Mrs. Engels

by Gavin McCrea

“Lizzie, listen to me,” but he doesn’t say anything more.

  Sudden, over the bed, the spirit of Beloff looms: “Christ, girl, don’t kick over your own trough.”

  “I understand your position, Frederick, I do.”

  “But do you truly, Lizzie? Do you understand that I cannot offer you more than a spoken vow. Can that be enough for you?”

  I turn to the wall. “I know what it is. Your heart is in her keeping forever.”

  “Lizzie, that’s not it.”

  “I can’t compete with a dead woman.”

  “Lizzie, no.”

  I turn back and take hold of him, look steady into his eyes. “Just promise you’ll be honest with me.”

  “I’m the most honest man in England.”

  “Don’t lie to me about your women and the rest of it.”

  “I shall never hide anything important from you.” He pulls me in. “And you? Do you accept what I can give you?”

  In the end, I’m moved by the fear of saying no. But that can grow to be love too, same as any other beginning.

  August

  XXVI. Private Property

  I am as you see me. A pauper woman on an expensive couch. I don’t pretend to be something more.

  Our mother—may her soul find cushion in heaven—didn’t last on this earth long enough to pass much down, but I do remember one lesson she gave us. “Give thanks for what you get,” she said. “Be thankful for whatsoever life bestows on you.” And all my life I’ve kept her teaching close and tried to be true to it. But this time spent in London has brought about a change in me. I’ve learnt to be more like you, Mary. You who, if the Queen put the hair of her head under your feet, still you wouldn’t be satisfied.

  Before, I might have found myself saying, “Thanks be” when Frederick was gone out and the maids were busy with jobs and I had rule of the morning room; “Thanks be to Jesus” when the doors to the parlor were folded shut and the bottles of spirit in the cabinet in reach; “Thanks be to Jesus God Almighty” might have slipped out natural and easy, for I used to think that to do otherwise—to be silent in the face of a gift—was like sinning.

  But these days, at moments like this, I’m mindful that, though I was born low and have been raised in station, I don’t need to fall on my knees to enjoy what’s rightful and mine. I think, This is my lush and I will drink it. I think, This is my foot and I will undress it. I think, This is my stocking and I will throw it. I think, This is my carpet and I will rub it, if that’s what pleases me.

  You’d be proud of me, sister, if you could only see me.

  XXVII. The Wheel of History

  I listen to the house: the cupboards and the cabinets and the hangings and the ornaments gathered up in an unnatural silence.

  Upstairs, I find Frederick from his desk and lying belly down on the couch, his arm fallen limp over the side, a page of bond on the rug by his hand. I fear he’s been like this since first post and might be like this for some time yet. Hours—days—it can take him to get over a letter from his mother.

  He groans. “I can’t let out a fart without that woman finding out and expressing some Lamb-of-God opinion on it.”

  “Come, Frederick. Try not to let her come on top of you. Would you like to take a walk? A bit of fresh air would do you the world of good.”

  “She’s got her hands on Karl’s address, and now she too thinks he’s to blame for the whole French debacle.”

  Thirty years gone from home and—Christ have pity on him—he still needs her say-so. I look at the unopened packets of paper on his desk, the books piled and biding. “Why don’t you get back to work, Frederick?”

  He pushes his face into a cushion.

  “Come on, now. Don’t be like that.”

  He comes up for air. Twists his neck round and rests his ear down. “She takes as gospel every police invention and piece of slander invented by the Paris gossipmongers. She raises a hue and cry about a few hostages and some houses burned down. But the forty thousand slaughtered by the forces of repression, does she have a single word to say about them?”

  I’m unmoved: she’s never had a word to say about me either, and I don’t see it vexing him so.

  “Frederick, she’s your Mammy. Everybody’s Mammy drives them up the wall. That’s what Mammies do. And, anyhows, how can she know any different? You say yourself that if you had to rely on the German rags, you’d know only lies.”

  He moans. Sits up. Combs back his hair. “You’re right, Lizzie. I am sorry for my mood.”

  “That’s all right, Frederick. Now back to work, there’s a good man.”

  He gets up. Goes the opposite way to the desk. His shirt hangs loose from his breeches. He leans on the windowsill. Outside, a day with a winter countenance and a summer constitution.

  “I’m dining at the Club tonight.”

  “Again?”

  “I’m sorry to miss another one, Lizzie. But these Frenchmen are like children. They need my supervision or they start fighting with each other. With Karl recovering in Brighton, I’m the only one who can give them proper counsel.” He comes away from the window. Tucks his shirt in. “Which reminds me. Could you do something for me?” He goes to the desk and writes something on a bit of paper. Gives it to me with two sovereigns from the box. “I’d do it myself, only this mood I’ve fallen into leaves me little inclined to the task.”

  “What is it?”

  “One of our Communards has been evicted from his lodgings. A young trooper by the name of Troplong. The landlady needs to be paid off.”

  “Isn’t there a fund? Doesn’t Mr. Jung look after that side of things?”

  “Come now, Lizzie, we all have to loosen our purse strings.”

  “We all of us, meaning us and us alone.”

  He makes not to have heard. Goes back behind his desk and sits down. “He’ll also need something to go on for a few days. Until we find him a situation. The address is written there. It’s in Soho, not far from the Club. Give the money to the landlady in my name and obtain a receipt.”

  I’m about to refuse. On a point of principle, I’m about to tell him I’m over being his runner—at some point the money spout will have to be plugged—but I decide, in this moment, to use the trip into town as an opportunity.

  “That oughtn’t be a problem, Frederick. But are you sure that’s enough? I’d hate to go all the way and find myself short.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Better to be safe.”

  He lays out another coin. I put my cheek out for a kiss. He gives me a whole line of them: brow, nose, lip, chin. I come away before he loses charge of himself.

  “Oh, and, Lizzie”—he peeps round the door and calls down the landing—“give her a bit of a scare, can you? The landlady, I mean. Just enough to make her think twice before turning our working heroes onto the street again.”

  I give the paper to the cabby. “I’m going here.”

  “Dean Street, ma’am?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Quick as a flash.”

  He takes a queer route, down narrow lanes bare fit for a carriage, up roads I’ve never lighted on before, and we’re there in no time. A grubby-looking tavern. A green door. A scrawn of a boy lollying outside. That must be him. “Mr. Troplong?” He looks up from the ground. There’s a familiar flavor to his eyes. “Have we met before? Have you been to the house?”

  “No, madame.”

  “In that case, my name is Mrs. Burns.”

  “I was expecting—”

  “Well, you got me.”

  His sack of things sits by his feet. He looks only just out of the bed, with his hair plastered down and his combinations coming out the ends of his coat. “She put me out.”

  “Could be worse. She could’ve done it last month, when the rain was coming down like ten thousand.”

  I knock and a girl answers.

  “She’s busy, ma’am.”

  “Who’s busy, child?”

  “The lady of the house, ma’am.
”

  “So she’s in, is she?”

  “She’s in, but she’s taken up.”

  “No worries. I’ll be here in the hall till she has a moment.”

  “Sorry, ma’am, I can’t allow that.”

  “Arrah, be reasoned, girl. Won’t it save you answering the door to me every minute from now till midnight, and aren’t I halfway in as it is?”

  Mary used to say my feet were like boats, that in the last detail God mixed me up with Moss, whose dainty little yokes keep him upright only with the help of the angels. I follow the girl’s gander down to them—my boat-feet—and we stand together a minute, marveling at their reach: several long inches over the threshold, and solid as blocks, hobnails like rods, no hope of closing a door against them.

  Defeated, she lets me in, and I beckon Troplong to follow.

  “Wait here,” she says, and bolts up the staircase.

  The hall is a dark passage with bare boards and peeling wallpaper. There’s a smell of piss and rotting meat coming up through the kitchen doors. “Not so bad,” I whisper back to Troplong. He moons at me, half-mazed.

  We’re not long biding before the lady herself comes tearing down the stairs, screeching and flaming like a hooer of the apocalypse. The girl follows her down; puts herself to cringe behind her skirts.

  “Whisht, woman!”—I hold a hand up, a sovereign between two fingers—“There’s this if you want it. You can take it and be happy, or we can go and give it to someone with a bit of sense.”

  “Four shilling a week plus board,” she says. “That’s what I ask and it’s as fair a price as you’ll find. He’s a month owing. That there sovereign’ll bare cover the vittles he’s ate. Gut of a cow, he has. I ain’t running no parish.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs.—?”

  “Gambon. Miss Gambon.”

  “Miss Gambon, my good woman, I’m not here to bargain with you. This amount will clear what’s behindhand and get him through to October, do you understand?”

  “I don’t know who you think you is, and I don’t bloody care neither. He knew the price before he went and took the room, didn’t he? I want him out. Ain’t having no more with the foreigners.”

  Our eyes lock a long minute. I make sure to see a tremor come to her lashes before yielding.

  “All right, Miss Gambon.” I take a crown from my reticule. “Fair is fair. Each of us has to make a living, and you deserve to be compensed for your labors.” I make a sudden step forward. She doesn’t flinch, but behind her the girl shrinks further and gasps. “But mark me, Miss Gambon, these here coins will secure our soldier till October, bed and board, and we’ll not hear a peep from you till then.”

  She purses. The gingers on her top lip bristle. She holds out her claw.

  “And another thing. If we catch on you’re treating this hero shabby, we’ll make sure you’ll be spending this, and more of your own, on fixing the windows.”

  I dangle the coins a minute before dropping them in. A second and they’re jangling down into the pouch of her gown.

  “Now, if you wouldn’t mind writing me up a receipt.”

  “A what?”

  “A receipt. For what we’ve just paid for.”

  “This ain’t no shop. This here is a home, and a respectable one.”

  “Can you write?”

  “Excuse me, of course I can write.”

  “Then write this down. Two pounds received to cover Mr. Troplong’s bed and board till the first of October eighteen seventy-one.”

  “It were a sovereign and a crown you gave me. One pound, five shilling.”

  “Well, put that down, then, woman. And hurry. I’ve other places to be.”

  She shakes her head and her wild locks flare. Sends the girl off to fetch the paper. “Don’t know who you think you is. The a-ffrontery I’ve to face in this place.”

  When the receipt is done, I make as if to read it. “This look all right to you, Mr. Troplong?”

  He looks at me. Now at the paper. Back at me.

  “Is it signed, Mr. Troplong? Can you read her name?”

  “Oui. Yes.”

  “Grand so. You can give Mr. Troplong back his key now, Miss Gambon.”

  She frees it from the hoop on her hip and tosses it at him with a sneer.

  I fold the paper into my pocket. “We’ll hold this in our care. We like to keep track of the legals. Now, if you wouldn’t mind pointing me in the way of St. Giles, I’ve another appointment waiting for me there.”

  Moss doesn’t look surprised to see me.

  “I was in the area,” I says.

  “I’ll get my coat,” he says, as if women callers at peculiar hours are part of his regular day.

  “Don’t bother. I’ll come up.”

  He squints at me, queasy.

  “Aren’t we intimate enough, Donal Óg O’Malley?”

  There’s four mattresses in the room. Two men. Moss nods at the door. They leave without a word.

  “My privates,” he says when they’re gone.

  “You’re a sergeant now? How many under you?”

  “These two and seven others.”

  My face, I’m sure, doesn’t hide my disbelief. “You’re doing well for yourself.”

  “A man can’t fail among his own people.”

  He makes little circles on the floor, unsure where he ought be going.

  “I’ve no drink in the place, but I can wet some tea.”

  “I’m fine for tea, Moss.”

  I sit on the only chair. He takes the mattress facing.

  “So what can I do for you?” he says.

  “You can let fall the performance, for a start. There’s naught you can do for me, and you know it. You’ve asked me for help and I’ve come to talk on it further.”

  “What’s there to talk on? You know what we need.”

  “I do. And I’m here to tell you money is tight right now. There isn’t the flow there once was. There’s been an intake of Frenchmen, and they have to be looked after.”

  “The French have sympathy for us.”

  “The French have their own problems.”

  He sighs a long sigh. “And the man you live with. His lot. Don’t they have guns? Can you get us some?”

  I shake my head. “They’re book men, Moss. Organizers of things. They’re not involved in the fighting side.”

  He shrugs. “I suppose people must fill their time with something.”

  I turn a deaf ear to his tone. “Aren’t you getting what you need from America?”

  He doesn’t answer. Scratches instead at an itch on the back of his leg. By the look of the place, I wouldn’t wonder if he’s ravaged by fleas.

  “A donation would mean we wouldn’t have to turn to crime.”

  “I’m not here to stop your crime. If I give you money, it’s because you ask for it and I care for you.”

  “So you’ll give it?”

  “I didn’t say that. I have to think on it.”

  “How long more do you need for your thinking?”

  “I can’t just make it appear. I’ve to get it into my purse, and that can be work. It doesn’t just lie around.”

  “Can’t you tell him? Ask him out straight? We could make, you know, an alliance.”

  “Nay, Moss. Forget that idea. He’s a friend of Ireland, he supports your struggle, but he thinks your tactics foolish. I’ve often heard him say it. He’s against secret societies, and he looks down on conspiracies, they all do. So you ought get that right in your head now. If I give you anything, it’ll come from me, Lizzie Burns, and me alone.”

  There’s a knock. One of the men pokes his head in. “Sorry to disturb, Sergeant, only the other men are here.” Moss waves him out. The man nods, first to Moss and now to me, a holy show of respect, like he’s in audience with the bishop. I can’t help smiling at it, for it’s proof for what they say: the man that’s down has stones thrown at him; the man that’s up has his chair lifted.

  “So, will you give us the money or n
ot?”

  It’s offhand, too short, and I’m tempted to remind him that, if anyone owes anyone, it’s he who owes me: he took away my chances of having children, he robbed me of my birthright to a normal life, and it would do him good to think on it before speaking.

  “Moss, listen to me now. If I gave you something, you could use it on yourself. Get yourself somewhere proper to live. Set yourself up with a job somewhere.”

  He shakes his head. Runs his nose along the length of his arm. “I’ve no want for such things now. There’s bigger matters to fix.”

  I find this hard to swallow. Isn’t a clean home and a stable situation what we’re all of us after, whether we’re high or low, English or Irish?

  Feeling sad for him—naught but death will wean him off his wild ideas of a free Ireland—I turn to look through the dirt on the window: a view of bricks and, between the two facing buildings, a thin slice of sky.

  “Do you get out at all, Moss? Or is it all about the old country now, with no room left for a bit of distraction?”

  “Distraction?”

  “You ought make time for enjoying yourself. I don’t like to think of you stuck in here all day, scheming and plotting and making yourself mad. We could go out one night together. To a show. Or a tuppenny hop. I’d say there’s grand places for dancing around here.”

  He strikes down on his thigh. Now holds the striking hand out in a pleading manner. “Lizzie, are you only here to torment me? Do you have any intention of helping us?”

  Like after a cold gust on the face, I’m woken to my senses. I gather my ends and stand to leave, more to hide my embarrassment than out of a desire to be gone. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  On my way out, he gives me the bit about an Irishman’s duty to take action. “We must fight,” he says, “or our names will go down in history as naught more than braggarts.” And it’s an affecting speech, it touches the roots of me, though really I know it’s only the same Manchester story repeating itself. I’d be a fool to believe it’ll be any different on the second telling.

  It’s Lydia who tells me. I see more of her now that Mary’s gone, now that there’s less shame to having me as company. Salford being too far to come, she sends messages through Frederick at the mill, and we meet in town. I always get her a bit of cake and put a nip of something in her tea. She appreciates my good offices, though it’d gall her pride to say it.