I expected the matron to motion to Gus, but she didn’t. Instead, she took two steps forward, lifted the heavy ring of keys from her belt, and struck the woman across the cheek with it. We all heard the thud of iron on flesh. The new inmate swayed but remained on her feet. The look on her face arrested me. She was not cowed in the least. In finishing school, we would have called her type bricky.
“Disobedience is punished here,” the matron said. “We are not afraid to beat you if you deserve to be beaten.”
“Doesn’t matter much,” responded the inmate. “Been beaten before.”
“Gus, please take this one to Dr. Gillette.”
Gus stepped forward, and a flicker of fear crossed the woman’s face at the sight of him, but only for a moment.
He gathered the back of her collar in his fist and began walking her forward. She didn’t fight. I wondered where the doctor would assign her. Had she been sent here to appease her father’s new wife, as she claimed, or was there something wrong with her? Would she end up in a ward of Furies or addicts or ciphers? Would she be drugged with night medicine? Worse?
At last, I heard Nurse Piper call me from farther along the hallway. “Charlotte! Now!”
At the new voice, the inmate in Gus’s grip turned and looked in our direction.
I twisted just a little so Piper was behind me, blocking her line of sight. Then I held my hand in front of me and closed it in a fist, hoping to signal to the new inmate to stay strong. Not that she looked like she needed the help. But just in case. I wanted to let her know that it was worth fighting.
She nodded at me, and then they were around the corner and gone.
When I saw her again, she was carrying the coral dress the rest of us wore. A vicious bruise, slit with blood, rose on her cheek where Matron Baumgarten had struck her with the keys. And she was striding into Terpsichore Ward, looking around the room for a place to settle in.
Chapter Nine
Our new wardmate’s name was Martha, and I should have been frightened of her. She seemed volatile. She was the only one I’d seen openly sass the matron, the only one who seemed to challenge the order of this upside-down world. She had some of the same spark that Nora did, for better or worse. I’d seen it too among certain socialites in our circles, girls I met at Miss Buckingham’s or after concerts in my mother’s company. Some girls just walked into a room and commanded it. Martha looked at our attendant like he was something she’d scrape off her shoe. A thrill ran through me. I feared what would happen to her, but she didn’t seem at all afraid. Maybe I could learn from her. I had gone from an obedient girl to an assumed madwoman in a blink. The thought that I could just as quickly change again both thrilled and terrified me.
I’d been turning the map over and over in my mind but done nothing about it. I didn’t know who to ask. Damaris was the natural choice, since I’d found the paper in her cot, but I didn’t entirely trust her. One of the wickedest girls I’d known at school had been a preacher’s daughter, and I’d become suspicious of the type. I still didn’t know the nature of the demon Damaris said she had. I snuck a look at her, but she was only plucking at a loose thread on her cuff, mild as porridge.
Martha arrived just as we were donning our nightclothes, the room halfway through its transformation from a coral scene to a gray one. Unlike in my previous ward, the nurses here turned up the lights high enough so that we could see ourselves as we undressed and dressed again, turning them down as a signal when it was time to lie on our cots for sleep. During the night, they left a single gas jet burning, turned down low, so we could at least see our way to our chamber pots.
I hunched over to swap my day dress for the shifts we all wore to sleep in, clinging to what modesty I could. Voices rippled around the room, women whispering to each other as they readied themselves, our nurses watching us to make sure everything was as it should be.
Martha did not ask any of us which cot to choose. She saw an empty one and went straight for it. She lay her bundle on the foot of the bed, then stripped off the navy plaid dress she’d been wearing and dropped it on the floor. She shucked her knickers and chemise, standing without a stitch on, apparently in no rush to cover her high, small bosoms or the bloom of coarse fur between her legs.
I saw a few heads swivel to watch her as she held the gray nightdress up and glared at it disapprovingly. While she was doing so, Nurse Piper reached down and picked up the wadded navy plaid. The nurse took a moment to shake it out, not without care, and then folded it.
“Excuse me,” Martha said sharply. “Where are you taking that?”
“For safekeeping,” said Piper. Her voice was not loud, but neither was it apologetic. She knew her place. She spoke to Martha as she would to any inmate, naked or clothed, old or new. Her consistency was one of the things I liked about her, along with her seeming lack of cruelty. “We wash them and store them for you, against your release.”
Nurse Piper left the room, carrying the navy plaid, seemingly forgetting that Winter was already gone and Salt stood guard in the hallway, leaving us unattended. This seemed to be happening more frequently—I wondered if the new arrivals were overcrowding the facility and leaving the staff stretched too thin.
Once the door closed behind the nurse, Martha yanked her nightdress over her head and thrust her arms through the sleeves. When it fell into place over her, she smoothed her front, frowning. “Fah! Release. That’ll be a cold day in hell.”
Damaris couldn’t help herself. “Language!”
Martha pivoted her head toward the blond girl without moving her body an inch and said, “Listen, principessa, if you’ve been in the madhouse more than ten minutes and you haven’t heard worse than a few bloody swear words, you’re the luckiest cockchafer it’s been my misfortune to meet.”
Damaris blushed beet red and stepped back, looking down and away.
I expected Nora to step forward and defend the girl, but she was not at her cot next to me, where she should have been. I scanned the crowd and spotted her pale face at a distance, watching Martha with interest. Again, the lessons of finishing school came in handy. Some girls wielded their power with brash announcements, and some kept to themselves until the moment was right to strike. I could easily picture these two as cobras, circling each other, ready with venom.
It was Jubilee instead who stepped forward and said, “Best watch yourself, then, foundling. This girl’s a good one.”
“I don’t at all doubt she is,” said Martha, crossing her arms over her chest. “And who are you?”
“Jubilee’s the name.”
“Is it now?”
“It’s what I’m called,” she said, smoothing flat the black wing of her hair.
“What’s your story?” Martha asked, as we all watched eagerly to see who would get the upper hand. Fights could pass for entertainment here, which we were starved for. If there was a scuffle, it would take a minute for Salt to come in from the hall. A great deal could happen in a minute.
“What’s yours?”
“Oh, but I can tell by your face you’ve got a tale to tell.”
Jubilee bristled. “What d’you mean by that?”
“Plain as day, your father wasn’t from the same stock as your mother.”
“Didn’t have a father.”
Martha laughed. “Everyone does. And I congratulate you for having the only mother and father less suited to one another than mine. My mother was my father’s slave first. When forced to free her, he made her his housekeeper. Then he got a child on her. But could you love someone who used to own you? Seems unlikely to me.”
She seemed amused by the tale, awful as it sounded, and told it all with a smile on her lovely face. The shape of her livid bruise shifted at the edge where her mouth turned up.
Jubilee set her jaw and paused a moment.
Then she said flatly, “A sailor raped my mother, and here I am. Not going to battle your bits about love.”
It was the first moment I had seen any doubt in M
artha’s face, and it made me like her more.
Jubilee pressed her advantage. “So finish your story. Why are you here?”
Her smile was gone, but Martha still sounded amused. “Mother’s dead. Father’s getting married. His new wife said it was her or me, and I think you see who he chose.”
Nora spoke then, calling from her invisible place in the crowd. “And why the asylum, then? Why not just put you on the curb?”
“San Francisco’s got a lot of newspapers,” said Martha, addressing us all, clearly comfortable with the attention. “When the jezebel wanted to kick me out, I told her I’d find one to tell my story. Everyone knows I work in Old Man Ryan’s house, that I’m his dead housekeeper’s daughter. His part in the bargain isn’t known to most.”
“You could still speak out,” Jubilee said.
“And who’d believe me now? The lunatic girl from the madhouse. Smart of her, I have to admit.”
“So how did you end up in the love ward?”
It was the first time I’d heard it called that, though as I’d told the doctor, I had seen the pattern myself. Nora was condemned for infidelity, Jubilee for prostitution. Hazel had refused to marry the man her family chose for her. An inmate named Nettie had been syphilitic for years, and all that remained of her mind was a lacy patchwork, no more solid than a spiderweb. The red-haired beauty, Irene, had been condemned for a heart and body that only wanted to be left alone. I’d lied about suiciding over love. This place did have its own logic, warped though it might be.
“Part of the story she spun,” said Martha. “Like I said, the whore was clever. To put the lie to it, in case I told people Old Man Ryan was my father, she told the story that I’d tried to seduce him. Set my cap, promised unnatural things. Clever, clever. Like you, principessa, she’s a real cockchafer.”
She nearly spat the last word with hatred. I’d forgotten Damaris was there, but at the sound of the rude word, the girl stepped forward again, nearly shoving Jubilee out of the way to rise on her toes and brandish her finger in Martha’s surprised face.
“I’m not a—I’m—I’m not that word you called me!” shrieked Damaris.
“Oh?” asked Martha.
“Take it back!” Her voice was high and sharp and so loud, I worried it might catch Salt’s attention even through the closed door. “Take! It! Back!”
Martha looked skeptical, clearly choosing her words for a caustic response. But she didn’t have time to say any more before the younger girl’s eyes rolled back in her head and her arms swung out wide. We could all see she was going to fall as she tipped backward, but no one was close enough to catch her. The next thing we knew, she was bucking and twisting on the floor.
A sharp whistle pierced the air, though I couldn’t tell its source in the pandemonium. I heard the thump of the bolt sliding open, swinging door, running feet. Winter was kneeling on the floor suddenly, a wooden wedge gripped in her hand. In a moment, Salt joined her, pinning Damaris down. Even leaning his weight forward, gripping her shoulders with hands we all knew the strength of, he was barely able to keep the girl flat. Her bare feet slapped the floor hard in a ragged, stuttering pattern. We all caught our breath in a shared rhythm, holding still, watching in silence.
Winter gripped the girl’s head and placed the wedge of wood between her teeth, forcefully but gently, the way you would muzzle a dog. And the nurse was whispering something too soft for us to hear. The girl’s arms and legs still whipped uncontrollably, a blur of wild motion. We watched in shock, unmoving.
Over the course of a few minutes, Damaris’s wild motions tired into something weaker. Her form finally slowed, flopping like a fish on the dock and stopping the same way fish always stopped, though I hoped not for the same reason.
Nurse Piper worked her way back into the room, and she was there to take the wooden wedge when Winter eased it out from Damaris’s slackened jaw. I saw now that the wood was riddled with tooth marks. Most did not look fresh. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and found that Nora was standing beside me, having worked her way through the crowd of inmates. Her eyes were taking in everything—not just Damaris’s fit, which she’d surely seen before, but every individual woman’s reaction to it, especially Martha’s.
Quietly, I said to Nora, “And now I understand why she’s here. Her demon.”
“Oh, no,” she replied cheerfully. “She’s epileptic, yes, but that’s not all she’s in for. Found in a lustful act with her stepbrother, I’m told.”
“Show’s over, ladies. Come on, then,” sang out the young nurse, her voice high and bright, as if we were children late to supper.
I had a sinking feeling that the more I saw, the less I knew. This place was changing me. Damaris’s fit was disturbing, but I was more disturbed by what it had interrupted. Part of me had wanted Martha and Jubilee to come to blows—I, who hated violence, who back on Powell Street could barely even stand to see a coachman touch the whip to a horse’s back. There was something in my blood that wanted to see someone else’s blood, out and red and flowing. The very thought sickened me as it excited me.
I needed to get out of this place. I needed to find my sister.
* * *
Knowing it was too soon to search out the doctor again, I turned my attention to the only other women I regularly saw outside my ward: the crew working in the soapmaker’s shop. Three of us were from Terpsichore, including the ill-tempered Bess and nunlike Irene; one was the short-haired blond woman I recognized from Thalia; and five were from Polyhymnia Ward, which I had learned by observation was populated by addicts. So Polyhymnia was not where I would find Phoebe. Slowly but surely, the circle was dwindling. I needed to shrink it to a pinpoint, and quickly.
The day after Martha’s arrival, Bess complained of stomach pains, and whether or not her sickness was feigned, it kept her out of the soapmaking shop. Because of this, I ended up working next to the short-haired blond woman with the doll’s face and decided it was time to strike up a conversation.
“I’m Charlotte,” I began.
She looked at me and smiled but said nothing. I knew most of the women there didn’t speak, but I hoped we could find another way to communicate.
“Can you talk?” I asked.
She shook her head in the negative, slowly, sadly.
“Why did they cut your hair?”
She tapped her chest, then mimed scissors with two pointed fingers.
“You cut it yourself ?”
She nodded, reaching out for my hand. She wrapped my fingers around the short, chopped hair that remained on her head, then jerked downward. Her hair flew free of my grasp. I understood in an instant. Long hair could be grabbed. Now hers couldn’t. Who had inspired such drastic action? I couldn’t think of a way to ask politely. After recognizing my surprising bloodlust the day before, I was taking extra care to be polite, as if I were in the real world again.
“Smart,” I said, and she grinned at me with surprisingly white teeth. I wondered whether her family had money, and either way, if she would ever find her way back to them.
Today, we were working with bergamot and lemon oil, a strong and pleasant scent. The day before, it had been lavender, my mother’s favorite, the scent that pervaded our house back on Powell Street. I preferred not to be reminded of home.
On my other side was a woman from Polyhymnia with a jawline as sharp as a blade, and I tried my luck with her as well. I’d been shy with everyone but Phoebe my whole life. Now that she’d been taken from me, I found, I was forced out of my shell. I was talking with the best of them now, except the best of them were all castoffs and exiles.
“So why were you sent here?” I asked the woman on my right as we both toiled.
“Drink,” she said.
This proved to be the only word I would hear from her lips. My other questions only elicited grunts and shrugs. It was a relief when all heads turned toward a distraction.
“Hey-o! Anyone here?” shouted a male voice.
We all froze. Aside from the attendants and doctors, we’d become accustomed to hearing only voices in our own register. I had heard there was a superintendent but still had not seen him, and none of the inmates could describe what he looked like. The Goldengrove literature we’d seen at the Sidwells’ house had mentioned a highly expert, compassionate medical superintendent, so I assumed he did in fact exist, but perhaps he didn’t. I was seeing every day just how far the reality of the asylum and its literature diverged.
The forewoman, who as far as I knew was not an inmate, beckoned a wagon driver to the wide door. We all watched as he pulled forward to bring his cargo level with the door and gaped as he lowered the gate from the back of the wagon to reveal enormous heaps of rose petals.
The terse, sharp-angled addict from Polyhymnia let out a happy cry and rushed forward, thrusting her arms into the pile. When the forewoman didn’t stop or chastise her, the rest of us joined in, greedily plunging our arms into the heap up to our elbows and then our shoulders. The mute blond from Thalia tossed petals into the air and let them rain down, soundless but grinning as if a chuckle might somehow work its way out. One stuck to her shoulder, and I plucked it off, taking a closer look. Many of the petals were badly bruised, but this one was nearly perfect. I rubbed it like velvet between my thumb and forefinger, feeling, remembering.
Even awake, I was swept away by the memory, and my whole self was lost in the sweet, wandering dream state of my reverie.
* * *
You are my rose, Henry had said.
Hearing his words, I caught my breath. He reached his hand out for my face, turned it, and ran the backs of his fingers oh so gently down the side of my cheek, lingering at my chin.
There was none other like Henry. When the young men of Nob Hill society complimented me, it was as if they read the words from a book, stilted and artificial. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had no idea what they truly thought. Henry’s words I believed. Our conversations never stayed superficial long and indeed took intimate turns, which I think surprised both of us. I told him how I’d mourned both my brothers, especially Fletcher, and about my mother’s single-minded focus on keeping me and Phoebe from harm; he confessed that he still missed his brother John every single day, but though George was alive, rarely a word passed between them.
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