The Girl Who Couldn't Read

by John Harding

  ‘Good God, man! What on earth has happened to you?’

  ‘There has been – there has been –’ I stood there panting, as though I had just run there. I had played messengers bringing dramatic news enough times to be convincing in this.

  Morgan stared at me open-mouthed, nodding involuntarily, willing me to go on. ‘Sorry, I’ve run all the way here.’ I hammed up struggling for breath. ‘You must come with me, sir. I fear Mrs O’Reilly is dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ He was too stunned – as anyone would be at such dramatic news – to do any more than parrot the word. He got up. ‘How? What has happened?’

  ‘Killed, sir, by that madwoman who set fire to your study and attacked me.’

  He blanched. He looked like a corpse, all the blood drained from him.

  ‘You must come with me right away, sir, before someone else finds the body.’

  I turned and strode from the room and heard the tapping of his little feet behind me as he caught me up. ‘How did she die?’ he said as we hurried along.

  ‘She was pushed down the stairs, sir. I arrived as it happened but too late to save her.’

  By now we were in the back corridor and I started up the back stairs. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You say you saw it, but what were you doing here? What business had you in this part of the building?’

  ‘I wanted to ask Mrs O’Reilly something about a patient,’ I said, making the turn of the first flight of stairs. ‘I wanted to do it before I retired for the night. I observed her leave the dining hall by the back door and followed. Unfortunately I was too far behind to prevent what happened. We had best move quietly, sir, in order not to disturb the attendants on watch over the secure ward.’ Indeed, we could hear them above us, yelling at the inmates to settle down for the night.

  We reached the foot of the final two flights of stairs, the ones that led from the third floor to the attic. The apple lay incongruously on a step halfway up. I went first and picked it up. Morgan looked at it as though he’d never seen one before.

  ‘Mrs O’Reilly had a tray of food she must have been taking to the patient. It went everywhere during the assault.’

  ‘Assault,’ muttered Morgan. It didn’t seem to be a question; rather that he was registering the word and what it meant.

  We rounded the turn of the stairs and came to O’Reilly’s lifeless form lying on the bottom steps of the second. Morgan pushed past me and knelt down and took the woman’s pulse as I had done, at the throat. Then he put his ear to her chest and listened for what seemed like ages. Finally he looked up at me and shook his head. ‘You are quite right. She’s dead.’

  He struggled to get to his feet and I gave him my arm to help him up. Our faces came close together and he looked me in the eye, like a frightened man. ‘How did it happen? What did you see?’

  ‘I was at the bottom of the stairs, round the turn. I heard the sound of keys jangling and then of a key turning in a lock. As I reached the turn in the stairs and looked up I saw the door fling open and the madwoman rush out at O’Reilly. The tray went flying and everything on it came crashing down the stairs. O’Reilly was taken unawares and, with her hands occupied by the tray, unable to resist the fury of the attack. By the time she’d dropped the tray, the woman was raking her nails down her face. The force of her assault sent O’Reilly flying down the stairs. She landed near the bottom and I heard – I heard –’

  ‘Yes?’

  I looked him in the eye. ‘Oh, sir, it was the most awful sickening sound, the crunch of bone.’

  He winced. We both stood looking at the dead woman. O’Reilly was staring glassily up at us. I did not like the look she was giving me, which seemed to contradict my story. I bent and pulled her eyelids closed. I lifted her head and we both peered at the back of the skull. Morgan grimaced. ‘Looks like she fractured it on the wood of the stairs,’ he said.

  Before I could reply, there was a rattling at the door above us. Morgan looked up. ‘The patient –’

  ‘Safely locked in her room.’ I indicated the state of my clothes. ‘I had a bit of a tussle with her – she was a real fury but in the end I managed to manhandle her back inside and lock the door.’

  Morgan stared up at the door for a long moment, took a step back and then sat down heavily on the top step of the next flight down. He put his head in his hands. ‘What a mess,’ he said. ‘What a horrible mess.’

  ‘That’s true, sir,’ I said sympathetically. ‘Mrs O’Reilly was, well, not to speak ill of the dead and such, a harsh woman, but she didn’t deserve to be killed.’

  What a liar! I told myself. If ever a bitch deserved to die, it was this one lying on her back before me now.

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Dr Morgan. ‘You do not know what this is.’

  ‘I know more than you think,’ I said quietly. ‘I know the woman up there is your wife.’

  His head jerked around. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘It was the only explanation for why she was kept hidden.’

  He blinked a couple of times and reached up to brush away a tear. ‘I have loved her for twenty-three years. She was always high strung. Even when I first knew her, her eyes could look a little wild, although I never saw the madness in them to begin with. I thought it romantic when they flashed with fire. Hah!’ He paused again to wipe his eyes. ‘The first few years of our marriage were, well, wonderful, I would say. She was a very passionate woman. But she always had a temper and her fits grew more and more extreme and difficult to control. She disgraced me in public more than once with her yelling and use of inappropriate language.’

  He paused, biting his lip, as if reliving those painful scenes, too distressed for a moment to carry on. ‘Eventually her reason started to go. She often talked nonsense and claimed she was haunted, under assault from ghosts. She saw them everywhere. She became violent during her rages, increasingly so. In the end it reached the point where she was a danger to herself and others, to the extent that she needed to be certified.’

  ‘But you couldn’t do it,’ I said.

  ‘No, I couldn’t do it.’ He looked up at me, his eyes appealing. ‘I had worked at the city asylum. I knew how they treated them there. I could not condemn the woman I loved to that. It was just then that I was appointed to this post. No one knew me here or that I was married. I brought her here and kept her hidden away. That way I could see her and, instead of the harsh treatment she would have received at the asylum, give her love and kindness. I thought that in that way I could prevent her growing worse, stop her mania progressing.’ He stopped, overcome by a sudden sob. I stood silent while I waited for him to continue.

  ‘It didn’t work,’ I said. ‘The kindness didn’t work and she grew more and more violently insane.’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

  ‘It’s why you have no truck with Moral Treatment,’ I said. ‘Because it didn’t work for her.’

  ‘Yes. I turned against it. She had been treated with every degree of gentleness and consideration. She just grew more crazy. Physical restraint was the only way to keep her under control.’

  ‘And O’Reilly became your accomplice in keeping it quiet?’

  ‘I needed someone to look after her, someone I could rely on not to talk. And someone strong who could handle her. I came to an agreement with O’Reilly. I paid her extra to do it and to keep her mouth shut. Oh, no doubt others amongst the staff knew or heard rumours of this mysterious madwoman locked away upstairs, but none of them had any idea who she was or why she was there. O’Reilly was reliable and discreet and she kept Bella under control, although by the end she was practically blackmailing me, demanding more and more money.’

  ‘But why did it have to be such a secret?’ I asked. ‘Why did she have to be hidden away?’

  He seemed amazed by the question. ‘Isn’t it obvious, man? A psychiatrist who can’t even manage the mental illness of his own wife? How would it have looked if I’d had her certified? Where would my reputation be then? A
nd what would anyone have said if she’d been in plain view here? That the head doctor’s wife was the craziest patient in the hospital.’

  ‘So you took the risk of shutting her away like this.’

  He nodded. ‘I took the risk and it has not paid off and now I shall have to take the blame. It’s over, my whole career gone; all because I tried to do the right thing by the woman I loved. It has led to O’Reilly’s death. I’m finished.’

  He pulled himself wearily to his feet and began to stagger down the stairs.

  ‘Wait!’ I called. ‘There is another way.’

  He stopped and turned around, regarding me warily. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I’m the only person who knows how O’Reilly died. I don’t see any need for anybody else to know. After all, what use would it serve? Your wife cannot be called to account by law when she is obviously insane. What is done is done. It would be another tragedy if that should also put an end to the good work you do here.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘O’Reilly died by falling down stairs. It doesn’t have to be these stairs. If we carry her now to the foot of the main staircase, no one will know she didn’t meet her death by falling down them. We are both doctors. You can sign the death certificate and I will countersign it.’

  ‘You’re suggesting we falsify a death certificate?’

  ‘But that’s just it, we wouldn’t be. The cause of death was falling downstairs. It’s not a lie.’

  He said nothing. I felt he must refuse. He was such a proper man, such a martinet and stickler for the rules.

  ‘Think of your work. Of all you’ve achieved here that will be lost. Forget yourself. You owe it to the hospital, to all your patients here.’

  ‘You think so? That what I do here is more important than the truth?’

  ‘Why, of course! Who could possibly disagree? Besides, what good would the truth do? You would lose your job and your wife would have to go anyway.’

  ‘Anyway?’

  ‘Well, yes, you must see that. You cannot continue to keep her here. We can make this all right this time, if you agree to my plan, but sooner or later she may do something similar again. Even forgetting about that, you would have to find someone else to replace O’Reilly to look after her and rely on that person to keep the secret. That might not prove so easy.’

  He considered all this and said nothing.

  ‘Sir, your wife needs to be kept somewhere secure. She must be taken to the city asylum.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can …’

  ‘Whatever you do, that is where she will end up. This way she will go without the tag of murderess to her name.’

  He put his head in his hands again and sat silent, thinking all this over.

  ‘Sir,’ I said at last, ‘I have offered to help you conceal the precise sequence of events here. I will only do that if you will agree to your wife leaving immediately, that is on the next boat out, tomorrow morning. We can get her out without anyone knowing. That way if there should be any questions about O’Reilly’s death, any kind of investigation, she won’t even be on the premises.’

  He said nothing. ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘I absolutely insist that she leave tomorrow morning.’

  He looked up. ‘But it will still reflect on me that my wife is a violent madwoman.’

  ‘No, sir, I have thought of that. We will send her not as your wife, but as a fictitious patient, one we will invent. We can sit up tonight and write out case notes for her. No one will be any the wiser.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, yes, that would work.’ Then he suddenly choked and let out a sob. ‘B-but it would mean I would never see her again.’

  I considered this. ‘Not necessarily. As her former physician, what would there be to stop you looking in upon her when you visit the city asylum? There could be nothing suspicious in that and anything she said during your visits would be dismissed as the ramblings of a lunatic.’

  He blanched at the word.

  ‘Sir, the alternative is the same. If we come clean about what has happened here tonight, she will be taken from you anyway.’

  ‘It’s not a bad plan. As you say, the damage is already done to O’Reilly. Nothing can bring the poor woman back. We must look to other things and my work here. I will do it for the good of that.’ He paused. ‘There’s one problem. How can we put her on the boat? O’Reilly is the one who takes people across as a rule.’

  ‘I will take her. You sign the authorisation and I will take her over. She will be off the island before it’s common knowledge about O’Reilly.’

  He nodded again. ‘She will have to be in a straitjacket. You won’t manage her on your own otherwise.’

  ‘All right. Now, let’s go to your office and construct a history for her and when everyone is asleep we’ll come back and carry O’Reilly to the foot of the main stairs and leave her for one of the attendants to find tomorrow morning while we are still in our beds. We will already have Mrs Morgan in a straitjacket. When it’s about half an hour before the boat leaves, you will call all the staff together to tell them about the unfortunate accident to Mrs O’Reilly, and while that’s going on, I will slip out with your wife and go down to the boat. We will leave the island without anyone knowing we’ve gone.’

  As I finished talking, I realised he was looking at me strangely. ‘I’m impressed, Shepherd. I never would have thought you could have come up with such a, well, such a devious plan – and so immediately too. It has every chance of being successful. Come, as you say, let’s go and work on those notes.’

  30

  The notes didn’t prove too much of a problem, because Morgan had the idea of taking those of a long-deceased patient and simply adapting them. We had only to copy them out and make a few alterations here and there. There was a certain tension in the air because we could not be absolutely sure that someone wouldn’t stumble upon O’Reilly’s lifeless corpse, although Morgan assured me it was extremely unlikely, as no one but her or he himself ever went up those attic stairs. Still, I was mighty relieved when, around midnight, we crept back up to the scene of the crime and found her just as we had left her.

  ‘We had better clear up all this spilt food while we’re here,’ I said, indicating the debris strewn over the staircase.

  ‘Good grief!’ said Morgan. ‘She has not been fed! My – the woman up there.’ And just then we heard a low whining from the room above. ‘I can’t let her starve, no matter what she has done.’

  He began to pick up pieces of bread and cheese. I put a hand on his arm.

  ‘No, stop. It’s too risky. If you go in to her it may cause a commotion and wake up the attendants below; we can’t risk that. Leave her be. It may seem cruel but if she is hungry, she will be more manageable in the morning.’

  He looked up reluctantly at the woman’s door. ‘All right. I don’t like to do it but you have a point. It may be possible to bribe her with food in the morning to make her more cooperative.’

  We put all the things back on the tray and left them outside the door of the room. We could not risk being seen taking food from the kitchen in the morning, so stale bread and cheese would have to suffice to end the woman’s fast; it could not be helped.

  We went back down the stairs and picked up O’Reilly, I taking her head and shoulders, Morgan her feet. The body was surprisingly light for one that had seemed to contain such a force of nature when it was living. We had just begun to move when Morgan hissed, ‘Wait!’ and motioned me to put her back down. Then he ran up the stairs to the madwoman’s door. He was back down a moment later. ‘Her keys!’ he said, brandishing them. ‘It would be odd if they were not on her belt. She never went anywhere without them.’ He detached one. ‘We shall need this to open my wife’s door tomorrow.’ He put it in his pocket and attached the remainder to a loop on O’Reilly’s belt.

  We picked up the corpse again and began our journey to the main staircase. I was in an awful funk, terrified we would run into another member of the staff, even
though it was the middle of the night and no one had any reason to be abroad. The silence was ominous and every time it was broken – once by the hoot of an owl, another time by the wind beating the branch of a tree against a window as we passed – I near jumped out of my skin. We encountered nobody on our journey and eventually reached the main staircase and placed O’Reilly on her back at the bottom, making sure the arrangement of the body was consistent with a fall.

  When this was done, we stood and looked at each other with that bond of guilty complicity that comes from a shared wrongdoing. It was as well Morgan and I would never work together again. It would have been impossible to carry on after this. It was as I was thinking this that Morgan stuck out his hand, taking me by surprise. ‘Thank you, Shepherd,’ he said as I took hold of it. ‘I won’t forget this, I promise you.’

  I simply nodded. The strong man. The saviour. The handshake done, we arranged to meet outside his wife’s room at five next morning, to put her in the straitjacket, and then we parted.

  I had precious little sleep that night. No sooner did I close my eyes than Caroline Adams appeared before me, a hoary ghost, clad head to toe in a shimmering layer of frost, and when she vanished I heard the deathly clinking of O’Reilly’s keys. The wind buffeted the house and it seemed that every window in the place rattled in its frame, every door banged to and fro and every floorboard creaked, a nervous symphony that played upon my dread. It was a relief when morning finally came. Until, that is, I looked out the window. The sky was clear blue and the sun a hot golden ball. Half dreading to do so, I looked down at where the snowman should have been. He wasn’t there. He had stolen away during the night. The lawns in front of the house were practically clear of snow, with only a few patches here and there stubbornly lingering on. The warmth of the sun through the glass felt like July to me, rather than December. I cursed whatever weather god had fixed his mind against me. I realised that it was entirely possible that Caroline Adams’s corpse was already exposed and, if not, soon would be. It was touch and go whether I would get off the island before it was discovered.