Chapter 5: Sheila

The fourth woman from the past was Sheila McLean, the desiccated minister's luscious widow. She stepped right in front of me on the street, her head down and her hand out, "Spare a shilling, sir?" she said with a quaver.

There was something familiar about her. As I dug in my purse she looked up at me with dark, bloodshot eyes, and my cock jumped in recognition.

"I know you," I told her, searching my memory. "There was a fire. Who are you?"

She twisted away and started to run but her clumsy wooden clogs skidded on the mossy bricks, and she went down. I pulled her to her feet, feeling how little she weighed and how thin her arm was, and led her to the nearest tavern, plunked her down on the inside of a bench and sat, blocking her escape.

I got us some stew and some ale, and she ate as if she had not eaten for a week. I studied her as she did. Her hair was crudely chopped off, tangled and filthy, her skin grimy, her cheekbone bruised, her lips split and puffy, her clothes little more than rags. Her wrists were thin and her jaw line sharp.

"I remember you, at the widow's farm, in that front bedroom," I said, thinking of her lovely face distorted in passion, her body heaving beneath me. "I hope you haven't forgotten."

"Somebody else, sir," she said, wiping her mouth with her hand and tearing off another hunk of bread. "Never saw you before."

"We made love," I said, reaching over and touching her chin. "Several times, and you told me about your late husband and about all the seminarians you laid."

She made a wry face and swallowed. "Any more ale?" she asked, holding up her empty mug. I filled it.

"And then there was a fight and a fire. What happened to you?"

She sat back, licked her lips, took a deep breath and said, "Opium." Her eyes were as flat as river stones.

I waited, waving at the girl for another pitcher of beer.

"Within a month," the young woman said, looking at the musty ceiling and then closing her eyes, "within a month, after we parted, I was courted by another minister, a man of the cloth who knew my first husband and ignored all the conventions of mourning. He had visited our home, and had attempted to bed me when he did."

Can't blame him for that, I thought, she was likely the best lay in ten counties.

"The reverend had been to the Orient, to China and I don't where else, the islands. He had a tattoo on his belly, a dragon. He was a farce."

Her hands rested on the table top, her fingernails were dirty and broken and restless. I carried a picture of the stimulating young woman with her legs wrapped about me, and it was hard to believe this was the same girl.

"So he gave me some tincture of laudanum, sweet it was, and it felt so good. Then we made love. He was no good at that, just mean, wicked, perverse, and quick, very quick." She looked up at me and nodded. "Of course I remember you."

"Did you marry him?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Soon the little sips became stronger and more frequent, and he brought other men to visit me, to lie with me when I was in a stupor. I think they gave him money."

She looked around, like a caged animal.

"He made me a common whore. I would do anything for laudanum, anything, anything." She sobbed and looked away.

"I know a doctor," I said, "and some people who can help." I suspected that there was no help.

"No good," she said. "I have to have it. He left after a few months, just left, took all my jewelry. I've been on the street since then, living in the back of a chemist's shop. He and his son poke me. He gives me opium, just a drop or two at a time."

"You need to get away from it. Don't you have any friends?"

She shook her head.

"The widow, where I met you, have you heard from her?"

She nodded and produced a much folded sheet of paper and handed it to me. I hurried through the faded words while her fingers drummed the table. "She's in Germantown," I said. "That's not far."

"I'd be ashamed," she said, ducking her head.