The Typewriter Girl

by J. L. Jarvis

  Emma looked up, surprised.

  Nettie Hinckle was nodding. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But you said—”

  “Honey, it’s always a man.” That same laugh ground saliva between her clenched teeth. “There’s nothing like a man to drive a sane woman crazy. What was it? Did he beat you?”

  “No.” More to herself than to her companion, she said softly, “He loved me.”

  This confused her companion.

  Before Nettie Hinckle could form a reply, Emma said, “Why are you in here?”

  Nettie said, “I fought back. Should’ve killed him.”

  Emma flinched, but Nettie Hinckle did not seem to notice.

  “If I had to be here either way, it might as well have been for murder. But I guess I just didn’t have the guts. He hit me. So one day I hit him. It felt kinda good. My hand hurt for days. There’s something not fair about that, if you ask me. Men have harder muscles, harder heads, harder everything else.” Nettie raised a brow as she chuckled. “Anyway, so I hit him and then he showed me. The next thing I knew, I was here. My man beats the crap out of me, and when I fight back the doctors say I’m the one with hysterical tendencies!”

  As though reading her mind, the woman said, “We’re not all crazy, you know. I’m no madder than you.”

  Emma looked soberly at her. “Are you so sure I’m not crazy?”

  “Are you?”

  “Don’t I look it?” asked Emma.

  “Not so you’d notice.”

  “Well as long as no one can notice.”

  Nettie Hinckle burst into laughter, to Emma’s surprise.

  “You’re a funny kid, aren’t you?”

  Emma looked at her. She could not mean it, and yet she seemed truly amused. Emma looked back at the floor and resumed with more vigorous scrubbing.

  “See her over there?”

  Emma looked up.

  Nettie Hinckle was pointing toward a stout young woman with thin carrot red hair pulled back from her puffy face into one narrow braid, which hung down her back. She was seated in the light of the window, which fell on her expressionless face as she searched somewhere in the distance.

  “Sad case, that one. Lucinda Odell. She had a baby, and couldn’t keep up with the housework and the baby, what with no sleep and all. You know how it is.”

  The thought struck a memory for Emma. At the time, it had made little sense, but she’d forgotten about it. “One of the doctors once asked me about housework.”

  Nettie nodded. “You’re a woman. And doctors are men. They think our world revolves around housework. If you don’t do it—and love doing it—you’ve got to be nuts.”

  She watched Emma scrubbing, and let out that laugh, then said, “You’re having fun now, aren’t you? Admit it.”

  Emma found herself smiling. It was hard work. Sweat fell from her forehead. Fun? No, not really.

  Nettie said, “Lucinda, there, used to be thin. Didn’t we all? But having a baby changed her girlish figure. Then her husband started to work late at night.” Nettie Hinckle lifted her eyes with a knowing look. “Quite a hard worker, if you know what I mean.” Nettie chuckled again. “She would ask him when she should have dinner ready, when he’d be home—prying questions like that. That Mrs. Odell was just spoiling his fun. She demanded attention and conversation. It got downright annoying. So Mr. Odell brought her here for the rest cure.”

  Nettie wiped her brow and looked over at Emma.

  “So, Emma, are you enjoying your rest?” Then she laughed and went back to her scrubbing.

  “If you ask me, it was Mr. Odell who needed the rest cure—but just for the one body part. And Lucinda? My room’s next to hers and I don’t hear much resting there. Oh, the crying! When I’m lucky, she cries herself to sleep. Sometimes it goes on.” Nettie Hinckle just rolled her eyes, shaking her head.

  Emma looked at Mrs. Odell, alone at the window, the light spilling in through the bars to her face. There she sat, her eyes shut to the world and her face pointed up to the sunlight. The only warmth left in her life came from there.

  Nettie added, “Not that I don’t feel sorry for her, but I need my sleep, too. If I don’t get some soon, I’ll be as batty as everyone else. Oh—not counting you. I mean, not that you’re batty. No. No, I didn’t mean that.”

  Nettie caught a stern look from the head nurse, who had noticed her doing more talking than working. Nettie waved her off and got back to more vigorous scrubbing. A minute or two after that, she straightened up. Rubbing her back, Nettie looked about.

  “See that woman over there?”

  “The one talking?”

  “To herself,” confirmed Nettie, nodding.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll never guess why she’s in here.”

  Nettie waited for an answer from Emma, who was watching. The woman would say something, turn away, and turn back, clearly angry with someone, though that someone was not there. With vehement gestures, she carried on in this fashion.

  “Can’t guess, can you?” said Nettie, with eager impatience.

  “I...”

  “See, I told you you’d never guess why she’s in here.”

  “No. You’re right. I couldn’t begin to.”

  Nettie leaned closer and put her hand on Emma’s arm. With a voiced hushed by the grave secrecy of the coming disclosure, she said, “She’s insane.”

  With that, Nettie ground out a laugh that shook her shoulders. “Nutty as a fruitcake. That’s our Twyla.” She patted Emma’s arm as she leaned back, still laughing. “Don’t look so surprised. We’re not all here by mistake.”

  Twyla’s eyes narrowed as she growled out a series of angry, unintelligible accusations to the air. Emma wondered how it must feel. Did she know how peculiar she was, or was she too lost to know what went on in the real world around her? Emma wondered if she would feel her own mind slide away, or whether she would simply become one more Twyla, unawares.

  “Relax, honey. She won’t bite. Now, Patience there—see the one chewing her nails?”

  A small woman with a wild wobbling mop of gray curls gnawed with vigor upon her fingernails.

  “When she’s finished with those, she’ll start on her toes—or yours, if you’re near her.”

  Emma braced herself for the gurgling laugh, but no laugh was forthcoming. She searched Nettie’s face.

  “You’re not joking, are you?”

  Nettie shook her head no, her brows lifted.

  “But don’t worry. There’s no one here that will harm you—not much, anyway. We’re the best ward, here in close to the center of the building. But look out. The farther you go to the ends of the wings, the worse off you are. And if you wind up at the end of the wing, then you’ll know you’re in trouble.”

  Emma wanted to ask her what kind of trouble, but the nurses were calling for patients to line up for dinner. She and Nettie hastily finished their scrubbing and dropped both brushes into the bucket with a splash. Emma lifted the bucket and headed down the hall.

  “Wait. Where do you think you’re going?” said Nettie.

  “To the bathroom sink to empty the pail,” answered Emma.

  “We have to ask for permission first.”

  “Oh.”

  Emma followed Nettie to the nurse and the small group of patients around her.

  “So why are you here, Emma?” said Nettie.

  Miss Rees cautioned her. “Nettie, mind your own business.”

  Nettie looked about at the others, who were watching intently.

  “What?” Nettie defensively asked.

  While Emma was looking from Nettie to the nurse, Patience had circled behind her. She lifted Emma’s hand and bent down to examine it, touching the smooth edges of her fingernails. Bending closer, she had just opened her mouth when Emma noticed and snatched her hand back.

  “Emma, why don’t you go empty that bucket?” said Nurse Rees.
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  After Emma was gone, she said gently to Nettie, “She may not want you to know her entire life’s story, and—I know, Nettie, that this comes as a shock, but you’re not entitled to know it, so just leave her alone.” She softened her words with a hint of a smile.

  “She killed someone. That’s what I heard,” said Lucinda. The mere fact that she spoke at all drew attention, but what she said shocked and enthralled.

  “No!” Nettie looked about. How did she know? Damn! She must have missed something while she was scrubbing the floor.

  Having now gotten everyone’s attention, Lucinda Odell could not meet one pair of eyes that was fixed on hers. Unsure what to do next, she said, “Well, that’s just what I heard. I don’t actually know.”

  “Well I do. I heard it, myself,” said Patience.

  “Who told you?”

  “I don’t know. I just heard it.” Her eyes narrowed.

  “Heard it where—from one of Twyla’s voices?” asked Nettie.

  Patience hesitated, then sensing disbelief, she blurted, “In the bathroom. And I didn’t really want to look to see who was talking.”

  Nettie’s eyes were aglow as she smirked. “Are you sure what you heard wasn’t just comin’ out of your—”

  “Ladies!” said a stern looking nurse.

  “We’d better line up for dinner,” said another.

  Nettie settled into line with the others to wait until dinner was ready.

  Lucinda said, “She was living in sin.”

  “And how would you know that?” asked Nettie.

  “They were in the same house.”

  “Well, there’s your proof.”

  “How did she do it?” asked Twyla.

  “Live in sin? Oh, the usual way,” answered Nettie.

  “I mean the murder. How did she do it?” Twyla would not be sidetracked.

  “With an ax?” asked another.

  Patience chanted, “Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks...”

  “Ladies, please,” said the nurse.

  “Let’s see. What are our choices?” said Nettie. “There’s shooting and stabbing and poison—I know! She fed him a meal from our kitchen!” Her laugh masked the sound of Emma’s footsteps.

  The laughter ended abruptly as the patients caught sight of Emma. No one would meet her eyes as they fell into line for their dinner. A few conversations slowly began, but in the space around Emma, awkward silence prevailed.

  Emma sat on her bed with her knees tightly hugged to her chest. The key turned. She was locked in her room for the night. Outside the window, a cold drizzle crept down the window pane. Too dark to see far beyond, Emma listened. The rain steadily dripped. Icy wind blew the water between the steel bars into shapes on the rippling glass.

  Alone now, she could let herself feel all the things she kept locked inside during the day. She could cry now, silently, until sleep came to rescue her.

  Late in the night, jagged lightning and thunder cracked through the darkness. Emma jolted upright in her bed. Benjamin was there in her room, standing under the window, a shadow backlit by moonlight.

  Chapter 14

  Emma reached out to Benjamin. He took her hand gently and held it in his, and his eyes were as blue as night sky.

  “Is it you?” she asked, with her eyes fixed on him.

  Benjamin pulled her to her feet and held her against him. His heart beat through his chest against hers. All the grief she had stored was set free as she rested against him, her head on his shoulder, her face in the curve under his jaw. His tender hand cradled the nape of her neck, and she let herself lean back against it. His warmth made her sigh. His hard shoulders, smooth as polished granite, flexed under the touch of her fingers. She traced the curves of his muscles down one arm to his waist and slid her palm under his shirt from his waist to his chest.

  “How I’ve missed you,” she whispered against him.

  He held her hand and led her to a meadow, where wildflowers surrounded them, blooming. Velvet petals and delicate lacey buds rested on green stems and grasses and mingled together their colors and scents.

  Benjamin lifted and carried her over a brook that was heavily shaded by trees. Setting her down in a bed of soft moss, he bent over her and said, “Do you love me?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he lay down by her side and he kissed her until her head swirled and her body pulsed, longing for him.

  “You’ve been gone for so long.”

  “I’m here, Emma.”

  He rolled over and straddled her body with thighs that felt solid and surging with life. Emma ran her palms along the front of his thighs and slid her hands up to his waist and around to his back. Her legs wanted to part, but his knees pinned them together. He lowered himself to rest on her. His body was heavy, and the air was so thick with the feral aroma of earth mixed with sweat that it stifled her breathing.

  She pressed her hands against his chest and took deep, halting breaths, unable to get enough air. But he slid his fingertips to her mouth, tracing a line down curve of her neck. His touch teased through her muslin gown, drawing a deep, longing sigh.

  He stiffened against her and clutched her face, fervidly kissing and wadding her gown in his fist as he pulled it up from her thigh to her waist. She seized hold of his hips, and pulled him against her and rose up to meet him and urge him to come into her.

  But his whisper was harsh in her ear. “Why, Emma?”

  The floor was cold and hard, and the meadow was gone. There was no brook beside them, but only a bed by a wall. They were back in the room, in the dark.

  “Why, Emma?”

  She looked into his eyes. They were more black than blue. His expression was callous.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “But, I love you,” she whispered.

  His face bore such a quizzical look that it tore at her heart.

  “I love you. Benjamin, please.” Tears dripped down her cheeks as deep grief wrenched her body. She cried out and reached for him. “No!”

  His forehead and hair were all matted with blood. Red streams covered his features. Emma grabbed his shirt collar. It was warm and wet with his blood.

  “No,” said a guttural voice that was hers.

  He collapsed over her, heavy and lifeless. Emma held him and wept.

  “Well look at you!” said a voice in disgust. A nurse stood in the doorway and scoffed. “Look at this,” she called outside the door.

  The noise woke her. Morning light shone through the bars of the window and cast a shadowy cage over Emma. She sat up, clutching her muslin gown closed at the neck. Two nurses stood staring with contemptuous frowns. Emma was on the hard floor.

  They were shaking their heads. “She’s a hopeless case,” said a nurse.

  “Hopeless,” the other agreed, as she set some clothes down on the edge of the bed. “Here, put these on.”

  Emma did not remember how she’d gotten from her bed to the floor. She rose to her feet and picked up the clothes. She looked at the nurses.

  “Well, go on.”

  Emma started to dress. As the door closed, one of the nurses said, “When the doctor hears about this, she’ll be back on the chloral.”

  For a week, Emma took chloral hydrate at night and slept without incident. After that, Dr. Whitfield assigned her to the garden, saying fresh air and sun would cheer her and help her to sleep. Emma felt closer to life out here, planting and watching things grow. Buds unfolded on tree branches. The world smelled alive.

  Mrs. Hall was in charge of this part of the garden. “Oh yes, when the gardens are blooming people come from all around just to see them. They’re something—green lawns and the paths through the flowers, the fountains and ponds. Oh, it’s something, all right. All those colors bring the world back to life.”

  Emma smiled to see the great pride and enjoyment she took in her work. It was something absent from others in here, whether patient or staff—except for Dr. Whitfield. He was different. She could
almost believe that the joy of accomplishment healed. Perhaps spring would bring healing for her.

  Mrs. Hall pulled out another petunia from the basket and went on with her work. She was not one to talk, and this suited Emma. They worked on in silence for a while. Mrs. Hall’s hands looked tough and weathered, but her manner was not. She was gentle and quiet. They worked side-by-side down the row of flowers. Emma envied her contentment.

  “How long have you been here, Mrs. Hall?”

  “Oh, I try not to count,” she said, smiling. “Quite a while.” Deep lines framed her eyes and her forehead. Whether wisdom or woe, Emma could not quite discern. She suspected the former. She was not a young woman.

  “What brought you here?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I just wondered what made you choose to come here.”

  “Miss Stone...?”

  “Call me Emma.”

  “Emma, not many people come here by choice.”

  “But I thought—” Emma stopped to regain her composure. She had assumed that Mrs. Hall was a hired worker, or perhaps a volunteer. “Oh! You’re a patient? I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry—for thinking I wasn’t insane?”

  “No! I didn’t mean that!” Emma felt a bit stunned, but she saw Mrs. Hall’s eyes crinkle at the corners. She smiled, and Emma smiled with her.

  Emma’s father and Gwendolyn came for a visit. Gwendolyn was the picture of duty, while her father was plainly uncomfortable.

  “The doctor said that you’re making progress.”

  “Did he?”

  They walked through the grounds, sometimes listening to Gwendolyn’s society gossip. She told about all the girls Emma’s age who were married now. Emma patiently listened.

  “Lord Clayworth has come calling. He asks about you. He misses you, Emmaline.” Her father spoke to her as though she had gone on a trip and could return any time at will.

  Emma looked at her father and suddenly felt ten years old again. “I don’t like it here. Please take me home.” Tears spilled from her eyes.

  He looked so sad and distant. She knew what his answer would be. “Soon, Emmaline, soon.” Then he patted her hand. They did not speak of it again.