The Bone Garden: A Novel

Seventeen

1830

THE LIGHT THROUGH the grimy window had faded to little more than dull pewter. There were never enough candles in the workroom, and Rose could scarcely see her stitches as her needle plunged in and out of white gauze. Already she had completed the underslip of pale pink satin, and on her worktable were the silk roses and ribbons yet to be added to the shoulders and the waist. It was a fine gown meant for a ball, and as Rose worked, she imagined how the skirt would rustle when its wearer stepped onto the dance floor, how the satin ribbons would gleam by candlelight at the supper table. There would be wine punch in crystal cups, and creamed oysters and ginger cakes, and you could eat your fill and no one would leave hungry. Though she would never know such an evening, this gown would, and with every stitch she added some small part of herself, a trace of Rose Connolly that would linger among these folds of satin and gauze to swirl in the ballroom.

The light through the window was barely a gleam now, and she struggled to see the thread. Someday, she would look like the other women sewing in this room, their eyes fixed in perpetual squints, their fingers callused and scarred from repeated needle pricks. Even when they stood at the end of the day, their backs remained stooped, as though they were incapable of ever again standing tall.

The needle lanced Rose's finger and she gasped, dropping the gauze on the worktable. She brought her throbbing finger to her mouth and tasted blood, but it was not the pain that vexed her; rather, she was worried that she had stained the white gauze. Holding up the fabric to catch every feeble ray of light, she could just make out, in the fold of the seam, a dark fleck so tiny that it would certainly not be noticed by anyone else. Both my stitches and my blood, she thought, I leave on this gown.

— That will be enough for today, ladies, — the foreman announced.

Rose folded the pieces she had worked on, set them on the table for the next day's labors, and joined the line of women waiting to collect their pay for the week. As they all pulled on cloaks and shawls for the cold walk home, Rose saw a few goodbye waves, a halfhearted nod in her direction. They did not yet know her well, nor did they know how long she would remain among them. Too many other girls had come and gone, and too many other efforts at friendship had gone to waste. So the women watched and waited, sensing perhaps that Rose was not one who would last.

— You, girl! Rose, isn't it? I need a word with you. —

Heart sinking, Rose turned to face the foreman. What criticism would Mr. Smibart have of her today? For surely there would be criticism, delivered in that annoyingly nasal voice that made the other seamstresses giggle behind his back.

— Yes, Mr. Smibart? — she asked.

— It has happened again, — he said. — And it cannot be tolerated. —

— I'm sorry, but I don't know what I've done wrong. If my work's unsatisfactory— —

— Your work is perfectly adequate. —

Coming from Mr. Smibart, perfectly adequate was a compliment, and she allowed herself a quiet sigh of relief that, for the moment, her employment here was not in jeopardy.

— It's the other matter, — he said. — I cannot have outsiders disturbing me, inquiring about matters that you should deal with on your own time. Tell your friends you are here to work. —

Now she understood. — I'm sorry, sir. Last week, I told Billy not to come here, and I thought he understood. But he has a child's mind, and he doesn't understand. I'll explain it to him again. —

— It wasn't the boy this time. It was a man. —

Rose went very still. — Which man? — she asked quietly.

— You think I have time to ask the name of every fellow who comes sniffing after my girls? Some beady-eyed fellow, asking all sorts of questions about you. —

— What sort of questions? —

— Where you live, who your friends are. As if I'm your private secretary! This is a business, Miss Connolly, and I will not tolerate such interruptions. —

— I'm sorry, — she murmured.

— You keep saying that, yet the problem remains. No more visitors. —

— Yes, sir, — she said meekly and turned to leave.

— I expect you to deal with him. Whoever he is. —

Whoever he is.

She shivered as she fought the piercing wind that whipped her skirts and numbed her face. On this cold evening, not even the dogs were about, and she walked alone, the last of the women to leave the building. It must be that horrid Mr. Pratt from the Night Watch asking about me, she thought. So far she'd managed to avoid him, but Billy had told her the man was inquiring about her around town, and all because she had dared to pawn Aurnia's locket. How had such a valuable piece of jewelry ended up in Rose's hands when it should have gone to the dead woman's husband?

The fuss is all Eben's doing, thought Rose. I accused him of attacking me so he retaliates by accusing me of being a thief. And of course, the Night Watch believes Eben, because all Irish are thieves.

She moved deeper into the warren of tenements, shoes cracking through ice into stinking puddles, the streets funneling into narrow alleys, as though South Boston itself were closing in around her. At last, she reached the door with the low arch and the stoop where the refuse from various suppers, bones gnawed clean, bread black with mold, lay awaiting the attentions of some starving dog desperate enough to eat a putrid meal.

Rose knocked on the door.

It was opened by a child with filthy cheeks, his blond hair hanging like a ragged curtain over his eyes. He could not be much older than four, and he stood mutely staring at the visitor.

A woman's voice yelled: — Fer God's sake, Conn, the cold's gettin' in! Shut the door! —

The silent boy scuttled off into some dark corner as Rose stepped in, closing the door against the wind. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness of the low-ceilinged room, but little by little she began to make out the shapes. The chair by the hearth, where the fire had burned down to mere coals. The table with its stacked bowls. And all around her, the moving shapes of little heads. So many children. Rose counted eight at least, but surely there were others that she could not see, curled up sleeping in the shadowy corners.

— You brought your payment for the week? —

Rose focused on the enormous woman seated in the chair. Now that her eyes had adjusted, Rose could see Hepzibah's face, with its bulging double chin. Does she never leave that chair? Rose wondered. No matter what time of day or night Rose visited this grim address, she'd always found Hepzibah sitting like a fat queen in her throne, her little charges crawling about her feet like grimy supplicants.

— I've brought the money, — said Rose, and she placed half her week's pay in Hepzibah's waiting hand.

— I just fed 'er. A greedy girl, that one, 'bout emptied me breast with just a few sucks. Drinks more than any babe I've nursed. I should charge you more for her. —

Rose knelt to lift her niece from the basket and thought: My sweet baby, how happy I am to see you! Little Meggie stared up at her, and Rose was sure that her tiny lips curled into a smile of recognition. Oh yes, you know me, don't you? You know I'm the one who loves you.

There were no other chairs in the room, so Rose sat down on the filthy floor, among toddlers waiting for mothers to return from work and rescue them from Hepzibah's indifferent supervision. If only I could afford better for you, dear Meggie, she thought as she coaxed coos from her niece. If only I could take you home to a snug, clean room where I could set your cradle by my bed. But the room on Fishery Alley where Rose slept, a room she shared with twelve other lodgers, was even more grim, infested with rats and foul with disease. Meggie must never be exposed to such a place. Far better that she stay here with Hepzibah, whose fat breasts never ran dry. Here at least she'd be warm and fed. As long as Rose could keep the money coming.

It was only with the greatest reluctance that she finally laid Meggie back in the basket and stood to leave. Night had fallen, and Rose was both exhausted and hungry. It would do Meggie no good if her sole support fell ill and could not work.

— I'll be back tomorrow, — said Rose.

— And same again next week, — Hepzibah answered. Meaning the money, of course. For her, it was all about the money.

— You'll have it. Just keep her safe. — Rose looked back with longing at the baby and said softly: — She's all that's left to me. —

She stepped out the door. The streets were dark now, and the only source of light was the glow of candles through grimy windows. She rounded the corner and her footsteps slowed, stopped.

In the alley ahead waited a familiar silhouette. Dim Billy waved and came toward her, his impossibly long arms swinging like vines. But it was not Billy she focused on; it was the man standing behind him.

— Miss Connolly, — said Norris Marshall. — I need to speak to you. —

She shot an irritated look at Billy. — You brought him here? —

— He said he's your friend, — said Billy.

— Do you believe everything you're told? —

— I am your friend, — said Norris.

— I'm without friends in this city. —

Billy whined, — What about me? —

— Except for you, — she amended. — But now I know I can't be trustin' you. —

— He's not with the Night Watch. You only warned me about them. —

— You do know, — said Norris, — that Mr. Pratt is searching for you? You know what he's saying about you? —

— He's been saying I'm a thief. Or worse. —

— And Mr. Pratt is a buffoon. —

That brought a grim smile to her lips. — An opinion we have in common, that. —

— We have something else in common, Miss Connolly. —

— I can't imagine what that might be. —

— I've seen, it too, — he said quietly. — The Reaper. —

She stared at him. — When? —

— Last night. It was standing over the body of Mary Robinson. —

— Nurse Robinson? — She fell a step back, the news so shocking it felt like a physical blow. — Mary is dead? —

— You didn't know? —

Billy said, eagerly: — I was going to tell you, Miss Rose! I heard it this morning, up on the West End. She was cut, just like Nurse Poole! —

— The news is all over town, — said Norris. — I wanted to speak to you before you hear some twisted version of what happened. —

Wind whistled through the alley, and the cold pierced like nails through her cloak. She turned her face from the blast, and her hair whipped free of its scarf, lashing numb cheeks.

— Is there someplace warm where we can talk? — he asked. — Someplace private? —

She did not know if she could trust this man. On the first day they had met, at her sister's bedside, he had been courteous to her, the only man in that circle of students who had met her gaze with any real regard. She knew nothing about him, only that his coat was of inferior quality, and his cuffs were frayed. Gazing up the alley, she considered where to go. At this hour, the taverns and coffeehouses would be noisy and crowded, and there'd be too many ears, too many eyes.

— Come with me, — she said.

A few streets away, she turned up a shadowy passage and stepped through a doorway. Inside, the air stank of boiled cabbage. In the hallway, a lone lamp burned in its sconce, the flame wildly shuddering as she swung the door shut against the wind.

— Our room's upstairs, — said Billy, and he scampered up the steps ahead of them.

Norris looked at Rose. — He lives with you? —

— I couldn't leave him sleeping in a cold stable, — she said. She paused to light a candle at the sconce, then, shielding the flame with her hand, she started up the stairs. Norris followed her up the dozen creaking steps to the dim and stinking room that housed the thirteen lodgers. In the glow of her candle, the sagging curtains that hung between straw mattresses looked like a regiment of ghosts. One of the lodgers was resting in a dark corner, and though he lay hidden in the shadows, they could hear the man's ceaseless hacking.

— Is he all right? — asked Norris.

— He coughs day and night. —

Ducking his head beneath the low rafters, Norris picked his way across the mattress-strewn floor and knelt beside the sick lodger.

— Old Clary's too weak to work, — said Billy. — So he stays in bed all day. —

Norris made no comment, but he surely understood the significance of the blood-flecked bedclothes. Clary's pale face was so wasted by consumption that his bones seemed to gleam through his skin. All you had to do was look into his sunken eyes, hear the rattle of phlegm in his lungs, and you'd know that nothing could be done.

Without a word, Norris rose back to his feet.

Rose could see his expression as he looked around the room, taking in the bundles of clothes, the piles of straw that served as beds. The shadows were alive with skittering things, and Rose lifted her foot to crush something black as it darted past, feeling it crunch beneath her shoe. Yes, Mr. Marshall, she thought, this is where I live, in this infested room with a stinking waste bucket, sleeping on a floor that's so packed at night with lodgers, you must be careful which way you turn or you will find an elbow shoved in your eye or a dirty foot snagged in your hair.

— Over here's my bed! — declared Billy, and he plopped down on a pile of straw. — If we shut the curtain, we'll make a pretty room all to ourselves. You can sit there, sir. Old Polly won't notice that anyone's been using her bed. —

Norris did not look at all eager to settle onto the bundle of rags and straw. As Rose slid the sheet across to give them privacy from the dying man in the corner, Norris stared down at Polly's bed, as though wondering how many vermin he might pick up by sitting there.

— Wait! — Billy leaped up to fetch the water bucket, which he brought sloshing back to their corner. — Now you can put the candle down. —

— He's afraid of fire, — said Rose as she carefully set the candle on the floor. And well Billy should be, in a room strewn with rags and straw. Only when she settled onto her own bed did Norris resignedly sit down as well. Curtained off in their own corner of the room, the three of them formed a circle around the flickering light, which cast spindly shadows on the hanging sheet.

— Now tell me, — she said. — Tell me what happened to Mary. —

He stared at the light. — I'm the one who found her, — he said. — Last night, on the riverbank. I was walking across the hospital common when I heard her moans. She'd been cut, Miss Connolly, the same way Agnes Poole was cut. The same pattern, slashed into her abdomen. —

— In the shape of a cross? —

— Yes. —

— Does Mr. Pratt still blame papists? —

— I can't imagine that he does now. —

She gave a bitter laugh. — Then you have your head in the sand, Mr. Marshall. There's no charge so outrageous that it can't be flung at the Irish. —

— In the case of Mary Robinson, it's not the Irish on whom suspicion falls. —

— Who would Mr. Pratt's unlucky suspect be this time? —

— I am. —

In the silence that followed, she stared at the shadows playing on Norris's face. Billy had curled up like a tired cat beside his water bucket and now lay dozing, each breath rustling the straw. The consumptive man in the corner kept up his ceaseless coughing, his moist rattles a reminder that death was never far away.

— So you see, — he said, — I know what it's like to be unfairly accused. I know what you've gone through. —

— You know, do you? Yet it's myself who's looked at with suspicion every day of my life. You have no idea. —

— Miss Connolly, last night I saw the same creature you did, but no believes me. No one else saw it. Worst of all, the hospital groundsman saw me bending over her body. I'm looked at with suspicion by the nurses, the other students. The hospital trustees may banish me from the wards. All I've ever wanted was to be a doctor. Now everything I've worked for is threatened, because so many doubt my word. Just as they doubted yours. — He leaned closer, and the candle's glow painted his face with gaunt and spectral shadows. — You've seen it, too, that thing with the cape. I need to know if you remember the same things I do. —

— I told you that night what I saw. But I don't think you believed me then. —

— I admit, at the time your story seemed like… —

— A lie? —

— I would never make such an accusation against you. Yes, I thought your description far-fetched. But you were overwrought and clearly terrified. — He added, quietly: — Last night, so was I. What I saw chilled me to the bone. —

She looked at the candle flame. And whispered: — It had wings. —

— A cape, perhaps. Or a dark cloak. —

— And its face glowed white. — She met Norris's gaze, and the light on his features brought back the memory with startling clarity. — White as a skull. Is that what you saw? —

— I don't know. The moon was on the water. Reflections can play tricks on the eye. —

Her lips tightened. — I'm telling you what I saw. And in return, you offer explanations. ‘It was just the moon's reflection'! —

— I'm a man of science, Miss Connolly. I can't help but seek logical explanations. —

— And where is the logic in killing two women? —

— There may be none. Only evil. —

She swallowed and said softly: — I'm afraid he knows my face. —

Billy groaned and rolled over, his face slack and innocent in sleep. Looking at him, she thought: Billy understands nothing of evil. He sees a smile and does not understand that darkness may lie beneath it.

Footsteps thumped up the stairs, and Rose stiffened as she heard a woman's giggles, a man's laugh. One of the female lodgers had lured a client upstairs. Rose understood the necessity of it, knew that a few minutes with your legs spread could mean the difference between supper and a growling belly. But the noises the couple made, on the other side of that thin curtain, brought a mortified flush to Rose's cheeks. She could not bring herself to look at Norris. She stared down at her hands, knotted in her lap, as the couple groaned and grunted, as straw rustled beneath rocking bodies. And through it all, the sick man in the far corner kept coughing, drowning in bloody phlegm.

— And this is why you hide? — he asked.

Reluctantly, she looked at him, and found his gaze unflinching, as though he was determined to ignore the rutting and the dying that was happening only a few feet away. As if the filthy sheet had curtained them off into a separate world, where she was the sole focus of his attention.

— I hide to avoid trouble, Mr. Marshall. From everyone. —

— Including the Night Watch? They're saying you pawned an item of jewelry that wasn't yours. —

— My sister gave it to me. —

— Mr. Pratt says you stole it. That you stripped it from her body while she lay dying. —

She gave a snort. — My brother-in-law's doing. Eben wants his revenge, so he spreads rumors about me. Even if it was true, even if I did take it, I didn't owe it to him. How else was I supposed to pay for Aurnia's burial? —

— Her burial? But she… — He paused.

— What about Aurnia? — she asked.

— Nothing. It's just…an unusual name, that's all. A lovely name. —

She gave a sad smile. — It was our grandmother's name. It means ‘golden lady.' And my sister was truly a golden lady. Until she married. —

Beyond the curtain, the grunts accelerated, accompanied by the forceful slap-slap of two bodies colliding. Rose could no longer look Norris in the eye. She stared down instead at her shoes, planted on the straw-littered floor. An insect crawled out from the straw where Norris was seated, and she wondered if he noticed it. She fought the urge to crush it with her shoe.

— Aurnia deserved better, — Rose said softly. — But in the end, the only one standing at her grave was me. And Mary Robinson. —

— Nurse Robinson was there? —

— She was kind to my sister, kind to everyone. Unlike Miss Poole. Oh, I had no love for that one, I'll admit, but Mary was different. — She shook her head sadly.

The couple behind the curtain finished their rutting, and their grunts gave way to sighs of exhaustion. Rose had ceased paying attention to them; instead she was thinking of the last time she had seen Mary Robinson, at St. Augustine's cemetery. She remembered the woman's darting glances and jittery hands. And how she had suddenly vanished without saying goodbye.

Billy stirred and sat up, scratching his head and scattering pieces of dirty straw from his hair. He looked at Norris. — Are you sleeping here with us, then? — he asked.

Rose flushed. — No, Billy. He's not. —

— I can move my bed to make room for you, — said Billy. Then added, with a territorial note, — But I'm the only one gets to sleep next to Miss Rose. She promised. —

— I wouldn't dream of taking your place, Billy, — said Norris. He stood and brushed straw from his trousers. — I'm sorry to take up your time, Miss Connolly. Thank you for speaking to me. — He pulled aside the curtain and started down the stairs.

— Mr. Marshall? — Rose scrambled to her feet and followed him. Already he was at the foot of the stairs, his hand on the door. — I must ask that you not inquire at my place of work again, — she said.

He frowned up at her. — I'm sorry? —

— You threaten my livelihood if you do. —

— I've never been to your place of employment. —

— A man was there today, asking where I lived. —

— I don't even know where you work. — He opened the door, letting in a blast of wind that tugged at his coat and rippled the hem of Rose's skirt. — Whoever inquired about you, it wasn't me. —

On this cold night, Dr. Nathaniel Berry is not thinking about death.

He's thinking instead about finding some willing quim, and why wouldn't he? He is a young man and he works long hours as the house physician at the hospital. He has no time to court women in the manner expected of a gentleman, no time for polite chitchat at soirées and musicales, no free afternoons for companionable walks on Colonnade Row. His life this year is all about serving the patients of Massachusetts General, twenty-four hours a day, and seldom is he allowed an evening away from the hospital grounds.

But tonight, to his surprise, he was offered a rare night of freedom.

When a young man must suppress too long his natural urges, those very urges are what drive him when at last he's let loose. And so when Dr. Berry leaves his hospital quarters, he heads directly toward the disreputable neighborhood of the North Slope, to the Sentry Hill Tavern, where grizzled seamen rub shoulders with freed slaves, where any young lady who walks through the door can be safely assumed to be in search of more than a glass of brandy.

Dr. Berry is not long inside the tavern.

After no more time than it takes to drink two rum flips, he comes walking back out again, with the chosen object of his lust laughing giddily at his side. He could not have chosen a more obvious whore than this disheveled tart with her tangled black hair, but she will serve his purposes just fine, so he leads her toward the river, where such assignations regularly take place. She goes along willingly, if a bit unsteadily, her drunken laughter echoing back along the narrow street. But as she catches sight of the water straight ahead, she suddenly halts, feet planted like a balky donkey's.

— What? — Dr. Berry asks, impatient to get beneath her skirts.

— It's the river. That girl was killed down there. —

Of course Dr. Berry already knows this. After all, he knew and worked with Mary Robinson. But any sorrow he may feel over her death is secondary to the urgency of his current need. — Don't worry, — he assures the whore. — I'll protect you. Come on. —

— You ain't him, are you? The West End Reaper? —

— Of course not! I'm a doctor. —

— They're sayin' he could be a doctor. That's why he's killin' nurses. —

By now, Dr. Berry is getting desperate for relief. — Well, you're not a nurse, are you? Come along, and I'll make it worth your while. — He tugs her a few feet farther, but once again she pulls to a stop.

— How do I know you won't slice me open like those poor ladies?'

— Look, the whole tavern just saw us leave together. If I were really the Reaper, do you think I'd take such a risk in public? —

Swayed by his unassailable logic, she allows him to lead her to the river. Now that he's so close to his goal, all he can think of is plunging deep into her. Mary Robinson does not even cross his mind as he practically drags the whore toward the water, and why should she? Dr. Berry feels no apprehension as he and the whore head toward the shadow of the bridge, where they cannot be seen.

But they can most certainly be heard.

The sounds rise from the darkness and drift up to the riverbank. The rustle of a skirt being yanked up, the heated breathing, the grunts of climax. In only a few minutes it is over, and the girl scurries back up the bank, a bit more disheveled perhaps, but a half eagle richer. She fails to notice the figure in the shadows as she hurries back to the tavern to troll for another client.

The oblivious girl just keeps walking, and does not even glance back toward the bridge where Dr. Berry lingers, fastening his trousers. She doesn't see what glides down the bank to meet him.

By the time Dr. Berry's final gasp of agony rises from the river, the whore is already back in the tavern, laughing in the lap of a sailor.