by V. H. Leslie
It seemed like a good place to have a hospital. The water was certainly restorative. She could imagine patients looking out over it, as she had done only a few moments ago, allowing the river to take their pain away. It was funny to think that Wakewater had once been full of people, those sick and well, when now there was only her. There could be others, she told herself. Since the removal men had gone, she tried not to think of the possibility that she was here in this huge building alone. The evening was drawing in, soon the other residents would be returning home from work and tomorrow she may even meet some of them.
Sat among the boxes, she watched as raindrops glanced the windowpane, sporadic at first before giving way to the downpour. It felt like a strange extension of the river, this extra water, trying to entice her to come and look out of the window. There she would see the river dancing and bobbing as the rain struck its surface. But instead she opened one of the boxes, pulling out its entrails perfunctorily. She’d packed in a hurry; there was hardly any order to the contents, despite her scribbled labels. Among the ‘crockery’ she found the locket Lewis had given her. She wished she had got rid of it but she’d always felt a strange obligation to keep sentimental things. She realised now that she should have buried it deeper, or kept all these keepsakes – the ruins of her relationship – in one place so they couldn’t surprise her now. How many of the other boxes were loaded with similar tokens, ready to disrupt her peace?
She turned the locket over. She couldn’t bring herself to read the inscription, but she allowed herself to feel the letters with her fingertips. Though he’d told her a hundred times how there would never be anyone but her, seeing it in writing was somehow much worse. Because here was the evidence that he had loved her. Here was the proof he was a liar.
She dropped the locket back into the box and made her way to the window. The view was hazy, distorted through the rain and the diminishing light. Kirsten wiped the condensation off the pane, needing clarity, needing to stem the memories that were threatening to come flooding back. And there beside the water she saw a woman.
Kirsten stared, peering between the gaps in the smeared glass. The woman was standing at the water’s edge. She couldn’t see her face at this distance but could make out her long, dark hair. In fact, it looked as if she were facing the water, standing very close to it, or could it be – was she actually in the water? Kirsten rubbed the glass. What a ludicrous notion. But the image of the woman wading out into the water fixed in her mind before a gust of wind pelted the rain against the window with such force that Kirsten recoiled. When she cleared the glass again, the woman was gone.
She watched the water for a while longer and when she was certain there was no one there she pulled the curtains, leaving damp fingerprints on the fabric. It was odd that someone could slip out of view so quickly – had the woman sunk beneath the surface? Kirsten dismissed the thought, annoyed at herself for even thinking it. The woman couldn’t have been in the water at all; it had only appeared that way. The rain had tricked her and was mocking her still with its persistent patter against the pane. She shouldn’t be so suspicious of everything. Here was the likelihood that she wasn’t entirely alone at Wakewater. Perhaps she had glimpsed her first neighbour.
As if in reply, she heard the pipes somewhere in the building – above or below her she could hardly tell – lurch into life. Someone in one of the other flats was having a shower, or running a bath. Kirsten was reminded how old the building was: though the interior appeared modern enough, the water system was clearly comprised of the original pipe work. But Kirsten didn’t mind the distant clanging, the singing sound the water made as it travelled through metal; she was just relieved to know that she wasn’t alone anymore.
4
Evelyn
Evelyn had put on her gown of green taffeta. She hated dressing for dinner; she’d have preferred to remain in her day clothes. Since she’d begun working with the Rescue Society, she’d developed a loathing for beautiful things. Though the women of the Rescue Society dressed demurely when ministering to fallen women, at soirees and balls they would dress as garishly as any prostitute. It was all about taste. But Evelyn had spent too much time in the company of prostitutes to distinguish between the varying degrees of ostentation. To her mind, all showiness and flamboyance seemed excessive now, offensive even, especially for women of her class who had no need to garner male attention for economic gain.
Only the green taffeta dress had escaped the cull. It was Milly’s favourite. She would touch the fabric tentatively, hungrily, as if the dress were made of emeralds and not merely the colour of them. Evelyn had let her wear it once and in the candlelight it had given Milly an almost aquatic quality, with her hair hanging loose over her shoulders, the sea-green skirt rustling as she walked, which she did awkwardly, as a mermaid might if suddenly finding herself standing upon human legs. Was that the first time she had called her Melusine, after that mythical serpent-siren who haunted rivers and springs? Milly had never heard of Melusine, but she listened eagerly, as she did to all Evelyn’s stories, grateful for everything Evelyn gave her, including that short time playing dress up, pretending to belong to a different world.
Evelyn hadn’t expected this surge of feeling over a silly green dress and she turned at the bedroom door, considering changing into something else. But her eyes were drawn to the cast iron bathtub in the corner of the room and with it the reminder of her impending immersion into Wakewater’s philosophy, of consenting to its treatments and therapies. She reached for her shawl and gloves with haste and opened the door, almost colliding with a large woman walking past at speed.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ the woman said, seeing Evelyn start.
‘Not at all.’
‘I’m always running late,’ the woman confided as Evelyn fell in step beside her, ‘and I thought what a dreadful impression I’d make on the new guests. You must be one of the new arrivals yourself?’
‘Yes, I’m Miss Byrne,’ Evelyn said, attempting to offer her hand as they negotiated the stairs, ‘and you needn’t worry about bad impressions since I’m late myself.’
The woman stopped to take Evelyn’s hand, ‘How rude of me. I’m Mrs Goddard.’ Mrs Goddard was a portly, middle-aged woman. Despite her cheerful demeanour, there was something formidable about her. Perhaps it was her attire: the severe cut of her dress, the starched material and the elaborate jet necklace that seemed to resemble chain mail. She was the kind of woman you would not want to make an enemy of.
‘So you’ve come to join our little asylum,’ Mrs Goddard said as they continued their way down the stairs. Evelyn was grateful to follow Mrs Goddard through the labyrinthine passages of the house. She wondered how she would have ever found her way on her own.
‘I didn’t realise I was in the company of lunatics,’ Evelyn smiled back.
‘Certainly. It must be a mad place when the doctors in charge want to dunk us like witches to see if we float.’
They approached what appeared to be a grand hall. It was better lit than elsewhere in the house, suffused with candlelight, a fire roaring on the hearth. Evelyn could see a group of people sitting down around a table. But not as many people as she expected, not for a house of such size.
‘Are we mad too then,’ Evelyn asked, ‘for being such willing victims?’
Mrs Goddard gave her a knowing glance. ‘Of course we’re mad, dear, we’re women.’
‘Ah, ladies,’ she heard Dr Porter say, approaching, ‘we’re about to eat.’
The table was set rather simply and Evelyn took her seat alongside Mrs Goddard. There was a range of women assembled around the table, some dressed more formally than others, as well as another man she took to be Dr Porter’s associate, Dr Cardew. She imagined it was the newcomers like herself who’d come decked in all their finery. She’d heard that many Water Cure establishments favoured a more relaxed approach to dress, freeing their patients from the oblig
ation of wearing corsets and stays. She smoothed her green dress, imagining herself liberated from it and the whalebones underneath.
‘Dear ladies,’ Dr Porter said, standing. ‘Dr Cardew and I would like to welcome our new guests to Wakewater House. We trust that you will find physical and spiritual calm within our walls and in the presence of that great river that flows outside our doors. Water, the purest restorative in history, has so often been overlooked by science, as being too simple to be of interest to medical men, and too ordinary to have a significant impact on a person’s well being. I see it as a great fortune to live in an age of such vast progression that we can still recognise the power of the simplest of things. Because harnessed in the right way, water possesses the most powerful healing properties of all. Trust in it, and, I assure you, you will be cured.’
There was rapturous applause from around the table. Evelyn wondered how often Dr Porter had used that speech and if the existing guests had heard it before. None of the women seemed anything but captivated and she wondered if it wasn’t the power of water, but the young ardent doctor they were actually praising.
‘Please,’ he said modestly.
The applause died down and the doctor signalled to Mrs Miller – the housekeeper – to fill everyone’s glass.
‘In the spirit of water,’ he said continuing, ‘Wakewater House is a simple establishment. There are no pretensions here. Simple routines, simple food and of course,’ he held up his glass, the clear liquid sluicing inside. Evelyn reached for hers and joined the others in a toast.
‘To water. May it restore and revive you back to health.’
‘To water,’ the room chorused.
Evelyn sipped her water, wishing it were wine, anything stronger to weaken Dr Porter’s fervour.
The guests resumed their seats and Mrs Miller began to serve dinner. Across from her, Evelyn regarded Dr Porter’s associate, Dr Cardew. He was clearly the silent partner in this enterprise. Older and not at all as dashing as Dr Porter, with a rather severe aquiline bearing. Beside him sat a young woman with fair hair, appearing to be listening avidly to everything he was saying.
‘When we think of how far we have come,’ he said, ‘not so many years ago, cholera was spread through the city by this very river we’re getting so sentimental about now. It is a miracle of our age that our engineers have devised such extraordinary sanitary systems that the water isn’t brown when we turn our taps. We should be raising our glasses to them and to the call for municipal waterworks to provide pure water for everyone.’
Evelyn couldn’t make out the woman’s reply, but Dr Cardew smiled and nodded. She imagined the doctors relished having such a captivated female audience. She read about mixed gendered Water Cure establishments and she wondered why Dr Porter and Dr Cardew had opted only to treat female patients. Did they think women were more susceptible to illness and malady? She looked around the table at the other female ‘guests’. Perhaps they all suffered from similar complaints.
Reaching for her glass, the fair woman caught her eye. She smiled and Evelyn smiled back.
After dinner, Dr Porter led them to the solarium for coffee. Evelyn had not seen the solarium before and despite Dr Porter’s rhetoric about simplicity, the room was ostentatiously grand, decorated with excessively large chandeliers and boasting floor to ceiling windows, revealing a large balcony that ran the length of the room. It would be a wonderful place to sit when the weather was fine. In the diminishing light, the view wasn’t half as good as it would be in the day, but she could still see the grey, wide expanse, edged by trees and hedgerows, and she could make out the river, sleek and black, winding its way into the distance. She moved away from the windows and stared instead at the dark recesses of the house.
She didn’t hear the young fair woman approach.
‘You don’t care for the view?’ she asked.
Evelyn scolded her lips on the coffee and placed it down. ‘I think I’ve had quite enough of the water.’
‘Haven’t we all. And you haven’t even begun your treatment yet. Wait till you’re two weeks in, so thoroughly drenched that the water will seep into your dreams.’
Evelyn thought of her own dreams of the water; not the calming, restorative waters that lulled the Wakewater guests to sleep, she imagined. The water in her dreams was black and filthy.
Evelyn managed a smile, ‘I’m Evelyn.’
‘Mrs Arden,’ the young woman replied, linking arms with Evelyn, ‘but call me Blanche.’
Evelyn felt her cheeks flush at the sudden contact, though she was no stranger to the forward airs of prostitutes. She was surprised that Blanche was married. The ease with which she took her arm, that look across the dinner table, gave her the intimate air of a confidant. She wasn’t closed off like a lot of married women she came into contact with.
‘Dr Porter tells us that you are involved in rescue work.’ Evelyn wondered if Dr Porter discussed all his guests so openly.
‘Yes, I try to help fallen women into refuges. The ones who seem really reformed I procure work for as maids or servants.’
‘In respectable houses?’
‘Why, yes. So many of these women just need a chance in life.’
At some point during the conversation they’d begun to take a turn about the room. Evelyn could feel herself being steered back toward the river.
‘You said you try to help. Are you not always successful?’
She could see the river now, a black shadow in the fading light.
‘No. Not all fallen women want to be saved.’
‘Why ever not? They have a chance at salvation and they turn it away?’
It was hard to explain to people who weren’t familiar with that world. Some women had begun the life of prostitution so young they knew little else. Others were distrustful of the do-gooders with their moralising and bibles. Some were more practical: they knew they would never possess the refinement to work in a grand house, and that after the refuge they’d be trying to survive with what little skills they had. They could earn more lifting their skirts.
‘I can’t understand it,’ Blanche continued, ‘and with such a beautiful ministering angel at the helm.’
Evelyn felt colour rush to her cheeks. She didn’t know what to say. She was used to the bawdy retorts in the back alleyways, but not to flattery. She wasn’t under any illusions about her appearance. She was resigned to her plain looks, her unremarkable features.
‘It’s difficult indeed,’ Evelyn began, deciding it better to ignore the compliment, ‘but I’m one of many who feel that we need to tackle the source, as well as caring for the unfortunates who are swept up along the way.’
‘The source?’
‘The men.’
Blanche laughed. ‘My dear, you’d have a finer time locking up all the women in London than getting men to change their ways.’
‘But it needs to change.’ Evelyn realised she’d taken a step back from Blanche, her voice louder. ‘How many women do you think I have seen, beaten, diseased, ruined by men’s licentiousness?’
Blanche looked about the room, clearly taken aback by Evelyn’s outburst.
‘And what are you ladies talking about?’ Dr Porter had appeared behind her. Smiling as earnestly as he had at their first meeting.
‘We were talking about the dangers of the city,’ Blanche replied, having regained her composure.
‘Rest assured, ladies. You’re quite safe here. The river is our moat, you see,’ he looked at the water and smiled, ‘and Wakewater, your sanctuary.’
5
Kirsten
The day was grey, the sky the colour of oyster with the river running slick below it. There was hardly any difference between them, as if the world around her existed only in one homogenous shade. She was used to grey. The city was comprised of man-made greys, the colour of concrete and metal so typical of large urban
spaces. But it was more remarkable here, this natural grey that distended as far as the eye could see. The sense of saturation was more complete with the water and sky merged together. It was almost like standing at the foot of an almighty grey wave, watching it swell higher and higher until it obscured the light. There it would seem to pause a moment, perhaps a while, before it inevitably came crashing down.
Kirsten had left the flat and was making her way alongside the water. Wakewater House appeared just as grand from the riverside. There were so many windows from which to watch the water, though most of the glass panes appeared shattered or damaged. And up there, a curved conservatory, perched out over the water, a stately platform to make the most of the river views. There were even little waves in the masonry. The building had clearly been designed with the water in mind.
She approached the section of water where she’d seen the woman the night before and a sudden disquieting feeling began to take hold of her. What if she actually had seen a woman in the water, what if she had actually witnessed a suicide, dismissing it on the grounds of poor visibility and absurdity. What if now there was the body of some poor woman floating down there in the river?
She left the path and scuffed down the bank. It was ridiculous thinking such things, but now that they’d entered her mind she knew she wouldn’t have any peace until she’d looked into the water. The bank was slippery from the rain and overgrown with bracken, which she clutched at a couple to times to prevent herself from falling. Her shoes and the hem of her trousers became caked with mud within a few minutes. She hoped none of the other residents – if, in fact, there were any – could see her from their windows, watching her stumble along the muddy bank like a crazy person. She edged her way around a cluster of brambles and there, beside the water, was a woman.