A Deadly Fortune

by Stacie Murphy

  “Amelia?”

  Amelia ignored her, trying to find the source of the sensation. They were at the bottom of a gentle slope; whatever was on the other side was invisible from their vantage point. A small copse of trees grew a stone’s throw from where they stood.

  The spirit in the park had looked like fog before the girl’s shape formed and began to advance. But here, there was nothing. The lead nurse called for them to turn, and as they did, the feeling in Amelia’s breast faded. She breathed a perverse sigh of relief when they reached the asylum, and the gray stone walls lay between her and whatever it was that had nearly found her.

  9

  His head half buried beneath his pillow, Andrew squinted at the window. Well before noon, based on the angle of the light.

  The knock came again, followed by his landlady’s muffled voice. “Dr. Cavanaugh, are you in?”

  “Just a moment.” He threw back the covers and hauled himself upright. He padded to the door, tying on his dressing gown.

  Mrs. Danbury looked taken aback as Andrew peered at her through a crack in the door.

  “Oh dear. I didn’t mean to wake you. I’ve just come back from church, you see, and I wasn’t certain you were here.”

  “It’s quite all right.” He heard his tone and made an effort to soften it as he continued. “Was there something you needed?”

  “There’s someone—a gentleman—in the parlor. He says he’s a friend of yours. A Mr. Edward Glenn?”

  Andrew frowned. “I don’t think I— Wait.” His half-wakened brain snagged on a thought. Ned Glenn had been a friend in college, but he still lived in Boston, the last Andrew had heard. What was he doing in New York? And how did he know Andrew was here? “Please tell him I’ll be down directly.”

  He shaved and dressed quickly, gooseflesh stippling his arms. Mrs. Danbury was a widow who claimed she took in boarders only because she felt safer with men in the house. Her parsimoniousness with things like heat suggested other motives.

  Minutes later, Andrew made his way down the stairs as Mrs. Danbury emerged from the kitchen holding a tray with a coffeepot and a pair of cups.

  Andrew reached for it. “Allow me.”

  She relinquished her burden with a grateful smile and disappeared back into the kitchen. Andrew shouldered open the parlor door and stepped inside. Like its mistress, the room showed evidence of having once been grander than it now was. A pair of tufted sofas, their velvet upholstery worn smooth in spots, faced each other across a low table flanked by chairs with needlepoint covers and arms of dark, shining wood.

  A man’s coat and hat lay across the back of one of the sofas, and the man who’d shed them stood looking out the window. He turned as Andrew set the tray on the table. His face was thinner than Andrew remembered, and there was an unfamiliar degree of strain in his expression, but it was unmistakably his old friend.

  Andrew smiled and shook the hand Ned offered, then gestured for him to sit. “This is quite the surprise. I thought you were still in Boston.”

  “I am,” Ned said, settling uneasily on the edge of a chair. He nodded his thanks as he accepted the coffee cup Andrew offered. “My wife—I don’t suppose you knew I’d gotten married?”

  “I didn’t,” Andrew said. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. And to you as well,” Ned added, his face brightening in sudden recollection. “I believe I heard you were engaged?”

  Andrew tried to suppress a grimace. Cecilia’s family had announced their engagement in several cities’ newspapers. Word of its end hadn’t spread quite as far, it seemed. He busied himself adding sugar to his own cup. “I was, briefly. But not any longer.”

  There was an awkward beat before Ned cleared his throat and went on. “Well, at any rate, my wife’s family is in Boston, and she didn’t want to leave. But I was born here, though there’s no reason you would have remembered that.”

  Andrew hadn’t, in fact. “So you’re visiting?”

  Ned’s posture stiffened, and he toyed with his cup. “Not exactly,” he said, setting the cup on the tray with precise movements. “It’s rather sensitive. I must ask for your discretion.”

  Andrew straightened, realizing why Ned must have come. It was a hazard of his profession, being approached for help with embarrassing medical problems. Ned was recently married. Perhaps he and his wife were having conjugal difficulties. Or it could be something worse. Andrew had been approached several times by men suffering ill effects from extramarital dalliances. “If you’re experiencing a medical issue, surely the place to start would be with your own physician. I’m hesitant to—”

  “It’s nothing like that,” Ned interrupted. “It’s not about me.” He took a breath. “It’s my sister, Julia. She’s missing. I think… we have reason to believe she may be in the city asylum.”

  Whatever he had been expecting, it was not this. Andrew groped for an appropriate response. “I don’t see how that could be,” he said finally.

  “I know it sounds mad.” Ned shot him a tight smile. “Just hear me out.”

  Andrew sat back. “Very well.”

  Some of the tension went out of Ned’s shoulders. “Thank you.” He took a breath, then stopped, seeming uncertain how to begin.

  “Why don’t you tell me a bit about her?” Andrew suggested.

  “Oh. Well. Julia is my elder by nearly ten years.” Ned smiled slightly. “Growing up, it was almost as though I had two mothers. We’ve always been close. Six years ago, she married a man called Bryce Weaver.”

  There was something sour in his tone when he said the man’s name.

  “You don’t like him?” Andrew asked.

  “No,” Ned said frankly. “I never have. I met him for the first time shortly before the wedding, and the whole business struck me as odd. He’s several years younger than Julia, for one thing. And much as I love her, the fact is that Julia was always plain. Quiet. Something of a wallflower. She’d never had a suitor before, and suddenly here was this charming, good-looking fellow wanting to marry her.

  “I didn’t trust it. But Julia was smitten with him—anyone could see it. And, really,” Ned added, “how do you tell your sister you think she’s not pretty enough for the man who says he wants her?” He shook his head. “I kept my worries to myself. They married, and my parents gave them some money to help them get started. Bryce has done well for himself—I understand that he’s become quite wealthy in the last few years.”

  “And your sister?” Andrew asked. “Was she happy?”

  “She seemed to be.” Ned looked down at his hands. “I didn’t see her more than two or three times a year, but we wrote often. There was nothing amiss in her letters. She has a little girl—my niece, Catherine. We call her Kitty. She’s almost five now.”

  He hauled in a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair as he went on. “Four months ago, Bryce came to my parents. He told them Julia had been unwell for some time, and he’d waited as long as he could, but he’d finally made the decision to send her to a place upstate for treatment—for a ‘rest cure,’ he called it. They said Bryce wouldn’t tell them much, but that he hinted Julia had been… inappropriate with men.” Ned flushed and glanced at Andrew, who nodded for him to continue. “And he said she had terrible moods, laughing one minute and crying the next. He claimed she had horrible bouts of anger, screaming and breaking things. That sometimes when she spoke, she made no sense. But my mother had spent the afternoon with her only a few days before and says she was fine.”

  “There are illnesses that can come on suddenly,” Andrew interjected in a cautious tone. “And it’s certainly possible for a sufferer to appear well between bouts of madness.”

  “So I’m told,” Ned replied. “And we might have had to accept it, but for everything that’s happened since.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When my parents asked where Julia was, Bryce wouldn’t say. He said the doctors believed she needed a period of solitude and quiet. My parents were obviousl
y terribly worried, but they agreed. They didn’t even tell me what was happening until weeks later. I think they were trying to save Julia the embarrassment. But if I’d known earlier, I might have been able to do something.” He rubbed at his eyes and went on. “My parents kept asking, and Bryce kept putting them off. And then, a few weeks after he sent Julia away my mother went to the house to visit Kitty, and the servants wouldn’t let her in. Bryce has completely cut off contact with them. It’s half killed my parents,” he added. “They look like they’ve aged twenty years since then. Most of the life has gone out of them.”

  As though he could no longer bear to sit still, Ned sprang from the chair and began to pace around the parlor. “Once my parents told me what had happened, I started looking for Julia on my own,” he continued. “Bryce said ‘upstate,’ but I sent letters and telegrams to every place I could find in half a dozen states. She’s not in any of them. I was considering hiring a private detective to search for her.

  “But then,” he said, “last month, my mother got a letter from Julia’s lady’s maid, Ellen. Her mother had been ailing, and so right after Julia was sent away, Ellen went home to Albany to take care of her. Three weeks later, Bryce fired her, even though he’d given her leave to go. So she stayed in Albany and had no idea about everything that happened after—with Bryce not telling us where Julia was and so on. Ellen said she’d finally heard about it from one of the other servants and was horrified. So she wrote to tell us.”

  “Tell you what?”

  Ned stopped his pacing and dropped onto the couch opposite Andrew. His voice went flat and precise. “Ellen was there when Julia was taken away,” he said. “She said two men half carried my sister out of the house; limp, and wearing a ragged dress Ellen had never seen before. No luggage. One of the men said something about meeting the ferry, and the other said the wagon would be waiting when they got to the island. They had to be talking about the city asylum. My parents telegraphed me as soon as they got the letter, and I got on a train.”

  “And you’ve been here since?”

  Ned nodded. “Trying to find any information I could. I telephoned the asylum. The man I spoke to said Julia wasn’t there. I didn’t believe him, so I took the ferry to the island. I meant to look in the face of every woman in that building if I had to.” His voice was ragged.

  “And?” Andrew said.

  Ned made a sound that was half disgust, half embarrassment. “I’m afraid I made a bit of a scene. A pair of large orderlies escorted me back to the ferry and made it plain I wasn’t to return. I’ve been trying to think of another way ever since.” He sat forward. “But then I heard you’d started working there.”

  His tone made Andrew’s throat tighten. It was that of a drowning man who’d spotted a ship in the distance. A faint hope, but one too precious, too providential, to relinquish.

  And yet it was almost certainly false. The city asylum was for the indigent. A wealthy man like Bryce Weaver wouldn’t be allowed to place his wife there. Most probably, the maid was mistaken in what she’d overheard. Julia Weaver was likely ensconced in some private facility, tucked away in the countryside.

  As if he sensed Andrew’s doubt, Ned leaned forward to look him in the eye. “You have to help me. I can’t give up. She’s my sister.”

  Andrew’s resistance cracked in the face of Ned’s plea. It cost him nothing to look. And if, as Andrew suspected, Julia Weaver were not on the island, Ned would at least know for certain.

  “Very well. I’ll look.”

  Ned slumped with relief, then reached for his coat and dug a hand into the pocket. He extracted a large envelope.

  “Here,” he said, handing it to Andrew. “This is the last letter I received from Julia. You’ll see there’s no hint of anything wrong with her. I’ve also included Ellen’s letter to my mother and a pair of photographs of Julia. Keep them as long as you need. Use them to find her. Please.”

  10

  Amelia went on Promenade three times more over the following week. Each time, the faint presence near the north end of the island tugged at her, though it never revealed itself. Possibly the group simply never went near enough for it to do so. For that small blessing, Amelia was profoundly grateful.

  Life in the ward remained a constant trial. The nurses came and went, each enforcing her own particular set of rules. Sometimes movement and quiet conversation were allowed. Sometimes stillness and silence were required. Minor infractions might be ignored, or they might invite violent rebuke. Slaps and pinches were common. Restraints and doses of chloral hydrate served for those patients who required further correction. Mrs. Brennan especially was quick with the needle. Patients unwise or unlucky enough to cross her often spent the remainder of the day drooling on their cots. Several had been dragged from the ward, one by her hair. None of them returned. Amelia did her best to be invisible whenever the matron appeared.

  Ward two was intended for those whose madness was of a manageable kind. Patients who shouted at invisible antagonists or flew into fits of rage didn’t stay; instead, they were quickly removed to other quarters. Those who suffered subtler afflictions, only appreciable under closer observation, might last longer. A great many, as far as Amelia could tell, were not mad at all—they were simply too old, or too feeble, or too damaged by poverty or drink to survive anywhere else.

  There were a few who seemed entirely out of place. One girl, Janey, could not have been more than sixteen, though her mind was more like a child of three. Many of the ward’s residents doted on her, seeing in the girl, perhaps, their own lost children.

  It was Elizabeth who remained the greatest puzzle. She and Amelia were friendly, after a fashion, sitting together in the ward and arranging to be paired on their outings. The other woman carried herself with quiet dignity. Her speech marked her as educated. Her tone, when she spoke to the nurses, was polite without being deferential. Amelia might have asked how she had come to be here. But there was an unvoiced taboo among the patients against speaking of their lives outside the asylum, and Amelia was loath to explain her own presence, wanting neither to lie nor to be judged insane for telling the truth.

  Amelia was chatting with Elizabeth on a Friday afternoon as the other woman brushed and braided young Janey’s hair. The girl sat with her back to them, playing with a bit of string and humming under her breath. All three looked up as a pair of nurses entered. One carried a clipboard.

  “Attention!” she shouted. “The ward is to receive a visit today from a group of Christian ladies. If I call your name, you are to come forward so they may speak with you. The rest of you will sit quietly on your cots while they are here.” The glare she gave them conveyed the guarantee of consequences for disobedience.

  Elizabeth sighed and patted the girl on the shoulder. “Janey, be a dear and stay right here. I’ll come to you directly. If you’re good, I’ll bring you a sweet.”

  Janey smiled at the promise and went back to playing with her string.

  Elizabeth stood, pulling Amelia with her.

  “What’s happening?” Amelia asked.

  “Charity.” Elizabeth’s expression was resigned. “The Women’s Christian Benevolent Association sends visitors every other month or so. They bring pamphlets and sugar buns and lecture us about the evils of drink and loose ways. I’m not certain what good they think they’re doing,” she added. “We’re all safe from fornication and demon rum in here, and half the women can’t read anyway. But they mean well, I suppose, and the buns are welcome.” She glanced at Janey with a fond smile.

  The nurse began calling names. Patients stepped forward—all of them women capable of coherent conversation and not prone to outbursts.

  “Casey, Carolina!”

  There was a second’s pause before Amelia remembered this was supposed to be her. She moved across the room with a grimace. Elizabeth would certainly ask.

  A second later, however, Amelia had questions of her own as the nurse called, “Fox, Anne!” and Elizabeth started toward
her.

  “Carolina?” Elizabeth asked under her breath.

  “Anne?” Amelia countered.

  The ward door opened before Elizabeth could reply. Mrs. Brennan strode in, leading a cluster of elegantly dressed women. The selected patients straightened and went quiet.

  The visitors spread out from the doorway, their bright, velvet-trimmed gowns and feathered hats shocking against the gray of the ward. They looked like a flock of exotic birds fluttering among the chickens in a tenement yard. They tittered and cooed like birds, too, as they exclaimed over the patients. Amelia tried to maintain a pleasant expression in the face of their condescension.

  One of the women—younger, pink-cheeked, and earnest—turned toward Amelia and Elizabeth. She flipped the cloth off the top of the basket on her arm, and a waft of yeasty, sugar-scented air puffed out. Amelia’s mouth watered. The woman thrust a hand into the hamper and emerged not with the promised sugar bun but with a folded booklet. An improving tract, from the looks of it, doubtless full of essays on the virtues of temperance and chastity. Perhaps a few paragraphs on the importance of feminine modesty.

  The woman offered it to Amelia, who clenched her teeth into a hard little smile and accepted with as much grace as she could muster. She could hardly do anything else, not with Mrs. Brennan watching. The woman pressed a second tract on Elizabeth before reaching into the basket again and offering them each a pastry. Elizabeth accepted with a murmured thanks. Amelia reached for hers, and her fingers brushed against the young woman’s.

  Smoke. Choking, billowing clouds of it abruptly enveloped them, blanking out the room and everyone in it. It stung Amelia’s throat, burned her eyes. She gasped, then doubled over, coughing, as the soot and fumes poured into her lungs.

  A sheet of flame danced across her vision. For an instant she could feel it licking her skin, and she lurched back with a wheezing shudder, turning her face away and closing her eyes against the searing heat. She heard the windows shattering, one by one. They would die, all of them. They had to get out.