Clean Linens and Two Meals a Day pt 1

“It’s not a bad ad, is it?” Fancy asked Liza, studying the wanted column of the paper.  She had placed it herself. “Dewdrop Inn: Short and Long Term Boarding. Clean Linens, two meals a day. Shared WC. Electric lights.  $8.50 per week.”  She looked up at Liza, sitting at the kitchen table with pots of white and blue paint, carefully tracing the lettering of their new sign.  “That’s good, right?”

“I’d pay it if I could afford it,” Liza said. “Indoor plumbing and food? What’s not to like?”

“I’ve posted the advert in the paper every day this week, and nothing!” Before Liza could reply Fancy comforted herself, “It’ll be better once the sign is up.” 

What if she failed? What if, at the age of 41, the only thing she was good for was laying on her back with her legs in the air?

“The sign will help,” Liza assured. “It’s good, isn’t it?” Liza asked, admiring her handiwork.  The girl had always done well with a pencil and a piece of paper. Painting signs was a little different, but the results were satisfactory.  “Maybe I’ll be a famous painter one day.”

“Maybe,” Fancy said. “You can take care of me when I’m old.”

“Isn’t that what your beau is for?” Liza teased.

“Will is not—” Fancy began, only to be interrupted by the doorbell. 

Liza jumped at the unexpected sound and smeared the second ‘d’ in ‘Dewdrop.’ “Damn it,” she muttered.

“No swearing in front of the guests,” Fancy warned, and hurried to open the door.

The young woman standing on the doorstep was pretty and well dressed in a simple brown wool coat hanging open over a purple dress with a high lace collar and a plain hat.  She carried a carpet bag with both leather-gloved hands and had a copy of the Morning Gazette shoved under one arm.  “I’m here about the room?”

Fancy noted her rural accent and the carpet bag.  “New in town?” she asked.

The young woman winced. “Am I that obvious?”

“Come in,” she said instead of answering, leading the prospective tenant to the main sitting room.   It was larger than Fancy’s private room, with less dilapidated furniture, a half-full book case, and a chess set on a table near the fireplace. She thought it was a nice, homey room, and the woman looked around with wide-eyed curiosity.  “My name is Fan—Ms. O’Connor,” she amended, uncomfortable with her last name.

“Miss Ariadne Gill,” her visitor said.  “I’m starting at the university next week.”

Fancy’s eyebrows went up at this information.  The university had only just decided to take female students for the winter term.  To end up with one of the mere twelve brave girls in her parlor—“That is very impressive, Miss Gill,” she said.

“Because as a girl I was smart enough to get in?” Miss Gill asked with an edge to her voice that surprised Fancy.

“Because,” she answered gently, “you were brave enough to try.”

Miss Gill relaxed all at once and sat down on the sofa.  “You’re the first one to tell me so,” she answered.  “I have to confess, this house is a little far out of the way of the university.”  Fancy agreed—while it was a direct route to the University of Karstenhaven, it was a long one even by the trolley.  “But as soon as I told the other landladies why I was here they weren’t so interested in renting to me.”

“Why did you tell me?”

“Because I knew there had to be someone out there who believes women in the school can bring nothing but good, and I was determined to find her! May I have a room please?”

“I can show it to you right away,” Fancy said, doing her best to look composed as they stood and she led the young woman upstairs.  Her first tenant. She could do this. She had to.

Ari’s head ached, she was exhausted from wandering around the city all day after a long train ride in from the country.  She wasn’t too happy Ms. O’Connor was taking her up to the third floor either, but when they stepped into the room she found it to be clean and spacious with cheerful red curtains and a colorful quilt on the bed. A perfect room. She thought she would burst into tears of happiness. “Can I stay tonight?” she asked.

The landlady nodded. “It’s eight-fifty a week, due at the beginning of the week.”  She looked a little nervous as she said this, as though eight dollars and fifty cents was an impossible number.  It was just as well that the other boarding houses wouldn’t take her—The Dewdrop Inn was barely in her budget while the houses closer to the school were asking ten or even twelve.  Maybe living so far away from the university wasn’t a bad thing.

Ari set her carpet bag down on a little table in front of the window and stood blocking Ms. O’Connor’s view.  The roll of dollars in her bag was an uncomfortable amount to carry around. She hoped there would be a suitable hiding place for the money that would have to last her the entire half-year. She peeled off eight dollar bills and retrieved the half-dollar from her coat pocket.  “Here,” she said, handing over the money. She noticed Ms. O’Connor’s hand shook as she took it.

“Thank you,” the landlady said.  “Dinner is served every night at six, breakfast at seven.  The linens are washed every Thursday.  If you want extra meals or laundry service it can be arranged for a fee.”

“That sounds just fine,” Ari said, a weight lifting from her chest.

Ms. O’Connor smiled and left Ari on her own.  She looked around the room. Aside from the bed and nightstand there was a wash stand, the table her bag rested on, and a row of hooks on one wall for her clothes. Over the hooks was a shelf.  She stashed her money under the mattress and put away her clothes.  There was a hook behind the door for her coat and hat, and soon enough the room was lived in.

The last thing she removed from her bag was a thick, tattered copy of Anatomy of the Human Body by Henry Grey.  It was the 1862 edition, ancient and no doubt full of errors, but as a farmer’s daughter she had never gotten a chance to view a newer version. She had bought it out of the back of the book wagon that came through town every summer with her birthday dime when she was ten, and had spent the last decade memorizing it.

Twelve women and girls had been admitted into the University gates, but they were only allowed into the College of Liberal Arts.  Ari could study Literature, Latin, and French. She could take Maths.  She could not take Physics, or Engineering, or, her true love, Biology and Medical Science.

“There’s a perfectly good nursing school if you must go to the city, but no one is going to make you a doctor!” her mother had complained the day Ari announced she intended to take the entrance exam, but it was the university or nothing.  Once in the school she could, at the very least, sit in on as many medical and science classes as possible.  She would learn the secrets Karstenhaven had kept to itself for a hundred and ten years: the animation of mechanical limbs attached to flesh, the transplantation of organs from one creature (even people) to the other, and, if the stories were true, bringing the dead back to life.

“You’re willing to bankrupt your father for some pipe-dream?” her mother had asked, but it was a silly thing to say. Her father recognized, in the eyes of his ten year old daughter, a thirst for knowledge that couldn’t be quenched. Both he and Ari herself had been saving for the day she would leave to go to school for many years.

Ari touched the cover of her most prized possession, preparing to flip through the familiar pages yet again, when a knock sounded on the door.  “Come in,” she said, turning to see her visitor.

It was a sour-faced girl in a dull black dress carrying a tea tray with a pot and a plate of scones. “Fancy thought you could use this,” she said, crossing the room to set it down next to the book. Ari snatched it up protectively.  “No charge since you paid for today but missed breakfast.”

“Thank you,” Ari said, and then, “Who’s Fancy?”

“My aunt.”

“You mean Ms. O’Connor? That’s an…interesting name.”

The girl frowned. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Ariadne Gill,” she answered. She had always been proud of her name, growing up in a community of Marys and Janes and Ethels.

The serving girl didn’t try to hide her laugh. “Don’t think you can go making fun of people’s names.”

“What’s yours?” Ari asked, trying to ignore her rudeness. It was, she supposed, the price she had to pay for cheap lodging.

“Liza,” she answered. “Enjoy the tea.”

What an unpleasant girl, Ari thought, but as soon as Liza was gone she pounced on the tray, finding herself ravenous.  The cheese scones were dry and rather tasteless, the tea over-brewed and bitter, but at that moment she didn’t care.

She had made it.  She was in Karstenhaven.  Now she just had to figure out how to make her mark on it.

Fancy buzzed with excited anticipation.  It was Saturday and Will usually pretended to go to his club on Saturdays, instead slipping away to spend a few hours with her.  She had a tenant at last, and was too eager to tell him so.

Not long after she had sent Liza grudgingly upstairs with a snack for Miss Gill she heard the front door open.  Will never rang the bell.  But the footsteps in the hall were too heavy to belong to Will, and the visitor did not call to announce his presence.

Fancy moved with speed, snatching up the poker from beside the fire place, and flew into the hallway only to be greeted by the most imposing man she had ever encountered.

Twenty-five years a whore, Fancy was not unaccustomed to large men, violent men, or men who were angry with the world. But not one of them exuded power like the man in front of her.   The Prince of Cats acted like he was the benevolent savior to the world. The foremen at Liza’s factory jobs were nothing more than bullies who enjoyed beating on those weaker than themselves.  No one Fancy had ever met could compare to this man. Average in height, he seemed taller, and the well-cut cashmere suit made his frame appear strong. A gold-topped walking stick and expensive silk hat gave her the impression a very rich man was standing in her hall, and his steely blue eyes told her he always got his way.  “Who are you?” he demanded, and she was so cowed by his appearance she almost answered, but she caught herself and gripped the poker tighter.

“Who the fresh hell are you?” she swore instead. “Get out of my house.”

“Your house?”  He strode past her and into the resident parlor, and she couldn’t manage to find the courage to hit him with the poker, though she desperately wanted to. “Madam, this is my house.”  She tensed as he reached into the inside breast pocket of his jacket, but it was only to remove a business card. “James Hutton, First Bank of Karstenhaven.”

The poker fell out of Fancy’s hand as she accepted the card, even more concerned now than she had been when she thought this man was an intruder.

He was Will’s father.

****

A/N:  I wasn't planning to have a mad scientist character, but here she is anyway... :) We'll have to see what sort of interesting things she gets up to, because now I have no clue.  I figured out the money system, I think.  I figure a nickle to them is worth a dollar to us, give or take.  I'm using dollars, and the publication date for Ari's copy of Grey's Anatomy is from an American version, but I'm pretty sure this isn't an American city.  Maybe its in the middle of a country that doesnt exist...