Mrs. Engels

by Gavin McCrea

  I’m left with Bouton and Pernaudet. Huddled like plotters on the couch, they talk in low voices in the French. I clear my throat.

  “Don’t you think it gives a queer air to a place, having so many people who don’t want to be in it?”

  They look confused.

  “London, I mean.”

  “Oh, London.”

  “Why did you choose London, gents, if it displeases you so much?”

  “This was the only place. It was either here or Switzerland.”

  “I see. And Switzerland?”

  They shake their heads as if to say, “You think here is peaceful?”

  I use a stray napkin to rub the paint off the lip of my glass. “I’ve come to believe emigration can’t be healthful for a person,” I says.

  The two men nod, wistful.

  “You know, Madame Lizzie,” Bouton says after a time, “you have the aspect of someone who has seen trouble and had to fight it.”

  “That I’ve done my share of fighting can’t be gainsaid. By nobody it can’t.”

  “You’re not the same as these people”—he nods towards the door—“my advice to you is, go softly and do not lose yourself among them.”

  I begin to protest.

  “We all have our reasons for being somewhere, do we not, Madame Lizzie? In France there is war. An order out on our heads. We cannot return, not if we want to live. This is our excuse. But you, Madame Lizzie, what is yours?”

  “My excuse?”

  “Go easy, Bouton,” says Pernaudet, and mutters something in the French.

  Bouton dismisses him. “Yes, Madame Lizzie, what is your reason for being here, away from where you belong? You must have one. We all do. If we did not, we would be back there, n’est-ce pas?”

  “I’ve no place to be going back to, Mr. Bouton. This is my home. Is that what you call a reason?”

  “No.”

  “Bouton!”

  “Please leave him, Mr. Pernaudet. Though he tries, Mr. Bouton doesn’t offend.”

  Pernaudet bows.

  Bouton smiles. “Do you like it here, Mrs. Burns? In London. In these houses?”

  “Like it or nay, it’s where I find myself, and it’s where I’ll live myself out.”

  “Such a pity.”

  “Bouton!”

  “Please, Mr. Pernaudet, I don’t wish to be handled with kidskin. Mr. Bouton, I’ve been to Ireland only once, on a holiday with Frederick, but I still call myself Irish, and I will till the last of my breaths. Can you understand that?”

  He curls his lip down. “No.”

  I laugh. “All right, then, can you understand this: was I to take myself off tomorrow, back to Ireland, or wheresoever, Mr. Engels’s house would fall right down.”

  “No house for the Internationals?” he says. “My God, Madame Lizzie, where would we all be then?”

  Where? Nowhere is where.

  A body must be where her money is made.

  February

  XV. The Necessary Course

  The Revolution has happened. In my parlor.

  Chairs overturned. Empty bottles on the chimneypiece. Half-full glasses among the plants in the pots. Fag ends in the necks of the lamps. The clod from someone’s pipe stuck onto Jenny’s horse painting, right where its bit ought be. And on the sofa, head to foot and snoring, their clothes screwed tight about them, morning wood standing up in their breeches: men I don’t recognize.

  Another fancy evening for the comrades. Another night spent with cotton in my ears and a chair against the door. And now another day spent with yesterday’s smoke clogging up my bad lung?

  Nay. There’s something wrong in this. I must get out. I must breathe the outside air, else I’ll be stuck here suffering in my heart the agonies of a caged animal till death and salvation overtake me.

  I’ll talk to Frederick, is what I’ll do. Unload my mind on him. And by my tone he’ll know I’ve neither leisure nor energy for debate. I’ll say the house is a problem I want no more business with. Give me a job, I’ll say. A proper purpose. I can no longer be happy living in a wife’s constraints. Put me to good use, send me out to do what I’m fit for. No matter how mean the task, I’ll perform it, as long as it brings me a distance from this place. And there’s this to be said too: outside in the world I’ll keep a good spirit, and will weather the severe judgments my public actions will draw down on me, for if there’s any justice, there’s another world with no politics biding for me above.

  XVI. A Public Woman

  “You must give me something to do.”

  He’s lying in his shirt from last night, a cloth folded over his eyes, an arm folded over the cloth. “Ach,” he moans, and turns his face away from me as if from a flood of unwanted light, “there is so much to do. So much.”

  “I need to get out of this house.”

  “Well, go. Who’s stopping you?”

  “The mess you left downstairs, is what.”

  “Leave that to the maids if you must.”

  “Have no fear. I won’t be lifting a finger to it.”

  “Good.” Keeping the cloth in place with an unsteady hand, he rolls over onto his side. “Now, if you don’t mind, Lizzie, this head I have needs more rest.”

  They call him a genius. They point to his articles and tell me his mind is mighty, crushing, and I won’t gainsay it, if it’s down there in black and white. Me, I can only know what I know, and that’s the man, the meat and bones of him.

  “You must give me something to do. Something useful. I won’t lie idle like this any longer.”

  “Go visit Jenny.”

  “Oh, aye, the cure for all my ills.”

  He sighs, flops onto his back again, lifts the corner of the cloth, peeps out from under it. “What’s the matter with you, Lizzie? You said you didn’t want any more active duties. You were very clear about that when we came to London.”

  “I know what I said. And I’m not asking to command a battalion. I just want something to get me abroad of this god-forsaken shit-sty!”

  He gives me the best thing he can find this early and in his condition. I’m to go to a convent in Hampstead, the Sisters of Providence, and plead a case for Edward Dalby, a comrade from Manchester whose wife has just died, leaving him with three young children he can’t keep. The convent has refused his application because he’s been unable to prove a stable income. I’m to meet with whoever will see me, Mother Theodore if possible, and convince her that Dalby’s associates—and I can only suppose that means Frederick alone—will cover the cost of the girls’ education. He gives me a letter, some money for the cab, and a further sum in case I need to pay anyone off.

  “Now that I think of it,” he says, “you’re probably the best man for the case. I don’t know why I didn’t put you on it before.”

  “I must have slipped your mind,” I says, taking another sovereign from the box, this one for my trouble.

  Mother Theodore is big. Big in a fashion I didn’t think nuns were allowed to be big.

  “What can I do for you, Mrs. Burns?” she says.

  I hear her and would like to answer, but I’m frozen in wonder at how a hole in the face so small could be responsible for what hangs around it.

  “Mrs. Burns?”

  I shift in my seat, pull my eyes down to my lap. “Sister, may I speak to you plain?”

  “Please do.”

  “I’m not sure why I’m here.” I look up.

  She purses. Leans herself forward onto the creaking desk. “Well, Mrs. Burns, when I find myself in a moment without a purpose, I like to eliminate from my mind those things that rest beyond the reach of my powers. Would I be right in saying you haven’t come here with the flickerings of a vocation?”

  I can’t but smile. Her eyes—alive among the stone statues and the faded pictures of the sacred subjects—catch mine, and for a moment we’re two simple lasses twinkling at each other, two lasses weary of the continual calls on us to clean up other people’s messes. I’ve come biding fo
r a fight, but now I feel a change happen within me: a smoothing, a softening.

  “You’d be right there, Sister. You won’t fit me into a habit.”

  “Well then, Mrs. Burns, tell me, what might your intentions be in coming here today?”

  “My husband has sent me in the belief that I can do something to further one of his causes.”

  “Your husband? I may live behind high walls, Mrs. Burns, but I am not deaf to the local voices.”

  “We’re not so particular about the ceremony.”

  “But you live together as man and wife?”

  “We do.”

  “I see. Go on.”

  “He thinks that because I’m Catholic by breeding I’d have—what’ll I say?—an influence that he, being only a Calvin, would not.”

  “An influence? Over what?”

  “Over the matter at hand.”

  “And what matter is that?”

  “I think he’s sent you a letter about it.” I take his latest letter from my reticule.

  She waves it away. “He has done more than that, Mrs. Burns. He has also come to see us, in person. And, as you probably already know, we have had to refuse his request.”

  “I do know that, Sister, and I think what Mr. Engels would like—”

  “I am very aware of what Mr. Engels would like. What interests me right now is what you would like.”

  “I’d like what he wants.”

  “And I would like you to speak for yourself.”

  She joins her hands on the desk. The cross she’s wearing—gold with green brilliants—gives me license to stay on the surge of her bust for longer than is proper.

  “All right. I’m here to help a man, Edward Dalby. My husband will have told you all about him already. Do you want to hear it again?”

  “I want to hear it from you, yes. That is why you have come, is it not?”

  “If that’s what you want, Sister.”

  “It is.”

  I arrange my face to a sober expression, business-like. “Mr. Dalby is a piano maker living in Manchester, and one of the soundest of bodies I know. He borrows from nobody, except in the extremes of need, and he has such a conscience that always pays back. I’m not going to lie to you, Sister, he’s a Communist and has different ideas, but he’s desperate. He’s lost his wife to the consumption and has been turned out of his trade for his politics. He has three little girls, Sister. Gorgeous wee things. He feels he can’t bring them up at home in a proper manner, and has asked Frederick—Mr. Engels—to find places for them.”

  “And you think the Convent of the Sisters of Providence might be a suitable place?”

  “My husband seems to think so.”

  “Do you think so?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know, Sister. I haven’t thought long on it.”

  She clears her throat. Lays her hands flat on the desk, the pork of the fingers spreading. It looks like she’s about to push herself up, but instead she sighs and joins her hands again. “I take it you do not have children of your own, Mrs. Burns.”

  “I don’t, Sister.”

  “And Mr. Engels?”

  “Nay, not him either.”

  The pause is so long and deep I can hear my lie echo about in it. Enough of the fibs and the fiction. The time for hiding is past.

  “Well, Sister, the truth be known, he has one of his own. A bastard. I know it sounds peculiar.”

  “Peculiar? Nothing that happens in the world is peculiar, Mrs. Burns. It is simply what happens.”

  It’s only now I’ve said it that I understand how hard it was to say. Burning in the face, I turn away. Through the window bars, a courtyard. And through the windows on the opposite wall, classrooms. Though my sight doesn’t stretch that far, I see in my mind neat rows of identical girls, each repeating the same dree task over and over. It’s mean and silly of me, but I can’t help thinking of the mill.

  “Mrs. Burns?”

  “Aye, Sister?”

  “Would you like a glass of water?” She gestures to the jug on the sideboard. I shake my head. She looks down at a page on the desk. “Tell me, Mrs. Burns, is he a Catholic, this Mr. Dalby?”

  “Sister, if I may?” I nod towards the water, for I’ve decided on it after all.

  “Please do.” She doesn’t move.

  I get up and serve myself. “You’re asking if he’s a Catholic?” I says when I’m quenched and sat again. She nods. “Let me tell you something, Sister. I had a friend once. A Jew.”

  “Oh?”

  “He used to go round saying he didn’t want anything to do with his religion, and true enough, he knew how to buy a beck of pork as well as the next. But I noticed one thing about him.”

  “And what was that?”

  “He didn’t work on a Saturday. And he always washed his hands before his meals. And he never used the same knife to cut his meat as he used to spread his butter.”

  “I’m not sure I gather your meaning, Mrs. Burns.”

  “All right, then. Look at me.” I lean back on the chair to show myself full glory. “I don’t go to Mass. I don’t deny it. But if I’m passing a chapel, I’ll drop into it, to bless myself or have myself a prayer. And I’ll do it even when I’ve money in my pocket and have naught particular to ask for.”

  “Mrs. Burns, are you saying I should look on Mr. Dalby as a Catholic even if, with his political actions, he works for the destruction of the Church?”

  “You’d get to raise his children in the faith. That’d be your gain.”

  She laughs, and for a moment the bleeding heart of Christ and the mournful Mary and the Savior bearing the cross and the adoration of the Shepherds and Pope Pius (may he live another hundred years) appear to laugh along with her. “You make an interesting argument, Mrs. Burns.”

  She gets up—wood and leather groaning—and goes to fill a glass of her own from the jug. Sends it down like a whiskey. “You do understand we’re not a charity,” she says, coming back to her chair. “The fee for boarding is thirteen pounds for the first year and twelve pounds for subsequent years, excluding uniform, travel, and summer holidays. Is it your, um, home-friend who would pay the sum? Thirteen times three makes thirty-nine pounds per year.”

  “Aye, Frederick’d pay.”

  “That’s a lot of money, Mrs. Burns.”

  “Aye, a fair amount.”

  “It would feed five poor families for twice that length of time.”

  “It would, you’re right.”

  “Give it to any of the workhouses and it would improve the lives of hundreds.”

  “I can’t disown it, Sister, but such charity doesn’t interest me. Dalby is a friend.”

  “And, you know, there are cheaper schools than this one.”

  “But this is close to our home. We could keep an eye.”

  “And you would not miss it? The money, I mean?”

  “We wouldn’t go without. Enough passes through our hands.”

  “And his child? Mr. Engels’s child?”

  “Is grown. Has a family and an income of his own.”

  A long silence that is relieved, final, by the knock on the door.

  “Mrs. Burns, I do apologize, but this is my next appointment.” She heaves herself up. I gather my things. She brings me to the threshold. Here she wavers. “It is my turn to speak plainly, Mrs. Burns.”

  “Of course, Sister.”

  “We are not a charity, as I say, but we do have expenses. Roofs that leak. Walls that need painting. You understand.”

  “I do.”

  “The fees do not always cover all the costs. There are always holes to fill.”

  “I know that well.”

  “I cannot guarantee anything, but making a contribution to the Order would certainly strengthen your case.”

  It would be easy to say I’ve naught about me. It would be easy to say I’ll drop back during the week or have Frederick send something in the post. It’d be easy to keep it all for my own ends. But instead I open my purse and
pass her the coins, including the one I’ve taken for myself. I close her fingers over the money.

  “You know what, Sister? It’s yours. I wish you joy of it.”

  XVII. The Coming

  The business is well ended. A letter has come from the convent: a tuition bill. Frederick embraces me and says, “You’re a wonder, Lizzie Burns, a miracle worker,” and in my soul it’s like a cloud has passed from a dreary scene. Once again I feel part of the affairs of the world, and though I’m breaking old promises made to myself, I find I’m better for it.

  I do my morning tasks with a new energy, knowing I don’t depend on them to give worth to my time, and when they’re done I find I have a healthy hunger on me. I decide to have lunch with the girls in the kitchen. They give me leery looks but don’t interfere with me or come at me with backtalk; they can tell I now mean to live as I please.

  Just tucking in and there’s the door. Jenny glides in with a stamp of pain on her. I’m not disposed to get up and make much of it. Just decided: I’m taking the rest of the day off. A Saint Monday.

  Pumps finds her a stool.

  “Will you have something?”

  “No, no, please, don’t let me disturb your lunch.”

  Easier said than done, with the soughs she sends out over it.

  “Is there something wrong, Jenny?”

  “Oh, Lizzie, I hate to trespass on your time.” Her hand reaches out to seize the wrist I’ve left idle on the cloth.

  I put down my spoon. “You girls finish up here. I’ll heat mine up after.”

  In the morning room Jenny takes the sofa. Beckons me to sit beside her. “Forgive me, Lizzie. I’m a beast for barging in like this.”

  “That’s all right, Jenny. Tell me what’s the matter.”

  The matter—she proceeds by loops and zigzags, but I eventual draw her out into frankness—is that the Girls want to go to France to help Laura with the new babby.

  “And you don’t want them to go?”

  “The war has only just ended, Lizzie. The situation there is very unsettled. It’s true Laura is in Bordeaux, away from the heat of Paris. Nonetheless, I’m certain it cannot be safe, two girls traveling there alone. And especially these two girls. If anyone found out who they were and what their father did, well—”