When she woke up, she was already inside Goldengrove, wearing the coral uniform of an inmate. She was Woman 125. Her file was a falsified hodgepodge of lies, exclusions, and elisions. The handyman, perhaps out of guilt, had fabricated an identity for her that kept her secret and surrendered his blood money to pay for her care. She was half-mad with the pain from the burns for days, weeks, months. Only now, more than a year later, was the pain beginning to subside.
Her secret was a terrible and dangerous one. It kindled the beginning of an idea in me, but for now, I wanted nothing more than to soothe her, though no words seemed adequate.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her.
She responded with the longest string of continuous words I’d ever heard from her lips. “Let’s not be sorry. Let’s be gone.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next day, all of us from Terpsichore Ward were summoned to the dayroom, everyone, those who worked and those who didn’t. As promised, there’d been no hike, and given the matron’s threat to double our work shifts—which for me meant at least eight hours rendering fat, converting ash to lye, boiling, pouring, struggling, lifting, complying every single day—the possibility of a rest in the dayroom seemed welcome. But were we there to rest? Quickly, we had even stopped whispering and wondering. We were already so far from the routine we had known, understanding what might come next seemed impossible.
When Dr. Concord appeared in front of us, I was surprised but not alarmed. It was highly unusual to see him outside his office but not ominous. And when Veronica Bell appeared, I took it as a good sign. Her presence meant I might have the opportunity to speak with her, to share my secret. She seemed like she might be the answer to my prayers, and I hadn’t even had to go in search of her. Here she was.
Then I saw Matron Baumgarten stride into the room, and all my shiny optimism dissolved in a heartbeat.
Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, the skirt of her dress swinging large on her as always, and I could not read her expression. I saw no anger, but she was intent on something. A wrinkle of concentration had formed between her narrowed brows. Her dark-brown gaze locked on one woman’s face and searched it, then another’s, then another’s.
“Get them in a line,” she said to Dr. Concord, and he in turn gestured to Nurse Bell. Everyone seemed uncomfortable, shifting from place to place, unable to settle.
I scrambled into line and had just realized that the matron was here without Gus when the giant himself entered the room. He stood back from us, next to the door, looming, motionless. If he recognized me, he gave no sign. I moved down a few spaces, ducking behind Bess and in front of poor imbecilic Nettie, landing myself on the far side of the room between Mouse and Nora. Was that what this was about? Were they looking for the nurse who was not a nurse but an inmate pretending, the one Gus had seen in the superintendent’s rooms? I couldn’t rule out the possibility. My heart hammered, blood rushing in my ears.
Once we were assembled, the matron motioned Dr. Concord over, and I could see now he was uncomfortable, fidgeting in a way I’d never seen him do in the comfort of his own office. This was new territory for him somehow. My anxiety grew.
Nurse Bell looked down at a pile of folders she carried in her hands and read off what seemed to be the first name she found there. “Hazel Markham,” she said, almost like a question.
Hazel looked up, the fear of a startled deer in her eyes.
“What diagnosis?” said the matron.
The nurse began to speak, but Dr. Concord’s voice sounded over and above hers, loud and firm. “Miss Markham was diagnosed with monomania and delusions.”
“I wanted to go to school,” Hazel murmured in a thin squeak.
We all held our breath.
As if she had not heard her, still looking at the doctor, the matron asked, “Treatment?”
“Work on the cleaning squad. Regular questioning. Rest and physical exercise.”
“I like the hikes,” Hazel said, her voice squeaking again.
The matron said flatly, “Reassign her to Nelson. He needs more patients.”
Concord said, “But her illness isn’t. . .”
“I said she’s reassigned,” barked the matron and gestured sharply to Gus. The giant grabbed Hazel by the elbow and began to steer her out of the room. She looked back over her shoulder, but he had her into the hallway before any of us could find words to protest, nor did I think anyone would dare to protest, given that none of us wanted to follow where she was going.
The next three women were sized up in the same fashion, the matron demanding answers, the doctor giving them, the nurse nervously juggling folders and reading off names. If any of the three inmates were to be reassigned, the matron didn’t mention it.
Over on our end of the room, everyone was tense but for different reasons. I had no idea what would happen when the matron got to Martha, whom she was known to detest, nor how she would respond when my own case was read out. I still worried that Gus would tell her I was the one who’d pretended to be a nurse. And with Dr. Concord in full possession of my secret, I had even more to fear.
Then I felt Nora, next to me, tense her entire body. I checked her face in alarm. I followed her gaze to Nurse Bell and, more precisely, where the girl’s hand brushed the doctor’s, her fingers trailing over the back of his hand, her eyes half-closed. It looked to me like Nurse Bell was nervous and reaching out for reassurance. Nora clearly didn’t see it the same way.
I risked it and put out a hand to stop her, pressing my palm against her nearer hipbone.
“That little brat. Don’t you hate her?” Nora asked under her breath.
I replied just as quietly. “Hate seems excessive.”
“Does it? Look at her flirt. Disgusting.”
As boldly as I dared, I said, “I think she’s afraid.”
“Better be,” Nora grunted dismissively.
Not for the first time, I wondered whether Nora really loved Dr. Concord. Was their affair a matter of convenience? True love? Something in between? Her resemblance to his dead wife might have started something, but for it to last so long, I believed he did feel something for her truly. Whether the river ran in the other direction, it was harder to say. From the look on her face, love might have been part of her motivation, but possessiveness was what reigned.
The matron then stepped up to Martha, closer than she’d stood to the others, and said, a feline purr entering her voice, “And this one?”
“Martha McCabe.”
I held my breath the entire time the women stood nose to nose, but when the diagnosis and treatment were read out, the matron simply nodded and moved on to the next wardmate.
We stood there, minute after long, exhausting minute, while the rest of the names were read. Finally, there were only three of us left at the end of the line: Mouse, Nora, and myself. Mouse stared at her feet. Nora stared at Veronica Bell. I couldn’t focus on anything or anyone, my gaze roaming, my hands twitching.
Gus had returned from carting off Hazel some time before, and he watched and waited. There was some movement near the doorway I didn’t catch. Then I heard him say, in that quiet voice, “Matron.”
Her body still faced toward us, but when he spoke, she paused and turned her sharp chin to peer at him over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“You’re needed upstairs.”
“Fine,” she said. “Doctor, you’ll finish up here?”
“Yes. Thank you for your time.”
“Of course, you’re most welcome,” she said in a way that made it clear she felt the service she’d been providing was extremely valuable and that he should feel her departure keenly. The matron exited the ward, Gus trailing after her like a wide, silent shadow, and there was no more movement until the sound of their footsteps had faded into nothingness.
Then Nurse Piper, who had watched the previous proceedings in utter silence, was sent off to deliver the evaluated wardmates to their work details. Only Mouse, Nora, and myself remained w
ith Nurse Bell and the doctor. I’d never seen the dayroom so empty. This added to the unsettled feeling that had already crept its way into my every extremity.
The doctor quickly looked over Mouse and said, “You have no questions about your diagnosis, do you?”
Mouse shook her head no.
“Off with you, then,” he said. “Nurse Bell, would you escort Miss Mouse to her work detail?”
She shot him a quizzical look but quickly obeyed. “Of course.” She closed the folder and handed the remaining stack to the doctor, which he took without a word. I doubted she understood why he was sending her away, but she did not stay to ask.
Once the door shut behind them and only three of us remained, the doctor opened his mouth to address me, but it took Nora barely half a heartbeat to fling herself at him so hard, she knocked out his breath. Her body hit his with an audible thud. The files fell from his hands to the ground, and he paid them not the least bit of attention.
I stepped back in shock. I would have stepped back further, but I’d already reached the wall, and there was nowhere to go. I had no choice but to remain, only doing my best to stay out of the way.
“Why?” she hissed, pounding her fists against his chest. “Why her?”
“Who?”
“That hussy nurse! Why her? What are you doing with her?”
He grabbed her shoulders and tried to hold her away from him, trying in vain to keep her at a distance. “Not a thing! Good God, stop it. This isn’t like you.”
He spoke to her but eyed me as he spoke, and I realized he was nervous. He knew I knew about their affair—I’d hinted as much—but there was a difference between knowing in the abstract and having me there in the room with them.
She gasped in such horror, I thought she might collapse on the spot.
“Patrick! You don’t love me! How could you love me and lie?”
He changed his demeanor then, turning from me, and moved his hands gently to the backs of her shoulders, drawing her closer. “Shh, shh.”
“Don’t shush me!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said, attempting to fold her in his arms, but she butted her head against his chest and shoved him away. She knocked him off balance, and he stumbled but did not fall. His gaze flicked in my direction again.
I intervened. “There’s nothing to worry about, Nora. Nothing.”
She turned her venom on me without an instant’s hesitation. “Oh, you know so much, do you, rich girl? You think you know my business? Our business?”
“No, I don’t mean to say—”
“No doubt you’re in league with her. Trying to distract me from the real problem. Patrick, tell me you won’t ever touch that harlot, that strumpet. Tell me, please, please.”
He reached out for her again, and this time, she let him draw her in, wrapping his arms around her back until her face lay flat against his broad chest. I felt I was eavesdropping on something terribly private, but at the same time, I was hardly free to leave. She still seemed wild, dangerous.
The doctor stroked Nora’s hair. “No one but you. Ever. No one but you.”
I noticed he didn’t speak her name. Possibly, it meant nothing. But I wondered how much he was whispering to an asylum inmate and how much he spoke to the memory of his dead wife, only a ghost, whose body in his arms wouldn’t have felt nearly as warm.
After a time, I said softly, “Someone might come in.”
The doctor said, “Let them.”
Though I had been terrified since the moment the matron had walked in the door an hour before, a new kind of fear raced through me at the defiant look on his face and the smug smile of Nora’s I saw against his shoulder.
I knelt to pick up the discarded folders, gathering them into a neat pile, wondering if our very lives were of as little interest as the facts of our cases. I worried that they were and what that meant for our futures.
* * *
It didn’t take long for the matron’s innovations to have an effect, but it wasn’t the effect she wanted. Asylum operations began, almost immediately, to break down.
Only the day after the matron had personally confirmed our diagnoses, Terpsichore and Erato were scheduled for the usual cold baths. With only two nurses to wash two full wards’ worth of women—more than three dozen of us—they couldn’t even keep us to a line, let alone wash our unruly, disobedient bodies. The hose bucked in Piper’s hand, and she dropped it, splashing the nearest inmates, one of whom exclaimed loudly that the water wasn’t even cold. Perhaps the ice had run out. We looked at each other, not sure how to feel, and the inmate who had spoken crossed her arms over her bare chest, a wry, challenging smile on her face.
The nurse from Erato, a Nurse Dumbarton, stepped up to her, hissing loudly. “Perhaps you ladies would behave if we invited the attendants in to keep order! Should you like that? I’ll call them in now, just watch me.”
Piper, to her credit, balked at the absurd suggestion. She put her hand on Dumbarton’s arm. “Now, I don’t think that’ll be necessary.” Turning to a group of us near the far wall, she gestured toward the door, her voice shaky. “Okay, we’ll do this in groups. You there, you go back to the ward. We’ll call you back up to wash later.”
We yanked our dresses back on and obeyed, hastening out into the hall. Salt accompanied us back to Terpsichore, and we all went, but when he left the ward to rush back to the baths—there was no one else to stand guard—he left the door unlocked.
Two other women left immediately, headed in the direction of the kitchen. Martha and Celia were still upstairs getting washed, so we couldn’t discuss escape plans, and while Nora had walked back in my group, she immediately lay down on her bed and rolled to face the wall. She’d been irritable and jumpy since the incident in the dayroom. Her ecstatic jealousy over Veronica Bell made me see for the first time that perhaps she’d been put in Goldengrove for good reason. Her charm had kept me from seeing it before. I wasn’t one to miss an opportunity and headed out after the two women who’d left but in the other direction.
Halfway to Phoebe’s ward, I peeked into the open door of Erato and saw that it was empty of patients for the moment, but a nurse was there, hastily making the beds. I looked more closely. Miracle of miracles, it was Veronica Bell.
I seized my moment, drawing inside the open door, my wet hair straggling down to my shoulders. I was sure I looked a fright; I wouldn’t have time to wait for an opportunity when I didn’t.
“Veronica,” I said.
“Nurse Bell,” she corrected automatically. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“You’re more right than you know!” I said, laughing, then saw by the look of horror on her face that my laughter had frightened her. I sobered as quickly as I could. I felt the moment slipping from my grasp.
“Veronica,” I said. “We know each other. From San Francisco. I’m Charlotte Smith—you knew me, and you knew my sister, Phoebe. The two of you were at Miss Buckingham’s.”
Comprehension began to dawn on her face, though the tension there did not slack.
“Very unexpected,” she said, still gripping a folded pillowcase, which she pressed against her chest. “I would have thought you and Phoebe both off and married by now.”
“You’d think so,” I said, “but instead, we’re both here.”
“No shame in that. If you needed help, this is a fine place to search for it.”
“No!” I said, too loudly. “You don’t understand. We don’t belong here. I snuck in to save Phoebe.”
“Did she sneak in too?”
“No. But she—I—I need your help, Veronica.”
Her brow grew tight with confusion. “I can’t imagine any way I could help you.”
“You could get a message to Henry Sidwell.”
“Henry Sidwell?” She gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “I’ve never spoken with him in my life! Didn’t he sail to Patagonia?”
“Old information,” I said. “He returned.”
“
Bully for him. Charlotte, you need to go back to your ward. You shouldn’t be here.”
I was growing agitated and clutched my hands into fists to try to arrest my hysterics, but then I realized how threatening I looked, and instead, I lay my hands flat on my skirt, willing them down, fighting my instincts with all I had.
“Send word to Henry,” I said firmly, looking her dead in the eye. “You have someone you still talk to in San Francisco? If you heard about Henry’s journey to Patagonia, you must. . .”
“Yes. And my correspondent in San Francisco is also very good friends with Amelia Burdick, Jack’s mother. So that’s not all I’ve heard.”
Panicked, I pleaded, “Please. It’s life and death for me, and for Phoebe, and it has no cost to you. Just send word to Henry Sidwell that Charlotte Smith is inside Goldengrove, even though she’s as sane as a judge, and she needs his help to get out.”
I searched her face to see if there was anything else I could say and noted with horror that she wasn’t even looking at me—her gaze was directed over my left shoulder, and her mouth had fallen open. What happened next was so fast, I couldn’t even act to stop it, though I would have given anything to do so.
Nora was moving so quickly, she was only a blur, and she shouted as she came, raising something dark over her head.
“Hold her, Charlotte!” she screamed to me.
“What?”
And a dark thing came down at Veronica Bell, and the blow on the side of her head sent her flying, with Nora landing on top of her, shouting, “Hussy! Whore! Whore!”
I reached down to rip Nora off the fallen woman, but she was hard to dislodge, a veritable strongwoman in her fury. Next, I grabbed at the wildly swinging iron bar—where had she found such a thing? I managed to catch the end of it—flesh meeting metal with such force, I feared she’d broken my fingers, an explosion of pain—and yanked it from her grasp.
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