by Quenby Olson
I push back through my memories, tangled things that they are. "But I didn’t know her then. In fact, you were the one who first took me to see her."
"No." She shakes her head, and her gaze rests on me. The look in her eyes is mingled with an expression I’ve not seen since I still wore a pinafore over my dress. "She was well acquainted with your family, from what I understand."
"My family?" In my mind, I can still see the shadows and feel their menace as they condense and rush towards the people seated around the table.
"Your mother and her sister. They were great patrons of Sissy’s work, if I’m not mistaken. Of course, once they found out you had a gift, well… She didn’t need to be taking herself all the way down to Sissy’s neck of the woods any longer."
My hand grips the doorknob with renewed strength. "I never knew." It comes out as a whisper, and quite honestly, I'm amazed I can even manage to remain standing.
I cannot think of anything else to say. And so I leave, without uttering a word in farewell, without wishing her a note of safe journeys or fine weather or anything else that etiquette would demand from me. The door creaks as I pull it open—I cannot tell how much of my weight now rests in the hand that clings so steadfastly to the brass knob—and I step out into the hall, my lungs gasping for air, desperate to escape the stultifying atmosphere of Marta’s bedroom.
It takes a flash of movement to stir me from my thoughts. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a swish of vividly coloured skirts, hear the soft strike of heels on the rug as Franny slips through another doorway and ducks out of sight. But I cannot spare her any attention now, nor do I care if she overheard any of my conversation with Marta. I force myself to push forward, down the hall, down the stairs, down, down, down, until I hear nothing but Katie’s frantic exclamation and the heavy thump of boots as Chissick follows me out the door.
Chapter Sixteen
* * *
* * *
I try not to pay attention to how I must look, my gloves hanging from my hand, buffeted by my leg with every other step. My head is bared to the afternoon sun, my hair adhered to my scalp with such an abundance of sweat that I wonder if I couldn't wring a cupful of water from the sodden strands. Inside my shoes, my feet itch, and several hours of walking have caused my ankles to swell.
I could say that Chissick's appearance fares no better under comparison. A tonsure of hair sticking out from beneath the edges of his hat, darkened points that cling to the sweat of his skin. And—oh!—that cap, looking more like a deflated sheep's bladder with every wearing. The black wool jacket, showing signs of wear at the elbows, patches of grease where he's taken to fingering the buttons. The splatters of mud on his trousers. A streak of horse manure on the heel of his left boot, the scent of it always chasing him from one street into the next.
And there is still more, if one takes the time to look for it. The small streaks of ink that mark my fingers, evidence of my thumbing through the letters and photographs again and again until the pages have begun to wilt from the oils and perspiration of my skin. Lean in close enough to Chissick and you'll see a few crumbs lodged in his beard, a souvenir from his time in Marta's drawing room, and the myriad edibles foisted on him by the eager Katie. And there, on the hem of my skirt, a splotch of wax, a reminder that I'm still in the same dress from yesterday. For isn’t this the same fine gown I wore to Ryall's house, when I sat on a dusty floor with nothing but the stub of a poor candle for light?
As we leave the more reputable streets behind us, I notice a thickening to the atmosphere. The streets are narrower, the buildings stacked one on top of another, and the water...
Even as the river threatens to evaporate before our eyes, still there is so much moisture here. Trickling down walls, stagnating in gutters clogged with garbage and the bits and pieces of rotted vegetables leftover from a poor day at the market. All around me, the water roils and flows and steams. Every breath, I think, adds a few more drops of water to the air.
On the corner, we pass a small stand, still boasting the remains of a few rotted vegetables. It's been cannibalized, supported now by only a few slats of wood, a few bent nails that will no doubt be retrieved before the next evening falls. And upon this skeleton sits another, of a much more human make. Instead of wood and rusted nails, this one is draped in skin and a few layers of brown, coarse clothing.
The old man is lame, judging by the crutch laid across his lap, held by two white-knuckled hands I think would not give up their possession should Saint Peter himself step down from Heaven and tap him on the shoulder.
For a moment, I fear that the invalid might have already passed on to his appointment with the saints, but a twitch takes hold of his cheek. A spasm travels through his jaw, and the lips draw back from black teeth as he sniffs through a thickness in his head that culminates with the rumble of a cough from his sunken chest before he is still.
I do not realise I have halted—in the middle of the street, no less—until a word from Chissick, his renewed grip on my arm, draws me forward once more. I pull my gaze away from the old man and allow it to rest on the fingers of my right hand, wrapped around the string that holds the packet of letters.
Our progress through these streets is slow, a sign of Chissick's reluctance to return me to my home, to leave me to my tiny, sweltering room on the second floor. Stepping away from me and turning around, he reaches into his pocket and produces his leather wallet.
"Here."
From out of the wallet appears a small card, not one embossed with gold lettering or bearing a family crest, but a plain card, upon which has been written a few lines in what I assume to be Chissick’s own hand.
"What is this?"
"Please, take it."
And I do. I glance at the writing, at the numbers and letters that seem to have been written with no clear purpose, until they begin to take a new shape, and I understand that I'm looking at a street address. Chissick’s address, I'm certain.
"Thank you," I say, and tuck the card into my sleeve.
When I look up, it is to find he has turned his own eyes downward.
"Miss Hawes, if you ever need…" But what I may need is lost in the twitch of his mouth and a deep furrowing of his ruddy brows.
"Of course."
"I do not want to leave you," he says. "Not in your condition."
"Allow me some time to change my clothes, to rest, and I will come to you. We’ll have dinner," I suggest, and he nods in agreement. "Some food, I think, should be most restorative."
"I look forward to it," he says. "A few hours?"
"You have my permission to call on me if I’ve not appeared on your doorstep before dark."
He does not say goodbye, not with any discernible words. There is a slight nod of his head, and his hand almost arrives at the brim of his hat, but both actions fall short of completion, and so he turns away, his arms settling into an awkward pose at his sides before he clears another corner and is taken from my sight.
And as soon as he is gone, my own legs resume their march. I can see the edge of Mrs. Selwyn’s door from where I stand, but I’ve no desire to submerge myself in the sable depths of her house. But so consumed am I in contemplating a new path that will lead me in a circle around that wood and brick edifice, that I don't pause to watch where I set my feet, and I slip on a small clump of cabbage leaves left to rot in the middle of the street, one knee striking the pavement hard, the other struggling to straighten while my hands describe small circles in the air, a small ballet of sorts that helps me to regain my balance.
But a new sound enters my head once I'm planted on my feet again. A high peal of laughter, so close I almost mistake it for one of the voices I carry around with me. I raise my eyes, and there stands a boy, muddy pants rolled up to reveal scabby knees set into a pair of bowed legs. My gaze quickly marks off the other requisites: dirty hands and face, unwashed mat of hair in an indiscriminate shade, a squat stub of a nose that fits into his face as well as an unripe tomato, and
a mouth...
Oh, I'll never forget the mouth. Nothing but a crooked slash above an equally crooked chin. There are no lips to speak of, only the place where his face splits apart, and crammed into that aperture, yellow teeth that crowd his pale gums like overlapping tombstones. And from between those two rows of teeth, such a laugh finds its way into the air between us. He pushes out the sound, starting as a rattle behind his rib cage, and then travelling upward, out of his lungs, his throat, before it’s thrown out at me with all the force of a punch.
So much force that I rear back, wanting to duck as if the boy's pale fist had found its way towards my head. But this only serves to heighten the boy's amusement, and now he is doubled over, hugging himself with spindly arms as he coughs and chokes and sputters, his eyes squeezed shut, his lipless mouth twisted into a vicious echo of a grin.
"Please, don't."
My thin voice carries every mark of the harassed victim, giving the boy leave to continue laughing, until I reach down and wrap my fingers around a dusty edge of broken brick. I've no talent for throwing things, so I aim wide to keep from accidentally striking the boy. And when the rock whistles past his head close enough to stir a few of the dirty hairs above his ear, he looks at me, his mirth momentarily halted. I take this minor reprieve to rise up to my full height—as paltry as it may be—push out my chin, and gather all the rest of my anger and fear into speaking one word that I know will do its job before it has even left my mouth.
"Run."
And watch the boy, displaying the very definition of the word! Oh, he can't move fast enough now, skinny legs pumping, arms bent, elbows ready to knock at the first thing to get in his way. I could laugh out loud if there wasn't still some fear inside of me, enough to make me shiver, even as the sun beats down on my rounded shoulders.
Because, really, I didn't want to miss.
***
One hour of sleep, that is all. My dress is changed, my hair taken down, brushed, and returned to its pinned and braided knot at the nape of my neck. I have splashed my face with water and stepped out to purchase a ham sandwich from one of the few vendors left in this part of the city. And now I'm settled on a bare patch of floor beside my bed, my skirts hiked up as I fold my legs beneath me.
The photographs are scattered in a heap, along with the letters, without any reverence for the hours that must have been spent scrawling their words into existence. I have read through all of them, once and then again, my eyes now burning and my mind humming with the collection of feelings and overwrought declarations on display. Most of them have told me nothing. They are notes of love, for the most part. The language poorly spelled, the penmanship often not much better than what I would expect to find scribbled on a child’s slate. Ryall’s long catalogue of companions, all sorted here like a hoard of trophies.
As tedious as I find most of the missives to be, there are a few gems I’ve uncovered, raw jewels they are, lacking a proper cut and polish. A few words from a barely literate Catriona reveal what I had begun to entertain as the briefest of suspicions, that the photographs are a display of wares, all of which are for sale, the particular services offered fully dependent on further negotiation.
I look again at the image of Miss Isabel Capaldi, Chissick’s sister. She is younger than he is, both in the photograph and the memory I have of her unlined face, so serene above the terrible wound that had ended her life. Their names do not match, though now that I consider her profession, I do not wonder at her wish to bear a different surname than the one gifted to her at birth.
My fingers slide across the other images of other girls. I have no need to touch them, but I think back to Chissick’s previous query, his wanting to know if I needed to touch an object to make a connection. And so my fingers continue their journey, and my breathing slows, and the pain in my head—now an ever-present thing—throbs in time with the beating of my pulse.
How many of these other girls are already gone? Their throats sliced open, their life, their spirit flowing out of them as their blood does not. Or is Isabel the only one?
I think of Ryall, and the wall inside his head, stronger than stone in its ability to keep me away from his thoughts. He knew something. He knew something I'm not supposed to know. And I wonder… Was Isabel privy to that information as well? Could that be why they are both dead, both murdered by the same—should I say "hand”, considering the culprit?
I sit back on my heels, my eyes closed as my hands fumble in my lap. There are too many questions. I made the mistake of entertaining a few, and now they rush into my head, one after another, and at such a pace that I cannot give the first one its proper attention before another has usurped its place. Perhaps, I tell myself, another visit to Sissy is due. I could push the burden of some of these questions onto her rounded shoulders, watch her swollen fingers flutter over the tiles as she pulls a few answers from the ether. But Marta’s revelation of Sissy’s acquaintance with my mother and my aunt still rankles me, and I suspect that if Sissy did not see the need to inform me of her association with my family at any point over the last decade, I can’t trust she would be any more forthright with me now.
Another breath, another minute of listening to the pounding of my pulse in my ears, and the chaos of my thoughts begins to lessen. When I open my eyes, the room seems unusually bright. It is midday, and the shadows cast by the sunlight that pours in through the window are at their lowest ebb. A shift forward, and I gather up the papers and the photographs, caring little for any sort of order as I form them into a haphazard stack. I have to rise up onto my knees to reach the last of the pictures, and it is when my fingers brush over one of them that I notice its subject.
The well-dressed young woman from the street, with the dark hair and the fine posture and the warm smile for her friend. And that friend…
My attempts at picking up are demolished as I sift through my stack, flicking the discarded papers onto the floor as I search for that other picture, the one of the young woman who had opened the door to her visitor.
When I find it, a breath slides out of me. Blonde ringlets over soft shoulders, a light-coloured gaze that dares to acknowledge the camera without artifice or guile. I turn the photograph over, my eyes searching for the name that I already know must be written on the back.
Edith Wing.
At least one of her photographed companions is dead, and the man who counted them with his belongings is gone as well. But Miss Wing? As of a few days ago, at least, she was very much among the living.
I stand up, resolve fueling my movements. I will go to her. I will see if she is still alive, and if so, I will search through her thoughts and dredge every piece of information I can from her fair and lovely head.
Chapter Seventeen
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* * *
I lose my way only once. The streets are a different animal in the full light of day: alleys and byways that were menacing and narrow in the darkness now seem almost pleasing to the eye with a bit of sunshine warming their broken cobblestones. But once I arrive in the correct street, locating the house is a simple enough matter. The door is the same plain, unpainted wood I remember, devoid of any sign or placard to distinguish it from its more mercantile-minded neighbours. I knock twice, and then once more, louder, in case the first were drowned out by the sounds of the street behind me.
The door is opened without preamble, and there is the young woman from the photograph, so alike and yet so dissimilar from the image of her I carry in my mind that a moment must pass before I can reconcile it with the face now peering out at me from amid the backdrop of shadows behind her.
"Miss Wing?" I pronounce, then clear my throat and say it again, this time without the inquisitive lift at the end of her name.
Her light eyes dart first from my face, to my hands, and return upwards. But it is not only my visage that is treated to this rapid inspection. I notice the flick of her gaze as it takes in my posture, my clothes, along with the lay of the street behind me before her h
ead tilts and those pale blue eyes dare to blink before they narrow between blonde lashes.
"Who are you?"
Her distrust is such a palpable thing that I almost reel from the force of it. But I remain in place, my hands clasping and unclasping several times before I put an end to the nervous movements and slide my gloved palms down the front of my skirt.
"My name is Dorothea Hawes. I was hoping to speak with you about… Well, I believe we may have had a mutual acquaintance?"
The pale eyes widen, her lips parting as if in preparation of some speech, but there is nothing. And so I clear my throat a second time, and I forge ahead.
"Please correct me if I am wrong in assuming that you are familiar with Lord Geoffrey Ryall?"
The reaction is instantaneous. The hand of hers that I can see, the one gripping the edge of the door, tightens until her knuckles change swiftly from a scrubbed red to a shade of mottled white. The door begins to close, her eyes still wide, her gaze still fixed on my face until the gap between us is only a few inches wide. But before she can shut me out, I jam my foot into the doorway, and I grit my teeth as the slab of wood jars against my instep.
"He is dead," I say, before she can say another word, indeed before she even notices that one of my limbs is the impediment that prevents her from slamming the door in my face. "I need to speak with you." My words gain speed now that I have her attention, whether she wishes me to have it or not. But before she can shove me back out into the street, I must say everything and anything I can. "He is dead, and I need to find out what killed him, because if I do not, you may very well be next."
The pressure upon my booted foot relents. The door, however, remains partially closed, Miss Wing blocking the narrow gap with her slight frame.
"Who are you?" The repetition of her previous question baffles me at first, and she raises her chin, the small gesture lending greater meaning to those few words. "Who sent you?" she clarifies, and I realise she is already straining to gauge the amount of danger levelled against her, before I’m even given the opportunity to outline the specific threat.