore. We were both so young. And he really didn’t have any control over that situation.” She picked at a loose thread on her skirt, near her knee. “I’ve seen it since then, you know. In some of the girls here and back in Vancouver. They’re put so far down for so long that when they finally get a chance to make a choice for themselves, they just freeze up. And they usually end up picking the worst of all their options.”

  Jo reached across to rest her hand on top of Ilsa’s fidgeting fingers. “Not you, though. You always grab for that brass ring.”

  Ilsa smiled in the darkness, though her stomach sank a bit. If only Jo knew what brass ring Ilsa was grabbing for next. “I’m stubborn like that. But that’s not everyone. And I know now that it’s not something you can change. Or stay angry about.” She turned her hand over to squeeze Jo’s hand.

  “No wonder he’s so awkward. It sounds like he never really had a childhood,” Jo mused.

  This hadn’t occurred to Ilsa. Since she had arrived in Fraser Springs, she’d treated a handful of people with varying degrees of paralysis. While many of them had difficulty walking, all of them still led normal lives: jobs, spouses, families, friends. They were bakers and farmers and loggers. What held Theo apart from other people was his past, not his limp.

  “He could also be awkward because he’s a spoiled little prince.”

  “No, I’d say this is definitely a case of inexperience. He just needs to be drawn out of his shell by someone charming. And I think it would help if that person were also pretty and blond.”

  Ilsa snorted. “Oh you do, do you? This wouldn’t be because you love meddling in other people’s lives.”

  “It’s not meddling if it works. Didn’t I predict that Sally was going to run off with that lumberjack last season? And wasn’t I the very first person to notice the spark between Ethel Barker and Mr. Haywood?”

  “Two cases. You’re a legendary matchmaker.”

  “It’s true, though. I should start selling love potions.”

  “You’d make a fortune this month alone. Half the mamas in town are already scheming to marry their daughters off to the handsome new doctor.”

  “I knew it! You think he’s handsome. You’re desperate to get him alone and rekindle your tragic romance!”

  Ilsa pinched her friend’s arm. “Hush it. You’re making a hen out of a feather with this tragic romance business. I’ll treat him, but the minute things get uncomfortable, I’m passing him off to Elsie or Norah.”

  Jo smiled. “That’s all I ask.” She struggled to rise, and Ilsa helped pull her to her feet.

  “Oof. By the time this baby’s ready to be born, I’m going to have more muscles than a stevedore from hauling you up all day long,” Ilsa said.

  Jo looked down at her swollen belly. “It won’t be too much longer, I hope. I’m running out of doorways I can fit through.”

  “As long as you can still get into bed on your own. Try to not arrange any more marriages in your sleep, please.”

  “No promises. Good night, Ilsa.”

  Ilsa extinguished the remaining lights and followed Jo up to bed. It felt good to talk about Theo. Hell, it felt good to have cleared the air with him. Clearly, all the problem needed was a few glasses of rum punch and a private conversation. How silly her worries over the past week seemed now. Theo wasn’t the soul mate she had imagined at sixteen, and he wasn’t the snivelling coward she’d cast him as either. Tonight he’d shrunk back down to mortal size, just a rich boy turned into a slightly awkward man, no better or worse than any other man.

  She shut her bedroom door behind her and began to settle in for the night, sparing a guilty glance under the bed where the hatbox sat neglected.

  Chapter 6

  When he had agreed to give treatment at Wilson’s Bathhouse a try, Theo had only planned as far ahead as the immediate benefit. Namely, that Ilsa and Mrs. Sterling would stop badgering him. Only afterwards, on the walk home, had it struck him that a hot-water soak in one’s three-piece suit would be both absurd and bad for the fabric. Of course he would have to wear bathing trunks. In front of strangers. And Ilsa.

  Although the changing rooms were private, the baths at Wilson’s Bathhouse consisted of a large communal pool. The room was bustling with patrons and staff; it smelled strongly of cedar from the wooden planks along the deck and of pungent minerals in the steaming hot springs water. On the walls, someone had assembled a mosaic that was meant to look like Greco-Roman ruins but depicted no myths Theo was familiar with. Light filtered in from tall, thin windows that ran down the far wall.

  Well, it was just one time. He’d give this quackery a fair shake, which would satisfy everyone, and then he’d never have to do it again.

  Even fully clothed, he knew he drew stares. Undressed, nothing could hide his left leg, which curved inwards at the knee like a pencil in a glass of water. His thigh and calf muscles were much less developed on that side, which made his knee look oversized and bulbous. He worked hard to maintain muscle mass in his upper body and his right leg, which only added to the lopsided effect.

  Presumably, none of the other men would care what he looked like, but that rationalization had never eased his instinctual shame. In medical school, he had busied himself asking the professor questions or volunteering for laboratory chores just so he would not have to change out of his surgical robes in front of the others. He waited until they had left to go to meals or the pub, then dressed alone in the resident changing room, which was always cold and lit by a single gas lamp.

  He made his way across the short stretch of open floor from the changing room to the edge of the pool, but no one seemed to pay him any mind. Inside the pool, sitting on planks submerged a few feet below the surface, a dozen men lounged. Many had wet towels draped over their heads and necks, but all wore contented expressions. The staff—dressed in white skirts and blouses with white aprons—moved confidently around the edges of the pool, reapplying the towels and handing along tin cups of cold water as needed. The only noise was the swish of skirts and the drip of water.

  Just fifteen minutes. He could do this.

  “Shall we get you into the springs, Dr. Whitacre?” came a quiet voice. He would recognize that husky lilt anywhere. He tensed his bare shoulders to keep himself from cringing in embarrassment.

  “Sure,” Theo said. Anything to get this over with.

  He tried not to look at Ilsa, focusing instead on navigating the slippery wooden planks and easing himself down into the pool. Still, the glances he got out of the corner of his eye were distracting: the humidity had loosened her blond curls and caused her white dress to cling to the curves of her body. The hot water seemed to fizz against his skin.

  “Comfortable?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “We’ll start you with fifteen minutes of exposure. I’m going to drape a cold towel over your neck to regulate your temperature.”

 
“Fine.” The chill of the towel contrasted with the heat of his lower body was . . . pleasant, he had to admit. It was an illusion, a classic case of referred sensation, but the fizzing water felt as if it was dissolving the aching gnarls or muscle in his legs and back. Just the effects of applied heat. Nothing magical.

  “Leg troubles?” an old man asked.

  Theo sighed. The other men had been watching him after all. “Yes. Paralytic fever when I was young.” He braced himself, waiting for the pitying looks, the overly cheerful follow-up questions.

  Instead, the man just nodded. “Me too. Real bitch, ain’t it? Begging your pardon, ladies.”

  Theo couldn’t see the man’s body beneath the water, but from the chest up, he looked totally able-bodied. He seemed too well groomed to be a miner, but the scars and ropy muscles on his shoulders and arms suggested a hard life.

  “Oh. I’ve never met another adult with the condition.”

  The man looked surprised. “Stick around here long enough, you will. It’s pretty common. Lots of folks I grew up with had it. Now that I’m older, people assume it’s just my age, which suits me fine.”

  Another man chuckled. “That’s the one benefit of being poor. By the time you’re forty, everyone you know is banged up in one way or another. Why, just in this room we got a few missing digits, broken bones that didn’t set right, and more arthritis than you can shake a stick at. Welcome to the club.”

  As the man gestured around the room, the details of his fellow bathers came into focus. How had he not noticed the glass eye on that man or the fact that the person sitting beside him was missing his arm at the elbow? He had been too busy worrying about himself.

  “You’re very frank about it,” Theo said.

  The man next to him gave a gruff bark of laughter. “Ain’t nothing here contagious. And having one hand never held me back from anything but tying my shoes. Which is why I wear such nice boots.” He chortled and wiggled the toes of one foot above the surface of the water. “When I asked my Katie to marry me, I says to her, ‘I only got one hand, but, by God, I’m offering it to you in marriage.’”

  The entire group groaned, and Theo couldn’t help but join them.

  “Said yes, though. And still with me twenty years later.”

  That unleashed a flurry of anecdotes. One man, missing a finger on his right hand, told the story of tricking a young mine geologist into thinking he’d dissolved it in hydrofluoric acid, which the rest of the group said they’d heard a hundred times. The other man with paralysis, whose name turned out to be Walter, told Theo about how, after his initial sickness had worn off, his father had handed him an axe and said not to come back inside until he’d chopped a cord of firewood out of a downed oak. He’d fashioned himself a crutch from some branches, then spent the entire day panting and puffing and falling over until the wood was cut. “Best medicine you could ask for,” Walter said. “Old dad knew how to make you bounce back.”

  Theo was almost disappointed when Ilsa returned. For the first time, he felt welcome in Fraser Springs.

  “That’s enough for the day,” she said.

  “Aww,” said one man. “We were just starting to get acquainted.”

  Ilsa gave them all a suspicious glance. “He’s new. You lot better not be scaring him off.”

  There were loud protests of innocence as Theo pulled himself out of the water. He reached for his cane, but his hand was too wet, and the carved eagle’s beak slipped away from him. The noise of the cane ricocheted off the walls, amplifying the noise. The men laughed, but it wasn’t a derisive laugh. It was the same way they’d laughed at everyone else’s stories.

  “You need to get yourself a good hickory cane instead of that monstrosity,” said Walter.

  “Walter!” There was a note of warning in Ilsa’s voice.

  Theo smiled. “No, it’s absolutely a monstrosity.” He bent over to pick up the cane and hold it to the light so the inlaid mother-of-pearl shone. “It’s the stick equivalent to Mrs. McSheen’s hats.”

  At that, the entire room erupted into laughter.

  “Dr. Chicken Leg here is okay,” Walter said, as Theo wrapped a towel around his waist. “You ladies should let him come back some time,” one of the other men called. Theo smiled as he began to limp towards the changing room. He would take “Dr. Chicken Leg” over “Little Teddy” any day.

  • • •

  When she entered the treatment room, Theo was seated on the enamelled tin table. Most of her male clients stripped to the waist, or further, but Theo was wearing a two-piece union suit that ended at his knees. It was so clean and crisp, she suspected he’d had his launderer iron the thing, which made her smile a little. He looked nervous, his hands gripping the table’s edge as if he were afraid he’d topple off if he let go.

  “Would you like to get started?” she asked, settling into her professional self. Theo’s was just another body, with just another combination of aches and pains to remedy.

  Theo nodded and thankfully did not turn to look at her. He didn’t need to. She could imagine the expression on his face so clearly based on the tension in his shoulders and back. The mint salve’s heat radiated through its glass bowl and its sharp fragrance filled the room. Ilsa set the bowl down and put a hand on Theo’s arm. He flinched just slightly.

  “All right then. I’m going to have you recline on your back with your legs stretched long,” she said.

  He nodded again and repositioned himself. “Okay.” She moved next to the table, pushing the lower hems of his union suit up a few inches to allow her better access to his knees and thighs. Theo dragged in a harsh breath, and she paused.

  “If anything I do hurts, tell me. But for this to do any good, it’s going to have to be a little uncomfortable.”

  Another nod. Up close, he was more muscular than she expected: his back and shoulders were firm and straight, tapering into narrow hips. Even in his legs, there were lean muscles, clear strength—a strength she suspected he worked very hard to maintain. Still, it didn’t take an expert to see that he was in pain. Every time he shifted, he radiated tension and discomfort.

  She slicked her hands with oil and began at the ankle of his stronger right leg, working her way up the calf with sweeping motions. How strange to be touching him again. How strange to see his body laid out this way in daylight, when she had known it so well in the dark of his childhood bedroom, hidden under heavy blankets. How strange to feel the curve of his lower leg, the tight muscles of the thigh above it, to be able to search out all the places where his pain was hidden.

  He was too tense, his entire body held rigid and resisting the pressure of her hands. “This will work better if you can relax,” she said into the quiet of the room. “Try to think of something pleasant, if you can. Sometimes humming a piece of music or running your multiplication tables helps take your mind off the discomfort.” Dwelling on the past, or on present discomforts, didn’t do any good for anyone—it was one of the cardinal truths of her own life.

  Theo breathed out in a long sigh that might have been frustration or might have been surrender. Either way, he seemed to lay a little looser. She smoothed her hands over his calves, falling into the rhythm of her work. Soon, she located one knot high on his thigh, near his hip, that seemed to be causing the most problems. When she pressed into it, his breathing quickened.

  “This will hurt, but I need to release this. Can you take a deep breath?” Theo did as he was told. “And let it out slowly . . . ” His chest sank as he exhaled.

  She pushed her thumb and the knuckle of her index finger hard into the knot, moving it in a circular motion until she felt it give way, then followed its path to another one, setting off a chain of tension and release along his hip and up his torso. Her work must have been very painful, but he didn’t flinch or gasp.

  “Still good?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, though his breathing seemed a little laboured.

  “You should have had this worked on this ages ag
o,” she murmured.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Can you remove your undershirt and turn over on your stomach? I’d like to loosen your back before I work on the other side.” He looked sceptical, and she smiled reassuringly. “I’ll turn away to protect your modesty.” That earned her a glare, but he sat up and did as he was told.

  In the awkward silence that followed, she kept her eyes down and then folded his clothing neatly—someone had worked too hard on it for her to wrinkle it, after all. When the sounds of Theo’s shifting finished, she turned back. She dipped her fingers into the little bowl of salve and traced a line along the path the tension traveled. “It starts here. Once you get problems here, it radiates outwards like so.” She traced her finger in arrows towards his neck and shoulders.

  “The rhomboid,” he said.

  “Hmm?”

  “That’s the rhomboid muscle,” came a muffled reply. “It connects to the deltoids just there.”

  “Oh.” She was glad he couldn’t see her flush. Even here, when she was supposed to be completely in control, he showed up spouting Latin. “I don’t know the names.”

  Theo paused. “No, but you know the muscles all the same.” He grunted as she dug her thumb into yet another muscle knot. “I learned it in school, but you”—he inhaled sharply as she pushed down harder with the heel of her hand—“you were always better when it came to practical things.”

  Ilsa was silent. She couldn’t tell if he was praising her or criticizing her, so she continued working her way along his back.

  “What’s this muscle?” she finally asked, moving her hands between his shoulders.

  “Trapezius.”

  “And this one?” Her hands went farther up his neck, into his dark hair.

  “Sternocleidomastoid.”

  “You made that one up.”

  She could feel the muscles in Theo’s neck shift as he laughed. “I know all the names, but I can’t do anything to fix it. All the naming in the world doesn’t help you if you can’t fix the problem. It’s like knowing what to call every river and mountain on the map and still getting lost in the wilderness.”