by Quenby Olson
I don't look at him until he stops speaking. Then he exhales, and shifts forward on the chair.
"I didn't know her," he admits, his chin dipping down to brush against the drooping points of his collar. "I never met her. Not when she was alive.
"My mother was an actress," he goes on, meeting my eyes again, as if daring me to heap shame on him for having such low connections. "At least, that's what I was told. By the time I found her, she'd spent several years dipping matches, and..." His hand returns to his jaw, and I can only imagine the state of his mother's visage at their first meeting, the phosphorous glow of her rotting flesh.
"She managed to write a brief note, nothing too personal, but seeing as how we weren't particularly close..." A movement of his right hand towards where the pocket of his coat would be, if that article of clothing wasn't still clinging to the corner of the bed, just beyond his reach. I wonder if he keeps the note from his mother in the same place as he keeps the newspaper clipping of my portrait.
"She gave me her name, my sister's name. Isabel." He breathes the last syllable on a sigh. "And you know the rest."
"I am so sorry."
My words fail to mark any immediate change in his expression. With a faint creasing of his brow, he shakes his head, opening his mouth enough to allow two words to slip through.
"Thank you." But that simple phrase isn't enough, and soon, his hands resume their fidgeting, his fingers taking hold of the edge of the blanket that hangs over the mattress, pulling at the threads until the weave begins to unravel. "It seems..." he says, stops, and draws in a fortifying breath.”It seems the both of us have been inundated with death these past few..." Days? Weeks? Years? "Well, for quite some time."
And, as if to lend greater credence to his theory, he abandons his destruction of the blanket, only to move towards my left arm, his fingers trailing across the back of my hand before he turns it over, glides his thumb over the scar on my wrist.
"Is it so terrible?" he asks, and my face must register some confusion, enough to make him add: "The life you have. Would you really prefer death?"
I turn my face away. A few pins still tangled in my hair dig into the soft flesh at the nape of my neck, but I make no move to pull them out. "It never stops," I tell him, and I know that nothing I could say, no sound my voice could create would ever succeed in telling him what plays through my mind at any given moment.
"And when you sleep?"
"There's nothing else. It's as if I disappear."
Chissick's eyes widen before a small nod jars the rest of his features into motion.
"The nightmares—" he begins, but I cut him off before he can finish.
"They're not nightmares. I had nightmares when I was a girl. Dreams, even. Pleasant ones, like any young child should have. But these..." I glance at the ruined shutters, at the cracks that fan out from the corners of the window frame, small black lines tracing their way through the wall's plaster. I wait until Chissick has aligned his gaze with my own, and I study his profile, the soft curve of his lower lip, the veins of red staining the corners of his eyes. And the questions form in my head, slipping into my thoughts before I can stop them.
Will he be next? Will I see his throat slashed apart, same as the others? And what of Marta? What of...?
But before I can compile a list of potential victims, a renewed pressure on my arm draws my attention down to Chissick's hand, to his fingers still treading across my scarred wrist.
"So foolish," he whispers. But whether his comment is intended for my ears or not, I snatch my arm away from him, bury it in the folds of my skirt while I give a few frantic tugs to my sleeve. He looks at me, a curious expression shaping his features, and the question is there, asking me which boundary he may have crossed.
"Please," I say, and regret using the word. "Don't say such things when I don't even possess the strength to walk away from you."
But any contrition I may have expected from him is absent. Even more than that, an eagerness seems to take hold of him. His shoulders straighten, and his cheeks—oh, poor, hollow things they've become—puff out with a kind of courage, or purpose. I almost expect a smile to grace his mouth, infuse his whiskers with life. But there's no smile there, and when he speaks, his voice registers at such a low pitch that I feel myself straining forward so as not to miss a single word.
"Miss Hawes," he says, and I realise that days have passed since I last heard him speak my name. "I can't imagine what you must think of me, what kind of person I must appear to be in your eyes." His head droops, his bottom lip sliding between his teeth. "You may think I'm mad, for all I know. And I'm not sure I would blame you. My behaviour has been most irregular lately. But I assure you that my conduct over the last few days is nothing like how it was before I met you."
I can't prevent the small sound that erupts from the back of my throat. Almost a chuckle, but not quite.
"I must admit," Chissick continues, unimpeded by my minor outburst. "There have been times when I was convinced there was something leading me inexorably towards you. I would hear your name in conversation, see your face in random places, and I began to think that it was a way of keeping you always on the edge of my thoughts. Just when I would think I'd forgotten you, a friend would mention your being in the paper, or that they had gone to one of your demonstrations, and there you would be again, as if you had walked right in front of me."
His eyes leave my face for a moment, to study the empty swatch of space beside me.
"But it did succeed in bringing me to you, because when I found Isabel, when I found out what had happened to her, yours was the first name I thought of."
He looks at me again, his mouth moving without sound, hesitating.
"When I was still with the church, I found myself drawn to people who had fallen on hard times. Women, like my mother, who had once been on the stage and turned to more prurient activities when there were no more parts to be had. Men, like my father, who had taken to drink, to abandoning their families…" He scratches his beard, his fingernails digging into the already raw skin underneath. "There are times when I think I sought out the church in order to somehow absolve some of my family’s sins, to make a recompense of sorts." He shrugs, the movement pulling at the worn fabric of his shirt. "Perhaps that’s also why I was so easily led away from it."
I can think of nothing to say. And so I blink, and I breathe, and I count the irregular beatings of my heart until I lose track and am forced to begin again.
"I’m sorry," I hear him mutter, his voice coming out as a mumble behind his hand. "I don’t know what else I should talk about."
"It does not matter." I make an attempt at shaking my head, but my neck aches, my temples throb, and the pillow beneath me is soaked with a disconcerting amount of my own perspiration.
It falls to him to find a new subject on which to expound. His chair creaks as he moves, and I hear the swift intake of breath that should precede some new speech, but there are no words to follow.
"Chissick?"
Another breath, and I hear his voice. "I have no wish to offend, or to pry into private matters."
I stare up at him, knowing that this isn't the end of what he has to say. But he refuses to continue until I've added something to the conversation.
"What do you want to know?"
And those six words work as well as any key. But still he holds me in some suspense, slides forward on the chair, and rests his forearms on the edge of the bed. He's so close now, his breath tickling the back of my hand as he speaks.
"Do you pray, Miss Hawes?"
Oh, such a question. And yet, should I attempt to lie, I have no doubt he would be able to see through any prevarication I could make. "Not for some time, no."
He nods, as if the imperfection of my faith is well understood. "I know the efficacy of prayer has been widely debated, particularly in these days of science and enlightenment, but…" His gaze abandons my face, his eyes searching for something I suspect even I could not see
should I have wished it. "I still pray, despite my departure from my former post. And before I found you, before Miss Summerson directed me towards your whereabouts, I felt that He spoke to me."
I remain still, waiting for him to continue. Because I know that he wishes to unburden himself to me, and I truly have no desire to put up any sort of impediment.
"I felt a tremendous need to find you. Not only because I was certain you would be able to help me discover Isabel’s killer, but because there was a great weight pressed upon me, a…" He squeezes his eyes shut, lines fanning out from the corners as I watch him struggle to latch on to the precise words he wants to use. "To save you," he announces, and in such a tone of voice, hushed as a whisper in a church. He reaches for my hand, takes it within his own, and I wait for the first bleating of protest to slip out of my mouth.
"I don’t—"
"The words came to me," he starts again, speaking over me until I've stuttered into silence. "That no matter what happens, no matter the danger to myself, I have to do whatever I can, anything and everything within my power to save you."
"Save me?" The words feel foreign and slightly unpleasant on my tongue. A tremor of fear courses through me, as I wonder if the good Lord’s direction to him will entail a crusade towards the redemption of my soul.
"Yes. No matter what happens."
My hand still between both of his, he tightens his grip for a moment, so quickly that I could mistake it for a reflex before he pulls away from me and slides the chair back from the side of the bed.
"And that’s all God told you? That you will save me?"
A flicker. That is all. But that single vibration in his person, and I know he will not tell me all.
"Everything in my power," he says, after another moment has slipped away.
And there, I must be content with that. "Thank you," I say, almost meaning it. I close my eyes, and I listen to the creakings of the old building as I stave off the blackness that hovers, so full of menace, at the edges of my thoughts.
Chapter Twenty
* * *
* * *
I smell the smoke before I open my eyes. It is an acrid and cloying smell, clinging to the roof of my mouth, coating the back of my tongue so that I choke and nearly gag. So pervasive is the odour that I imagine I have awoken to a room full of ash, the flames already licking their way beneath the door. But the air is surprisingly clear, only a slight thickening to the motes of dust that float through the last beams of daylight.
I wipe my hand over my face, surprised that it comes away clean, aside from a thin sheen of perspiration and the normal profusion of oil from my pores. I draw another breath into my lungs, and though I detect a tinge of smoke on the air, it is not as strong as my sleep-dazed mind had made it out to be. Dragging a corner of blanket behind me, I stagger towards the door, what strength I may have regained over the last day incapable of being measured until some wakefulness should return to my limbs.
The doorknob is cool beneath my hand, and I step into the hall, blinking at the darkness, my fingers tracing my passage along the wall until my eyes adjust to this unexpected lack of illumination. I pass over another door, and another, before I'm greeted by the faint glow emanating from the staircase. I think that I'm seeing the lights from the first floor, but the glow brightens, sharpening from a dull mist of light to the solid flicker of flame from Chissick's lamp.
I stand still at the top of the stairs, and I feel his eyes move over me, over the state of my dress, my unwashed hair hanging in clumps over my shoulders, until I turn my own gaze away from the bright lamp that is inches from his face.
"There is burning," I say, my voice low. My hand remains on the wall, as if I might leech some strength out of the very foundations of the building.
Chissick nods once, so brief a movement that I might have missed it had I not kept his figure in the corner of my eye. "It is miles from here, yet. We're in no danger."
I make no sign of having heard him. I turn away, back towards my room, towards my bed, though the tangle of dirty sheets and sweat-soaked blankets becomes more repugnant as I approach. By the time I arrive at the bedside, there is more trembling in my muscles than I had anticipated, but I touch one hand to the edge of the mattress, the other hand reaching out into the air, my fingers grasping at nothing as I direct my feeble steps towards a chair that seemed much closer when I glanced at it from the doorway. I move like an old woman, weak and palsied, my limbs eager to disobey every other command issued from my head. After a minute, my balance wavers, and I feel sick before I grasp onto the arm of the chair and tumble into the seat, my head still swimming as the urge to retch waxes and wanes.
I sit for several minutes with my head bowed forward, my elbows resting on my knees. I disregard my poor posture, or how far apart my feet are placed on the threadbare rug. Without lifting my head, the fingers of my right hand seek out the inside of my left wrist, a gentle touch that allows me to count to one hundred as I feel the blood pound inside my veins.
So involved am I in my counting that I don't hear the light scrape and slide of chair legs on the dusty floor. Chissick's low sigh, however, is more than enough to draw my eyes from their inspection of the rug, and then he is on one knee at my side, his hands reaching out to help me, and yet I sense his hesitation before I feel the brush of his fingers on my arm.
"You should be in bed," he says, his voice lowered to a hoarse whisper, and I wonder how ill I must appear that he is compelled to speak in such a hushed tone. "If you were in need of anything, I would have come to your aid."
"I had to move. I can’t sleep. Not anymore," I tell him. And then, "No, leave me here," as his hand begins to lift me up and out of the chair. "I will stay here for a minute. I will not return to bed until I am ready."
He leans back from me, no apology falling from his mouth. "Would you like me to bring the light over to you?" he asks, his voice returning to its normal level. "A book, perhaps? Or a cushion? That is not the most comfortable of chairs, I know."
But I shake my head in reply to each one of his offers. I want to stay here, until I can build up another reserve of strength, until I can move once more.
Beside me, Chissick places his hands on his knees and stands up. "Would you like me to leave you, until there is something I can do for you?"
"No," I say, without looking up. "I want you to tell me what is burning."
He sighs, his breath a short blast of air that dies beneath the weight of the humidity in the room. "I don't know. A house, I believe. Or a row of them, by now. But no one has been harmed, from what I've heard."
Because there is no one to harm, I want to say, but my mouth remains closed. And I know that the same thought has already been entertained in his mind. There are not enough people left in the city, entire avenues left deserted, left to the whim of any spark or flame that may descend on their rooftops.
And even if there were still people, still able hands willing to chance injury for the sake of saving a neighbour's building, where is there the amount of water needed to smother a fire? The Thames is little more than a trail of mud now, cracked near the edges, where no fresh water has touched for several weeks.
I shake my head. "It will be here, too. We cannot stay. Everything will burn."
Another touch on my arm, but a burst of energy and I'm able to pull away from him, out of the chair, over to the table where my outer clothes—unwashed, but brushed and neatly folded—sit next to the handful of belongings that had been on my person when Chissick brought me here. I don't ask for a comb, but instead run my fingers through the tangle of hair around my head, tugging at the worst of the knots until I can twist it into a bun that I pin into place at the back of my head. My hands fumble with the fastenings on my skirt, on my blouse, but I don't ask Chissick for assistance. And I'm certain that for this task, he will not offer it.
"Where are you going?" he asks, and before allowing me time to answer, because he must know that I will give him no such satisfaction,
he continues to speak. "You're not well," he says, and there is so much meaning carried on those three words that it is enough to make me pause. But only for a moment. I retrieve my shoes from beneath the bed—also brushed with some care, though their newfound cleanliness serves to highlight their sad condition—and lean into the side of the mattress as I struggle to slide my bare feet into them.
"You should leave," I tell him, without looking up from the knot I make of my laces. "It's not safe to be here."
"In London, do you mean? Or with you?"
I glance at the window. The cracks have grown since I last looked, wide enough to have sent small particles of plaster down to the floor. And the colour within them appears darker, as if the walls are filled with ink, and the fluid is only waiting for a large enough space through which to escape.
"Both, I would imagine." I return my gaze to my shoes and give my hastily donned skirt a final tug. "Where is the fire?" And when he fails to give me an immediate reply, "Tell me the place."
"Somewhere on Oxford Street, I believe."
I nod as my hands fly upwards, fiddling with a lock of hair too slick with perspiration to remain in place.
"Miss Hawes."
A last glance around the room, my eyes scanning the bed, the table, every nook and crevice for something I may have left behind.
"Miss Hawes, I can't let you go anywhere."
He stands in the doorway, blocking it should I attempt to dodge past him. Not that I would have half the strength for such an action.
"Why not?" I wish to sound stronger than I feel, but the quaver in my voice gives away everything.
"I can't say."
"No, I am sure you can't."
He lowers his eyes for a moment, and I move towards the door, towards him, my steps faltering as I push against him, his arm dropping to his side without any attempt to impede my progress. But before I arrive at the landing, before I can even look down to the floor below, I feel his hand on my wrist, his fingers tightening enough until I stop moving, as if any additional force might cause me some harm.