An Improper Situation (Sanborn-Malloy Historical Romance Series, Book One)

by Baily, Sydney Jane

  “Well, he pulled foot in a hurry,” Charlotte remarked, relieved.

  “Hm,” Aunt Alicia agreed, “I wonder if you’ve finally offended the boy.”

  *****

  Charlotte was welcomed more warmly when she returned to the hospital. Superintendent George Mason met her at the front door precisely at ten o’clock, ushering her into his office.

  “My only rule, and this is for your safety,” he added, showing his yellow teeth, “is that you stay with a staff member at all times.” He promptly headed off to fetch the doctor.

  She waited, feeling a little nervous, occasionally hearing footsteps along the corridor, until finally a man came striding through the office door.

  “I’m Dr. Pridgen. I understand you want to speak to me.”

  Charlotte assessed the man, in his mid-forties, slightly graying at the temples, with a kind face and active, intelligent eyes. Charlotte felt that here, at last, was someone who would understand her project.

  “I’m working for the Boston Post,” Charlotte responded, standing up. “Thank you for taking the time to see me.”

  “Please sit down.” He took a seat on the edge of the superintendent’s desk. “Mr. Mason is a little overprotective,” he said, with a slight shrug, “but I can find the time to discuss my work with a pretty journalist.”

  Charlotte felt a blush creep up her face.

  “I was hoping to gain your clinical perspective on how treatment is working for the criminally insane. Is there ever a possibility of recovery and release into society? Furthermore, I’d like to learn what type of criminals are sent here and what is the duration of their treatment; are any sent again to prison after they are released or do they go to trial? And are any ever sent home?” She stopped to take a deep breath.

  “My, you do want to know a lot. I assume you have some paper handy.”

  With that, the good doctor launched into a long discussion of every aspect of the institution that he headed. Charlotte could barely keep up with him. Until finally, he offered her a tour of the facilities.

  She wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to see the patients, but knew it was her duty to observe how they lived if she was to write her article as thoroughly as she wanted. She closed her notebook, picked up her reticule, and preceded the doctor out the door.

  “That’s it,” Dr. Pridgen said, about half an hour later, as they left the dining hall and the permanent wards behind, “You’ve seen it all.”

  “I have, indeed,” Charlotte said.

  Her mind was a-whirl with the sights and sounds of the hospital. The institution was terribly overcrowded, though the staff had no control over that and looked to be doing their best to make the patients comfortable.

  She’d seen any number of treatments—men and women strapped in chairs and cuffed to their beds, patients shaved bald, others screaming, some quiet, some immersed in water up to their necks, and many who seemed utterly normal as they read books or played music or talked with each other.

  However, as they headed down the last staircase, she noticed a wing in which they had not ventured.

  “Just storage,” Dr. Pridgen said. “I hardly ever go down there myself. Cleaning supplies, dry goods, etc. The superintendent handles all supplies.”

  “Doctor!” A nurse came hurrying down the stairs after them. “We need your assistance immediately.”

  “I’m on my way.” He looked at Charlotte, a flicker of doubt on his face. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all. You’ve been more than generous with your time. I’ll make my own way to Mr. Mason’s office.”

  “It’s straight along there,” he said pointing toward the front of the building.

  Charlotte nodded and began heading in the direction he indicated as he hesitated a moment, watching her. She gave him a last smile and picked up her pace. Then she heard him go up the stairs with the nurse.

  Later, she would attribute it to her writer’s instinct or her woman’s intuition—she wasn’t sure which—but Charlotte knew she had to take a look down that last hallway. It just didn’t sit well with her not to see everything.

  Quickly and quietly, she retraced her steps. There was a series of storage rooms as Dr. Pridgen had said, rooms that previously housed patients before the second and third stories were built. But at the far end, there was one room that had an old-style door with bars built-in at eye-level, resembling one from the House of Corrections nearby. It was closed and visibly secured by a large padlock on the outside.

  Scarumph. Charlotte thought she heard a noise inside, something scraping on the floor, and it made the hair on the nape of her neck stand up. She took a step forward, thinking to take a quick look through the bars, when a voice boomed out behind her.

  “Here now, what are you doing down there?”

  She froze, terror-stricken for a brief second. Then she took a deep breath and turned to face the unfamiliar voice, grateful at least that it wasn’t the unpleasant countenance of Superintendent Mason.

  “I’m Miss Sanborn, a reporter for the Post. Dr. Pridgen was giving me a tour when he was called away.”

  The man appeared to be a janitor, holding a pail in one hand and a mop in the other.

  “Does Mr. Mason know you’re here?”

  “Yes, of course. In fact, I’m on my way to his office now. I guess I lost my way.”

  “You must be lost if you think Mr. Mason would have a room such as that for his office.” The man snickered at his own levity. Charlotte smiled. She knew how to handle him.

  “If you tell me your name and what you do here, I’ll put you in my article.” She flipped open her notebook.

  “In the paper and all?” The man’s voice was awestruck.

  Charlotte smiled. She quickly jotted down his personal information, then gestured nonchalantly at the room beside them. “Can you tell me what this room is used for?”

  He screwed up his face as if still debating whether to speak with her. Then he relaxed, obviously thinking a moment of fame was worth the risk.

  “It’s usually empty,” he told her. “I was keeping my pails and brooms and the like in there until not long ago. Then Mr. Mason says to me to clear it out and toss in some bedding. And then we put in the latest bloke waiting to get the black gown.”

  “The black gown?” she asked.

  “Yeah, to be sentenced, you know?”

  Charlotte nodded, unable to repress a shiver. There was something odd about it. Dr. Pridgen had lied to her, unless he didn’t know there was anyone there. But he was the head doctor, how could he not know?

  “Why is this patient here? How long is he staying?”

  The man shrugged. “I asked the very same thing. I don’t care for my storage room being taken over. Mr. Mason says to me, ‘As for his length of stay, that’s entirely up to him.’” The janitor gestured toward the room, indicating the person inside. “He’s suffering from demen . . . demen—”

  “Dementia?”

  “That’s it,” the man said, setting down his bucket, “and Mr. Mason goes on, ‘Until he remembers who he is, a criminal guilty of murder, then he can’t be sentenced.’ But it makes no never mind, he tells me.”

  “How is that?” Charlotte asked, curious now to see into the room, which she thought looked more like a prison cell than a hospital room, at least from the outside.

  “Well, Mr. Mason says he can either spend the rest of his life in there,” he hooked a thumb at the locked room once more, “pretending to be someone he’s not—”

  “You mean suffering from delusions,” Charlotte offered.

  The janitor shrugged. “Mr. Mason said ‘pretend,’ I’m sure of that. Or,” he continued, “he can be cured of his dementia and return to the courts where he’ll more than likely be bagged for life in the boarding school.”

  “The boarding school?” Charlotte asked.

  “Ay, you know, the state penitentiary. That’s if he’s not the guest of honor at a necktie sociable, so to speak.” He mimed a man bein
g hanged, pretending to pull a noose up above his own head. “I guess Mr. Mason is right. It makes no difference. A cell is a cell.”

  With that, the janitor stepped aside, allowing her to look through the bars. She had to stand on her tiptoes and felt somewhat foolish, even ashamed, as though she was viewing an animal in a cage.

  Peering into the gloominess inside the locked room, with the only light coming in from behind her, she could just make out a huddled form, leaning against the bare wall opposite. He rested on top of what appeared to be a crude straw mattress on the concrete floor. Murderer or not, the cell looked as though it wasn’t fit for animals, let alone people.

  As her shadow fell across the man, he turned, and Charlotte saw clearly the wretched and dirty face of her younger brother.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Charlotte fled the building and ran through the immaculately groomed gardens until she reached her aunt’s carriage. Once inside, she tried to calm the panic, but she couldn’t clear her head of the image of her brother, filthy, his hair matted, staring at her with incredulous eyes, and then simply lifting one finger to silence her.

  She had stifled the cry that had been on her lips and had backed away. Shaking slightly with shock, she’d told the janitor that she was feeling ill and left as if all the hounds of hell were after her. She had to find Reed at once. Then, she thought about the telephone.

  “Casey,” she addressed her aunt’s driver, “as soon as we cross the channel, please stop at the first large office building you see. Anywhere you think there will be a telephone.”

  The journey back to Boston proper seemed interminable, though it was only minutes. Casey pulled up on a commercial street and Charlotte alighted from the carriage, recognizing nothing but heading toward the large stone facade of a bank. With little preliminary discussion, she demanded that they call Malloy and Associates.

  It wasn’t long before she had John Trelaine on the line. It was the oddest thing she had ever experienced, hearing his crackling, disembodied voice as he told her that Reed was out but was expected to return momentarily.

  “I’ll be there shortly. If you see him, John, tell him it is an emergency. Tell him I found my brother in the Lunatic Hospital.”

  She closed her eyes and prayed that Reed would have returned by the time she got to Scollay Square.

  *****

  Charlotte paced the well-appointed lounge, unable to sit and starting at every sound. When she’d arrived ten minutes earlier, the doorman informed her that John had left to search for Reed. Just when she didn’t think she could stand to wait any longer, she heard him enter.

  The sound of a female voice halted her from running out of the lounge and throwing herself into his arms for comfort. She peered out of the waiting room. A lovely woman, dressed impeccably, had hold of his hand.

  “I’m so glad I ran into you, Reed. Paris was heavenly, but it would have been much more fun with you there.” Then, in full view of anyone who cared to watch, Reed took her in his arms, spinning her around with her feet off the ground before setting her down and kissing her on both cheeks. He held her close a moment, possessively.

  Charlotte felt sick to her stomach. She was still terrified and confused at seeing Thaddeus. She was stunned at seeing Reed holding this woman in his arms. Nothing was as it should be and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe properly. She now knew exactly what it meant to feel lightheaded.

  “Will I see you tonight?” she heard the woman ask.

  Charlotte had been a fool and was continuing to play the fool. His words came back to her: I have known many women. A week later, I bedded her. I’m a man, not a boy.

  Why didn’t Reed just acknowledge the corn? He was a womanizer! He might have used Helen to ward off the many girls eager to throw themselves at his feet, however that certainly didn’t stop him from trifling with the women he chose for himself. Charlotte could hardly blame him for taking what she had offered. Hadn’t she readily behaved as loosely as any Jezebel?

  She stepped into their path, feeling desperate to escape. Reed’s eyes darkened, seeing the signs of agitation plain on her face. He stepped away from the mysterious female and into her path.

  “Charlotte, what is it? Is it the children?”

  She thought for a moment about telling him, about spilling her fears in front of this graceful stranger who was eyeing her with a curious glance, and then Charlotte felt a cold fury.

  Why was she running to this man? All he had ever done was be the first to bed her and make her love him and then abandon her the next day, just as everyone she loved had abandoned her.

  Perhaps his marriage proposal was just another way to gain a long-term fiancée, someone to replace Helen, whose only crime, perhaps, was to become too routine. For the first time, Charlotte felt a little pity for the woman—just a little. In any case, she would not pin her hopes of helping Teddy on Reed.

  “No. It was a mistake to come here.” She ignored both their astonished faces, and pushed past them, heading for home.

  “Charlotte,” she heard him call after her, but she ran to her carriage, glad she had brought her aunt’s closed-in brougham and not her open-air barouche.

  “Hurry, Casey,” she demanded, slamming the door shut behind her and twisting the lock. Once inside, she saw Reed, just steps behind her; still, he made her jump when he banged on the carriage door just as they pulled away.

  It was on the way home to Alicia that she thought of Jason. He was, after all, a member of one of Boston’s wealthiest families. She spoke into the mouthpiece. “Casey, do you know how to get to the Farnsworths’ residence?”

  It wasn’t five minutes more and she was there, just a couple of streets away from her aunt’s home. The large plum-colored vehicle alongside the curb had never looked so welcoming. She hastened up the front steps of the house on Beacon Street, neither noticing nor caring about the furnishings as she was shown into a large parlor.

  Charlotte counted exactly how many steps it took to cross the black and gold-patterned carpet—one way, then the other—while she waited for the maid to take her message to Jason.

  She heard his footsteps and turned as he entered. Jason crossed the room in long strides, taking both her hands in his.

  “My dear Charlotte. Whatever is wrong?” Half of her wanted to sink into his arms and let him handle everything, but another part of her wanted to charge right over to the police station and demand that the court rescind the order that had put her brother in the Boston Lunatic Hospital.

  “It’s my brother.” She saw the play of emotions cross his fine features. She should have thought of Jason first; after all he knew Thaddeus. He would help her.

  She filled him in as quickly as she could, wanting only to hasten whatever process was necessary to make Thaddeus free again.

  “Calm down,” he told her soothingly, pulling her down to sit beside him on the sofa. “Remember, your brother knows you’re here now, and he knows you’ll be helping to free him. It must be a great relief to him to know that he’s no longer alone.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Charlotte agreed, “but I can’t forget how he looked, like a caged animal. It was awful. And then to have him gesture for me not to give any sign of recognition—it was downright frightening. I can’t imagine why he did so.”

  “Perhaps he feared for your safety.”

  She frowned. “But why?”

  Jason only shrugged. “That’s what I’ve got to find out.”

  “We’ve got to find out,” she corrected. “Where are we going?” But he shook his head as he stood up.

  “You, my dear one, are going to stay put. I don’t need to be worrying about you as well as Thaddeus. Just stay here and don’t talk to anyone until I can determine if you’re in danger. You haven’t mentioned this to anyone yet, have you?”

  She thought of Reed with that woman in his arms.

  “No.”

  Jason seemed to consider that a moment. “I’m going to City Hall to see what I
can discern. The Farnsworth name will open doors at the police station and get answers. Stay here, Charlotte, so I know you’re safe.” And with that, he was gone.

  Almost immediately, she stood up. What if some other Farnsworth family member walked in? Surely, they would think it odd that she was in their home. She looked down and saw she was clutching her hands together. Good God, she thought, I will not be reduced to a hand-wringing ninny.

  Grabbing her gloves and her bonnet, she headed outside. Casey jumped down from his seat and opened the carriage door.

  “Where to, Miss?”

  “Home,” she said, craving the company of her reassuring aunt and a good hug from Thomas and Lily.

  *****

  In the front hall, Charlotte was removing her hat when Reed came rushing out of the parlor, Alicia in close pursuit.

  “What the devil is going on?” he asked, his eyes blazing. “And why did you run out of my office?”

  Charlotte eyed him warily. This was not the calm, collected man she’d seen handling everything from wolves to women.

  “Everything is under control,” she assured him. “Jason is helping me with the situation.”

  “Jason? Jason Farnsworth?” He looked as if he were about to explode.

  “Yes. You seemed too busy with your . . . your—”

  “Sister,” he finished for her, flatly.

  “Oh, which one?” Alicia asked, seemingly oblivious to the war that had erupted in her entranceway.

  “Sophie,” Reed answered without taking his eyes off Charlotte, who was turning an ugly shade of red.

  Alicia just smiled. “She is a lovely girl, so refined. Please give her my regards next time you see her. Why, Charlotte, she would be an exceedingly suitable friend for you. The two of you must meet.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Reed agreed, looking pointedly at her.

  Twice guilty of the same crime! Charlotte accepted the fact that her blinding jealousy had caused her to reach the wrong conclusion yet again. However, in her defense, she knew she had been overly distraught with panic and with the seemingly endless waiting. She only hoped that she hadn’t let her emotions get in the way of helping Teddy.