A Splendid Ruin: A Novel

by Megan Chance

  “I got into a—? It wasn’t like that. Josie attacked me.”

  “For what reason?”

  “She claimed I was in her bed.”

  “Why were you in her bed?”

  “I wasn’t in her bed. Or if I was, I didn’t know it. I took the bed Mrs. Donaghan gave me.”

  “I also understand that you hit another patient earlier in the evening.”

  I stared at him in bewilderment, and then I remembered the girl picking at the trim on my coat. “She was trying to pull my coat apart.”

  “And the correct response was to hit her?”

  “I—I wasn’t thinking. I was distraught.”

  “As you were when you took the wrong bed?”

  “I wasn’t in the wrong bed.”

  “As distraught as you were when they had to forcibly remove you from your uncle’s home?”

  “You don’t understand. They were . . . It was all a lie. All of it. I didn’t touch my aunt. My uncle is trying to steal my money. If you would just listen to me—”

  “Miss Kimble, you know none of that is true. Your uncle cares very much for you. He brought you to San Francisco, when you had nowhere else to go. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Even when there were rumors of insanity in your family. Your aunt was so afflicted. Your mother too, I understand.”

  “Mama was not afflicted,” I insisted. “I don’t know why everyone keeps saying that.”

  “I believe there was some long-ago incident? A—” Dr. Scopes glanced briefly at the open folder. “A dispute of some kind, where your mother’s inappropriate behavior caused her fiancé to break their engagement? Your uncle says it was bad enough that her own family refused to have anything to do with her.”

  I did not know what to say to that. I didn’t know the full story, only what was in my mother’s letter, but I did not believe for one moment that my uncle was telling the complete truth. “I never saw any evidence that my mother was insane.”

  “But would you know it if you saw it?” Dr. Scopes asked. “Given your own tendencies toward inappropriate thoughts.”

  “I don’t have inappropriate thoughts.” I couldn’t soften the edge of desperation in my voice. This was all going so wrong. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No? Did you not just say to me that your uncle killed your aunt and accused you of murdering her so that he could steal your money? Your uncle, who wants only the best for you? Who has sent you to Blessington to guarantee you get the very best care?”

  “He wants me out of the way,” I tried.

  “And what of your inappropriate thoughts about”—again, a glance at the folder—“Mr. Farge?”

  My stomach lurched.

  “He claims you followed him and urged him to immoral behavior. He says you pursued him at all hours, that you even skipped church to bedevil him.”

  “No.” I could not make my voice louder than a whisper.

  Dr. Scopes’s expression softened. “You see, Miss Kimble? There are reasons you’re at Blessington. But we cannot help you unless you try to remove these absurd fancies from your head.”

  How he turned everything. Even to my own ears I sounded a lunatic.

  As I was led back to my bed, my panic grew with every step, as did the fear I had not yet truly let myself feel. But I was terrified now. Terrified of the doctors, of myself, of the way they made me question my thoughts. How long might it be before I began to believe them? How long before this mirage turned real? Once in the ward, I crept behind the curtains, pressing my face to the window so the chill might sear through my fogged brain. The only view was a hedge next to a brick wall. Numbly I stared at a bed of dead flowers between the hedge and the building.

  “Come away from there, Kimble,” Gould called.

  I stepped into the chaos of the room and the noisomeness that the window had cleared for the briefest of moments. Josie rocked by the fireplace again. Millie spat repeatedly on the carpet. The dark-haired girl who’d torn at my coat watched me with a wide, unblinking stare that made my flesh crawl.

  Nurse Costa was back at the door. She’d taken the button, the proof that my uncle had been with my aunt in her last moments. I was not foolish enough to believe it was proof of anything now. Only my uncle knew what it meant. Only he and I. But it was a reminder that I was not delusional, a reminder that what I’d seen was real, and without it, what might I start to believe about what had happened? What might I become? I’d seen how easily my thoughts and words could be twisted. I could trust no one. I had to have that button. The nurse would surely give it back to me if I asked nicely.

  I stood before her.

  She didn’t look up from her cards. “Go back to your bed.”

  I didn’t move.

  She slapped a card down. “Are you deaf? I told you to go back to bed.”

  “I wanted to thank you for saving me from Josie.”

  Now she looked up. I saw no recognition in her eyes. “What?”

  No doubt such things were frequent enough to forget.

  “When she tried to strangle me.”

  The nurse returned to her game. “You’re welcome. Go back to bed.”

  “I would like my button back please.”

  “What button?”

  “The gold button you took from me. It was on the bed, remember? It was mine, but you took it.”

  “It’s my job to take all possible weapons.” She spoke it as a much-recited rule.

  “How could it have been a weapon?”

  “Why, it could’ve choked someone.”

  “I assure you I had no intention—”

  “You could’ve shoved it down someone’s throat. Or even your own.”

  “I would never do such a thing.”

  She set down the deck. “Go back to your bed.”

  I held my ground. Without that button, I might truly go insane. “I will. When you give me the button.”

  The bells rang. Stiff, staccato chimes, so loud it sounded as if the bell tower were right above our heads. The other women in the ward responded like animals in a zoo, on their feet, lining up at the door.

  The look in Costa’s eyes should have warned me. I should have gone to stand in that line. I should have forgotten about the button. Instead, I stayed put, and Costa called, “Gould! Miss Kimble here is asking for special treatment.”

  “Special treatment? No. I just want—”

  “She’s new, Costa,” Gould said mildly as she came up beside me.

  “Then it’s better she learn quickly,” Costa said with a sneer. “The filth that came out of her mouth! She needs a lesson.”

  “Maybe just a warning this time,” Gould suggested.

  “Are you questioning me?” Costa’s dark eyes hardened. I felt the silent struggle between them, and then Costa’s triumph when Gould looked away. “I thought not. Go on now. I’ll send O’Rourke.”

  I was wary when Gould led me from the room, but I didn’t yet know enough to be panicked. The other women filed downstairs. The gamy smell of boiled beef mixed with all the other scents of the place in a sickening mélange, and still my stomach growled with hunger.

  “It’s time for lunch, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “You’ll get your meal.” Gould’s words were cloaked in a deep weariness.

  She stopped before the door to the toilet. I said, “I don’t need to use it, thank you.”

  She ignored me and pushed it open, escorting me inside. I gagged at the stench emanating from the wood, rotted in places around the toilets lining one wall. Porcelain sinks were corroded. Paper bits adhered to the floor. Something had splashed onto the walls and stained them. Someone had vomited recently and missed the toilet.

  “I really do not need to use this,” I insisted.

  At the far side of the room, beneath the window, was a chair. I’d assumed it was for a nurse waiting for a patient, and so I was surprised when Gould pulled me over to it. “Sit down,” she demanded.

&nb
sp; The chair too was filthy and stained. “I’d rather not.”

  At that moment, the door opened again and Costa came inside with O’Rourke, who carried a tray.

  “Go on to the dining room,” Costa instructed Gould with a grim smile.

  It was all I could do not to beg Gould to stay, especially when she gave me a quick, sympathetic glance. But she fled.

  “Sit down,” Costa snapped.

  “No, I—”

  She shoved me hard to the damp, slimy floor. I caught myself with my hands, and drew away in disgust. “Oh dear God. Is there a towel—”

  Costa yanked me up by the hair. I cried out, and she twisted harder until tears blurred my eyes, until I had no choice but to sit into the chair, and then I saw the straps. Leather straps that she buckled around my throat and my breasts and my hips, my shins.

  “I don’t understand. What are you doing?”

  Costa gestured to O’Rourke, who strapped the tray across the armrests. It held a hank of stringy boiled beef, a wedge of bread, a glass of water. There were no utensils. “Lunch time. Eat up.”

  I stared at them both in horror. My appetite died abruptly. “I’m not hungry.”

  “No?” Costa asked. “Not even a little bit of bread?” She tore off a piece and waved it before my mouth. Then, deliberately, she dropped it to the floor. “Oh, dear. Well.” She picked it up. “Waste not, want not.” She shoved it against my lips. I clenched my jaw. She shoved harder, grinding my lips against my teeth until I tasted blood. “Open up!” She sighed and gave O’Rourke a sorry shake of her head. “Shall I get the wedge?”

  O’Rourke rolled her eyes and crossed her beefy arms over her chest, but she didn’t argue, and I realized that whatever it was that had forced Gould to follow Costa’s orders had struck the other nurse as well. She would not help me. Costa leaned over and grabbed my jaw, pinching until I could not resist. Tears streamed down my cheeks as she shoved that soiled bread into my mouth. When I spat it out again, she repeated it. Once, twice, a third time, until I could only swallow, and then she stood back in triumph.

  “Eat it all,” Costa commanded. “You’ll stay here until you do.”

  “Don’t bother throwing it to the floor,” advised O’Rourke. “She’ll only do it again.”

  I believed her. The bread lodged in my chest; I felt it as a diseased thing trying to claw its way back up, and the nurses had no sooner left me alone in that nauseatingly wretched room than I threw it up again, along with everything I’d eaten at breakfast, all over myself. It ran down my front, pooled in my lap. I tried to wipe it away with my already begrimed hands. I wanted the water, but when I drank it I only vomited again. The meat glistened in the half light, the bread mocked me.

  A patient came in to use the toilet. She cocked her head like a dog at me, lifted her skirts, and when she was done, she came and grabbed the meat from my tray. She tore it apart with her bare hands, shoved half of it into her mouth and threw the other half back on my tray before she went away laughing.

  I don’t know how long I was there. The window darkened. The gaslight burned steadily and low. No one else came. No nurse to check on me. My bladder became full, then overfull, and I held it until I could not. The mess on my hands dried and stiffened. The bells rang out the schedule. I did not know what it was, what they meant. I gagged and cried and tugged at the straps and then I did nothing but sit and stare and moan in pure helplessness, and then, finally, I closed my eyes. I pretended I was not here. I was in a quiet room, my dining room of dark walls and pale floors. I pretended I was drawing.

  Finally, O’Rourke peeked in. “What? Still not eating?”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I’ll be good.”

  She stood before me and crossed her arms over her apron. “Is that so? Why don’t you show me then? Eat it, and I’ll take you back to the ward.”

  I was desperate by then. The offer seemed a miracle. I reached for the bread.

  She slapped it from my hands. It rolled across the floor, coming to rest against the base of a toilet. “The meat. I want you to eat the meat.”

  My stomach roiled. “I can’t.”

  “Then I guess you’ll stay.” She turned to go.

  “Why are you this way? No one can be so mean. Why do you let Nurse Costa tell you what to do?”

  It was the wrong thing to say.

  O’Rourke turned back. Again the crossed arms. Again the waiting. This time, her eyes were stony. Whatever compassion I might have seen in her before was gone.

  The meat was cold and greasy and quivery in my soiled fingers. I pulled off a piece. The gristle caught; finally I had to tear it with my teeth. My gorge rose; I would not be able to swallow this, I knew I could not, and there was vomit and filth on my fingers and still I pressed it into my mouth—I could no longer see; I was crying, no, I was sobbing.

  Nausea rushed so violently through me I could not get it past my lips. I vomited everything all over the tray, and O’Rourke watched me until I was dry heaving and then she bent until her face was even with mine. Only then did I see any hint of emotion in her eyes, though it wasn’t sympathy. It was relief. Relief that it was over, that she’d done her job, that we could dispense with this.

  “You going to be a good girl now, Kimble?”

  I nodded fervently.

  She unstrapped me, making a face the whole time, as if I were so disgusting she could not bear to touch me. Then she prodded me into the hall. By then the stench had permeated my skin, the inside of my nostrils. I thought I would never be rid of it. I shook as she led me, not to the ward again, but down the stairs, past others who stared at me as if I were a walking disease, to a room I hadn’t seen before, lined with rubber-sheeted mattresses, some of which held women wrapped shroud-like in water-soaked sheets. Two men in raincoats and rubber boots sloshed pails of water over the women. There were three empty baths with limp and swollen leather straps. Coils of dripping hoses hung on the walls. The tiled floor was pocked with drains.

  O’Rourke took me to a chair in an empty corner and called over one of the men. “She stinks.”

  My mind was gone; I was nowhere. I was no one. I scarcely knew what was happening when he uncoiled a hose, when he pointed the nozzle at me. I was completely unprepared for the force of freezing water that blasted me from the chair. Pain shot through my arm, my head hit the chair leg, but the chair was bolted to the floor and did not move, and then I was drowning, gasping for air through a gush of water, wishing I were dead.

  When they took me back to the ward, I could no longer feel any part of myself. They gave me a draught of chloral, which went to work quickly on my cramping, empty stomach. O’Rourke said, “Be good now, Kimble,” and I clutched those words as tightly as I could. Be good. Be good. Yes, I would be very, very good.

  I did whatever was asked of me without argument. The days ran into each other. The cursed light burned all night long, but sleep could not come soon enough for me, and I welcomed the chloral, though I did not take it in the daytime because I was too afraid. I saw what the bored lunatics did to the women in drugged stupors. Picking at their hair, slapping them in a game of Who can slap them hard enough to make them shout? The nurses standing guard were lazy and pretended to be oblivious, but they took notes constantly, and when they were roused from their inertia, they had heavy hands and many weapons at their disposal. Long fingernails, leather straps, slaps. The corners of the metal beds were sharp. All of us had bruises.

  The nurses rotated shifts throughout the wards, and so we knew them all, and we knew who were the kinder ones. Gould, Findley. O’Rourke sometimes, though none of them could be relied upon when Costa was there. After the asylum matron, Mrs. Donaghan, Costa was next in charge. Her poison infected them all to one degree or another, but the attitudes of the nurses originated from a more base instinct. In their eyes, we’d lost our humanity along with our minds. Those of us who could not be cajoled, corralled, or otherwise controlled were seen as animals. Whatever compassion
the nurses once had was stripped away by the sheer relentlessness of our insanity.

  Only ten days ago, I’d been living in luxury. My sheets had been soft and scented. My clothes fine, perfectly fitted. The food of the best quality. But it had all been a lie. Everything financed in anticipation of my inheritance, which was no doubt in the hands of my relatives now. I wondered if they’d already replaced the things they’d sold—the hall mirror, the angel worshipped by all its little fawns. Was my money even now furnishing all those empty rooms? I tried not to think of it. It only made everything worse.

  I fell into the schedule dictated by the relentless and despised asylum bells. Each time I met with Dr. Scopes or Dr. Madison, I tried to act completely sane, but the strain made me seem otherwise, and I knew the doctors saw that too. It seemed a conundrum without a solution. I tried to be polite and pleasant, to not constantly harp on my family’s perfidy, because each time I did, the doctors only sighed and muttered variations of You must put such thoughts from your head. Each time, I believed the truth must matter. Each time, I left more desperate than before. Each time, my desperation threatened to drown me when they called a nurse to escort me back to the stinking ward.

  Then, one morning at breakfast, Mrs. Donaghan, whom I hadn’t seen since I arrived, came to where I huddled over the grayest oatmeal imaginable—I had no idea how they got it such a foul color. “It’s a good day for you, Miss Kimble. You’ve been assigned.”

  “Assigned to what?” I asked.

  “To your regular ward. Come with me.”

  I had thought the dormitory was my regular ward, but it was hard to imagine that any place could be worse, and so I did not argue. I followed Mrs. Donaghan up another flight of stairs to the third floor, another large room, but this time with only six beds. The nurse’s table at the door was unoccupied. The room still smelled of unwashed bodies—mine included; I had not bathed since the horror with the hoses—but it wasn’t so bad as the other. The curtains at the windows were open, allowing sunlight to spill across a scratched and worn wooden floor, illuminating dust and stray hairs. The view was still the brick wall, but here the top of the wall boasted a cast-iron railing with dark arrows pointing up to a gray sky. The hearth was guarded by a needlepointed fire screen of meticulously detailed pansies bursting with color. My hungry eyes devoured it.