A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies (25 page)

It did not seem surprising to her that he’d followed her. She poured their tea, a good hostess. Were they going to be polite, were they going to keep things proper, or would Dickie make a scene? It wasn’t hard to picture him, having finished thawing himself, and putting some food in his stomach, turning on her with his old childhood intensity, his eyes flaring: Charlotte, I know everything, I know what you’ve been up to. Like a substitute for her husband, perhaps. I know, I know, I know.

As though she were guilty of something heinous. As though she couldn’t say the same thing right back. She sat up a little straighter. It was decent tea, strong. A glow came over her when she thought about Miss Eckhart. I’m sorry I had misjudged you, and thought ill of you earlier, Miss Eckhart, she thought.

They were going to keep it polite. They were going to keep it proper. It was just like their first interview, except that this time they had a world of new knowledge behind them, and this time the food wasn’t Rowena Petty’s.

They looked at each other across the little table. The egg sandwiches were dry and the bread wasn’t brand-new fresh, and the tomatoes had too much sugar, and the potato cakes weren’t cakes at all; they were fried-up ovals of yesterday’s mash, or last week’s, with nothing else in them but lard and slivers of old onions, but she was hungry—again, although she’d eaten a big breakfast on the train—and she wasn’t going to be fussy.

Charlotte took the first move. “Why are you here, Dickie?”

“I’m working.”

“Oh, are the Boston police in the habit of sending men outside their…” She didn’t know the word for outside the city limits.

“Jurisdiction,” said Dickie. Somehow she already knew that he wasn’t going to try tricking her this time; he wasn’t going to be indirect; he was going to tell her the truth, uncoded, plain. “Actually, it’s my day off. But it’s not unusual for a man to take on a special off-duty assignment from a civilian, in his spare time, particularly a man at my grade, where the income, I’m not shy about telling you, is not high.”

“Am I a special assignment?”

“You are.”

“You followed me because someone paid you to?”

“It was awfully easy, Charlotte. In the dining car on the train I was at the next table, to your left. I sat there with a newspaper up to my face, but I kept lowering it. You never noticed.”

She didn’t even remember what she’d eaten in the dining car. She had taken no notice of anything at all. Chugging, rocking, shaking, a blur of motion and noise, all part of a background, blotted out, insignificant. Her mind had been possessed by other things. It was if, inside herself, she’d left the clear bright light of day and was somewhere else, in a dim and shadowy place, where it was hard, but not impossible, to look around.

Of her parents, she remembered almost nothing. The broad shoulders of her father in a worn muslin workshirt, as he crouched over his plate at the table: his strong back, the ridges of his shoulder blades, the hair at the back of his neck, red-gold in firelight, and someone saying, “You have your father’s hair,” as if it weren’t obvious. Her father at the chopping block, splitting wood, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, his powerful arms. The sound of the ax. The back of the cap on his head, sweat-soaked.

Her mother at the laundry tub. A hairnet on her head, some kind of brown mesh, brown on brown, but you could make out what was hair and what was not. Bending over the tub, smelling like lye herself. The back of her heavy gray apron. A smocklike apron, slipped over the head, with ties around the middle to be fastened in the back, always coming undone, dangling. Hair coming out of the net. Frayed hems of dresses, always coming undone. Kneeling over the tub on some sort of stool. The bottoms of her shoes. Always coming undone. Her stockings showing through shoe holes. Her stockings with holes, frayed threads. The skin of the bottoms of her feet, frayed.

From the back was the only way she saw them. It was like standing in a room with two people you’ve come up to from behind, and saying, “Turn around, please,” and they would not.

Of her brother and sister she remembered only this: herself in a flat, narrow bed—a mattress, old horsehair, cold, close to a cold stone floor: not a bed but a mattress on a floor. Herself in the middle of two sleepers, bigger than she was, each one with their back to her. Herself lying flat. Looking up at the ceiling, at shadows. If she moved her arms just right, within the narrow corridor of their bodies, she could lie there and fall asleep with her palms pressed against them, each one, at the backs of their shoulders, like things to hold on to, and they didn’t growl at her and push her away; they were too far gone into sleep.

Of her house: dark, sunlight in the cracks of the walls, fires that were always too weak, too cold; dampness, like something almost visible that would jump off walls and seep through your dress to your bones. A dusty front yard. The street, smelling of horse droppings. Clattering wheels. People. Motion. Horses, noise. Outside. Outside was always better than in. A voice. “We would be interested in taking the youngest.” Was that Miss Georgeson? Had Miss Georgeson come to the house?

No, it was a thin lady in a dark brown cape and a dark brown old-fashioned bonnet.

Papers in her hand. Crisp, white papers. Gentle. A gentle lady, soft-spoken, not harsh, not hard. Kind eyes. The lines of her mouth soft, not rigid. Looking at her. “What a fine girl you are, then.”

Going out. Across the little yard. Dusty. Looking back. Looking forward, a carriage, get into the carriage! High-wheeled in the back, lower-wheeled in the front, marvelous.

A double-seater with a roof. Leather cushions. She’d never been in one before. The lady. “Do you like it?” Oh, yes. “Do you know what it’s called? It’s called a cabriolet.” Pronouncing it slowly. Cab. Ree. Oh. Lay.

It was as if she’d never known a single word before this one. Cabriolet. It was the first word she’d ever learned, like a baby. She remembered that. Riding in that carriage, away. She hadn’t known yet that she would spend a long stretch of days and nights—just ahead—crying; just crying, with the sense she’d never come to the end of the tears; she’d be damp and sobbing forever; they would never dry up.

But they did. The plate of sandwiches was empty. Dickie had just finished the last of the potatoes. The owner came and took the teapot and brought it back, refilled, with more milk. It felt like a long time since they’d spoken a word. It was not uncomfortable. No one else came into the shop. It was closed. But no one was forcing them to leave, or even to hurry. A benefit of the company of a copper.

At last, Charlotte said, “I want to be told who hired you, Dickie.”

“Well, I expected as much but I’m not at liberty to say.”

So much for politeness. Charlotte was stirring milk into tea and flashed up the spoon as if she’d fling it across the table at him, which she quite possibly might have done. “Dickie! If you don’t, I’ll—I’ll—you know what I’ll do? I’ll go to that horrible tannery, this very day, and I’ll tell them that when that leather-stretching thing unbolted from the wall and fell on top of you and nearly
did you in,
it was
not
accidental; you unbolted it
yourself
.”

In answer, he grinned at her. He was proud of it! It was the truth! All those years ago, and he was as proud of it as if it had happened yesterday.

“Then let’s agree to keep each other’s secrets, Charlotte, shall we?”

“For the sake of old friendship?”

“Yes.”

“Who hired you?”

“The hotel did.”

“
Harry?
”

“I was there anyway. They’d wanted the main manservant, or whoever he is, to go off with you, tailing like, by way of looking out for you. But he was needed for the business with the hearse.”

“Did he have on a Union army uniform?”

“He did.”

“That’s Moaxley. Were you watching the hotel again, Dickie?”

“It was just at the end of my hours. Call came in there was a hearse. If there’s a hearse being loaded from a public-like building in the very wee hours of the night, it would behoove the Boston Police to take a look at it.”

“That was a lady named Miss Singleton.”

“We know.”

“Her husband was a war hero. In the war with Spain. Not the States, Spain. Cuba,” said Charlotte.

“We know.”

“How much is Harry paying you?”

“A lot.”

“Are you going to tell me it’s not a, you know, a thing?”

“A bribe?” Again, a grin. “I am unbribable. I am a man with a job.”

“And so what are you telling the Vice people?”

“I’m not telling them anything. I don’t work for them, I work for the City of Boston. I investigated a complaint. I was asked what I observed. I told the truth. I observed ladies checking into a hotel, being guests of that hotel, and checking out. There are no complaints from neighbors. There are no disturbances of the peace. There are no banks or creditors or suppliers owed money to. No gambling takes place in public rooms. Inordinate amounts of spirits are not consumed. It pretty much all tallies up with other reports.”

“Others,” said Charlotte.

“Oh, sure. Every couple of years or so, another one.”

“Did Harry when he offered you all this money you’re not telling me about mention to you where he thought I might be going?”

“My children need money for schools,” said Dickie. He wasn’t being defensive about it, just stating a fact.

“I thought they were babies.”

“I’m thinking of the future. Who is Arthur?”

Ah, gaps in his knowledge, big ones! “A dead English king,” said Charlotte. “Probably a made-up one, not historical.”

“Mr. Alcorn mentioned that he would like me to deliver a message. ‘Mrs. Heath, think twice about Arthur, please. Use your reason.’ That is, I was to deliver it if you got off at Oakville, which you did not. That was the whole of the message. My instructions were to simply keep close to you. Mr. Alcorn’s a city man. He thinks the moment one leaves Boston, one is naturally prey to forces beyond one’s control. He was sure you’d be robbed, assaulted, kidnapped. Exposed to barbarians.”

“And what did you think, Dickie?”

“I thought all along you were going out to look at the old school, you know. I thought you’d got sentimental.”

“Miss Georgeson’s been dead at least a half dozen years. It wouldn’t be the school. I would never have done that.”

“You’re not sentimental.”

“No,” said Charlotte.

“Then why,” said Dickie slowly, “are you looking for your mother and father, and why have you been sending money to them?”

“Dickie! You snooped!”

“Well, that’s my job.”

“How did you do it?”

“One of the print-set fellows came out to see what was what, with me out there. Offered him a half-dollar to go inside and use his ears for me. Do you want me to find out where they are?”

“I have a brother who’s a woodsman, a tree cutter,” said Charlotte. “And a sister who died on a farm, by herself.”

“Do you want me to find your parents, Charlotte?”

“No. Yes. No.” She drank the tea in her cup. She put down the empty cup. She picked up the cup as if it were full and tried to drink the tea she thought was still there. Then she said, “Yes.”

“Wait here,” said Dickie.

“What do you mean, wait here? Alone? With that horrid owner? That’s not going to happen. Where are you going?”

“The police station, of course.”

“You think they’re
criminals
?”

“I think everyone’s a criminal, Charlotte, I’m a policeman. But no, not in particular. The station will have addresses, they always do. Maybe not written down, but in someone’s head, probably a beat-walking man, there’s an address, with known-about residents. This is not a big town.”

“All those rowhouses, though. Did you notice all those rowhouses, out back of the station? They aren’t even on actual streets. They’re like pushed-together cinder boxes.”

“It’s mill housing.”

“It’s tenements.”

“I thought you hadn’t noticed anything.”

“I noticed that.”

“Because you think that’s where they are?”

“Yes.”

“Then we have something to go on,” said Dickie brightly, and Charlotte said, “When I go back to Boston on the train, are you going to sit with me, or are you going to go back to your private-detectiveness and just shadow me?”

“I can sit with you.”

“Does your wife know where you are?”

“Oh, yes. I telephoned to the sanatorium. It’s quite near the house. They went and got her and she said, Is it on the up-and-up, this type of job? and I assured her, and she hoped I’d make it back for my next hours. Being trained a nurse, you know, she believes in routine. And she’s glad for the money. And she hoped while I was out here, I’d go back to the tannery and make it explode or something.”

“Does she know about the bolts in the wall?”

“One’s partner in marriage does not need to know small details from one’s past that don’t matter.”

“She sounds nice.”

“Maybe you’ll meet her one day.”

“And your babies. I would like that, Dickie.”

“So would I.”

“Dickie?”

“What?”

“Thank you for not asking me any more questions about the hotel, even though it would be unethical of you, seeing that, at the moment, Harry’s your employer.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And thank you for not asking me any questions about my husband.”

“You’re welcome for that, too.”

They got up and put their coats on. The owner appeared.

“A dollar,” he said, with his hand out. Dickie reached in his pocket, but Charlotte already had her purse open. She had never paid a bill in a restaurant before. She handed over a bill, and Dickie put a nickel on the table.

They went outside. Dickie seemed to know where the police station was. “We can walk there. It’s not far.” The street and sidewalks were empty; it was much too cold to stir about. “I forgot how cold it gets out here,” Dickie said. This time he held out his arm to her, and she took it.

At the end of a block of shops, they turned down a side street. The station was at the end of it. Across from the station was a lit-up little dress shop, and Dickie pointed to it. He wanted her to go inside and wait for him to do his errand.