The Solitary House (With Bonus Novels Bleak House and the Woman in White)

by Lynn Shepherd

  She smiles at him coquettishly, all her fear apparently gone. “I will have to introduce you next time he comes. I will tell him you are my new beau and we will make him very jealous. It is no more than he deserves, for not coming to visit me for a whole week.”

  “Does he come often, then?”

  “Oh yes, very often,” she replies carelessly. “He says he cannot bear to be without me. Because he loves me dearly and no-one will ever treasure me as he does. It is our special secret, and I must never tell anyone. Not even my closest friend.”

  “Does she live here too?”

  “Oh yes. We used to have rooms next to each other, until I became ill.” Her face clouds and she dandles the doll a moment before flinging it on the bed. “Such a long time it was, that I was sick. But Uncle Julius says we may be allowed to see each other once again, when she is well. And if I am very good.”

  “Is your friend sick too?”

  The young woman nods vigorously. “But they tell me she is getting better and I will see her very soon.”

  There is a noise in the passage and the woman in grey appears, labouring a little from the effort of climbing the stairs.

  “And just what do you think you’re doing?” she begins in an irate tone, dragging Charles out of the room and shutting the door behind him. “Don’t you know that these patients are extremely susceptible to disturbance or commotion of any kind? Storming unannounced into their private rooms in this way may have serious consequences for their course of treatment.”

  “Treatment? Treatment? Do you call leaving an old woman in her own filth treatment? Do you call what you’re letting happen to that girl treatment?”

  The woman glares at him. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”

  “This girl—who put her here? It was Sir Julius Cremorne, wasn’t it?”

  “Miss Adams is Sir Julius’s niece, certainly, though what business that is—”

  “And he visits her. Spends time with her. In this room—behind a locked door.”

  The woman gives him a venomous look. “She is his ward. He is entitled to privacy.”

  “And is he entitled to have her dress like a nine-year-old child?”

  “Clara Adams came to us when she was around that age. Do not be fooled by her charming appearance—when she first arrived here her language was most unseemly and her conduct decidedly inappropriate in one so young. We have—by dint of patience and the careful application of suitable remedies—brought her to a state of comparative calmness. It comforts her to wear such clothes, and we see no harm in it.”

  “And do you see no harm in practising a barbaric form of brain surgery that has left its hapless victim little short of cataleptic and scarcely able to walk or talk?”

  It’s the young doctor; he’s coming towards them down the corridor, his handsome face as angry as Charles has ever seen it. He gestures back the way he’s come, his hand trembling with suppressed fury. “There’s a young girl along the hall here who still bears the scars of that out-moded procedure. And another chained to her bed and strapped into a strait-jacket.”

  “I can assure you”—the woman’s voice is rising—“that Miss Augusta had been subject for years to debilitating seizures of the most alarming kind. We were assured by the doctor that trepanation was perfectly safe, and had been carried out with great success on many similar cases, and I am pleased to say she has not had a single attack since that time. The operation was, therefore”—this with a pointed look at the doctor—“a complete success. As for Miss Caroline—well, I am afraid it is well nigh impossible to induce her to demonstrate the self-control fitting to one of her sex without resorting to such restraints. Without them she will refuse her medicines, or conceal them from the staff, and become so unruly as to be a constant disturbance to the other patients, tearing her clothes and laughing immoderately, while at other times descending into fits of sulkiness that last for days on end.”

  “So you manacle her in a strait-jacket,” says the doctor grimly.

  “We use the camisole, yes. In her own interests.”

  “And was it in Miss Adams’s interests,” interrupts Charles, “to be debauched time and time again by her own uncle?”

  Woodcourt turns to him, his face grey. “Please tell me that is not true.”

  “My God, Woodcourt, I wish I could. She’s in there. One of I don’t know how many other young women incarcerated here by Edward Tulkinghorn over the years, for the sordid convenience of men like Julius Cremorne. How many more are there like Clara Adams?” He seizes the woman by her thin arm. “How many other girls here have wealthy so-called protectors who are ‘entitled to their privacy’? Answer me, damn you!”

  The woman starts to splutter a reply, but a look from Woodcourt silences her. He opens the door and disappears inside.

  And then—louder now—closer now—they hear again what first brought them here. The sound of a girl screaming, accompanied now by the drumming of fists. “Help me—please! If there’s someone out there, please help me!”

  It’s coming from the room at the farthest end of the passage, but the door will not give, not even to Wheeler’s sturdy shoulder. But Sam is not defeated yet. He starts back along the corridor to where the woman in grey is still standing.

  “Do you ’ave the key to this door?”

  Charles has rarely seen his old friend so determined, and something of this must have communicated itself to the woman because she puts her hand in her apron pocket without another word and hands him a heavy key. A moment later the locked door is open and there’s a young woman half fainting, half collapsed in Charles’s arms.

  “You have to help me,” she gasps. “It’s all my fault. She’s gone, and it’s all my fault.”

  Her eyes are wild and her face stained with tears and Charles is about to call for Woodcourt when he realises with a shock that she, too, is wearing a grey merino gown. He frowns, “Do you work here?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m not a patient—I’m one of the nurses. My name is Alice. Alice Carley.”

  “So what on earth are you doing locked in this room?”

  She looks at him, and then away, the tears falling.

  “I told Hester what had happened. But they made me do it—Mr Jarvis and that woman Darby. They made me do it.”

  She’s becoming frantic and Charles is relieved to see Woodcourt emerge into the corridor a few moments later and come quickly towards them. The doctor kneels by the sobbing girl. “I examined Miss Adams,” he tells Charles in a low voice. “And your suspicions are, I am sad to say, entirely correct. I would not wish to see a sister of mine so knowing on such intimate subjects. Or any woman I hoped to marry.” Here the shade passes across his face that Charles has seen once before.

  “And I’m afraid that is not even the worst of it,” continues the doctor. “Miss Adams is with child, and it will not be her first.”

  He has kept his tone low, but Alice Carley hears him all the same.

  “Not Clara! Oh, please, not Clara! You must believe me—I never knew it was Clara!”

  “I am a doctor,” says Woodcourt gently. “There’s no need to be afraid. Just tell us what happened.”

  He passes a hand over her forehead, and she is immediately calmer and more composed.

  She takes a shuddering breath. “I swear I never knew Clara had had a baby, sir. But if she did, it won’t have been the only one brought into the world in this place. There was another child born here not two months ago.”

  Charles and Woodcourt exchange a glance. “I’ve seen no nursery,” says the doctor. “Heard no cry.”

  Alice looks at him pleadingly. “They told me it was born dead. And you could tell, sir—there was no way the poor mite could have lived long—so tiny and twisted—with such an odd unnatural look about it. All the same—”

  She stops, and bites her lip.

  “Go on,” urges the doctor quietly. “Tell us from the beginning.”

  She drops her eyes and shakes her head sa
dly. “One day in October Mr Jarvis summoned me to his office, and told me that one of the patients had given birth to a stillborn. I didn’t know, then, whose baby it was—they’d kept Hester close for weeks, telling us she was ill and letting no-one near her. And you’ve seen the shapeless gowns they make them wear—it was no wonder none of us knew. Mr Jarvis said he had no idea how it could have happened—that she must have ‘consorted’ with young Mr Cawston, but I couldn’t see how that could be—none of the patients are allowed alone together without one of the nurses—never. And what would he have seen in such a queer misshapen little thing anyway? Mr Jarvis said it was all very regrettable—”

  “A favourite word of his, it seems,” interrupts Charles bitterly.

  “—but they needed to dispose of the body. ‘Discreetly,’ Mr Jarvis said. Because above all else it was vital that they prevented a public scandal. I said I wanted nothing to do with it and we should summon the police, but Mr Jarvis made it very clear that I either went along with what he demanded, or I would lose my position. What else could I do?” she pleads, looking from one to the other. “My whole family relies on me, now Pa is gone. Even with my wages, it’s barely enough to cover the rent.”

  “A fact of which Mr Jarvis is no doubt fully aware,” remarks Charles. “So what did he ask you to do?”

  “He sat me down by the fire and started to tell me about a graveyard he knew near St Giles Circus. I remember the look on his face as he was talking, and thinking I must be in some horrible nightmare. He said this place was somewhere a child like this might be buried in consecrated ground without anyone even noticing—a place where plenty of young women got rid of babies they didn’t want. I was revolted at the very idea of it, but Mr Jarvis looked stern at me then and said I would lose my post—like that other girl who let Anne Catherick escape. So I told myself, that if the babe really was dead when it was born, there could be little real harm. Especially if he was right and it was consecrated ground.” She looks at Woodcourt, the tears starting again. “But that was before they gave me the baby. That woman had wrapped it in a blanket so I couldn’t see it, but I couldn’t help myself. I knew then that they’d lied to me. I’m a nurse—I know the signs. I saw the bruises, and when I touched its little face I could feel its wee nose was broken. Someone had smothered her—poor lamb—and they hadn’t even done it with a gentle hand.”

  Her voice catches with a sob. “I couldn’t bear to see her after that, so I put my handkerchief over her little face, and swaddled her properly, like a baby should be swaddled. And held her for a moment against my heart, like a baby should be held.”

  Tenderness, thinks Charles, remembering how that word had forced itself on his mind in the burial-ground, as he stood over the tiny body rotting in its shallow grave, the scrap of white cloth still wound about its neck, and wondered how any woman could have shown such gentle care, and yet done such a terrible thing. He couldn’t understand it, then, but he can understand it now. That child was Hester’s child, and the woman who buried it, this woman.

  Alice Carley wipes her eyes. “That night they sent me into town in the carriage. I had to get out somewhere near Oxford Street and walk the rest of the way on foot, but Mr Jarvis said I had nothing to fear—that no-one would remark a young woman carrying a child. They’d told me where I had to go, but I lost my way in the dark and had to ask a crossing-sweep. I would never have found the place without him, though I wish to heaven I’d never laid eyes on it!” She shudders. “I will never forget the horror of that graveyard—never forget trying to open the grave with nothing but a little trowel, in the stench of all those decaying bodies.”

  “Corpse gas,” says Woodcourt. “You were fortunate not to become seriously ill.”

  “You must believe me, sir, that I did everything I could to give the child a decent burial, but no-one could have borne staying in that terrible place long. I was half out of my mind with fear. The fog had come down, and as soon as I’d closed the gate behind me I was sure that someone was following me—I could hear noises and the sound of footsteps. And a few moments later I felt a hand on my shoulder and my heart froze. And when I turned and saw this huge man looming over me I nearly lost my senses—I thought I was about to be garrotted—or worse. And what would happen to my brother and sister then?”

  She takes a deep breath. “But then the man said he wasn’t going to hurt me—that he just wanted to talk to me. I was so terrified I could scarcely hear what he was saying, but I eventually made out that his sister used to have my position here, and that exactly the same thing had happened to her. Mr Jarvis told her the same things he’d told me, and she’d buried three babies in that unspeakable place before being dismissed without a penny, for allowing Anne Catherick to escape.”

  “William Boscawen,” says Charles quickly. “Was that the man’s name?”

  Alice nods. “He said that after she was dismissed, his sister planned to blackmail Mr Jarvis by threatening to tell all she knew, but that was the last he ever heard from her. It was months later that he found out she’d been killed. That’s when he came to London to find out the truth. He started to get very angry then—he said he’d discovered what was really going on at the asylum, and he was going to confront the guilty men with the evidence of their sin.”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  Alice takes out her handkerchief and holds it to her mouth. “It sickens me even to think of it, sir—how anyone could—”

  Woodcourt puts his hand on her shoulder. “Take your time. We have a policeman here with us. You have nothing to fear now. Just tell us what Mr Boscawen said.”

  She looks up at his face and seems to gain courage. “He told me he’d dug open the grave where the babies were buried and—and—cut the hands away from the corpses. He said he was going to send them one by one to the men who’d fathered them. To punish them for what they’d done.”

  Charles stares at her, understanding at last the riddle of the letters, and the terrible menace the last one had contained. Julius Cremorne had opened that package to find the decomposing hand of his own bastard child; a child born of incest and rape, a child he had instructed Jarvis to do away with. Small wonder he went as white as death when he saw it; small wonder he looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

  Alice glances up at him fearfully, mistaking his grim expression for disapproval. “I told that man Boscawen there and then I didn’t want to hear any more about it—that I had to go—that the carriage was waiting for me. Then as I ran down the passage-way I heard him calling to me that he would write to me and explain, but I never heard from him again.”

  The tears well and spill again. “I don’t think poor Hester even knew she was with child—how could she, an innocent like her? Half the time she seems scarcely more than a child herself, playing make-believe that she’s the housekeeper here and that I’m her maid not her nurse. You’d never think The Solitary House was a lunatic asylum, to hear the way she talks of it, but we none of us have the heart to disenchant her. And then she was so weak for so long after she had the baby it made my heart bleed, just to look at her, and in the end I felt so wretched about what I’d done I made up my mind to tell her the truth—tell her what had really happened. So I went to her early this morning and told her that she’d had a baby—that that was the real reason why she’d been so sick. I said I’d made sure it was given a Christian burial, and that it was in a Better Place now, but then the poor girl started crying and crying and talking wildly about her mother leaving her behind and how she would never do that to her baby, and then she said she wanted to see it and however much I said that was impossible she would not leave it be. It takes her that way sometimes, poor little thing, but I can usually calm her with a dose of opiates—it always seems kinder to me than that dreadful camisole Miss Darby insists on. But in my haste to fetch the medicine bottle I must have left the door unlocked. When I got back the room was empty, and Hester had vanished.”

  “And that’s why Jarvis locked you in here
.”

  She nods. “And because I wouldn’t tell him where she had gone.”

  “But how in God’s name could you possibly know?”

  “It’s not so very difficult to guess, sir. Hester has never left this place once in the ten years she’s been here. Where else would she go? She’s gone to see her baby,” she says softly. “She’s gone to Tom-All-Alone’s.”

  Charles gets to his feet, knowing now what he must do next and wondering for the first time what has happened to Wheeler. A question quickly answered when they get to the landing and see Sam coming up the stairs towards them.

  “No sign, Mr Maddox,” he reports, reverting, no doubt unconsciously, to the courtesy Charles was entitled to when he still had rank in the Detective.

  “What do you mean?” asks Charles, with a jolt of alarm.

  “Given what that young woman was saying I thought we ought to make sure that bastard Jarvis didn’t give us the slip, but I’ve searched all the rooms downstairs and I can’t find him anywhere.”

  Charles follows him quickly downstairs, where they find the woman in the hall, berating another young woman clad in grey.

  “Where’s Jarvis?” interrupts Charles, forcing her round to look at him.

  “Mr Jarvis had to step out a moment.”

  “This is a police investigation, madam, and he has serious allegations to answer—”

  “He may be a constable,” she snaps, pointing at Wheeler as if he were a species of insect, “but you, as far as I can tell, have no official standing whatsoever. If you had I am sure we would have heard about it long before now. And Mr Jarvis has been charged with no crime—has, indeed, committed no crime. He is perfectly free to come and go as he sees fit and you have no right to detain him.”

  At that moment there’s the sound of wheels on the sweep, but by the time they emerge onto the front step the carriage is already turning down the drive and gathering speed.

  Woodcourt turns to Charles with a look of disgust. “No doubt he is endeavouring to ‘retrieve’ Hester just as he did Anne Catherick. But this time, thank God, he has no idea where the poor girl has gone. You will be able to reach her long before he does.”