Behind the Veil

by E. J. Dawson

  Stephen already believed he was stupid when talking to Mr. Carrick.

  He ignored his boss worrying about Stephen’s health. Mr. Carrick moved him to the day schedule as of next week to help with Stephen’s chest complaints.

  The dryer weather of Los Angeles should have made him better, but nothing did these days. Not even the bottles of medication that the doctors prescribed.

  No, Stephen hadn’t focused on Mr. Carrick’s words.

  He’d been too busy staring at the bloody book.

  Just as he did now.

  This book belonged to Bethany, and she’d left it out on the table for him.

  She said nothing. She never did. Silly girl was quiet as a mouse, but she had a voice filled with birdsong, tiny thing that she was. No, she wasn’t a girl anymore. Bethany dreaded turning fifty, though he was closer than her. There should be no reason to regret their ages. They had a grown son who’d survived the war and worked on navy ship engines. A daughter who married a grocer, and at her suggestion they were adding flowers. They were doing well.

  But he wanted to read.

  He wanted to talk like Mr. Carrick. Use all those fine English words.

  The old fellow sat in his tower, told people what to do, and the dock was above reproach.

  Stephen did his part, but he didn’t think he deserved Mr. Carrick’s praise. Neither of them had been young enough to go to the war, but they’d seen their fair share of ships pass through here.

  They’d even shared a nightcap or two, and though Mr. Carrick invited Stephen to call him by his first name, Stephen refused. He wasn’t like that. Mr. Carrick was his boss, and he’d do as he was told, first and foremost. It was about respect.

  Looking at the book still on the floor, he leaned down to pick it up.

  “Excuse me?” A voice startled him into dropping the book yet again.

  “What the―” Stephen looked up into the face of a young man who was dressed in a suit and coat against the cold.

  “Sorry, old boy,” the stranger said, “got a few things for you. It’s before the curfew, isn’t it? Only we got caught up at the theater and my wife’s maid hadn’t packed all our things.”

  English.

  “Sorry, sir,” Stephen said, “you gave me a start. I’ll come right out.”

  Stephen waited until he left before picking the book up. That had been quite a fright.

  But a grown man sitting reading children’s stories didn’t bear thinking about. Dusting off the book and seeing one corner had dented, he resolved to buy Bethany a new copy, or another book, if she liked. He’d tell her about it all. Maybe they could read together.

  Smiling at the thought and putting the book back in its hidey-hole, Stephen went out to get the luggage.

  Only…his legs wouldn’t move…and he couldn’t breathe…

  Shadows danced in his vision, and he was falling…

  

  Letitia saw his death come, and she avoided it when Stephen became confused. She had what she needed. Studying the small woman across from her, Letitia found it no wonder that Stephen still thought of Bethany as a young girl. Dark hair showed few threads of silver, and her wide brown eyes and youthful skin made her appear far younger than her nearly fifty years.

  Bethany was quiet and reserved, any signs of grief hidden by the same respectable nature Stephen displayed. But her eyes were red, and thin bony hands clutched her handbag. If she was slim before he died, she was a whisper of her former self now.

  “He wanted to buy you another book,” Letitia said, deciding to start on the sweetest note. “He read Alice in Wonderland in secret at work. He wanted to be like Mr. Carrick.”

  Bethany said nothing, turning her head to blow her nose before she gestured for Letitia to continue.

  “If you go to the dock house on the pier,” Letitia said, “there is a desk in that office. Behind the drawers on the left-hand side, there is a space under the desk. You’ll find the book there.”

  “He took it…” Bethany’s tremulous voice emulated her birdlike persona, the cadences of her voice beautiful to hear.

  “There’s a corner bent where he dropped it,” Letitia added, “and he was going to tell you so you could help him learn to read. He wanted to know all those…fine English words.”

  Bethany sat there for long moments, staring at the table, and Letitia stayed silent, letting her absorb Letitia’s words.

  “Did he…at the end…” her voice drifted off.

  “He had an easy passing,” Letitia assured her and ventured to say more. “He didn’t even know. We could all hope for such a painless death.”

  Bethany cried then, fat drops that rolled down her cheek that she brushed away.

  She got to her feet, so quick her chair tilted, and she snatched it before it fell, with a smile of apology at the near-miss.

  “I think I should get home now, and you look peaky my dear,” Bethany said, collecting her coat from the rack by the door.

  “I’m fine,” Letitia said, even as fatigue nipped at her heels, “as long as you’ve received the answers you were seeking.”

  Bethany’s hand was on the doorknob, but she looked over her shoulder, and Letitia knew for a moment why Stephen had cared for her. The beaming smile, so full of love, told Letitia how Bethany missed him but would carry on. The presence was a spring breeze on Letitia’s face, warm and soft, speaking of the hope Letitia never allowed herself.

  “Yes, Ms. Hawking,” Bethany said, opening the door, “you told me what I needed to hear.”

  She closed the door behind her, and Letitia was bereft. The sudden loss of a gracious woman chiming the bell of her soul, echoing through her lonely heart, filled her with profound grief for her husband. If not for himself, then for the companionship his presence had meant to her.

  Nagging tiredness washed over her, forcing her to withdraw inside herself again.

  Letitia’s head felt full of cotton wool, her feet heavy as she stood to cleanse the room. She should have been starving but food had no appeal. She collected her night things and dressing gown and went down the hall to use the bathroom she shared with Imogen.

  The windowless room had only enough space for the commode, a sink, and a great clawfoot tub Letitia had yet to work out how they’d gotten into the room. Deep, it would cover her to her neck, and Letitia’s aching body longed for the warmth to sink into her bones. She turned the taps on, checking the temperature before sliding off her shoes. The tiles were cold on her stockinged feet. Grasping the gas knob of the heater, she turned it high before laying her dressing gown across the bars. By the time she finished her bath, it would be toasty.

  Testing the water with a hand and turning up the hot tap, she took a vial of oil, the extract of juniper, and laced the water with drops. The sweet scent tickled her nose and comforted her.

  Letitia took off her black dress, and when she held it up, she resolved to go to the launderers tomorrow, adding it to her sodden gray dress. She shed her underthings, making a mental list of items to collect in the morning before dipping into the water.

  It scorched her skin and she gritted her teeth against the burn.

  The water would never be too hot as long as she remembered the asylum baths.

  Her skin turned red while she soaked in the water, but it made the white scars show like whiplashes on her skin.

  Across her belly, the hasty surgeon’s knife left a harsh reminder of her past, the puncture of the stitches she’d torn in her anguish-driven madness akin to bullet holes. Ugly as they were, the thin lines on the inside of her arms from wrist to halfway up her elbow were delicate by comparison.

  Letitia’s finger traced one of the lines, the memory of making the incision as hazy as the darkness of the days following the fated event. The police had taken her to hospital, covered in more blood than her own, keening without words
, full of a broken soul.

  They’d drugged her, if only to stop the sound, and when she’d awoken the anguish came back. More violent than before, no amount of time or consolation eased the growing pit inside her where life had once been. Her dead husband’s lawyer paid for the submission into the asylum the doctors had insisted on. Letitia hadn’t been coherent enough to protest.

  Fog surrounded every memory of the institution, full of insane remnants of once-human minds reduced to ramblings of childlike pleading, animal noises, and demonic howls.

  All the while a shadow stalked her. The specter of the past hadn’t vanished. She’d cursed God and begged for his mercy, told Satan to send his messenger away, and yet pleaded for him to take her until she’d paid for what she’d done.

  Asked at night’s darkest if it was Daniel and if he came to punish her for losing their son.

  The doctors increased her medication and treatments.

  She’d lost time, lost herself.

  There were only the drugs, given to her when she woke up screaming, the bindings when she would try to hurt herself, the confinement when they couldn’t silence her…

  A nurse had been helping her into a real bath, warm and comforting, to help clean her hair, and she’d leaned forward to take Letitia’s hand.

  “I see him, too,” she’d said, and Letitia didn’t believe her. Remaining mute, she didn’t answer, afraid they would do something worse. She’d be put in isolation again. The nurse was one more tormentor who’d rather her ramblings were on another ward.

  Letitia curled in a ball, hiding herself and touching as little as possible. If she did, she was bombarded with images that didn’t belong to her. She avoided eye contact because of the overwhelming nature of others’ personalities and seeing their judgment, rousing her hatred and disgust at herself. Worst of all were mirrors or reflective surfaces since they contained dark nightmares of what had once been within.

  She could not even laugh at her own condition—her mind was too busy running from everything making her afraid. But the nurse was there, she wasn’t judging, and she could see the figure that haunted Letitia.

  “He’s just a shadow of his former self,” the nurse insisted, “and you needn’t be afraid. He will not hurt you.”

  Letitia pursed her lips, looking away.

  “He never touches you,” the nurse went on. “He only watches, but it’s scary when he isn’t where you are expecting him to be, and when you have such terrible memories of what happened.”

  Water poured over Letitia, warm and gentle as the nurse’s words. She kept talking as she ran her fingers through Letitia’s hair, combing it with lotion, rubbing it into the matted knots, untangling them with gentle tugs.

  “How do you know?” Letitia said. It was the first time she’d spoken in weeks. The first time someone had been civil in far longer than she could remember.

  She’d come to believe the doctors were right, and it was her mind manifesting its guilt for her sins. Madness had driven her to attempt to take her life…and to take someone else’s.

  The nurse smiled, pouring another jug of water down Letitia’s back to wash the soap suds out of her hair.

  “How long have you seen it?” the nurse asked.

  “Since…since the séance…”

  The nurse would have seen her file.

  The patient is suffering post-traumatic stress from a miscarriage during attendance at a séance. Patient present to contact husband who died in the war. The host of the séance attacked the patient, who defended herself and killed the host. Patient has been incomprehensible, prone to violent outbursts, and sees false visions. Motivated by guilt over the loss of her child from her deceased husband.

  Letitia had seen the file, too, when it was left on a doctor’s desk during a session, and she’d read it. The paper didn’t note what had happened, citing the cause as female hysteria. A group of widows meeting to commune with the dead and hoping to say a final farewell to their husbands.

  It was an easy excuse to the truth Letitia had tried to explain.

  She didn’t blame them for thinking she was insane.

  The nurse took a furtive look around the empty bathroom. The other occupant was an old woman who stared at the walls. With a quick smile at Letitia, the nurse’s hand darted into the pocket of her smock. Letitia drew back, afraid of another needle or a scrubbing brush. She’d not always been amenable to baths, unable to stand the sight of the shameful scars across her abdomen.

  The nurse only held aloft a small brown glass vial, and she opened it and held it under Letitia’s nose. Juniper flowers filled Letitia with lightness, the scent stirring deep within and awakening a sensation that wasn’t pain, anger, or sadness.

  It was the tentative touch of peace.

  Not forgiveness, never that, but a reprieve.

  When she didn’t protest, the nurse put several drops in the bath, and Letitia felt something other than the weight of her past. She did not want to die in this cage, and though at one point that had not been true, it was now.

  It took another three months of therapy and convincing the doctors she was fine before they released her into the nurse’s custody. With postwar soldiers scarred by what they’d seen, the hospital needed beds and discharged her.

  Letitia let the nurse take her to the far reaches of the Scottish Highlands.

  Her name was Moira Borrows, and her grandmother saved Letitia’s soul.

  Chapter 7

  Letitia rolled away from the morning sun’s rays. The light was a bane to her eyes, her nose stuffy, and a headache pressed on her temples. She felt altogether wretched. The rain yesterday and an extended bath had left her with a chill. To top it off, a large glass of brandy on an empty stomach after her bath hadn’t helped. Lured by the fire, she sipped her drink and watched the flames, and she’d been content until shivers from the dying fire had prompted her to crawl into bed.

  Sitting up, she reached for her purse and pulled out the ledger.

  She had a consultation in the afternoon, but her evening was free, and there was no session booked for Friday. She had dinner planned with Imogen then, but she should feel better on the morrow. Checking the time, Letitia discovered it was only a little after eight, and the ache in her stiff body forbade her from more than thinking about moving.

  Deciding to be virtuous later, Letitia burrowed herself back under the covers after twitching the curtain so no sunlight would pierce her sleep.

  She’d only just drifted off again when there was a knock on the door. Not Imogen’s tentative hand, but a far heavier one.

  Staring at the adjoining door, Letitia closed her eyes and laid her head back.

  She heard another insistent thud on the door.

  Sighing, Letitia sat upright and swung her legs to the bed’s edge. They dangled there a moment, and she wondered if whoever it was would leave before she got up. Seconds passed and yet the call came again. Three hard knocks.

  Shoving her feet into her slippers and struggling into her gown, Letitia rubbed her eyes on the heels of her palms as she walked to the door.

  Whoever it was should have in all politeness given up. Perhaps it was Mrs. Finch.

  Letitia’s session room was dark, and she left it like that, not wishing to alert the knocker she was awake. She bent down, observing the twin shadows she could see from the crack under the door. She would have put a draft snake there but had forgotten in her cold-induced stupor.

  Someone was still waiting outside. They knocked again.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “Mr. Driscoll.”

  Letitia’s hand hovered over the knob.

  “It’s rather early,” she said, hearing the quiver in her tone.

  “I thought it wouldn’t be appropriate to call while you had one of your appointments,” he said, baritone rumbling through the thick wooden
door, “and it is after nine now.”

  “I’ve already told your sister I can’t help her,” Letitia said, raising her voice, but her throat scratched, aching at the louder tone. “But I’m more than happy to give you the name and telephone number of a woman in Scotland who can.”

  “My apologies,” he said. “I only wanted to return the items you left at the café, Ms. Hawking.”

  Her case files and umbrella.

  “Please leave them on the telephone stand,” she said.

  “I’d like to give them to you in person.”

  She heard the brogue in his voice, but there was an undercurrent of desperation. Letitia leaned her head against the door frame, thumping it, and was unable to hold back the wince of pain.

  “Ms. Hawking?”

  “Just a moment,” Letitia said, sure this was a silly idea, but she needed those files. A simple enough request from a woman whose son died in the war. It was a familiar but easy appointment and would not require any additional effort but to look at a picture. Still, the photograph was in her case, and Mr. Driscoll may well leave with it when Letitia needed to give it back to its owner.

  Ensuring she was decent, Letitia unlocked the door and opened it only enough to let the hall light filter through. He had taken a step back but didn’t hand her the leather case in his arms when she held out her hand for it.

  “I also wanted to…are you quite well?” he asked. Whatever he’d been about to say was wiped from his tongue as he took in her appearance.

  “As it happens, I am not,” Letitia snapped, her resolve to stay on her feet weakening.

  “Then I won’t take too much of your time,” he said. “I have something I wanted to give you.”

  Letitia drew back from the door, retreating to the table to hold herself upright on one of the chair backs. She was being unspeakably inhospitable and didn’t care as he came into the gloomy room.

  “Please just give me the file,” Letitia said, her voice rasping. With every second that passed a weariness threatened to overwhelm her.