Phoebe’s Tooth
Maria Vaccaro
Phoebe, having finished her stockings, started on her husband’s shirts and then, with Rose, tackled the vegetable garden while Rose told her stories about her brother’s exploits at Salamanca, which sounded like a lark, at least in her telling. Phoebe held the wholly unfounded belief that she might have made a good soldier, which she voiced as she pulled a doll-sized radish out of the earth and shook it firmly. Laughing, Rose shielded herself from the spray of dirt.
“Maybe you would have been a captain, ma’am, leading all the charges,” she said, and Phoebe wouldn’t let herself hear the teasing in her voice. She imagined herself with epaulets.
They were heaving the great reed basket into the kitchen, pretending it was heavier than it was, when there was a knock on the door and Rose, with dirt still under her fingernails, went to answer. Phoebe took an immense bite from one of the radishes and almost howled with pain. It felt like an enormous invisible hand had smacked her between the shoulder blades and knocked the wind out of her; She had forgotten about her toothache in her hunger and now it took revenge, refusing to be ignored. That was how Rose found her: bowled over, clutching her jaw and trying not to squeak.
“It’s Mr Miller, ma’am and he wants to see you.” Rose was polite enough not to ask about Phoebe’s unusual posture, and even looked away so Phoebe could straighten herself out and dose herself with clove oil.
When she felt in control of her speech, she answered. “I suppose I must see Mr Miller. Show him into the parlor.”
How like a lady she always felt when she had people brought to the parlor, and how disappointed when she looked around and saw just how shabby a room it was. It had been cheaply and fashionably furnished when her husband, Merritt, was only a baby, and now was both unfashionable and on the verge of collapsing into a pile of threadbare chintz. Not that Mr Miller would know– He was not a vagrant, exactly, but perhaps only half a decade from becoming one. He earned an insufficient and seasonal living scraping peat from the Lindham Bog for families who were well off enough to pay him for work they very well might have done themselves, but not so well off they could afford coal. There were not abundant customers, which was almost a blessing since it meant that Miller could not afford to become a drunk. He was drunk, often, but he was not a drunk like Philip Hedley, Rose’s unfortunate brother. The other thing that separated Miller from true destitution was that he kept himself very clean, which meant that Phoebe almost liked him. She wouldn’t have minded men like Hedley so much if they had Miller’s impeccable lack of odor.
That he came into the parlor caked in mud and smelling of sulfur was almost as alarming as if Merritt, equally fastidious, had come back in such a state. Phoebe took a step towards him, then hesitated. She did not want Miller to sit down and dirty the furniture, but she also had a sudden panic whose origin escaped her. She knew he was poor and bad with money and unreliable, but she had never seen Miller look so bad.
“I didn’t want to interrupt Mr Ferry, ma’am, not while he’s with the Robinsons.” Miller bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet while he spoke and rubbed his hands together. A little fleck of dirt fell from his palm and onto the carpet.
“Yes,” she said.
Miller glanced from left to right and, finding them alone, moved forward. Phoebe moved a step back. “Only ma’am, I found something out in the bog, and I think you ought to see it. Or not you, but someone. Your husband will want to see it I expect, and p’raps you shouldn’t. It isn’t right for young ladies to see.”
Phoebe did not think of herself as a young lady and, annoyed at this characterization but nonetheless intrigued, leaned a little closer. She imagined Miller chancing upon a young couple in flagrante, their nude bodies brown with bog water, weeds in their hair. It was a pleasant imagining.
“I am quite prepared Mr Miller. Tell me, please.”
Miller responded well, immediately standing up a bit straighter and pressed his palm to his short-cropped hair, already gray barely into his thirties. He swallowed and again, looked to his left and then right. “Only, ma’am, there’s a body there. Or rather, not anymore. I took it out, so strictly speaking it’s outside your door. They find odd things in the bog– When I was a boy a lady went missing with her sweetheart and ten years later, they found them, still in their traveling clothes and a bag packed to run away. I expect this is the same, only this isn’t ten years, or maybe even twenty. I haven’t ever seen clothes like this. I expect fifty years at least.”
There was a sudden silence that choked any response in Phoebe’s throat and indeed her brain, and Miller seemed to feel it as well. He stared down at his muddy hands and continued his rocking. Then, as quickly as the silence came, it dispersed, and Phoebe felt her lungs contract and expel a great breath. “Show me,” she said.
It was a little bundle of canvas, like a parcel of groceries or laundry, and Phoebe was surprised that her hand did not shake as she knelt to open it. Miller stood behind her with Rose, who had sensed some occasion worth leaving the radishes.
The skin was the color of coffee grounds, and very smooth, though the flesh had a ragdoll, boneless look to it. The first thing that Phoebe noticed was the manicured fingernails, in a perfect half-moon shape, and filed nicely. There was some sort of ring on the thumb, and she reached for it, then recoiled. There was no way to know the original color of the gown, stained as it was, but it looked to Phoebe like the illustrations in Gibbons, long and flowing and all in one piece. One breast was exposed, flat and hollow looking, a tube of flesh, and with no visible nipple. A woman, with a knot of dark hair and a full, frowning mouth. She wore sandals and was very short.
Phoebe could feel her mind working very quickly, bringing together a series of somewhat disconnected images and arranging them in different orders until they formed a cohesive story. Her mother, lying in her casket with blue lips and the overpowering odor of lavender sachets and rotting meat, and a little bronze figurine she had once seen in the London museum, holding a flat round thing that Papa called a discus, and an engraving in Merritt’s study of Peace, her gown flat and in one piece and sandals on her delicate feet, and then a memory of the bog, a foul-smelling mess where her niece lost a boot and nearly drowned and since then, her brother Freddy didn’t like her to watch his daughters, didn’t think her maternal enough. A strong physical sensation in her side, like grief and tenderness and acute misery and then, a dizziness that reminded her of how Freddy’s wife described falling in love with him. “The world seemed to spin faster and faster when he looked at me…” The strong urge to touch this woman’s brown face and feel the little row of eyelashes still pressed to her cheek. Her tooth, starting up its old drumming pain.
“She is very old,” Phoebe said weakly. “Maybe Roman.” Someone gasped, and Phoebe assumed it was Rose because she wasn’t entirely sure that Miller knew who the Romans were. “Please bring her to the dining room table, gently, Mr Miller. She is from the time of Jesus Christ,” she added, imagining that would ring a bell. “And Rose, go find Doctor Brown and Mr Ferry immediately. And–” But there was no one else. “That’s all.”
Miller carried the little package as tenderly as if it were a sleeping child. It was the size of a child, and if it weren’t for the exposed breast, Phoebe would have put it at eight or nine years of age. She should have liked to get a good look at the body, to see if the bog had preserved all the hair so well as those curls, to see what Roman thigh or navel looked like, if it differed from her own. How she wished she could show her father!
“Mr Miller, I owe you a great debt.” Phoebe had meant this metaphorically and was alarmed when Miller began to sway harder than ever in anticipation of a fiduciary debt being paid. It felt unseemly to pay a man for a corpse, like something a brigand might do, and yet– He might have brought the body to Lord Plemstall, who was known to collect curiosities, who had a cellar filled with Roman relics, who would have paid far more than Phoebe. It was, she realized with a sudden bafflement, a sign of affection. Miller liked her, so he brought her a dead thing, like a cat with a mouse or sparrow. To her even greater surprise, far from displeasing her, it seemed the nicest thing anyone had ever done, to her or anyone else.
So it was without guilt that she found a few pounds in Mr Ferry’s study and pressed them to Miller’s muddy hands, oddly smooth, like a baby. “Thank you,” she said, and met his watery eyes to show her earnest gratitude.
Then finally, quiet. Solitude to apply clove oil, to make hideous faces in pain, to slump her shoulders and tighten her fist until her knuckles were white. And then, after all those ministrations, to sit at the head of the table and glance down at the little thing, small and shriveled and emanating such an air of lovability and gentleness that Phoebe, unhesitating, began to stroke the body’s wet hair. Strands fell away as she did and, hoping not to make the poor woman bald, she stopped only reluctantly. For the first time since her wedding, she felt like praying, not to God, but to the relic in front of her that felt so alive she might not have been surprised if it had sat up and stretched.
Time passed quickly in contemplation of this thing, this precious bit of divinity. It took some moments for Phoebe to realize that someone was knocking on the door, and, dreamlike, to rise and meet the visitors. It was Merritt, back from his ecclesiastical visit.
“Harriet Robinson passed not an hour ago, but Rose fetched me. Is it here?”
“Yes,” Phoebe said, laughing a little. “Come in, please. I’ll make you a cup of tea, and you can examine the poor creature.”
“I should like that very much, my dear.” When Merritt smiled, he looked like a man capable of love, and Phoebe, still half-wanting his affection, smiled back.
She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so fond of him and took more care over his tea than usual.
She found him in the dining room, glancing down at the corpse in a disinterested fashion, arms outstretched to take the cup and saucer. “You know, my dear, it’s only right you call on Mrs Robinson today or tomorrow. As my wife, she’ll expect you to offer succor in her grief.”
“Of course. But isn’t this marvelous? I thought this must be more exciting– She looks Roman to me, but you must be able to pinpoint the year.” Phoebe had to hold her hands together behind her back to keep herself from being tempted to stroke the corpse’s matted hair once again.
“I have left a house with a corpse and come to a house of a corpse. To a Christian, my dear, there is little difference.” Still, he removed his pince-nez from the pocket of his waistcoat and, setting it on his nose, leaned a little closer to examine the ring on the corpse’s thumb. “My mother will tell you, I’m sure, of when she was young and an uncle or some relation found a dislocated foot in the bog. And no doubt you’ve heard Rose’s ridiculous tall tales about will-o-wisps and boggarts. There are so many odd stories about the bog, and yet this is perhaps– Well, it must be examined.”
“Yes,” Phoebe said, hardly daring to breathe with excitement. She had never heard him say so much at one time before. “We must examine it.”
At this, Merritt startled and nearly dropped his pince-nez on the corpse’s exposed chest. He caught it in his hand, then straightened hastily. “Surely not you or I. We are not so learned as you might believe, my dear. No, I’ll write to the bishop.”
“He won’t care about this– He’s too busy. Pray don’t bother the man when I promise– I have Papa’s books and know a little Latin. I can help you. Please, Merritt.” She touched the inner crook of his elbow with her pointer finger and watched him recoil like she was something foul, like she was a dead thing pulled from the bog.
“I am already very busy, my dear.”
It was then that Merritt’s mother arrived. Mrs Ferry did not knock, did not announce her entrance– It was her house after all. She just stood in the doorway to the dining room in her ugly striped pelisse, her lips formed into a perfect circle. It took her some moments to recover the ability to speak, but her eyes darted back and forth between Phoebe and the corpse. Phoebe had the hysterical thought that she might be about to accuse her of murdering it.
“I thought Miller was drunk or having you on.”
It was then that her guest arrived, a diminutive teapot of a lady named Mrs Rebecca Pratt, also wearing an ugly pelisse, though hers was checked, and holding two gloved hands over her mouth. “Heaven preserve us, Alma– I never thought–”
“Hello,” Phoebe said. “We have made quite a discovery.”
“I heard it was Miller who found it,” Mrs Pratt chided. “God almighty, someone should cover the poor child up.” She groped inside a little net bag and held up a shining white handkerchief, which Mrs Ferry grasped and immediately laid over the corpse’s exposed breast. The embroidered initials, A.R.P., rested just over where the nipple ought to be.
“My great-great aunt Polly was lost in the bog– Oh, if only my grandmother could see that she’d been found–” Big, fat worm-like tears grew along the bottom of Mrs Pratt’s eyelids, and as she had already used her own handkerchief in the service of modesty, Phoebe was forced to offer her own.
Phoebe found the whole scene so ridiculous that it took her a few moments to understand. She was imagining herself being honored at the Royal Society, wearing a gown of blue taffeta, holding up a trophy bearing her name. Then, still half-dreaming, she very slowly grasped the substance of the conversation going on in front of her.
“But we’re going to study her,” Phoebe said lamely.
“Whyever would you want to study my Aunt Polly? I never heard such a thing, child. She was a Christian and so she deserves a Christian burial. There’s nothing more to it.”
“Your Aunt Polly wore a toga and sandals?” Phoebe pointed to the offending items of clothing, while Mrs Ferry spluttered with rage almost incoherent.
“That’s a fine way to talk to a guest, Phoebe. You know as well as I do that the bog eats things away. I expect the mud destroyed her outer dress and made holes in her shoes,” Mrs Ferry cried. “And even if this poor woman isn’t Polly Jenkins, she is someone’s great-aunt, somewhere, and she ought to rest in peace.”
Unasked for and unwanted, Phoebe conjured a memory of herself sitting in this dining room, pretending to enjoy watery potato soup in the hopes of impressing Mrs Ferry, when her approval seemed something worth dying for, if needed. And she said how exciting it was to have seen a mummy from Egypt, to have seen the gold and blue casket with lapis eyes, and Mrs Ferry nodded and said, “how wonderful for you to see.” Back then it had been desirable for Phoebe to like old things, to have a few phrases of Latin to bring out at parties.
Through a trembling jaw, Phoebe said: “This woman probably wasn’t even Christian. Would you have a pagan in the churchyard?”
“My Aunt Polly was most assuredly a good Christian woman,” Mrs Pratt cried in horror.
“Peace,” said Merritt. He held his hand up and gestured for Mrs Pratt to take a seat in one of the stiff-baked cherry chairs. She did so.
“I—I need to think. Is there a chance, Mrs Pratt, in your honest estimation, that this poor soul is a relative of yours?”
Mrs Pratt bobbed her hair up and down in agreement.
“As reverend—As a learned man, too—I understand the fervent desire to learn from this—This creature may have secrets for us, but you’re right that her immortal soul is our first consideration.”
Phoebe stared openly, her lips hanging open to expose her bloody mouth. She felt like she was drunk. She felt like praying. Don’t take her away from me. I’ll be a good wife, I swear. Just let me hold her. She prayed to the corpse. Don’t let him throw you away. Sit up and tell us, in perfect Latin, to leave you alone. Don’t go away.
“Augusta is also a patron of the church. Surely that must be taken into consideration—She had more than earned this favor to her family,” Mrs Ferry was stroking Mrs Pratt’s shoulder with her long, thin fingers. She had touched Phoebe like that once, when they announced their engagement, and Phoebe had trembled with excitement.
“Yes, yes, of course. I will consult Dr Brown, of course, but I do believe we ought to have a burial.”
Phoebe passed the rest of the day as if in a dream. Her tooth ached and she could feel heat when she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. She began to be grateful to these physical sensations for holding her to her body. Otherwise, she thought, she might float away from herself.
After Mrs Pratt left to select a grave site and Mrs Ferry went with her, their elbows linked, Merritt retreated to his study like a coward and Phoebe was alone with the corpse. She removed the handkerchief from its breast.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The corpse did not respond.
“I wish I could go with you,” Phoebe said. “I wish we could go into the bog together, even.”
More silence.
“Say something.”
She hadn’t really expected a response, like she hadn’t really expected her husband to take her side. Yet she was disappointed.
With the throb of her heartbeat, the molar throbbed harder and absently, Phoebe put her fingers into her mouth to touch the pain. She felt wetness, and, without much thought, with mixed fury and exhaustion and a half-wish for death, pulled at the tooth. To her surprise, it came away easily, and was soon hanging by a few strands of flesh. Something sour tasting gushed from the hole. It must have been very bad, like Dr Brown said. She should have listened to him and had it pulled days ago. She ought to have listened to him and never married Merritt. Phoebe kept her gaze fixed on the corpse like her mother had stared at a crucifix the whole of her death agonies.
With a final tug, the tooth was free. The room spun. It helped to look at the corpse. It helped to focus her attention not on the blood and pus streaming down her chin and onto her nice cotton gown, but on the smoothness and brownness of the body, the deep collarbones, the tiny little ears pressed flat. Slowly, slowly, the spinning stopped.
The only sound was the gentle tip-tap of blood dripping onto the worn carpet.
Phoebe’s red fingers touched at the corpse’s thin lips, barely distinguishable from the rest of the face. The jaw was stiff, but gently, gently, she opened the mouth a little, felt that the corpse was missing a front tooth and that the tongue was adhered to the bottom of the mouth, was very dry and yet distinguishable as a tongue after all these years. Phoebe imagined that she heard a little noise when she dropped the tooth into the corpse, the clink of a piano pressed by an amateur. She smiled and removed her hand, wiped it on her gown.
The room had begun to spin again, just lightly, like a child’s top beginning to lose momentum. The corpse stayed the same, and inside the corpse, Phoebe’s tooth stayed the same as well.
Maria Vaccaro is a pseudonym for a name that is, improbably, even more Italian. She is a teacher, which necessitates the pen name, and lives in the Rust Belt. She tweets when she remembers to at @mariavaccarowrites.
