City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (38 page)

“If you ever gain consciousness,” she
said aloud.  “I’m going to kill you.”

“I suppose you think I’m dreadful,”
Emma said, entering with the clothes which, after a second of thought, she
dropped back on top of Tom.

“No,” Leanna said.  “I don’t know
what I think, but I know it isn’t that.  He never should have – “

“Tom was blameless.  Truly.  I
seduced him. Come on, they can’t find us here.”

They returned to the door, looked
both ways and slipped out, both going down the stairs toward the kitchen. 
Leanna was trying to figure out what the term ‘seduced’ meant.  The only thing
that made sense was that Emma was saying that she was the one who had initiated
something.  I’ll look it up later, Leanna thought.  She couldn’t admit to Emma
she had never heard the word.

“Emma,” she did say, turning into the
kitchen.  “Why are you even awake?”

Emma used both hands to lift the tea
kettle. “I stopped taking the medication yesterday.  John used the injection
needle the first two days but then he started leaving powder for me to mix in
my tea.  And I mixed a little less than he said and then a little less again.”

Leanna stared at her.  “You don’t
trust him?”

“Of course I do.  It’s just I know he
would have let me sleep forever and a woman has to wake up eventually, wouldn’t
you say?” 

There were a thousand things Leanna
wanted to ask Emma.  This odd morning, she thought, it’s made us closer friends
than we’ve ever been, but where do I begin?  Her sister, my brother, the
morphine, the Ripper, or the fact that she has done a seduce and I don’t even
know what that means?  Women have to wake up eventually but girls…girls can apparently
doze forever.  Emma was waiting, tea kettle in hand.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Leanna.  “But you should
sit down.  The strangest thing has happened in the last four days.  You won’t believe
it and you’ll take it as undeniable proof that we truly have come to the end of
one world and the start of another.”

“Really?”  Emma said, and little
hiccup slid through her lips.  “Please tell me.”

Leanna moved toward the stove.  “I’ve
learned how to fry an egg.”

8:20 AM

They were a subdued party at the
breakfast table.  It was the first time Emma had joined them for a meal in days
and both Gerry and Gage were very careful with her.  Gerry was even
whispering.   For weeks the breakfast routine had included a pile of the daily
papers but of course they were now verboten, and in their absence the
conversation lagged.   If it were not for the sounds of Emma’s fork scraping
against her plate as she ate with the slow and steady pace of a convalescent,
there would have been times when the room was completely silent.

Tom entered at some point, wrapped
tightly in his dark blue bathrobe.  If he had been surprised to awaken on the
floor, utterly naked, with his clothes tossed across his chest, his face didn’t
show it.  He smiled at Emma and Leanna and told Gage he would only take toast. 

Emma smiled back, but fleetingly, and
her gaze soon returned to her eggs.  Geraldine, who had never been able to bear
prolonged silence, began some rambling story about the newborn twins while
Leanna, glancing from her brother to Emma in what she hoped was a nonchalant
manner, struggled to evaluate the situation.  Unless Tom was a consummate
actor, which she knew he was not, he had no memory beyond passing out in front
of the fire and awakening in his own room.  And Emma was doing absolutely
nothing to jostle his recollections.  In fact, she was completely playing the
part of a woman straight from her sickbed, a patient still trying to shake off
the last effects of morphine.

He doesn’t remember, Leanna thought. 
And she doesn’t want him to.

Earlier that morning, when Leanna had
found Emma and Tom in bed together she had said that Geraldine would
understand.  And Emma of all people must have known that Leanna was right, that
Geraldine’s big heart would have expanded around the idea of Emma reaching for
Tom in a dark hour, of him tumbling into the temptation.  It had never been
Geraldine’s disapproval Emma feared, Leanna saw that now.  Emma had simply not
wanted Tom to know of their night together.

But why?  Leanna frowned down into
her tea, trying to sort it all out as Aunt Gerry droned on, Emma ate steadily,
and Tom accepted a plate of dry toast from Gage.  If she had given herself to
John Harrowman only to find that the next morning he did not remember the event,
she would have been crushed… but Emma seemed almost to have designed the
evening this way.  She is already slipping it back into some secret pocket of
her mind, Leanna thought.  She’s tucking it away to pull out and reexamine at a
later time, some evening when she’s lonely, some morning when she needs a bit
of private comfort.

It suddenly occurred to Leanna that
Emma might love Tom, that she could have loved him for months. It was a painful
thought.

So, if this was true, why would Emma
do a seduce when Tom was barely conscious?  Perhaps it was a matter of class,
just one more thing that the circumstances of her birth doomed Leanna to never
understand.  Emma was a schoolteacher’s daughter, had lived for years under the
protection of Gerry’s roof, and had most likely been, if the red smear on her
gown was true indication, a virgin.  Yet she had chosen to surrender that
virginity in a situation that would not lead to love and marriage, would not
even lead to a shared memory between herself and the man.  

Her quest for John had certainly
suffered some setbacks but at least their union was in the realm of social
possibility and Leanna couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to love a man
you knew you would never have.  Would you try to tamp down the emotion?  Scold
yourself for going outside your station?  Divert your desire onto the corner
greengrocer or some more likely target?  Or would you find a way to get at
least a little of what you craved, to pull a few tattered pieces of
satisfaction though the iron bars of the class system?  Leanna remembered once,
a Christmas back at Rosemoral, when she had looked up from the blessing at the holiday
table and seen the servants clustered in the hallway, waiting for the signal to
enter with their dishes.  They had evidently been standing with their platters
and tureens for some time, for the village parson tended to overpray,
especially whenever he found himself dining in the homes of the wealthy.  
Leanna had opened her eyes in the middle of his prayer and looked around at the
scene – the holly and red roses spilling down the center of the table, the
gleaming silver, the frosted panes, and the servants waiting in the wings,
their own heads bowed as well.  She had happened to see one of the girls – had
her name been Agnes?  Abigail?   - run her index finger swiftly along the rim
of a platter and lift it to her lips for a quick taste.  Leanna had clamped her
eyes shut quickly, as if she had been the guilty one.  It was much the same
feeling she’d had when she stumbled across Emma and Tom this morning, the sense
she was seeing something she had no right to see.  She didn’t blame the serving
girl.  There was such bounty all around her and yes, she would have access to
the remains later, after the family had spooned though the dish and eaten all
the good parts.  But who could blame her for wanting just a little taste now,
when the food was so lovely and hot and those who considered themselves better
than her were all pretending to pray?

And perhaps this was just what Emma
had done on the previous evening.  Taken a bit of something she wanted while
the family’s attentions were devoted elsewhere.  Considering it like that,
Leanna thought, it makes a kind of brutal sense.

“….two fine boys, both plump and
healthy,” Geraldine said, finishing her story with such a note of triumph you
would think she’d given birth to the twins herself.  

“When were they born?”  Tom asked.

“Friday nignt,” Leanna answered, with
a calculated glance at Emma.  She did not have to add “The night Mary was
murdered,” for Tom understood her meaning at once.

“How did the mother fare?” he asked
mildly.

“Oh, a long labor to be sure,”
Geraldine said.  “But Tess praised John Harrowman to the skies.  She said he
arrived at her daughter’s bedside at nightfall and was still there at dawn…..”

There, Tom thought triumphantly.  
Let the envious Detective Welles put that in his pipe.  John Harrowman spent
the entire evening of the Kelly murder attending the delivery of a prosperous
Mayfair matron.   And I bet there’s a way to prove that the murder weapon
wasn’t even a surgical knife.  Tom was beginning to feel a little better, with
a slow glow of energy and optimism rising in his chest.  God knows he had drunk
too much the night before, and there was no telling how he’d gotten himself
upstairs, but the toast was helping and through the windows the sun was coming
out.   It showed promise of a cold and clear day, perfect for the task at hand,
and even if he had not slept long, Tom had the sense he had slept well. 
Fragments of dreams had been coming back to him all morning.  Odd dreams, but
very pleasant.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

9:30 AM

He has decided to flatter her.  
There are few of us immune to flattery, or to the ambition hidden beneath its
husk. Even those who live in a dung heap dream of occupying a higher peak
within the heap.

And so perhaps an abortionist fancies
herself a medical practitioner, might welcome the chance to commune with a
colleague. 

He composes a note to her, taking
care with the prose.  Hoping that, as is so often the case, she can read better
than she can write.  He has been to the ironmonger, so he is prepared. 

The note says that he has studied as
a doctor, as she undoubtedly knows.  That he sees the financial possibilities
in her line of work.  That perhaps it would be better if they put aside their
differences in order to consider how they might help one another.  She has her
skills – how it pains him to write this sentence, how it gnaws at his gut – and
he has his unique social position, one which brings him into contact with all
manner of society including women who might have need of such her unique
services.  But unlike the Whitechapel wretches with their shillings and
farthings, these women are prepared to pay in pounds and sterling. 

He need go no further.  She is a
business woman, greedy to the core.  She will see the advantages of such a
union.  He tells her that he has found a first client already and suggests a
place where the three of them might meet.  The girl in question is of good
family.  In a spot of trouble, true, but not willing to show her face in the
Pony Pub.  They must meet in a more secluded place.   But the money will be
good, he assures her.  Far more than she could ever hope to get shaking the
pockets of a working man like him.     

He hopes she will believe him.  That
some combination of vanity and greed will overrun her senses.  Convince her to
drop all common sense and join league with the devil himself. 

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

9:50 AM

Smoke billowed from Rayley Abrams’
pipe as he stood on the dock and watched the other passengers walking up the
gangway to the channelboat.  The cargo was still being loaded and he hoped he
had time to get through a full bowl before he boarded the ship.   As pleased as
he was by this opportunity to study in Paris, he did not relish the idea of
crossing to France.  He had taken to sea several times in his life, but had
never enjoyed much luck with his stomach.

“We thought we might not catch you
before you boarded,” said Trevor, coming up from behind and slapping his
shoulder.  He seemed in unusually high spirits, almost as if he were taking the
trip himself.

Abrams removed his pipe.  “I still feel
as though I’m deserting you.”

“Nonsense.  You’ll be of much greater
aid to us after you have learned all you can from the French.  Ah, the ocean
air,” Trevor added, puffing out his chest.  “Nothing quite like it, is there?”

“Nothing,” Abrams said dryly.

“Calais is but three hours as the
crow flies,” Davy said, looking at the man’s pale face with sympathy.  They
were all fellows now, since the morning at Mary Kelly’s house.  Odd that
something so perverse could make men better friends, but Davy was beginning to
suspect that the grimmer the case, the greater the sense of camaraderie.

Abrams sighed, for the ship’s steward
had positioned himself at the top of the plank and given a quick blast of his
whistle for last call.  “I’d better be off.  You two catch old Jack while I’m
gone.”  Davy reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag.

“Here, Detective.  Peppermint candy
to smooth your insides.  The Channel can kick up pretty good this time of
year.”

“Thank you, Davy.  I hope I don’t
need to use them.”

“And remember to keep your mind on
the science and not the ladies. The French women are like no others,” shouted
Trevor, who had never been to Paris, as he waved at Abrams’ retreating back.