The Gilded Hour (77 page)

“You’re the only one who escaped Staten Island without a head cold,” she told him. “The girls are confined to their beds for the day, and none too happy about it.”

“How does Rosa seem to you?” he asked.

Elise lifted a shoulder. “Some of the fight has gone out of her. It makes life easier but it’s sad too, to see such resignation in a little girl.”

“I’m wondering if she’s relieved. Not that she’d admit to it, or even recognize it,” he said. “But she did something astounding, almost unheard of. Even if the end result was not what we hoped for, she should be proud of herself.”

“She should,” Elise agreed. “But she can’t, right now. She needs time. Did you realize that Anna has been confined to bed, too? Mrs. Cabot has got her boxed in.”

“No escape attempts?”

“Not yet, but you’d better hurry.”

•   •   •

H
E
TOOK
OFF
his shoes and went upstairs in his stocking feet, meaning to be thoughtful but hoping to fail, in a small way. And Anna didn’t disappoint, calling out as soon as he reached the upstairs hall.

“Mezzanotte.” Her voice cracked and wobbled. “Stop tiptoeing around and come in here.”

At the foot of the bed he took stock.

“You’re losing your voice and that means for once I have the advantage. I might even win an argument.”

Her expression softened, and then she laughed, a soundless huffing.

“Sleep,” he said. “We can talk later.”

“I’ve been sleeping most of the day. Sit down and tell me about your meeting this morning.”

She stared at him until he gave in with a sigh and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Not so close.” She pointed to the chairs by the hearth. “Sit over there.”

He dragged the chair closer to the bed, obeying and not obeying. Sitting down, he remembered the tin in his pocket and retrieved it.

“What’s that?”

“Nicholas Lambert gave it to me for you, for your hands. For dermatitis.”

“Why would you be talking to Nicholas Lambert about my dermatitis? And when was this?”

“Earlier today. Because he was talking about his own, and so I mentioned it.”

She curled her fingers in a hand-it-over gesture, but he shook his head. “It can wait until you’re feeling better.”

“Don’t coddle me. Tell me about this meeting with Lambert. What did you need to talk to him about? Oh, wait. It’s about the Campbell case, isn’t it. Is it?”

So he told her.

•   •   •

A
T
FIRST
IT
seemed she hadn’t understood him, but the color rose in her cheeks as if she had been slapped or insulted. Which, Jack supposed, she had been.

“Seven or eight women.” She shook her head. “All like Janine Campbell. How are they similar?”

He gave her what she needed: described the overlapping circumstances, age and marital status, social standing, childbearing history, autopsy findings.

“He won’t have to redo the Campbell or Liljeström postmortems, but the others he’ll start with tomorrow. They’ve already started on the exhumations.”

Anna leaned back against the pillows. “I can’t grasp this. I can’t believe something like this is really happening. Somewhere nearby there’s a doctor or midwife or—I don’t even know what to call such a person—who kills women because they don’t want to have children.”

“More children,” Jack said. “All of them already had children.”

“That’s even worse, in some ways. A woman who wants to be finished with childbearing has no right to live.” Her voice cracked.

He picked up a cup, half full, and handed it to her. For once she drank without wrinkling her nose. Then she let him smooth the sheets and adjust the blankets. All the time he wondered if he should mention Neill Graham, when he had so little concrete to offer.

Something in Graham’s tone of voice, the way he turned his head, the curve of his mouth, the connections he made between
whore
and
woman
and
filth
. There was something very wrong with the man, but he would have to keep that to himself for a while longer, until he had more concrete
evidence to offer this woman who was a scientist before she was anything else at all.

He sat with her while she drifted off to sleep. He was about to get up when she roused.

“If Janine Campbell was the first, that would mean that there was one victim a week for eight weeks. Did they all happen on the same day of the week?”

Even in the middle of this god-awful case, she made him smile. “Did you think like a copper before I married you, or has that rubbed off?”

There was something almost shy about her smile, as if she wasn’t sure this was a compliment, and if it was, whether she had earned it. But she waited for him to answer.

“We’ll be more able to answer that question once Lambert is finished with the postmortems.” And then he said, “Oscar thinks Lambert likes you. I think he’s probably right.”

Now her smile shifted to plain disbelief. “Don’t be silly. He doesn’t know me.”

“Maybe he knows you better than you imagine.”

“Oh, I see,” Anna said, blinking sleepily. “This is that argument you think you can win because I’m losing my voice. And you know what, I’ll let you have this little victory. As wrong as you are.”

W
ITHOUT
REAL
WORK
to do, unable to read because of a headache, awash in honey and lemon tea, Anna’s mind kept running off to Staten Island. Certain pictures came to mind and wouldn’t be banished: the priest’s smug expression, satisfied because he had managed to keep the children apart; the way Rosa had stood looking out at the sea, her shoulders rounded in surrender; Lia’s wet face and the small hiccups she couldn’t control. Their brother was truly gone and out of reach. Rosa had failed to do that one thing her mother had asked of her; they had no hope of finding Vittorio, and still not even a hint about Tonino.

And Jack, standing there in the middle of the half-built orphan asylum.

In theory Anna understood that he was capable of violence, and committed violence in the course of his every day. She knew too that he was capable of controlling his temper, but she saw what it cost him to keep his anger in check.

When they drove away from Mount Loretto, McKinnawae was standing just where they left him, his wrists crossed at the small of his back, his expression blank. Sometime, not today, she would ask Jack what he had said to the priest. When she was sure she wanted to know.

When she wasn’t thinking about Staten Island, it was the story she had told the girls on Sunday morning that plagued her. Now that she had opened that door, it wouldn’t be closed again so easily. During the day she drifted in and out of memories distorted by time and sorrow. She wondered now if her memory was faulty or if she had managed to really tell the story, to be factual and even blunt. She somehow managed to tell the truth, but not the whole truth.

With Jack she would have to say out loud those things she had kept locked up inside herself for more than twenty years. The terrible things she
had never spoken aloud, not to her aunt, or Sophie, or even with much clarity or precision, to herself.

•   •   •

M
RS
. C
ABOT
FED
Anna broth, soft-boiled eggs, tea and toast. When she wasn’t bringing something to eat or refilling Anna’s teacup, she was at hand with compresses. The smell of camphor oil on warmed flannel was comforting and effective both, wrapped around her throat. She sweated through the bedclothes and sheets and then sat by watching as Mrs. Cabot changed it all so that she could go back to sleep in a cool, sweet-smelling cocoon.

All day while Anna was being pampered, Jack slept on a narrow bed in a room down the hall. When she woke in the later afternoon, she forgot for a moment why she was in bed in the light of day, alone. Then she swallowed and the ache in her throat—much better already—reminded her.

Jack was gone again, back to Mulberry Street to work on the Campbell case. On Thursday she would go back to her own patients and students, to staff meetings and consultations. She glanced at the stack of journals waiting to be read, turned over, and went back to sleep. To dream about the family she had lost, and the one she might make, with Jack.

W
HEN
J
ACK
CAME
home at six on Tuesday morning he found a note on the banister where he could not possibly miss it:
Don’t you dare go to sleep until you come talk to me.

He went up the stairs at a trot, half expecting her to be asleep and wondering if waking her would make her more or less cranky. The simple truth was, he wanted some time with his wife, whatever her mood. The door stood open and showed him Anna sitting up in bed, reading. She hadn’t heard him and so he stopped to watch her for a moment.

She had tied her hair back and out of her face with a wide silk ribbon not equal to the task of subduing the riot of waves and curls. While she read—a medical journal, of course—she wound a finger through a long loose curl, tugging. There was noise from the street and the flutter of the curtains in a fitful breeze, but all her attention was on her reading. If he could paint, Jack thought, this was the painting he would want: Anna in sunlight, reading.

During the day sometimes the memory of her came to him as unanticipated as a flash of lightning: Anna underneath him, shoulders thrown back, throat arched, her gaze fixed on his as he inched her closer and closer to letting go. It had never really been clear to him before Anna, but he understood now what an act of trust it was, what a gift she gave him when she surrendered. Now the simple sight of her made him forget the weariness etched into his bones. He shook himself out of his daydream, and she looked up.

“There you are. Come talk to me.”

The ribbon in her hair was a deep copper color that somehow brought out the green in her hazel eyes. He would tell her so; he wanted to tell her so, but she would fluster and turn away.

He said, “You’re better.”

“Almost.”

“You don’t sound so much like a seventy-year-old cigar fiend.”

First one dimple, then the other. “What a lovely image.”

He laughed and sat down on the opposite side of the bed, canted to face her.

“I think I’ll be able to go back to work on Thursday,” she said. “That leaves two days, and I promise you, I’ll go crazy if I have to stay in this bed the whole time.”

She picked up a teacup from the bedside table, wrinkling her nose at the taste. “I’ve never understood the concept of laziness. Doing nothing all day is torture.”

He said, “Maybe this will help,” and put a folder on the bed, a little grubby on the edges, Oscar’s handwriting scrambling over the surface like ants. “I thought you might want to see what Lambert came up with. I brought copies of the Liljeström and Campbell reports and the three he finished last night. He hopes to get the last three done by tomorrow morning.”

The smile she gave him took his breath away. He wondered what else would make her smile like that. Diamonds? A trip to London? A hospital of her own?

“Anna.”

She looked up at him.

“What do you like to do for fun?”

Confusion flashed across her face. “What do you mean, for fun?”

And there, exactly, was the heart of the matter. Anna’s heart.

He said, “When you have an hour or a day to yourself and no deadlines and no place to be, when you can please yourself. What do you do?” And then: “This isn’t an exam. There’s no right answer.”

“But there’s always something that needs to be done.”

“This is a hypothetical question. All work done, everything sorted, people looked after, no deadlines. A day free. What would you like to do with that time? What would make you happy?”

“I’m not sure I like this hypothetical question. Is there a trick in it somewhere?”

He leaned over and kissed her forehead, damp and cool. “No. Never mind, it was just a theory I was testing.”

She was frowning at him, but he could almost see her attention drifting back to the folder in her hands. He had his answer: for fun, Anna liked to think about medicine. She liked many other things: coffee and high places, little girls laughing, flower gardens and the sea, but fun was a difficult concept. The stories she told about Sophie and Cap when they were children made him think she once had been able to be spontaneous, but somewhere along the way she had forgotten what it felt like to simply enjoy herself. Outside their bed, at least, she didn’t seem to understand the concept.

She was reading the first report and had forgotten that he was standing there.

He tried to catch the yawn that overwhelmed him, and failed. Instead he got up and began to strip. Jacket, tie, collar. With one hand he started unbuttoning his shirt while with the other he dropped a suspender over a shoulder. Then he saw the look on her face. Astonishment, maybe. Amusement tinged with irritation.

“What?”

“Mezzanotte. You’re standing in front of the windows. Open windows, curtains drawn back.”

He waited, raised a brow.

“What would you say if I stood in the windows and stripped for the whole neighborhood to stare at? You’d be shocked, wouldn’t you?”

“
Surprised
is more the word that comes to mind. Um, maybe also a little . . . engaged.”

Her jaw dropped open and then closed with a click. “Don’t change the subject. Explain to me this compulsion you have about walking naked around the house.”

He draped his trousers over a chair back and came to sit on the bed, his legs stretched out before him and his hands folded over his middle.

“You know, Savard, for a credentialed doctor and surgeon you can be very prudish.”

She bristled, which was what he was after. And then she surprised him.

“Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want to share you?”

He let out a bark of a laugh and she poked him with one finger, hard.

“In some parts of the world women wear dark veils every day, regardless of the weather,” she told him. “Because their husbands don’t want
other men looking at them or coveting them. It could work the other way around, too. In theory.”

He ran a finger from her throat to the first button of her chemise, and she shivered.

“How do you know about the habits of veiled women in other parts of the world?”

She sighed in mock irritation and put the folder aside. Jack was quite pleased with her about this, but he didn’t let it show.

“You still don’t understand what kind of place the New Amsterdam is. Poor women come in all colors and shapes and fashions. I’ve treated women from places you’ve never heard of.”

“You think?” He made a rake of his fingers and slid them through a strand of her hair. “I was always good at geography. Try me.”

“Wait.” She jumped up and ran down the hall to a room still filled with unpacked boxes. Because she was wearing a chemise and nothing else, he quite enjoyed this small interruption. She came back at a more measured pace, with a very large book in her arms. “My atlas. This way we can check each other.” She dropped it on his lap.

“Careful,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “You are gambling with our progeny.”

She climbed up on the bed and sat back on her heels, her hands folded in front of herself. “I had a patient from Abyssinia last year.”

There was something compelling about Anna in a mood like this, absolutely determined to win a battle of wits. He’d draw it out as long as he could.

“If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “Abyssinia borders on the Mediterranean Sea in the north and the Red Sea in the south. The Nile runs the whole length of it. You’ve got to do better than that to trip me up, Savard. I was always good at geography.”

“And languages.”

“That too.” What he wanted to do was to get rid of the atlas she had taken back to hold in front of her like a warrior queen’s shield and then tumble her, cold or no cold.

He said, “Does it have to be a country?”

“As opposed to what?” she wanted to know. “Continents?”

He shrugged. “States. Counties, shires. Provinces. Cities.”

“Suit yourself. But stay within the realm of fair play.”

“But first you go on until I miss one.”

“Fine,” she said, composing her expression. “Basutoland.”

“Africa,” Jack said. “If I had to guess, the far south, one of the British colonies probably. I’ll guess near the Cape Colony.”

She put on her most disinterested expression, tilted her head to one side.

“Khiva.”

“Spell it.”

“K-H-I-V-A.”

“You had a patient from Khiva?”

“I’m setting the questions, Mezzanotte. Answer, or admit defeat.”

“Don’t know.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I think you do.”

That made him really laugh. “Why would I lie?”

“To stop the game. But you’ve missed a question and it’s your turn to ask me.”

He tugged on a strand of her hair. “If you insist. Brunei. Spelled B-R-U-N-E-I.”

“
Ei
is the word for egg in German.”

“That’s your answer? Brunei is a—state or principality in Germany?”

“Not an answer. It was a guess.”

“I’m feeling magnanimous. One more try.”

She tapped her forehead with one knuckle. “Wait. It’s coming to me. Brunei is a Swiss canton on the Austrian border.”

He wrestled the book out of her hands and dropped it over the side of the bed, which made her squawk.

“That’s a valuable atlas.”

“I’ve got a bigger one. Lift up.” He tugged at the hem of her chemise, caught beneath her knees.

She slapped his hands away. “No.”

“No? Why not?”

“I need a reason?”

“I’ll give you a reason,” he said, tugging harder. “I’m rewarding you for that stunning example of a bluff. There’s no Swiss canton called Brunei. Now are you going to lift up?”

“No.” She was trying not to laugh.

“Well, then.” He shrugged. “I’ll have to peel you like a banana.”

She didn’t try very hard to stop him and the buttons were no challenge at all. The thin muslin slid off her shoulders and down her arms to stop at her elbows. With her breasts looking at him cheerfully Jack said, “I’ve got an idea for a different kind of geography quiz. And this one I’m pretty sure you’ll win.”

•   •   •

“T
ELL
ME
,” A
NNA
said a half hour later, still trying to catch her breath. “Do people just stop doing this when the real heat starts next month?”

She felt him smiling, but he rolled to one side so the breeze from the window could wash over her. “Is that better?”

“I wasn’t complaining. Do people stop in hot weather?”

He said, “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the bathtub.”

Anna giggled, and was surprised at herself for it.

Jack lifted his head to peek at her, gave a low sound of satisfaction, and dropped it again.

“So,” he said. “You were telling me about men covering up women to ward off the interest of other men. You want me to wear a veil and robes?”

Anna took a journal from under her pillow and began to flap it like a fan. “I’m considering it.” And then: “You know the strangest thing about being married?”

He lifted his head again, one brow raised.

“The playfulness. I never anticipated that, and now it makes me sad to think I might have gone my whole life without it. Did you expect it to be like this?”

“I hoped, is the way I’d put it.”

“But how did you know to hope for it?”

“My parents,” he said. “They are affectionate with each other, and my brothers have that too, with their wives. Each in his own way.” He thought for a moment. “Some more successfully than others.”

“Is that an Italian thing, do you think?”

He wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow. “I couldn’t claim that. You remember Giacalone the tailor.”

“Now that you remind me. ‘Why did you kill your wife?’ in Sicilian.”

He grinned at her. “We are an emotional people, in all directions.”

“From the stories I think my parents were affectionate,” Anna said. She was quiet, but he could hear her thoughts spinning, and he understood.

“I have an idea.”

“Not another geography quiz.”

“Not right now. I’m wondering why you don’t write down what you want to tell me that you’re having such a hard time talking about.”

Her surprise was genuine, and it struck him again how intelligent people could be robbed of all ability to think rationally when it came to matters of the heart.

“I can try,” she said. She sat up. “Maybe today when I’m done reading the reports. You need to sleep now.”

She tried to roll out of bed, but he stopped her.

“Stay with me ten minutes,” he said.

With the light breeze from the window shifting over their damp skin, every nerve in his body still vibrating, he put his face to her scalp to draw in her scent, and fell asleep.

•   •   •

A
NNA
BEGAN
TO
drift off too, but five minutes later she sat straight up in bed with her hands pressed to her mouth.

“What?” Jack sat up too. “What?”

Her eyes were very round.

“Anna,” he said firmly. “What is it? A nightmare?”

“My cervical cap,” she said. “I completely forgot my cervical cap.”

Her eyes raced back and forth as if she were searching for something. Then she drew a deep breath and held it for three heartbeats.