The Conjured Woman

by Anne Groß

  Still wrapped in Richard’s handkerchief, the emerald was a heavy lump in her apron pocket. He had been livid when she wouldn’t return it to him, but there was no doubt in Elise’s mind that the scarab belonged to her. That Richard had been keeping it, that he showed it to her only after having married her, that he still claimed it as his own, was unforgiveable. Elise gambled that he wouldn’t fight her for it, and luckily she’d assessed him correctly. Fighting was okay for Thomas, but not something he himself would stoop to doing.

  Her head throbbed. Having no energy to even bother to make tea, Elise chewed willow bark rhythmically to get rid of the aching pain. It tasted horrible, but seemed to help push the visions of the black-haired woman from her mind. She remembered it all: the man, the bug, the dark candlelit room with all the strange people, everything. And she was sure the black-haired woman was the key to why it happened. With the emerald in her pocket, the visions and memories seemed much more vivid, as though the black-haired woman was no farther away than the front door.

  A loud crash from the dining hall below startled her. Then a muffled roar from the crowd worked its way through the walls of her bedroom. Elise remembered that first night she’d heard cheers coming from the pub and how she had been sure it was a football game on television. The sound had reassured her then. But now, the sound of screaming made her think she should go below and see what was going on. Yelling was typical; screaming was unusual. Was that Mary? It didn’t sound like Mary. Elise closed her eyes. She should go down, she thought as she pressed her fingers to her temples. She shifted the wad of bark from her right cheek to her left and sunk lower in bed. She’d go, just as soon as her headache went away.

  THE END OF THE END OF IT ALL, WHICH IS REALLY JUST THE BEGINNING

  It was late in the evening when Elise finally stumbled back downstairs. She had fallen asleep in her room with the willow bark tucked into her cheek. Now her head hurt less, but a painful sore had developed where the woody pulp had rested against her gums. It seemed as though her face just wasn’t going to catch a break.

  She expected Thomas would be at the bar and was thankful when he wasn’t. A few of the regulars sat at the best tables near the street side windows sipping foam from their mugs. There was no sign of having been any commotion. Cooper was leaning over the bar rearranging the pots and making tally marks in a little book. He nodded at her and smiled with evasive eyes and thinned lips when she slipped past him. His presence made her chest tighten painfully, a reminder of impending changes.

  “Well if it isn’t the New Mrs. Ferrington, come to grace us.” Mrs. Postlethwaite called out as soon as Elise entered the kitchen. She was sitting at the end of the kitchen table. There was a red mark in the middle of her forehead where she had been resting it against her arms and her eyes were swollen and wet. No one else was there.

  Elise was sure she’d never seen the cook sitting at her own table. She felt her heart sink. “Did Richard tell you already?”

  Mrs. Postlethwaite raised her arms dramatically towards the ceiling as though making a big announcement, “Today a simple chambermaid married a handsome and wealthy publican. No, Mr. Ferrington didn’t tell me. Mr. Ferrington didn’t have to tell me. You’ve given hope to chambermaids all over London.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Elise snapped. She was already getting tired of feeling guilty for not sacrificing her own life for everyone else’s benefit. “Now I’ll be out of your hair. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Postlethwaite’s mouth opened and closed, as though censoring herself. “I rue the day you ever fell into our laps,” she finally spat. “You’ve been nothing but heartache and trouble, dividing everyone up. You’re worthless.” Two enormous tears splattered on the table and she took a great, shaking breath and buried her head back into her arms.

  “This is not my fault,” she answered hotly. “I was not the one who gambled everything away. Where’s Thomas?” she demanded. “At least he’ll stay here for you, right? Now he can do whatever he wants without Richard undermining him.”

  “You don’t know your head from your arse, do you?” Mrs. Postlethwaite studied Elise with a sad look on her face. “He’ll be going too.”

  “I don’t understand. Who’s going? Where? Thomas?” This was not part of the plan, she thought. “Thomas has to stay here and run things. He can’t leave.”

  “Thomas stay here with the Brewery owning the business?” Mrs. Postlethwaite shook her head. “You must be daft.” She wiped her eyes and pulled another stool up next to her. “Sit down. I don’t know why you did what you did. You could not have done it for love because we both know our Mr. Ferrington is a dolt. And you did not do it for money because you’ve seen Thomas with his black eyes and surly manner. You must have seen the way of things.” She paused and looked at Elise narrowly and waited. When Elise didn’t explain she sighed. “You’ve got your reasons, I’m sure.

  “This place has been in the Ferrington family for many generations. I’ve known only two of those generations, but from the stories I hear they’ve all been grand. All but this last one.” Mrs. Postlethwaite sniffed wetly and shook her head. “He’s your problem now, bless him.

  “Oh Richard was a sweet boy back in the day, to be sure. Always bringing kittens to his mother and tugging at my skirt looking for sweets; looking for affection. But he never showed much in the way of having savvy for anything except how to make people like him. Now, as a barman, that’s a good thing. It’s always good to have people enjoy your company. It brings them in; makes people want to stay around and buy more ale. But it was always Thomas that had the head for business. It was Old Mr. Ferrington as saw the value in Thomas. It was he that taught Thomas to read, then made him promise to protect Richard as payment. After Old Mr. Ferrington passed, things were fine as long as Thomas and Richard was working together. But lately,” she looked down at her hands thoughtfully, then reached for her knife, touching it, but letting it rest on the table.

  “Tom’s always liked clever girls. Never had much use for the pretty ones. And you’re clever, that’s sure. I’d seen it the second you walked into my kitchen. ‘There’s a clever girl,’ I said to myself, I did. I knew you’d be trouble when I saw your nasty green eyes.” She started coughing. “Bring me some water. My mouth’s gone dry.”

  Elise got up to get them both some water. Then watched as Mrs. Postlethwaite drained her mug. “More?” she asked.

  When the cook shook her head, Elise sat back down. Mrs. Postlethwaite sighed deeply. It didn’t seem right to see her so tired. “Now it’s all gone,” the cook finally said. “None of this matters anymore. The Quiet Woman is going to change for good. I’m not worried about myself, nor Mary neither. Cooper offered me and Mary good wages to keep working, but it won’t be the same, will it? Not with Tom gone. It’s Thomas I worry about. And Johnny. Poor Johnny.”

  Elise gently touched Mrs. Postlethwaite’s shoulder in sympathy, but put her hand quickly back into her lap when she felt the cook stiffen. “Thomas is gone? Where did he go?”

  “He’s not gone yet, fool. He’s out back in the yard waiting for you. Go ask him his plans. Maybe it’s you he’ll tell. He’s not told me, although I can guess.”

  When Elise hesitated, Mrs. Postlethwaite shoved her off the stool. “Go on. Get out of my kitchen. I’ve had enough of you for a lifetime.”

  Elise stepped through the door into the courtyard and squinted in the darkness. Behind a screen of empty casks came a flickering glow of a trash fire. “Thomas?” she called. When no one replied, she shuffled in the darkness towards the fire. Midway to her destination, Elise stumbled over a loose cobble. A deep and irritated sigh came from behind the casks as Elise cursed and danced on one foot in pain. “For pity’s sake, can’t you just leave me alone?” Thomas yelled.

  He was perched on an empty cask near the woodpile, whipping woodchips at Mrs. Ferrington’s cats when Elise found him. The small trash fire burned nearby within a stone ring, casting feeble warmt
h and sending a billowing plume of black smoke up between the buildings to mix with the rest of the charred air over London. “How’s your side?” Elise asked, holding her hands over the fire.

  In reply, Thomas hurled another woodchip with a perfectly aimed sidearm at the throng of cats. There was a bloodstain welling on his shirt, but since he showed no sign of pain, Elise decided not to press the issue. When the stinking smoke curled around in a breeze and into her eyes, she moved and settled next to Thomas on her own empty cask. She stole a longer look at the sullen barman. He had been tugging at his hair again. Most of it had been pulled out of the queue at the nape of his neck, and stood up straight off his head in clumps. “Jesus,” Elise breathed. “What happened to your hands?” His right hand was swollen and his knuckles were bloody and raw. The left wasn’t as bad, but Elise could tell it too had been recently used as a battering ram.

  “That’s no business of yours, is it?” Thomas snapped. He slipped his hands under the coat he had draped across his lap.

  “Richard made you do it, didn’t he? He’s been sending you out to gather money from everyone with a tab. You went back out last night, didn’t you?”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “What’s he got over you? Why don’t you just leave?”

  “And what of you? Why did you do it? Why did you marry him?” Thomas demanded. His eyes were startlingly hollow when he turned to look at her and his voice cut deeper than the wound bleeding from his gut. “Do you love him?”

  “I did it because he said he was enlisting and being shipped to America. He said wives sometimes go with their husbands.”

  “Then you love him.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would you want to become a camp follower if you don’t love him? The King’s Army is no place for a woman. If you don’t love him, why wear that ring on your finger?”

  “This?” Elise waved her left hand in the air. “This is meaningless. It’s nothing, just a tool he used to try to get what he wanted, and now it’s a tool I’m using for the same reason.”

  Thomas shook his head. “You’re cold-hearted to call that a tool. You can deny it all you want, but that ring has power. Even now, it constricts, does it not? You’ve been twisting it and picking at it since you sat down, like trying to give yourself a little more space underneath it. Like it or not, that ring is just as powerful as that golden insect you’re carrying in your pocket.”

  Thomas’s shirt opened slightly at his neck and Elise noticed a blue vein under his skin that traced a crooked path like a shadow across his collarbone. It made her think of how she’d felt his pulse under her palm just the night before. She looked away quickly. “Richard gave me the scarab today. He said it was in my hand when you guys found me.” She didn’t question how he knew it was in her pocket. Thomas just seemed to know things.

  “Aye, that’s true.”

  “You could have told me he had it.”

  “It wasn’t for me to say.” Thomas began throwing woodchips in a high arc and the cats leaped in the air, paws extended. Jacob collided with Jericho and fell onto his side. When Magdalene objected to being disturbed, Jacob bunny-hopped out of the way of her flashing claws. The antics made Thomas smile as he stood to dig his pouch of tobacco out of his pocket. Sitting down again, he settled into the routine of packing his pipe. Elise watched the tendons in the backs of his hands rise and fall, the wounds on his knuckles having no effect on the grace of his movements.

  “Mrs. Southill was right, you know,” Elise said. “Smoking is going to kill you someday.” Thomas lifted the pipe stem to his mouth and sucked in as he touched a glowing rag pulled from the fire to the bowl of his pipe. Then he handed the pipe to Elise. It was still wet from his mouth when Elise touched it to her lips. She closed her eyes as she pulled the smoke.

  “I’m not surprised you married him,” he finally said as Elise settled back against the stack of kegs behind her. “I’m just disappointed.”

  “How can you be disappointed by something you expected?” Elise smiled and handed the pipe back. As usual, she felt herself relax as the nicotine rushed through her bloodstream.

  “Any woman would marry Richard, so I’m not surprised. I’m just disappointed to find out you’re like any woman.” Thomas pointed to the lump in her apron pocket with the stem of his pipe. “I knew about the insect, to be sure, but I never thought you’d marry him for it.”

  “I’m not like any woman,” Elise said defensively.

  “You are. You’re just like any woman.” Thomas passed the pipe back over and Elise ground her teeth on its stem as she puffed. “All you need is a nice compliment and a flashy jewel and you’re lost.”

  “For your information, he gave me the scarab after we were married. He wasn’t so secure in my affections that he would give me the jewel without ensuring his own possession of it.” She passed the pipe back and changed the subject. “So what will you do now that the Quiet Woman’s gone? Mrs. P. says you won’t stay at the pub.”

  Thomas shrugged. “I’ll follow Richard to war. There’s nothing left for me here.”

  “What? Are you serious? You’re a great bartender. You could stay here and work for Cooper.”

  “Even army life would be better than working for Cooper. Cooper’d have me killed fighting every single night of my life, and against hardened men. At least in the army I’ll only fight every fortnight, and even then, it’d be against some poor farmer with a belly full of brandy holding a musket. I can’t blame Cooper. You can make a good deal of money setting up a boxing match.” Thomas shook his head. “But my odds are better fighting for King and Country. I’ve no longer the spirit to fight for money.”

  “What about that other pub everyone keeps talking about? The Bear and Snare, the Dancing Hare, whatever. You could go work there, couldn’t you? There’s got to be other pubs you could work for. Or you could open your own. You know the business better than anyone.”

  “Open my own? With what money?” Thomas looked surprised.

  “Haven’t you been working here your whole life? You must have some savings. Or maybe you could go to the bank and get a business loan.”

  “A business loan? From a bank? Me?” Thomas snorted.

  Elise frowned. “It’s not funny. You could, you know.”

  “Tell me,” Thomas smiled. “How much do I pay you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s not true. I pay you in hot meals and a warm bed. That’s what strays get paid. We’re two peas in a pod, you and I, both living on the charity of the Ferringtons. While it may be that Mrs. Ferrington pays better attention to clothing and feeding me than she does to you, we’re still both strays. No banker in his right mind would forward me a loan.”

  Elise stared at him with her mouth open, horrified at the idea that such a capable person would settle to such a life. “But I bet you could get a job at another pub, and get paid too.”

  “No one would hire the likes of me as a publican. Not with my reputation. I’d be fighting the rest of my life—those with a chip on their shoulder just looking to best me, and those who I’m sent after, with nothing in their pockets but lint.” He shook his head. “The army will be a nice holiday compared to what I’ve been doing. And I’ll not do factory work either, so don’t you bother asking. That would break me faster than anything else. The only thing those poor sots are good for after a day in the factory is walking through the Quiet Woman’s doors... no, the army is best.”

  “So I could have married you instead.”

  Thomas looked at her sharply. “Would you have?”

  Elise remained silent and twisted her ring. It felt like a rhetorical question. What did it matter who she married if her goal was to go back home? Still, there was something oddly comforting about knowing Thomas would be getting on the boat with her. She lingered with his pipe as she contemplated the passage with both Richard and Thomas in the confines of a warship.

  “Mrs. P. told me
I ought to give this to you.” Thomas leaned over and picked something up from the other side of his cask and offered it for the return of his pipe.

  “My running shoe!” Elise cried out excitedly. She recognized it right away and pulled it lovingly to her chest, leaving red dust stains on the lace of her chemise. “Where’s the other one?” She slipped it onto her foot and her toes fell into all the familiar indentations, luxuriating in cushioning.

  “There was only the one.”

  Tears came quickly. “Really? Only one?” she asked, sucking air over her rattling bottom lip. Weeks of having to walk barefoot had given her hardened black heels, cracked and flaking toenails, and now, a stubbed toe. And there was only one shoe. “Where were you hiding it? In your room?”

  Thomas looked somewhat abashed. “It’s a strange shoe,” he said, by way of excuse. “I’ve never seen its like and Mrs. P. was most perplexed.”

  “They’re better when they come in pairs,” Elise pouted. She looked at her foot in the firelight. Encased in nylon and rubber, it certainly looked alien. The neon pink stripes were garish. “I think this sole is made from petroleum products,” she mused. Not wood, not leather, not steel, but made from an indecipherable chemical recipe of ingredients.

  “Elise,” Thomas said, trying to get her attention back. “Where did you get that shoe? Once and for all, tell me how you came to be in the lane that night.”

  Elise sighed. “I’m from America. That’s why I want to go back so badly. But, you have to believe me. I have no idea how I got here. I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember the passage? The ship?”

  “There was no ship. I just,” she paused to try to think of how to describe what she’d gone through. “I just fell.”

  “What do you mean, fell?”