A Fall of Marigolds

by Meissner, Susan

  I lifted the cloth. His words interested me. Struck a chord in me. “What did it feel like?”

  He closed his eyes, either in contemplation or exhaustion. “It was like . . . stepping into a room.”

  “Stepping into a room?”

  “A new room. One I’d never been inside before. And I stepped in because I wanted to. Not because I fell. I took a job loading crates at the shipyard so that I could stay in Liverpool until my ship sailed. My mother had just died and our landlord had taken back our cottage in Cardiff. There was no reason for me to go back to Wales to count the days until I left. So I saw Lily every day after that. Two days before I was to leave she told me she wanted to come with me. As my wife. We married the day before we sailed.”

  The slow spin of the earth seemed to halt as Andrew spoke. I knew the feeling he was trying to describe. The way I had been drawn to Edward was not as it had been with broken-arm Otto or dashing Daniel, when I’d tumbled headlong into their charms like a schoolgirl. I had felt connected to Edward the moment I met him, as if a history had already been written about us, but the record was stowed in some heavenly place I could not visit. Eternity already knew us as a couple. We had been destined for a long, blissful earthly life together and the fire had robbed me in the cruelest of ways, taking my future happiness away when I had but tasted it.

  “You felt you already knew her, didn’t you? Almost as if you had met before.” I felt tears brimming and I attempted to blink them away. One fell onto Andrew’s chest and I rushed to blot it.

  He opened his eyes slowly at my touch. I wiped the tear onto my apron, unable to pull my eyes from his. I waited for him to tell me that was just as it had been for him and Lily. But that was not what he said.

  “Who did you lose in that fire, Nurse Wood?”

  A thick ache rose up in my throat and I swallowed it down. I closed my eyes to shut the gates on any more tears.

  “His name was Edward,” I said, when I was able. “And I had known him for only two weeks.” A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Just as long as you knew Lily.”

  “You loved him?”

  I nodded. “I did.”

  “And he loved you?”

  Andrew’s four-word question was the main reason I had told no one except Dolly about Edward. How could I explain that I knew Edward had loved me? We had only ever spoken to each other on the elevator. But the kinship I felt with Andrew’s loss made me brave in that moment. I reasoned that he was the only person on the island—indeed, in my life—who might understand.

  “He was destined to love me,” I answered.

  Andrew seemed to ponder this for a moment. “If he had lived . . . ?” He stopped, inviting me to finish the sentence.

  “If he had lived I wouldn’t be on this island. I’d be with him.”

  “Is he the reason you are here?”

  It didn’t seem fair to heap the blame for my exile solely on Edward. “I’m the reason I’m here.” I attempted a weak smile.

  “You are here to forget.”

  The strange hope in his voice suggested he very much wanted to know that it was possible to forget what despair felt like. But I didn’t want to forget anything.

  I placed the cloth back in the basin. “I don’t want to forget Edward. I guess I am here so that I won’t.”

  “But then, won’t you always be here?”

  It had been a few weeks since I had stopped to ask myself how long I wanted to live this way, tethered to the island and unable to set my foot on the vast expanse of the rest of the world.

  “I want to be able to remember and have it not hurt. I think it’s possible to remember someone you loved and lost and feel blessed that you knew them, even for just a short time, without it hurting. Don’t you think?”

  He nodded slowly and closed his eyes.

  I placed my hand on his brow, gauging his temperature, ready to have him swallow some aspirin if the cool compress had not accomplished what I had hoped. But his skin felt nearly cool against mine.

  “How long do you think that will take?” His eyes stayed closed and his voice sounded as though he were slipping into slumber.

  He drifted off to sleep before I could think of an answer. Indeed, as I rose from the bed I was certain there was no calendar to consult.

  It would take as long as it took.

  Andrew would likely survive his illness. In a couple weeks or less, he’d be well enough to leave the island. He carried his loss like I carried mine, close to his chest. And he would carry it off this island in one way or another. I did not envy him.

  I was no closer to knowing what I would do with Lily’s letter. Give it to him and change his grief to a bitter wound, or burn the letter and leave him to grieve in ignorance for who knew how long?

  At lunch, Dolly and I had a table to ourselves. I told her what Andrew had said about stepping into love like it was a room you wanted very much to go into. She listened to me intently and then offered again to give him the letter and be done with it. “He deserves to know,” she said.

  “Nobody deserves to get that kind of news, Dolly.”

  “I didn’t say the man deserves the news; I said he deserves to know the truth.”

  I poked at a slice of buttered turnip and pictured Andrew reading the letter, absorbing the degrading news that he had been played a fool. I shook my head to shatter that image. “I wish I had never opened that trunk.”

  Dolly set her fork down hard and it clattered on the wood table. “You were meant to open that trunk, Clara! Have you thought about that? What if fate wanted you to open it because it was the only way that good man would know the truth? Nobody should have to spend the rest of his life grieving something he never had!”

  At that moment a figure approached our table. I looked up to see Dr. Randall with an empty tray in his hands on his way out of the dining room. The puzzled look on his face suggested he had heard the last bit of Dolly’s comment.

  “Ah, good afternoon.” He nodded to both of us and then turned to me. “Have you given any more thought to discussing Keats, Miss Wood?”

  “Keats?” Dolly echoed, gaping at me.

  “I . . . I’ve been busy—” But Dolly cut me off.

  “Keats?” This time she said it to Dr. Randall.

  He smiled congenially. “Miss Wood is a devotee of Keats. He’s not my favorite poet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy discussing his work. Might make it more interesting, actually.”

  “You want to discuss Keats with Clara?” Dolly laughed lightly.

  “I should like very much to discuss Keats with Miss Wood. And be allowed to address her as Clara.” He smiled back.

  “I don’t know . . .” I mumbled.

  “Why on earth would you want to talk about a dead poet after a long day at this hospital?” Dolly said. She leaned closer to the doctor but nodded to me. “Is that really the best you can do, Doc?”

  Dr. Randall laughed easily. “Oh, but I happen to like poetry. Lucky for me, Miss Wood does also.”

  Dolly tipped her head in my direction. “Does she now? Well, that is providential.”

  “This place lacks something in the evenings,” Dr. Randall went on.

  “Indeed it does, Doctor. That is why we nurses work for the weekends. Getting on that ferry Saturday afternoon makes the long week bearable.”

  Dr. Randall again turned toward me, an eyebrow cocked. “Will you be on the ferry tomorrow, Miss Wood?”

  “I am working this weekend,” I replied before Dolly could answer for me. And it wasn’t a lie. I was scheduled to work through the weekend.

  “So am I,” Dr. Randall said. “Shall we say tomorrow night then? In the commons? I’ll be waiting for you at seven o’clock.”

  Before I could think of an excuse for not being able to accept his invitation, he nodded to both of us and walked
away.

  Dolly watched him exit the room. “Nellie’s right about that one. He’s sweet on you, Clara.”

  I reached for my coffee cup. “He’s bored and lonely.”

  She turned to face me. “What would be so terrible about that nice young doctor being sweet on you?”

  “He’s not sweet on—”

  “And for heaven’s sake, did you really tell him you were a fan of Keats? You’ve never said anything about that to me. I wouldn’t have taken you for a—what did he call you?—a devotee of poetry.” Dolly’s smile broadened. She was clearly enjoying my predicament.

  “It was the only name I could think of, thank you. I didn’t take him for one either.” I stood to gather my utensils and tray.

  She stood as well. “You’d better hope there’s something by Keats in the commons bookshelves that you can read tonight or you will have a very short date.”

  “It’s not a date. And please don’t tell anyone that it is.” I walked away from her.

  “I won’t, I won’t.” She quickened her steps to catch up with me. “Want me to peek into the commons and look on the shelves for you?”

  She apparently had not looked closely at Lily’s book.

  Even if I planned to meet Dr. Randall, which I had no intention of doing, I had no need to scour the shelves in the commons looking for anything by Keats.

  I told her I already had a book by Keats I could read.

  Fifteen

  FRIDAY after supper, I wrote a letter to Henrietta, washed my hair, and polished my shoes. But the evening wore on and still I was not sleepy. After Dolly was snoring quietly across from me, I reached under my pillow for Lily’s book.

  I had read the minimum of literature in school, impressing no one with my insights. I was far more suited to history and science. If I had read Keats in school, I had quickly forgotten anything he had written. To drop his name to Dr. Randall had been an impulsive, reckless act.

  I opened the book and withdrew the two folded pieces of paper—Lily’s letter and the certificate—and set them aside.

  I flipped to the first page and read what I found there.

  “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

  Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness

  Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,

  Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

  A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

  What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape

  Of deities or mortals, or of both,

  In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

  What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

  What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

  What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

  Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

  Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

  Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

  Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

  Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

  Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

  She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

  For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

  The poem went on for three more stanzas. Line by line I read it. And then I read it again, these verses of a man describing images he sees on an urn; images of men running after women in a forest. Pipes are being played and drums being beaten. What does it matter what images a man sees painted on an urn? I didn’t understand any of it, least of all the last two lines.

  “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all

  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

  What did that even mean?

  I grabbed Lily’s letter and the certificate, slipped them back inside the book, and snapped it shut. I shoved it under my pillow and turned out my light. But sleep eluded me for an hour or more as I chewed on the words in my head. What meaning had Lily found in a poem like that? Or Andrew? What had they seen that I had not? I fell asleep at last and did not dream of the fire or anything else.

  • • •

  IN the morning as we dressed Dolly asked me what I was going to wear that evening to discuss poetry with Dr. Randall.

  “Dolly—”

  “Now, don’t tell me you’re going to leave him waiting there for you, Clara.”

  “I never told him yes. He walked away before I had a chance to tell him.”

  She placed a hand on her ample hip. “So you’re not going to show.”

  “Of course I’m going to show. It would be rude not to. I’m not going to stay.”

  “For heaven’s sake, why not?”

  I placed my nurse’s cap on my head, tucking wisps of brown curls up underneath it. “I was wrong. I don’t like poetry. And I don’t like Keats. We will have nothing to talk about.” I headed for the door.

  She grabbed her own hat and trailed after me. “I am quite sure there are other things to talk about besides poetry.”

  I said nothing else as we headed down to breakfast.

  Half an hour later, I arrived at the ward. Five of the men had been deemed finally free of contagion the evening before and were now preparing to be discharged. I spent the next hour helping Mrs. Meade with the final paperwork, gathering belongings, and escorting men out of the hospital and into the sunshine of a new day. I went about my business distracted by remembered snippets of Keats, and my gaze was continually pulled toward Andrew’s bed. I was oddly jealous that Lily had something in common with him that I did not. His rash was now beginning its hellish transformation from scarlet to scales. In a matter of days desquamation would begin and he would need to be scrubbed repeatedly to rid his body of the remaining flakes of poison.

  The last man to be discharged needed help sending a telegram to his mainland sponsors telling them that he was now free to come ashore. I offered to accompany him to the main immigration building on Ellis to find an interpreter who spoke Italian. I was able to find an available interpreter fairly quickly and the three of us continued on to the telegraph office. When asked for the address of his sponsor, the Italian man set his suitcase down, opened it, and presumably set about looking for the address. While he rifled about his belongings, I saw a flash of reddish-orange fabric and I knew at once why I hadn’t seen Lily’s scarf among Andrew’s things since I’d rotated in to the ward.

  “Wait!” I bent down and reached for the cloth that shone like flame. I pulled it out of the suitcase and turned to the Italian man, who was staring at me openmouthed.

  “Where did you get this?” I said.

  His eyes grew wide but he did not answer me.

  I turned to the interpreter. “Ask him where he got this!”

  The interpreter calmly said something in Italian. And the man said something back.

  “He said it’s his.”

  Indignation swelled within me. “I asked him where he got it. Because I can assure you it’s not his. It belongs to another patient.”

  The interpreter frowned and said something to which the Italian man responded angrily. He reached out to take the scarf from me. I stepped back, keeping it from his reach.

  “He said it was his mother’s,” the interpreter said.

  A tiny tendril of doubt crept up alongside my anger and I turned the scarf over in my hands, needing proof that I was correct. I ran my fingers along its hemmed edge, looking for a manufacturer’s tag. I felt something hard, thin, and about the size of my little finger inside the turned-under fabric, but I quickly moved past it in search of affirmation that I had a British woman’s scarf in my hands. My fingers felt raised stitches, letters of the alphabet.

  Lily.

  I held up the scarf and pointed to
the hand-stitched name. “Still want to tell me this was your mother’s scarf?”

  I turned to the interpreter. “This belongs to a patient who lost his English wife to scarlet fever during their voyage. It’s the only thing of hers Mr. Gwynn has left.”

  The interpreter shrugged. “Maybe Mr. Gwynn gave it to him.”

  I frowned. “Do you really think that’s what he did?” Then I wheeled toward the Italian man. “Shall we go ask Mr. Gwynn if he gave you this scarf?”

  The interpreter repeated my question in Italian. For a moment the man stared me down. Then he leaned over, yanked a card out of his suitcase, and slammed it shut. He stood up, faced the interpreter, and rattled off a handful of words without looking at me.

  “He said he would like to send his telegram and get off this island,” the interpreter said.

  I took a step toward the man with the suitcase. “Shame on you!” I turned on my heel. “He’s all yours,” I said to the interpreter, and I left them.

  The man shouted something at me and the interpreter tossed the words to my back. “He says he thought the man was dying.” The red-orange tails of Lily’s scarf trailed like a garland from my wrist as I continued on my way without a word.

  As I marched back to island three, my anger was replaced by gratitude for having been the one to escort the Italian man to the telegraph office instead of Mrs. Meade. She wouldn’t have recognized that bit of orange peeking from out of the suitcase.

  I reentered the ward and made straight for Andrew’s bed, Lily’s scarf in my hands. He was sipping tea as I approached him and when he looked up, his eyes were immediately drawn to what I was carrying in my hand.

  “How did you . . . Where did you find it?” he whispered.

  “It seems that it mistakenly ended up in one of your ward mate’s suitcases.”

  He set his cup down and slowly took the scarf. It was as if he thought it might disappear if he reached for it too fast.

  “I assumed it had been taken from me to be destroyed,” he murmured. “She was wearing it when she . . .” He looked up at me. “How did you know it was Lily’s?”