After Alice Fell(18)

I grab her parasol and come after, reaching for her sleeve. But she jogs down the roadside, Toby’s face held tight against her thigh.

“Stop it, Cathy.”

“He’s a bad little boy.” Her jaw is locked; the words come out brittle and sharp.

Toby goes slack. Arms and legs loose, so he slips from her grip and then sits with a thud.

Cathy leaves him there and trudges forward, moving only to avoid an oncoming horse and lumber cart.

I reach for Toby, but he flinches and twists away. “You need to get up.”

He scratches the ground with his fingers and remains in place.

Cathy whirls around and strides back. “I’m trying. Can we please just try?”

He breathes in and out. Three times. Then he puts his hand to his knee and stands. He keeps his gaze to the ground. Doesn’t resist when she takes his hand in hers.

Her cheeks are stippled red and white. “There, then. We’ve had our ice.”





Chapter Seven


Dr. Mayhew has agreed to meet. And Cathy has asked to join me. “I think it best,” she says, tying the ribbons of her silk bonnet. It is pink and edged with lace. Her clothing is as much froth as function. But it is honest. She doesn’t mourn. “Toby will stay with Saoirse.” Then she takes up the buggy reins and urges the dapple mare on.

The waiting area at Brawders House is empty save for the two of us seated on a bench. It is creams and blues and welcoming here. Great vases adorn the walls, filled with long, curved ferns and a cornucopia of blossoms from the front gardens. The chandeliers are elegant in frosted glass, crystal beads catching the light. The large windows on the back wall are open to the draft. There are no bars here, just metalwork on the windows that is both intricate and sinuous. Shapes of flowers and grasses and birds snake across my shoes. I barely remember this part of the hospital and its polite pretense. But the brick and mildewed stink of the basement is still clear.

The steward, in long, graying sideburns and impeccable black coat, perches on a stool. He has given his name as Northrup and followed it with a weak handshake before pointing us to the bench, mumbling an apology for our loss. He turns the pages of his ledger, each crinkle caught and echoed in the high-ceiling room, each scratch of pen lingering. He stares at me and blinks.

Cathy glances up from her tatting. She twists and untwists the loose thread round her finger. “I found the doctors to be very caring. Not indifferent to their patients.”

“So you did visit?”

Her face flushes. She bends to the tatting, biting her lip in concentration, feeding the ivory thread to the shuttle, knotting a snowflake pattern. “I’m not heartless.”

“How often?”

Cathy’s hands freeze midknot. She frowns and shakes her head, picks at the loops, then abandons them to her lap. “Until she refused me.”

I hear voices, just up the wide stairs. Muted mostly, as the doors on both sides of the landing stay shut more often than not. But then one will open, and the voices barrel out and around a nurse with her bobbing cap, the orderly pushing up his sleeves, a matron rolling a metal tray. A blare, a babble, then mutters and thumps.

A door slams above, and a tin or bucket clatters against a wall. I look to the ceiling, as does Mr. Northrup, our gazes following heavy footsteps that come to a sudden stop.

“How much longer?” I ask. My hands shake. I twist the strap of my bag around a palm, then lace my fingers.

He frowns and digs out his pocket watch. “Dr. Mayhew is on rounds. You are here outside visiting hours.”

I lean back against the bench, but the curve of wood is not meant for resting. I find myself tilted forward and the edge of my corset digging into the bones of my hips.

There is nothing to do but wait. Watch the man across from me as he writes in his ledger.

“Do the patients come through here?”

He sets down the pen. Stares at me with eyes that are black as night. “This is the vestibule.”

“I can see that.”

“For visitors. Such as you.”

Where, then, did Alice enter this place? With just her trunk and the overwhelming weight of Lionel’s lie? Alice stopped speaking at fourteen. One day nattering on about the new black calf, then next day silent. The week after that, the year after that, mute—save our private language of signs and gestures. How did she impart her concerns and fears?

My breath is tight, twisting tighter. I jump from the seat, pace to the front door, and then turn to him. “Where are the patients admitted?”

“Mrs. Abbott—” He lifts a hand and his face glazes into an accommodating pleasantness.

“Somewhere in the back, then.” There behind the stairs, a round glass window cut into a door and behind it the basement and the morgue.

“Ah. Mrs. Abbott. Mrs. Snow.”

I turn to find a tall man standing too near, causing me to look up at an uncomfortable angle. “Dr. Mayhew?”

“Yes. The exact one.” His voice is syrup and honey. He holds a notebook under his arm and thumbs the corner. His hair is thick, flecked with gray, but his wild sideburns are black. I cannot pin his age. His gray eyes are deep set, shadowed by heavy brows. He has seen life—the lines at the edge of his eyes seem as much from heartache as from laughter. His gaze flicks back and forth, and he juts his long chin toward me.