Desperate Acts

Chapter Thirteen

THIRTEEN

An elderly maid with a wall-eye answered the door of the Crenshaw residence on York Street at five minutes to ten on Tuesday morning.

"Whaddya want?" she said, intensifying her natural scowl. "Tradesmen go to the back door!"

Beth smiled as if she had reason to. "I have an appointment with Mrs. Crenshaw. I have her costume here, an' she's invited me to tea."

The maid squinted at her with her good eye. "Ah. Then you must be Miz Edwards. I was told to take ya into the sitting-room." She stepped aside to let Beth enter the cramped vestibule. "But you won't be gettin' no tea!"

With that cryptic remark the woman turned and began to trot off down the narrow hallway, her heels sending up tiny puffs of dust from the carpet. Beth determined that she was to try and follow - or be left stranded.

At the end of the hall, the maid stopped, and then rapped smartly on a door, as if banging on it would frighten it into opening. She waited ten seconds and thumped again, upping the volume.

"Perhaps she's not in this room," Beth said helpfully.

"She's in there alright." And with this certainty in view, the maid flung the door aside and stepped back so that Beth could survey the interior of a modest lady's sitting-room.

Pink damask curtains were drawn across the only window, rendering the room dark and gloomy. Beth could just make out the silhouettes of a sofa and two chairs, and a sideboard too massive for the space assigned to it. A trio of candles in their sconces were burned almost to the wick.

"I don't see - "

"On the sofa. Dead to the world," the maid said without a hint of disgust or reproval. "She may wake up, an' then again maybe she won't."

Before Beth could inquire further, the woman had departed and could be heard tramping down the hall. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Beth could indeed make out the form of Clemmy Crenshaw comatose on the sofa, attired only in a tatty dressing-gown, and snoring softly. Beth laid the costume down on a nearby chair, and was about to retreat when she was stopped by the sound of Clemmy's voice behind her: "Is that you, Mrs. Edwards?"

Beth turned. "I brought your dress, ma'am. You can try it on when you're feelin' better."

Clemmy rose groggily onto one elbow. Her unpainted face was blotched and puckered. The pouches below her eyes were blackened by fatigue, and the eyes themselves were bloodshot, their dark pupils dilated. "I told Mabel we was to have tea. Where'n hell did she get to?"

"I'll go an' see what I can rustle up," Beth said, her concern for Clemmy's condition evident. After two wrong turns, she found the kitchen and an ancient cook who was just pouring herself a cup of tea from a cracked crockery-pot.

"I think yer mistress is in need of that," Beth said sweetly, but for her pains got a grunt in return. However, two mugs of sugared tea were soon plunked on a tray alongside a plate of tired biscuits.

Beth thanked the cook and returned to Clemmy with the refreshments.

"Oh, Mrs. Edwards," Clemmy said from her sitting position on the sofa, "you are a most kind woman."

***

The tea seemed to give Clemmy enough energy to let Beth wriggle her into Hermia's frock and pronounce it a successful fit. But the costume had no sooner been removed than Clemmy's weight went slack against Beth, who dropped the garment and reached for the nearest forearm. With great difficulty, a hundred-pound Beth wrestled the unconscious and much heavier woman over to the sofa and lowered her as gently as she could onto the cushions. Clemmy slumped onto her back with eyes closed, jaw slack, and mouth agape.