Chapter Ninety-Three: Moonlight

  
I grasped the rusted latch and pushed gently. The door did not give. I pushed harder but it still did not budge. Finally, I drove my shoulder into the door and shoved hard, wincing as the warped wood scraped across the rough hewn floor. 

Oh, God!

I froze, heart pounding. Standing still in the dark, I did not dare to even breath. I listened carefully for any movement from inside.

No stirring, only the faint sound of snoring, punctuated now and then by a snort.

My courage returned. 

I must be fast. In and out.

The door was cracked open just enough now to allow me to slip inside and so I did.

Red coals burned in the fire grate, illuminating a shadowy path across the room. Mr. Greer’s thinning hair was visible combed over a balding head as it peeked up over the back of his worn chair. He was the source of the snoring. There was no sign of his wife.

I had practiced walking soundlessly in my shoes for hours. Step. Feel for loose floorboards. Step. Feel again. I made my way carefully across the room behind him.

There were two doors off of this room. I picked the one on the right, the one Anne had been carried off through when I had visited before.

There were six infants in boxes lining the floor and there were four more toddlers sleeping fitfully on mats. 

Now it was clear what was not said before. This was a baby farm. The bare room smelled sour, of vomit and feces. I shuddered.

Quickly, I located Anne in one of the boxes and picked her up, threadbare blankets and all. She felt lighter, even after all this time. She opened her eyes for a moment when she saw me, smiled faintly, then drifted back to sleep. Another child whimpered in the corner, stirring. I slipped out of the room, making my way quickly out of the door. 

As I left, pulling the door shut, I could hear a wailing cry start up. I turned and ran as hard as I could across the yard.

Maybe she would not be missed?

I knew that was impossible. I ran harder, through the gate. My fleeing steps jolted Anne awake but she kept silent. I could see in the moonlight that her eyes were sunken and glazed over. She was listless and malnourished. No wonder she was so quiet. 

Feed them as little food as possible, pocket the money you save…

Those other children were starving, too. A sob caught in my chest. 

You cannot save them all.

I knew there was a carriage waiting for me at the end of the lane. The night was chill but sweat still stung my eyes as I ran toward the soft sound of nickering horses. Their black outline took shape as the moon moved out from behind a cloud again. A dark, shadowy form rose up as I neared, opening the door, strong hands helped me inside. 

I held Anne close against my chest as the carriage lurched forward. 

Safe.

For now.

Chapter Ninety-Two: Brewing

The warm bitterness of the coffee matched my mood. I took it black now. Black like the darkness looming outside, ominous and harsh. I had missed it terribly. Tea had always seemed weak and patronizing, even more so now that the world had shifted.

I sat down the cup on the small lace covered table beside me. My hands shook a fair bit and there was a slight rattle as the cup came to rest again on the saucer.

A letter lay on my lap. It had arrived the day before, forwarded to the boarding house that was my home for the time being.

I smoothed out the paper again and stared at the flowering script, letting the effect of the coffee and the words wash over me.

The instructions were detailed. I was to meet Mrs. Brierly at the New Calton burial ground in Edinburgh in a fortnight exactly at sunrise. There was an arched gravestone in the far northeast corner where she would be waiting. Bring no one. Tell no one. Wear black, full mourning, complete with veil.

My mind raced.

I would have to wait to purchase the clothing as I got closer to Edinburgh. There was no way to do that here without arousing suspicion. I was too well known. The train tickets to Scotland. Should I purchase early to guarantee passage? Or wait until the last minute to minimize the risk of being found out?

And Anne. 

There was the matter of Anne that must be addressed.

Timing was key. I would not be able to take her with me, at least not yet, but I also could not leave her here in that awful place with the Greers.

I had gone there, begging to see my daughter. The farmhouse was in frightening condition. The red faced woman, rotund woman who answered the door looked puzzled until it dawned on her who I was. I caught a glimpse of Anne being dragged to a back room before the door was slammed shut. There was recognition in her sad eyes. I could hear her screams for me from the other side of the warped wood. Shouting. A slap. Silence.

How could one feel this much hate and not be consumed by it?

No. She would not stay there much longer. I would see just how much love was willing to compromise and sacrifice for the sake of love.

Chapter Eighty-Four: Shadowed

Make love to me first with words.

He had done that, and then some. I had stacks of his letters in my dresser drawer, written since I had asked him to give me words. I would take them out and reread them each night by lamplight. 

Sometimes certain phrases or even the simple curve of a letter would send my fingertips tingling. 

I looked down at the hand holding mine, the fingers that had written those powerful words of apology and devotion. There was a charge there that raced from his hand to my fingerstips to my lower spine. I had almost forgotten how intoxicating that sensation was.

He leaned forward tentatively. 

I closed my eyes in anticipation, awaiting the feel of his rough beard against my face. I could smell his soap.

Just as his lips touched mine for the first time, there was a cry from Anne in the other room. Not her sleepy whimpering wake up cry. It was a full on, angry sob as if she knew that I was betraying her father’s memory at that very instant. He kissed in earnest until it was clear that she would not settle down.

He moved away, amusement playing on his lips. A half smile hung suspended there.

“I will get her,” I sighed. 

“No, I will go.” He applied gentle pressure to my shoulder indicating I was to sit down and wait for his return. 

I eased myself down onto the sofa and folded my hands onto my lap to wait.

He knew nothing of changing diapers or feeding or soothing a child. It would not be long.

As expected. Anne would have nothing of it, of this man. The wailing creacendoed as she refused to calm down. 

Two minutes later he returned with a red faced, tear stained Anne who turned silent as soon as she saw me. 

He placed her on my lap, apologetically.

“It’s alright. Shhhhh,” I murmured.

I held her close. She rested her warm, damp head on my shoulder, fuzzy hair tickling my chin. A quiet hiccup, then a contented sigh as she drifted off to sleep again.

“I will go,” he whispered. He bent down and kissed my forehead, then the top of Anne’s head. “Until next week…”

I watched him grab his hat and let himself out.

Tonight I would not need his words. My lips felt raw from his earlier kiss. Love lingered there.

Chapter Seventy-Five: Red

“That will be two pounds, six pence.” The shopkeeper glared at me as she stood expectantly, arms folded across her chest. Her index finger tapped out a message of annoyance on her forearm.

Counting out money one handed with a child on your hip was an arduous task and it seemed to take forever. Rather than assisting me, the woman continued to stare, boring holes of hate into my forehead. She sighed loudly, clearly wanting to communicate her displeasure further. 

My fingers fumbled self-consciously. 

At last I handed her the required change and she set about wrapping the purchases. She was deliberate, taking her time as Ann squirmed impatiently in my arms, reaching for the canisters of bright candies that lined the far side of the counter.

“How do you even know what those are, baby girl?” I whispered into her ear. “Maybe they are poison. You never know about pretty things…”

Eventually the woman was done and she unceremoniously shoved the parcels across the wooden countertop. She turned her back to me, pretending to rearrange the bars of soap that already rested in orderly and pristine rows on the shelves behind us. 

I gathered the brown paper wrapped bundles and placed them into a large brown fabric sack I had brought from home. The cook had sewed it some months ago and had used it for this purpose. Thankfully, she had left it behind…

Anne sneezed as she always did from the bright sunlight as we stepped out of the dim shop and into the street. We started the journey back home.

After several blocks I caught a glimpse of the back of a deep scarlet dress as the wearer rounded a corner. I picked up my pace. I had recognized it.

The beautiful woman in red.

Dreams.

My dreams. 

What were dreams anyway? Ephemeral taunts from on high; gauzy, misty things impossible to grasp.

But I had just seen her. 

Here.

Back home in New England dreaming of a beautiful woman dressed in red meant a move. But here now, across the world, was the meaning the same?

I knew that I needed to speak to her. Somehow I knew the key to my happiness lay with her.

The corner loomed just ahead. I picked up my pace, the bag slapping hard against the crinoline with each step. I quickly dodged around a man in a grey waistcoat to make the turn, breathless. Anne laughed with the sudden evasive movement. She enjoyed this game of pursuit.

There she was.

Her back was to me. She was across the street, listening intently to the Reverend Drummond. Curls of dark hair peeked from beneath a matching bonnet decorated with velvet and wine colored roses.

He looked up at the sound of Anne’s happy gurgling. 

My heart stopped beating.

The man paused in mid sentence as our eyes locked across the cobblestones for a split second.

A choice.

I could turn and walk obviously away sending a message of disdain or keep going forward as if none of this chance meeting mattered to me at all.

Forward. Always keep going forward…

A carriage rattled by. I shifted Anne to the other hip and kept walking, one foot in front of the other. I wanted to turn and look over my shoulder, to catch a glimpse of the woman’s face, but that would be too obvious. I resisted.

I made a long loop around the neighborhood, moving deliberately as if I knew exactly where I was going and why. My arms felt like rubber from Anne’s weight as what had started out as a quick trip to the grocers had turned into quite the journey. Eventually I ended up back in my own neighborhood. As I closed the gate and walked through the small garden to the house with the bag of goods on my arm, I found myself stopping short again.

She was sitting there on the steps at the front door, clearly waiting for me.

She stood, smoothing the red silk of her dress absently.

I was haunted in so many ways. Every smile from Anne’s face was his. I had wrongly believed that it would only be a joy having some small piece of him here with me. A miscalculation to be sure. I loved her dearly but I was tortured by her at the same time. Guilt. Shame. I carried all of these with me every day.

The woman on the porch smiled at me. 

It was Anne’s smile. 

His smile. 

“Who are you?” I asked.

Chapter Seventy-One: A Pox Upon You

The waiting room was cold. I shivered, pulling the wrap around me tighter.

Anne played with her fingers in her mouth. I pulled the blanket over her better in case she was also catching a draft. She looked up at my face and giggled.

Was I truly cold or was the shaking merely nerves?

The day before I had run into Reverend Drummond again outside the meat market. He nodded, touching the brim of his hat as he passed. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside. At first his eyes registered shock that I had touched him.

“So sorry,” I mumbled. “Why didn’t you tell me that I needed to vaccinate and register?”

“I assumed you already knew.” I could tell that was a lie, his fingers tapped across his lips. A clergyman lying. I wanted to laugh. He paused for a moment, as if weighing whether or not to give voice to his remaining thoughts. Deciding to continue on, he lowered his voice. “I am not sure we should be trying to change God’s will. If God wills someone to have smallpox, who are we to try to step in and change that path? We are not God.”

Mrs. Finueil had not been helpful, either. She had lost a first husband and two children to smallpox but she did not look favorably upon the issues of vaccination.

“There is mixing of the blood of the races.” She gripped the sides of her armchair, her knuckles turning whiter than they already were. “The lymph used is mixed across races. Do you want colored blood being given to your child? It is deplorable.” She had scowled at me. “Don’t you do that to your precious baby!”

And when I had sent for two physicians to come to the house to vaccinate, they had both refused. They refused to vaccinate. Could they do that?

I shivered again.

A door opened and I looked up. A woman was ushered out, drying her eyes with a delicate lace handkerchief. She sniffled and avoided eye contact. I felt that I needed to hug her, offer a condolence of some sort. I wrestled with the urge.

It was not my place, was it?

Then she was gone. The bell at the door tinkled merrily as the door opened and closed behind her.

A throat was cleared. I turned.

The doctor was staring at me. He beckoned silently with his hand, indicating I was to follow him.

I settled myself onto a hard wooden bench in the exam room, propping the cooing Anne up against my chest.

“What brings you in today, Madame?”

Anne squirmed in my lap, drool gurgling from around her fingers. “I understand that my child is required by law to be vaccinated.”

“Ah, yes. You are a bit late on that point, aren’t you?” He looked at Anne and then smiled at me. “We can remedy that in a jiffy.”

“Wait. First, I have questions.”

“No need for questions. This is the best for the infant. You want to be a good mother, don’t you?”

He did not wait for an answer.

You don’t understand, do you? She is my everything. If I lose her, I lose myself…

He began rummaging through a drawer, gray head bent. Not finding what he was looking for, he moved on to another, and then another.

“Ah, wait. I remember.” He stood and walked over to a cabinet against the far wall. He returned with a long ivory instrument with four sharp prongs on one end and a blade on the other. There was dried blood on the prongs.

“Just hold her bare arm out straight for me.” He sat down on a stool opposite me and held up the instrument.

“Shouldn’t that be cleaned?”

He looked down at it, puzzled. “Oh, no. That is the lymph we will be using on him.”

“Her.”

“Her. I beg your pardon.” He reached for her hand and pulled it from her mouth, shoving the sleeve of her little gown up high, exposing a bare forearm. She tried to pull it back but he held tight. She looked up at me, startled.

“This will just take a second.”

I watched in horror as he drew X’s on her arm, the blood welling up and then smeared as he rubbed it in. Ann’s screams of pain and terror were deafening and tears streamed down her face. The doctor tied a bit of cotton bandage to her arm and instructed me to not disturb it for a few days.

“She’ll be fine. It doesn’t really hurt all that much.” He patted her on the head and let out a great belly laugh. “You will have to bring her back so that I can measure the pustule. If it is not big enough we will have to repeat the inoculation before I can give you the required certificate.”

I tried to console her by rocking my body back and forth gently, her snotty face pressed against my chest as I fought back the urge to slap the man before me.

How dare he treat this in such a cold, calloused manner!

We were ushered out through the waiting room as I fought back tears myself.

Another woman sat on a chair with her son, a boy of about five years of age, sitting on her lap. His feverish eyes were wide as they followed the wailing baby in my arms out the door. He was no doubt terrified of what horrors lurked in that place.

As the door jingled closed I could hear a wet cough that clearly belonged to the boy. I prayed silently that he would recover.

Chapter Sixty-Two: Stealing Away

The train lurched to a stop at the Bristol station, the brakes giving their customary screech in protest. It woke me up from the semi-trancelike state that I had been in for the past half hour. I looked out the window at the pillars that held up the roof of the station overhead, my face close enough to the glass that it quickly fogged up, obscuring my view.

“…and so I told him to just leave it to me…” Her lips did not stop moving, even for a breath it seemed.

The middle aged woman sitting before me had not stopped talking since we had left Paddington station. Her hands had remained folded in the lap of deep burgundy traveling dress. This had been disconcerting. Someone who talked that much and with that degree of animation, typically used their hands. I had stared at her, trying not to seem rude, but I had been irritated that I could not think my own thoughts. Fortunately she had not required much beyond the occasional nod or gasp to feel I was engaged.

Excusing myself, I stood to stretch my legs, stepping onto the platform to walk a bit before continuing the journey to Cardiff, in Wales. I could still hear the woman talking to herself behind me on the train car.

I glanced around quickly, looking for recognition on any nearby faces. Fear gripped me, momentarily as I surveyed the crowd.

I was aware of the life growing inside of me, the fullness there. My precious gift. Only I knew the secret that I carried with me.

At any moment, it could be gone, this second chance. Miscarriage. Malformation. Still birth.

My sweet baby Levi.

This could be the same. Please do not let this one be the same. I remembered Levi’s cleft lips searching for something to eat, his intestines peristalsing in my hands outside of his little body. He had wanted to live but he had not been given a chance. All I could do was helplessly love him.

I wanted to pray, to beg, but I was not sure I had the right to make such requests of God at this point… even if I wanted to so desperately. Would God hear me? Would God care? Did he understand my loneliness and my sadness?

Only time would tell.

I wore the brooch with Nathaniel’s hair and words every day. It was almost a superstition now, a belief that this, and somehow he, would somehow protect me and protect the baby I carried. The piece had turned out beautifully. The jeweler had produced quality work, true to his word.

A stranger, a man, nodded at me as I passed. No one else minded me as I walked up and down the covered platform. I recognized no one and so relaxed somewhat, deliberately slowing my pace.

I had selected Cardiff due to its rapid growth. With so much flux in the population, there would be little attention paid to me, I hoped. I would tell everyone that my husband had died of typhus after returning from the war, thus explaining the pregnancy and my loneliness. Once I had delivered, I would move on elsewhere, and then move again, putting as much distance between me and any question of my character as I possibly could.

The enormity of everything was not lost upon me. On some level I was stealing this child. I struggled with the urge to let Nathaniel know, I did not want to do this alone, but in the end what would that accomplish? Only more heartache for everyone. How could he be expected to choose between two families? And what if he tried to take this child from me? I would be destroyed. No, this was a secret I must bear alone.

The train whistle blew, startling me… piercing my thoughts.

Sweeping the stray wisps of hair back under my bonnet, I carefully climbed back into the car and took my seat, steeling myself for the onslaught of words.

Chapter Sixty: The Color of Blackness

I resolved to stay in London for a few weeks. I took up residence in a modest but respectable hotel as I gathered my wits and continued to write the stories of the people I had met in Scutari and Balaklava.

The first real order of business was pressing.  I had to purchase new clothing as what I had brought with me from the Crimea was very worn and several seasons out of fashion. I spent money on three lovely new dresses, undergarments, and shoes only to find that as a single woman there was much curiosity. Everyone from hotel staff and shopkeepers wanted to ask me personal questions and I had much difficulty explaining my situation.

In order to make life easier, I decided to enter full mourning again. No one would hassle the grieving widow. I moved about the crowded streets unhindered, an anonymous figure cloaked and veiled in black. When William had died the clothing had seemed a prison. Hot, stifling, uncomfortable. Now, as a shadow, I was unrecognized, untouched. Eyes were averted. No one spoke to me except to quickly give me what I wanted or needed, hoping I would move one quickly before I brought bad luck or my tears or worse. It was freedom itself. The color suited my grieving, stained heart and the veil hid my deep sadness.

Nathaniel’s gift I kept with me at all times but as the paper began to show wear quickly, I realized that it needed to be better preserved. Still, to do so meant giving up my one relic, if only for a time, an act that was painful to consider even if it were temporary.

Eventually I enquired after reputable jewelers from the desk clerk at the hotel and had been directed to an establishment several blocks away that specialized in memorial pieces. I had a very specific item in mind. A gold brooch enameled in black with the word Recuerdo engraved upon the face. A reproduction of the one worn by the young lady in the painting in my rood in Edinburgh oh so long ago. Inside, behind a thick crystal, would lie the bit of his hair and the message…Victo Dolore. Thusly, he would be locked away, my secret, but I could still have him close to my heart.

“Good day, Madame,” the jeweler croaked as I entered the shop. He was a tiny, wizened old gentleman with a loupe stuck into one squinting eye. Much of his posture and appearance reminded me of a troll, but he did not seem unpleasant. He had looked up from his current project when he heard me enter.

“Good day, sir.”

“I will be with you in a moment.”

He continued tinkering away on an exquisite garnet encrusted bauble as I wandered past the display cases with their jewels reclining luxuriously on the folds of red velvet. Pearl necklaces, onyx crosses, emerald earrings, diamonds watch fobs all twinkled and shone in the late afternoon light. Each was constructed with a place to stash some memento of a departed loved one, tucked away behind glads. As I examined the pieces I began to doubt that my design was elaborate enough to serve as a fitting memorial. I began to panic a bit.

At last the jeweler cleared his throat and stood, putting down his tools. His fingers were gnarled and misshapen. How could he do such fine work with hand like this?

“How can I help you?” he asked after what seemed a lengthy period. The loupe was gone, replaced by a pair of wire rimmed spectacles.

Wordlessly, I showed him my crude sketch, smoothing out the folded paper on the countertop. He nodded, peering over the wire frames. A “Hmmmmmmm…,” escaped his lips.

He looked up at me. “I can have it ready in about two weeks time, I believe.” Glancing down at the drawing again, he was apparently lost in thought, tabulating some important variable. “Yes. That should be sufficient time. Is that acceptable?” He again looked up at me, this time quizzically. A wiry gray eyebrow was raised as a question mark.

“That soon?” I was taken aback by the speed of his answer and the promised time to have the order completed.

“Certainly.” He shrugged. “It is a simple yet elegant piece.” My heart lifted a bit at his praise. He would know beauty when he saw it, wouldn’t he?

We discussed price with some good natured haggling. Eventually we agreed on an amount. Truthfully I would have paid any price.

“Well then, that is most agreeable.” I handed over my precious bit of hair and the scrap of paper, aching as I did so, then paid him half of the agreed upon sum. “I will return in two weeks.”

He nodded acceptance of the arrangement, then returned slowly to his workbench, easing along with an arthritic shuffle. I turned to leave.

“This will not make it better, you know.”

“Pardon me?” I paused with my hand on the door handle and turned back, not sure I had heard him correctly. He was staring hard at me.

“This will not make it better,” he repeated.

“I understand,” I said, bowing my head. But I did not. And he did not. No one could understand because I could not tell them this dark black secret of mine.

He settled back to setting the showy garnets in their new golden home.

The door jingled as I closed it tight behind me, taking a deep breath.  The air inside was less polluted but had been stifling nonetheless.

I walked slowly back to the hotel. His words bothered me. I was not sure that I wanted to feel better. Somehow the pain made it feel more real and suffering seemed necessary to atone for my sin. I had enjoyed my sin, making it all the more sinful. Certainly this fellow was attempting to assuage his own guilt for capitalizing on the grief of others by offering bits of pseudo-sage advice. I would never see him again after I paid for my brooch and I was glad.

I felt lost without my treasure, ungrounded. This was silly I recognized but I was unsure how to change the fact.

I found myself wandering the streets wondering how would I fill up my days and my nights. I played through the moments with Nathaniel again, hidden behind the black veil. I hoped that the more I relived those feelings, the deeper they would be etched into my memory. I did not want to lose even a second of that precious time. The sea of people parted easily for me as I passed, no one wanting the bad luck of touching me, the widow twice over.