Unwept (7 page)

Jenny's eyes brightened. “I can do that without breaking the rules, I'm sure. But the doctor said—”

“I need to see to a few things upstairs this morning. Please consider it, Jenny?” Ellis said, thinking of how she would sneak out if Jenny refused.

“You wouldn't unpack your trunk without me?” Jenny smiled.

“Oh, of course you can help me unpack, if you wish. I just need to tidy up things a bit.” Ellis watched as Jenny patted the pocket in her dress and knew where the envelope was.

Jenny seemed to sense what Ellis was saying. “Oh, the room wasn't quite right, was it? I am sorry. I should have given it more thought. I must learn to do these things for myself. I'll come tidy up your room, I promise, but first, let's go look at your dresses! I'm just bursting to see what you brought.”

“Then we can talk while we unpack,” Ellis said, wondering how she would get that envelope out of Jenny's pocket.

 

 

The girls opened the enormous wardrobe trunk and its contents spilled out like treasure across the carpet in Ellis's room.

“Look at this shoe!” Jenny scooped up a low-heeled bronze satin pump that had a buckle set with amber glass stones.

Ellis's hands caressed the fine silk, georgette, crepe and jersey gowns piled high within the trunk. Lacy camisoles, stockings and other underthings were neatly tied up in a brown paper parcel, as though they had never been worn before. Everything she could need for a prolonged stay had been provided. Ellis wondered for a moment whether she had packed the trunk herself. More likely someone else had packed it for her, and her brow furrowed at not knowing who that might be.

As she unpacked and handed each piece to Jenny she felt disappointment in not recalling owning such lovely things. “I know this seems strange, but I really don't feel like these are mine.”

“Well, this is your trunk, isn't it? I wish it was mine. So many pretty things, city things.” Jenny held up a deep blue silk drop-waist frock. “I think the city styles are wonderful. The skirts are slim and they are shorter. The turn of your ankle will definitely show when you're wearing this.”

“I like the things in the trunk; they just don't seem like mine,” Ellis sighed. “I know it doesn't really make sense, but somehow this is a deeper knowing than not remembering my life. I feel like I'll remember everything in time, but these clothes seem … foreign.”

Jenny, who was trying on pairs of gloves and shoes as quickly as she could change them, answered, “Foreign? What country are they from?”

Ellis smiled as she shook her head slightly. This was not helping her get closer to the truth about herself.

“Let's just put this away and we can sort through it later to see which shoes go with which handbag and hat.” Ellis picked up the parcel of underthings and a magazine slid out from beneath it. Jenny snatched it up.

“Fashions! Oh, look, Ellis, so many pictures of clothing. They remind me of your dresses. Skirts are so slim today and a bit shorter. I must look so out-of-date to you. And look, so many of the young ladies have short hair like yours!”

Ellis grabbed the magazine and flipped through the pages. It was true, not only did her clothing seem to be very much like those pictured here, but also her hair was cropped short with bouncy curls at the nape of her neck like most of the women posing in the illustrations. She let out a short laugh. “I was sad because I thought my hair had been cut short because of my illness. Now I find out I'm a fashion plate.” The girls' eyes met over the top of the magazine and they giggled.

“I'm chic!” Ellis said, exaggerating a demure model's pose. A thought lit Ellis's eyes. “Well, if we aren't going to put this all away in an orderly fashion right now, I think the only thing to be done is to put on some of my new rags and go into town.”

Jenny paused a moment and replied, “The doctor said not to go traipsing about until he'd examined you.”

Ellis watched Jenny's reaction and knew if she pushed her just a little she'd give in. She'd given Jenny a good reason to produce Alicia's invitation. Ellis was desperate to explore and to try to find her forgotten life. “The doctor is an old lemon! Come on; we're about the same size; you could pick out one of my new dresses to wear. Let's go have some fun.”

“You really are feeling better this morning.” Jenny began fingering the blue silk dress. Ellis smiled knowing she'd won as Jenny continued, “You really must see Gamin again. Just think, you might remember something! And besides, I want to take you to the Nightbirds House. Here.” She withdrew the invitation from her pocket and waved it in the air. “Alicia has invited us into town to lunch. I just didn't want to say anything if you weren't up to it.”

“What is the Nightbirds House?” Ellis asked, waves of relief pouring over her at the sight of the small piece of paper.
Perhaps I am just an invalid and not a prisoner after all.

“It's where the local young people go. The full name is the Nightbirds Literary Society House. Don't worry; no one will actually make you read anything if you don't want to.” Jenny smiled.

“What do they do there?”

“We plan outings and play games. We encourage each other in our creative pursuits. We each have—” Jenny stopped speaking and just looked at Ellis, waiting.

“What? Have what?” asked Ellis.

“Just come and see, please?” Jenny pleaded.

Ellis wondered how much of Jenny's desire was to show her the town and how much was to show off Ellis's new frocks. It didn't matter.

Ellis had tilted her head to one side while listening and allowed Jenny's words to appear to persuade her. “Why shouldn't I have a little outing … especially if it brings to mind anything about my life?”

“Yes. Let's go. We'll both pick something out to wear. I want to wear the blue jumper with the embroidered medallions!”

Ellis sighed inwardly. It was the one she would have picked. She smiled her agreement and picked out a rust-colored mid-calf-length silk with a deep v in front that was inset by a lacy cream chemisette and had a sailor collar of chocolate brown velvet that ended in tassels at each corner. The close-fitting underskirt matched the collar. It was topped off with a poke bonnet that contained a spray of satin roses.

In the end, as the girls fussed with each other's buttons and hair, it was discovered that the blue frock was meant to be worn with an elegantly embroidered and crocheted Castle Cap that Ellis said looked like a sophisticated “Dutch girl's” hat. It became rapidly apparent that the cap would not fit over Jenny's hair piled high on her head. Laughing, Jenny surrendered the blue dress and gladly wore the rust-colored one Ellis had chosen.

Ellis checked her reflection in the glass of the stilled grandfather clock as they went out the door. She saw a smiling girl, ready to meet a new world.

She wondered who that girl was in the reflection.

7

GAMIN

The town of Gamin could be seen just across the waters of the bay from the back porch of Summersend. From that vantage point and from that place Gamin looked to be less than a mile away to the southwest. However, the road wound its way north and west back up the spine of Pearson Point for nearly a mile before it came to High Street. Only then could Ellis and Jenny turn southward again toward town. This more than doubled the distance to Gamin, but the morning sun warmed Ellis's back as she and Jenny walked together along the road banked with autumn colors. Ellis enjoyed the easy amiability of Jenny's sometimes peculiar chatter.

“You'll love our literary society.” The gait of Jenny's step struck Ellis as somewhat pained, although Jenny herself did not seem to notice it. “We were so lucky that it didn't burn down.”

“Burn down?” Ellis asked.

“Oh yes.” Jenny had the peculiar habit of revealing the most alarming information at the strangest of times. “It happened about a week ago … or was it two? It was quite devastating to many of the buildings in town, although gratefully not our literary-society building or any of the really fashionable shops. Dr. Carmichael thinks it was an oil lamp that started it. It's not on the main street, you know, but just off Main. Quite exciting, really … the most exciting thing to happen around here until you came. The church burned down completely.”

“How dreadful!” Ellis said intently. “Was anyone hurt in the fire?”

“Not that anyone knows of.” Jenny shrugged, then with a secretive smile leaned closer to Ellis as they walked. “Although I
did
hear someone was
missing
.”

Ellis felt a little faint. “Then someone
was
lost in the fire?”

“No. No, I'm sure they'll turn up eventually.” Ellis waved her crippled hand dismissively. “People always do, don't they? I mean look,
you're
here, aren't you?”

“I don't follow you, Jenny.”

“Call me Jen. It's what you used to call me.”

“And what did you call me?”

“Ellie, sometimes.”

“Now, what does my being here have to do with people turning up?”

“It just seems like forever since I've seen you is all, and here you are.”

“So who is it that has been missing since the fire? Where have they been?”

Jenny glanced at Ellis from under her eyelashes, and even before she formed a response Ellis somehow knew it would not be a whole answer. “He couldn't have been in the fire. I mean he had no reason to be in a building on Main Street, really.”

“Who?”

“He's just one of us … one of the Nightbirds.”

“That's such an odd name,” Ellis sighed. “I wonder if I'll ever get used to it.”

“Our literary society?” Jenny laughed. “Back when you were here before you used to—oh, sorry. It's all rather scandalous, actually. Sometimes we break rules and challenge society and are a bit mischievous. Still, being in the burning buildings would not have been part of the game that night, so I'm sure Ely wasn't there.”

“Is he just out of town, perhaps?”

“I don't know, really. I'm just sure he'll be back, though.” Jenny abruptly changed the conversation. “I'm getting it cut, you know.”

Ellis looked at Jenny's face. She looked a bit anxious. Ellis supposed that Jenny felt somehow she was breaking the doctor's rules by discussing the missing person. Maybe it was someone Ellis had known quite well.

“What's his name?” Ellis was not quite ready to release the previous subject.

“It's Ely—Elias,” Jenny said. She bit her lip before continuing, “It'd be best not mention this to the others.”

Ellis smiled. She instinctively knew that the boundaries between her and Jenny were far softer than Jenny was willing to admit.

Ellis found that she liked the young woman strolling next to her and for Jenny's sake silenced, for now, all the questions on a continually growing list of things she didn't know about herself. She was treading blindly through a thick intellectual fog, stumbling over the pebbles of things that felt right, but without true recall. If she could find one familiar thing, perhaps it would all come back and she'd be able to enjoy this little visit and then go home.

“… Should I?”

Ellis brushed aside her thoughts and looked up. Jenny was yanking on a tendril of hair that had escaped from beneath her bonnet near the nape of her neck.

“Oh, Jen, it's so beautiful and long. Don't. I miss mine; at least I think I do.” Ellis ran her fingers along the strand and tucked it back in place. Jenny awkwardly patted Ellis's curls that peeked out beneath the cloche.

“No. We are stopping at the barber's in town. I'll get mine bobbed and we'll look just like sisters. Besides, I have my heart set on wearing that hat you have on.” Jenny's eyes danced with a mischievous light that made Ellis laugh.

The young women pressed up the road as it rose up before them, climbing now almost directly up the slope of the large hill. They turned the corner onto High Street; the much wider main road ran along the base of the hill, descending gently toward the town to the south. The dying leaves from the trees cascaded down around the road in the gentle breeze.

Suddenly Ellis stopped in the middle of the road.

“Ellis,” Jenny asked, “what is it?”

The house was enormous, set back from the road and surrounded by large lawns that sloped around it down the hillside toward the harbor beyond. A wide porte cochere supported the northern side of the mansion while a rough stonework face and columns supported the steeply pitched gables of the roof. A round turret struck toward the sky on the corner of the home with the curve of a broader, squat turret beyond. There was a chilling aspect to the home as though someone had originally intended it to be charming, but somehow it had grown monstrously out of hand. It was four stories of curved glass windows, balconies and ostentation all striving for and forever failing in harmony. Worse, for Ellis, there was a familiarity to it like a nightmare just at the edge of wakeful thought and a lovely dream that had gone terribly wrong. She was both drawn to the place and repulsed by it at the same time.

The thought that this should be familiar to her made her shudder.

“That's the Norembega!” Jenny smiled, though perhaps not as brightly as before. “It is Merrick's home. I think it turned out wonderfully; don't you agree, Ellis?”

Ellis drew in a deep breath.

“Maybe we should call,” Jenny said, brightening at the prospect.

Ellis shivered at the thought of approaching the house. “No, Jenny. You said our party today was to be a surprise. We wouldn't want to spoil it, would we?”

“No.” Jenny hesitated. “I suppose not but—”

Ellis did not wait for any discussion. She quickly continued down the road, with Jenny having to catch up.