After Alice Fell: A Novel

by Kim Taylor Blakemore

  “So difficult with a war,” Ada murmured. But she oohed and aahed, and Mr. Hargreaves shared a smoke in the front yard with Lionel.

  Cathy is well on form today. She wears a frock of insolent reds splattered with pink dragonflies. It is the third she brought down in the morning, begging my opinion, though when I declared the blue adequate and the fabric cool for the weather, she took her own advice and now hovers over the company. She watches Ada so closely as she chews a cherry and spits the pit to a napkin.

  “They’re late season, but I think very sweet. Don’t you think they’re sweet?”

  Ada folds her napkin and tucks it under her plate. “They are. They are.” She tips her head and looks at Toby. “There are three left. Would you like them?”

  “They give him gas.” Cathy slides the bowl toward her. The base catches the tablecloth, hooking a thread and pulling the fabric forward. With a quick tsk, she snaps the thread. “It’s so kind of you to call this way. We are far out of the circuit. I know Mr. Hargreaves is busy with the start of the school year.”

  He swivels to us. “The maddening boys. Isn’t that what Benjamin called us?” He lifts an eyebrow. “Maddening boys.”

  “He called you that, yes,” I say. “And other things.”

  “Which we no doubt deserved.”

  “Ada teaches too,” I say to Cathy. “Roman history.”

  “Roman history.” Cathy laughs and claps her hands to her lap. “That’s . . . wonderful. How do you fit that in with all your volunteering?”

  Toby crosses his legs on his seat and picks at the hem of his shorts. He rocks back and forth, his chairback knocking the wall.

  “Toby.” Cathy gives a small shake of her head.

  He slows, then shoves the chair back with a thud, lifting his eyebrows in surprise. As if he hadn’t meant it. But his smile curls enough to show he meant it.

  “Toby.” I rest my hand next to his plate and tap a finger. He drops his legs and sits straight.

  “Is that a secret language?” Cathy smirks. “Marion and Toby are very close. She’s taught him to be a wild child. Or continued the lessons of her sister. So, we have a teacher in the family too.”

  Ada frowns. “I’m sorry our card came so late. I didn’t know about Alice’s passing until Marion told me.”

  “What card?”

  I shift in my chair. “I forgot to give it to you.”

  “Did you?”

  I stand, picking up each of the plates. “I’ll take these in.”

  “I’ll help.” Ada makes to stand, but Cathy stops her with a hand to her arm.

  “We’ll all leave it. Saoirse will take care of it. Let’s just enjoy the sun.”

  “I think a walk.” Thomas rocks forward on his toes and snaps his heels to the wood. “May I escort you, Mrs. Abbott?”

  “Of course.”

  Lionel gives the pared apple to Toby. “Then I will be in charge of your wife.”

  “What about me?” Cathy asks.

  “Toby will take you.”

  Toby grimaces and drops the apple to the plate. He reaches for Cathy’s hand.

  “Wipe your hands,” she says.

  As the men pull out the chairs, Ada leans toward me, then loops her arm through mine. “I think I will escort Marion.”

  “Good,” Cathy says. “Toby can go with his father.”

  Ada is much taller than me. Like a reed. Her arm is light in mine, her fingers drumming my wrist as we follow the others to the garden. Cathy has her head tipped and her attention to Thomas. She deadheads a rose along the way, crushing the petals in her fingers and scattering them to the ground. She hasn’t stopped looking at Thomas as she does it. Lionel’s hefted Toby to his shoulders, and the boy giggles and squeals as his father tickles his stomach, then bounces him up and down.

  Ada slows and runs her hands along a weeping willow branch, then turns toward me. “Do you know what you’re doing, Marion?”

  “Did Kitty give you a letter?”

  She shakes her head once, slow, and glances to the others. Thomas has pinched the stem of a peach dahlia and hands it to Cathy.

  My stomach drops. “Nothing?”

  “She’s an odd girl. I thought she was a patient when we first visited.”

  I swallow back bile. “No letter.”

  “Do you need to sit? You’re looking quite pale.” She maneuvers me to the bench by the gnarled trunk, shifting away the willow branches and letting them settle back like a curtain around us. “There. Better?”

  The light is a sea green. As if we are inside a glass bulb. The branches scrape the dirt, stirred by a single breeze. Ada drags her upper lip over her teeth and then releases it. She flicks her fan and waits.

  “How goes the complaint?”

  “I’ve heard nothing,” I say. “I don’t think the constable takes it seriously.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it. If the complaint doesn’t involve cards, stolen horses, or a few bills dangling just within reach, it drops to the bottom of the list.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Follow the crimes that never get to court, Thomas says. He’s very keen on justice. Or the blind eye it’s given in Harrowboro.”

  “Where are you both?” Thomas calls from down near the pond.

  “I’m overheated.” Ada raises her voice enough for it to carry. A teacher’s voice with its stolid edges. “We’ll be down soon.” She twists the fan and flips it back. “Nine p.m., Kitty said. It’s the shift change. There’s a thick patch of woods along Bow Brook, just at the turn from Pleasant. A Mr. Stoakes will meet you there.”

  I blink in surprise.

  “Wednesday night.” She lifts her chin to fan her exposed neck. “We were meant to sing chorales with the women last Thursday. But only a few were brought down to the dining hall. Everyone was too careful. Dr. Mayhew sat with us. Not his usual custom. He’s a friend of Thomas’s. They meet at the Reform Club sometimes. They’re meeting Wednesday night.”

  “When Mr. Stoakes will be in the woods.”

  “At just that time.” She peers up through the tangle of branches, then at me. “Are you certain there was wrongdoing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hm.”

  The willow branches slip and bobble across the ground and are dragged up in Lionel’s hand. “Telling secrets?”

  Ada snaps her fan shut and sets it to her lap. “Women always have secrets, Lionel.” She smiles and sways so our shoulders touch. “But no, we were just solidifying plans for her visit to us. I’m trying to induce her to speak to the girls in my class. She can talk about nursing and other such adventures. I thought I’d ply her with dress shopping first.”

  “Oh. Well, of course.” He blanches as he looks at me. “Do you need a new dress?”

  “Even widow’s togs can be fashionable.”

  “I’ll just look, Lionel.”

  “Get what you want.”

  “It’s all settled, then. If you’re certain, Marion.” Ada stands and moves next to Lionel. “I’m so glad you came to escort us. I’m a bit peckish for those cherries.”

  After the walk, the Hargreaveses take to their buggy. Ada reaches down for Cathy’s hand and then mine. “What a pleasure to see you all. And you—I’ll see you Wednesday.” She pulls on her gloves and drops back to the buggy seat. Her skirts billow and settle. “You’ll give the girls a fine lecture, I am sure.”

  Thomas flicks the reins. The skin ripples across the black hair of the horse’s haunches, and the Morgan jitters to the side before moving off at a trot. Toby runs alongside, trailing his hand through the hedge. Mr. Hargreaves stops at the end of the drive, then lifts his top hat as they turn to the road. Ada twists back to wave. She holds my gaze, her smile dropping, and she gives one final nod before they are off and away.

  Lionel swats a fly from in front of his face. “Still maddening.” He rubs Toby’s head and turns to the house. “Checkers?”

  Toby nods and traipses after him.

  “Thank
you,” Cathy says. She watches the road, the lift of dust from the wheels of the buggy.

  “For what?”

  “Them. Company.” She takes her handkerchief from her skirt waist and dabs her forehead and the back of her neck. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “I do. Only Benjamin’s students came to the cottage. Just for their study nights. We had no other company. He forbade it.”

  “Why?”

  “He was ashamed.” The buggy is out of sight; the dust clings to the air. “I know what it’s like.”

  “But you have a new friend now. Who invited you, and not me, to visit.” She paces to the door, then back. “What did I do wrong? Really and truly?” She pulls in a deep breath, blows it out, then lifts her palms. “Does anyone see me? Or do they just see a second-rate second wife?”

  I press my lips tight.

  “What is it you want to say, Marion?”

  “Nothing. I don’t want to say anything.” I step past her.

  “So you’ll shut me out too.”

  “I’m not shutting you out.” My foot catches on the front step. I right myself and turn to her. Her shoulders are clutched tight, and she pins me to the steps with a stubborn look. Her loneliness rolls off her in waves, and I think how hard it must be really. That she is looked at askance. That the Turee gossip is like a noose. I’ve seen her perched on the settee, awaiting cards that won’t come, ears perked to carriages that won’t stop. “I know how hard it’s been for you. I appreciate—”

  “I stayed here after Paul . . . I don’t ask your love. Just some modicum of respect in my own house.”

  “It was my house once too.” I push open the front door. “The cherries were rotten.”

  “I’ll only be gone the night.” I roll my stockings and place them in the open leather case.

  Toby’s got his arm hooked over the arm of the rocking chair and kicks the floor with his heel.

  “Did you have fun at checkers?”

  He shrugs. “Papa let me win. He thinks I don’t know. But it’s easy to tell when he’s lying. His eyes go like this.” And he bugs his eyes and then blinks and bugs them again.

  I laugh and smooth a chemise to the case.

  “What are you doing there?” he asks.

  “I’m visiting Mr. and Mrs. Hargreaves.”

  “I know, but what are you doing?”

  “I’m going to talk about being a nurse. On Thursday morning.”

  “At a girl’s school?”

  “My old school.”

  “What else?”

  “Oh . . . looking at dresses. Feeding her birds.”

  “She has birds?”

  “Two.”

  “What color?”

  “Yellow. With black wings. They’re pretty.”

  He wipes at his mouth. “I want a bird.”

  “Perhaps when you’re older and can take care of it yourself.”

  “I want a dog. Mama hates dogs.”

  “Does she? Hold the corner of this skirt, will you?”

  He reaches to clasp it, and I take a brush to the bombazine fabric. It rustles with each stroke.

  “I think you should wear pink.”

  “Pink doesn’t suit me.”

  His nose wrinkles. “Where are you really going?”

  My back tenses, but I continue to pack. Here the skirt. There the wallet with the few dollars Lionel has provided. The blue jay feather. “I told you.”

  “But it’s not the truth.” He bangs his heel to the floor and wraps himself around the chair’s arm. “You’re a bad liar too.”

  I kneel down to him. Move the hair from his eyes with a thumb. “You need a haircut.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find out what happened to Alice.”

  “Will you be back?” he whispers.

  “Yes. I promise. One night.”

  He reaches to touch my hair, tucking a loose strand to my ear. “All right, then.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nine p.m. Mr. Stoakes meets me at the far field of the asylum grounds. He leads the Hargreaveses’ black horse into a small clearing, setting the buggy’s brake and looping the reins around a tree limb. The moon is atilt, brushing the ground a flat gray. An icehouse hangs over the pond’s lip. Just past it are straight rows of simple stone markers.

  “A graveyard.” I search for the bulge of a new dug grave, but see nothing amiss.

  He nods and continues on.

  There are resting places like this flung across the swath of war. Soldiers buried, unnamed, Union or rebel. Those not lucky enough to be collected and identified before the battle moved on. Numbers carved to the wood posts. When the regiment passed one of these outposts, the doctor’s horse shivered and stomped. The soldiers took off their kepis, prayers for their own survival on their tongues.

  At the paddocks, the goats butt their heads against the fence as we approach, looking for treats. They scrape at the earth. Beyond, in the shadows of the barn, the pigs grunt and rustle loose straw.

  Stoakes takes my elbow and guides us past the barn’s entrance.

  There’s no one here. No one in the barn tending the livestock. No one shoveling coal or chopping wood. The lathe is silent, the room empty.

  “Right here.” He explains nothing more. Then he’s around the corner between the shed and the shop, descending a flight of granite steps to a door dug into the earth.

  He puts his ear to the thick wood. Knocks. Two short raps. Both are returned a moment later and the door pushed open, forcing us both a step back.

  “There you are.” It is Kitty. “She’s agreed.”

  “Come on.” Stoakes grips the door and ushers us in. A long tunnel faces me, its gas lamps few and encased in metal cages. The floor is worn stone tilting to the middle, and the whole of it is heavy damp and sharp with lye.

  Kitty scuttles before us, the lace on her white cap fluttering as she moves ahead. The gaslight flares and dims and flares again. Each time, she is lost and then found, that cap glowing, the brass shoe buckles gleaming.

  “You’ve done good to come,” she says.

  My stomach tightens and turns. “Is this all necessary?” I ask and press my tongue to the salt and dust on my lips.

  “It’s how you’ll get to the third floor,” Stoakes says. “It’s left alone during most of the night.”

  The tunnel ends at another door. Kitty raps and turns to me. She puckers her lips, then spreads them in a smile. She knocks again.

  There’s a dull clatter of keys, then the door unlocked from the other side. But not opened. Kitty grips the handle and pushes. Then we are through to a room of laundry tubs and drying racks. Whoever unlocked the door has disappeared through another and left it ajar for us.

  Stoakes pulls his watch from his pocket. “Last rounds. We’ll wait.”

  Kitty shuffles, clasps her hands behind her back, and sighs. A pin springs loose from her ruffled cap and drops to the stone floor. Her hand darts out to grasp it tight, then she smiles at me and waves her prize in victory before returning it to its place.

  The storeroom ceiling is low; I can touch it without much of a reach. Stoakes tips his head to keep from knocking it. Only Kitty seems at ease here. She’s taken the stool, crosses her legs like a sailor and stares at me. I clench my hands, though I wish to grab her shoulders and shake her.

  “I loved her,” she finally says.

  “I did too.”

  It is hot here, the air thick with old meat and oily steam. I push up from the chair and brush past Stoakes to the main kitchen. Three women turn from the stoves to stare at me. Each in the same cotton cap Kitty wears, each holding aloft a wooden spoon, their mouths open in surprise. Like maidens spinning the hour atop a cuckoo clock. But my laugh strangles in my throat as the one on the end, middling aged and purse mouthed, flings her spoon across the room. Brown gravy spatters across the fabric of my skirt and slides in dollops to my feet.

  Her doughy cheeks pale. She twists her apron up, squ
eezing it like a rag. “I didn’t mean it.” Then she lopes across to me, wiping at my skirts. She is the woman from the ward whom Dr. Mayhew stopped to assess. Are you all right? he had asked. But I remember how she shivered.

  “It’s fine. There’s no harm.” I step away, but still she follows, grabbing and dragging her apron against the fabric. Her cheeks and neck flush in spots, and the skin is raked with scabs. She shakes her head, quick, as if someone’s cuffed her.

  “Stop it.” I yank at my skirt.

  Kitty shushes her, as you would a skittish foal. “Let her be, Della.”

  Mr. Stoakes reaches his arms around the woman’s middle and carries her back to the stove. Then he picks up the spoon and tosses it to a bucket. “Get a clean one.”

  The woman dips her head and picks and tears at the number—4587—stitched on her chest pocket. “I didn’t mean it.”

  A bell clangs out in the basement hall, a flat, dull sound.

  “That’s done,” Kitty says. She rubs her palms down her skirt.

  There are footsteps on the stairs. One set. The door from the main hospital pushed open. A woman enters. Her walk is determined and sharp, and there is no grace to it. She holds her shoulders tight, her neck rigid as metal, her chin forward. She is dressed in plain gray with an apron so starched it rasps against her skirts. She flattens her palm to the fabric to tamp the noise.

  She stops directly in front of me.

  “I am Harriet Clough.” Her voice is like a rasp digging its way through wood. “You are unexpected.”

  “But I am here.”

  “So you are.” She tilts her head, parses me into pieces and puts me back together again, her expression never changing, save a tightening at the corners of her brown eyes. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know who failed my sister.”

  “I won’t be the scapegoat. I did nothing wrong.”

  “Then show me what happened.”