Unwept (2 page)

“Don't rouse yourself, dearie,” the stick of a woman said, reaching across to pat Ellis's hands. Ellis recoiled a little at the stranger's gesture.

The nurse's eyes were as cold as the glass of her spectacles. “Poor thing, just be calm. Hush now; we'll be there soon.”

Ellis felt confused, wondering why the nurse was saying to her what she should be saying to the infant. “I'm sorry, have we been introduced?”

The woman turned her bespectacled gaze on Ellis and spoke in flat tones. “In fact, we have and we've been through that already. I'm Nurse Finny Disir.”

Ellis knew she should nod in recognition of the woman's introduction, but urgent, necessary questions filled her and spilled out into the compartment over the whimpering infant. “I'm sorry.… Where, where am I?” Spoken aloud, it was such a strange question that it fell thickly from her lips.

“Oh dear. I was concerned when you boarded the train that you were not quite yourself.” Ellis doubted from the nurse's tone that the woman had been concerned at all. “Young lady, do you know your name?”

The baby's wails became insistent.

“I'm Ellis. Ellis…” Her voice trailed off as her tongue searched for a second name.

She could not recall. Ellis did not remember boarding the train or any details of their journey beyond awakening in the Pullman car. She strained to recall any little details about herself that one should easily know. She looked down at the green skirt she was wearing, its pleats falling to the floor over her high-topped kid boots.

I'm wearing these clothes, but this shade of green, would I choose it for traveling?
She shifted a bit across the velvet cushion at her back.
Such a mundane, but odd, question,
she observed. The thought continued to spin in the air before her until once again her eyes fell to her gloved hands, which she greeted with familiar relief.

The dull green of her skirt gave rise to an inner certainty that she hadn't chosen it. “I don't remember this skirt. I feel certain I wouldn't choose it. It's ugly.”

The nurse allowed herself a clipped smile. “Tosh, girl, what a thing to concern yourself with now. Your choice of travel clothing is unimportant. Please don't distress yourself over it. However, you were working through an introduction and having no name is of no use to anyone. What is your name, child? Of what family?”

Finny looked expectantly at Ellis, her eyes absurdly large behind her glasses.

The family name, I know it; I must.
Ellis turned and sat blindly staring out of the window. A thick fog swirled past as the train rushed onward, affording only occasional glimpses of the trees, the brightness of their autumn colors muted by the dim light, rushing by. She focused on her reflection in the glass and studied her image, which to her relief was familiar. She saw a handsome young woman of about eighteen. Surely not so young as seventeen. Nineteen? Nineteen … Her hand flew to her hair beneath her bonnet. Short.
How long has it been like this?
She withdrew from this thought to concentrate on the question at hand, the rest of her name.

The name did not come, nor did a scrap of any other detail of her life. She struggled to remember anything before this moment. Panic rising in her throat, her tight corset lacings bit into her waist through her chemise, making it hard to breathe. Her interior architecture was all empty rooms and closed doors. She felt certain she should know—did know—but all that came was tears blurring the edge of her vision.

Ellis looked up with pleading eyes at the nurse. The nurse met her gaze over her glasses with what Ellis felt was more scrutiny than sympathy.

The baby's cries continued.

“The name you're looking for is Harkington. You've had a bad time of it. Don't strain; it will all come back.”

Harkington. At least it seemed right. She'd been ill. They had cut her hair. She felt heartsick. Demands from an unknown life flooded Ellis. Past and present merged into question marks.

“Where are we going?” Eliis asked.

“You've been put in my care for a short journey to a place where you can recuperate.”

“What hap … where … how?” As she found it impossible to form a single question with so many pressing against her mind, her voice trailed off.

“Land sakes, child,” the nurse huffed in exasperation. “You cannot ask every question at once!”

A simple query formed that demanded an answer: “Where is my family? My mother … father?”

The baby wailed.

“All will be explained in time. They know where you are. You have been put in my care. I have strict orders from the doctor not to overtax you.” The nurse sighed and offered a small comfort to the young woman. “I suppose it won't hurt to say we are going someplace you've been before—to your cousin Jenny's home, in Gamin, Maine. Why, she's just your age.”

Jenny.
This name called up a warm feeling of relief that wasn't quite a memory but felt as though it could become one.

“Jenny. Gamin. Yes, I think … well, I don't remember quite, but I will be happy to see her.”

“Well, that's quite enough for now.” The nurse snapped open her newspaper, closing off the conversation. The baby's pleas subsided into tiny hiccups and quiet breathing.

Ellis was surprised by Nurse Disir's abruptness. She found herself with a waking life that was almost as strange as the dream she had escaped. Finny, though dressed in the broad-brimmed hat and blue cape of a nurse, seemed anything but nurturing or helpful.

Glancing at the paper wall between her and her traveling companion, Ellis furtively read headlines wondering if something from the everyday would bring back her memory. The tall words spouted the terrors of war in Europe. She took in a picture of people wearing gas masks and she tilted her head slightly to read the caption just as the nurse said, “If you truly wish to read it, Miss Harkington, I'll give it to you when we arrive later. Please just settle back and try to shut your eyes. I can't deliver you to Uncle Lucian in a state of nervous exhaustion.”

“Uncle Lucian?”

“Yes, Dr. Lucian Carmichael.”

My uncle is a doctor. I must remember.…

“Miss, get some rest, now.” This was not a suggestion but a command.

Ellis leaned back and closed her eyes against the brightness of the compartment, the strangeness of her situation and the rocking of the train. She was exhausted and queasy.

Left to her interior thoughts, she found panic-driven tears welling up under her eyelids and her throat constricted tightly. She swallowed hard and tried to breathe. An unbidden and jumbled cascade of questions began to tumble in her head. She bridled them and began to sort her thoughts into some order.

What do I know? My name is Ellis. I am on a train. I have a cousin named Jenny. I have an uncle, a doctor. I am going to Gamin, a place I have been before. Traveling with me is Finny Disir, a nurse. I have been ill.
Ellis shook her head at this; she did not know any of these really, except that she was Ellis and she must have been, no, must still be ill. She sighed inwardly, exhausted by the enormity of the small questions she could not answer. They flooded over her and swirled away any sense of reality.
Where is home? Who do I belong to? Where is my mother? What happened to me? Am I going to be well? When will I remember? Remember … Remember …

The crying began again, and seeing that the nurse was totally absorbed in her paper, Ellis stood in the gently rocking train and stepped around her to look at their third traveling companion. Blue ribbons fringed the basket. A boy. The baby's fists beat wildly at the air. A small patchwork quilt of blue and yellow lay in disarray around his tiny form. Ellis reached forward to touch his palm. His tiny hand closed about her finger. Ellis made cooing noises to soothe the infant and reached her free arm around the baby and swept him from the basket. The crying stopped. Relief and silence filled Ellis as she cradled the child. The baby looked wide-eyed at her and she wiped his wet cheeks. Ellis smiled and sang softly:

“Over there over there

Send the word, send the word over there

That the Yanks are coming…”

“Stop that!”

“Stop what?”

“Put that down this instant! You shouldn't be holding an infant.”

Ellis froze in place with the child, a feeling of defensiveness stole over her and she straightened and came to her full height in the train compartment

“I don't feel weak. Besides, he's more content being held.” She smiled down at the baby, who smiled back. Peace settled in her chest for the first time since she'd awakened. She plucked and smoothed the quilt around his form and made certain her grasp was firm but gentle. “He's fine. What are you doing here, little fella?”

The train shifted and lurched across the tracks, causing Ellis to almost lose her footing. She staggered and swayed with her bundle, dropping back safely into her seat.

Finny stood, folding her paper abruptly, bending toward Ellis and the baby. “Young woman, until you are turned over to Dr. Carmichael, you must do as I say. You've been placed in my care and for now I know what is best.”

She scooped the child from Ellis's arms and with a deft motion deposited him lightly back in his basket. He chuffed in protest, inhaled deeply and let out a protesting wail in response.

“But I'm sitting now. Please just let me—”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No, it wouldn't be safe for either of you.”

Ellis could not fathom the implications of Finny's words.
Either of us?
It made no sense.

“Nurse Disir, isn't he in your care, too? Shouldn't you be holding him?” Ellis felt sympathy for the infant with his renewed cries and her indignation overthrew politeness. Ellis's frayed nerves were jangling. Her “nurse” didn't seem to understand what either of her charges needed.

“Really, it's not to be borne … my patients telling me what to do,” Finny muttered, and grappled with her now-rumpled newspaper. She readjusted her boater hat firmly on her head, and as she squared her high-necked cape on her shoulders she met and locked with Ellis's level, sober gray gaze.

“Nurse, I may have to mention to the doctor how distressed I was about the baby's weeping.” The continued gaze lasted until the nurse broke it off, looking into her lap.

“Fine. Please don't mention the baby to the doctor.” Finny shook her head ruefully. “You were never one to be trifled with, miss.”

She felt the pleasure of winning a victory for her tiny companion. Then Ellis inhaled an “Oh” of surprise as she suddenly understood from Finny's comment that she and the nurse had known each other for some time.

“Oh, stop looking like a fish; of course I knew you before! Don't think they'd trust you to just anybody? Here, if I'm not going to finish the paper then you might amuse yourself with it for a while.” She shoved the newspaper into Ellis's gloved hands and leaned over the baby boy, clumsily caressing and clucking him into a tearstained silence. Ellis opened the newspaper and stole glimpses over the paper's edge, thinking how very peculiar the whole scene was.

“Please don't stare at my back, young woman; I wouldn't want to report your odd behavior to the doctor, either.”

Ellis shivered in the heat of the train compartment, wondering at the uncanny perceptiveness of the nurse. She leaned into the faded red velveteen cushion of her seat wishing she could disappear into it. She allowed her eyes to drop down the page of headlines.

War. War in Europe.
Yes,
she thought.
I know that. France and England fending off Germany. Our soldier boys are over there. But the fighting isn't here, not yet.
News of the everyday world was both comforting and disquieting.

She read about the picture of the people in gas masks. It was from Boston. High-society matrons modeled them to raise awareness of the need for donations of walnut shells and peach pits to make charcoal for the masks' filters.

She turned the page and found a long article detailing two recent murders in a string of murders in Halifax. Ellis glanced furtively above the top edge of the page to be certain the nurse was still busily engaged over the child. She glanced down again at the article and knew that this was what had kept the nurse's rapt attention against the crying of the baby. Ellis also knew that it was inappropriate reading for a young woman such as herself. She dove into forbidden territory.

The illustration accompanying the article showed the body of a woman lying in an alley, her face obscured by a military coat. Two policemen were lifting up the coat to examine the face of the victim and both were in apparent shock at the visage. The headline read:

IMPASSIONED PREDATOR

THIRD MAIDEN MURDERED IN NEW BRUNSWICK

Citizens in Grip of Fear

Ellis read down the lurid column through the sketchy details of the death of a young woman. The killer was unknown, but it was thought that this case related to others. Wondering just how close she and her companions were on the map to these murders, Ellis shivered, and the vague feeling that she had known the victim slipped into her thoughts.
It's impossible
.

The squeal of the coach brakes filled the air. Ellis's head snapped up, jolted away from the story as the train perceptibly slowed. Outside the window she could see the hats of people on a train platform sliding into view. The fog outside appeared to be retreating, though the pall still remained.

“Finally!” Nurse Disir stood adjusting her clothing and scooping up the basket. “Your baggage claim check is in the right pocket of your jacket, miss. I'll take my leave of you here, as I have a pressing errand.”

The nurse hoisted the basket elbow height in emphasis and turned on her heel to leave just as the train came to a stop.