Outside she asked a passerby for Drexham’s market. As in Rome and Venice, I hunched beneath my cloak and drew the hood low. Lily distracted merchants with sharp criticism of their goods while from behind I raided the cash boxes on their carts. Toward late morning Lily thought we had payment for the doctor.
Soon after, we found Dr. Fortnam on High Street. The building, the very avenue, had a look of such propriety even beggars seemed to be intimidated: there were none to be seen. While I considered this from the alley, Lily darted away from me, undoubtedly confident that her true station in life would be instantly recognized despite her appearance. She was admitted to the surgery, only to emerge minutes later, angry, holding a slip of paper.
“He could not have examined you in so short a time,” I said.
“No, he would not see me at all. The woman there said that he treats the poor and the unfortunate, but separately from his respectable appointments. I was to leave at once. He will see me at eight o’clock tonight”—she held out the paper—“at this address.”
That night, in a run-down neighborhood, we stood before the building designated on the scrap of paper; it was entirely dark, then a lamp flared on the second floor.
“Does your wound require a doctor’s care?” Lily asked, not wanting to go alone.
Without looking, I said, “No, the bleeding has stopped.” I was unwilling to be confined in so small a place as that upstairs room.
There was silence as she looked at the light.
“He will leave soon if you do not go,” I said.
“There are so many kinds of death,” she murmured, as if she had not heard, “and I fear each one.” She started toward the door, then ran back. “Here.” Removing her barrette, she thrust it at me. “I have his fee in coin. He shall not get a penny more!”
At great length she reappeared. Teetering in the doorway, she grabbed the jamb. Her eyes glittered wildly; her mouth was set into a ghastly smile.
“I am too far gone,” she whispered. “There is nothing he can do.” She pounded my chest and cried, “Coward!”
“Coward?”
Fury quickly spent, she slumped against me.
“I am a coward, else I would end this thing myself. End it now, for my suffering has not even begun.”
I held her close in silence until I felt her composure return. She straightened her back and stiffened her manner. In a few minutes she pushed me away. “Do not hold me so tightly,” she complained. “There is a horsy odor about you that makes me long for a whip.” She brushed herself off as if I had befouled her. Her expression was indifferent; her hands trembled.
“What is it?” I asked softly.
“Should I tell you?” she asked, her voice rising. “That would be like telling one of my hounds. What can an animal know of a woman’s pain?”
“Obviously as little as the woman knows of the animal’s.”
Dumfries
November 30
Scotland at last! Crag gives way to bog, black woods to glen—the ever-changing landscape of the Highlands. The Scottish weather, as sharp as my thoughts and just as changeable, seems to bring me salt in every breath I take. The sea is just beyond the moment, and beyond that, the Orkneys!
I feel an optimism today I did not feel yesterday: perhaps my spirit knew the exact moment it trod on Scottish soil. Given the enmity between the English and Scots, I no longer fear pursuit. I move of my own will now. I hasten toward, rather than from.
Shrouded by last night’s visit to the doctor, Lily does not share in my good cheer. She is more tired, as if the doctor’s confirmation somehow made her illness more real.
She is being eaten by a worm.…
I shudder at the thought, while knowing it is the fate of all men. How curious that I, not a man, was food for the worms before I ever breathed.
These thoughts are morose!
No longer will the smell of burning itch my nose, or the stain of blood sully my hands. No longer will I see faces in the shadows, from my father, who would deny my existence, to Winterbourne, who would reproach me with what might have been. I will create my own life just as I was created: apart from the natural order.
And if I am able to leave my past behind, perhaps Lily shall, too. Beneath her paleness, she is still beautiful; beneath her cross words, she is still my companion by her own choice.
December 4
Lily spoke little, ate less, and walked more and more slowly. Just lifting her gaze from ground to sky seemed to exhaust her. That she did not dispute my every decision was the surest proof of her fatigue: she had not the strength to complain.
I sought out a place more comfortable than the ones I had been choosing. About eleven at night, I broke into a small barn, set a distance from a cottage. The barn held an ancient horse, a lean cow, and scraggly chickens, as well as hay, feed, and a few farm implements. I spoke gently and stroked the horse. When it calmed, so did the other animals.
I made a bed for Lily at the back of the barn, behind bales of hay, and laid her down. I planned to nap a few hours, but to give her as much sleep as possible. Instead, I myself slept through. Shortly after dawn, voices from outside the barn woke me, but Lily did not stir. I crept closer to listen.
An older man was sharply giving instructions to a youth regarding the care of the cottage during his two days’ absence. His commands seemed endless. Finally a carriage pulled up and took him away. Not five minutes later, I heard the voice of a boy. The young man passed to the boy his just-assigned chores of milking the cows and feeding the chickens so that he, too, could be off. He gave the boy a coin and promised another on his return.
“If I find you did nae keep still, but went braggin’ round your kith how you run the farm in my stead,” he said, as sharply as the older man, “I’ll give you a beating and get my money back.”
“I’ll tell no one. You know I mean it.”
The young man hurried off, whistling a gay tune.
The boy performed his duties quickly, letting the animals out into the fenced yard and throwing feed on the ground. He brought out a bucket, hurriedly milked the cow, then took the milk away with him. Lily slept through everything.
The cottage was simple enough to break into; a loose shutter gained me entrance to the bedroom. Inside were a clothespress, washstand, chamber pot, and a straw bed piled with quilts. The kitchen held a table and chairs; cooking utensils hung over the fireplace. At one end of the room stood a wooden deacon’s bench, a hooked rug before it on the puncheon floor. Just outside the kitchen was a larder with steps leading to a root cellar. The cellar held potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, and a barrel of meat covered with foamy brine.
If alone, I might have done no more than raid the larder. But Lily was undoubtedly still tired. I unlocked the cottage from the inside, woke her, and explained that we could use the cottage till the next day. We need only keep out of sight when the boy came to milk the cow that evening.
Together with her long hours of sleep, the idea of using the cottage as our own enlivened her. She cooked a quick meal of eggs, then set about preparing a chicken for the afternoon, early enough so the chimney would no longer smoke by the time the boy returned. She surprised me by scraping carrots and potatoes, then taking an axe and killing the chicken herself. Her blow was not clean, but from lack of strength, not nerve. She repositioned the dying animal at once and delivered the final stroke. For a moment I thought the exertion might be too much, for she seemed dazed as she stared at the rivulet flowing from the neck.
“It’s always easier than you think it will be, isn’t it? You need only do it.”
She tossed me the bird to pluck; a spray of blood arced through the air.
Earlier she had set pots of water on the fire to boil. Once the meal was simmering in a Dutch oven, she declared she wanted a bath and told me to drag in from the barn the wooden tub she had spied there. I pushed back the table and chairs, carried in the tub, and pumped bucket after bucket to fill it halfway. Lily added boiling wa
ter till she found the temperature tolerable, then shooed me out. She hummed as she bathed, her voice carrying outside to where I sat below the shuttered window.
An hour later she showed me her transformation: she was not only clean, and her hair washed, but also in fresh clothes taken from the press. From a pair of trousers she had cut off length, and in a belt she had punched a new hole. The cottager’s tucked-in shirt bunched thickly at her waist. She still wore her hair swept up with the jeweled barrette.
“Now it is your turn,” she said, unbuttoning the throat of my shirt. “You are more filthy than I was. I will not let you sit down to dinner without a bath. The tub is cold, but the kettle is still steaming, and so is this pot. Go on now.” She ran outside and shut the door after her.
I undressed slowly, aware that just an hour ago she had undressed in this very spot; aware, too, of how lighthearted she was today. How long would her mood last? How far would Lily play the wife?
I picked up her wedding gown that lay forgotten in a corner, breathed in her scent, and brushed the lace against my lips. The lace had felt rough that day I had tried to take her. Time and travel had worn it smooth, perhaps had done the same to Lily. She was not a woman to be forced in the dirt. Neither would she be snared by domesticity; yet, surprisingly, it had its power on me.
Before me stood the tub filled with her bathwater. I did not add any warmth, as if to do so would dilute whatever of her might remain. The tub was too small for me. I lowered myself and sat in it anyway, feet on the outside, body wedged against the wood. I cupped the water and washed my scarred face; cupped the water and let it spill over my scarred body. This water had touched her skin; now it touched mine.
I imagined approaching her with subtlety and delicate enticements; I imagined a drawing-room seduction. But imagining, too, Lily beneath my hands, I felt crude passion rise up instead. I could expect no more: I was crude, crudely fashioned, with raw, unpolished thoughts and abhorrent desires. I did not have a man’s sensibilities, nor could I fathom a woman’s heart. Lily was right: what could I know of humanity?
Chastened, I finished my bath quickly and once more put on my same soiled clothes. There was nothing in the clothespress into which I might change.
Bound by this ill humor, I threw open the kitchen door and tipped over the tub. From the yard where she had been waiting, Lily called me to stop. “You should take more care,” she said. “The boy will become suspicious if he sees a puddle by the door.”
I thought she knew of my desire but understood not to speak of it. I thought she …
She served me dinner, touching my arm lightly as she passed back and forth between the hearth and the table, brushing my knuckles as she reached for the saltcellar. I barely tasted the food but was pleased to see her eat.
“It is just this once, since I cooked it.”
“Then perhaps we should stay here forever,” I answered.
The afternoon grew late. I washed the dishes, put out the fire, made sure the barn was as I had found it, and locked the cottage from the inside. We waited in the kitchen in silence. Lily sat on the deacon’s bench restlessly and from time to time crossed to the window.
“You are anxious,” I said.
“I do not wish to be made to leave.”
“You can see yourself here?” I asked. “In such a place?”
“Can you?”
“If it were as today, yes.”
“Was today so wonderful?”
Today I had seen a small promise of what life might be, but could not say the words.
“Hush,” I told her. “There’s the boy.”
Lily peered out through a crack in the shutters. “He’s wearing boots,” she said, considering her own feet. With her wedding slippers worn to scraps, she had put on a pair of the farmer’s shoes but they were ill fitting. “Perhaps his boots will be more comfortable than these.” She reached toward the latch, then pulled back.
“We’d have to leave at once. Tomorrow when he returns will be soon enough. We have the night before us.”
“Yes, the night.”
She sat on the bench, I at her feet, both of us listening as the animals were brought into the barn. Her face grew thoughtful, her eyes distant. Something made her unhappy; perhaps the talk of a simple domestic life emphasized her own uncertainty. The worm ruled her. What manner of future, if any, would it allow her?
As the sun set, red light glowed through the crack where the shutters did not meet, dividing the shadows with a single stripe of rose that moved across Lily’s face. She must have seen the same on mine for she bent forward and stroked my cheek.
“You are all pink—like a flower, like a sweet William.”
I caught her palm and kissed it.
“Now I must call you sweet Victor instead,” she murmured. A rattle at the door made me leap to my feet—then a second rattle, as the shutters were tried and found locked. The boy was securing the cottage for the night.
Lily also stood up and faced the cold hearth. Placing my hands lightly on her shoulders, I felt what my eyes had not perceived: all her softness was gone. I had already seen her stomach’s bloat of starvation; now I felt how her softness had wasted to the thinnest pad of flesh. Despite that—whether because of the sunset’s forgiving shadows, or because of my own need for her not to be sick, at least for this one night—she was more beautiful than ever.
Standing behind her, afraid to see her face, I offered her my hand. Between us lay a chasm of immeasurable depth and width, unfathomable thought and desire. She reached up across the blackness, placed her hand in mine, and turned.
“Victor,” she whispered. She did not look up.
“Yes, Lily.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have done nothing. It is I who am sorry. I have naught to give you. Instead, all I’ve done is take.”
“When we met,” she said, “it was already too late. Everything precious had already been thrown away. There was nothing left for you to take. I am sorry for that as well.”
Stepping away, she tried to free her hand.
“Shhh.” I would not let her go.
At my touch, she relaxed and let me pull her close. I bent low, nuzzled her hair, brushed with my lips the bare skin of her neck.
She broke my clasp gently and, without looking at me, walked into the bedroom. I heard a flint strike, the clothespress open and shut, the shoes softly drop, the straw mattress tick—then another sound, unfamiliar, a quiet shush repeated over and over.
I stepped through the open door. Lily sat on the bed facing away from me. She was dressed in a white nightshirt worn to a whisper, her clothes on the floor in a pile. The candle stood on the washstand between us, casting our separate shadows on separate walls.
The unfamiliar shush, repeated over and over, was the sound of Lily brushing her hair. The raven curls were knotted, their color had dulled, and yet—something about the gesture moved me in ways I could not understand. For eons, women have brushed their hair at night while their men watched. It seemed that all of time had led us to this moment.
Lucio’s wife had unpinned her hair and combed it with her fingers before she and Lucio made love.
And Mirabella …
I moved to Lily’s side. She knew I was crossing the room—I saw her hand pause in its downward descent at the sound of my footfall, saw her look up at the wall where my shadow covered hers—but when I came to her, pulled her to her feet, and embraced her, she shrank back. At first all I could see were her tears and the inexplicable anguish in her eyes. There was nothing else, nothing more important to me. What made her cry like this? And how could I comfort her?
“How dare you touch me!”
Despite her tears, her mouth writhed with repulsion.
“Dare?” I repeated, not understanding. I clutched her. Every struggle sent sensation roaring through my body. “Was I not invited to touch you? When I kissed your palm, did you not call me ‘sweet Victor’?”
“I say the same nonsens
e to the hound that licks my foot!” she cried, striking my face with the hairbrush. Cheek stinging, I knocked the brush to the floor, grabbed her arms, and wrenched them behind her back.
“I was led by the open door to your bed,” I said, fighting to hold her tighter. “What man would not be teased by such an invitation?”
“A man, yes. I would not have teased a man.”
“You also should not have teased a monster!”
I seized her face and pressed my lips, as black as ash, against hers. Twisting her mouth away, she spat and wiped her mouth.
“A monster? Is that what you think you are?” she asked. “At best you are only some freakish animal.”
“Animal?” The word penetrated to the heart of my fears and echoed Walton’s accusations.
“Yes,” she said lightly. “An animal. You can be no more than the parts from which you claim to be made, can you? In the end, you are like some great hound given too much license, who eats from the table and sleeps on the bed.”
My hold on her loosened as passion was replaced by violence. She slid from my grasp. Instead of running, she stood not inches away as she continued: “You are not a man, Victor. Neither are you a monster. You are nothing.”
How quickly every drop of lust turned to blistering madness.
“You do not know the danger you put yourself in,” I said.
“You would give me the same warning as those street ruffians? At least that is more than you gave Harry Burke!”
Of itself my hand tightened into a fist and struck at her. At the last moment I turned an inch and slammed the wall next to her eye. Plaster fell to the floor in chunks. Lily jumped at the blow, but did not move from the spot. She laughed and cried at once, as though, in her lunacy, she was confused by what she wanted.
“Can’t you see how pathetic you are?”
She lifted her chin and held her arms wide. She was so close to me, so close and small, like a porcelain doll; so close, so eager to be hurt. I seized the washstand and smashed it against the wall. Bowl and pitcher shattered, threw shards against her bare feet. The candle dropped, sputtered, smothered the room in black. Blindly I reached out. I grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to me.
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