Mrs. Engels (27 page)

After we've bathed her, they go out to Frederick and leave me alone to do the cotton. I can hear them murmuring on the other side of the wall, which takes some of the closeness out of the task, makes it seem a shared and dirty thing.

“You're only getting in the way, Mr. Engels,” I hear Lydia say. “Go home and have a wash, get your letters writ and the notice published. Come back this evening when everything's arranged.”

There's some shuffling, and rattling, and the glug and slam of a glass.

“Do whatever you have to do,” he says. “Don't hesitate to get the best. I'll look after it.”

Then the door bangs. With the sound of him gone I'm calmer, and after a minute I settle down to it and do the best I can according to Logan's instructions.

When I'm finished I call them back and Logan unfolds the habit he's brought.

“Is that the best there is, Father?” I says.

“A simple funeral is wiser, Lizzie. You don't want to grate on the feelings of any.”

“Didn't you hear the man before, Father? There's money to be spent. And isn't it occasions like this that give money its value?”

Lydia comes between us. “How about we use this habit, Lizzie, and we'll get her a good set of beads, the best we can find.”

Begrudging, I agree, and she goes for them.

When she comes back, they're so good-looking and dear, I have to turn away while she weaves them into her hands.

Night is already down when the men come and put her into the box. We've to do the beads again, and her hair and the habit too, but once she's out for show in the sitting room, I can say we've done her justice. We light more candles and put rows of chairs about. Flowers arrive, and sandwiches and raw spirit; gifts from round the town. Bodies known and bodies unknown to me pass through. On their way they boil water and make tea, pour glasses of whiskey and set out plates of beef and ham. Some linger only a minute, others stay longer to kneel and join the responses, or take a chair and share in the talk. At first, they're afraid to speak above the breath, for fear of being the first to laugh, but soon the room is filled with the excitement that comes up at such gatherings, and they get louder and bolder, turning their talk away from Mary and towards their own living cares.

Some time after eight, the house thronged, Moss arrives. I haven't seen him since Lydia's wedding. Waist thickened, trousers unbraced and coat unpatched, shoulders lowered and skin mottled and eyes sunk: is this the same man I near wed? He's come in the company of Jamie and Kit and Joseph and Dan and some other Fenian boys, a gang of seven or eight. They offer their condolences to me with manners that can't be doubted, but once they've come away from me and taken up their drinks, they feign a menacing cast, stood together in a bunch and glowering about like it's the peelers they are. It's plain they've come in force to make a point, about rich factory men ill-using Irish women to death, or some such guff. I only hope they'll tire and sooner go. I want no trouble.

Not long after, Frederick returns. Jamie sees him appear at the door and nudges Moss. Moss does the same to his neighbor, and soon they're all shifting about in their boots and sniffing and rubbing their noses along their sleeves as if preparing for fisticuffs. Frederick doesn't even see them. He has come with a man, a lank with a plume in his hat and a bag of tools in his hand; it's this Mr. Plume who takes up the whole of Frederick's attention. He tows him over the side of the box, and together they look over Mary. They huddle close like plotters. Size her up like a rural does a sow.

The room has gone quiet to watch them. Whispers go round, but don't reach me. There's such an air that if someone doesn't tell me what's going on, I might smother in it. The Fenian gang shuffle away from the wall and make a ring round the three: Mary, Frederick, and Mr. Plume. Moss comes to me with his cap in his hand.

“Lizzie, I feel obliged to tell you, for I think you ought know. They want to make casts of her face and hands.”

“Merciful Jesus.”

“Now, if you like, we can—”

“Leave this to me.” I push through. “Lads, step back. I'll deal with this.”

I take Frederick into the bedroom, get rid of the bodies gathered there, and close the door behind us.

“Are you trying to mortify me?”

“It would be something to keep, Lizzie. Something we would have.”

“Something we'd—?”

“A memory. A souvenir. Is it such a bad thing to want?”

“This is a great shock for us all, Frederick. And we must each of us find our ways to bear it. But this isn't the way.” My speech rises high out from me. “This is
not
the way!”

I run from the room and into Lydia's biding arms. “Poor petal,” she says. “My poor poor petal.”

When Frederick comes out again, he looks tense and difficult, like he no longer feels his place among us. Under our hard gaze, he shows Plume out and, after a whiskey and some words with Father Logan, goes himself. He doesn't appear again—thanks be to Christ—till the Thursday morning at the graveside.

There, he doesn't join in the prayers. I'm sure he's happy to have them—the marks they make in the wind that would otherwise roll across the field unchecked—but he has a look on his face, a superior look that says, “This is a habit I've long since grown out of.” Of course, if he'd been there at the closing of the box; if he'd seen how her hollowness and ash turned to a radiance that the oils and the candles couldn't full explain, he'd now understand that religion isn't something light to be taken up and put down, like a book.

Back at the house again, the party goes on till the place is drunk dry. It's past midnight by the time we're left alone; past midnight and well gone the hour to talk about our affairs. I don't want it put off another day. But Frederick has other matters on his mind.

“I received this.”

I stop the dishing up and turn to him. He's sat on a stool by the fire, holding up a letter.

“It's from Karl.”

“Read it to me.”

“You won't like it.”

“Frederick, tell it out.”

He unfolds it slow and reads. When he's done, he bends forward, pinches the bone between his eyes.

“Is that what he has to say?” I storm the bucket. The crocks have rare known such fury. “Thinking about money at such a time. The man's a savage.”

“How do I reply? How do I even—?” He starts to whimper.

“It doesn't merit replying, Frederick. Let him souse in a bit of silence from you.”

“The poor girl loved me with all her heart. He doesn't see it. He doesn't care.”

“Put it away now. And wrap that blanket round yourself proper or you'll freeze.”

When I'm finished with the dishes, I go to wring my hands over the heat. He swigs a sup from the bottle and hands me the end.

“You know what, Lizzie? I didn't just bury her today. I buried the last vestige of my youth.”

“Does that mean you'll be looking to get it back, your youth, or are you going to give it up and live like a grown man at last?”

A silence comes down on us like a heavy curtain falling. I give way first, for a man can keep holding the weight forever. “Listen, Frederick”—I crouch at his feet—“what's to happen? I want to know how to think about us.”

He puts a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. “You can think about us however you want. You are free.”

I sit back onto the floor. “Freedom? I don't know what it is. And I don't want it.”

“Come on, Lizzie, get up from there.” He comes off his stool. “Don't dirty yourself on the ground.” He takes my wrists and drags me to my feet with a force I'm sure he doesn't intend. He looks as surprised as I am when we finish locked into a standing embrace.

My stomach is turned over and my head in a rush even before he lifts me up into his arms and takes me to the bed. I let him pull me free of my bodice and my crinoline, and I let him fetch me, gasping and fraught. Afterwards I cry and he holds me. Then he cries a bit, and tears at his hair as well, and I have to bite his hand to pull him out of his frenzy. Then we are quiet. We watch the candles lean and dart sideways with the draft.

“I'll not live hid away like she did.”

“Are you talking about marriage, Lizzie?”

“I am.”

He shakes his head.

“I'm talking about a good life, an honest life. I want to live proper.”

“What does it mean, this
proper
?”

“I know you have your own ideas, Frederick. And I know they're different and brilliant, and there's naught wrong with that. But I have a mind too, and, let me tell you, it's full of worries.”

“Come, Lizzie, what worries you so?”

“I've not a family left. Only my half-brother Thomas and his rotten children. I've long given up chance of having my own. We're not getting any younger. Isn't it time to settle up?”

“For the love of God, Lizzie, these terms you use.”

“For those who survive it's hard, Frederick. But we're lucky. We've the bond that unites those who have been loved by someone now dead.”

“What has the marriage institution got to do with such a bond?”

“Naught. Naught at all. But it'd be a seal. It'd make it actual and known. And it'd be a great gift to me. You'd be giving me peace and comfort.”

“My gift is love and protection. You can depend on me without registering your dependence.”

“It wouldn't mean the end to your freedom, Frederick, I swear it. You won't have children by me. I'd put naught on your path to obstruct you.”

“Why are you insisting, Lizzie? What is this new mania?”

“It's not new. It's as old as I am.”

“Do not tell me you have always dreamed of being a wife, Lizzie, because I shan't believe it.”

“Nay. Not a wife. What I've always wanted is to be able to hand myself over when I'm tired. To put down tools and know I'll not starve for it.”

“Can't you do that anyway, with my support?”

“I'm not sure, Frederick. As it is, I'm not sure if I can ever rest full.”

He lies back and looks at the ceiling. Picks at his whiskers and makes as if to contemplate. I pull the sheets up.

“I do not want you to be in hopes, Lizzie. I have to live according to my convictions.”

“What about the feelings of your heart?”

“Lizzie, listen to me,” but he doesn't say anything more.

Sudden, over the bed, the spirit of Beloff looms: “Christ, girl, don't kick over your own trough.”

“I understand your position, Frederick, I do.”

“But do you truly, Lizzie? Do you understand that I cannot offer you more than a spoken vow. Can that be enough for you?”

I turn to the wall. “I know what it is. Your heart is in her keeping forever.”

“Lizzie, that's not it.”

“I can't compete with a dead woman.”

“Lizzie, no.”

I turn back and take hold of him, look steady into his eyes. “Just promise you'll be honest with me.”

“I'm the most honest man in England.”

“Don't lie to me about your women and the rest of it.”

“I shall never hide anything important from you.” He pulls me in. “And you? Do you accept what I can give you?”

In the end, I'm moved by the fear of saying no. But that can grow to be love too, same as any other beginning.

August

XXVI. Private Property

I am as you see me. A pauper woman on an expensive couch. I don't pretend to be something more.

Our mother—may her soul find cushion in heaven—didn't last on this earth long enough to pass much down, but I do remember one lesson she gave us. “Give thanks for what you get,” she said. “Be thankful for whatsoever life bestows on you.” And all my life I've kept her teaching close and tried to be true to it. But this time spent in London has brought about a change in me. I've learnt to be more like you, Mary. You who, if the Queen put the hair of her head under your feet, still you wouldn't be satisfied.

Before, I might have found myself saying, “Thanks be” when Frederick was gone out and the maids were busy with jobs and I had rule of the morning room; “Thanks be to Jesus” when the doors to the parlor were folded shut and the bottles of spirit in the cabinet in reach; “Thanks be to Jesus God Almighty” might have slipped out natural and easy, for I used to think that to do otherwise—to be silent in the face of a gift—was like sinning.

But these days, at moments like this, I'm mindful that, though I was born low and have been raised in station, I don't need to fall on my knees to enjoy what's rightful and mine. I think, This is my lush and I will drink it. I think, This is my foot and I will undress it. I think, This is my stocking and I will throw it. I think, This is my carpet and I will rub it, if that's what pleases me.

You'd be proud of me, sister, if you could only see me.