George Crabtree wished he could say he'd been asleep when Effie's cries and gasps began to shake the bed once more. Truth be told, he'd had more restless nights than not since his fateful return from the book tour, and now? He doubted he'd sleep another wink until Dorothy and Amelia Ernst were behind bars for the rest of their lives.
No, he thought. Not until they are both dead. Dead and buried in the ground. Perhaps Effie would like to keep their brains in jars on her desk.
"Effie," he whispered. "Are you all right?"
Her only response was a whimper, then an audible sob.
Of course she isn't, you dolt, he chided himself. Shaking his head, he rolled over to enfold her in his arms as she wept. She'd hardly stopped crying since Dorothy had dragged her in, pale and shaking, starved and filthy. Those despicable Ernst twins had imprisoned her inside a hollow tree, for Pete's sake. He thought he might not ever understand how they got her into and out of it. He still felt terrible about having to bring her along to the station house after she'd fainted from hunger and thirst, but he was certainly not going to leave her alone with either of those horrible women, ever again.
He lay there stroking her hair and shushing her gently, hoping his embrace might soothe her. George's mind was a mess of fragmented questions and disjointed reconstructions of the past few days. His thoughts skittered nervously before they evaporated like drops of water on a hot skillet.
The last hours of the day's shift at the station house had been agony. Everywhere he looked, he saw Effie's panicked face, heard Dorothy's gunshot, felt a hot flare of that sick feeling deep in his stomach that, these days, would never quite subside. He questioned himself for entrusting Effie to Constable Paul. Paul was a reliable sort, held his liquor, good in a fight, spun a good yarn, but perhaps not the most suitable companion for a tearful, traumatised young woman. The man had a very ribald sense of humour, at times most inappropriate (especially for ladies), and George hoped he would be discreet.
The inspector, noticing George's agitation, had sent him to look after his sweetheart. If Station House Four were to be down one constable to look after Effie, it might as well be George. When he arrived at her apartment, Effie appeared to be fast asleep, and Paul was hard at work building a structure of playing cards on her desk. The older constable shot George a sympathetic look as he stood up, shrugged, and swept his hand to knock down his creation and gather up the cards.
"How is she?" George ventured.
Paul inclined his head toward the bed. "She was beside herself. I took her to the chemist on the way home for some chloral." He waved a finger at a brown bottle and a spoon on the desk. He glanced at her again, and lowered his voice. "Tried telling her some jokes, but she wasn't in the mood. Bit of a hysterical one, isn't she?"
George bristled, and spoke rather more loudly than he intended. "Well, I, I, I certainly can't blame her for being upset! She was drugged! And abducted! By someone she trusted! And she was sure she'd been left to die, alone! And then told her sweetheart had married someone else! I, I, I'd be upset too! I dare say I am upset, Paul!"
Oh, Effie. The thought of her ordeal squeezed the knot in his chest.
Paul grimaced, George hoped in apology, as he gathered up his helmet and moved toward the door. "Right, then. I'll be off." He nodded toward Effie, and winked. "Just be careful with those gingers. They're fire. Careful she doesn't burn you."
"Good night, Paul. Thanks for looking after her." It was a relief to close the door behind the older man. He took a deep breath, and let it out as he landed heavily in an armchair.
The room was silent save for the din of the regrets echoing in his mind. If only Effie had never seen that manuscript. If only I had refused to let her share my desk. If only my book had never been published, if only Amelia had never read it and become fixated upon me…
But then I would not have Effie.
George sighed again, and turned to survey the room before he got a better look at the woman he loved. Other than his coat and scarf draped over a chair, everything was in its place. He was struck by the ordinariness of the scene. Effie's furniture was standard rooming house fare, modest and serviceable, with a few of her own touches that added hominess: a quilt here, a handstitched pillow there, shelves of leather-bound books. She had created a space that was both cozy and tidy. He liked this place.
He hoped she had never invited that… that… that Dorothy in—he wished dearly for this to be a place where she could feel safe. The times he had been back in Amelia's rooms after she abducted him and held him there, he had felt dizzy and lightheaded, his ears buzzing, his heart ready to burst from his chest. Effie deserved a home that was a sanctuary.
He pulled a chair to her bedside. Effie was pale and still, looking for all the world like a young child who had taken ill after playing outdoors in a muddy rainstorm. It was a shame about her polka-dot blouse: he'd quite liked it, thought it very flattering on her. Now, even if she could get it clean, he never wanted to see it on her again.
He stroked her cheek, and leaned in to kiss her forehead. She opened one reddened eye. "Is he gone?"
"I thought you were asleep," he scolded with affection.
"I just couldn't stand to listen to him anymore. He wouldn't stop reciting stupid limericks and telling pointless jokes. I know he meant well, but…" she trailed off, anguish in her eyes.
"But you took some chloral!"
"He thought I did. I… I was too frightened to sleep. Dorothy has been here, George. She knows where I live. This is the first place she would look for me."
George's heart sank. "Then we'd better go to my place until we can figure out somewhere else for us to be."
Us.
He hadn't lost her. When he sat alone for hours in the restaurant, waiting for her to arrive so he could propose, the engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket, he'd started to think he'd lost her forever. But she was still here. Badly wounded in ways he couldn't see, but perhaps with his help, she could heal.
She nodded. "I suppose we should go, yes," she told him before she pulled the covers tighter around herself. "But what about your landlady?"
"We'll be all right for the moment. She's visiting her mother and aunt in Cobourg until Sunday." He kissed her forehead again, squeezed her hand, and got up to pack her a bag.
Effie was silent, sitting on a wooden stool in George's room, letting him ease her out of her filthy collar and blouse before he began to unlace her corset. She did not realise until he took it off her that some of the stays were broken and had been poking into her sides—having it off was more of a relief than she'd expected.
It was a shame: she'd liked that corset. It was her most comfortable one, and the shop where she'd bought it was closed now. Perhaps George could use his detective skills to track down the seamstress to make her another.
She tried as hard as she could to focus on the minutiae of the room: George's papers and books, his typewriter, the day's last light peeking past the edges of the curtains onto the colourful patchwork quilt on the bed. Her mother was a quilter, and she knew how much time all that stitching by hand would take. She suspected at least one of his aunts had made it for him.
Try as she might, though, the events of the past few days would not leave her mind. The bruises, the soreness, the tender spots from the broken corset stays reminded her of the physical aspects of her ordeal: the manhandling, the endless hours lodged inside the remains of a tree (a tree, for God's sake), the impact of the floor of the room where the Ernst twins had held her and George captive. Every time she saw the gun in her mind, her heart beat faster.
"Could we burn it?"
George stopped unbuttoning her chemise to look at her blankly. "Burn what?"
"The blouse. And the corset. And… everything. All of it." She pointed at the rest of her outfit on the chair, and gestured at the fireplace. "Just burn it. I don't want it. I don't want to see it. Get it away."
George's gaze turned so compassionate that Effie's eyes flooded with tears. "Oh, Effie. I'm so sorry. I can't. We've got to keep it as evidence at the station house."
Effie squeezed her eyes closed and nodded. "I suppose. Just please make sure I never see it again."
"I'll do everything I can to make sure you don't," he told her gravely, and touched his forehead to her own. He rose and gathered all the clothing into a pile that he transferred into a canvas bag. "I'll take it in tomorrow." He laid a hand on the side of her face and used his thumb to wipe away a tear, then kissed her again before he resumed disrobing her.
Usually when they took their clothes off around each other, there was an urgency, a hunger, a burning need in each of them for the other's body. Roving hands and lips and teeth and tongues. George was a much better lover than Roderick ever had been.
This time, though, Effie was still, and George's touch was gentle, even tentative, as he slipped the chemise off her shoulders to leave her top half exposed.
She closed her eyes again as he studied her. Now and then he laid a warm hand against her back, reminding her of bruises she'd been managing to ignore. "Oh, Effie," he breathed. "I'm so sorry."
I'm the one who should be sorry, she chided herself. He might never have published his book had I not interfered. Amelia would never have known of him. She would never have abducted him. They would never have abducted me. I should have listened when he said something wasn't right about Dorothy. I thought he was... oh, I'm sorry, George. I'm so sorry.
She could not bring herself to speak, for fear that she would start to sob again. Instead she drew a shaky breath, and lowered her head. She heard George sit down next to her—she hadn't noticed the other stool—and opened her eyes to watch him dip a cloth into a tub of hot, soapy water. It smelled of lavender. He must have heated it up when he made me that tea.
"I added some Lavender Silk bath oil," George told her. "My aunt's favourite. Better in a bathtub, but I share one with the rest of the house, and, well, I don't trust my neighbours not to snitch to Mrs. Keening." He lifted her arm, kissed the inside of her wrist, and brought the wet cloth to her skin.
He bathed her slowly and carefully, shampooing and rinsing her hair as she leaned over the basin, attending to every inch of her to make sure it was free of the dirt of her nightmarish captivity. A cool drop of water of water ran down her back, and she gasped and shuddered. George knelt in front of her as he laid a hand on her chest and inhaled deeply, encouraging her with an imploring look to do the same.
"Breathe, Effie. Just breathe. I'll look after the rest."
He waited until her breaths had steadied, and went back to his work. When he finally deemed her top half clean, he raised her arms one at a time and slipped them into the nightgown he had packed for her, as if he were dressing a small child. He helped her stand for a moment so she could shed her remaining clothes, then sat her back down and wrapped the quilt around her shoulders before painstakingly cleansing her legs and feet, patting witch hazel and calamine onto swelling insect bites.
With every stroke of the damp cloth, every dab of the cotton wool, she felt a little better. The scent of lavender hung in the air as George finished his work and wrung the cloth out for the last time. If she closed her eyes again, she thought she might still feel his gentle ministrations. A muscle started to loosen at the back of her neck.
"Now are you sure you don't want something to eat?" George asked.
It was the worst thing he could have said. The muscle clenched again, hard. Her stomach turned, and she shook her head violently, queasy at the motion and the thought.
"Still nauseated?"
She nodded, her lips pressed together in an effort not to be ill.
"You must eat, Effie. You've not eaten in days." He went to the cupboard near the stand for the basin and withdrew a tin of salt crackers. "Here. You're going to eat at least three of these, if I have anything to say about it. Aunt Azalea would always make me eat these when I was sick to my stomach. And I'll make you some more tea."
"Can't I just go back to bed, George?"
"Effie." It was a mild rebuke. "You need to eat." He lifted a cracker to her lips. She took a reluctant nibble before George offered her a drink of water. "Easy. Not too much."
She shook her head and pulled away from the glass. "Just let me go to bed, George. Let me lie down. I couldn't—"
For a terrible moment she was back in the tree, pinned upright in the tiny space, her body cramping from lack of movement, insects crawling up her legs, throat hoarse from futile screams, cracking lips desperate for water. She stiffened and started panting, unable to catch her breath as the memory seized her and the fear coursed once again through her veins.
"Effie!" The alarm in his voice frightened her even more. "Stay with me, Effie." His tone dropped to a whisper, and he began to caress her face.
You're all right, Effie. It's all right. Shh. You're safe with me. I'm here. I'm here, Effie, I'm here. You're all right. You're all right."
He gathered her close, soothed her, stroked her hair through her panic, through the uncontrollable shaking, the flareup of the smouldering terror whose coals she feared would consume her from within. He held her and soothed her and waited until the flash dwindled back into embers, and her breaths slowed enough for him to lead her to bed.
You're all right, Effie. You're all right.
She felt like the wet rag he had used to bathe her, and waited for sensation to return to her hands and feet and cheeks.
You're all right, Effie. You're all right. You're safe.
He repeated it like a mantra as he laid the bedclothes over her. You're all right. You're all right. He pulled off his boots, shed his clothes down to his union suit, and joined her in the narrow, creaky bed.
You're all right, Effie. You're all right.
She could almost believe him, until she saw his eyes. They held sadness, and love, and bone-weary fatigue, and a black look she had seen in the eyes of some of her clients: pure, murderous rage.
No matter how many times he tried to reassure her, she could not bring herself to deny what she knew was true. Neither of them was safe as long as Dorothy and Amelia Ernst were free.