“Is something the matter?” Edith asked.
Mercy shook her head but quickly turned her face to hide her own doubts. “Eat your breakfast.” If she had been a good mother, an attentive mother, Edith would be eating eggs, perhaps even some ham, not lukewarm gruel reheated over the stove from the day before. If Mercy had been any sort of mother at all her daughter would have a proper home with a proper father and wouldn’t be expected to help her fraudulent business. “Stop it,” Mercy growled in a low languid tone.
“Stop what?”
The sound of Edith’s voice snapped her from her reverie. She had forgotten Edith was even in the room with her, another horrid thing for a mother to do. It was Alistair George, the Bolton mystery, and the séance the other night. These events were beyond normal for her. They were messing with her senses.
The next thing Mercy knew, Edith was at her side at the sink. “Maybe I should stay home from school today,” she suggested.
“Certainly not,” Mercy said. “I wouldn’t hear of it. You will go and come home with glowing remarks.” Mercy forced a smile, ignoring her daughter’s look of doubt. She knew she wasn’t convincing anyone, and hadn’t been for some years, but that did not mean she should no longer try. There was no mistaking it, the events of the day before had set Mercy on the very edge.
Edith returned to the table for her dish but Mercy snatched it up first and moved it to the sink. “I’ll walk you to school again today.”
“I’m fourteen, you needn’t bother,” Edith said, stacking her books on the table.
“Nonsense,” Mercy said, giving the bowl a quick rinse in the sink. “I used to walk you often.”
“You stopped because you wanted more time for your clients,” Edith said.
“And now I feel I want more time for my daughter,” Mercy said. “What shall I pack for your lunch?”
“I already have a lunch.” Edith plucked the tin bucket from the tabletop and brought it up to her mother’s field of view.
“Oh.” Mercy forced a smile. “Shall we be off then?”
By this time, Edith was growing increasingly weary as evident by the doubtful look on her face. She said nothing of protest, though, and Mercy was thankful for that.
Mercy thrust an umbrella at Edith just before they exited the door and then clamped down on her hat as they stepped out on to the vestibule.
“But the weather…” The rest of Edith’s words were lost in the funnelling wind.
“A little rain never hurt anyone,” Mercy said, as she turned the key in the lock. When she turned she took a start, realizing a man was standing on her walkway. For a second she thought it may have been Alistair George or even Percival Forsyth. She heaved a sigh of relief when she saw it was Jeremiah Walker. She may even have given a slight smile at the sight of him.
“Ms. Eaton.” He touched the brim of his hat and waited as she and Edith manoeuvred the steps.
“Good day, Detective,” she said curtly as she tried to steer Edith around him.
“I need you to accompany me,” he said into the wind. “There is something I need you to assist us with.”
Mercy shook her head in wonderment. Emotionally, she couldn’t afford anymore shenanigans. She needed a break if she ever expected to quell this episode. She directed her daughter to keep walking. “I’m afraid I haven’t the time,” she said, holding her hat in place and trying to extend her umbrella at the same time. They shuffled along the sidewalk, past the police carriage at the curb, fighting awkwardly against the wind.
Without saying a word Jeremiah met their stride. “I’m afraid it’s a matter of an urgent nature,” he said. He touched her arm, a gesture that forced her to look up at him. “I would be much obliged.”
Mercy glanced to her daughter and then scanned the skies, which threatened a downpour of rain at any moment. “All right, but we must deposit my daughter at her school first.”
***
The carriage was a welcome reprieve from the weather. From her vantage spot near the window, Mercy saw pedestrians, men mostly, bent forward into the wind with one hand on their hats, the other on their briefcases. The handful of women held fast to their small children, who were nearly lifted from the pavement by the onslaught.
“What sort of subjects are you expecting to tackle today, Miss Eaton?” Jeremiah asked from the opposite bench.
Edith gave a quick look to her mother before answering. “Arithmetic,” she said. “And Latin. We may finish our lessons on Egypt this afternoon. Sister Mary has promised we may try our hand at writing hieroglyphs. Heavens knows what any of us will be writing,” she said with a slight laugh.
“The language of the pharaohs,” Jeremiah said with a smile. “Wouldn’t Egypt be a place to see?”
“Have you been there?” Edith asked, hopefully.
“No, no,” Jeremiah said. “I haven’t travelled much farther than Halifax, I’m afraid. Not that I haven’t wanted to explore. It’s the thought of that dark ocean beneath me and spanning out in all directions that keeps me on Canadian soil.”
“You’re scared of the ocean?” Mercy asked, having believed Jeremiah Walker wasn’t scared of anything.
Jeremiah’s green eyes lifted and then he smiled at his own folly. “I’m afraid so,” he said.
“Mama, you’re afraid to take the elevator to the third floor of Timothy Eaton’s.”
“Edith!”
“It’s true!” Edith turned back to Jeremiah and leaned forward. “She always has to clutch my hand in the most peculiar way. She says it’s to keep me from falling out but I know it’s only so she can feel better.”
Mercy closed her eyes, silently pleading for her daughter to stop.
“It would appear your mother and I have something in common then,” Jeremiah said.
Mercy opened her eyes and found him staring at her without even a hint of malice.
“We both appreciate solid ground beneath our feet.”
***
The police carriage pulled up to the curb right outside the school. Before Mercy could move, Jeremiah was out the door and offering a hand to Edith as she stepped down onto the pavement.
“Thank you, Detective,” she said.
“Head straight into the building, Edith,” Mercy called from her seat on the bench. Edith made no indication that she had heard her mother. She walked beneath the iron archway and up the path to the front door. Mercy looked both ways down the sidewalk nervously as Jeremiah returned to the inside of the carriage. She allowed herself to breathe only after the heavy, wooden door of the school closed completely behind her daughter.
“Is something the matter?” Jeremiah asked as the carriage pulled away from the curb.
“Alistair George came to the house yesterday,” Mercy closed her eyes at the ridiculousness of her current situation. “He wanted to inform me that Cynthia Bolton had been found. You never told me her name but I imagine that was the woman you tricked me into reading yesterday.”
Jeremiah stiffened. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. I told him nothing.”
“I can’t tell you how important it is that we keep this out of the press, at least for the time being.”
“I understand but…”
Walker raised an eyebrow.
“He knew everything already.”
He bowed his head and muttered a curse.
“I told him not to print any of it. I told him you’d think I was the one who told him.”
“You confirmed it for him, without even realizing it.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I pushed him away from my door and that’s when… he…” Mercy avoided eye contact.
All his concern for the case abruptly ended as he crept to the edge of his seat. “Did he lay a hand on you?”
There must have been something in Mercy’s tone or mannerism that told him what had happened.
“No.” Mercy saw the fury in Jeremiah’s face. “He grabbed my wrist. I believe he would have done something had my neig
hbour, Mrs. Fanshaw, not been out on her porch as well.”
“The bastard.”
Mercy saw Jeremiah’s hand curl into a fist. “He went away,” she said quickly. “I’m only telling you this because I’ve been on edge ever since. He knows where I live. He knows where Edith goes to school.”
“I know where he works.”
“Please don’t do anything,” Mercy said. “I just want to forget about it. I shouldn’t have pushed him. He just made me so mad.”
“You’ve been under a lot of stress.”
“Yes, but—”
“He’s such a weasel.”
Mercy smiled at the apt description.
“If he comes near you again, you tell me and I’ll handle him.”
Mercy felt herself recoil at the suggestion of violence. “Handle him how, exactly?” she asked. “Will you arrest him without cause, rough him up a bit perhaps. Show him who’s in charge?”
“What? No. I’d give him a warning.”
“A warning?”
“Yes, a warning. I can’t say I’ll be all that polite about it but sometimes men like that need to know certain woman have other men looking out for them.”
“And so you’ve decided to take it upon yourself to be my protector, is that it? Well, I’ll have you know I’ve done very well on my own these last fourteen years and I am in no dire need for any man, police officer or otherwise, to give the men in my life warnings.”
“Goodness, Mercy, what is this about, truly?”
“Nothing that concerns you. I should never have brought it up,” she said. “What do you require of me, Detective?” She eyed him sideways and saw his interest in her morph back into his incredulous self. She raised an eyebrow, entreating him to speak. Her doubt was met with a slight huff of disbelief from the detective. “Excuse my gruffness, but it’s not in my nature to ride about the city in police carriages with unmarried men without due cause, so out with it. What have you summoned me for?”
A laugh escaped him. “You believe I’m a bachelor.”
Her expression fell as confusion set in. “Your manner just now, with my daughter no less, was that not a means to garner my approval?”
“Your approval is neither here nor there. I am an officer of the law. I’ve come to you for assistance with a case.”
Mercy took a moment to collect herself from embarrassment. She had not realized he was married. Nothing about his manner, especially when dealing with her, had signalled his marital status. And for a brief time she had received the distinct impression he was flirting with her. “Very well,” she said, “I stand corrected.”
He laughed then. “You thought I was interested in you?” His words stung deeper than Mercy was willing to admit, even to herself.
She shifted uncomfortably and found it difficult to look in his direction.
“It was an honest mistake,” she said. “I’m sure it’s something you and your wife may laugh about one day.”
“Oh yes, of course. As if such a misunderstanding could ever be appropriate to bring up in a conversation with my wife.”
From the corner of her eyes she could see he was still smiling at the audacity of her suggestion.
“Your marriage is one of those then, I see,” she said quietly.
“What do you do mean, one of those?”
“A marriage formed as a business transaction. Or a marriage of survival.” Mercy sighed at the look of doubt on Jeremiah’s features. “Women often marry for one of two things; money or the promise of children. Men will marry because of lust or a sense of obligation, to act as saviour, if you will allow me to use such a term. Neither scenario makes a happy marriage. Not without a true and actual bond of friendship. If I were married, I’d tell my husband everything.”
Jeremiah huffed. “Is that what happened to your husband then? You talked him into an early grave?”
Mercy’s eyes narrowed. “You believe I was once married.” It was Mercy’s turn at amusement.
Jeremiah’s features betrayed his discomfort.
Her circumstances as an unwed mother often presented three likely scenarios. Mercy was either a widow or she had acted indecently or an act of indecency had been acted upon her. Mercy watched, silently imagining Jeremiah’s mind running through all three.
“Edith was conceived out of wedlock, Detective Walker. Her father does not even know she exists, not that he could marry me if he did. As you can deduce by the hue of my daughter’s skin, such a marriage would have been outside the law, a law I am sure you are familiar with given your chosen profession.” She paused, allowing her confession to sink in, knowing it would irrevocably change his perception of her.
Mercy was used to such judgments. Years ago she would have been affected deeply by the forthcoming rejection but over the years she had become so accustomed to it, she hardly noticed anymore. After their work that day she knew she’d not see him again, even if she did prove helpful with his case. Her presence, and the very knowledge that she had been complacent in a sexual relationship with a black man many years ago, was enough to segregate her from all good society for the rest of her days. Not that she missed it. Society. What good had society ever brought to her? She couldn’t say the same for Detective Walker, though. There was a part of her that would miss his company, even if he did vex her at times. She saw the look of confusion on his face and decided to end his torment.
“Perhaps you thought I was the victim of some nefarious encounter,” she said.
Jeremiah shook his head noncommittally but said nothing.
“I’m sure you saw my daughter and thought a dastardly deed had transpired and that I, benevolent and kind, had performed my duty as a daughter of God and decided to raise that child instead of giving her up like any other defiled young woman would have done. I apologize if I have irrevocably altered your good opinion of me. I was not defiled. I am not a victim of anything. And neither is Edith. She and I are a family, Detective, a family. And, in my mind at least, it does not matter how it all came about.”
Chapter 23
They disembarked from the carriage at Lombard Road and entered the city morgue from one of the side doors. Mercy allowed Detective Walker to lead her down a narrow passage at the back of the building, sliding past a laundress with her arms laden with soiled sheets. At the top of a set of dark stairs, Walker stopped and indicated with a quick jerk of his head that she should follow.
Mercy gingerly followed him into the gloom, unsure what awaited them at the bottom. With each step a smell greeted her nostrils until it finally engulfed her, forcing her to put a gloved hand up to her nose. She tried not to breathe too deeply as she followed him down the hall and through a doorway.
The room was large but housed only a handful of bodies laid out on wheeled stretchers. Mercy was grateful for the thin sheets that covered them. It made it easy for her to follow the detective, ignoring the slight hum that emanated from the bodies as they passed. The sensation, the charge sent out into the atmosphere, called to Mercy with every step. Their lives recently lost. Their stories dying to be told.
A snicker escaped Mercy at her own thought. Walker turned at the sound but said nothing, probably believing it was the smell that overwhelmed her. He had no inkling how such a room electrified her senses and sent her mind reeling.
They came to a stop at one stretcher set apart from the rest. With enough room surrounding it, Walker and Mercy spread apart. Walker encircled the covered body while Mercy lingered at one side, finally lowering her hand from her nose.
“This is the girl,” he said, clearing his throat.
Mercy nodded and watched as Walker folded down the top of the sheet stopping at her shoulders.
A flash of familiarity washed over Mercy. She knew the girl from somewhere but could not place it. Walker must have seen her hesitation.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The memory of what had happened to her the day before had been ever present in her mind sin
ce. Despite the tickling sensation at the end of her fingertips, the ones that begged for her to reach under the sheet, Mercy could not shake the fear that this time her reaction could be even worse. She was in no hurry to live another woman’s death, especially one so vile and horrid. The reason why she was in the morgue alongside Walker was rooted in the woman herself. She did not deserve such an end, a life snuffed so short. Old people die. Babies die. But not perfectly healthy women. Answers were needed and Mercy was the only one able to get to the heart of them.
“I’m just going to have to do it afraid,” she said, reaching her hand forward.
Walker touched her arm. Mercy recoil in fright. She had not realized he had moved to her side of the stretcher. “You don’t have to,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “We can find out things by other means. That’s my job.”
Mercy looked away in an effort to break the magnetism she felt for him, the magnetism that she now knew was forbidden. “But this way is much faster,” she said.
In truth, she wanted out of there. She wanted to be away from him. She wanted to perform her task and be done with it.
The woman’s hand was cold but Mercy was only aware of the temperature for a second before a flash of light barrelled toward her.
Loneliness crashed over Mercy like a rogue wave on the bow of a ship. A loneliness that morphed into fear as a picture came into focus. Walking down a crowded street. Mud caked to the undersides of her boots and the hem of her thin dress. She could feel the weight of it pressing her down. Her hands trembled from the cold. There were voices all around her, angry, harried Irish-sounding voices, but no one spoke to her. She was jostled from one opening in the throng to the next, pushed aside. Left and right. Away. Always away.
A feeling of seasickness washed over her, so strong Mercy could taste the bile in her mouth. And then it was gone. She was in Toronto, a large awkward basket in her arms. She struggled to carry it and hurried to catch up with a woman walking hurriedly in front of her.
“Move it, girl!” the woman yelled over her shoulder. “You’ll lose yer place if you don’t learn to get a move on.”
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