European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman (The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club Book 2)

by Theodora Goss

  “Very bad, very bad,” said the director, in the same tone of voice he would have used to say Very good, very good. “We must make certain that the English miss does not do such a thing again. The second-floor matron will take your hat, with its offending pin—you will find that we do not need hats here!”

  Sure enough, when Freud had taken her up to the second floor, a grim-looking woman in a gray uniform had taken her hat, her coat, her purse—anything other than the clothes she was wearing. Fortunately, as Freud had told her, second-floor patients, meaning the ones who paid, were permitted to keep their own clothes and allowed to bring comforts from home as long as they were of the most innocuous sort—pillows, books that were not French, photographs. The set of lock-picking implements that Irene had given her were well-hidden, sewn into the lining of her dress so cunningly that only a trained eye could have spotted them. She had watched Hannah sew them in herself. Sewing did, after all, have its uses! Perhaps someday she would learn to sew like that—after her experiences at the Magdalen Society, she had assumed that sewing was a boring waste of time. But if it helped you pick locks? If she could not make it as an actress, she might become a burglar, and such skills would come in handy.

  The matron had spoken to Freud in rapid German, looking Diana up and down with disapproval—but she probably looked that way at everyone. Her frown was etched into her forehead.

  “She says you will get everything back when you depart,” said Freud. “You will be well here, yes? No more hysterical episodes, no more sticking the hatpin in the arm. You will rest and grow better, Miss Frank. I have asked for a very good room for you, with a view that you will like.” Whether or not the matron could speak English, Freud was playing his part. That meant she would be in a room on the side of the Krankenhaus where Mary and Justine would be watching. They had not been absolutely sure whether he would be able to arrange for a room on that side—not that it mattered, since she wasn’t planning on asking for help. When had she ever needed help before? “And you will have an attendant who speaks a little English—only a little, but it will be a comfort to you, to have someone who speaks your language. Now you must rest, Miss Frank. I will come for you at the appointed time. No unusual exertions between now and then, you understand?”

  “Of course, Doctor,” said Diana, with lowered eyes. Oh, Mrs. Poole would scarcely have recognized her!

  Then he had taken her hand, pressing it with a final meaningful look—of course he could not say anything in front of the matron, but Diana could tell he was concerned. Well, he didn’t need to be! She was Diana Hyde, and this was going to be easy peasy.

  Then the matron had led her down a long hallway to her room, told her in German that she should rest—Diana could tell only because the dour woman pantomimed it at the same time, which almost made Diana laugh—and locked her in.

  The room looked comfortable in a bland, impersonal way, like a mediocre hotel. Since she did not know what that night would bring, Diana lay down on the bed. She would close her eyes for a moment, just a moment, and make plans for the night. . . .

  She was woken by the door opening, and remembered just in time where she was. “Hello, hello!” said the girl who had opened the door. She was not much older than Diana, dressed in the uniform of an attendant. She was pushing a cart with several trays of food on it. Well, well—it must be time for lunch.

  “Klara,” she said, pointing to herself. She was plump, and pretty despite her uniform—it was rather a feat, looking pretty with all one’s hair pulled back into a white cap. She had a particularly wide, friendly smile—quite the opposite of the matron! She could not have been much older than Diana, but a large key-ring hung at her side, jangling with what looked like all the keys to the women’s wing. It made her look very responsible.

  “Dinner, yes? I speak leettle English,” she said, taking a tray off the cart and putting it on a table in front of the window, which also looked as though it could be used for correspondence or whatever else tables were used for. It was the only one in the room.

  “I don’t speak German,” said Diana, shaking her head and smiling back. This must be the attendant Freud had mentioned. “And that is lunch, not dinner.”

  “Lunch?” said Klara. “Lunch.” She looked pleased with herself.

  Diana sat down at the table. What in the world was that? On the plate was a waxy ball of cooked dough, the approximate size of a cricket ball, surrounded by some sort of watery stew.

  “Das ist ein Knödel,” said Klara. “I come again, yes?” Then off she went, to deliver her other trays. Knödel? It tasted like Yorkshire pudding without any of the flavor. Diana missed Frau Schmidt’s cooking! She ate half of it and tossed the other half out the window. The birds could have it. Yes, Knödel was definitely for the birds!

  MRS. POOLE: Diana not finishing everything on her plate? I don’t believe it.

  DIANA: You’ve never tasted Knödel. It’s like what they make walls out of.

  Soon after she finished lunch, Klara returned for the tray. “Come,” she said, pushing the cart in front of her. Diana followed her down the hall into a sort of common room, in which women were sitting in plush armchairs or on either side of a long central table. Some were talking to one another in low voices. Some were reading what looked like fashion magazines. One, sitting by the window, was singing softly to herself. The ones along the table were drawing with pastel crayons—there were no pencils, no paintbrushes. Were they considered too dangerous? There was a nurse sitting at the table as well, in the usual gray uniform and white cap. She smiled at Diana in the way nurses smile, as though you were a not particularly interesting insect they had just noticed, to be kept under observation in case you were dangerous. Several of the other patients looked at her curiously, but did not greet her.

  “Good, yes?” said Klara, then waved goodbye and pushed her tray away down the hall. So this was what madwomen did in the afternoons—sat around and read fashion magazines, or drew silly pictures? It did not seem so different from what most women did in their ordinary lives. Wealthy women, that is. Poor women had better things to do than draw, or read magazines, or go mad!

  Diana tried to get into conversations with several of them, thinking they might provide her with information on the Krankenhaus, but none of them spoke English. Well, she would simply find out what she needed to know herself!

  By the end of an hour, she was so bored that she felt like kicking someone, but of course that would not do. She amused herself by continuing to be small and frail and nervous, sometimes looking out the window. Like the window of her room, it looked toward the inn where she knew Mary and Justine were watching, but they would not be able to see her at that distance. She tried to draw for a while, and discovered that it was harder than she had imagined. How did Justine manage to make all those flowers look different from one another? Once, reminding herself to stay in character, she fidgeted and scratched at her arm. The woman sitting next to her, who was drawing a tree that actually looked like a tree, put a hand on Diana’s, as though to stop her. When she saw the scar on Diana’s arm, from that day she had cut herself in the Society of St. Mary Magdalen—had it really only been three months ago?—she shook her head and said, “Non, ma chérie. Vous devez arrêter de faire cela. Vous êtes trop jeune et jolie.” Diana smiled, nodded, and continued drawing a flower that looked like a bunch of noses stuck together.

  After a period of time that seemed interminable but was probably only a couple of hours, Klara came to take her back to her room. “Sleep, yes? Schlaf. Dormir.” As the matron had that morning, she mimed going to sleep, using her hands as pillows. Evidently, it was once again time to nap! This time Diana was not tired at all—bored, yes, but not tired. However, she lay in bed with her eyes closed, in case Klara or one of the nurses, or even the matron, chose to visit her. She visualized the architectural map Greta had shown her. The Krankenhaus was arranged in two wings: men’s and women’s. They were connected by a central hall with a staircase, from t
he first floor to the third. From that hall ran two perpendicular corridors into the two wings, so that the building formed the shape of a cross. The patients’ rooms were arranged along those long, narrow hallways. All Diana had to do was unlock her door, go down the corridor in the women’s wing to the central hall, climb the stairs, and she would be on the third floor. Lucinda’s room would be along that same hallway, one floor up. Easy peasy, unless of course the third floor was guarded. How bored she was! She lay awake, not sleepy at all. Not at all . . .

  Suddenly she was on the third floor, walking through a dark forest—it did not surprise her that there should be a forest on the third floor of the Krankenhaus. The guard looked like a wolf. Any moment now he would find her and eat her up! But her red cloak would protect her, she was sure of that. After all, hadn’t it been given to her by her mother? The wolf might howl, the wolf might bite, but Little Red Riding Hood was the most fearsome predator in this forest!

  She was startled awake by a key turning in the lock. It was Klara, with what was evidently her dinner: boiled vegetables and more Knödel. She ate the vegetables and half the Knödel, because after all she needed to keep up her strength, then threw the rest of it out the window. As she did so, she saw that the sun was starting to set. Soon, her real day would begin.

  MARY: It’s a good thing we didn’t see you throwing the Knödel out the window. We might have thought it was a signal for help!

  DIANA: It would have been. A few more days of that diet, and I would have starved to death!

  There were several things Diana established that first night. As long as she avoided the nurses, who mostly stayed in their station after midnight, she could roam about as she wished on the second floor, which housed the patients who had been admitted voluntarily or on their doctors’ orders. On the first floor there were guards, but no patients—only administrative offices. These were useless to her anyway, so once she established that the first floor was securely guarded, she did not venture down again. The third floor was more complicated. At the top of the stairs, in the central hall between the men’s and women’s wings, sat a single guard. He sat there all night long, and as far as Diana could determine, he did not move except to, once every hour, get up, stretch, and walk up and down the length of the hall. He walked up the hall to the back window, then down the hall to the front window. Then back to his seat. That was it. As far as she could tell, he never left his post.

  He had to leave sometime, if only to take a piss? But Diana watched for three hours from an alcove by the staircase that had probably, in the architect’s mind, been intended for a statue of some sort. She stood as still as a statue, until the stairwell began to grow infinitesimally brighter from the approach of dawn. As long as she watched, he just sat on his hard wooden chair, smoking a pipe and reading from what looked like a prayer book—she could see his lips move. Every hour, he took his walk up and down, always within her sight. True, while walking up the hall he did have his back to her, but never for long enough that she could reach and pick the lock of the women’s wing. She tried it once, and was almost seen. He never closed his eyes, and his routine never varied. It was very frustrating.

  Finally, she had to go back to her room on the second floor, locking the door behind her, to begin a new day of flavorless gruel for breakfast, drawing in the common room with the other female patients, Knödel for lunch (this time with sausage), back to the common room to look through magazines or stare out the window, and Knödel for dinner (with a side order of despair or spinach, it didn’t much matter which). At least she could work on Klara! When the attendant brought her breakfast, she said, “Klara, I think there is a friend of mine here—she is also sick, like me. Have you seen her? Perhaps I shall meet her today in the room where we all go to—” do nothing. But she did not finish her sentence.

  Klara smiled and shook her head. “Slow please? I not so good English.”

  Diana signed. “Well, I not at all German, so you’re ahead of me. My friend—Lucinda Van Helsing.” She spoke slowly, the words distinct. “Girl—Fräulein—here.” What did Lucinda look like? She didn’t even know.

  “Ah, Lucinda!” said Klara. “No, not here, three floor.” She sat down beside Diana on the bed and took her hand. “No good,” she said with an expression of sympathy. “How say—no so good, sick here.” She pointed to her head. “Here.” And she pointed to her stomach.

  “She’s sick? How sick?” asked Diana. But Klara merely shook her head. Perhaps she did not want to distress Lucinda’s friend, perhaps she simply could not express what she meant in English. Whatever the reason, this was all Diana was likely to get out of her.

  “Go now?” said Klara. “Make pretty Blumen.” She mimed drawing.

  “All right,” said Diana. “I’ll go draw some”—bloody, but she did not say that—“flowers.”

  As she sat at the table in the common room, drawing blue and green and purple flowers—the most unflowerlike colors she could find—she once again went over her mental map of the Krankenhaus. Last night, she had purloined an attendant’s uniform from the closet next to the nursing station. That might come in handy, but it would not get her past the guard. What she needed was a distraction. But what?

  The biggest problem with the Krankenhaus was the boredom. That in and of itself would have been enough to drive anyone mad. By afternoon, Diana was ready to tear someone’s hair out—maybe even her own. But at last she had a plan. It had come to her at lunch, when she had heard Klara’s keys clinking against one another. There was something pleasant and authoritative about the sound.

  “So schöne Blumen!” said Klara, after putting her dinner tray on the table. She pointed to Diana’s latest drawing, a mass of green squiggles. Seriously, she had given up on the flower business.

  Knödel. Knödel Knödel Knödel. The only advantage of Knödel was that it could be eaten with a spoon, no fork or knife required. As Diana reached for her napkin, to put it on her lap (wouldn’t Mary be proud of her?), her elbow knocked against the tray. Bang! Metal clattered against the floor, porcelain smashed, and there was the Knödel in the middle of it all, miraculously undamaged. The broth that had accompanied it was everywhere, but mostly on Klara.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry! So, so sorry,” said Diana. “I am so terribly clumsy. How could I have done such a stupid, clumsy thing? I must stick something sharp into myself, to punish myself for such clumsiness and stupidity!”

  “Nein, nein, es ist nichts,” said Klara, putting a hand on Diana’s arm, as though to stop her from doing anything to herself. Diana felt just a twinge of guilt—Klara seemed more concerned about her distress than about the fact that she had broth all down her uniform. But it had been necessary. “Is nothing, no,” she continued. “I go more Knödel, for dinner, yes?”

  “Sure,” said Diana. “More Knödel, whatever.” More food for the birds. She hoped the birds liked wallpaper paste. Hidden in her left hand were four keys from Klara’s key ring.

  At last, night came, her second night in the Krankenhaus. Beatrice might have thought of something poetic—at last you descend, oh night! Justine would probably have uttered some grand philosophical thought. But she was Diana, so all she thought was: About bloody time. If she did not establish contact with Lucinda Van Helsing tonight, she would only get one more chance. After midnight, after all the lights in the Krankenhaus had been extinguished, she put on the attendant’s uniform, tucking her red curls under the white cap, which itched a little.

  Pick the lock—easy peasy. Walk quietly down the hallway. In the nursing station, there was only one nurse, and she seemed to be knitting something or other. Once you realized that people were generally neither good nor evil, but simply oblivious, you could do pretty much as you pleased—or so Diana had found. Up the stairs, into the alcove. She could see the guard, sitting by the door to the women’s wing. What was he doing? Lighting his pipe. He had just lifted the match to the bowl when clink! What was that? The noise came from the bottom of the stairs. Would h
e get up? No, after looking around startled, he had settled back down and was about to light his pipe again. Clink clink! Ah, now that must mean something. He stood up and set his prayer book down on the chair, with the box of matches on top. Since the noise had come from the bottom of the stairs, he should investigate. If someone had gotten in—how, he could not imagine, but somehow—and was moving around on the second floor, where the wealthy patients were housed, well, it would mean trouble for sure. Diana could see him thinking, hesitating, then starting down the stairs. Thank goodness, because there was only one key left to throw down the stairwell! She had been worried Klara would notice the missing keys, but she had waited until dinner on purpose. With soup on her uniform, Klara would not be able to finish the dinner service, and she would not need her keys again until the next morning.

  Away from the door the guard headed, the probably ten stone of him lumbering down the stairs. He was conveniently loud!

  Quick as a wink, she was at the door of the women’s wing. It took less than a minute. By the time the guard returned, wondering who had dropped those keys on the second floor, assuming it could only be one of the night nurses, the door would be securely locked behind her.

  And click, there it was, easy peasy. The hallway stretched before her, built according to the same plan as on the second floor, but oh how different! Here there was no wood paneling. The walls were bare, and probably white in daylight. Now only a little moonlight came through the window at the end of the hall. Unlike on the second floor, the gas lamps here were evidently turned off, and not just down, at night. The doors all had small windows through which patients could be observed, covered by metal grilles. Here, the Krankenhaus looked like what it was, at heart: a prison.

  How was she going to find Lucinda Van Helsing? All she knew was that Lucinda was young—only a few years older than she was, according to Irene. It had not occurred to her that there would be no lights on this floor. She thought she would at least be able to see the inmates. Well, if she couldn’t see them, then she must do this a more dangerous way. She would look into each room through the metal grille. And then, if necessary, she would ask if the occupant was Lucinda. The first room was easy—even in the darkness, she could see that the occupant had white hair. At the second grille she called “Lucinda,” trying to sound both quiet and loud at once, but got no answer. However, from several doors down came a response—“Ik ben hier.” Where had she heard it from? She walked over to the door from which she thought it had emanated and called through the grille, “I’m looking for Lucinda. Are you Lucinda Van Helsing?” An answer came from the next door over. “Yes, I am here.” She looked through that grille. Moonlight came in through the barred window, but the room was still mostly dark. All Diana could see was a white figure sitting on the bed. It was the only piece of furniture in the room.