Alias Mrs Jones

by Kate McLachlan

  Mrs. Dunn slid the glass globe up on the oil lantern, tilted it, and let oil drip into the floor. “I don’t want to do this.”

  “Then don’t do it,” I said.

  “Stop, Emily,” Angela said. “Killing Hiram was necessary, and perhaps Mr. Stanfield too. He was a stranger to us. How could we trust him to keep silent? But we know Mrs. Jones. She’s a friend of ours, a friend of Adelaide’s. She’s Guy’s teacher! We can trust her. You don’t have to do this.”

  “I don’t want to,” Emily said, continuing to drip oil. “We have to. I’m not in this alone, remember?”

  Angela reached for the lantern. “Give it to me, Emily.”

  Emily swung the lantern away. More oil splashed, some on the floor and some onto her skirt. “No, Angela. Think about what would happen if we were caught. I’d be sent to a women’s prison, which would be bad enough, but you? After the life you’ve led for the last ten years? They would be brutal with you, you know it. You’d be lucky if you were only hanged.”

  “I’m willing to risk it,” Angela said.

  “You won’t be caught,” I said. “I won’t tell, I swear it. I’m your friend!”

  Emily paused and looked at me with a sad expression. “I like you, Mrs. Jones. I miss having friends, but it’s impossible to have that sort of intimacy with a secret life like ours. We live alone, Angela and I.”

  “But we have each other,” Angela said. “And we have Guy.” She grasped the handle of the lantern. “I won’t let you do this, my love.”

  I saw what happened next as if time itself had slowed. Angela tugged at the handle as if she thought Mrs. Dunn would fight her, but Mrs. Dunn let her fingers go slack. Angela pulled and the lantern flew too quickly and slipped from Angela’s fingers. They both grabbed for it, but they missed. The lantern spun in the air and more oil splashed from it. All three of us screamed as the lantern crashed and the flame ignited on the spilled oil. Flames darted across the oil streaked floor and reached Emily’s skirt before she had time to move.

  “Emily!” Angela lunged and beat at Emily’s skirt while the fire spread on the floor around them and in front of my cell.

  “Let me out!” I screamed. “Mr. Dunn, throw me the key. Angela, throw me the key! Mrs. Dunn!”

  I was ignored. Angela pushed Mrs. Dunn back into the outer office away from the flames, both of them screaming and beating at the flames that engulfed Mrs. Dunn’s skirt. Smoke blackened the air between me and them. I was alone.

  I fled to the window. Four steel bars spanned it, and glass covered it on the far side. There was nothing in the cell that could reach through the bars except my bare hands. But one of my hands, of course, was not bare. I swung my right arm between the bars and shattered the glass with my cast. Cold blew in. I heard the flames behind me roar as they battled the fresh air.

  “Help! Fire!”

  The jail was at the edge of town. I saw nothing but blackness beyond and had no idea if anyone could hear me. I grabbed a bar and pulled. It was secure and did not move. I saw a gap between the bottom of the windowsill and the wall where the cement had fallen away. Marshal Mitchell’s words returned to me. One cell was fit only for drunks or idiots. Anyone with half a brain could break out of it in ten minutes. I was neither drunk nor an idiot, but I was a woman, and Marshal Mitchell would not be the first man to find the distinction unclear. This had to be the cell for idiots!

  But I didn’t have ten minutes. Smoke was blowing over me now, and the heat from behind me grew as the flames leapt higher. I wedged my fingers into the gap beneath the sill and tried to work it back and forth. It loosened, but not enough. I pressed my face to the bars, sucked in lungs full of air, and screamed again. “Help!”

  I used my cast like a hammer and battered at the crumbling cement that held the window in place. A thimbleful of cement tumbled down. The heat singed my back, and I pondered an arithmetic question. If a fire grows three yards per minute, and it takes two minutes to dislodge one thimbleful of cement, how many schoolteachers will burn to death before the window pops free?

  I was afraid I knew the answer. I smashed my arm harder against the wall and more cement crumbled, but it was too slow. In frustration, I gave the window a strong shove. The sill popped out half an inch. Choking for air, I shoved again and found myself half out the window before I realized I was free. I let myself fall the rest of the way to the ground.

  I lay on the ground and stared at the sky, sucking in the night air. Billows of smoke blocked a swath of stars, and a tongue of flame licked out the window above me. I ought to move.

  Dragging myself to my feet was more difficult than it should have been. My arms and shoulders trembled, my legs were weak, but the heat coming from the little building was now tremendous, which spurred me. I made it to the corner of the building. I heard voices as people noticed the fire, but smoke and flames blocked them from my view.

  “Was anyone inside?”

  “Dear God, I hope not.”

  “Oh no, look, there is someone.”

  I raised my arm in a wave, but they were not looking at me. A figure emerged from the front of the building, smoke billowing from its arms and legs. Then I saw it was not one figure, but two.

  The Dunns embraced and circled in a macabre dance until they crumpled in a heap before the horrified townspeople. The crowd rushed to them and blocked them from my view.

  I felt a touch on my arm and cried out.

  “Come away, Nell.” It was Helen Hennessey. “Come away from the fire. You’ll be burned.”

  “It’s the Dunns.” I was surprised at the hoarseness of my voice.

  “Come away.” Her own voice was choked. She was crying too. “Come away, now.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  WE SAT IN Helen’s kitchen. She handed me a damp cloth. I scrubbed the worst of the grime from my eyes and face while she chipped ice into a towel. She handed the bundle of ice to me and I pressed it to my throbbing wrist.

  “It won’t do much good there,” Helen said. She moved the ice to my swollen cheek.

  “Oh. I forgot. My wrist is what hurts.” I showed her the broken plaster.

  “Might as well get that off.” She filled a large pan with water, added some warm water from a kettle, and placed it on the table before me. I pushed up my sleeve and put my arm in the water to soak.

  “Do you think they’re dead?” I asked.

  “I hope so. I would hate to think of their suffering if they’re not.”

  I agreed, but I wasn’t thinking about their burns. Emily would never have to worry about Angela’s safety again, nor Angela about Emily’s.

  A sharp knock at the door made us jump. Helen opened the door. Adelaide Keating stood in the opening, her hand raised to knock again. Her eyes slid past Helen’s to meet mine. Her face crumpled. She slapped a hand to her mouth and slumped against the door jam. “Thank God. Oh thank God.”

  “Come in, Dr. Keating.” Helen took her arm and pulled her in.

  Adelaide wiped her face with her sleeve and stood before me. “They said you were dead. They said...there were two bodies. There were two—”

  “It wasn’t me,” I said.

  “It was Mr. and Mrs. Dunn,” Helen said.

  “Yes, but Uncle said—” Adelaide bit her lip and glanced at Helen. “Uncle examined the bodies. He said they were both women.”

  “That’s impossible,” Helen said. “Nell saw them. It was Mr. and Mrs. Dunn.”

  Adelaide’s eyes met mine. I tried to convey to her that I knew about Mr. Dunn. She nodded slowly.

  “It’s good you came, Dr. Keating,” Helen said. “Her arm needs looking at.”

  “Yes.” Adelaide knelt before me. “Her face too, it looks like.” She took my chin in her hands and turned my face to examine my cheek. She glanced at my soaking arm. Her freckles stood out like mud spatters, and her eyes were as dark as licorice. She pulled herself into the chair beside me and tugged a stethoscope from her pocket. “May I listen to your lungs?” She
placed the horn of the stethoscope against my chest, and I breathed in and out as she directed. Her hands were black with soot, I noticed, and her fingers trembled.

  “Cough for me.”

  I coughed. It caught in my throat and I coughed some more. I took a drink from my tepid tea and breathed slightly better.

  “You have some damage from the smoke. We’ll need to keep an eye on that. Now let’s look at this arm.” She prodded the soggy plaster. “This is a mess, isn’t it? It’ll have to be plastered again, poor thing, but I don’t have any plaster with me. Mrs. Hennessey, do you have some linen or thin cotton you can spare?”

  “Yes. I’ll be right back.”

  “Quickly, tell me what happened,” Adelaide said as soon as Helen was gone. “How did the fire start?”

  “It was an oil lantern,” I said. “Mrs. Dunn dropped it.”

  “Dropped it? So it was an accident?”

  “I think so. That is, in the end it was an accident, but at first...she meant to kill me.”

  “Why?” Adelaide asked, but almost as if she knew the answer.

  “She was afraid I would tell someone that she killed Talbot Stanfield. He’d told me he hoped to visit an old friend here. I thought he meant Helen, since it turns out he knew her too. But it was actually Mr. Dunn he meant to visit.”

  “Hiram.”

  “Yes When Mr. Stanfield met the current Mr. Dunn, he knew he—I mean, she—was an imposter. He figured out that they must have killed the real Mr. Dunn, or maybe Emily was just afraid that he would figure it out, so she killed him, or they both did. I don’t know, but she was afraid I was going to tell, so she was going to burn the jail up with me in it.”

  Adelaide put a hand on my hair. “I’m so sorry, Nell. I’ve known about Angela for a long time. She and Emily visited me shortly after I returned from medical school. Angela had a medical problem that she couldn’t take to another doctor. They trusted me with that secret, but I didn’t know about the real Mr. Dunn.”

  “I wouldn’t have told anyone about it,” I said, “but she didn’t believe me. She was so scared. I think in the end she believed me. I think she did. But that’s when she dropped the lantern.”

  Adelaide ran the back of her fingers against my bruised cheek. “I heard your husband arrived in town today. He did this?”

  “Yes. He wanted to take me back home, and I couldn’t let him. He’ll kill me. I know he will. So I asked Marshal Mitchell to arrest me. I don’t want to go to prison, but I can’t go back with him.”

  “No, you can’t go to prison,” Adelaide said. “And I won’t let you go back with him.”

  I wanted to believe her. “How can you stop it?”

  “I have an idea, but we’ll need Mrs. Hennessey’s cooperation. Do you trust her?”

  “I do, but what’s your idea?”

  “Here she is. I’ll tell you both at the same time.”

  We sat upright, for as we talked I’d leaned against her, and she put her arm around my waist. When Helen entered, she found us sitting primly. Adelaide’s grimy hands still worked the damp plaster on my cast, and she stared at them as if she’d never seen anything so interesting. For the first time in the long dreary night, I smiled.

  “Thank you for the linen, Mrs. Hennessey,” Adelaide said. “Sit down a moment, please. I’m going to tell you a story that might shock you.”

  “I’m not easily shocked, but go ahead. And call me Helen, please.”

  “Very well, Helen. It’s a very short story. My uncle says that both of the bodies out there are women, and Nell says that they are Mr. and Mrs. Dunn. Both of them are correct.”

  Helen was surprised, but only for a moment. I could see it in her eyes when she understood. “So that’s why Emily was so upset when I showed up at her door, and she didn’t want me there when Hiram came home.”

  The last of my cast came free. Helen handed Adelaide a towel. She wiped my arm gently, dried her own hands, and wrapped my arm in a temporary bandage.

  “Emily thought you knew the real Mr. Dunn,” I said. “She thought you’d recognize her husband as an imposter.”

  “She was practically a bigamist, then.” Helen gave a soft laugh. “Except with a woman. I never thought of that.”

  “Nobody else has either,” Adelaide said. “I’d like to keep it that way. When Uncle said two women died in that fire, everyone assumed it was Emily Dunn and Nell. The three of us sitting at this table are the only ones who know the truth.”

  I began to see what Adelaide was getting at. “If Robert thinks I died in the fire, he won’t look for me anymore.”

  “That’s right,” Adelaide said. “And Marshal Mitchell can’t send you back east for trial if he thinks you’re dead.”

  “So we just let everyone think you’re dead.” Helen nodded. “It could work. But what about Mr. Dunn? Hiram, I mean, or whatever her name is.”

  “They’ll wonder what happened to him,” Adelaide said, “but it’s a mystery they’ll never solve.”

  Another knock at the door startled us.

  “Hide, Nell,” Adelaide whispered. She swept the remains of the cast into the bowl and slid it into the oven, while Helen ushered me out of the kitchen, through the living room, and into the darkened confectionary. She hurried back and opened the door.

  “Evening Mrs. Hennessey.” It was Marshal Mitchell’s voice. “I understand you’re a friend of the family.”

  “Oh Guy, you poor thing, come with me. I’ll find a place for you to sleep.” The door of the kitchen opened. I peeked out and saw Helen take Guy upstairs. His head was bowed, his shoulders slumped, and my heart broke for him. Except for his sister, a young bride in Seattle, he was all alone in the world now, though he didn’t know it yet.

  I heard Marshal Mitchell’s voice again. “I’m sorry about Mrs. Jones.”

  “Sorry?” Adelaide asked, her voice hard as rocks.

  “I only put her there because she asked me to, you know. Her husband...well, that jail’s been kindling for years, you know that.”

  Adelaide said nothing.

  “Anyway, I’m sorry. I know she was your friend. It’s too bad she had to die like that.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I SLEPT IN Adelaide’s bed that night. She loaned me a nightshirt that fit me like a gown and handed me a bottle of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup.

  “This will ease your cough,” she said, “and the pain in your arm and head.”

  I swallowed deeply, crawled under the covers, and closed my eyes. Moments later I felt her slip into bed from the other side. I reached out and touched softness and heat. I rolled over, curled into her warmth, and fell sound asleep.

  I awoke to find sun streaming through the curtains and my head pillowed on Adelaide’s breast. I breathed deeply for a long moment, savoring the feel of it, until I felt a touch on my hair. I turned my head without raising it and saw Adelaide watching me. Her eyes were shadowed, her lids heavy.

  She gave a tired smile. I watched her tongue play back and forth along the gap in her front teeth. She licked her lips, and I thought of the evening when she almost kissed me. I had secrets from her then, and couldn’t let her, but I had no secrets now.

  I wriggled my hips and elbows to scoot myself higher in the bed until my face reached hers. I could count on one hand the times I’d been kissed on the lips, and all were by Robert. The first was the night he proposed. The second was our wedding kiss. Both were chaste and dry. Three other times during the night he had kissed me while pushing himself into me. I’d never felt pleasure, only the panic of suffocation as he covered me with his body. I’d never wanted to kiss anyone, until now.

  “Nell,” she said. It was a whisper, a warning. Be careful.

  I ignored it. I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers. They were soft and giving. It was like tasting fruit. I wanted more. I kissed her again. Her lips opened, and I ran my own tongue against the space in her teeth, touching her gums and her tongue.

  She groaned, wrapped her
arms around me, and rolled me so that I was flat on the bed with her above me. She covered me, but it was not like when Robert did it. Her breasts hung down inside her sleepshirt and fell heavy against my chest. One of her legs lay between mine, and I felt heat inside me.

  “Do you know what you’re doing to me?” she asked.

  “I think so.” I pressed myself against her thigh until I shook.

  “Oh, Nell.” She kissed me, rough and soft at the same time. She ran her hands along my body, outside the sleep shirt at first, then inside. Her fingers touched my bare skin. She stroked and pressed her fingers against me. I pulled her shirt up and touched her the way she touched me. We rubbed our bodies together until we shuddered deep and long.

  Afterward we rearranged our clothes and lay against each other, resting and catching our breaths. I watched the dust swirling in the beam of sunlight and wished that I could lay in Adelaide’s arms forever.

  Grace and Trissie were the lucky ones. They still got to live together in their pretty rooms, masquerading as roommates, and sleeping in each other’s arms every night. That’s all I wanted to do. That’s all Mr. and Mrs. Dunn — Angela and Emily — wanted too, but they’d had to risk so much to be able to do it, and in the end, they lost everything.

  “I wish I could stay here forever,” I said.

  Adelaide’s arm tightened around me. “You’re welcome to.”

  I sat up, pulled my knees to my chest, and rested my chin on them. “What am I going to do? I can’t stay here. I can’t teach.” My eyes filled with tears at the enormity of my loss. “I can’t even go back to the boarding house and get my clothes. I have no money. I have n-n-nothing.”

  “Shh.” Adelaide sat up and put her arms around me. “Hush, don’t cry, my love. I’ll take care of you. You’re not alone.”

  “How can you?” I asked. “You can’t very well hide me in the cellar.”

  “We don’t have to stay here. We’ll leave. We’ll go away somewhere and start new lives together. Doctors are needed everywhere.”

  I raised my head. Her cinnamon eyes were so kind and full of feeling—for me. She’d called me her love, and my heart raced at the thought that it might be true. Could we really live together, love each other every day, the way Grace and Trissie did?