After Alice Fell: A Novel

by Kim Taylor Blakemore

  Her gaze is flat and steady. All I can see is the lantern slide: skirts and cuffs dripping wet as she leaves the boat for the shore. Leaves Lydia blind and suffocating under the hood, every breath a drag of water to the lungs instead of air. Flailing for any purchase on the steep rocks and instead gripped and clawed by roots and river rush.

  “You outdid yourself with the meal,” Cathy says.

  “Saoirse made it. I merely suggested . . .” But here my hand trembles as I pull the clip from the magic lantern and lift the oil pot. It’s full. It’s as full as it was when I checked prior to dinner, when I checked as she chose a wine. The box of slides sits at the ready. “Lionel, can you?” I gesture him over with my good hand, give a wave to the other. “I feel so helpless.”

  “Soon to be healed,” he says and takes a match to the wick. His back is turned to Cathy. He shakes the match and murmurs, “Thank you.”

  I stare at him. My smile is taut. “Sit down. Saoirse is bringing dessert. Your favorite, Cathy. Raspberry Charlotte. And we’re going to watch The 7 Wonders of the World.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Cathy says.

  “Oh, I don’t believe so.” I jiggle the box so the lid pops free. The slides tinkle against each other.

  “Since this evening comes with Raspberry Charlotte—with cream?—then I’ll suffer through this.”

  Cathy taps her wedding ring to her glass and watches as I take out the first slide. I look to the hall, for Saoirse should be here now. I turn my hand and wipe the sweat from my upper lip with my knuckle. I catch myself in the mirror, face ablaze in red, looking every bit the terrible liar Cathy thinks I am.

  Lionel sits in the armchair, resting his chin on his palm. “Toby would like this too.”

  “He’s seen it,” I say and turn the slide round and round in my fingers. “And he’s already asleep. There’s no reason to—”

  “Raspberry Charlotte,” Saoirse announces. She waddles forward with the tray of cake slices and offers one to Cathy. “The first of the bunch. I added extra sugar and vanilla.”

  Cathy glances at me. “You spoil me.”

  “I am making amends,” I say.

  She digs her fork through the berries and cream, slices the soft cake beneath, and raises it to her mouth. Then, “Aren’t you eating any?”

  “I’m not hungry,” I say.

  Lionel takes the other two plates. “More for me, then.” He sets one to the side table and the other to his lap.

  “If I were a queen, I’d make you eat it.” Cathy stabs the air with the fork. A berry slips off to the rug. “Then I’d know if it was poisoned.” Her laugh is light. Then she pops the piece in her mouth and chews.

  Saoirse stands directly in front of the lantern light. The silver refracts the lamp, and Lionel squints when a beam hits him. “I’ll go, then.” Her gaze moves from me to Cathy.

  “No.” I stare at her.

  Cathy raises an eyebrow.

  “She might as well stay until we’ve finished,” I say. “You’re nearly done, but Lionel has a whole other piece.”

  “Get me another glass of wine, then. And move out of the way. You’re blocking the showing.” Cathy’s jaw shifts back and forth as she finishes another bite.

  Now Saoirse has moved to the sideboard. She busies herself with setting the tray just right, with picking up the wine bottle, her look to me as she turns around full of nerves. She presses her lips tight and looks toward the hall as if she’d rather be anywhere but here. As if she’s lost the nerve. All I need is a witness. Someone who will believe me. Believe Alice.

  When you see, call for Elias. Send him for the constable. It’s all you will need to do.

  “Do you want to read the narration, Lionel, or shall I?”

  “I want to eat the cake.” He has the face of a man satisfied that all has settled to peace in his abode.

  “No, I think it should be you. You read so well.” I pluck the cards from the box and hold them out.

  He doesn’t argue. Just balances his plate to his knee and takes the cards.

  The hinge on the lantern squeals as I open it. I hold the slide up to make certain I set it right, then push it in place.

  Lionel straightens the cards and clears his throat. “ONE.”

  The sheet before us fills with color. A barn door. A man in a tall hat and a woman pleading from just outside the screen.

  “ONE: I saw her with him and he said no not you I do not want you anymore you’ve ruined everything. And she said she wouldn’t leave and then he pushed her and said he’s chosen. Don’t come here anymore! he said. But she did come.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and blinks. He peers at the image. I watch him in the mirror, the way his brow wrinkles and he looks puzzled. “I don’t . . .”

  Cathy holds her fork in midair. “What’s this?”

  The hinge squeals. I replace one slide with the next. “Go ahead, Lionel. Card two. It’s perfectly marked. Alice was fastidious about things like that.”

  “TWO: We’re going for a row, Let’s go in the boat, Liddie. And Lydia said—I’m not feeling well. But the fresh air is good, Cathy said, and, Alice mind the babe, you can do that, can’t you, Alice?”

  The air is still and so brittle I feel it will crack.

  I yank the cards away. “You don’t need a slide for the next bits. You already know the scenes.” I press my thumb to the cards, then snap them up in my grip. I don’t need to read them. They have burnt themselves to my brain. “In fact, I’ll just read the last card. In case you’ve forgotten specifics. SEVEN: He tied the rope around her chest and said don’t let go of that end, Alice, it’s dark. We both pulled and pulled with the rope around a tree trunk to hoist her because of the grasses. Her skirts were terrible heavy with water—”

  Cathy cries out. Her plate tumbles to the floor, leaving a streak of red jam and bits of cake. She balls her hands into fists and pushes herself off the seat. “What are you doing?”

  “And he laid her down. Liddie! he said & he stared at me. & then pulled at the hood but the knots were terrible tight. I caught it in my teeth and ripped it. Her head bounced and swiveled I thought she would say something but she was dead. Liddie! he cried. CATHY, I yelled. IT WAS CATHY.”

  Lionel crouches over, his hands scraping his skull. “Liddie . . .” His chest heaves as he slurps in air.

  “Did you know, Lionel? Did you know what she’d done?” I squeeze the cards in my fist.

  “My God . . .”

  “You can get Elias now, Saoirse.”

  Her head wags back and forth, and her hands grip the edge of the sideboard.

  “Tell him to send for the constable.”

  “No. No constable.” Cathy’s voice stutters. She lurches up, grasping the slide box. “Didn’t I tell you, Saoirse? Didn’t I say? Do you listen to yourself? Just like Alice, just like her.”

  Lionel bolts from the chair, grabbing my arm and dragging me out of the room down the hall. My shoes catch and slip on the floor, pulling the rug like an accordion. My elbow hits the railing, and I cry out as the splint ricochets into my ribs.

  “Let me go.”

  His grip digs into the soft of my skin. I yank and pull.

  “Let me go.”

  “Put her in her room.” Cathy follows behind, pushing at his back.

  A high screech careens off the walls. I catch Toby from the corner of my eye, standing behind us on the landing, his hands covering his ears. My God, did he see?

  But still Lionel drags me. He is rage red, the muscles on his jaw like sinew. He kicks the door wide open. It smacks the wall and snaps back hard against my cheek and shoulder. He jerks me fully into the room and throws me to the floor.

  I hear the grind of bone before I feel it. Before my vision bleeds red and white. The splint is cockeyed, the cotton padding peeking out. I pull my arm to my stomach and curl tight, shuffling away from him until I am tucked between my bed and desk.

  Cathy pushes past him and drops next to me. “Give me the card
s.” Her hands tremble at her chin. When she tries to reach for me, I kick her away. She grapples and digs into my hand, pulling my fingers back until the cards I’ve kept hold of are free.

  The desk leg screeches against the wood, sliding, then pummels my shoulder. There’s a flutter of papers as the desk totters. The ink stand slides to the floor, upending the bottle and spraying black ink everywhere.

  My stomach wrenches then. The velvet pouch and brooch are upended too. I push myself to my knees, scramble to grab it. But Cathy’s faster. It’s in her grip. Her expression twists, her mouth ugly and tight. She shakes her head, a snap of judgment in her eyes.

  It comes to me, absurdly then. The clasp on the rose gold resoldered in silver. “It’s Lydia’s. Why do you have—”

  “It’s mine.”

  My eyes cut to the wall between this room and Lionel’s office. As if I can see through the plaster and lath to the one picture of Lydia hidden on Lionel’s shelf. There. It’s there on her left breast.

  The braided cord that holds my keys is stretched from my wrist, the fabric cutting into my skin before it breaks and the whole of it drops away.

  “You go out when I say you will.” Lionel’s entire body shakes. He bends over me, pointing his finger at my face, then tensing his hand to a fist. “No more.”

  I shrink back against the wall and raise my arm to my head, squeeze my eyes shut for the punch that’s coming.

  My wrist throbs and lies dead in my lap. A drop of blood spreads in the folds of a white cotton tie. Then another. It is from my lip, which I’ve bit or split, the skin pulled from the stitch. Not from him.

  “No, Lionel. No no no . . .”

  The toe of his shoe pushes against my hip. I curl tighter.

  But the blow doesn’t come.

  Cathy pulls in a breath, one gulp of air, then another. “You can go home now, Saoirse.” Her voice trembles. “We’ll take care of her tonight.”

  A slam of the door. The turn of the key.

  I scramble across to grab the knob.

  But it is to no avail. I can twist and pull as much as I wish, and pound my hand even longer. Peer through the keyhole at the empty hallway. Push my ear to it and hear the choked sobs of a little boy somewhere above and the shush of the woman who is not his mother.

  The bones in my arm rasp and grind. I drag in breath that judders out. My vision curls and shoots spikes of black. I can’t pass out now. I can’t.

  There’s a thump behind me, next to the window. A ladder. Then the shutters slammed shut.

  “What are you doing?” I scrabble across the bed, knocking against the glass. “Lionel. What are you doing?”

  I grab the window frame and tug. The frame sticks, and with one good hand it is impossible to dislodge. The sharp thump of a board to the shutters, then the strike and riposte of the hammer sends me reeling back to the bed. He’s nailing me in the room.

  “No.”

  I twist from the bed, the coverlet sliding off and tangling around my feet, dragging across the floor to the window over the kitchen garden. I press my hand to the glass to peer out. The yard is empty, though the back door is completely ajar. I open my mouth to yell down, but then the ladder knocks against that wall and swings the next shutter closed. The nail is sent home. Darkness swallows the room.

  I am jailed.

  I’ve stopped yelling. It only makes Toby cry out. His voice—hoarse and edged with exhaustion—comes muffled from his room and has muted and thinned as the time crawls by. He starts pounding his door, little furious fists. They have locked him in too.

  I lie on my back. Stare at the ceiling and the shards of light that manage to slip through the shutters. The sun will set the pond aglow with gold and then drop like a stone behind Barrow Rock. Night will approach and the slits of light will be snuffed.

  Lionel knew.

  My wrist and fingers are swollen, the skin hard and cold. The bone is at a horrible angle. I run my thumb along it, feel the poke of it, wonder if I have the stomach to push it in place. But the lightest of touches makes me dizzy and faint, as if the floor has been lifted along one side. I’ve held the hands of enough men who had proper doctors to fix this. Even a dose of chloroform would not stop my scream. How I regret throwing away the tonic. How I regret trusting Saoirse.

  A scraping noise jerks me awake. A tray slides across the floor and bumps the rag rug. Saoirse’s crouched down, one hand to the key in the lock, the other snaking back from the tray. She peers up to the bed, expecting me there and not in the corner behind the desk.

  “Saoirse.” My whisper is rough and too loud.

  Her head swivels toward me, her gray-blond strands loose, her eyes rheumy and weak in the feeble light. She ticks her tongue to her teeth, then picks up something behind her and slides it across the floor. A white tin chamber pot.

  The tray holds four slices of toast, a scrambled egg, and a sliced apple. No silverware. A pewter water jug. Not glass.

  “Saoirse.” I dig a heel into the floor to scoot forward, all the while coddling my arm. My hand is numb, but not the wrist. Not the break. I clamp my jaw, swallowing back a keen of pain. Scoot forward again. “Why?”

  She shakes her head. “’Tis a cursed family, this one.” Stands and hobbles back, pulling the door shut with a click and clunk of the lock.

  The water jug is full and sloshes over the top as I slide it close. I bend to it. Lick the drops, then lift it high and drink. It is laced with brandy or another liquor; Saoirse’s showing her guilt for betraying me. Apologizing with a sop of alcohol to ease my distress. That she caused.

  A laugh balloons in my throat, distends it, and then pummels its way out. I should have known. It was careless.

  The chamber pot clatters and wobbles like a top when I kick it. When I kick it again it careens off the wall and lands facedown and at the tip of a pair of shoes.

  They are odd shoes. Women’s shoes in blue leather and buttons saffron orange. The tops along the shin curve out like wings. Skirts obscenely short, bare legs pale and showy. A tattoo creeps the left shin, from under the shoe’s tongue to the bone of the kneecap. Black-ink roses, petals picked and chewed by aphids. The right shin is flayed of skin and muscle, just bone and sinew and flecks of soil.

  My breath rasps.

  There’s a chattering noise, the click of teeth when a body’s too cold. Click click click. I won’t look up. If I do, I know it will be Alice’s face.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  All day I listen to Cathy’s and Lionel’s footsteps tracking paths through the house: parlor to study, study to dining room, dining room to front door. In again and up the stairs to stop at Toby’s door, their own, down to the kitchen, whispers rough and low as they pass my door. Once there was Saoirse. Her shadow flickered under the doorframe, the bell of her skirt swaying. Then the shadow petered out as she walked away.

  I shift my hip; some loose paper crumples underneath as I move. And I’ve wet myself. No matter how I tore and yanked at all the underlayers I couldn’t get them off. Now I lie with piss drying along my thighs and soaked in my skirts.

  My mouth is bone dry, my tongue sandpaper rough against the roof. My water jug is empty; I finished it in the night. Now it sits on the side table by a candle stub and a spot that once held a matchbox.

  I push myself up with my elbow. Pain flares through my arm and across my shoulder. I grab at a bedpost and clamber upright. I blink to stave off the dizziness, and shudder with cold. My fingers throb as if on fire, though they are losing circulation, blue and white at the tips.

  Think.

  My brother has locked me in this room. Tomorrow he’ll realize his anger is out of bounds with whatever punishment this is, and he’ll let me out. No. Not anger. Rage. So much rage.

  There’s a thud against the wall, just behind the wardrobe. One, or both of them, in Lionel’s office. I cross the room and bend to the keyhole. The hall is empty, the office door shut.

  “Listen to me.” But my voice is parched and no m
ore than a breath. I rest my forehead against the wood.

  A squeak of a door. I squint again. Calico skirts, blue and peach. Cathy bounces the palm of her hand against her leg. When she approaches, the skirt’s swirls and flowers grow ever large and block my view completely. Then it’s her eye, obsidian and not blinking, staring through the keyhole at me. “Not now,” she says. Her gaze glides to the side then rolls back. With no other words, she stands and returns to Lionel’s study.

  I crumple to the floor and jar my arm enough the pain knifes up the bones, and I gasp a breath.

  The ties on the splint are too tight. I press my nailbeds, one by one, hoping for the blush of color that signifies blood is circulating. But the beds are white now. The tips numb.

  My teeth are useless against the knots, not as easy to loosen as the velvet pouch with Lydia’s brooch. It’s an odd thing for Cathy to have in her possession, like a trophy. I can’t think Lionel would have proffered his dead wife’s jewelry as a wedding gift to the second wife. But there it was in her drawer. Perhaps she has Alice’s locket somewhere too.

  I need the scissors. I crawl to the sewing basket, scrabble my hand through the mending—Toby’s short trousers with the rip on the pocket, Alice’s chemises too intricate for the rag bin—and clamp my hand on the scissor case.

  The splint clatters to the floor as I cut the muslin straps, the wads of cotton rolling over my skirt to the floor. With my arm clasped to my stomach, I drop my head to my knees in relief.

  Then I grip a chemise in my mouth, cut new strips, and wrangle new ties with my teeth. I stuff the cotton under my palm and watch the skin regain its color. A simple accomplishment. The white is speckled brown from old blood and red from new. I pull the stitch from my lip and fling it away. It lands on the rug stained black from ink.

  “No. I won’t.” Lionel’s voice is loud in the hall. “It’s too much.”

  “Then I will.” The office door shuts with a thud that makes the wall quiver, and Cathy’s words muffle. The sconce candles snuff out one by one. Her tread, then his up the stairs.