"You don't like me, Mary Finn, I know that, but I am offering to save your life. I will marry you and make things right. We could keep working here, or go away, if you wanted, find a situation in the country ..."
He were the very last person I expected to speak in a soft voice, the very last I ever thought would have a compassionate thought or who could conceive an action of such tenderness.
I burst into tears and let him hold me up with those arms that Eliza did go on about.
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JAMES 1888 What James Could See
James was curled up so tight in the morning he thought he mightn't un curl, arms locked around his knees, neck and back all cricked and achy ... he'd slept a bit but his body stayed scared just in case. Light trembled at the end of the alley: a bright morning, not foggy and dismal.
He blinked and stayed still.
WHAT HE COULD SEE WITHOUT MOVING:
Quite a pile of rags, stiff and crusted with mud
Heaps of old newspapers, sodden and melted together
A bucket without its bottom
Broken milk bottles
Ever so many pamphlets, splattered and torn, blown every which way, and all announcing:
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Dramatic Entertainment
Theatre Royal
The
Vampire
or
Bride of the Isles
6 nights with
Miss Ellen Devere
as the Maiden
A dead bird, no, two dead birds, necks ... snapped? With wings flung wide as if still gliding .
James leaned over, poking gently at the feathers with a rag.
A few rotted potatoes and rusted lettuces
Hungry as he was, these were not close to edible. Even the morning gruel at the Foundling, or, better yet, the thick-cut bread with a smear of butter ... James hiccupped a small laugh, thinking of Mr. Byrd and his telling them always to be grateful. Bread and butter were something to be grateful for, after all. He sat up, wiggling his toes and flapping his fingers.
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WHAT HE COULD SEE WITH HIS EYES CLOSED:
Rosie, bigger than he'd thought about her being, hair still so straggly that her pigtails were only as thick as pencils. But that look on her face when she'd cried out, "James!"
Could he remember Lizzy if he squeezed tight his eyes to find a picture? There she was, sticking out her tongue in triumph, swiping the last biscuit....
Mr. Chester silhouetted at the window of the history classroom, spectacles glinting, voice low and full of ... of daring, while he told the tale of a king's execution or a captain's sighting America .
Mama Peevey's bright eyes and arms held wide ...
Only what was the matter with her now?
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ELIZA 1878 Hears a Proposal
Naturally, Eliza had scooted up the stairs after Mary, ever keen to discover, What now? She wasn't surprised to find Bates lurking--when wasn't he, these days? But fancy Mary swanning into Miss Lucilla's bedchamber, as if she'd every right! And no chance for Eliza to hear a single word because along came Miss Hollow, wondering where was Master Sebastian's supper tray? So Eliza had to quick make and bring up his boiled egg and rice pudding, all on her own as the kitchen was empty. But she paid no mind as she was eager to get back to lingering outside Miss Lucilla's door. Only, Miss Hollow said, "Now that you're here, you may wipe down the blinds as I've been asking for a fortnight."
Eliza didn't think fast enough to put off that dreary
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task, so wasted half an hour in the nursery. She hustled down after, fearing that Mary would be packed and gone before she could get a last word in. Still no sign of Mrs. Wiggins, nor Bates, nor even that creeping little monster Nut. So what had happened to Mary? Eliza would have gone looking but for a noise from the cellar stairwell. Whoever ...? Ah, it was them . Eliza hovered next to the crack in the door.
"Mary," Bates was saying. "You're in terrible trouble."
"Ha," said the trollop. "That's not news to me!"
Eliza hovered next to the crack in the door, pressing a palm over her heart so's its thumping couldn't be heard.
"I can help, you daft girl! Would you just listen?"
She was daft! About time he noticed!
"Help? By offing me down the kitchen stairs?"
"By marrying you," he said.
Eliza would have fallen right over, but her feet were canny enough to get her across the floor and out to the street.
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MARY 1878 Telling About Disaster
Now it seemed that the hands on the clock were somehow spinning faster and noisier than usual. Nut shot through the door with Cook on his tail, stopping short when they spied me and Bates, though thankfully we had finished our embrace, as my husband-to-be had quite a scent up close. Mrs. Wiggins wore such a scowl you'd think I'd killed the best rooster.
"Here you are," she said. "We've been looking."
"Here I am," I said, eyes down, trying for respectful.
"I didn't think you'd last a week when you came here, Mary. You won me over with hard work and that smile of yours. And now you've let me down, getting yourself in trouble like this. I'm downright disappointed, but you're to gather up your belongings and be off."
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"You needn't go rushing down that road after all, Mrs. Wiggins," said Bates. "We're getting married, me and Mary, so there'll be no call to send her away."
I were relieved that Eliza were not there to hear him declare our intentions. Still, what happened instead mayhap were worse. Mrs. Wiggins clutched at her bosom as if struck by a bullet. She wheezed into a chair and went trembly. But it were Nut, gasping and throwing hisself at me, that shook me awake.
"No! Miss!" His face puckered up like a colicky baby. "You can't do that! Not Bates!" Those little arms enwrapped my waist with the fiercest grip.
"Hey!" Bates jumped on the boy, wrenching him off me by the scruff of the neck and throwing him onto the floor. Cook were huffing, I were shrieking, and Nut were crying most pitiful. Bates gave Nut a kick, and that were it. I hauled back my foot and kicked Bates as hard as I could.
"What the hell are you doing, girl?"
"I wouldn't marry you now if you paid me in gold," I said.
"Enough!" shouted Mrs. Wiggins. "We do not live in Bedlam! Mr. Bates, kindly remove yourself to the yard. Mary Finn, pack your bag. And, Nut ... Lord love me, Nut?"
Bates stamped out while I knelt down next to Nut, him lying in a bundle by the stove. "You hurt anywhere, Nut?"
He looked up with bruised eyes and his nose a-dribbling. "No, miss." He pulled me low so's he could whisper. "Don't you worry about me, miss. I'm a tough one, right?"
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"Yes, Nut, that's certain."
"But you can't marry Bates, miss. He's not good. Go, miss. Please, just go!"
I turned on my toes and went upstairs, skin prickling, heart racing, baby jumping. It were only two minutes later that Eliza flung herself in, glowering something awful.
I'd have liked to tell Eliza that I were not going to marry her beau after all, but that would have meant telling her I'd been close to doing it. The satisfaction didn't seem worth the trouble. She were looking everywhere but in my face, her eyes most curious about my belly. She stood in the doorway with her arms strapped across her chest like guns.
I gathered my belongings into my shawl, meager pile that it were. Thinking that word, belongings , made my throat ache. "Belonging" were far from suitable.
"Mrs. Wiggins said to watch you don't steal anything."
"You know I won't."
"I don't know."
"We've been sleeping bum to bum for how many months?" I said. "Do you really think I'd take the soap? Or the blanket? I've been your blanket some nights, Eliza."
"You're a liar and a slut so why not a thief too?"
"You know I'm not."
"I don't know."
"If ... if it were you ... in trouble," I started.
"
It's not," she said, but only, we both knew, by the merest chance.
"It weren't Bates," I said. I tied a knot with the corners
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of the shawl. She were staring at me peculiar, like she expected more.
"May I pass, please?"
She looked down at her chapped hands.
"Eliza?"
Her mind were rumbling to find a clever retort, to scratch me with words so's I'd leave bleeding.
"If you want to see the last of me," I said, "you will have to let me go through the door."
She stepped aside.
Mrs. Wiggins waited in the kitchen, no Bates to be seen. Her mouth were a ribbon of disappointment.
"You're off?"
"Yes, Mrs. Wiggins."
"Show me."
I unknotted the corners of my shawl and let her look. No soap. No currants. No ink. No nothing.
"Mrs. Wiggins? I ... I ... have nowhere to go. I don't know what ... I ..."
"You have called down these troubles upon your own head, Mary. The rules were simple. I ... I'm sorry ... I did think you were a good girl."
"But, Mrs. Wiggins, I am! It were ... I loved him! And he loved me."
She shook her head, sad as can be. "Do you think that matters to anyone, Mary? Love is not for the likes of us, belowstairs."
Nut were waiting on the step, in particular to be the
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last face I saw at Neville Street. He were pale and tearful, cheeks streaked and shoulders shuddering. He clasped me about the middle and would have stayed there a week except that Mrs. Wiggins came out on the step and dragged him inside. So that were that. I were crumbly all through, and couldn't think later how I'd done it, but I walked away down Neville Street with as straight a back as I could manage. At the corner I turned, and saw Eliza at the attic window. I raised my hand, one last wave, but she ducked her head and pulled the shutter to.
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ELIZA 1878 Truth or Lie?
There were too many pieces for Eliza to have a hold on all of them.
Was Bates the father of this calamity? Or not? And if not, then why the devil was he making an offer of marriage to someone he'd called a mere child ? Hadn't Eliza written out the words Mrs. Harry Bates at least one hundred times? Shouldn't all that frolicking lead somewhere substantial? Didn't she deserve to feel a little pique under the circumstances?
And if--by some chance--she'd got things wrong, how could Eliza ever confess that she had gone to see Mr. Tucker? That she'd told him ... That if it weren't for her ... That Mary's plight was all on account of a terrible mistake?
Not that Mary could be trusted, with those cunning
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green eyes and rosy lips. She was likely still fibbing every time she breathed. Better to remember that. Why worry where a liar might go from here? Better to chew over how to rekindle vigor in Bates. If he were willing to be married, he only needed guidance as to the choice of wife. If being a hero was so almighty important, Eliza could--she counted back the weeks on her fingers--Eliza could easily develop a few of the same symptoms. All it took was a bit of puking ...
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MARY 1878 What Happened Next
May you never know the despair that colored those first hours after I took my leave from the Allyn house.
Like a thread in a laundry tub, I were adrift and tumbled amongst the blurring crowd. Not having a place to walk toward, I walked all anyhow, and meanwhile commenced my pleading straight to God. Show me , I begged. I've not been demanding of your favor. You've got my mam, after all! Should you not be of some use in her place? And what answer did I get? The closing in of fog all around, as if to recall the night of my first embrace with Caden, to point the finger back at me. Thou hast mis-stepped! God's voice in my head were a little too close to that Margaret Huckle's. Were it meant to invite me home?
Thomas and Davy would be pleased as a birthday to
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see me. Wouldn't they? Only what if their stepmother had slipped her poison into their cups? What if little Nan sniffed at me, suspicious? But they'd be won over soon enough, I trusted that. It were our dad who'd sit between his wife and me, his heart forever pulled two ways at once. It niggled in me that I might not be the one to win such a contest, what with my rounded body and the steady drizzle of her opinion on his head.
And however could I hold up my chin on the threshold of that cottage, knowing there were no Small John waiting inside?
In my belly came a nudge as if a wee chick were discovering its beak. I stepped into the lee of a stall, mopping the fog drips from my face. If only Caden would appear right then and put his hands on me and warm my hips and scorch my face with kissing. But what use was such a fancy? Only to loose the tears. Should I intend to appear forlorn and sorrowful, to flaunt my plight, in hope of a tossed penny or the crust of a pie? Were it my destiny to finish up in the workhouse?
The workhouse sent my thinking skipping back to Nut's wee face, both eyes purpled now, thanks to Bates being rough. And thanks to Bates being rough on Nut, I were here a-sopping instead of making ready to be his bride. There weren't an hour went by I didn't reconsider those few stormy moments that skittered me out here.
Wed to Bates, I'd have held my position on Neville Street; it'd soon be forgot that you weren't his ... Bates
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could have writ my father, we'd have had news that mended all tears, we might have gone to visit someday ... Had I gone quite mad to depart from such a possibility as that?
But one quick think on Nut and I were sure that madness never clouded my reasoning. If Bates could kick one motherless boy, what might he do in a fit of anger to my own fatherless child? And if I closed my eyes and thought about him ... kissing me, about his hands untying my apron, slipping under my skirt ... it near about made me queasy.
It were Nut who saved me. Us really, me and you. "Go, miss, just go!" he'd cried. He were the one with love so swelling up his heart that he could send me off, only knowing the outcome must be better than what I nearly settled for. Well, Lordy, didn't he teach me something that day?
And all this while, it were fogging and then dripping and finally raining mournful hard. Damn you, Caden Tucker. Damn you to Hell till your blue eyes burn!
It were feeling shame from the cursing that brought to mind St. Pancras Church, only a few streets away. It were too grand, of a regular day, for a mite like me to enter so bold. But there I went and there I huddled through that night and another, in the darkest pew, and there my dress and shawl did finally dry, as if by the quiet winking of candle light.
What happened next were the part in the story where
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the princess is tied up in the dungeon with bats swooping and the executioner's footstep on the stairs ... and all the listeners draw in their breaths together, knowing the end is hovering. But stories have a way of tricking you. Perhaps it's not the sinister stranger in a dark hood at all....
In my case, it weren't the dashing prince, either, but more of a wrinkly old angel. A carriage pulled to a stop with a sloppy spray of water sogging my skirt, two days' drying for naught. The driver paid no mind to me but got down to open the door. It were an aged lady inside and she looked at the muck beneath the wheels and stretched a hand out to touch the drizzle. The driver were not her own, I could see that. He were hired, and bored, and not so attentive as he should be to a passenger who looked like a ghost already. Her hair gleamed like gaslight through gauze and her glove on the door were the palest lilac.
"Mr. Richards?"
But Mr. Richards might have been brother to Harry Bates. He were busy eyeing two young ladies struggling with their umbrella in such a way that their bosoms bounced. The old lady had one foot on the step, expecting the driver to be there. I come forward, damp as I were, with an arm out to assist her. There were a second when she and I shared a smile, knowing it were not my place but she being grateful that someone were watching. It were only a second because Mr. Richards chose to do his
job just then and trod on my foot as he turned, sending
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me flat to my bum in the road. It were so sudden that I toppled right over and knocked my head with a nasty thump. The lady made an odd sort of scream but I were that winded that I lay like a pudding. Next thing, Mr. Richards were dragging me up and the lady were ordering him severely to bring me inside her house.
So there I were, bruised and bedraggled, on a stool by the kitchen fire, listening to the old lady tell the tale to her companion.
"But, Aunt Kaye," said the younger woman, as though I were deaf. "You've invited a complete stranger into the house! How do you know she's not conspiring with the driver?"
"Conspiring? Dear girl, I've never heard such nonsense. Let's put the kettle on."
I believe the Misses Reed were what Eliza would call refined , meaning polite and posh. If their family had been rich long ago, now they were watching their pennies. They were Miss Kaye, the old lady, and her niece, Miss Angela. I arrived there scared as a rabbit with a snared foot. No hope, and yet still living.
The old lady were so kind that it near made me teary. I were sponged off and dried out, well fed with biscuits and tea, and my boots put near the grate to warm up. Miss Kaye Reed entertained us with an account of Mr. Richards's other missteps during the afternoon, ending with his treading on me. As the hour wore on, I carefully confessed that I were in need of a position.
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