by Annie Murray
What if, when the doctor came in with a tray of tea, she could throw it over him and escape while he was standing, scalded and shocked? The next time he came in she was almost on the brink of doing it, trembling at the thought, but she could not quite find the nerve. She thought of writing a note for Prithvi or Jane Brown and slipping it under the door, but of course that was no good. The doctor would most likely find it when he next came to bring her food. Again and again she opened the window and stared down, desperately trying to see if there was any ledge, any staging point big enough that she might lower herself down on to it, hoping every time that she had perhaps missed something. Each time all she could see was the sheer drop down the side of the house and the monkeys’ playground of the trees and roofs below in the valley, and she knew that to try and climb down would almost certainly lead to her death. There were moments when even that seemed preferable to staying a prisoner here.
The morning of the day Sam was due to leave, she was awake before dawn. She left the bed and as she did so many times in the day, turned the handle of the door, pushing on it and hoping, vainly. Once again the bolts were fastened. There was no way out. That was the moment when she decided that whatever it took, she was going to get past Ewan McBride, even if she had to scald him or knock him unconscious to do so.
Dressing herself in readiness, she waited as the light changed from an uncertain haze of grey to the strong colours of morning. It was a beautiful day, the mountains touched with gold, and tiny wisps of cloud strewn across the valleys. Lily sat on the bed and breathed in deeply, watching the light change, thinking how many times she had seen that sight.
I won’t be here soon to see it, she told herself. She had no fixed idea of what was going to happen, except that she felt strong and desperate and somehow she was going to get out of there and never return. How could she stay with Dr McBride now? She would go and find Sam, travel with him, run away with him and somehow beg a passage on the boat back to England . . . In those moments anything seemed possible. She was full of a vibrating energy. All she had to do was to wait for him to come and she would spring at him. Whatever she had to do, she would be free, and she would go to Sam, be with Sam forever . . .
But he did not come. He brought her no breakfast, not even a cup of tea. He must, surely, come with tiffin, she reasoned, beside herself with anxiety. Was he punishing her in some new way? And if so, for what? Hadn’t she been punished enough? When the hour of tiffin came and went she became frantic again. Sam would be leaving on an evening train from Dehra Dun. If she didn’t leave the house by mid-afternoon there was going to be no chance of seeing him. He would be gone, thinking the very worst of her, and she’d never see him again. Desperately, she hammered on the door, weeping and begging to be let out.
No one came. The day crawled agonizingly past and by the late afternoon she knew with a dull numbness of despair that she had missed him. Sam Ironside would be gone, with the Fairfords, driving away from her down the twisting mountain roads and bearing in his heart feelings of utter betrayal and anger towards her. Perhaps he would think she had been playing with him, that this was her revenge for his leaving her last time. He would be angry that she had not kept her promises to come. And she ached for his suffering. But then she felt angry and betrayed herself. Why had he not come to the house to find her? Not moved heaven and earth to make sure he saw her? All she had now were the torn ends of unanswered questions and she felt a terrible despair. All the future held was life without him, without love or happiness, and it was a future in which she had no interest. Now he had gone for certain, she scarcely cared whether McBride let her out of the room or not. She had nothing to leave for.
She lay on her bed, facing the wall.
Chapter Forty-Three
The days turned into a week, then two weeks.
No one came near her except Dr McBride, who sometimes brought her food at the normal times, and sometimes not. She realized that this was a calculated means of keeping her in uncertainty. Now and then he brought her a jug of fresh water for washing, emptied her chamber pot and even, once, brought fresh sheets for her bed.
‘Why does no one else come and see me?’ Lily asked him soon after Sam had left. ‘Where do they think I am?’
‘So far as they’re concerned, you have a fever, a highly infectious one, from which they need to keep their distance,’ the doctor told her, genially. He seemed happy now, as if convinced Lily’s spirit had surrendered to him. She no longer put up much of a fight about anything. Now she knew that Sam was gone, that he had not even tried to contact her before leaving again forever, nothing else seemed to matter. She lay for hour after hour, feeling she had no energy to care about anything. Occasionally she would rouse herself to eat, or wash herself, or to sit by the window, looking out over the mountains and hearing the distant children’s voices from the school. Every so often, almost absent-mindedly and without hope, she tried the door. But it never gave.
‘How long are you going to keep me here?’ she asked one day.
‘Until you’re better,’ he said, sitting by her bed and taking her hand. ‘You’re not very well, are you, my little one?’
Lily sighed. It was true, she didn’t feel well. Certainly not the robust health she was used to. She found it hard to eat much and her innards felt sluggish. She had so little energy that sometimes it was hard to rouse herself from the bed.
‘Perhaps if I had some fresh air and exercise I’d feel better,’ she said.
‘Oh, I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ he said, concerned. ‘You mustn’t do anything to weaken yourself further, Lily, my dear. We want you back in the best of health as soon as possible, don’t we?’ He was speaking to her in the wheedling, childlike voice that he had started to use with her all the time.
Lily felt a chill go through her suddenly. Where had she heard that before? In Muriel McBride’s bedroom, the day the doctor had come in and sat beside her with such tender concern, looking down in to his wife’s eyes as if she was the most important person on earth. Lily stared back at him, at his heavy form leaning over her, and big soulful eyes, full of the same concern. Inside her, there came a surge of revival. Somehow, she saw, the doctor had made Muriel McBride the way she was and now he was starting on her. He wanted her to be ill! She felt herself flood with energy.
Calmly she said, ‘You’re right, of course, Ewan. I do think I’m not myself at the moment. Perhaps the best thing I can do is sleep for an hour or two.’
‘Very wise, my darling,’ he said, patting her shoulder. ‘And I’ll sit with you while you sleep. I love to watch you.’
Lily tried not to let her alarm show. ‘There’s no need,’ she said, forcing a rueful smile on to her face. ‘In fact, if you were here I should want to stay awake and be with you. So it might be said you wouldn’t be doing your patient much good! Why don’t you go and see your wife? She must be missing you.’
‘As long as you promise you’ll rest, Lily, darling. I don’t want you coming to any harm, ever.’
‘Of course I shall.’ She lay back obediently, as if ready for sleep and he left the room, casting a look back at her as he did so, as if checking on her.
Lily lay still until his footsteps had receded along the passage. Only then, she realized, she had been holding her breath.
From then on she continued to act her part as the feeble invalid, but now, instead of allowing herself to slip into the poorly stupor which Dr McBride seemed to encourage, Lily’s mind was working constantly on plans for escape. Her frustration and anger returned multiplied since her renewed determination did not make it any easier to actually find a way out of the room. Then, one afternoon, she heard a timid little tap on the door and leaped up from the bed.
‘Miss Lily?’
‘Is that you, Prithvi?’ Lily ran to the door.
‘Yes. Are you sick, Miss Lily? Dr McBride said you are very sick and must not be disturbed. He said we must not come near. But I was feeling so sorry for you and he has g
one out. I came to see if there is anything you need.’
‘Prithvi, I’m not sick, I’m all right!’ Lily cried. She was trembling wtih excitement. At last, a way out! ‘Open the door, will you! He won’t let me come out. Just pull the bolts back, Prithvi, please!’
There was a pause.
‘The doctor is saying that we must not open the door. That you are not to be let out under any circumstance whatsoever.’
‘But I’m not ill!’ Lily pleaded desperately. ‘He just wants me to be, to keep me here, but I’m perfectly all right, honestly. He’s the one who’s not well!’ As she said this, thinking of the controlled face the doctor showed to the rest of the world, she realized how crazed it sounded. ‘Oh, please just let me out and you’ll see – just for a moment!’
She knew how timid Prithvi was, how she could never seem to take any decision without authority from someone else, and already her hope was fading.
‘I cannot disobey the doctor’s orders,’ Prithvi’s soft voice came from behind the door. ‘I am sorry, Miss Lily. But I hope you will be better soon. I must go now. He will be coming back soon.’
‘Prithvi, no – don’t go!’ But it was too late. It seemed so long since Lily had seen anyone, a friendly face she could trust, that she sank to her knees, sobbing. How was she ever to get out if everyone thought she was crazy and wouldn’t believe anything she said? Curled up, she wept for a time, feeling defeated. She got up to lie on the bed, but then stopped herself. She often fell asleep in the day, as if to escape from the long, dreary hours, but it stopped her from sleeping at night and if she was sleepless the nights seemed even longer than the days.
Instead she calmed herself and sat at her table, taking a piece of writing paper.
‘Dear Cosmo . . .’ The idea of writing to him strengthened her. She had been disturbed by all the news she had heard of him from Susan Fairford. What had happened to the sweet little chap she had known in Ambala, to turn him into the ungovernable boy the school was seeing? It made her sad, yet she could sense, somehow, his unhappiness, however little he said in his occasional scrawled notes to her. How he must have loathed England, the cold, grey days, after the brilliance of India, shut behind the dark school walls. And with no family, no Lily or Srimala to give him love and affection. Her heart ached for him and the ache in her today reached out to him. In her grief, he seemed to be the only person she had left. She wanted to send her reassurance to him even if she had no idea whether the letter would ever be posted. Surely the doctor would not deny her that?
‘I am still here in Mussoorie, in the hills,’ she wrote, ‘and it is very pretty here. You would like it. Not long ago your mother and father were staying here with Isadora and Srimala and some of the servants. I expect they told you. Isadora has learned to ride really quite well. Your father has another new Daimler and the same man who brought the first one came again to deliver it to him. Sam Ironside. You were very small last time he came but perhaps you remember that too?’
She stopped, sucking the end of her pen and gazing out over the hills, seeing nothing. All she could see, with a stab of terrible longing, over and over again, was Sam’s face that night when they had lain by the fire, the intense love in his eyes. And now, what did he feel or think of her. She wanted to write, He’s the man I love . . . and now I’ve lost him, lost him forever . . .
She found a few other cheerful things to say to Cosmo, telling him she hoped he was working hard at his lessons and that he must try and be obedient and not get into trouble again.
‘I hope you remember me, Cozzy, and that I’ll see you again one day,’ she finished. ‘This letter comes with much love from your friend, Lily.’
In her neatest copperplate she addressed the envelope to his prep school. Writing the letter steadied her. She must be patient if she was going to get out of here. Sooner or later, her chance would come. He couldn’t keep her locked up here forever.
Dr McBride agreed to post Lily’s letter to Cosmo without any obstacle, but still more days passed and Lily had to hold on very hard to her hope of escape. Many times in the day she opened the windows and stood breathing in the fresh mountain air, stretching her body to keep supple and strong.
She tried to keep the day and night separate, but often sleep did not come at night. One night, when she had been in the room for three and a half weeks, she was particularly restless and unable to settle. The house was very quiet, something scuttling in the roof above her head, but otherwise, silence. She lost track of the time, but the silence almost seemed to make a sound of its own.
Lying on her back, she was aware that she felt slightly unwell, suddenly rather queasy.
I mustn’t give in to this, she thought. Any sign of illness worried her, as if it meant that she was surrendering to Dr McBride’s attempts to sicken her. I’m not ill, I’m perfectly well and I shall not let him make me ill . . . But the feeling did not go away. Lily plumped the pillow under her head and turned to lie on her side, closing her eyes. She must sleep, that would see it off.
A moment later, she heard a sound and her eyes snapped open, her heart banging hard. There was a sound outside the door. Someone was out there!
She sat up in the total darkness, listening with every fibre of her being. She wanted to light the candle but she was listening too intensely to move. She held her breath. No, she was not imagining it – someone was easing back the bolts, slowly, carefully, not the rough way the doctor did it, but softly, so as not to be discovered. The top bolt was eased free, then the bottom.
Lily leaped off the bed as the door opened, letting in a warm glow of candlelight. Standing in the doorway in her nightdress was Jane Brown.
‘Lily?’ She came hurriedly into the room and shut the door, turning to look at Lily with stern, troubled eyes. ‘Are you all right? We hear you have been very unwell.’
‘No!’ Lily went to her, grasping her arm urgently. ‘Please, for God’s sake, you’ve got to help me. He’s had me locked up in here and I don’t know why! I’m not ill – I never have been ill!’
Jane Brown’s eyes searched her face. ‘No, I can see. Mrs McBride sent me, to tell you the truth. She was quite sure you weren’t ill either.’
Chapter Forty-Four
‘Miss Waters, are we awake?’
The brisk tap on the door was followed by the appearance of a white-veiled head. Lily’s eyes opened and she sat up groggily. Her bewilderment was plain in her face. Where was she? This small, bare room, the iron bedstead, the work-worn but bright-eyed face staring down at her. Of course, the convent!
‘Oh – good morning!’ Hurriedly she swung her legs over the side of the bed and felt a lurch of nausea as she did so.
‘Slept through the bell again – you are exhausted, aren’t you, dear!’ Sister Fidelis commented. ‘I suppose the last few days can’t have been easy for you. But you should be down at breakfast, and the laundry won’t wait, you know!’
‘I don’t usually sleep so heavily,’ Lily apologized, pulling her nightdress closed at the neck. She felt uncomfortably aware of her full-breasted body compared with Sister Fidelis’s, slim in its chaste attire. ‘I’m most terribly sorry. I really will try to do better.’
‘Not to worry!’ Sister Fidelis almost sang, making to depart again. ‘Just get yourself up and ready as fast as you can. There’s water in the jug.’ She turned at the door and peered at Lily. ‘Are you all right, dear?’
‘Yes!’ Lily fibbed. She felt dangerously close to being sick but didn’t want to be any more trouble. ‘Perfectly, thank you, Sister. I’ll be down in a few minutes.’
‘Right-oh.’
Immediately she’d gone, Lily ran to retch over the wash bowl and then sank groaning on the bed. She sipped some water, wondering at how deeply she’d been asleep when all around, from outside, came the sounds of the girls occupying St James’s School. This was one of Mussoorie’s many educational institutions and was run by Church of England sisters originally from an order in Oxfordshire, most of whom
spoke in beautifully modulated English and gave off an air of cultured sensitivity, however mundane the tasks with which they were presented. The convent and school sat perched high above the valleys, with breathtaking views from almost every room.
Lily closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply. She felt better now, but what on earth was the matter with her? Sister Fidelis must be right, she realized. She was in a state of nerves after all that had happened over the past weeks. It was only now beginning to hit her how extreme and bizarre Dr McBride’s behaviour towards her had been.
That night, when Jane Brown released her from the room where she had been imprisoned for almost a month, she took Lily’s hand and led her like a child down the creaking stairs to her own quarters, where she locked the door behind them and hurried to light the lamp. Both of them then stood and smiled, exhaling with relief, then Lily, completely overwrought, burst into tears and was taken into Jane’s comforting, shawl-clad arms.
‘Oh, thank you for letting me out. I was beginning to think no one would ever come. He’s kept me locked in there all this time – he’s mad, I swear it . . .’ She sobbed for a moment, then drew back. ‘I expect I smell terrible . . .’
‘Not at all,’ Jane Brown said kindly. ‘Are you all right, Lily?’ Her eyes were wide with concern.
‘Yes. I am now. He just . . .’ Her tears came again. She realized how lonely and frightened and humiliated she had been.
‘We had no idea – not at first,’ Jane Brown said, taking Lily to the chair. ‘He told us you were ill, something really contagious, but then when it went on and on. And he was so peculiar about it, his behaviour . . . The man’s an absolute menace . . .’
The two women talked for a long time, through the night, sitting wrapped up in shawls and blankets near the unlit fire. Jane Brown described her increasing suspicion towards Dr McBride.
