by Forbes, Kit
“Then do carry on, Mr. Stewart. And try not to bleed too profusely on the carpet.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m just mad at myself. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
Genie’s attention started to drift down to the towel wrapped around my waist and I held my breath, begged my body not to embarrass me.
Her gaze snapped back up and she reached out. “Please let me look at the cut.”
I pulled the little towel back a few inches and she leaned in. She cleared her throat. “It seems to be slowing but it’s a bit much for a styptic pencil. Just keep pressure on it with the towel a few moments more.”
She took a long time staring into my eyes but stepped back and adjusted the small silver watch pinned to the front of her gray dress.
“I guess I should have found a barber or something to get a shave,” I said, mostly to fill the weird silence. “You think there are any in the neighborhood, open now?”
“No. But I shall help you.” Genie picked up a fresh towel and wiped the drying soap from my face.
I stepped back.
She gave me a questioning look. “Whatever is the matter, Mr. Stewart?”
I looked at the razor in her hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but somehow I don’t think you have much experience in the area of shaving, and that blade is sharp.”
Her back ramrod straight, she gave me a pissy look. “I assure you, Mr. Stewart, that I am quite skilled with a razor. I’ve assisted many an invalid at the London Hospital and not a one of them has ever succumbed as a result of my use of a straight razor.”
I considered asking for references but since she had the razor, I decided not to. And besides, there was a trained doctor downstairs, right? “If you’re willing to shave me, I’d appreciate it.”
She worked up the lather again. “If you sit on the tub, it will be much easier. You’re too tall.”
I grinned at her. “Maybe you’re too short.”
She tried not to smile, but I saw the cracks in her crusty exterior.
“Need I remind you, Mr. Stewart, which one of us shall be brandishing the razor?”
“Well played, Miss Trambley. Well played.”
She gave me a cute grin. “But of course.”
She was quick and good and I’d have been tempted to give her a tip if I’d had my pants on. I was really starting to wish I had my pants on. “Could you hand me the robe, dressing gown, whatever?”
She did, gave a puzzled look, then excused herself.
I went to the guestroom to get dressed. While I fumbled trying to get the stupid cravat/necktie thing straight, I had to admit that Genie Trambley did have a nice touch with the razor and a decent sense of humor. I liked that. Maybe this dinner with her family wouldn’t be so awful after all.
Once I was satisfied I looked “presentable,” I headed downstairs. Genie waited and insisted I step into her father’s treatment room so she could see to the cut I’d made on my face from the razor.
She clucked her tongue in an annoying yet kind of cute way while she dabbed some kind of salve on the wound on my face. “You’re quite heavy-handed with a razor, aren’t you? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d never shaved yourself before.”
Think boy, think. “I usually go to the old barber near my house and let him do it. It gets the day off to a good start.”
“Well, no matter.” Genie wiped her hands on a small cotton towel. She looked at the little watch pinned to the front of her dress. “I believe we’ve delayed dinner long enough. Shall we go?”
Dr. Trambley had been called away so they had me sit in the “Master’s” chair that seemed more like the defendant’s chair about a minute after I took my seat.
It was like being on trial with three bitchy Judge Craigs. The older Trambley women’s eyes bored into me, watching every move, flashing silent signals back and forth about the way I held my fork, cut my food. I think they even found fault with the way I sat. They probably thought I didn’t notice it but when you hung around the type of people I’d been hanging with you learned to keep your eyes open.
It was actually worse than being on trial. At least there I had a lawyer ready to plead my case. Here I was on my own and it was easy to see Mrs. Trambley and the older daughter, Phoebe, would be Hanging Judges if they were behind the bench.
“I appreciate everything you’ve all done for me,” I said, before dipping a dinner roll in the gravy at the edge of the plate. Big mistake. The signals flashed between mother and daughter again.
“Quite,” Mrs. Trambley replied. “Dr. Trambley takes his mission of aiding those in need seriously.”
“Far too seriously,” Phoebe added with more venom than a Cobra.
“When it suits him,” Genie added, garnering a sharp look from her mother and sister.
I did my best not to cringe. There was something so politely viscous between these females that it set my teeth on edge. There was obviously a lot more behind those clipped comments I wasn’t getting. And didn’t want to.
I kept my attention on the food, a pretty tasty bit of roast beef, and occasionally glanced at the women. Genie, her bright, blue eyes hidden behind those little round glasses, looked as if she almost felt as out of place as I did.
Phoebe was all hard angles, her face as set as cement, making it entirely possible that she’d never once smiled or laughed. The sharpness of her movements with the knife and fork looked to me like scarcely repressed rage, the way my one friend’s sisters had become after her boyfriend sexted another girl on her phone. It would be no surprise if that repressed anger flared into violent action someday.
Mrs. Trambley was a wider and grayer version of Phoebe. Her mouth ringed by wrinkles like a neighbor of ours who kept her lips pinched closed at all times. “Never happy unless she’s miserable,” my dad had said.
The maid seemed to confirm my opinion of the three. She steered well clear of Phoebe and approached Mrs. Trambley cautiously. She was obviously more at ease around Genie.
The other obvious thing was that Mrs. Trambley had already formed an opinion of me that would never change no matter what I did from here on out. She’d made a sly comment about my build, sniffing that no respectable young man of my years had muscles like that, not even the fit young soldiers. It was only common laborers who developed such physiques. She added as much disgust to the word “common” as was humanly possible.
I sipped my water. “I like to think it comes from wrestling temptation every day.” Sarah coughed to cover a chuckle, Genie cleared her throat, but neither Mrs. Trambley nor Phoebe were at all amused.
“And how is it,” Mrs. Trambley said, “that you have not pursued an education into a respectable profession or settled yourself down into a military career? Am I to understand that you have simply traveled hither and yon at your leisure?”
Though I knew I probably shouldn’t, I decided to give the old hag something to get upset about. “Not only at my leisure but with some loud friends who have criminal records and a lot of beer. And some of those friends include girls.”
Not the wisest word choice, considering that even Genie was shocked.
I watched Mrs. Trambley’s expression transform itself from disapproval to something that even surpassed disgust. She put her napkin firmly on the table. “Some young women—”
“Deserve to be given second chances,” Phoebe interrupted, glaring at me. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Stewart?”
That had to be one of the most unexpected things I’d heard—at least coming from her. “Maybe, maybe not. I guess it depends on what they did to need a second chance.”
Her expression went through a series of changes I couldn’t quite place, but it was clear I’d hit a nerve.
Mrs. Trambley replied with a sound a lot like a snarl. “The morals of the lower classes are not our own.”
Clearly I’d been insulted. To let it go or not let it go, that was the question.
It was pr
obably a good thing Genie interceded before I decided.
“The lower classes are no less moral,” she insisted. “Economic hardships force them into horrible conditions.”
“Disreputable activities are their natural tendencies,” Phoebe replied casually. “Had you attended Mr. Wingate’s lecture on the topic of the lower classes instead of going out and actually consorting with them, you would have a much better understanding of their true nature.”
Genie was the one showing the repressed range now. “Their true nature? I know them far better than you or some cloistered, self-righteous matron who only visits the East End during the day!”
Phoebe glared at her sister. “I know their true nature well enough, sister. Is it not thrown in my face every time I swallow one of Father’s treatments?”
“Phoebe!” This time it was Mrs. Trambley who blew. The unspoken signals flashed between them again and Phoebe lowered her eyes in surrender.
“Given the chance,” Genie insisted, a bit calmer this time, “they’d raise their families and tend their gardens just like any other decent people. But most of the men cannot make more than substance wages, whole blocks of flats have been torn down and replaced with ones they can’t afford, and the rents on the meanest and most disgusting hovels have nearly doubled over the past five years.”
“My point exactly,” Phoebe cut in. “The men are worthless so they send their wives and daughters out onto the streets to whore for a few extra pence while they sit in the pubs and drink away what little they have.”
Genie glared at her sister. “And yet you are the first to blame the women—women who you now insist are victims!”
Mrs. Trambley trembled. “Victims? Those women are not victims, they are predators! They are a pestilence that cuts down even the bravest and best of men!” There was a glowing frenzy in Mrs. Trambley’s eyes. And something else, something dark and glittery. “Do you know how many of the gallant soldiers of the Crimea survived shot and shell only to be cut down by the pox from those vile creatures? Too many, daughter.” Mrs. Trambley’s hand shook as she gripped her napkin almost like it was a weapon. “You mark my words, girl, they shall be judged!” She stood abruptly.
I remembered the whole men stand when a lady stands thing just before Mrs. Trambley stalked from the dining room.
“Oh, do sit down,” Phoebe snapped. “You look like a hurdy-gurdyman’s monkey.”
I sat even though I’d lost my appetite a long while back. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I’m utterly certain you have.” Phoebe neatly bit the head off a spear of asparagus. She gave me a glare that would’ve scared the Wicked Witch of the West.
Phoebe exited shortly thereafter, telling Sarah to bring her dessert to her room. Genie and I stayed in the dining room, helped pile up the dinner plates, and quietly ate the vanilla custard Sarah brought us.
Once that was gone, I figured it was as good a time as any to exit the Trambley Matrix. Genie walked me to the front door.
She stopped halfway through the hall near the staircase. “I’m sorry for the commotion,” she said softly. “I imagine you think us a band of raving lunatics.”
“I think you’re a bunch of ladies with some very strong opinions.”
Genie smiled and I was glad I’d held a smart-assed remark in check. She was actually kind of cute when she smiled. She needed to do it more often.
“Before I go, could I leave a note for your father—and mother?”
Genie eyed me suspiciously. “I suppose.” She took me to the desk in her father’s study. She put away a few medical books that had been taken from a glass-fronted bookcase as I wrote.
When I finished, I handed her the unfolded note. “I couldn’t leave without thanking them for their hospitality. It was very nice of them to let me stay here last night and offer me a hot bath, cleaned clothes, and a nice meal.” Yep, she was definitely cute when she smiled.
“You’re very welcome, Mr. Stewart. I shall give this to Father as soon as he returns.”
I nodded then made my way to the door. Genie followed.
Stepping outside, I turned my gaze to her, trying to muster up more of the old fashioned manners of the guys in my mom’s books. “Goodnight, Miss Trambley. Please be careful out there when you do your ‘good works.’”
“I shall, Mr. Stewart. Goodnight to you.”
I trotted down the few steps then looked back. She was still peeking out the half-closed door. I waved and walked backward on the sidewalk watching her give me a wiggly finger wave before letting the heavy door close.
Back home, I’d have thought her watching me leave was a stupid thing, but here and now it didn’t seem so stalkerish or clingy. It was kind of nice to think I might have at least one friend my age in this place.
I walked along until I was able to flag down a carriage for hire and took that to Ian’s house in one of the nicer parts of the East End. Staring out the window as the cab rolled along the streets, I was again reminded of a Tim Burton movie, only this setting wasn’t quite as stark and menacing as it seemed in the morning. This time it was a bit calmer like the movie made from Mom’s book.
My thoughts strayed. I wondered if I was being punished for all the grief I’d given my parents the past couple years. I never planned being a “bad kid,” but after their move my freshman year put me in a new school and having to make new friends, things changed. My parents had no idea what it was like being a cop’s kid sometimes.
Half the new people I met wanted to be my friend hoping I could get Dad to sweep crap they did under the rug. And the other half distrusted me from day one, figuring I was like some planted informant dying to have them busted for partying or selling weed.
I poked my head out the carriage window and searched for the moon. I’d never really paid attention when I was little and they dragged me to church every week, but I’d always felt there was something out there in charge of it all. I’m sorry, okay? If this is some lesson I’ll try to learn it, just let me go home as soon as I do. Please?
I settled back, closed my eyes, and let the jostling and clopping of the horse’s hooves lull me into a light sleep. I startled awake when the driver rapped on the door to say we’d arrived at Ian’s.
Ian opened the front door. I stepped inside and gave a quick glance around the small entry way. This place wasn’t half as big as the Trambley’s but it had the same dark wood everywhere, the dark, flowered patterned rugs and gas lamps on the walls and ceiling. Putting my hat on a little hall table next to Ian’s, I thanked my ancestral uncle again for letting me stay the night. Ian gave me a gruff hrrmph sound in reply and showed me into the little parlor to the right of the hall.
“My wife, your Aunt Imogen.”
She set aside the embroidery hoop she’d been holding and smiled. “Hello, dear. Did you have a pleasant evening with the Trambleys?”
“The food was very good.”
Ian snorted a laugh, picked up the newspaper he must have been reading, then retook his seat in a high-backed chair near the fireplace.
Imogen gave him a disapproving look, but I was sure I saw a grin trying to raise the corners of her mouth. She patted the end of the velvet sofa she was sitting on and I sat.
“Surely young Eugenia was pleasant company for you?”
I smiled. “She’s pretty nice.” Imogen seemed a bit confused. “I meant she seems like a nice person.”
Imogen picked up her embroidery and continued to speak, glancing back and forth between me and her sewing. “She’s quite high-spirited, but so intelligent and full of vigor. I tell Ian he should try to make use of that quick wit and energy of hers, but he insists women have no place in areas like law enforcement.”
I laughed. “I’ve seen some tough ladies, but I think I have to agree with you about Genie.” I cleared my throat when both Ian and Imogen gave me a long look. “I mean, Miss Trambley.”
I faked a yawn that turned into a real one then stoo
d. “If it’s all right, I think I’d like to get some sleep.”
Imogen set aside her sewing. “I’ll show you to your room, dear.”
It was almost the size of my room back home but with a single brass bed and sturdy wooden dresser and wardrobe cabinet. There were girly flowered curtains and bedspread, but I knew I could live with it.
Imogen turned down the blankets and fluffed the pillow then took a folded striped nightshirt from the top of the four-drawer dresser. “This is Ian’s but I’m sure it will do. You can keep it if you like.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll be looking for employment tomorrow?”
That little crook of her eyebrow said it was more an order than a pleasant chit-chat question.
“Yes ma’am. I’ll get right on first thing tomorrow.”
“Excellent. Good night then, dear. Pleasant dreams.”
“Thank you, ma’am—Aunt Imogen.”
Chapter Ten
“Twenty-two stab wounds to the woman’s torso. Five to the left lung, two to the right. Heart penetrated in one place, liver in five. The spleen had two wounds, the stomach six. The major organs themselves were basically healthy and the cause of death was blood loss and hemorrhage.” Ian let the report drop to his desk. “Barbaric. Utterly barbaric.”
“Yes, it was.” I agreed, as I stood before Ian’s desk, hands in my jacket pockets. I looked around the office. It seemed so dark with only the light from the windows and a few gas lamps lighting the rooms. And outside in what would be the main squad room in my time it was almost unnaturally, quiet compared to the offices where my dad and uncle worked. There was no constant ringing of telephones, no clatter of computer keys, or banging of metal file cabinet drawers. There was only a soft rumble of voices punctuated by sharp tones of a suspect being brought in for questioning or incarceration or an irate citizen lodging a complaint.
“The doctor said he thought two weapons were used,” Ian said, “and that there might have been two assailants. What’s your opinion?”
I wasn’t sure what to think, wasn’t even sure this was the Ripper’s first victim. What I could make out after tagging along with Agatha was this was still a debated issue. Had the Tabram woman been a warm-up or just a coincidence? “I’m not sure I agree about the two assailants theory,” I said.