She let the curtain fall and left the room. Her missus was in the parlor, fussing with the lace chair tidies. Tomorrow, when the smell struck her, she’d send for Mr. Whitmark. He’d try to embalm the body himself and find every vessel spoiled. A sliver of remorse settled between Effie’s rib bones for the mess she was leaving him. She wished she might at least explain. But then, the currents carrying them had long since diverged. She could stand before him and scream, and still he’d not hear.
Her missus eyed Effie as she departed without any sign of recognition. But the smell tomorrow—that same smell that must have wafted from the shed for hours, days even, before Massa came home and unlocked the door—that she would never forget.
Outside, the midday sun shone down through a tissue of clouds. A hot breeze swept across the street, stirring the dust and gutter debris. Her feet carried her with swift, even strides from the cottage. Upriver two blocks and over another before faltering. She turned down a deserted street, taking shelter in the shade of a vine-strangled balcony.
The gravity of what she’d done crept upon her. No undertaker in town would hire her after this. Mr. Whitmark would see to that. If he didn’t have her arrested. Or worse. But then, he had his reputation to consider, fledgling as it was. Wouldn’t want the scandal in the papers. Likely he’d settle on slander and a few broken bones.
Best stay away from the shop, then, and Mrs. Neale’s too, as he knew where she boarded. But where could she go? With no job and little savings, who would take her in? Perhaps she had enough for a steamer ticket back to Indiana, but she’d sooner walk the gangplank straight into the river.
She slumped against the stucco wall behind her and let her weight carry her to the ground. The river would be warm this time of year, the undertow swift. A few stones in her pockets and the weight of her dress would easily pull her down.
Those were the worst bodies, the ones dredged from the river. Fish-eaten and waterlogged. Not that anyone would mourn her. She’d end up like that first body she’d embalmed at the morgue, unclaimed and decaying.
Her limbs took to shaking again, an uncontrollable shutter she felt clear to the marrow of her bones. One tear fell. Then another. Then a veritable torrent. She cried for that man at the morgue, as alone in death as he’d likely been in life. She cried for her beautiful, ill-used mother. For Jonesy, lost to her and likely dead. She cried for herself. For her empty life and broken heart.
Her feet took control again, walking her to a familiar cottage at the edge of the Marigny. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes before knocking, but her tears returned even before the door creaked opened. Without a word, Mrs. Carrière embraced her and shepherded her inside.
CHAPTER 29
For two days Effie didn’t move from Mrs. Carrière’s haircloth sofa except to trudge to the outhouse. Just when she’d thought her eyes had spent themselves of tears, they’d fill again. It seemed a physiological impossibility that her ducts could expel so much water and the rest of her not shrivel as a result.
On the third day, Mrs. Carrière pulled the crochet blanket off Effie and ushered her outside to bathe. The sunshine stung her eyes, the cool water her skin, but after several minutes of soaking in the basin, her knotted muscles began to unspool. She lathered herself with the violet-scented soap and watched the bubbles glide atop the water’s surface, shiny and colorful when they caught the light.
That afternoon she coached Jonah with his jacks. The next day she dredged herself from the sofa to play alongside him.
“I’ve heard only a few whispers about the Marigny. A blundered embalming, a hasty funeral,” Mrs. Carrière said later when Jonah went hunting lizards in the yard. “C’est tout. Still, we best be careful. The fewer people who know your whereabouts the better.”
Effie agreed. It was hard to muster concern for her own well-being, but she didn’t want to endanger Mrs. Carrière and Jonah. “I’ve got some money saved, back at the boardinghouse. I’ll buy a train ticket tonight and—”
“You most certainly will not. You’re staying here. With us.”
“But—”
Mrs. Carrière flashed her that stern, commanding look she wielded at club meetings when someone tried to wriggle out of volunteering.
“Thank you. I’ll go tonight to fetch my trunk. Alone. After dark, when the other boarders are asleep. Mrs. Neale stays up late reading. She’ll let me.”
“Not alone. Take Tom with you.”
Effie shook her head, but in vain.
“He doesn’t know anything. But, Effie, ma chère, he’s worried mad about you. And, heaven forbid, but you might need some . . . assistance.”
Tom. Effie hadn’t seen him since their trip to St. James. She eyed the sofa, longing to curl up and hide beneath the blanket again. By right he should hate her, leaving the docks that day so abruptly, refusing his calls. The idea of explaining it all to him—not only of the man whose body she’d desecrated, but what had come before, Samson and Adeline at the fête, Jonesy and her failed attempts to find him—made that morning’s breakfast rise in her throat.
But he didn’t ask any questions. Not when he arrived that evening at the cottage. Not as they serpentined across town, keeping to lesser-traveled streets and staying wide of the shop. Silence had always sat easily between them. But tonight it weighed on Effie, stifling as the summer heat.
When they neared the boardinghouse, Tom bid her wait while he surveyed the road and surrounding buildings. Satisfied no one was spying on the house or lying in wait for her, he waved her on.
Light shone through the thin drapery shrouding the parlor window. Effie rapped lightly. When Mrs. Neale pulled back the curtain, her mouth gaped. She hoisted up the sash and pulled Effie into a hug through the open window.
“Lord, child! We thought you might be dead!”
“Shh,” Effie said, enduring her warm embrace a moment before squirming free. “Is anyone else awake?”
“Just me, finishin’ up my psalms.” She let them in through the back door and led the way upstairs, saying nothing as Tom followed, despite her rule forbidding men in the house. When they reached the top landing she turned, worrying her prayer book in her hands, and whispered, “Your boss man been by. Thought you might be hiding out in your room. Insisted I bring him up.”
Effie looked beyond Mrs. Neale to her bedroom. The door hung askew in the jamb, splintered in the middle and sagging from one hinge. She eased the door aside. In the pale glow cast by the flickering hall lamp, the room resembled a detritus clogged canal after a storm. Her trunk gaped open. Her clothes littered the floor. Her books lay scattered, their pages torn and bent, their spines broken. In the far corner, a glint of metal caught her eye. Effie hurried over, her feet snagging on crumbled petticoats and drawers.
Her old tobacco box sat open on its side, buttons scattered around it. Effie fell to her knees and snatched them from the floor. Her shiny sunburst button. Her rifleman’s button. The small cavalry cuff button. The pewter one she found at Port Hudson embossed with the letters US. But where were the others? She crawled along the floor, tossing aside books and clothing. Dim light and blurry eyes hampered her search. Surely Mr. Whitmark wouldn’t have taken any. They were trifles, of no value to anyone but her.
“Effie,” Tom said.
She didn’t look up. What of her Massachusetts militia button? And the gilded South Carolina state seal button?
Tom eased himself down with his cane to squat beside her. “Effie,” he said again, and held out a button.
She gathered it from his palm and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Thank you.”
“How many more are there?”
“Six,” she said.
Not until all her buttons had been found did Effie remember what else she’d stowed in the box. She yanked off the lid and flung away the remaining tuffs of cotton.
Gone.
All forty-seven dollars of her savings were gone. So too were the coins from her turned-out purse. She had a few bills yet stashed in the
secret pocket of her petticoat, but that was all. Looking about the mess, she felt like a cadaver splayed open in an operating theater, her most private parts displayed for all to see.
Now she was grateful for Tom’s silence. Grateful for the way he busied himself with her books as she gathered up her underclothes. He smelled as he had that first day she’d met him, of soap and grease and newsprint—on account of his work at the Republican Office printing press, she now realized. Never mind the reason, though. It was the farthest scent from rosemary and bitter orange shaving soap one could have. For that too she was grateful.
“Suppose I best tell everyone you gone back North,” Mrs. Neale said when they’d finished packing and stood on the porch ready to leave.
Effie nodded.
“Meg sure will be sore about it.”
Effie’s ribs squeezed around her organs at the mention of Meg’s name. She opened her trunk and rifled through her physiology manuals and anatomy texts. “Here, give her this.” She handed over her well-worn copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
Mrs. Neale hugged her again, then said to Tom. “You take care of her now.”
He looked down at the weather-bowed steps. Even in the faintly cast streetlight, Effie saw his neck flush a deeper shade of brown. “I mean to, ma’am.”
The old woman turned to Effie. “Can’t imagine what cause your boss man had thunderin’ about like that, but you best lie low for a spell.”
“I gave him good cause.” Effie grabbed one handle of her trunk and Tom the other. Even now, near penniless, slinking about in the dark, she didn’t regret what she’d done.
* * *
As summer tapered into fall, Effie remained with Mrs. Carrière, taking on neighbor’s laundry and other jobs she could perform closeted in the yard. She didn’t ask after Samson and Mrs. Carrière didn’t speak of him. The other club members came around and talked with great animation about the coming elections. Effie did her best not to listen, busied herself sorting flyers, stitching banners, fashioning campaign pins, or whatever task was at hand. But words slipped through just the same. Samson’s bid for the Senate had fallen through—bad blood with someone at the Louisiana Progressive Club—but he’d likely be reelected to the house. There’d been more deaths in the countryside. More threats and nighttime raids. Even here in the city, Republicans were wary about showing up at the polls.
“Your old boss man’s a bona fide Leaguer now, Effie,” Tom said one evening. “Saw him chumming with them others over at the Pickwick Club.”
Mrs. Carrière shook her head. “Soon we won’t have any allies left.”
The news didn’t surprise Effie but strangely saddened her. How he must hate himself, Mr. Whitmark, ever a traitor to one cause or another. No wonder he’d turned to the bottle. She missed the distraction and sense of purpose embalming had always brought her, yet even with the last of her hard-earned dollars long gone, she was glad to be free of him.
When her attention wound back to the conversation, she found they’d left off Mr. Whitmark and spoke now of a barbecue planned for the Sunday after next in East Feliciana Parish.
“Think you might be up to coming?” Tom asked her. “Reckon you can come out of hiding now, and we sure could use your help settin’ up the tables and dishin’ out food.”
“Two days’ journey for a barbecue? Thanks, but no.”
“Mrs. Greene won’t be there if that’s what’s troublin’ you. On account of her . . . er . . . condition, I expect.”
“Mrs. Greene?” Effie asked, choking on the words.
Tom turned to Mrs. Carrière. “You didn’t tell her?”
“I was waiting for the right time.” Mrs. Carrière cast him a scowl. “Which I dare say wasn’t now.”
“She’s bound to hear tell of it sometime.” Tom turned to Effie, reached out as if he might take her hand, then pulled back. “Best you hear it from us.”
Effie nodded and waited, though her stomach roiled with what she’d already deduced the news to be.
“Samson married that bright-skinned Creole gal, Amandine, Angeline . . .”
“Adeline,” Effie heard herself say.
“That’s right. Adeline. About a month back, wouldn’t you say, Marie?”
Mrs. Carrière nodded. She strode to her desk and withdrew a letter from the drawer. “She gave me this. Last week at the club meeting. Said something about me being a prima donna and that surely I’d know where you were. I didn’t reply. Just took the letter.”
A month married? Effie clutched the arm of the sofa until the swaying room stilled. The parlor air was stifling, too hot and bled of oxygen. She recoiled from the folded square of paper when Mrs. Carrière held it out to her. What could Adeline possibly have to say to her? More hateful words about how Effie had ruined her reputation? A gloating description of her and Samson’s wedding?
She grasped the letter and crammed it into her pocket. “I’m . . . I think . . . more coffee,” she said, grabbing the silver tray from the table. The kettle and empty cream cup rattled as she hurried from the room.
Outside, the cool air needled her sweat-dampened skin. She crossed the courtyard to the kitchen and slammed the tray down on the table. The cup toppled to its side, rolling back and forth as the last drops of cream dribbled out. Her gaze shifted to the stove. A few crackling embers glowed within the firebox. She imagined hurling the letter into the stove’s belly and watching it burn. Instead, she tore open the seal.
Chère Effie,
Samson said you’d returned North, but I doubt he knows any better than that Colm fellow at your shop. Wherever you are, I worry this letter will never find you. Worry you’ll tear it into a thousand little pieces before reading it if ever it does make its way to your hand. Can’t say I blame you. I know what I did was dreadful, chère. Shameful. If I could take back that first kiss and all that came after, I would.
I forgive you for telling M. Chauvet about Samson and me. I was cross with you, bien sûr. Fuming really, for days. But then loneliness set in. Mamm asked after you and my heart near broke. I meant to make things right between us. I swear. I told Samson we were through. Three weeks I didn’t see him. But then I realized, chère, I’m carrying his child. What else could we do but marry?
I’m scared, Effie. Of Mamm’s sickness. Of having this baby. Of what Samson will do when another belle catches his eye.
Please call or write.
Ton Amie,
Adeline
Effie stood paralyzed a moment, the words clotting in her brain. She smoothed a hand over her own flat belly, then sank to the floor and wept.
* * *
Mrs. Carrière took to bed with intestinal fever five days before the barbecue. Just a trifling illness, she said, pas grave, and insisted upon making the journey. If Effie would just see that Jonah had packed his travel bag and peut-être help her pack as well.
Effie refused. She’d seen plenty dead of the disease. Though Mrs. Carrière seemed to be improving with cold sponge baths, quinine, and turpentine oil, two days in a rickety wagon would likely rally the illness and kill her. She argued still—it would crush Jonah not to go; Tom and others depended on her—and tried to rise from bed, only to collapse onto the rug. Effie helped her up, tucked her in, forbid her to rise again. And then, though her own knees threatened to give at the thought of the barbecue, Effie promised to go in her stead.
Two days’ travel through rain and mud did nothing to assuage her dread. She couldn’t bear to see Samson again, let alone speak to him if he sought her out. She’d mended these last months, but hardly healed. Likely there would always be a scar.
The day of the barbecue, however, dawned bright and clear. A Northern banker and stalwart Republican who’d bought up several hundred acres of land in the parish hosted the festivities. Effie could smell the roasting pigs half a mile out.
When they arrived, she and Tom, with the help of several others from the nearby town, set up trestle tables across the oak-dotted lawn that swept out from the
banker’s stately home.
Her gaze roved the swelling crowd as she worked. It was irrational to hope Samson wouldn’t show. He, along with the local candidate and his Democratic challenger, were the main stump speakers before the feast. But the longer she could go without seeing him, without hearing the siren’s call of his voice, the better her fledgling nerves would fare.
Tom came up to her with a glass of lemonade. “Feeling all right?”
“Hmm? Oh . . . fine.” She sipped the lemonade in lieu of feigning a smile.
He doffed his slouch hat and wiped his brow. Then, instead of replacing it atop his head, he worried the hat in his hand, folding and scrunching the brim.
“You all right?” she asked, as he’d never been one to fidget or dither.
“I . . . it’s just . . . I hope you don’t mind me saying, you look right pretty today. I think the country air suits you.”
Effie narrowed her eyes. Her hair was pinned back in her usual bun and she wore her serviceable navy dress. Likely the new cuffs and collar Mrs. Carrière had embroidered—peach colored to match the rosettes on her bonnet—had caught his attention. “Save your compliments for Marie, she remade the dress for me. I don’t—”
“It’s not the dress, Effie. Though that’s mighty lovely too. It’s just . . . you. All of you.”
Effie now succumbed to fidgeting, patting her hair, adjusting the ties of her bonnet, smoothing her skirt. That once-elusive smile seized her lips. “Thank you.”
She finished her drink and they returned to readying the tables for the barbecue. But somehow, Effie’s step felt lighter, her vertebrae straighter, her rib cage less empty.
By the noon hour, hundreds had arrived from the surrounding farms and bayous, infecting the air with cheer. Not even Effie was immune. She helped make space on the tables for all the pies, cornbread, baked sweet potatoes, and seasoned rice people brought to share, and watched the fanfare. Unlike the stodgy Reform Society picnics Captain and Mrs. Kinyon dragged her to, here she watched from within instead of without. Perhaps Tom’s compliment had skewed her perception, but when people looked at her she no longer assumed they thought her an oddity, but a regular woman. Perhaps even a pretty one.
The Undertaker's Assistant Page 34
