A Madness So Discreet (15 page)

“
Y
e want me to do what now?” Nell asked, her black eyebrows almost meeting her hairline.

“Shhh.” Thornhollow shushed her with one finger to his lips, his eyes shooting to the doorway.

Grace watched from her chair, the midmorning light slanting through the office windows. Nell's voice had carried, but no one came to inspect her outburst. Grace relaxed, one hand reaching over to cover her friend's.

“I know that this is highly irregular,” Thornhollow went on, his voice pitched low.

“'Ighly irregular is me daily life, Doctor. Bein' asked if I want to go for a stroll down to the whorehouse with a mute lassie alongside me by a man who's supposed to be the next Jaysus Christ is flat cockamamie.”

“I'm hardly Jesus Christ,” Thornhollow said, already looking exhausted by their conversation.

“Janey says ye are,” Nell shot back. “A peculiar brand of savior, but a saint for the crazies nonetheless, she says. Ye can't do no wrong in 'er eyes, now that Mrs. Jacobs sleeps the night through.”

“My canonization aside, you need to know that I wouldn't ask you to expose yourself to that kind of environment without good reason.”

Nell rolled her eyes. “I've exposed meself to worse, as ye well know. Ye say that I may be able to 'elp catch the fellow tha's done in Mrs. Jacobs's daughter, then I'm in. Takin' Grace 'ere with me makes me feel a bit odd, but if ye say tha's the way of it, then tha's the way of it.”

“I need Grace's eyes and ears. Her memory is impeccable and she may see things that you miss.”

Nell shifted uncomfortably. “Aye, well, I'm a little worried about 'er seeing things tha' per'aps she'd rather miss.”

“Grace is unflappable in any situation, Nell. Trust me on that count.”

Nell reached over and squeezed Grace's hand. “In tha' case, go put on yer pretty dress, lassie. We're going to the whorehouse.”

Grace tucked her slate and chalk under one arm, lacing the other with Nell's as they strolled casually down the hill.

“Now, don' you be tellin' Janey or even Lizzie, but this 'ere isn't exactly the first time I've wandered off the grounds,” Nell said. “They make it nice an' easy. No fences, or the like. If you look like ye know what yer doin' ye can walk off fer a few hours and come back in time for dinner, none the wiser.”

Grace nodded as they turned the corner, wandering into a copse of trees that hid a footpath. Nell said it would lead down to a shallow patch in the river, and from there town was only a stone's throw away. The girls unlaced their boots at the bank, and Grace sucked in her breath as she stepped into the cold water.

“Aye,” Nell agreed, wobbling on one leg as she pulled off her stocking. “It's gettin' to the time of year I won't be makin' me trips till she freezes over. Charlie's family, they sends him some money once in a while. Ever' now an' then I sneak down here and we splits a bottle or two of somethin' 'ere in the woods.”

Nell crossed after Grace, and they yanked their boots back on quickly, Grace's toes curling against the cold. Grace felt the other girl's eyes on her as they emerged from the riverbank and made their way into town.

“If I don't remember all the questions I'm supposed to be askin', you be sure an' give me a nudge. The doctor, 'e's done me a good turn or two that no one knows nothin' about, and I doubt I'm the only one in that place who can say so.”

Grace nodded, patting her slate reassuringly as they passed
a house where a mother sat in a rocking chair on the front porch, children playing at her feet. She nodded in greeting and both girls nodded back, Grace's scars hidden under her curls.

Nell giggled into her hand. “Playing at bein' respectable always gets a rise outta me. Though once we find our way into the whorehouse I 'spose that game is up.” Nell hesitated in her step at the next crossroads. “I don't exactly know where we're goin'.”

Grace walked confidently on, her memory of the first night with Dr. Thornhollow seared into her mind. The buildings around them deteriorated slightly as they moved on, their presence gaining more attention as their clothes marked them as people who didn't belong on the wrong side of town. But the establishment they were headed to still held a front of respectability, advertising only alcohol for sale and not women as well.

Nell steered Grace down an alley once she spotted it. “Ye may know the place well enough ter find it, but I don' think walkin' in by the front door is the wisest thing. Ye don' want to be mistaken for a workin' girl. Thornhollow would have me hide.”

They approached from the back, where a couple of women wrapped in threadbare cloaks were sharing a smoke on the balcony. Nell hailed them from the side street.

“Oy, there! We was wonderin' if we might 'ave a word?”

“With who?” one woman asked, flicking ash from her cigarette.

“Uh . . .” Nell's voice lost some of its confidence. “We come about Mellie Jacobs.”

“Poor Mellie,” the other woman said, tugging her shawl tighter. “Didn't no one even let us know about the funeral. So's I don't know a soul was there when they stuck her in the ground.”

“Don't be wasting your pity, Sarah,” the woman with the cigarette said. “Ain't nobody going to our funerals, neither. Feel sorry for yourself and for me. At least we're alive to know it.”

“I'll go t' both yer funerals if ye spare me a damn moment,” Nell shouted up.

“There's an offer.” Sarah cackled. “Come on up, the both of you. Birdie and me's got some time before we go back to work.”

Nell and Grace climbed the wooden stairs, stepping carefully over one that was broken, and joined the women on the balcony. Birdie offered a puff of her cigarette to Nell, who took a drag gratefully.

“So you knew Mellie?” Sarah asked.

“Nay . . . ,” Nell said, exhaling smoke. “We know 'er mother.”

“Ah . . . so you're from up on the hill, are you?” Birdie said, taking the cigarette back from Nell. She nodded toward Grace. “Is that why you don't do any talking?”

“Aye, she's crazy as a loon, that one,” Nell said.

“And what about you?” Sarah asked. “You don't seem to have nothing wrong with you. And a pretty face like yours, you could make good money down here with us. Lots of men be willing to pay a bit extra to toss a crazy girl.”

“They'd pay with more than money,” Birdie said shrewdly, looking Nell up and down. “She's got the pox.”

Nell's smile froze on her face. “How'd you know?”

“It's in the way you walked up them steps, stiff like it hurts in your joints, though you're too young to have the arthritis. And it's cool today, surely, but you're buttoned up to your neck, covering every inch you can.” She flicked her cigarette again. “How far's it spread?”

Grace watched her friend's normal confidence fall away, replaced by a stony wall of indifference. “Far enough tha' I don't care to say.”

“You got one blooming, here,” Birdie said, touching the side of her own mouth.

Nell's hand went to her face reflexively. “I don't.”

“You do.” Birdie nodded. “I see the way you've got your lips clenched a bit to hide it, but there's a lump there sure enough. It'll be leaking before long and that'll be the end of your face.”

Sarah smacked her friend's shoulder. “That's enough, Birdie. No need to scare the girl. If she's up to the asylum, she knows about her condition, more so than the town whores.”

“Whores may not know a lot,” Birdie said, eyes still on Nell's face. “But I know the pox. Mellie had it too, you know.”

Grace nudged Nell, anxious to tear her friend's mind away from her own troubles. “Did she?” Nell asked, taking the cue.

“She'd just had the first sores, down here.” Birdie pointed at her crotch. “But Mrs. Teekler, if she knows one of the girls has got a spot, they're out on the street. She makes a good business off us,
and she only wants one kind of thing erupting down here on River Street.”

“If you're sick, you're out of a job,” Sarah agreed. “And Mellie knew it well enough to take herself to her room with a bottle when her time was up.”

“Is tha' what happened, then?” Nell asked, enough of a question in her voice to make the other two women look at each other uneasily.

“That's what we was told,” Sarah said. “And around here you both do as you're told and believe what you're told.”

“Or at least put on a good show of it,” Birdie said, pitching her cigarette into the street below. “But Teekler's downstairs balancing the books and there ain't no one to hear what I say but the robins and you two loons.”

Sarah laughed again, shaking her head at her friend's cleverness.

“So you don't think she drank herself to death?” Nell pressed.

“Oh, I wouldn't say that exactly,” Birdie said. “She wouldn't be the first of us to make her way out, but Mellie wasn't the type. And besides, she wasn't entirely sure that it
was
the pox. Women in our line of work can get all kinds of things go wrong down there without it necessarily being the end of the line. She had a bit of money saved up and told me she was having a man come and take a look at her.”

Grace's fingers tightened on her slate, the brittle edges cutting into her fingers.

“He must not've had good news for her,” Sarah said.

Birdie shrugged. “I can't say for sure. All's I know is that's the last thing she said to me after Teekler took her off of shift.”

“So she wasn't seeing any customers?” Nell asked.

“No,” Birdie said. “Once you've got a spot on you you're not a working girl no more. Not here, anyway. Teekler even made her pay for her room the last few days she was here without earning money, as if she thinks she's running a hotel or some kind of rot.” Birdie spit over the side of the railing. “The last bit of her money went to that doctor man, trying to prove she wasn't going to spread the pox to every last john who paid good money for a go at her.”

“Do you know who the doctor was?” Nell asked, responding to the pressure on her elbow from Grace's fingers.

Birdie looked at Sarah, who shook her head. “No. She would've brought him up the back stairs just like you are here, quiet like. Teekler don't allow us to have a man here who she isn't getting money from.”

“Why not go see him in his office, then?”

Grace silently thanked her friend for being so quick.

“Maybe the doctor don't like it being known he treats whores, thinking it might hurt his more respectable business,” Sarah said.

“Or maybe he offered to take payment in something other than money,” Birdie added. “Some men don't mind taking their chances, if they're desperate enough.”

A shout from downstairs made all four women jump. “You'd best be going,” Sarah said, urging them toward the stairs. “I don't know that Teekler would care for us talking to two girls from the street, but it's hard to say and life's tough enough as it is.”

Nell and Grace picked their way down the steps as Grace scratched at her slate, turning to face the prostitutes before they went back inside. Grace held it high so that they could see her two words, written large.

BE CAREFUL

“So me and Grace, we think it was some doctor that done ol' Mellie Jacobs in,” Nell said, leaning closer to Lizzie to whisper. The three girls sprawled on Grace's bed, one lantern shared conspiratorially between them, burning low.

Lizzie's blue eyes were wide. “Is this true?”

Grace nodded, slate set aside when she was among friends.

“But why would he do such a thing? Mellie Jacobs never hurt a fly, I'm sure.”

“It's easy enough to figure, isn't it?” Nell said. “'E's got a burning but the candle wax has gone soft.”

“Nell!” Lizzie objected.

“What? Oh, 'ere's another one. 'E'd like to start a fire, but the wick won't stand.”

“I'll go back to my room, I will,” Lizzie said. “I'm not disobeying Janey just to listen to you make lewd remarks.”

Nell laughed. “I'm bein' lewd, sure, but tha' don't make me wrong.”

“Do you think that's what it is, Grace?” Lizzie asked. “He's angry that he's unable to . . . to . . .”

“Get a cockstand,” Nell put in, and Lizzie threw Grace's pillow in Nell's face.

Grace pulled the lantern off the bedside table in time to keep it from falling to the floor as Nell tweaked Lizzie's long braid. “Ye go ahead and doubt wha' I'm sayin' if you like, me friend,” Nell said. “If you want a better reason, maybe String knows what drives a man to killin'.”

“It doesn't work that way,” Lizzie said. “String only hears what goes on in the people around me, and then only those that let their thoughts flow free. I couldn't tell you what President Harrison had for dinner or anything like that.”

“And who cares, anyway? I'm more interested in wha' I'm having,” Nell said. “I almost forgot to tell you lassies, wha' with the excitin' trip to the whorehouse—we been invited to Janey's for Thanksgiving dinner.”

Lizzie clapped her hands together. “Have we really? What a treat! But, poor Grace, you look confused.”

Grace was indeed quite lost, as her eyes went back and forth between her friends.

“Sometimes for special occasions, certain staff members can take well-behaved patients off grounds,” Lizzie explained.

“An' the rest of us go along illegally,” Nell interrupted.

“Nonsense.” Lizzie shushed her. “You've been to Janey's before. We went last Halloween, remember? The girl from the third floor went too . . . what was her name?”

“Sophia,” Nell said. “She were a nice enough lassie till Janey's mum brought the jack-o'-lantern out.”