I shuffled around the rest of the day without energy. It almost felt like someone had slipped me a soporific again. Even when it was announced that today was the day for our cold baths, I couldn’t find it in me to care.
For the first time, I truly submitted to the mistreatment. I shucked my dress and stood with the others, not twitching or flinching, not doing anything at all. The nurse rubbed the wretched soap hard against every part of my body, and I stared off into the distance, wondering whether Nora was going to help me or betray me. It was out of my hands now.
Instead of experiencing the baths, I drifted in and out of understanding, catching sight of moments. Nettie yelping when the jets hit her, shivering afterward, her lips a glacial blue. The matron standing with folded arms at the periphery, her dark eyes intent on our humiliation. Nora removing her dress, the lines that marked her days in the asylum exposed to the air and washed, the older ones almost as pale as the rest of her skin, the newer ones scarlet, livid. I wondered what the doctor thought of them, or if he thought of them at all, shutting out any part of her that didn’t match the wife she stood in for.
Martha appeared again near bedtime, a fresh cut already turning red and purple on her cheek. Whether the mark was from the fight or she’d been punished violently for doing violence, she wore it proudly. Bess was the first to welcome Martha back and shake her hand. Animosities might spring up now and again among us, but common enemies brought us together.
That night, I lay on my bed with wet hair, the familiar cold sinking into my bones, and I closed my eyes tight against the darkness. I swam and ducked my way toward the reverie. I needed to lose myself.
It took time, but at last, the dank world of the asylum around me disappeared, and I found myself strolling among my memories as if they were pathways in a garden, low and grassy on one side, hilly and unexplored on the other.
I’d made plans to walk with Henry in Golden Gate Park, but Mrs. Bisland had taken ill with a summer cold, and my mother was quick to insist the plans be cancelled. Phoebe was equally quick to volunteer her own services as chaperone. Mother refused. Phoebe convinced her to allow us to call on the Sidwells so we could inform Henry of the change of plans and perhaps to stay for a little tea if we were invited. Grudgingly, my mother accepted, reminding us that asking for such an invitation would be the height of rudeness. We assured her we would only stay if asked, like good young ladies.
Phoebe was in one of her best phases, neither too manic nor too dark. From the moment we arrived on the Sidwells’ porch, she was charming. She spoke in warm, cheerful tones to the maid, and she turned her sunny smile like a lantern on Mrs. Sidwell, who admitted she rarely got to enjoy the company of young ladies, as a mother of only sons. In a matter of mere sentences, Phoebe persuaded Mrs. Sidwell to give her a lesson in needlepoint and that since neither Henry nor I might benefit from her expertise on the matter, we might as well go walking in the gardens behind the house. Mrs. Sidwell agreed. She and my sister seated themselves on the sofa with their hoops and needles, and Henry extended his arm to gesture toward the door, his eyes sparkling.
Nearly giddy with my luck, I walked with Henry, not touching, out past the orderly rows of the English garden with its gazing ball and gravel paths to the less manicured wilds beyond. Once the garden lay behind us, he peeked over his shoulder, then pointed to a finger of lawn behind a small stand of California nutmeg, saying, “Here. Here, we can’t be seen from the house.”
We lay on our backs in the grass next to each other. I felt delighted, naughty. The grass prickled the delicate skin above the neck of my dress, and I scratched at it, then lay my hands at my waist, my elbows resting in the grass. For what felt like a long time, we didn’t speak. The silence was perfect and lovely.
The rays of the sun nearly blinded me at this slant, but I would not let myself move. Henry was so close. His arm touched my arm. I could feel the warmth of his skin. A winged Pegasus soaring across the sky would not have stirred me from the spot.
“I’m told my brother is coming home,” he said.
“Good news?”
“News, in any case. I hope he’s matured. When we were younger, he always wanted anything I had, no matter how small. A book, a ball, a hot cross bun. Foolish, now that I think of it, for a boy of thirteen years to feel a rivalry with his brother of three. He would take things away from me just to watch me cry.”
“I suppose he was the baby for so long, he didn’t care to be replaced by a new one,” I said.
I heard what sounded like the rustle of him turning toward me, but I chose to continue looking up. Our faces would be so close together if I turned. I liked that he was turning and I was not. I felt a shiver of delicious tension that had nothing to do with our words.
“That’s quite insightful, Miss Charlotte.”
“A guess,” I said modestly, though I was fairly sure I was correct. “So where has he been?”
“Sacramento,” he said.
“Not that far. Yet you two rarely speak?”
“Oh, he’s quite occupied, especially to hear him tell it. Political maneuvering and whatnot in the capital. Plus he manages some of our father’s business interests, including the asylum. I’m glad he does—if he didn’t, I would have to, and I’d rather not take on those responsibilities just yet. I still want adventures. In any case, he’s not interesting to talk to. Or about. Not half as interesting as, for example, you.”
“Pish.”
He nudged me gently with an elbow. I rolled my head to the side, just an inch, and there he was, smiling at me. There was nothing else in the world so wonderful as his smile.
I said, “Why did you think of him?”
“I didn’t, really. I just tell you what comes into my mind. I hope that’s all right.”
“Of course it’s all right. What brings him back?”
“His wife died.”
Selfishly, horribly, my first reaction in the moment was to curse the woman. We’d been speaking so naturally, so intimately, and a sad topic could only darken our mood. I did my best to say the words I knew I should. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“I only met her once.”
“She was lovely, I’m sure.”
“She was strange,” he mused. “Tall and striking.”
“Is it so strange to be tall?”
“No. Though I do like the look of a petite lady,” he said, his eyes sweeping my figure from top to toe. He continued on so quickly, I had no time to react, which was for the best. “She was almost as tall as George. In some ways, she was the perfect partner to him. A politician needs the right wife, of course.”
“A perfect hostess,” I said.
“Yes. Someone to smile and nod and look beautiful.”
“Sounds like a position I should apply for,” I joked, “except for the beauty.”
“No, especially the beauty,” said Henry, looking at me intently, and my breath caught in my throat.
“You’re . . . kind” was all I managed to say. And then, though his brother’s dead wife was the last thing I wanted to talk about, I felt I needed to. “What was so strange about her, then?”
“He said she had moods, after they were married, that she’d never had before. Like a summer storm. Calm and regal one minute, howling with fury the next.”
I swallowed hard and confessed, “Sounds like Phoebe.”
After a pause, he said, “A bit.”
Neither of us spoke. Was he lifting his arm away from mine, just a little? As I had cursed the woman for dying, now I cursed myself for bringing my sister into the conversation, a conversation that should have gone straight back to sweet nothings. I wanted him to keep touching me forever.
I asked, “How did she pass?”
“The house burned down.”
“Saints alive! How did he escape?”
“He wasn’t there, fortunately. He was taking his supper with some other politicians at the Western Hotel. They thought it started in the parlor. She was known for reading no
vels late into the night with a candle, and it seemed perhaps the drapes caught fire . . .” He looked at my face, which must have shown my distress at such a harrowing story. “But hush. I’m sorry. Let’s not talk of such things. What shall we talk about instead?”
I asked him about his voyage to Patagonia, a topic of which I never tired. His adventures on the Compass seemed so wild, so enormous, as if they’d taken place in another world beyond our own. He told me about the rope that tangled around his ankle during a storm, which nearly yanked him overboard, a fall he would never have survived. He told me of the flocks of squawking, soaring birds, thousands of wild yelping creatures that surrounded the ship and made him feel like an alien presence on the surface of the sea. He still did not speak of Marguerite, though I knew her name from Sarah Walsh, and I also knew that the man for whom she’d thrown him over was now her husband. They’d been married in the Palm Room at the Conservatory of Flowers; my mother had swooned over the newspaper accounts. Henry had sought oblivion in adventure and found it. It seemed that had satisfied him. Now he was home.
And I couldn’t help hoping that he would find the courage for a second betrothal even though his first had ended so badly. But I didn’t push or prod. I never mentioned marriage. I treated him like a chick in a nest, ever-delicate, watching every movement for meaning.
And as he lay next to me in the grass telling me about Patagonia, he entwined his fingers with mine, and I knew it was only a matter of time until he would be strong enough to ask, and of course I knew what I would say. I’d been practicing for years, ever since the day he spoke kindly to me at the Pioneer Park picnic, his smile soft and welcoming. I was ready to be Mrs. Henry Sidwell and none other.
Phoebe’s voice, calling musically but insistently, crept into my awareness. I wondered at first that she was shouting, which wasn’t polite, but realized quickly she had her reasons. She was giving us time to compose ourselves before we were seen. Mrs. Sidwell’s voice joined hers, somewhat more demanding in tone, and I knew the time had come to rejoin the others. I scrambled to my feet and went with joy, grateful for these moments, short as they were. When we were married, we would have all the moments we wanted. All the time in the world.
A few days after Henry spoke to me about his brother’s return, I saw the brother in question exit the house. I kept a close eye on their door, of course, for my own reasons. He was shorter than Henry, far older, quite distinguished-looking. His hair was dark as a raven’s wing with a streak of silver on each temple, as precise and even as if laid there with a slant-tipped paintbrush. The last thought in particular amused me; I made a note to mention it to Phoebe, who would be pleased that art was on my mind and would take it as an opportunity to explain in detail which tasks required which type of brush. I liked to give her these opportunities.
This, then, was George. I’d seen him years before, of course, but as with Henry, the years had changed him. There was a formality to him I hadn’t remembered. Even as he mounted the steps from his parents’ house into a waiting carriage—a moment where he could not have expected to be witnessed by anyone of import—he was stately, his back straight, his pace measured. A natural politician, I thought. I hoped he would not disapprove of my romance with Henry. I thought his arrival might even be a good thing. If the Sidwells were caught up in furthering George’s political career, setting their hopes on him as the next generation’s lodestar, it would matter little to them who Henry married. Perhaps they were in favor of my marrying Henry; perhaps they had never given it a moment’s thought. I had no idea. It was not the type of thing they would discuss with me, and I did not think it wise to ask my mother, who had made her own opinion clear. George interested me only as a potential help or hindrance in my path to Henry. His clean-shaven face was not one-tenth as interesting to me as his brother’s, a face I still longed to stroke, to kiss, to own.
On most nights, I slid out of my reverie as smoothly as a thief slides through an open window. While I was never glad to open my eyes and find myself on a cold cot staring at the distant ceiling of Terpsichore Ward, the warm and tender haze of pleasant memories generally lingered with me, easing the transition from a beautiful memory into a bunkroom no one would characterize as anything near beautiful.
This night was different.
As my drowsy haze began, thoughts of Henry in the sunlight fresh in my mind, I became aware of something else. There was a dark shape above me, and I woke with a start. Was I being attacked? I had no weapon. All I could do was open my eyes and hope for the best.
A pale face hovered over mine in the darkness, and I readied myself to lunge at it, but I quickly recognized the upturned nose, and I knew Nora, even in outline.
Quietly, calmly, as if we’d just taken afternoon tea by the soaring glass windows in the elegant ladies’ parlor at Cliff House, she said, “Walk with me.”
Chapter Eleven
I was accustomed to doing what Nora told me. This case was no exception. Though she had woken me in the pitch-dark, I didn’t hesitate to follow her.
I bent to put my shoes on, and she put her hand on my ankle. I looked at her; she shook her head no. We stood and headed for the door. Somehow, she had slid the bolt, and the door stood open, swinging wide in silence. I knew it was not the time to ask questions. I simply followed. She pulled the door shut behind us, and I shuddered to think what would happen if we were unable to get back in, but I trusted she had come up with an answer to that too. I didn’t need to know the answer as long as I could believe there was one.
Her feet were bare as well and made no noise on the cold floor as she led me down the hallway. The path was familiar at first. We headed toward the doctors’ offices, but then she turned left just beyond that and hustled up a staircase I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before, up and up, and we were quickly in unfamiliar territory.
I reached out for the door ahead of us, but she gestured for me to put my hand down. Of course it would be locked, I told myself, and not possible for me to open.
Nora reached into her skirt and withdrew a single brass key. I could not have been more shocked if she’d produced a gold nugget the size of her fist. Where had she gotten it? How? Even as I asked the question, I answered it—the doctor could get her anything she wanted—and kept to our shared silence.
She fit the key to the lock, and even in the quiet, I didn’t hear the click of the lock opening. She was careful, careful. The door swung open silently, and I saw immediately what it was she had brought me to find: the asylum’s records.
The room was used for storage and nothing else. There were no desks, no beds, no tables, only cabinet after cabinet of files. I moved toward one wall, and Nora didn’t stop me, so I assumed it was safe to explore. It was hard to see, given the dark, but I recognized right away the alphabetical arrangement of the drawers. Mere minutes were enough for me to move around the walls, skipping quickly from letter to letter, finding my way mostly by touch. There were several drawers marked S. In the third one, I located my sister’s file.
Smith, Phoebe Anne. There were a dozen or so sheets of paper. I started with the first. Skimming the words, I saw enough to set my heart racing. Here, set down in ink, I saw the story of her spells, how they had worsened over time, and our parents’ decision to send her here when she became belligerent and intractable. Her official diagnosis was mania brought on by emotional turmoil. I hadn’t expected to see that. My gut clenched.
Me. I was the turmoil.
I repeated what I’d told myself back in the dining room on Powell Street, what felt like years ago now: it was up to me to clean up the mess.
Nora tapped me on the shoulder, gesturing to indicate I needed to put the file back where I’d found it. She guided me to flip it back to the first page and pointed to a spot halfway down. Her head was at my shoulder, and I could hear and feel her breath. We were sisters in silence here, guarding each other’s secrets, and I would never be able to repay her. Melpomene Ward, it said. Room 5-C.
I h
ad the information we’d come for. It was time to go.
Our path back was the same but in reverse, and I could tell we were nearing the ward again. As we reached an intersection I knew, where half a dozen hallways converged under a rotunda, I stopped Nora. My heart pounded in my chest as I did it. I mouthed the word Melpomene and pointed down a different hallway, into the darkness. She shook her head firmly. A hint of dawn was just beginning to show through the glass of the rotunda above. It would be morning soon. We didn’t have much time.
When I took a step in the direction my hand pointed—as if my body, not my mind, had made the decision—she jerked me back so hard, I almost tumbled to the ground.
Nora’s mouth was against my ear, her hands painfully tight on my wrists. “Last chance,” she said. It was all she needed to say.
I was instantly contrite. Whatever her position here and however much her lover did or didn’t protect her, she’d taken a leap of faith for my sake. I couldn’t put her at further risk.
We crept the rest of the way back to the ward without incident. With the door safely shut and locked behind us, we both lay back down on our cots. Judging by the sound of her regular, easy breaths, Nora slept; I stared up at the faraway ceiling and thought about how I might find my way to a ward where I wasn’t permitted and didn’t belong.
* * *
I plotted and pondered, but no matter how I came at it, I found no answer beyond the one that sprang to mind the moment I saw my sister’s file: I needed one more look at the map.
I was fairly certain that Melpomene was on the floor above us, but what if I was wrong? I had realized that attempting to enter every single ward was foolishness itself. Our warders were not geniuses, but neither were they clowns. My luck could only hold for so long.
Knowing the name of the ward left two questions to answer: Which floor was it on, and what would I find once I opened the door? Something about the number from the file tickled at my brain. Room 5-C. A room within the ward. Another reason to look at the map, to know how the ward was constructed and whether the rooms within were mapped as well. Anything that would make my search even a minute faster was essential.
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