After Alice Fell(65)

“No, you didn’t.”

He purses his lips. Combs his fingers through his sideburns.

“I believe I did. But let me answer in simple words even a woman can understand. Your sister picked the lock on her door. She evaded the ward attendant, found her way to the roof, and took her life.”

“What were the attendants doing? While my sister snuck her way from her room, through whatever other locked doors there may be, without anyone once stopping her and asking what she was doing? Someone pushed her.”

“Our investigation showed all ward attendants that evening had done their duty. The rounds sheet was duly checked off at appropriate times. I put much faith in my attendants.”

“And yet you all let someone die.” I clench and unclench my hands. Dig my nails into my palms. “I know about the box. That chair. You strapped her in. I know someone was watching her. She knew. She knew what you did to that other woman.”

He stares at me. His words are careful when he speaks. “Your sister was violent, uncontrollable, and delusional. There were necessary precautions for her safety and others’. That included restraints. The mind can fill with too much chaos, and nothing works. Hydrotherapy worked for a short while. I thought we’d turned a corner.”

“The ice baths.”

“You know of it?”

I stop myself from saying how much I know and what I’ve seen. Stoakes and Miss Clough both so careful to remind me to lie. That I had never been there, never seen any of it. “I have heard of its use for consumptives.”

“The blood slows, the heart calms, the mind cools. I’ve seen wonders.”

“But not with her.”

“You can only leave someone in ice so long.”

“Did you leave Beatrice Beecham in ice, or tie her down in the ice?”

He crosses his arms over his checked vest, his thumb playing with the chain of his watch. His attention has shifted to the window. I follow his gaze to the front yard. Elias and Amos push two wheelbarrows to the stone fence to make repairs.

Mr. Grent clears his throat. “Dr. Mayhew.”

His glance snaps back to the room. “As I stated, your sister was violent and . . .”

“She was murdered within your facility. As was Beatrice Beecham.”

“There is no Beatrice Beecham, Mrs. Abbott. She’s a phantom. Be good or you’ll go like Beatrice Beecham. I’ve heard the women say it; I’ve heard the matrons threaten with it.”

Grent stands. “Mrs. Abbott—”

“I stand by my report,” Mayhew says. “And I stand by the well-being of all those under my care, though you may not believe it. Every last one of them. I won’t have you sully my work nor that of anyone else who chooses such a career. You have been speaking to staff. I can guess who. And I will call them to court to state under oath that you trespassed on my property. That you disturbed the peace of unstable and fragile patients all under the irrational notion that someone chose to willfully murder your sister.”

Blood beats in my temples. “I will call those same said staff to speak for me. Because someone did willfully kill my sister.”

“Who?” He raises a palm. “If those staff believe something so untoward happened, then who?”

My mouth dries up. I sift through the memories—Kitty, Stoakes, Harriet, Alice’s notes that she was soon to die—all the innuendos that someone had done something. None of them seeing anything specific. A turn of the head. An open door. “I don’t know.”

“Why did your sister stop talking?”

I take in a breath, dizzy from the change in subject. “She was fourteen.”

“Not when. Why.” His cheek gives a tic.

“There wasn’t any why. It was just Alice.”

“Your mother died that year. She was ill quite a while. It often runs in the family, but you would know that, wouldn’t you?”

“My mother was of sound mind.”

“Mm. Miss Snow intimated you smothered the poor woman. With a pillow embroidered with snap peas. And you ordered her to never say a word, or you’d cut out her tongue.”

“No. That never . . .”

“Whether it did or not, it’s in her records. Which would, by law, be unsealed. In the case of your formal complaint.”

“I didn’t do anything of the kind.”

“But you did something. Most delusions have an element of truth in them. At least I’ve found that to be the case. Which element that is can be up for interpretation. Usually determined by those with a medical background. Mm. Poor girl. Every morning to wake up thinking, If I utter a word, my sister will cut out my tongue.”

“That’s a monstrous . . .” My legs shake. “That is a lie.”

“She tells the truth or she doesn’t, Mrs. Abbott. Which is it?”

“You’d drag a lie into court.”

“Just as you would drag insinuations. And no one would believe Kitty Swain anyway.”

“How dare you.”

“Sit down, Mrs. Abbott.” He clamps his hand to my wrist and gives a sharp pull. “Sit down.”

I drop to the seat. He releases my arm, sniffs, and smiles wide. Then he signals to Grent to hand over the pages, then scours through them. “Yes. Yes. I see that you were thorough in your complaint. Doors and locks and women dropping from rooftops. And then you returned. A matron told you she saw nothing at all because she was downstairs assisting with another patient. Isn’t that correct?”