Chapter 28 Emily
EMILY
Emily was feeling the pressure. There were only a few days left in her sentence, and she still had to gain access to Dr. Stone’s files, or all of June’s claims of bribery and Emily’s own deductions about the doctor deliberately infecting the women were nothing but hearsay and suspicion.
She needed facts. Her infection had cleared and she was due for release on time.
She hoped she wouldn’t need more, but if it came down to the wire, her plan was to try to find some way to convince Stone that she felt the warts returning, or had burning of some kind that wasn’t visible.
If she had to swap another couple of weeks of painful treatments to get everything she needed for this new, bigger story, she would.
If she were able to secure the evidence she needed, she could lay bare all of Stone’s corruption.
The power was about to shift drastically in Emily’s favour, and it would feel sweet.
But she needed to get her hands on the evidence before she could indulge that fantasy. She had an idea for how to accomplish that now, and had woken early, keen to get on with it. She was eager for work today, since she would be on shift with Eliza.
Annie wasn’t in the dining hall, which made Emily nervous.
But perhaps she was ill; seasonal colds and flus were circulating now.
Hopefully she would make an appearance at dinner or supper.
Emily sat down instead with Gert, Lizzie, and Peggy.
As Emily hurriedly ate, Eliza arrived with her tray, and Emily greeted her with a warm smile.
Once they were in the narrow corridors and shadowy corners of the basement, she was going to ask Eliza for her help.
“Where’s your nutty Blue friend?” Eliza asked, swallowing a huge bite of toast before washing it down with milk.
Emily sometimes forgot that she was a teenager, and had the insatiable appetite of one, along with the accompanying underdeveloped sense of empathy.
Emily bit her tongue, refraining from any admonishment.
She needed Eliza primed to cooperate with her.
“I’m not sure, actually,” she said. “Perhaps she’s feeling unwell. ”
“Isn’t she unwell every day?” Eliza snarked.
“I heard Matron Carnegie talking to her when I was passing the psych wing,” Gertrude said quietly, shooting Emily a look. Her eyelids drooped a little in sympathy. “She had electroshock yesterday, and it sounds like she didn’t handle it well. Carnegie was trying to soothe her.” Gertrude shrugged.
Emily was aghast. Annie hated the electroshock, and it hadn’t done her any good. Yet Stone was once again subjecting her to it. But Emily suppressed her outrage for the moment. She had a plan to deal with Stone.
Later that afternoon, she and Eliza were finishing cleaning duty in the basement. Over by the boiler, Eliza did a half squat and wiggled her bum back and forth, discomfort pinching her strawberry-blond brow. “Goddamnit,” she muttered.
Emily saw the opportunity, and pounced. “Is that feeling any better yet?” she asked softly, nodding discreetly in the direction of Eliza’s lower half.
“Hardly,” Eliza said with an aggravated sigh. She ducked her head behind a large hot-water tank to sweep in behind. “Ugh!” she shrieked a heartbeat later, scrambling back toward Emily. “There’s a nest!”
As she backed away, Emily couldn’t stop the squeal that issued from her mouth as one large and three smaller dark-brown rats darted past their feet and out of the boiler room, silky tails disappearing beyond the rusted metal door frame.
“This place is disgusting,” Emily said, revolted. “I can’t believe they make us do things like this.”
Eliza didn’t answer; she just continued to scrunch up her face. Emily gave her a pitying sort of look. “Had a treatment yesterday,” Eliza explained. “It’s always worse after, then gets a bit better. Was it the same fer you?”
Emily nodded.
“And now yers is gone?”
“Yes. Mostly, anyway. My treatments are done, thank God.” She paused, leaned on her broom. This was her moment. “I hate this place, don’t you?”
Eliza was silent for a moment, then swallowed.
“Yeah. But there’s rats everywhere. Had ’em in our shitty little flat in Cabbagetown, too.
At least here, they stay in the basement.
In that flat they used to come up to the kitchen and get into the pantry in the middle o’ the night.
There’d be holes in the oatmeal bags and feckin’ droppings on the floor.
Then Da’d scream at Mam like it was ’er fault. ”
Emily watched her, feeling her chances of success draining away.
Eliza still believed the Mercer was better than being back in her parents’ home.
And perhaps it truly was. But Emily gathered her determination and pushed on.
Their uninterrupted time together was limited—and the noise from the boiler muted their conversation.
“Listen, Eliza,” Emily said urgently, “I need to tell you something.” She paused, heart hammering.
It felt dangerous to expose herself to someone as fickle as Eliza, but at this point, it was worth the risk.
She was so close to the end of her sentence, so close to scooping this story, and she needed this girl’s help.
“I’m a reporter,” she said. “With a magazine.”
Eliza blinked at her in the yellowish light of the bare overhead bulb with eyes far older than her years. “What?”
Emily took her in, how small she was, how young. She would need to phrase all of this simply. “I’m a reporter, I work for the news. I got put in here on purpose to get information about how the women are treated. I’m writing an article on it, so people will know how bad things are here.”
“What?” Eliza asked again. “Wait, yer not incorrigible?”
She said it so earnestly that Emily nearly smiled. “Well, technically yes. My dad told a judge I was unmanageable so that I could get into the prison.”
“But you didn’t do anythin’ wrong?”
“No. But I think the same can be said for most of the women in here,” Emily added gravely.
“So you been lyin’ to us all? This whole time?” Her brows knitted in offence.
Emily nodded, surprised by the guilt she felt. “In a way, yes. I couldn’t tell anyone what I was doing.”
Eliza stepped sideways and squinted, as though trying to see Emily better.
“And why you tellin’ me?”
“Because I need your help,” Emily said sincerely.
Eliza crossed her arms. “Why?” The boiler hissed behind her.
Emily took a step closer to Eliza, and chose her words simply. “Listen to me: You have VD because Dr. Stone infected you on purpose. She did it to loads of us.”
“Why in the hell would she do that?” Eliza exclaimed, looking at Emily like she was crazy.
“Well, that’s the question. I think someone was paying her to do it,” Emily said, “but I need evidence. Proof.” She took a deep breath. “I need you to break into her office and steal any papers that might tell us why she did it.”
Eliza’s mouth fell open. “Break into Stone’s office? You are loony. You know what’d happen if I got caught?”
“I didn’t think you minded getting caught?” Emily challenged.
“Well, yeah, when I know I’m headed back here for a bed and three meals a day. Not when I think Stone might chuck me down ’ere with the rats fer a month, or give me a beatin’ fer nickin’ shit from ’er office! Are you mad? Why would you want a mess with that witch?”
“Because, Eliza.” Emily took a step toward her again, feeling harried with desperation and urgency.
They didn’t have much time left. They still had to actually finish the cleaning before the end of their shift, or risk punishment she didn’t have time for.
“My job as a reporter is to expose the truth. The treatment of the women here is awful, and people need to know about it.”
“Who?” Eliza scoffed. “Who needs to know? Who’s gonna give a rat’s arse what happens to us?”
Emily swallowed, thinking of how June Jones had said nearly the same thing.
These women were so used to being ignored and forgotten when they weren’t being punished and shamed.
They’d internalized it to the point where the idea of anyone in power caring about their quality of life, or whether they lived or died at all, was not only foreign, but ludicrous.
“I told you before, Em—” Eliza paused. “Is that even yer real name?” Emily nodded.
“I told you before, I got a better deal here than anywhere. I need to stay til I turn eighteen, then I can skip the province, or go somewhere else entirely. Maybe even back to Ireland, I dunno. Anyway, I can’t help you.
I won’t spill yer secret, but I can’t help.
” She looked away from Emily and made to sidestep toward the boiler room door. “Now let’s—”
“What would you do if you went somewhere else?” Emily asked, scrambling for another tack.
Eliza shrugged. “I dunno. Clean? I’m good at cleaning and it’s not something rich folks like to do. There’s always work.”
A flash of an idea occurred. “If you do this, when you get out, you can come live with me for a while,” Emily said. “I can teach you things, how to type and read, so you can get a secretary’s job.”
Eliza rolled her eyes. “Right. And your old man and lady are gonna be right pleased to have a little thief living under their roof, are they?” She smiled bitterly. “Come off it. I inn’t that stupid.”
“I wouldn’t tell them you’re—”
“And typing? That might be yer life, writin’ for papers, but it’s not mine.
” Eliza shook her head. “I like you, Em, but you and I inn’t the same.
You can’t offer me any better’n what I got here.
I got nobody lookin’ out fer me. So I hafta look after meself.
And part of that,” she said forcefully, “is getting this bloody basement clean before they skin our feckin’ hides. ”
Then she slipped away before Emily could say another word, leaving her standing alone and defeated beneath the bare overhead bulb as the boiler hissed once more.