The Outsider

by Penelope Williamson

  A brown tweed frock coat hung from the arm of a bent-wood coat tree. She lifted one of the sleeves and rubbed it against her cheek. It smelled fresh, with just a hint of sandalwood. It was one of the things she liked most about him, his clean smell. In her experience most men were filthier than rutting pigs.

  A beautiful hide trunk with brass hardware stood against one wall, and above it hung an army officer's sword. He'd once done his doctoring in the cavalry. That was one of the few things she knew about him.

  Next to the sword a valentine had been hung on the wall in a gilded frame. As Marilee stared at the collage of gold lace and red velvet flowers, of pearl clusters and pink satin ribbons, she felt a sinking sensation in her belly. The valentine had been given to him by a woman, surely, a woman he must care for still to keep this token of her affection always within his sight. Perhaps she waited for him in Virginia, perhaps he'd kept her valentine and hung it on his wall to remind himself that he was going home to her someday.

  Marilee heard a footstep behind her and swung around. He stood at the threshold of the kitchen, holding a small wicker tray of dried flowers. A shaft of sunlight from a window behind him cast him in shadow, so she couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw him smile. A blush warmed her chest and rose to her cheeks.

  "I was fetching the chamomile for your infusion," he said.

  She could smell the sharp tang of the dried flowers even from across the room, and she couldn't help smiling back at him. "You're like someone's old granny, you know that? What with the way you're always growin' them herbs and roots and such to make potions with, 'stead of dosing people proper with patent medicines like other docs do."

  He lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug as he stepped into the room. "Dulling one's pain with alcohol is certainly an option. But ounce for ounce, a bottle of Rose Bud whiskey is cheaper and far more effective."

  Her smile faded slightly for she hadn't understood him; she never understood half of what he said. And as with the books in the glassfronted cabinet, this frightened her.

  He was, though, underneath his fine manners and educated ways, a man, and she understood men's natures all too well. She heaved an exaggerated sigh that puffed her painted lips and lifted her bosom. The bodice of her dress was filled with an ivory lace jabot sheer enough to reveal the hint of the pink flesh beneath. She slanted a look up at him from beneath her kohled eyelashes, pleased to see that he was taking a good long look at her. Smiling to herself, she turned and lifted the cascade of thick curls off her neck and bowed her head. "I need your help, please, with hookin' up."

  She heard his footsteps, a pause as he set down his tray of dried flowers, more footsteps, and then his shadow fell over the soft pink bell of her skirts. His fingers brushed against her bare nape, and she shuddered.

  "Still feeling a bit queasy?" His hands moved lower, pressing into the small of her back as he fastened the hooks.

  "Oh, no." She had to tighten every muscle to keep from trembling again. "It's just been such a shock an' all, findin' out that I'm goin' to have a baby."

  He finished with the last hook and turned away from her, but not before giving her bustled bottom a friendly pat. Marilee hid another smile.

  She watched while he made up the potion for her morning sickness. He worked at a big rolltop oak desk which had bottles and jars and tins in all the cubbyholes and drawers where most men kept their bills and accounts.

  "I reckon neither my belly or my head's quite settled into the thought of it, of havin' a baby, I mean," she said.

  "A damned inconvenience for you, I'm sure. So I suppose you'll be wanting to rid yourself of it."

  She was still so caught up in looking at him—at the way the muscles of his shoulders bunched beneath the thin white linen of his shirt as he crushed the chamomile with a mortar and pestle—that it took a moment for his words to sink in. When they did, hurt punched into her chest like a blow.

  "God, Luc. What is there about me that makes you want to do that?"

  He raised his head and turned to look at her, genuine puzzlement on his face. The hurt skewed deeper and then flared into anger.

  "I know I'm nothin' but a worthless chippy, a whore, a tart, sportin' gal and fancy gal—oh, there's plenty of names for girls like me and I've been called them all, so you don't need to be throwin' it up in my face all the time like you do." Her hand made a fist that pressed unknowingly into her chest, as if to ease the pain there. "But my bein' what I am don't mean I ain't got feelin's and sensibilities same as anyone else."

  She stood with her head thrown back, her bosom heaving above her clenched fist, her blue eyes wide and sparkling with tears. She looked magnificent, and for once in her life she didn't know it.

  She was aware, though, of him staring at her, and of the strange smile that started to pull at his mouth beneath the concealing droop of his thick mustache. "'If you prick us, do we not bleed. If you tickle us, do we not laugh?... And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge. If we are alike you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.'"

  She flung her hands into the air. "Oh, God, now you're throwin' Bible words at me! I swear, I'd rather be cussed at a blue streak than to—what? What're you laughin' at?"

  It had started with a rumble but he was laughing all out now, wild laughter that stung her feelings even more.

  He leaned back against the desk, wheezing as he tried to bring the laughter under control. "Life, sweet Marilee. I'm laughing at life, because it is just so sublimely ridiculous that there's nothing else to do but laugh—or drink." He stared at her a moment, then sighed. "I was only trying to convey that I'd rather deal with this condition of yours myself than have to clean up the mess left after Mother Jugs gets done butchering your insides with a knitting needle."

  Her throat hurt as if something were caught there, but she managed to get her chin up. "Gwendolene's keeping her baby. Might be I'll keep mine."

  He had turned back to the desk, to his herbs and medicines. "Well, don't dawdle over the decision. I'll induce an abortion for you, if I must. But I won't commit outright murder."

  Marilee felt the clot of tears expand in her throat until she could barely get the words out. "Luc. Did you ever think this baby could be yours?"

  He laughed again. "It would be one for the medical journals, rightly enough, and a babe well worth preserving. Imagine the stir you would cause. The first girl to get knocked up after taking it in her mouth."

  She'd been a whore since she was twelve, but no one had ever sat her down and explained to her the way a woman's insides worked. She supposed she hadn't really thought it possible to get pregnant in that way, but she'd never been sure. Well, now she was sure, thanks to Luc and the way he had of making her feel more stupid than she knew herself to be.

  And he made her feel unwanted, unworthy. Unloved. The utter hopelessness of her yearnings hit her in a rush of anguish. Her shoulders slumped and her head bowed as she turned away.

  She stiffened when his hands settled on her shoulders, but she didn't resist as he pivoted her around to face him. "Oh, Christ," he said. "You're crying."

  Her chest ached from sobs swallowed down, and her eyes ached from tears held back. "What d'you expect, Luc? Them things you say to me."

  He pulled her against him, gathering her in his arms. She pressed her face into the sun-warmed linen of his shirt, which was slightly damp with sweat. His chest was so strong, so solid, a girl could lean on it forever. He held her with a sweet tenderness she'd never known from a man before. But such a tenderness was not meant for her, she thought, not for Marilee, but was simply some innate part of him that he usually managed to squelch and hide.

  His hands rubbed her back. "Even when I'm stone sober, I suppose I'm not the nicest person. And there you are, always coming at me like a puppy, head up, nose wet, and tail wagging. The temptation is just too much to see if I can make you whimper."

  "I don't guess I'm much of a challenge to you, am I?"

  "No, not much of one."

>   She pushed against his chest with both hands, separating them. He was so tall, she had to raise her chin to see his eyes. And he was so fine to look at that she wanted to smile at the sheer wonder of him, even in the midst of her weeping. "What if I do decide to go ahead and have the baby?"

  She knew it was a stupid question the moment she uttered it. What did she expect him to say? Why then, my sweet Marilee, I reckon I'll have to marry you, won't I? I would be plumb privileged to be a daddy to this babe of yours, what could belong to any of the dozens of men who 've had you this past spring.

  Gently, very gently, he brushed his fingers over her cheek, but his words were his old self, careless and a little mean. "The world's full of bastards, my dear, both accidents of birth and self-made men. I shouldn't think one more or less will matter much."

  He finished making her potion after that, wrapping it up in an old scrap of newspaper, telling her how to brew it into a tea to drink every morning before she got out of bed. She put the small parcel in her chatelaine pocket and took a dollar out of it to pay him for his doctoring. He accepted the dollar, just like she took the three-dollar token from his hand every other Saturday night. Gentleman to the end, he saw her to the door, his hand resting just above her rear flounce.

  She cocked her head to look around her shoulder at him, a panic in her that she'd made an utter fool of herself, and that he'd want nothing more to do with her, not even another French Trick. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

  "Of course, my sweet Marilee. After all, too much virtue can lead to too little vice."

  She laughed and tossed her head, and she swiveled her hips as she walked away from him, bouncing her bustle, twitching her skirttails, all the while trying to puzzle out what he'd just said. They were probably more Bible words, she thought, only they'd sounded backwards or something.

  She waited until she heard his door close behind her before slowing her steps. The air was so hot and heavy, it seemed to press into her, weighing her down. She could feel her face sagging, feel a band of misery tightening around her throat, feel the tears and the hurt welling up again in her chest.

  She stumbled along the boardwalk and into the small alley that cut between Tulle's Mercantile and a saloon that was still only half built. The tang of new-cut wood pinched her nose.

  She collapsed onto an upturned nail keg and she breathed through her mouth to keep from crying, but a fierce pain was pressing against her chest so hard it seemed her ribs would crack. She was dimly aware of activity out in the street: a Plain wagon pulling up in front of the mercantile, water splashing, a boy's laugh.

  From deep within her the sobs came, exploding in a downpour of tears, tears that weren't only for this moment but for all the hurting of her life, all the hurting suffered and gone and the hurting that was to come. She doubled up, curling into herself, pressing her head to her knees, hugging them. She rocked and sobbed out words she didn't know she was saying: "Mama, don't let them do that to me, please don't let them do that, Mama...."

  And then someone touched her shuddering back, and cut off her crying as if a hand had been clapped over her mouth.

  She flung her head up and found herself looking into the face of one of those Plain women she saw in town occasionally, depressing looking women who went around in their black coal-scuttle bonnets, black shawls, and homespun dresses dyed an ugly dung brown. Except this woman wasn't plain at all. She had fine pewter gray eyes and a mouth on her, Marilee thought, that most chippies would die for. Lush and ripe, what a man would call tempting.

  "Are you ill?" the woman asked.

  Marilee straightened up slowly. She clutched at her sore belly, trying to draw a breath through her clenching throat.

  "I'll fetch Doctor Henry."

  She reached out and snagged the Plain woman's sleeve. "No, don't. I've just come from the doc's. I ain't sick."

  A soft pity filled the Plain woman's eyes, stinging Marilee's pride. "Hell, no, I ain't sick at all," she went on, her voice turning hard and ugly. "It's just that some damn son of a no-good bitch has gone and knocked me up, and I've turned into a regular waterin' pot because of it. I reckon you know how 'tis, the way you Plain folk're always droppin' babies."

  She was glad to see the shock on the woman's face, and yet sorry she had done it. Plain or not, the woman had only been trying to help.

  "Look here..." Marilee reached out her hand, but she pulled it back when the woman flinched. She was probably terrified of having her holy Plain self defiled by a chippy's touch. "I'm all right, truly I am. But you better hie yourself away from the likes of me before someone sees you. People do like to talk."

  The woman's head jerked around, and her face paled even more. She swung her gaze back to Marilee but she was already backing up, her hands twisting in the folds of her heavy apron.

  "We'll pray for you and your baby," she said.

  "Amen to that, sister, and pass me the barleycorn,"

  Marilee shot back. But the woman had already disappeared around the corner.

  Marilee wiped the tears off her face with the backs of her hands. Her eyes were swollen and aching. She snapped open her pocket and rummaged through coins, Luc's potion, lip paste, and cheroots, until she found a small bottle of iris water. She sprinkled some onto a handkerchief and laid the damp cloth over her eyes. We'll pray for you and your baby. Hunh. Imagine being prayed over by those mutton-punching, hymn-singing, Bible-banging Plain folk. She didn't need prayers from the likes of them; she didn't need anybody's prayers.

  She realized she had her mouth cinched tight, and she made her lips relax. Frowning like that only gave a girl wrinkles, and she must have a care for her good looks, because from them all her blessings would come.

  She had a face to break a man's heart, after all, and a body to send him howling after the moon, and she had beguiling ways. She mustn't forget her beguiling ways.

  Doctor Lucas Henry sat in his brown leather wing chair, his bleary gaze focused on the surface of his big rolltop oak desk. A single celluloid hairpin lay on the green felt blotter.

  He'd found the hairpin on his examining couch a few moments ago. It must have fallen from Marilee's hair. Poor, sweet Marilee, the whore. A memento of her momentous visit. His mouth curled. He'd been such an ass, and he'd been cruel. He didn't like himself much when he was cruel, and he often was.

  He'd brought the hairpin back with him into the parlor, along with a fresh bottle of Rose Bud. He didn't know why he'd brought it—the hairpin, that is. He knew damn well why he'd brought the whiskey. He had also fetched a relatively clean glass from the kitchen, but then he hadn't bothered with it, choosing instead to drink straight from the bottle. The glass had seemed like an unnecessary detour on the whiskey's journey to the fire in his guts.

  The hairpin was crimped in the middle, and he wondered why they made them that way. But he didn't wonder too hard, for the heat was making his head pound. It was also making the whiskey curdle in his belly, but that didn't stop him from tilting the lip of the bottle to his mouth and pouring more of it down his throat.

  He picked up the hairpin, rubbing his thumb over the pronged ends, but they weren't sharp. If you prick us, do we not bleed.... He flipped the pin over and over between his fingers until he dropped it. This time when he picked it up, he tossed it into the empty fire grate, just as there was a knock on the door.

  He took another swig from the bottle, almost choking, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He felt the black depression settle over him. Some days, most days, it felt as if he lived in the bottom of a well that was deep and wet and slick with moss, and with no hope of crawling out of it.

  The knock came again louder.

  "'Physician, heal thyself,'" he quoted aloud, and that made him laugh, for in many ways he was no less a fool and surely no better off than poor sweet Marilee, who didn't know Shakespeare from Jesus and rightly didn't care.

  He stood up, swaying as his booze-sodden legs sought a safe purchase on the Turkey carpet. He took his spectacl
es from his pocket and hooked them with exaggerated care over his ears. He made his way to the door and flung it open, blinking against the too bright, too hot sunlight.

  "Please, do come in," he said, slurring the words. "I seem to be doing a roadhouse business today, and all of it of the best sort, too. Whores and desperados."

  Johnny Cain was nothing if not brave, for he walked through the door.

  "I suppose you're here to get that plaster sawed off," Lucas said.

  Cain took off the Plain hat he was wearing and hooked it on the bentwood coat tree, then he smiled. But there was something about his eyes that made Lucas want to take another drink.

  "So long as you don't saw off my arm along with it," Cain said.

  Lucas tried to draw himself up tall, but teetered instead. "You'd be amazed at the daring and complicated feats I can perform while half soused."

  It was a simple matter, anyway, to remove the surgeon's plaster and splints. Lucas cut through the hardened gypsum with a surgeon's saw. When he was done Cain stretched out the healed arm, flexing his fingers.

  "Your killing hand, is it?" Lucas said.

  "Killing and other deeds, both wondrous and wicked."

  Lucas laughed, although his gaze was held by that hand, the long fingers and fine-boned wrist. He wondered if God, when He created a man's hand, had thought beyond all the good the instrument could perform to the evil it would do.

  He nodded at the desperado's killing hand. "That one might not serve you so well for deeds of any sort in the future. It was a bad break. Your arm may seem much as before, but the bone's been weakened. Like a rope that's been frayed once and then mended. I wouldn't, for instance, trust it with my life."

  "I never figured on dying in bed anyway." Johnny Cain looked up at him smiling, but Lucas saw that his eyes were empty.

  "How about a drink?" Lucas said. He opened the glass-fronted door of a cabinet, shoved aside a box of lancet blades, and extracted a fresh bottle of Rose Bud. He brought out a silver caddy of tobacco and cigarette papers as well. "Or a smoke?"