by Karen Odden
If he was offended, he didn’t show it. “I was coming down the back stairs and saw you. I was planning to check on your mother in a few minutes. Is she better tonight?”
His tone was so normal that I felt reassured. “She still hasn’t spoken, but she’s more at ease now that Jane is here—the nurse I told you about.” I touched the plaster on my head. “Jane agreed with everything you’d done for Mama—and she admired the stitching you did for me.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” He smiled. “I can see her now, if you like.”
I rose and moved toward the door, but he stayed where he was.
“Why don’t you go ahead?” he asked. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
He might as well have said outright that it wasn’t a good idea for the two of us to be seen going upstairs together. So he had heard the gossip.
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks again, hotter than before. I nodded stiffly and headed for my room.
Jane had propped Mama up against some pillows and had helped her eat dinner. The bowl on the tray was nearly empty, and only a corner of toast remained on the plate. I breathed a sigh of relief; Mama certainly looked better. For the first time since the accident, she was awake and alert. But when her eyes met mine, she immediately looked away, her lips tightening.
My greeting remained unspoken; my feet stopped where they were; and I felt a pang of disappointment tinged with resentment. I wasn’t expecting a sudden reversal of her feelings toward me. But we’d nearly died in that carriage—and even if she didn’t remember I’d helped her, shouldn’t she at least feel the kind of sympathy that stems from surviving a terrible ordeal together?
Or was it possible she didn’t remember any of it?
Jane broke the silence, speaking with determined cheerfulness. “Your mother took almost all the soup tonight, Lady Elizabeth.”
I forced a smile. “I saw the doctor downstairs. He’ll be up in a few minutes.”
Mama’s face was still turned away, and now her fingers were plucking irritably at the blanket. Jane’s hand went to her wrist, and a look of concern crossed her face.
I felt a sting of shame, prickly as a nettle. What must Jane think?
“I should go,” I said quietly and picked up the tray. “I’ll come back later, after she’s asleep.”
“Let me help you.” Jane opened the door for me to pass through but then followed me into the hall, pulling the door closed behind us. Her expression was full of concern, and she opened her mouth, no doubt to say something to take the edge of my mother’s coldness—but suddenly I couldn’t bear it. I knew a single kind word would make me cry.
“Once she’s settled, you should get some rest,” I said hurriedly. “Mrs. Mowbray has a bed prepared for you upstairs. Did she show you?”
“Lady Elizabeth—”
“I’ll take this to the kitchen.” I turned away and headed down the hall.
The tray was bulky, and Mr. Wilcox and I passed each other awkwardly on the stairs. “You’re not staying?” he asked, surprised.
“Jane’s with her. They’re waiting for you.”
My eyes on the steps, I continued to the kitchen to deliver the tray. Then, not knowing what else to do, I went to the front hallway to wait. Someone had placed two small chairs there, so at least I didn’t have to stand sentinel.
I’d been seated for a quarter of an hour, wondering what Mr. Wilcox would say about my mother’s condition, when the door flew open, and the boy Jeremy stepped inside, shutting the door with a bang that made me jump.
I glowered at him. Did he really not know how to enter quietly?
His black eyes met mine. “Where is ’e? Mr. Wilcox? I need to see ’im straightaway.”
“He’s with my mother,” I said shortly. “What’s the matter?”
“Hmph.” He stood before me, rocking back and forth. He—or his coat—reeked of ale and tobacco, and I wondered just how much time this boy spent in the unwholesome air of public houses. “ ’E’s got to get over to t’other place right quick, or there’s goin’ to be trouble.”
I felt my pulse quicken. “The Polk Hotel?”
“Yah.” He sat down in the other chair and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“Why?”
He glanced at me sideways. “Got one of them quacks in there with ’is patients, saying ’e done everything wrong.”
“What?” I stared.
“ ’Nd two of ’is patients’ families is come to take ’em away. Mr. Wilcox ain’t going to like it, not one bit.”
I heard footsteps on the stairs, and then Mr. Wilcox’s voice: “What aren’t I going to like, Jeremy?”
“There you are!” Jeremy burst out. “You got to get over to the Polk right away. That rich man, the one wot you saw this mornin’, and the lady wot was bleeding from her leg, their doctors are both come and fixin’ to take ’em back to London tomorro’. And that Mr. Galton’s over there, saying you done things all wrong, and the railway servant’s took worse. Started bleedin’ from ’is gut. So ’e’s getting out ’is leeches.”
Mr. Wilcox’s eyes narrowed, and his lips pressed briefly into a thin line.
“A railway servant?” I asked. “What happened to him?”
“A wooden beam landed on him, broke three of his ribs,” Mr. Wilcox replied. “I’m afraid he’s bleeding inwardly.”
“Can you do anything to stop it?”
“I can try.” He set his bag down and began buttoning up his coat.
“Do you need help?” The words slipped out of my mouth before I thought.
He shook his head. “Jeremy can help me if I need it.”
“Oh, nah!” Jeremy’s eyes went wide, and he put his dirty palms up. “I ain’t touching ’im! Niver! If’n ’e dies, I don’t want no part of a dead man’s soul crossing mine!”
Mr. Wilcox glared at him.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” I asked. “If I could help you, I’d like to. Truly.”
A faint pause, and then he drew out a scarf from the pocket and looked at Jeremy. “Would you go find a maid and ask her for a lantern?”
Jeremy’s face screwed up in a grimace and he turned away, muttering, “Aw right. But I tell ye, I ain’t doin’ nowt wi’ the bleedin’ patients.”
The door opened just then to admit two men, boisterous and quite drunk, and Mr. Wilcox took my elbow and drew me out of their stumbling path into the sitting room. The fire had burnt out, and the only light came from outside, a muted glow from a window opposite. It was enough for me to see his face, for we were standing close; and he was looking at me with an expression that made me drop my gaze.
I had never before willingly kissed a man, or even embraced one. Oh, Anthony had once tried to kiss me when we were eleven or twelve, and during my first Season, drunk Lord Thompson had taught me what it was to have a man force my head back and exact his kisses like they were some sort of prize. In truth, the thought of what men did with women when they were alone frightened me.
But Mr. Wilcox? Just standing this close to him made my bones turn to wax.
He felt it too; I could tell without looking. He let go of my elbow, but his voice was low in my ear, barely above a whisper. “It wouldn’t be proper. People here are already talking—”
At that, I looked up. “There’s no one here I care about.” Except you.
Perhaps he sensed what I’d left unsaid, for a faint smile lit his face, erasing the worry, and after a moment, he yielded. “Do you have shoes you can walk in? And a warm cloak?” I nodded. “Good. Come down the back stairs so no one will see you.”
I hurried up to my room. Behind me, I heard Mr. Wilcox thank Jeremy for the lantern.
At our door, I paused with my hand on the doorknob. Jane would never let me go anywhere with Mr. Wilcox, certainly not at this hour. But it was well after ten o’clock, and all I could hope was that she had taken my suggestion and gone to bed. I pushed the door open a tiny crack and breathed a sigh of relief. Jane was gone, and M
ama was lying on her side, facing the wall, her sprained ankle propped on a pillow, snoring faintly. I slipped inside, nudged the door nearly closed, and, in the light that came through the crack, removed my shoes, slipped on my boots, and found my cloak; then I crept down the back stairs and stepped into the yard behind the hotel. It stank of garbage, and the only good light came from the lantern Jeremy carried.
I gathered up my cloak so it wouldn’t drag, wondering if I was being a fool for not staying at the hotel, where it was safe. But Mr. Wilcox’s hand, firm on my elbow, reassured me as we followed Jeremy down the narrow alley.
The Polk Hotel was in the better part of Travers, but Jeremy led us through a web of back streets, saying it was the quickest way. We had been walking perhaps five minutes when we reached the margin of another world, one with its roughness and lewdness and cruelty laid bare. I’d had no idea it was so close.
In the light from the lantern I saw a tangle of cats, clawing at each other, their shrieks and hisses sounding almost human. Fat rats scurried along the foundations of the buildings and vanished into the shadows. We walked on, and in the door of a boardinghouse with red curtains at the windows stood prostitutes, their white bosoms glowing, their voices calling out words I’d never heard, in tones that made me blush. From the window of a two-story house came the contents of a chamber pot, flung into the street, narrowly missing us, and I found myself clutching Mr. Wilcox’s arm and watching where I placed my feet. But only a few minutes later, we reached a well-lit road running cross-wise, with a string of respectable-looking shops and pubs on either side. I turned around to look into the alley from which we’d come—but it was so much darker than where we stood under the gas lamps that it appeared as if it had closed up behind us.
Another minute’s walk brought us to the large white Polk Hotel, with lights in most of the windows, a set of steps leading to the front door, and an elegant sign brightly illuminated by a pair of lanterns.
A maid appeared as we entered; she couldn’t have been much older than I, and her face expressed relief at the sight of Mr. Wilcox. She turned and glanced over her shoulder, then in a low voice said to him, “I’m so glad you came back. That dreadful Mr. Galton is here, and he’s getting everyone all riled up, saying terrible things.”
“What sorts of things?”
Her eyes were round and indignant. “Like you should have used leeches and bled all these folks. I was in with Mrs. Wright and he said that she’s suffering from—from”—her brow furrowed—“a—a—I dunno, something about the liver, and if he didn’t bleed her straightaway, she could die, and it would be all your fault.”
Mr. Wilcox made no answer other than to ask calmly, “Where is Mr. Galton now?”
“With Mr. Nagle.” She jerked her chin toward the stairs. “Second room on the right. You’d better hurry.”
He turned to Jeremy and me. “Wait for me here, will you?”
I nodded and Jeremy sniffed contemptuously. “Stupid quack,” he muttered.
The maid gave a grimace in agreement. “You can wait in there.” She pointed to a set of double doors. We went through them and found the front parlor—far more elegant than any room at the Travers Inn—with a bright fire, clean lamps, shelves of books, some Queen Anne–style chairs, and a few good paintings. I took a seat while Jeremy prowled about restlessly, picking up glass figurines and bits of ivory and putting them down with unnerving clinks and clanks. I decided to engage him in conversation before he broke something. Besides, I had plenty of things I wanted to ask him. “Jeremy, what do you know about this Mr. Galton?”
He picked up a bit of netsuke and squinted at it. “Oh, ’e’s one of them wot makes a show of doin’ all kinds of things when folks be sick, but I ’eard t’other doctor—the one who was ’ere just for the rich man—even ’e said old Galton’s too ready with ’is bleeding.”
“And how do you know Mr. Wilcox?”
He set down the netsuke, shoved his hands in his pockets, and turned to me. “On account of ’im being friends with Mr. Flynn.”
“Mr. Flynn?”
“Tom Flynn,” he snapped. “I work for ’im.”
So that was Tom’s last name. I wondered how much Jeremy could have told me about Palmer and Malverton and the rest. But I couldn’t question him. I wasn’t supposed to know anything about them.
“Does Mr. Flynn work for the railways?” I asked instead.
He let out a bark of a laugh. “Nah! Works for the Falcon.”
I asked in dismay, “The London newspaper?”
“Yah.”
Maybe it wasn’t fair—not all newspaperman were like the one who’d nearly ruined Anne’s family last year—but I felt an instant stab of dislike for Mr. Flynn.
“And Mr. Wilcox and Mr. Flynn are friends,” I repeated.
Jeremy went to the fireplace and put his hands to the blaze. “Yah. ’Nd I met Mr. Wilcox ’cos Mr. Flynn asked me to ’elp ’im one night, on account o’ one of the fakirs.”
“Fakirs?” I asked, thinking of the Sufi Muslim ascetics one read about sometimes in the papers. “Do you mean Muslims?”
He scowled. “Nah! Them folks wot say they were ’urt in an accident, but ain’t, so they can git money out o’ the railway.”
Fakers.
He picked up a poker and jabbed at a log. “ ’Twas about a year ago—or”—he cocked his head, considering—“maybe longer.” He shook his head. “ ’Twas rotten cold, so it must have been January, or mebbe early February.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, some bloke ’ad called Mr. Wilcox in, told ’im ’e been in a railway crash, couldn’t walk or nothing. ’Ad a bandage around here”—Jeremy’s dirty hand touched his neck—“and was complainin’ of bein’ dizzy and feelin’ like summat was creepin’ up and down his spine and gettin’ ’lectric shocks all over him so he couldn’t ride ’is ’orse, and some such nonsense.”
I frowned dubiously. Given what Mr. Wilcox had told me about railway injuries, those symptoms sounded as if they could be authentic. “Are you sure he was faking?”
“Yah! And Mr. Wilcox knew it, but ’e couldn’t prove it. So I stayed near the bloke’s house till one evenin’ I see ’im come walking down the steps right as rain, just like Mr. Wilcox said ’e was. Got into a cab and went off to a party at a lady’s house.” He swayed left and right, as if in time to music, and mimed holding a glass, with his pinkie up. “All sorts of dancing and music and wine and whatnot in fancy glasses.”
I felt my eyes widen.
“So,” he continued, “I went and fetched Mr. Wilcox, and we met the fakir on ’is way ’ome that night. That was the end of that.”
“But, Jeremy, how did Mr. Wilcox know that he was lying?”
Jeremy grinned. “Them symptoms were ’zactly like the ones in Mr. Erichsen’s book—case number thirty it were—and Mr. Wilcox done got them, ’zactly as they’re writ, all up ’ere.” He pointed to the side of his head.
I leaned forward in my chair. “So what happened? Did the man cancel his suit against the railway?”
“Nah. Mr. Wilcox done refused to go to court to say the bloke war injured.” He rested the poker on his shoulder as if it were a rifle. “So they threatened to sue ’im for bein’ a bad doctor, ’cept Mr. Flynn threatened to write it all up in the paper, so they let Mr. Wilcox alone and found another doctor to say wot they needed.”
I gasped. “So this man got money from the railway anyway?”
“Near five hun’red pounds.”
“Good Lord! For no injury at all?”
He nodded and grinned rather wickedly. “Mr. Wilcox told me there’s a doctor wot’s named Sinkler in America. ’E brings one o’ these”—he waved the wrought iron poker—“right into court, and when folks say they caint walk ’cos they caint feel nothing in their leg, ’e sticks ’em with it. That fixes things clear enow.”
I stared in disbelief.
He frowned and cocked his head. “ ’Twasn’t January. It was February. I remember now. ’Twas right before Miss Em
ily died. Middle of February.”
“And who is Miss Emily?”
I was expecting him to become impatient at yet another question, but to my surprise, Jeremy’s expression sobered and an unexpected flash of tenderness appeared on his features. “She’s Mr. Flynn’s half-sister, ’cept she was going to be his wife.”
“I beg your pardon—Mr. Flynn’s half-sister was going to be his wife?”
Now he became impatient. “Nah! Mr. Wilcox’s. They were engaged, like. But she died.”
I felt a chill run over me. “I’m so sorry. Was she ill?”
“Smallpox. She ’ad a friend with it, and didn’t stay away like she oughtta.” He bent over to place the poker in its holder; I thought I saw him take a surreptitious wipe at his eyes. But when he turned back to me, his face was impassive, and, without a word, he started toward the hallway.
I rose. “Where are you going?”
He waved his hand to hush me. “To listen, o’ course.”
I hurried to the doorway to watch. He was moving nimbly up the stairs, hugging the wall, silent as a cat.
My boots and skirts made it impossible for me to follow, so I went back into the parlor and sat down on the edge of my chair, waiting for one of them to reappear.
Five minutes later, Jeremy was back.
“What’s happening?” I demanded.
“Bloody fool,” Jeremy said, slouching into a chair opposite, his grimy coat doing a grave injustice to its pale brocade. “Mr. Galton’s sending Mr. Wilcox packing, tellin’ that railwayman ’e’s going to be sorry ’e didn’t call him straightaway, ’cos now ’e’s going to die, no matter wot. But if ’e starts in on other folks, they’ll be sorry when they’re sucked dry and ’eavin’.”
I shuddered at the image that came into my head, of all the leeches fat with blood.
Jeremy’s lip curled. “ ’Cept if anything ’appens to ’em, Mr. Galton’ll find a way to blame Mr. Wilcox.”
We heard the sound of boots coming down the stairs, and Mr. Wilcox appeared at the threshold, his face grim. “We can go.”
I looked at him uncertainly. “You’re finished?”