The Conjured Woman

by Anne Groß

  The fragile breaths he took fell into rhythm with the song even as his breathing grew weaker and shallower. “’Tis the hour to stop your weeping. All the world is sleeping.” Mr. Tilsdale’s eyes rolled to the side to look at Mary’s tear-stained face. She must have found this encouraging because she wailed more loudly, if not more melodiously, “A solemn bell sounds the hour for the angels to alight upon your bower.”

  The pulse in his wrist sputtered, then faded, then stopped. Thankfully he had only suffered through a few verses. It hadn’t been suffocation that killed him. It was his heart that couldn’t take it. “I’m so sorry,” Elise whispered to Mary.

  Mary took a deep breath, ready to sing some more, then let her breath out in a long sigh. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is. I’m glad you were here for him.” Elise dragged the chair from under the window up close to the bed for Mary. Then she gathered up the contents of her medical kit and left quietly, closing the door on the sound of Mary’s choking sobs.

  In the hallway, Elise tried to force everything that had just happened into insignificance so that she could swallow it more easily. The still air and close walls in the hallway helped as she leaned her head against the door and tried not to cry. Downstairs, the voices in the dining hall were muted. Mrs. Postlethwaite would soon struggle to get everyone served as the dinner hour came on. Elise knew she should go down to help, since Mary wouldn’t be in any condition to do so, but she couldn’t move. Upstairs, she heard the sound of a door squeaking open, shuffling footsteps, then the door thudded shut as a conversation continued in the hallway.

  “You can’t just sell it,” came Thomas’s voice. “It doesn’t belong to you.

  “She doesn’t even remember she ever had it.” Richard’s voice sounded petulant. “We badly need the money.”

  “It doesn’t belong to you.” Thomas insisted. “You should give it back to her. It might help her to remember what happened.”

  Elise strained to hear more of the conversation, but both men had lowered their voices to whispers. Then she heard Richard say, “Fine. But you must take better pains to tabulate the debts of our customers. I’m certain they all eat and drink much more than gets recorded.”

  “We can’t keep taking the lads at their word and writing it down. I can’t keep up with it. They must pay for each drink they order at the time that they order them.”

  Elise rolled her eyes to hear Thomas repeat her own suggestion as though it was his idea, especially since he had so roundly dismissed it only hours earlier.

  “Come now, Tom. We can’t do that. They’d leave the Quiet Woman to drink at the Dancing Bear. You know that.”

  Elise didn’t have to see Thomas to know he was running his hand through his hair. “I can’t keep up with it,” he repeated sullenly. No one said anything for a moment and Elise touched the doorknob to Mr. Tilsdale’s room, ready to duck back in the moment she heard footsteps on the stairs. She didn’t want to get caught in the hallway doing nothing but eavesdropping. Suddenly, Thomas roared, “For god’s sake, I can’t possibly chase down all the men on this list. Do you want me dead? Is that what you want?”

  Richard laughed in response. “Don’t be so dramatic! There are just a few more names than usual. If you go out to hunt them more often, you won’t feel the difference because then you’ll have less debtors to find per night.”

  “More often? No. I’ll get Cooper to set up another fight for me when I’m healed again. I think he had someone in mind. We can earn more money that way.”

  “That’ll take too long. The brewery needs the money now.”

  “Look at me, Richard. Look at my gut. How am I to get these men to pay me with my gut torn like this? I’m no bloody cat. I don’t have nine lives.”

  There was a long pause and Elise caught her breath, knowing that Richard was looking at the wound Thomas hadn’t let her see. She prayed it was a slice, rather than a deep stab where tetanus bacteria could grow and thrive, buried in his flesh. She couldn’t help but picture the barman’s body clenched into the same horrifying arch that killed Mr. Tilsdale. She knew the idea wasn’t a stretch. It could happen easily.

  “You’ll heal, Tom.” she heard Richard say softly. “You always do.”

  WHICH ONE?

  Elise ran downstairs towards the kitchen. The kitchen was where everyone was healthy, the fire was joyous, the food was plentiful, and the cats purred. In the kitchen you didn’t need a candle to chase away death and darkness like you did on the upper floors. In the kitchen, it was all love.

  “You again?” Mrs. Postlethwaite exclaimed as Elise burst into the room. “I thought we’d agreed that you’d send down Mary and keep your ugly broken mug upstairs.”

  “Mr. Tilsdale passed away a few minutes ago. Mary’s not going to be any help tonight.”

  Mrs. Ferrington, just returned, was having difficulty slipping the ties of her apron over her head since she’d forgotten to first remove the fancy bonnet that she wore when out calling. “He’s dead?” she asked, her voice muffled. “That’s a nuisance. He’s two months in arrears.”

  “Just one,” Mrs. Postlethwaite corrected.

  “Regardless, I think Richard was counting on that money this week. Well, he was a good tenant and a good man, may he rest in peace. I hope we can find another just as steady to take his place, and soon.

  “Goodness,” Mrs. Ferrington exclaimed when she finally got the shroud away from her face to look at Elise. “What happened to you?”

  Mrs. Postlethwaite jumped in before Elise could answer. “She tripped and fell in the street when she was sent to fetch water. She must have slid a good twenty feet face first in the mud.” The cook put a plate down on the table and filled it with an enormous ladle of stew while giving Elise a hard look and a hunk of bread. Elise found a spoon and pulled up a stool, feeling more grateful than she had in a long time for the warm food. “I don’t think she should serve our customers with her face all scraped up like that. It’s not good for business, don’t you think?”

  “Certainly not,” Mrs. Ferrington agreed. “You and I can handle the curs in the dining hall, with Johnny to run for us. Where is that rascal, by the by? You don’t mind working late tonight, do you Mrs. P.?”

  Mrs. Postlethwaite heaved a sigh. “Would it even matter if I minded? No, I don’t mind.” She took a bottle of brandy off the shelf and poured it into a small cup for Elise, who threw it back thankfully. “You heard Mrs. Ferrington,” she said refilling the glass. “Finish up your dinner and get on to bed. You’ve had a difficult day.”

  Despite the promise of an early dismissal, Elise stayed in the kitchen with Johnny who had finally appeared not in a puff of smoke as she half expected, but in a cloud of dust from the cellar with beer on his breath. They worked for over three hours scrubbing the dishes while the two older women moved about the dining hall. The work relieved the chaos in her brain, and the company of the women was reassuring as the night quieted down. Perhaps it was the pall of death in the building, or maybe it was Mrs. Postlethwaite’s glares, but Thomas was not needed to control the high spirits of the customers, and Richard’s fiddle was not missed.

  It was late when Elise finally climbed the stairs to the third floor with her second ewer that day of hot bathwater a heavy luxury in her arms. The tiny flame from a candle she dangled off her index finger from the ring of a candlestick cast eerie shadows against the walls as she moved up slowly, step by weary step. In her bedroom, she rested, elbows on knees, on the edge of her mattress and set both candle and ewer on the floor between her feet. Steam rose from the mouth of the ewer, depositing dew on Elise’s face and disguising the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

  Across the room, from behind the closed drapes of Mary’s bed, a voice called out peevishly. “Close the door, you’re letting in the cold.” Elise wasn’t sure how Mary could feel a draft, sequestered as she was in her bed. She decided the barmaid had an alien sensitivity to any possible irritant Elise could create, accid
ental or otherwise.

  She walked back to the door, and instead of closing it, stood in the open doorway to look down the hall towards Thomas’s room. Their walk through London already seemed like it had happened years ago while her first awakening in the Quiet Woman felt like yesterday. She was amazed how time shortened and expanded so unreasonably when the weather was always bleak and no one wore a watch. Time was meaningless now. She didn’t even keep track of the days of the week, only knowing what day it was when payday happened along and all hell broke loose downstairs. Not that it was ever payday for her.

  “If I have to get up to close that door myself...” Mary threatened loudly from behind her curtain. Elise leaned against the doorframe and ignored her roommate. It was unlikely Thomas had gone out to shake people down, as Richard had asked him to do. Elise imagined him lying in bed slowly bleeding out from the wound in his side. She bit her bottom lip in hesitation. She wanted nothing more than to sit on the edge of her bed and soak her feet in the water she’d lugged all the way up from the kitchen. Finally, she sighed and went to pick up the ewer, throwing her medical kit over her shoulder as she closed the door behind her.

  Something felt very wrong about walking up the three stairs in the hallway towards Thomas’s bedroom. He’s just a guy, she told herself as she stood in front of the strangely small entrance to Thomas’s bedroom and fought back her nerves. There was nothing wrong about offering her services, and she wasn’t tied to 19th century moralities, she reasoned. She knocked. Her heart raced as she heard his footsteps approach the door. It was a quiet sound, like a man accustomed to sneaking around corners. However, the door banged open with very little stealth.

  “Oh. It’s you,” Thomas said as he ducked under the doorframe for a better look. Looming awkwardly next to the little door of the garret, he seemed much larger than he really was. Elise wondered how he hadn’t grown up crookedly, living so near the roof his entire life. He was backlit from the candles in his room, but Elise didn’t have to see his face to know he was glowering. “What do you want?”

  “I’m here to clean up your knife wound.”

  “I’ve already done it.”

  Elise looked down at his waist. “I don’t think what you did there counts.” He was still wearing his trousers, but he’d taken his shirt off and twisted it into a narrow bandage to wrap around his side. A large red stain bloomed across the shirt over his right flank and dried blood was smeared on his skin where he’d tried to clean himself up.

  “I don’t need your tending-to,” he repeated. “Just go back to your own room. You shouldn’t be here.”

  Elise’s eyes narrowed. There was something about him that seemed off, and it wasn’t just blood loss. “Are you drinking?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Yes you are. The bottle’s right there on that table.” She craned her head around him to see inside.

  Thomas turned and walked back into his room but left the door open. It wasn’t exactly an invitation, but Elise chose to interpret it that way.

  Though the ceiling was low, sweeping down on one side so that Thomas had to progressively bend over to walk to his bed, the actual room was quite large and fit a surprising amount of furniture. Near his bed, a small table pushed against the wall was a pedestal for a washbasin. A silver mirror was hung just over the basin and soap, razor blade, and brush were all neatly lined within reach. To the right of the mirror, clean shirts and a towel were hung on pegs. Elise set her ewer down near the basin. The room was so infused with his personality that she felt uncomfortable by the intimacy of it. The bed looked like it may have fit Thomas at one time, but no one bothered to upgrade the length as the boy grew into a man. She imagined him curled comfortably at night with one of the books he had stacked on the floor, or stretched out with his feet and ankles dangling off the end. “I guess you like to read,” Elise said stupidly, looking at more books that were stacked on a nearby desk. “I thought you were a boxer.”

  “I can’t control the way I was built, or my place in society, but I can control how I use my mind,” Thomas replied.

  “That’s very fatalistic.”

  “Is it?” He took a petulant swig from his bottle and sat down on the edge of his bed. “I thought I was being radical.” He pointed to a chair that was covered in a pile of papers that were flowing to the floor. “Please be seated,” he offered, leaning forward to swipe his arm across the seat of the chair to clean it. Paper floated like fall leaves to the floor, and he kicked at them to clear a path. One of the papers caught Elise’s eye. It was a long list of names and monetary figures containing tally marks and corrections. She pretended not to notice the list, and instead dragged the chair to place it directly in front of the barman, who looked up at her expectantly. “I forgot to ask,” he said with a smile, “Did you enjoy your outing with Richard? You must be the only chambermaid in London to take the elbow of her employer and be so escorted to the water pump.”

  Elise opened her mouth to respond but nothing came out as she struggled with the idea that being escorted was unusual. “It was nice of him to take me,” she finally thought to say, feeling deeply embarrassed. “Did Mr. Ferrington give you Mrs. Elliot’s money?”

  “So now it’s ‘Mr. Ferrington’? No. He didn’t give me Mrs. Elliot’s money. Why would he give me the money? I’m not the one who makes the decisions here.”

  Elise looked down at the chair, suddenly feeling too shy to sit.

  “Stop hovering, you’re making me nervous. Either leave,” he looked up to meet her eyes, “or tell me who your people are and how you came to be in the lane that night. Why was that Frenchman after you?”

  “Let’s not do this again. I told you. I don’t know anything about that French guy. I’m just a chambermaid.”

  He scraped his hair back and his blue eyes flashed startlingly from the darkness. “You never were no maid, chamber or otherwise. And you’re no lady.”

  Elise finally sat down. Somehow his anger was easier to take than whatever weirdness he was projecting earlier. “You don’t need to do that,” Thomas said. He sat up in alarm as she scooted her chair closer to him and prepared to pour hot water into the basin. “I was going to go see Mrs. Southill tomorrow. It won’t be the first time I’ve gone to bed bleeding and I’ve got the brandy to keep me company.”

  “Mrs. Southill? That’s a long walk and with all the bleeding you’ve already done, you’ll be too weak to make it. Just let me look at it.”

  “No.” Thomas’s black eyebrows furrowed dangerously. He leaned forward with a scowl while the muscles in his shoulders rippled with intimidation.

  “I see what you’re doing,” Elise growled. “Stop it. You’re not winning this one.” When he slumped back down, she couldn’t help but smirk. All men were peacocks, she thought as she set to untying the shirt around his waist. After fumbling at the knot, she brought a candle closer to get a better look. It was not a simple granny knot. “What the hell did you do here?” She tugged at what she thought was a loose end.

  “Damn it lass, that hurts. Stop pulling and cut it free. Where’s your knife?”

  Elise thought how she used to keep a pair of scissors that were perfect for sliding under bandages in the pocket of her scrubs. She used to keep lots of things in her pockets—rolls of gauze, rolls of tape, syringes full of saline, pens, medications. Now all she kept in her apron pocket was lint. “I don’t have a knife.”

  “Why not? I’d have thought you’d be smart enough to pilfer one from the kitchen, especially after what happened today.”

  “What am I going to do with a knife, slit someone’s throat?” She yanked again at the knot, but it didn’t budge.

  “Fight dirty, is what. Stop tugging, I said. I’ll do it.” He grabbed her wrist and twisted it away from the bandage then reached for something on his bedside table. Elise jumped out of her chair when she recognized the knife he’d used that morning.

  “Easy, lass. Easy.” He threw his arms wide, one hand holding his knife,
the other the bottle of brandy. He shook his head and smiled crookedly. “Don’t be such a skittish rabbit.” He deftly turned the weapon in his hand so that the blade pointed towards his own body. “See?” He sliced through the bandage. It dropped away from his skin on the left side, but stuck fast to the wound on the right. What blood Thomas had left drained from his face. “Damn,” he whispered.

  “Don’t worry,” Elise pulled the chair back up to sit across from him again. “We can just soak that with water and peel—” Her explanation was interrupted when Thomas, with a stoic grunt, ripped the rest of the bandage away from his body. “—Or we can do it that way too,” she finished as the wound welled with fresh blood. At least with all the blood there was little chance of getting tetanus, she thought, knowing the blood would act to clean and aerate the area. When Thomas started shaking brandy on his wound while simultaneously flinching from his own efforts, she snatched the bottle away to tip back a long, steadying swallow. Then she held it up to the candlelight. Most of it was already gone.

  “Here,” she said. “Finish it.” Without something to take the edge off, Thomas was bound to twitch and jerk throughout her entire wound care procedure. Some people, she’d found, could deal with intense pain like jabs to the face and knives in the gut, but the little things, like slowly peeling off bandages and having a wound sewn, would be unbearable. She rummaged in Mrs. Southill’s kit for a needle and silk thread and set them on the table, then dipped a square of clean muslin into the water. “Tell me how you found me this afternoon.” She hoped a story would distract him.

  “I went to the pump and asked anyone who would listen, ‘have you seen a skinny lass about so tall? Grey dress, white apron, barefoot, and carrying water?’”