by Hester Fox
Turning in the opposite direction, she made her way across the city to find answers.
* * *
Caleb’s head was pounding, his jaw ached, and his mouth tasted like blood. The sound of shops opening and heels clicking on cobblestones ricocheted through his pounding head. Cracking one eye open, he was met with a horizontal view of a London gutter. The smell hit him shortly after that.
Good God, what had happened last night? He vaguely remembered drinking piss-poor coffee in a pub, the shrill laugh of a woman.
He groaned as the memories became clearer. Red hair, too many cups of ale, and a fist connecting with his jaw in an alley. In a panic, he sat himself up and frantically went through his pockets. His money was gone, all of it. That money had been his seed, his chance to rebuild his life. And now he would have to start all over. A passerby looked askance at him as he hurriedly removed his boot and pounded on the heel until a coin fell out. His last shilling. Well, that was something at least.
Grunting, he hauled himself up and divested himself of a rotting piece of cabbage that had somehow found its way onto his coat. If he had been disoriented last night, he was downright lost now. The street was broader, the shops more respectable. He was the lone degenerate. A lady in a tall, feather-bedecked hat held her handkerchief to her face in disgust as she hurried past him.
“That hardly seems necessary,” he muttered as he brushed off as much mud as he could from his coat.
Still dizzy, he’d barely gone three steps when he doubled over and was sick. Once he was upright and there was nothing left in him, he felt the first stabbing pains of hunger. He passed a bakery, the warm scent of bread enticingly wafting out into the street. Instinctually, he turned to go in, before remembering that his shilling would carry him only so far, and he would have to ration it carefully. Being poor was one thing, but being poor and hungry was a bridge too far. Oh, for the days of comfort and plenty, when Larson would bring in a tray brimming with all his favorite cakes and sandwiches.
With the rumble of his stomach goading him on, he went inside and bought all the buns and coffee that his shilling would get him, and promptly devoured them. Now he was officially penniless.
Cursing the day he had ever thought it would be a good idea to partake in drink, he trudged down the street, continuing to offend the delicate sensibilities of several ladies along the way.
What he should have done as soon as he’d made enough money from cards was invest it in drafting supplies and built a portfolio, taken it to some of the firms in the city, and tried to find a position as an apprentice or clerk. But he’d gotten swept up in the thrill of the game, and now it was gone. He would have to start all over again, perhaps pawn the fob from the watch that he had already used to pay for his journey across the Atlantic. One thing was certain: no more cards, no more women, and absolutely no more drinking.
This was much too nice a section of the city, so he cut across down to the Thames where mud larkers kept the rag and pawn shops in business. As he looked about for a promising pawnbroker, he passed a portrait studio, photographs of somber faces exemplifying the photographer’s skill pasted in the window. The sign advertised that they were portrait artist to HRH the Prince of Wales. But that wasn’t what caused him to stop short.
A picture stood in the center of the window, propped up on a small easel. The face that stared back at him was familiar, yet different, a young woman, her eyes so pale and clear as to appear colorless, with long, loose curls spilling over her shoulders. Without a second thought, he was pushing the door open and ringing the bell on the counter.
A tall, stooped man came out from a curtained room in the back, his face buried in a stack of papers he was leafing through. “May I help you?” he asked without looking up.
Caleb hardly knew where to begin. “There’s a portrait in the window...a young woman. I was wondering—”
“Of course, of course. I can replicate any pose you see there.” Finally putting the papers aside, he looked up and ran a critical eye over Caleb’s muddy and soiled suit, and the bruised and bloody spectacle that was his face. “I don’t supply the costumes, though, the sitter is responsible for their own costume. A portrait costs one pound two shillings,” he added, as if convinced the price would be a deterrent.
Caleb shook his head impatiently. “It’s not the picture, it’s the girl in it. I think I know her...that is, I was wondering if you could tell me who she was, and when the likeness was made.”
The man looked skeptical. “I pride myself on professionalism, and I cannot simply give out information about my clients, either past or present. I am, after all, portrait artist to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,” he said with a condescending sniff.
“Yes, yes, I saw the sign.” If only Caleb hadn’t spent his last coin on those buns. He needed something, anything to convince the man to tell him what he needed to know.
Caleb pulled out his watch fob and placed it on the counter. The fob had belonged to his father, and his father’s father before that. It was solid gold, inset with polished jet, and it was a minor miracle that the crook hadn’t found it last night. The fob would have easily paid for his entrance into a high stakes card game at a reputable club and then some, but this was more important.
Eying the fob, the man nodded. “Which picture is it you’re wanting to know about then?”
Caleb went to the shop window and plucked the daguerreotype from its place. “This one. When did she come in? What’s her name?” Looking at the picture was like being transported back across the ocean. It couldn’t be Tabby, yet there could be no doubt that the sitter was somehow related to her.
The man’s face shone with pride. “Ah, yes. Her,” he said with a wistful sigh. “I saw her walking past my shop one day and knew that I had to have her sit for me. In my ten years behind the lens, I have never seen eyes like that. She was hesitant, said that she didn’t want her likeness immortalized. But I wore her down,” he said proudly. “Offered her a handsome sum, and even told her she could have a copy of the portrait free of charge. But she never came back to collect it, so I keep it in the window for business.”
“What was her name?” Caleb asked, breathless.
The man shook his head. “If she told me, I’ve long forgotten. It had to have been going on three years now.”
Caleb studied the picture again. “Does she live nearby?”
“I couldn’t say. She used to pass by frequently, but I haven’t seen her since her sitting.”
The shop door opened, and two well-dressed women came in. The shopkeeper excused himself and left Caleb with his thoughts.
Any hope that Caleb might have felt on seeing the picture was quickly deflating. London was a vast city, and finding a girl with no name would be nearly impossible, and that wasn’t even taking into consideration the fact that she might not be in the city at all anymore.
Why did it matter so much anyway? It was probably a coincidence, and nothing more. But as he stared into the face that was so like Tabby’s, he knew he had to find her.
* * *
Outside, he looked about him in a daze. Without his watch fob, he had nothing left to pawn except the clothes on his back, and those were in a rather sorry state after the events of the previous night. He stopped in front of a cart where an old woman was selling wilted bunches of watercress, and took stock of what he had.
He had the clothes on his back, which he had already established were both undesirable to anyone else, and necessary to his (relative) decency. He had a quick wit and was clever at cards, but had no money for a buy-in. He had a gnawing hunger that had quickly returned after his breakfast. He had an overwhelming need to find the girl in the picture and find out who she was, but no resources to do it. All in all, he was in a rather hopeless situation.
So deep in his thoughts was he, he didn’t hear the old woman at the cart speaking to him. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, ye’re scaring away me costumers, standin’ there a-gawping and gaping.”
Caleb looked around but, aside from a few pigeons pecking about in the mud, didn’t see any of the supposed customers in question. “My deepest apologies, miss,” he said with a low bow. His flattering address did nothing to warm her, and her scowl only deepened. Then a thought struck him. “You must be quite familiar with this street and the goings-on here, I would imagine?”
She gave him a sidelong look from her rheumy eyes. “Ye might say that. They don’t call me Sharp-Eyed Maggie for nothin’.”
“Do you see that picture in the window over there?” He pointed to the shop, where the man had replaced the picture in its place of honor. “The one of the girl with the striking eyes and the flower brooch?” He doubted that “Sharp-Eyed” Maggie could see as far as her own nose, let alone across the street, but she surprised him by nodding vigorously.
“Oh, aye, I know that picture well. Knew the girl in it just as well, too.”
Caleb’s heart stopped in his chest. “You knew her? Who is she? Is she still living?”
“That’s Miss Alice,” the woman said, her expression growing soft and nostalgic. “I couldn’t say if she’s alive yet or no, as she moved away some years ago. She was a dear thing, though, always brought me sweets, she did.”
“Where did she move?” Caleb couldn’t believe it. He had thought that he would have to scour the city for information, and here this old lady was practically dropping the answers to his questions into his lap.
Maggie scratched at her matted hair. “Edinburgh,” she said proudly. “I remember because I grew up there, an’ I told her as much. Told her where she might get a strong whiskey should she be the imbibing type, and a warm-cooked meal. She thanked me right prettily, she did. Even gave me a token of her appreciation.” Here she paused and fingered the very brooch that was in the picture. “Took herself off and I haven’t seen her again.”
Caleb didn’t need to hear any more; he was already turning, the next steps of his plan falling into place. “You’ve been most helpful,” he called over his shoulder.
He didn’t know how he would do it, but he was going to Edinburgh.
* * *
Alice gasped and sat up in bed. Kicking off the tangled quilt, she shivered as the early-morning air hit her perspiring skin. She’d had that dream again, the one where she was wandering a vast, empty nothingness. No sound, no movement, no anything. Just a suffocating darkness pressing in around her from every direction. Then, just when she was certain that she was dead and would never awaken again, her name would ring out in the void. Each time she woke up sweating and heart pounding, an aching emptiness in her chest.
Glancing at the sleeping figure bathed in moonlight beside her, Alice quietly swung her legs out of bed and tiptoed to the window casement that overlooked the little square. Edinburgh glowed in the predawn light. It was beautiful, but no matter how long she had been here, it never felt like home. Perhaps it was because she’d seen a glimpse of her future life, and the little house she shared with a dark-haired woman had been in an unfamiliar city.
The flashes that she saw came unpredictably and without warning, sometimes entire scenes laid out like staged vignettes, and other times nothing more than a fleeting image, a buried memory that hadn’t happened yet. But the image of the house and the woman had been as clear as a daguerreotype.
A rustle of blankets and then a groggy feminine voice. “Come back to bed, Allie. I’m cold.”
“One moment,” she said absently. Soon the sun would be rising and it would be time to go out with her tray of licorice and sweetmeats and hawk her wares. Another day just like all the others, a simple, happy-enough existence, but with something, someone, conspicuously absent. She wondered if her sister felt the same way, or if she hated Alice for what she had done.
She tried not think of Tabby too often, nor speculate on what might have become of her. It was better to look forward and not backward. Perhaps if Alice had tried harder, tried at all to use her gift, she would see her sister in her future. But she was afraid of what she might find, and so she did not attempt to open the door in her mind and see what lay behind it. Besides, like in her present life, any flashes of her future had been bereft of Tabby.
Climbing back into bed, she closed her eyes, hoping for a few more minutes of sleep. Her bedmate curled up against her, murmuring something drowsy and indistinct. Alice let herself drift in the place between wakefulness and sleep. She both looked forward to and dreaded the dream, on one hand hoping to hear the voice again, but also terrified of the endless darkness.
But one thing was certain: she knew the voice from her dream. And the day that she would hear that voice in person was coming.
22
IN WHICH A LONG OVERDUE INVESTIGATION IS PURSUED.
THE HARVARD MEDICAL School sat perilously close to the Charles River and was prone to flooding in the spring. But now the narrow strip of lawn that spanned between the building and the river sparkled with frost in the late-afternoon sun, and aside from a few students and a groundskeeper raking up leaves, it was quiet.
Tabby studied the unassuming brick building with its three-storied facade. It looked remarkably benign. Slipping into Mr. Whitby’s house had been one thing, but here at the medical school, a young, unescorted woman would be incredibly conspicuous.
She fretted at the edge of her cloak. What was she even looking for? The rest of Harvard’s campus lay across the river in Cambridge, but she had figured that the medical school would be more likely to yield answers. That was what the man at the Granary had said—The Spunkers Club, doctors and surgeons from Harvard who still practiced dissection. But surely such illicit activities would be hidden far from the public eye, wouldn’t they? She could hardly expect to walk in and find a stolen corpse on a slab.
Well, if she wanted answers she would have to start somewhere. She was just about to gather her courage and head up the main steps when she recognized the groundskeeper as his raking brought him closer. She’d seen him before at Miss Suze’s, a cousin or nephew of hers, perhaps, and though Tabby didn’t know him well, she was grateful to see a familiar face.
“Mr. Dwight, is that you?”
The man straightened up as Tabby approached him and gave her a suspicious glance. “Miss Tabby, what’re you doing all the way o’er here? Your pa’s not in trouble, is he?”
Tabby shook her head. “How do you do, Mr. Dwight? No, Pa is doing well, thank you.” She could only hope that she was speaking the truth.
He gave her a short nod. “All right then. Well, you take care now.” He resumed his raking.
She was interrupting his work and he was making it clear that he wasn’t interested in continuing their conversation. But she also knew that coming across him here gave her a rare chance for answers. Clearing her throat, she chose her words carefully. “Do you think anyone would stop me if I were to go inside and take a look around?”
He raised a brow. “Do I think anyone would stop you? Can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t try it if I was you.”
“Hmm.” She considered the front steps again. “Have you ever heard the name ‘Spunkers Club’?”
“No, I have not,” he said without looking up.
She glanced around, her desperation for answers warring with her common sense that he just wanted to be left alone. In the end, the former won out. “What about resurrection men?”
This time he just shook his head, still raking.
“I’m sorry to be a bother, but it would be so helpful if you could—”
At this, he stopped his work and looked up. “Miss Cooke, I’m here to keep the grounds clean and keep my head down, not answer nonsense questions. We might break bread together at Miss Suze’s table, but that’s there and this is out here. You know what will happen if I get caught talking to a white girl on the jo
b? I’ll get docked pay, that’s what.”
Tabby bit her lip. “Of course. I’m sorry.”
Muttering something under his breath, Mr. Dwight resumed his raking and she was just about to turn away when his voice stopped her.
“Around the back there’s a door that leads to the library. Might be that someone left it unlocked. Can’t promise there ain’t nobody in there, though.”
Tabby let out a long breath of relief. She would have to be careful once inside, no more mistakes like with Mr. Whitby. “Thank you,” she said, wishing he knew just how grateful she was.
“Don’t know what you’re thanking me for. I didn’t tell you nothing.”
* * *
In the end, Caleb’s wit and acumen had been all the capital he needed to rebuild his seed money. He’d found an easy mark at a card table in the dankest, dingiest pub in all of London, bet him that he couldn’t hold his breath for twenty seconds, won threepence, and from there it had just been a question of continuing to make larger and larger bets.
As the coach rumbled through the Scottish countryside, Caleb massaged the lingering soreness in his jaw where he’d been hit. He hadn’t realized how much London had been choking the life out of him with its heavy smoke and fogs until he was well out of the city and on his way to Edinburgh.
He knew that he had traded one improbable likelihood for another, but he couldn’t help the cautious spark of optimism that took root in his chest. How many men got a second fresh start? How senseless would he have to be to waste this one, as well?
