For the Mercy Street Holiday 2016 Prompt Challenge on Tumblr: "Gift Shopping" (Dec 22)
He had come to the mercantile on a personal errand, attempting – for once – to lay aside his professional obligations, but even so, he couldn't keep himself from staring at the proprietor's hands. At the moment, they were engaged in looping a length of twine into an neat bow, but they were slow and shaky, undoubtedly hindered by their present affliction.
The knuckles, lightly dusted with light brown age spots, were round and bulbous, the inflamed flesh pink with sheen. The fingers were already beginning to show the signs of ulnar deviation, and he knew it wouldn't be long before they were entirely incapable of grasping twine at all.
"Sorry, sir," the man said, looking slightly ashamed as he finally tightened the bow across the wrapped package. "It's the cold. Makes my hands act up."
Jed nodded. Weather was often an aggravating factor with the condition, and he had seen it enough in his practice over the years.
"Have you sought treatment?" he asked.
"Treatment, sir?" the proprietor repeated, peppery gray eyebrows furrowing inward in confusion, as if Jed had inquired after his most recent voyage to the moon.
"Yes, treatment. There's a physician in London – Garrod, if I recall the name correctly – doing astonishing new work on what he calls rheumatoid arthritis."
The man pulled one hand into the other, protectively cupping the joints, all while eyeing Jed with a wary gaze. "Rheuma- what?"
"Rheumatoid arthritis. I don't suppose there are any mineral springs nearby?" That earned him a look of even greater confusion, although he shouldn't have been all that surprised. Alexandria was a far cry from Vichy and Bad Schwalbach, and a suggestion that the proprietor "take the waters" would no doubt be misinterpreted in a multitude of ways. "Small doses of the iodide of potassium have also proven effective," he conceded. "I'm sure if you inquire at the local druggist's, he should be able to provide it."
"Thank you, sir," the man said, pushing the package across the counter. He seemed a trifle less apprehensive, perhaps relieved that Jed didn't offer to take out his surgeon's knives and remove the offending digits right here in the middle of the store.
"That'll be a dollar twenty five, unless you'll be wanting anything else..."
Jed shook his head as he reached into his coat pocket, but as he glanced over, his eyes caught on something in the back display case, sitting unobtrusively along the middle shelf.
Even in the low light of the mercantile, they glinted proudly, the colors vibrant against the dark velvet of the display box. He couldn't have even said why they had attracted his attention, but still, he was finding it hard to draw his glance away and resume his business.
The proprietor, for all his age, didn't miss a thing, and quickly glanced back to see what had momentarily distracted his customer.
"Beautiful, aren't they?" he said.
"Mhmmm," Jed murmured in agreement, at a strange loss for words.
"Would you like to see them more closely?"
It was ridiculous; he shouldn't be doing this. He had no reason to bother with such things, no need to do anything else but pay for his goods and get back to Mansion House before the day grew late. But still, he found himself gesturing affirmatively with a wave of his hand, and watching as the small box made its way onto the counter before him.
"Belonged to the Widow Simmonds," the proprietor said, all while Jed continued to stare at the objects in question. "Left last April, back to her kin in North Carolina."
"And you no doubt offered her a fair price?" Jed asked, half in jest. He had heard enough stories about the wives and widows of Alexandria who were possessed of both spare jewelry and a need for ready cash.
The proprietor gave him a wry smile. "Very fair, sir."
Jed glanced back down again, unable to keep his gaze away for too long. The proprietor had been right, but only partially: the pair of earrings weren't just beautiful, they were exquisite. It was the simplicity of the design he appreciated the most: a small red hemispheric stone sat at the base of the clasp, followed underneath by a triad of tiny diamonds, a second red stone, and then a third, larger than all the rest, smooth and round and polished well enough that he could make out his own shape in its reflection. The color of the jewels was deep and rich, resembling a glass of fine claret, or perhaps – in a more familiar way – the ruddy hue of blood. All in all, they were striking, without being overly ostentatious, designed to subtly take command over the attention of the onlooker.
He imagined them gracing along the side of a neck, the dark red of the jewels gleaming against pale skin. That would be the best way to see them, he concluded: on a woman of fair coloring and dark hair, perhaps with dark eyes as well, whose gaze would sparkle just as brightly as the stones she wore.
"Ruby?" he asked.
"Garnet," the proprietor admitted.
It was just as well: Mary would undoubtedly balk at wearing a jewel so rare. Because now it was clear who that neck, that hair, and those wide, dark eyes belonged to, the woman he could see, so clearly in his mind's eye, with those earrings dangling elegantly down towards her bare shoulders.
He had only seen her shoulders once – the night of the Green ball – and even through the chaotic haze of that evening, he had little difficulty recalling how she had looked when she first came into his room, her dress so full and elegant even while streaked with the horrors of blood. Unlike almost any other woman of his acquaintance, she was calm, seemingly unperturbed by the stains on her frock and hands, caring only about the woman two floors below whose life she was determined to save.
The dress, he recalled later that night, as he was trying to bully his insomnia into submission, had been light blue, nearly periwinkle, an altogether ill-advised color for her. Had he been the one to accompany her to the dressmaker's, he would have insisted on something darker: deep sapphire, scarlet (although she would have never agreed), or perhaps emerald green. She would have looked like a jewel herself, glittering in the darkness.
But having such thoughts were one thing; staring at these earrings, imagining them dangling from her ears, envisioning the moment when he presented them as a gift to a woman who was not his wife, a respectable widow of all things, it was simply beyond the realm of recklessness.
Besides, he had already purchased her a gift in celebration of the Christmas holiday, a gift which was currently sitting on the mercantile counter wrapped in brown paper. He had wanted to get her something useful, something entirely within the strictures of convention, something appropriate for one friend to give another – for they were friends, were they not? He had settled on a wool shawl, as he had seen her shiver one too many times during her rounds in the wards, and while she was in possession of something thin, of woven cotton, it was clearly not sufficient. One would have thought they would have wool enough in Boston, but perhaps she had imagined Virginia's warmth more like that of Brazil, and brought nothing suitable with her. Or perhaps she hadn't been able to bring so much, in that small travelling bag of hers. Or perhaps she, like so many of them, had imagined the war would be over far before the arrival of winter.
After appraising the mercantile's abundant selection - the women of Alexandria clearly having shawls to spare as well as earrings - he had narrowed in one he thought she would appreciate, soft and finely knit, a pale gray, with a lacy design running across the edges of its triangular shape. It was lambswool, the proprietor had informed him, from the spring's first shearing. And he had enjoyed the thought of her wearing it, draped thickly across her arms and shoulders as she sat and tended to the men in the evenings. That was the Mary he knew: never at rest, never thinking of her own needs, even as she shivered for lack of a decent shawl.
The other Mary – the one he saw in candlelight wearing long garnet earrings, laughing and smiling, her eyes ablaze – it was certainly possible he didn't know her at all. But he wanted to, that he could now at last admit. And he didn't want to let go of that vision of her, to cede it to the hardhearted strictures of propriety. Perhaps, he reasoned, he didn't even need to give the earrings to her; perhaps it would be enough to possess them, if he could not possess her.
"I'll take them," he said to the proprietor, who looked more than pleased.
Jed gently closed the box and slipped it into his pocket. But even as he reached for his money, he could feel the slight weight of it against his hip, both a secret and a promise, a Christmas gift that belonged – for now, at least – solely to him.