by Denise Daye
Emma kinda knew where this story was heading. Things were coming together like puzzle pieces now. “So, you joined the military to restore your family’s honor?”
John nodded. “Pretty much. It was the only way. Nobody dares to disrespect war heroes. After my enlistment, the rumors stopped, and my family started to get invitations again. Elise had long disappeared, but rumor had it she married an Italian banker. And Blackwell…I had seen so much horror in battle. I decided to let go of my hatred for Blackwell and not challenge him to a duel. Besides, nobody knew about what had happened between us anyway. The engagement was never made public, and Elise disappeared to Italy for a few years after all of this, so society and my family thought she ran off with an Italian or something. So why open old wounds and drag my family though a scandal again?”
Emma threw her arms around John’s neck and kissed him. She wanted nothing more than to comfort him. How could the world be so cruel to such a noble and kind man? He kissed her back as though it would help make all the bad memories disappear again. And had he stopped with his story right then and there, all would have been well. Emma would have told him the truth about herself and agreed to a marriage, but before she could even begin, John continued.
“And that is why I never married or let a woman near me again. Not because I was heartbroken, but I could not bear putting my family through something like that a second time. My father dead, my mother and sister outcasts, me trapped in the hell of war…and what for? All because a woman lied to me and then disappeared.”
His words cut her like a sharp knife. Emma couldn’t believe what he had just said. She tore herself away from John, almost losing her footing.
“What’s wrong?” He tried to grab her hand, but Emma took another step back.
She was exactly like Elise. Different details, but the same ending. Nothing more, nothing less. Emma felt a burning sensation in her throat she knew would lead to tears. She turned around before John could see her like this.
“I’m sorry, John. I can’t marry you!” Emma cried, storming out of his room. John tried to go after her, but Emma ran back to her room and locked her door.
“Emma!” John banged his fist against her door. “Emma, open the door and talk to me! Please!”
Emma did no such thing. Tears were running down her face. She threw herself onto the bed and sobbed into the pillows. How could she have thought for even a second that she and John could work out? She had ruined everything. Maybe it would be best to just go back to London with Lily and do whatever work would pay for a room and a piece of old bread. At least then she would live life as it is, not waste her time on dreams and fantasies. She wanted to go back home. Now. Leave everything behind. John, William, Victorian London…all of it. Emma didn’t notice when John stopped begging her to let him in, nor how long it took to cry herself to sleep. All she could hear were her father’s words in her head, over and over again:
You are a Washington, so you will live in misery just like the rest of us.
Chapter 10
“Emma…” Lily whispered. “Emma, wake up. Hurry.”
E mma opened her swollen eyes. She must have cried for hours. It was still dark inside her room.
“We have to go, now,” she heard Skip whisper.
Skip? What the heck was he doing here? Emma sat up abruptly.
“Skip? What are you doing here?” Emma barely recognized his silhouette in the dark.
“We have to go. Now. I shall explain later.”
She got out of bed and grabbed one of her day dresses. Which one, she couldn’t tell in the dark. Skip grabbed her hand to stop her.
“There’s no time for putting that on. Pack as much as yer can. Only things of value.”
Emma looked over to Lily, who was already frantically putting Emma’s things in a bag. Skip helped her throw the first bag out the open window into the dark, cold night. Emma grabbed her cell from underneath the chair, where she had hidden it when she first got there. Trying to be as quiet as possible, she then packed the jewelry box and as many clothes as she could. Emma filled a whole bag with Blackwell’s gifts before Skip grabbed her by her arm.
“Shhh. Don’t move.”
Emma and Lily froze in fear. Footsteps from the hallway. They stopped near her door. Emma held her breath. If the servants or the Evergreens saw her like this now, they would probably call the police, thinking she was a fraud. Which she was.
The footsteps continued on, away from Emma’s door. Skip signaled her and Lily to get out the window, throwing the bag Emma had just packed over his shoulder. Lily was halfway out the window, stepping onto what looked like a ladder of sorts. Emma followed her quickly, climbing out the window and onto the ladder herself. She wasn’t afraid of heights, and the fall wouldn’t have been very far, so she descended in haste and without care. Skip was right next to them in a matter of seconds. He grabbed three bags and took off through the gardens to disappear into the dark shadow of the nearby woods. Emma grabbed the bag that was left and followed him, trying to watch every step as much as possible. That was easier said than done. The moon was hiding behind the clouds, making certain parts of the escape route pitch black. Just as she thought her eyes had somewhat adapted to the dark, her left foot got caught in some sort of bush, and she fell flat onto her arms and knees. Hard. Skip stopped and signaled Lily, who was right behind her, to help her back up.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
Emma didn’t think anything was broken but felt the familiar burn of flesh wounds on her knees and arms. There was no time now for booboos. She got back on her feet. “Yes, I’m fine.”
The three continued to make their way like thieves through the night after a robbery. It must have been a good ten minutes before Skip led them into an opening next to a road. Emma saw the familiar carriage with the two brown horses that were complicit in what was supposed to have made her Lady of Blackwell Castle. Skip threw the bags onto the carriage and lit the lanterns that were attached to its sides.
“He knows,” Skip said, strapping down the bags on top of the carriage to secure them.
“Who? John?” Emma asked in shock.
“Not sure about that. But Blackwell does, for sure.”
“But that’s impossible,” Lily said in disbelief.
“Nothing is impossible, especially when it involves that stinking son of a dog, Flinch.”
“Who is Flinch?”
Lily’s face became more and more the color of a tomato. She clenched her fists in rage. “Ooooohhhh, I will kill him!” she yelled, picking up a rock from the ground and throwing it angrily into the woods. “He ruined everything, the useless piece of shit!” she yelled, throwing another rock.
Emma looked at Skip. “Who is Flinch, and how does he know Lord Blackwell?”
“The meater who tried to rob yer. Apparently, when yer were passed out on the side of a road or somethin’. Lord Blackwell had a reward put out by his private detective asking for information regardin’ a robbery on an American lady.”
Emma didn’t even have to hear the rest of the story. She got the picture. Flinch must have come forward and run his mouth. Emma sat down on the ground near Lily, who was still cussing and throwing rocks into the woods. She couldn’t believe it. So, this was how it would all end? Send her to the poorhouse? Or into prostitution?
“Skip, when did all of this happen?” Emma asked.
“I cannot say for sure, but last night some time. I ‘eard it early this mornin’ from a friend. Said that Flinch came ter money for providing info on an American lady ter a private detective. The drunk fool that he is, he was runnin’ his mouth in the Black Swan about it.”
Emma didn’t know what that was.
“A tavern,” Skip explained.
Lily stopped throwing rocks and stomped over to Skip and Emma. “I shall kill him! I mean it,” Lily clenched her fists again. She had tears in her eyes, and Emma knew why. It was all over. They would both spend their lives in Victorian poverty.
“Yer might not get that pleasure,” Skip placed his hand on Lily’s shoulder, a sign of sympathy. “He has disappeared.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked, wiping her tears away.
“Nobody really knows. He has not been seen since last night at the Black Swan. If we are lucky, he has succumbed ter the depths of the Thames. A fitting endin’, considerin’ how many people he and his crooked hornswoggler friends have robbed and thrown in there.”
“So now Blackwell has everything he needs to ruin us…or send us to prison.” Emma couldn’t make sense of it. She had been so close—why did this have to happen to her and Lily? How did they get so unlucky?
“Pretty much. A man like Blackwell can do whatever he wants with yer now. With his status and influence, he could have you locked up in his wine cellar if it pleased him. Or send yer ter an insane asylum, which would be worse than death, if you ask me,” Skip said, shaking his head.
Emma understood perfectly well what a man like Blackwell was capable of. And now that Emma had hurt his pride, even played him for a fool, he surely would not be happy about it.
“But maybe he doesn’t care?” Lily sounded desperate, as if she was willing to grasp any bit of hope before she would return to a life of poverty and ruin.
“If that is the case, he will not care in a few weeks either and both of yer can come out of hiding. But for now, it would be better to get out of here. Better safe than sorry.”
Emma agreed. If, for some reason, Blackwell didn’t care about the whole robbery plot and still wanted to marry her, it would still be an option in a few weeks. If, however, he were to use the information to slowly destroy Emma, then it would be better to be gone before he found out about it.
“Skip is right, Lily.” Emma put a hand on her other shoulder to help Skip comfort her. Lily seemed to calm down, slowly coming to terms with the situation. Anger and desperation turned into sadness, and she took a deep breath in and out.
“We were so close, Emma. So, so close.”
“I know…I know.”
“We better go,” Skip interrupted, jumping onto the driver’s bench.
Lily stepped into the carriage, followed by Emma, who looked back onto the dark road as if she might see John there—for the last time. She thought about how badly she must have hurt him with all of this. She wished that she would never have tried to marry William Blackwell. She should have just lived her life in poverty and misery like all the other poor women in Victorian England. Like a true Washington, as her father would have told her.
As the carriage took off into the dark night, Emma swore to herself right then and there that she would never see John or William ever again. She would leave John be so he could find the woman he deserved. And William…no, she wouldn’t marry him. Even if he still wanted her. After everything he had done to John, it would hurt John too much, and besides, Emma couldn’t stand that man. On top of everything, it still didn’t feel right to marry someone for money anyway. Deep down, she had always known that no matter how big of an ass William Blackwell was, it still didn’t give her a moral get-out-of-jail-free card to use him as it pleased her.
“It is what it is.” Emma would find a way back home. It might take a lifetime in poverty, but she would find a way home or die trying. She owed it to Lily and to herself. But first, she had to find a way to survive. And that wasn’t quite so easy, considering where she was headed right now.
“Faster, you vazey cow,” the filthy overseer shouted up at Emma, who was standing on a platform next to a big, round metal container full of boiling water. To this day, Emma wasn’t sure what role the container played in the production of cloth, but she assumed it was cleaning the cloth before selling it. Emma picked up another big piece of white cotton and threw it in with the other fabrics. She then stirred it with a huge wooden stick, as if she was making an enormous pot of soup. Her hands were covered in blisters that wouldn’t heal, thanks to working at this damn cotton factory every day from dusk until dawn. And every day meant every day. No Saturday or Sunday off. Not just a few overtime hours here or there on salary. No. Every day meant every day, sunup to sundown. Never had she worked so hard in her life. She bore a constant feeling of exhaustion, no matter the time of day. Heck, she even felt exhausted in her sleep! The first three weeks of working at the factory had been the hardest. She would constantly fall asleep, causing her to burn herself on the hot metal container several times a day. Every inch of her body hurt from torn muscles, blisters, burn marks, or exhaustion. But she still preferred this to what poor Lily had to endure. Building up a new clientele in her line of work meant weeding out the “decent” from the abusive perverts. One night, Lily came home with a blue eye and a bleeding lip. Skip and Emma were so furious, they looked for that guy all night but never found him.
It had been over four months since Skip had woken Emma up in the middle of the night to lead her into this new chapter of her life. A chapter full of misery and pain. Lily and Emma had had to start fresh in a part of town where nobody knew them. William’s private detective turned out to be quite good at his work, so they were always on the run. Skip was absolutely invaluable in helping them stay hidden. Lily had never told her what kind of work Skip was involved in, but she assumed it was something not entirely in agreement with the law, as he’d had to hide out a few times before and knew the ins and outs of how to be successful at it. The dresses and jewelry Emma had received from William were the only reason they were not in the poorhouse yet. They had traded some of them for a room and food and other essential items. Still, the number of dresses was limited, so both Emma and Lily had had to go back to work to live from penny to penny, always just enough money to cover rent and have a little food in their stomachs.
Like an angel’s voice from heaven, Emma heard that familiar bell ring, telling her and the rest of the burnt-out factory workers that another day in hell had just come to an end. People walked out of the factory like zombies, limping home in different directions. Emma looked up to the factory’s entrance gate to see the familiar face she looked for every day. There she was. Like every evening, Lily was waiting for her, watching Emma’s coworkers in disbelief.
“Why will you not try for another position? Somewhere else? Not even I would work at this death mill,” Lily said to Emma the moment she arrived at the big, rusty metal gate. Emma hated that gate so much, she sometimes had nightmares about it.
“It’s too risky. You know William and John are still asking around. It wouldn’t be wise doing anything that would require me to talk a lot and expose my accent. This is fine, Lily. At least it’s warm next to that damn pot.”
Lily grabbed Emma’s arm and turned it to get a better look at the latest burn she had brought back from the factory. The souvenir was a nasty one, and Emma was seriously worried about getting an infection from it.
“Really cozy,” Lily countered sarcastically, holding Emma’s arm up like evidence in court.
Emma was too tired to argue with her. They had been such a comfort to each other, and without Lily, Emma would probably have been dead somewhere in the streets, but lately, they argued a lot about the same things. Emma knew that Lily only meant well, so she wasn’t really mad at her for continually trying to talk her into applying for different jobs, but Emma was worried about attracting attention and leading John or William or both right to them.
Skip reported on their efforts to find Emma regularly. According to Skip, nothing about the faked robbery had surfaced, and the police were not involved—yet—but who knew what William was up to? A man like William was capable of anything. Emma’s best guess was revenge.
Then there was John. Kind, caring John. Every minute Emma was not in pain, she was thinking of his gentle smile, the one that always warmed her from the inside like a beautiful summer evening. Emma couldn’t figure out why John was even looking for her. She couldn’t see him craving revenge like William, so what did he wa
nt? Was he still in love with her, after everything she had done to him? It didn’t matter. Emma had made a promise that night to leave John be. Let him find a woman he deserved. A woman who would not drag his family through a scandal.
“Come on, Lily, let’s make our rounds,” Emma said, disheartened, shaking off the thought of John.
Lily agreed, nodding her head quietly, but it was apparent she wasn’t happy about dropping the subject of Emma working herself to death.
Emma gathered the tiny bit of energy that she’d kept hidden from that filthy, monstrous overseer who stalked around, beating on and yelling at the women to make them work faster. She hated him. Emma had never hated someone as much as that man. He was always covered in dirt and smelled awful. One time, he’d had the audacity to swing that whip of his at Emma, hitting her right on the cheek. She had only stopped stirring the pot for a few seconds before he hit her, and by God, she would rather die than let some filthy man beat her up with a whip like she was some animal. She’d grabbed it out of his hands and swiped it right over that ugly face of his. It had cost her a full week’s wage, but to Emma, it had been worth every penny. Seeing that whip smack that filthy smile right off his face had no price tag. After that, he had never touched her again, knowing that she would take him down right then and there, until her last breath if need be, should he ever lay hands on her.
After her shift at the factory of horrors, Emma and Lily would make their rounds visiting every pharmacy and drug store in London. Emma was trying hard to get everything she needed to make penicillin. About two years ago, she had learned how to make it in her college chemistry class; it was really not that hard to reproduce, if she could gather the ingredients. Many people didn’t know it, but the main ingredient for penicillin was found at every corner: bread. Penicillin was made out of moldy bread. But things got a bit harder, gathering the rest of what she would need, especially zinc sulfate. For weeks, Emma and Lily had been running around London, trading dresses or jewelry for items on Emma’s list. Lily wasn’t entirely convinced that making penicillin was worth spending all of their savings, which was how she referred to William’s gifts that now kept them aloft, but Emma had anticipated this kind of resistance from someone who didn’t understand the concept of infections and antibiotics. To Emma, there was no doubt in her mind that the horrendous conditions of the slums they were living in would be her end before Christmas came around. Her body was not used to Victorian germs and poor hygienic standards, and even something as small as a scratch, or burn, could get infected and kill her in a matter of weeks.
