Jeremiah knew this. He had been hoping for a full confession before Mrs. Gladstone walked in the station. “Motive connects them,” Jeremiah said. “They were killed in the same way for the same reason. We just need to figure out what it is.”
“And if we never figure it out?”
Jeremiah didn’t want to entertain the possibility. The prospect of a killer getting away with murder in his own city was too much to think about.
“It’s quarter to nine, sir, have you given any thought about heading home?” MacNeal asked, getting up from his chair and heading for the door.
“No,” he answered “Not when there is so much to do.” Jeremiah didn’t look up but he knew his partner looked to him with pity. His house was empty and heading home would only further remind him of his shortcomings as a man.
“Were you able to catch up to Ms. Eaton to apologize?” MacNeal asked.
Jeremiah shook his head. He didn’t want to admit he had been distracted, not only by Chief Johnson’s story but also by the worry that Ms. Eaton would not accept any apology he offered.
MacNeal appeared genuinely crushed at the missed opportunity. “Perhaps you could stop by her home first thing in the morning,” he suggested.
“Perhaps.”
He didn’t want to admit he had thought about heading over for the last hour. He didn’t want to end the day believing she was irrevocably vexed with him and yet he didn’t want to give her the chance to make him look the fool. By heading to her home now, at the late hour, she’d know he cared for her and, as a married man, that was a dangerous proposition with no positive outcome.
In truth, he hadn’t thought much of his wife, or her wayward actions, at all that day, so consumed had he been with his attempts to solve the case. If he were honest, he’d also admit he was enthralled merely by the presence of Ms. Eaton, someone who spoke to him respectfully, not always kindly, but certainly respectfully. This was something his wife, Ruth, had never managed to do. Mercy was intriguing, kind-hearted, and intelligent. She challenged him and complemented him with very little effort whatsoever. She was a type of woman he had never known was even possible.
As MacNeal left, waving a hand goodbye, Jeremiah could not help but think of how different his life would be had he met Mercy Eaton first.
Chapter 30
Mercy couldn’t settle herself that night. It was late but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she took herself to the sitting room with a cup of herbal tea and a book. She hadn’t been seated two minutes when Raven hopped up into her lap. He did not purr, though, and each time Mercy reached over to stroke his back he stopped his preening and glared at her. “All right, all right,” she said raising her palm to him in surrender. “I’m just a lap.”
Mercy heard a noise in the room above her. Raven jumped from her lap, hissing and baring his sharp teeth as he went. Mercy listened while frozen in place. Edith would have gone to bed hours before. The sound came again, this time clearer but still indistinguishable. Mercy made her way to the bottom of the stairs but did not charge ahead. Instead, she listened and crept up step by step. The noise hadn’t been coming from Edith room’s but rather the end of the hall near the attic stairs.
At the top of the stairs Mercy saw a white figure at the attic door hunched over. A loud creak from the floorboards erupted, followed by the sound of the attic door latching into place. When the figure stood at its full height Mercy switched on the light.
“Edith Eleanor Eaton!” she said. “Why on earth are you in the attic at this time of night?”
Edith, in her nightdress and her braids pulled up into her cap, looked to her mother sheepishly. She hid something among the folds of her nightdress. “I didn’t want to wake you. I was trying to be quiet.”
“I wasn’t sleeping—”
A cry came from somewhere in Edith’s room. The distinct cry of a baby.
Edith lunged for her door as if to prevent her mother from entering but she was too slow. Mercy entered the room and turned on the switch. Nestled in the blankets of Edith’s bed was a baby no more than a month or two old.
“Who is this?” Mercy asked. All manner of possibilities sprang to mind. “Where did this one come from?”
The baby was fussing with her arms and legs stretching in and out from her torso. Edith skirted her mother and attempted to soothe the child with a small wooden horse, a toy that had once been Edith’s that had been stored in the attic for years.
When Edith didn’t answer her mother’s question straight away Mercy moved. “Edith, who is this?”
“She was left on our doorstep last week.”
“On our doorstep?” Mercy asked.
“No, at the abbey. I’ve been helping care for her during the day.” Edith paused, most likely noticing the look of anger on her mother’s face. “I had to bring her here. She’s practically ignored at the school. She’s allowed to cry for hours on end and there’s no one who holds her or talks to her. Don’t give me that look, Mother. You would have done the same thing if you were in my shoes.”
“No, I wouldn’t have,” Mercy said, matter-of-factly. “I’d have recognized that my role in school was that of a student, not a nursemaid.”
Edith looked doubtful. Mercy had never admitted to being much of a student. Pretending to be academically minded now did not help her case. She needed Edith to be studious. She needed her daughter to be better than she was.
“What do you think you are doing wasting your time when you should be concentrating on your studies? You go to school to get an education.”
“They asked me to help.”
“Well, they shouldn’t be! I pay a great sum of money for you to attend their school so that you can have a better life. A life not defined by nappies and night-time feedings.”
“Oh truly, Mother.”
“Yes, truly! A woman who has her own means of income is not forced to marry a man she barely knows, like Aunt Connie, or forced to stay with a man who harms her children like—” Mercy wanted to say like her mother but stopped herself. Edith had had little enough contact with her maternal grandmother and Mercy doubted she would understand. Mercy closed her eyes and drew a concentrated breath. “The way to freedom is cleared when a woman earns money for herself. It’s dependent upon her education, why don’t you understand this?”
“I do understand, but you don’t understand this!” Edith put out both her hands.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Who’s going to hire me, Mother, a fatherless coloured woman? No amount of education I receive is going to be enough to make people see past my skin.”
“That’s not true.” Mercy’s words lacked conviction.
“It is true. Everyone treats me like a stain.”
Mercy swallowed. A part of her didn’t want to believe it while another part knew her daughter spoke the truth.
“Two weeks ago a photographer came to the school to take class photographs. I didn’t even get a spot in the pictures. I stood there watching from the side as all the girls smiled and giggled. I’m never going to be accepted. I’ll never be one of them.”
“That is no reason to sabotage yourself and your future.”
“As far as I’m concerned this is my future.” Edith moved to pick up the baby, who was now crying.
“Oh, stop selling yourself so short! There are far greater things to do with your life than be a mother.”
“I can think of nothing better,” Edith said, trying in vain to soothe the child. “But maybe that’s because I want to be a mother, even if you don’t!”
The baby was wailing now, her body rigid with the effort of it, but Mercy’s world was silent as the grave. Her daughter’s words had cut her deeply. She had never realized how her words, often spoken in frustration over where life had taken her, had impressed themselves upon Edith. Had she ever said she hated being a mother? Not exactly.
She had wished society would treat her better as an unwed mother. She had wished she could
earn a proper living without having to resort to maid work or, in her case, lying to people daily. Once or twice, she may have cursed the God who had given her the heart and fortitude of a man while packaging her in the body of a woman. And she may have said once, in jest, that were she not an unwed mother she’d have a line of suitors longer than Yonge Street, not that she’d care for any of them.
Edith had been raised hearing the grumblings of her mother and instead of blaming society at large for the baseless rules that isolated them, Edith had internalized them, and perhaps blamed herself for her mother’s predicament. Mercy had been blind to it all, never realizing how concentrating on the pain of her rejection had ultimately made Edith feel rejected too.
When Mercy’s eyes focused on the room again she saw her daughter awkwardly trying to get the child to drink some milk from the bottle.
“She needs to be swaddled,” Mercy offered. After taking the baby from Edith’s arms, she bent over the bed and used the baby blanket to wrap the child in a tight bundle, tucking the final corner of the blanket in one of the folds. The technique worked almost instantly but even still Mercy scooped up the baby bundle and paced about the room for added affect.
Edith offered her mother a glass bottle with a small quantity of milk in it. “I couldn’t get her to eat earlier,” she said.
Mercy took the bottle and slipped the rubber teat into the baby’s mouth. The little one sucked ravenously, spilling milk out the corners of its mouth. “You shouldn’t have brought her here,” Mercy said, still unable to look her daughter in the eye.
“What was I supposed to do?” Edith asked, collapsing into a seated position on her bed. The look on her face betrayed her own doubt in her decision. “I couldn’t just leave her there.”
“Yes, you could have,” Mercy answered. “Just because a mother chose to not take care of her baby doesn’t mean you have to. You are fourteen years old. You are too young to be concerning yourself with these things.” Mercy couldn’t help but think of Clemmie in that instant, who was only one birthday older. Then her mind went to Cynthia and her eyes went to the baby.
“What is it?” Edith asked. “What’s wrong?”
“When did you say she was dropped off at the abbey?”
“Three days ago… the day after the trouble started with Mr. Bolton. Why?”
“I think I know who this baby belongs too.”
Chapter 31
The night passed in a haze of feedings and nappy changes. Mercy nearly wore a path in the floor from pacing the room trying to soothe the child to sleep. Edith had fallen asleep herself within the first hour, leaving Mercy to wonder how she had ever expected to care for the child on her own.
“I should stay home from school,” Edith said at breakfast. The baby lay sleeping in a nearby laundry basket, cushioned by blankets, while Mercy spooned some porridge into Edith’s bowl.
“Absolutely not,” Mercy said, directing the porridge spoon at her daughter. “You are going to school.”
“What about the baby?”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Mercy took in a breath as she returned the pot to the stove. “Is she truly as neglected as you say she is?”
Edith nodded, spoon in her mouth.
“Then she can’t go back there. I just need a place for her to go where I know she will be taken care of.”
***
Constance looked at the baby with a hint of fear in her eyes. “What do I do with it?” she asked.
“It’s a baby. What the heck do you think you do with it?” Mercy answered.
They were standing in Connie’s kitchen with the basket and baby up on the butcher block table in the centre of the room.
Lottie looked on from the corner, laundry plunger in hand, a large tub filled with greying water in front of her. “Mr. Doyle won’t like it,” she said.
“We aren’t overly concerned about Mr. Doyle’s likes or dislikes at present,” Mercy snapped.
“See to your chores, Lottie,” Constance answered. “You should’ve had those on the line an hour ago.”
The mediocre maid made a face and begrudgingly returned her attention to her task. Over her sister’s shoulders, Mercy saw the maid stick out her tongue. Her sister ought to fire her for such behaviour.
“She’s a very good baby,” Edith offered, from behind her mother. “She doesn’t give a lick of trouble.”
Mercy gave her daughter a disapproving look over her shoulder. A look that asked how would she known. She had slept through it all.
Constance remained doubtful. “You have far more experience with these sorts of things. Why can’t you take it?” Constance asked, backing away, as if the very sight of the thing would infect her with pregnancy.
“I can’t. I’m still working the case involving her family.”
“I thought you said Walker didn’t want your help anymore.”
“Truly, Mother?”
Mercy shrugged off her daughter’s concern. “I’m going forward alone. There’s still some avenues of investigation we haven’t explored.”
“If you are trying to win him over I have to say I don’t think that’s going to happen—”
Mercy shook her head. “No, this has nothing to do with that. This baby’s mother was killed. Whoever did it also killed a maid at Mrs. Gladstone’s home. I feel like I owe it to everyone to do my best to find out what’s happening here.”
Constance’s view of the child softened at the mention of her mother. “Why can’t you take her to the Mission?”
“Her mother dropped her off at the abbey before she was killed. There was probably a reason for that. And I need to find that out.”
Now Constance was standing over the basket, one hand on the edge, the other reaching in to touch the baby’s cheek. “Poor little thing,” she said.
“Please, Connie. I know I ask a lot of you at times, but I need you to do this for me. Just for a day or two and then you can get back to”—Mercy glanced about the immaculate kitchen—“whatever it is you do.”
“But Alexander leaves in two hours,” she said, a look of alarm washing over her. “I’m not sure I can manage the child without him.”
“Pfft, Connie dear, you run this business entirely on your own. Please stop giving him all the credit.”
There really was no question. Constance would do it simply because Mercy had asked.
“All right then,” Constance answered, her words released in near sigh. “I assume you brought me nappies and bottles.”
“And I picked up some sweetened milk before I came. Thank you, Connie. I owe you.” Mercy kissed her sister abruptly on the cheek. She turned on her heels and pulled her daughter from the room.
“But you never pay me back!”
Mercy and Edith were gone before Constance had the chance to change her mind, and before Alexander had a chance to walk in on them and make his own protests. It was a small victory on a day that would leave her feeling less than victorious.
***
Sister Elizabeth was standing on the front step of the abbey, as if she were expecting them. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her face was stern. “Miss Eaton,” she began as Mercy and Edith drew near. “I believe you have come to return something?”
Mercy gave her daughter a look of reprove. “No, actually,” she said. “We’ve come to ask a few questions.”
“I could have Edith expelled for her lack of good judgment.”
“I assure you the child is in good hands. If I am allowed to explain Edith’s actions perhaps you wouldn’t be so hard on her.”
Sister Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak but stopped herself. She stood dumbfounded for a moment pondering what Mercy had just said.
“I’ve been working with the police,” Mercy said. It wasn’t entirely a lie. “You may have seen me with Detective Walker upon occasion when dropping off Edith in the mornings.”
“Well, yes, I have noticed but—”
“The child Edith removed from here is part of
an ongoing investigation. She acted in what she felt was in the best interest of the child and our investigation. Her actions were wrong, she admits that. She should have notified you of her intentions.” Mercy looked to her daughter.
“Please accept my sincerest apologies, ma’am,” Edith said. “I never intended to do anyone any harm.” She looked to her mother as if to ask if her apology was appropriate.
“Now, barring any hard feelings, Edith is here to attend class and I’d like to come in and ask a few questions, if I may.” Mercy knew she could not waver. Any look of doubt or hesitation would strip her of any authority. If she expected them to take her seriously she needed to behave seriously.
“And the child is being well taken care of,” Sister Elizabeth asked after a moment’s thought.
“Yes, I personally saw to her well-being last night and she is now safely in the care of another loving person at an undisclosed location.”
“Why is there a need for such secrecy?”
Mercy looked to her daughter and back again. “There is reason to believe the child’s mother was murdered only a few days ago. I believe the mother feared for her life and chose to deposit her child here, where she knew she would be safe. The answers you provide me will help the case immensely.”
Sister Elizabeth nodded and stepped aside. “Yes, of course. However we may help.”
Together Mercy and Edith walked into the building and down a wide hall. At the base of a set of stairs Edith turned to her mother. “I can come with you,” she said. “I can help.”
“No, Edith. Get to class.”
Edith’s shoulders sank but she headed up the stairs without protest.
Sister Elizabeth led Mercy farther down the hall. At the end they turned into a grey room with metal hospital-style cots lining the wall. A rocking chair sat in the middle of the room, where a nun was slumped over asleep and snoring.
“Sister Maryanne!”
The nun sat up abruptly.
Mercy Me Page 20
