After Alice Fell: A Novel

by Kim Taylor Blakemore

  He rolls the top edge of his sheet between his chin and neck.

  I push the windowpane with the heel of my hand to unlodge it. This is the window Alice held him out. Below is the kitchen. The roof sags just near the far edge and needs new shingles. The frame slams shut the moment I turn from it. My heart jumps at the noise.

  Toby’s lashes flutter as he blinks, then he rolls the sheet once more. “You need the pole.”

  “Where is it?”

  He presses his chin to his chest and shrugs.

  I flick the curtain back into place and kneel at the low bookshelf. “Now, which book would you like me to read?”

  “Five Weeks in a Balloon.”

  My finger drifts across the picture books to the Jules Verne. “Is it a good tale?”

  “Oh yes. It’s got condors and Timbuktu and they fly in a balloon and hunt the tantelopes.”

  “Well, then. I think a few pages.” I hold it up. My skin is clammy, fingers cold, though the room is still stifling. I’m overtired and the thump of my pulse echoing in my ears is deafening. I force a smile, as if everything were all right, and an antelope hunt were the height of excitement for the day.

  He turns on his side to give me room on the narrow bed, plumping the pillow and then resting his head on his arm.

  There’s enough room to sit with one leg stretched out and the other bent with my foot to the floor. I lower the oil lamp’s flame and settle the book to my lap, opening to the bookmarked page.

  “‘No; it is a swarm.’”

  “‘Eh?’”

  “‘A swarm of grasshoppers!’”

  “That’s Dr. Ferguson.” Toby yawns and pushes his knees against me. He pokes at different flowers on my borrowed skirt.

  “‘That?’” I continue. “‘Grasshoppers!’”

  “‘Myriads of grasshoppers, that are going to sweep over this country like a water-spout; and woe to it! for, should these insects alight, it will be laid waste.’”

  “You don’t read as well as Papa.”

  “I haven’t had much practice. Reading to children.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Should I go on?” I shift my hip to alleviate a twinge and drop a hand to his head, combing my fingers through the fine hair.

  “‘That would be a sight worth beholding!’”

  “‘Wait a little, Joe. In ten minutes that cloud will have arrived—’”

  “Did someone hurt Alice?”

  I bite my lip. Keep my hand to his hair. I shake my head and stare at the stags and deer leaping across the wallpaper. “I . . .”

  He turns away, curling tight, knees to his chest and fists to his eyes.

  “Toby, I—”

  He swings an arm out and knocks the book shut, then squeezes himself into a tighter ball. His shoulders quiver and the edges of his shoulder blades poke his nightshirt as he breathes and desperately tries not to cry.

  I rub my palm to the book’s cover and curl my fingers to the edge. Then I set it to the bedsheet and rest my hand on his arm. “Would you like your papa to say goodnight?”

  He stills, then nods his head.

  The bed creaks as I rise. I lean over him and kiss his cheek.

  “We were going to run away,” he whispers.

  His skin is hot as I press my nose to it. “I’ll send your father in.”

  “Not Mama.” He twists of a sudden to look at me, and when I try to stand, he tugs my sleeve once. “She doesn’t believe you.”

  “No.”

  “I do.”

  Alice took an oil lamp to the glass house. All night this image has played in my head, and I’m afraid to return to the nightmare that made me wake sweating and trembling.

  Alice carrying an oil lamp. Setting it to the narrow space between garden tools and clay pots. It’s spring. There are footprints in the soil. From the house to the barn and into the little house. The steam on the glass is perfect for tracing hearts and boats with sails and daffodils.

  She unscrews the lamp. Drizzles the oil along the walls, then in a circle around her skirts.

  She douses the packed dirt, and it’s just May; there are seedlings in the pots. She’s brought a box of matches. Now she opens the box, makes a choice. Closes the lid and puts the box to a shelf. Looks up at the house—at who?—takes a breath and strikes the match on the closest pot. The phosphorous flares bright blue and white, makes her blink, and she has one moment of doubt.

  She blows the match out then. Is careful to wait until she can pinch it without burning her fingers. Her eyes lift and stare through the glass, directly at me. “There you are,” she says, and her voice is as light as it was when she was a child. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  But the door is locked when she reaches for it and she doesn’t remember doing that. There’s a brass bolt blocking the keyhole and a thin hiss of flame whispers as it slips closer. She spins around, looks for the start of the flame. It licks her skirt. A red tongue. Then it bites.

  Turee, Aug 17, 1865

  My Dear Ada—

  It was so very kind of you to lend me togs so I might make my way home without discomfort. I am very glad to have made your acquaintance, and hope we may become new friends.

  I was hoping you may do me a tremendous large favor. Could you please—when you make your next visit to Brawders House to give comfort to the patients—find for me a young employee there named Kitty Swain and present her this note, I would be in your debt. She is quite remarkable with a patterned birthmark cross her cheek; she may be serving the cake. I put my faith in you to hand this to her directly. Her grief over my sister is delicate, and I would beg no fuss or attention be made.

  Could you please bring her response to Turee? We—Lionel and Cathy and I—invite you to spend the afternoon with us. We would be delighted for you and Mr. Hargreaves to call on us. Cathy is insistent on enjoying your company. And I can return the dress and luggage you provided me when I was in need of it.

  Yours in Friendship,

  Marion

  Turee, Aug 17

  Kitty Swain—Brawders House

  Miss Swain—

  I expected a swift note of return on arrangements to visit the person we discussed at our last meeting. This is an imperative.

  Please respond directly to Mrs. Hargreaves with date & time. She will find you.

  Marion Abbott

  Chapter Nineteen

  It’s too hot inside the house. The curtains hang listless. The windows are thrown up, but there’s no air to catch. Saoirse has made a tray of cold meats and fruit, but there’s too much fat in the ham and the fig is overripe. None of it appeals, and I push it around the edge of the plate.

  “A bullseye. You are improving, Toby.” Cathy twists a spoon to her fig and scoops out a bite. She runs her tongue over her teeth, dislodging seeds, then sets the fig and spoon to her plate. “I hope you didn’t kill any sheep.” She cuts a corner of cheese and takes a bite. “Lionel?”

  Lionel shakes his head and doesn’t look up from his plate. He came home while Toby and I were in the field, stopping his horse long enough to watch Toby miss the target by a foot before giving the horse the reins and allowing it to walk them to the barn.

  “No, thank you, Cathy,” she says.

  “No, thank you,” he mutters.

  Thunder rumbles but doesn’t approach. Just lurks like a mongrel dog at the edge of the woods. Toby has picked the seeds from his fig and pushes them into a triangle with his fork.

  Cathy takes his fork, then the plate, and drops them both with a clatter on the serving cabinet.

  “I want that,” Toby says.

  “I don’t care.” She flattens her skirts under her legs and sits again.

  “Give him his food.” Lionel’s on his third glass of wine, and his words are flat.

  “No. He has to behave. You need to learn to behave.” She slides the food platter close, picks up a small bread plate, and forks two slices of ham to it. Then she tips the salt box over the meat, pour
ing enough to coat it white. “Eat.”

  Toby glares at the plate she’s pushed before him. He sticks out his bottom lip.

  “You can’t give him that,” I say.

  “It’s not your business.”

  “You’ll make him sick with that much salt.”

  Lionel makes a noise, half sigh and half groan, then turns in his chair to look out the window and ignore us.

  “I don’t want it.” Toby clicks his teeth, then lifts a piece of meat, letting it hang between his fingers before throwing it across the table. It lands on Cathy’s chest, then falls to her lap.

  Her face is stone. Only her chest rising and falling gives hint to her anger.

  She picks up the ham and lurches from the chair, rounding the table to him. When he tries to tumble to the floor, she grabs his upper arm and twists him upright. “Do you want to go to the icehouse? Because I’ll take you there. I swear to God, I will.”

  She takes him by the shoulders and pushes the boy against the chair’s back. She grips the ham and pushes it at his mouth.

  “Stop it.” I grab the meat and toss it back to the table. “There’s too much salt.”

  “He’ll be civilized and eat his food.”

  Lionel watches her, takes a drink of his wine, and looks back out the window. Then he slams his fist to the table.

  Cathy jumps back and gawks at him. “What was that for?”

  “I won’t have it.” His jaw clenches tight as he stands and shoves his chair to the table. “I should never have . . .” But he clamps his mouth and stalks from the room, slamming the door to his office.

  The only noise is Toby clacking his teeth. He’s eaten the ham.

  Cathy looks down at him, her smile smug. “Good boy.”

  “Drink your water,” I say.

  “Stay out of it.” Her voice is sharp. She runs her hand over his hair. “Now you’re a good boy. We’ll have a magic lantern show tonight. Just for you.”

  I can’t stay in the house. I stride instead across the road from it, out from the claw of the light, to the dark of the field. The moon is just tipped over the trees edging it. Thin sickle, not much light. The road ribbons to black in each direction. Far out I hear cowbells. Near in, the grasses bend and slip against each other with a whisper of wind. Something moves in the grass, just to my left. The movement sharpens into a group of sheep.

  All the windows in the house are lit now, upper and lower floors, and the long single floor of the kitchen and storerooms. It’s like a dollhouse: Saoirse walks through the kitchen, is shrugging on a shawl. Cathy sets something on the dining table, stops in front of the mirror, then walks through to the parlor. Lionel’s there; he’s holding out the magic lantern, his shoulders bent as he sets it to the piano top and wipes the lens with his handkerchief.

  Cathy stops by him. Holds out a piece of paper. He turns his back to her. Opens the lamp casing and removes the small bowl for the oil. She takes it from him and bows her head as she reads and walks out of the room.

  On the floor above, Toby looks out the glass. It’s not his room—he’s in the sewing room. His window is blank.

  When Cathy returns, she hands Lionel the bowl, now full, ready to illuminate the room. He steps close. Kisses her shoulder. She melts into him, for one moment soft, and then back to the business of preparing the magic lantern. She says something to Lionel, her lips pressed to his ear.

  He’s not paying attention, though. He’s looking out the glass at the dark, too, and startles when she touches his hand to remind him of his job.

  There’s a swing of two lamps from around the back of the house. Elias coming for Saoirse, and the hired hand, Amos. They stop at the side entrance, then the lamps swing again as they take the road to their cottage and their own evening meal.

  No one in the parlor now. Toby’s left the upstairs window. I fumble for my watch, tilting the face to the moonlight, just enough to see. I should walk back. Pretend everything is as it should be. Watch the slides of African elephants and marmosets and fleas, and we’ll all laugh as if everything weren’t broken.

  The front door opens, spilling light. Lionel steps out. There’s a flare of a match, the orange glow from the cheroot he’s lit. He crosses the drive. Fireflies scatter around his figure. The tip of the cigarette arcs as he lifts it, then lets it fall to his side. He stops across the road.

  “I’ve got the giraffe slide,” he says. “I know they’re your favorite. Unless you want—Cathy said there was another set.”

  “She can’t treat him like that.”

  He drops the cigarette. Grinds it under his heel. “He needs to mind his manners.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I do.”

  “He’s lost too much.”

  “So have I.”

  “But you’re not eight.”

  “Cathy’s trying her best.” He shrugs and picks up a loose branch. Carves it into the dirt, then tosses it. The branch skitters across the earth. “You shouldn’t have come home, Marion.”

  “I shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

  “Maybe not.” His heel bites into the gravel as he turns back to the house. “Never mind. Come watch the show.”

  “We’re starting with the great gorilla.” Toby crawls up onto the settee and then onto my lap. He waves to a sheet tacked to the parlor wall. Just to the left of it, I watch us in the convex mirror. The mahogany frame loops around the distorted reflection that takes in nearly the whole of the room. Toby is enamored with it, as if it is a way to watch others in secret, and his gaze flicks in the mirror between his father, Cathy, and me.

  “You’ll like these, Marion.” Lionel holds a slide to the light, then slots it in the lantern. “They’re the ones we had as kids. Alice repainted them.” He claps his hands. “Tonight, we shall travel to the dark continent and come face to face with the wildest of earth’s animals.”

  His laugh is forced, and his eyes travel to Cathy, who sits in an armchair with a Godey’s magazine in her lap. Her chin rests on her fist, elbow to the arm of the chair.

  “I brought a chair for you,” she says to Toby, and pats the child’s rocker by her feet. “You’re too big for Auntie’s lap.”

  He shakes his head, digging it into my chest.

  “Never mind, then.” Cathy flips a magazine page. “Show us the wild gorilla.”

  Lionel holds a small card aloft and clears his throat. “The gorilla—”

  “You’ve got to show the picture first.” Toby sighs and drops his shoulders. “Picture first, then Alice’s cards.”

  “Right, yes, of course.”

  “Alice’s?” I ask.

  “She wrote new ones,” Toby says. “You’ll see. They’re much funner.”

  Lionel moves the lantern farther back. The image cast on the wall is blurry, then sharp. A gorilla bares his teeth, staring straight at us. His paws, so like a man’s hands, seem to reach from the picture. His eyes gleam bright yellow. His throat is an abyss of red and black stripes. Alice has painted him a monster.

  “The gorilla,” Lionel reads, his voice low and stentorian, “is never to be provoked. He is the mightiest of the jungle, can easily take the life of a lion or a wayward duck . . .”

  “A duck.” Toby laughs with a snort.

  “That’s what it says. He grasps the prey by its throat and squeezes until each bone snaps . . .”

  “This is awful, Lionel.” Cathy closes her magazine.

  “It’s what it says.”

  “Why can he beat a lion?” Toby asks. “Lions have fangs and the sharpest of claws.”

  Lionel squints at the card, his mouth pulled into an overacted frown. “Lions don’t have thumbs. Thumbs are everything in the jungle.”

  Toby shakes his head.

  I hold in a laugh and force myself to look quite serious. “It’s true. It’s all about thumbs. Your father is all thumbs.”

  Lionel lets out a roar behind us.

  “That’s a lion,” Toby mutters.
/>   “No, that’s the gorilla. He’s going to strangle the lion with his—”

  “That’s hideous. It’s just a big monkey, Toby. It eats . . . fruit,” Cathy says. “Heaven help what she did to the ones you have, Marion.”

  Lionel removes the slide, replacing it with the next. It is a group of giraffes, long necked, reaching for leaves in a tree. Their coats are intricately designed, each a different pattern. The sky is a pale blue, and in the distance is a wide, gold savannah. Along the bottom of the image she has written For my sister. 1862.

  Lionel shuffles the cards. “The most graceful of the animal kingdom is our gentle giraffe. It is friends with all the animals of Africa, with the exception of the flea. It is impossible for the giraffe to scratch its neck—a requirement for turning out fleas, and thus, the flea causes consternation to the giraffe, who wishes, some days, for all fleas to take a boat to South America and bother the jaguar on his nightly prowls.”

  Toby turns to look at me. He pulls the cuff of his shirt over his thumb and wipes my cheek. “Don’t cry.”

  I close my eyes and squeeze the bridge of my nose. “I’m very tired. I think I’ll . . .”

  Toby slides from my lap to the cushion. “Alice likes giraffes too.”

  “I know.” My chest burns; I wrap my arms around my waist and pull in a quick breath. I force myself to smile. “I know.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “It is quite a view.” Thomas Hargreaves puts a hand up to cover his eyes from the sun and bends over the porch railing. He flips the flap of his jacket with his other hand.

  “It will be.” Lionel leans his hip to the rail and continues to pare an apple. The peel twists in the air as he runs the blade under the fruit’s skin. He glances out to the pond. “Cathy wants a vista.” He points the knife to the posts and boards of the boathouse, now stacked across the foundation of the glass house. “It’s a useless structure. No one swims anymore. We’ll have a grand bonfire soon.”

  “More cherries?” Cathy passes a porcelain serving bowl to Ada.

  Ada sets her fan to the table and picks out a few of the less battered. “Marion?”

  I shake my head and grip the chair arms, rubbing my thumbs to the wood. Ada hasn’t made one gesture to me that she’s got a letter from Kitty. Instead she followed Cathy all around the house for a tour that included details on every bit of new furniture, parquet, wallpapers, plates, and the stores in Boston and London from which they were ordered and shipped. “So difficult without Paris available,” she said when the tour stopped in the dining room. “The blockade . . . well, you know.”