Beneath the bridge, the uneasy ocean slapped the wood hard, as if resentful that the storm was over and the bridge had remained standing. The bridge surface was slick with debris and drying water. But it was passable.
I stood watching the water, the bridge, the birds wheeling overhead. I tried to make out details on the mainland, but couldn’t. I turned and looked behind me, where the cool stone of Portis House appeared through the trees. The line of windows above the portico, which I knew was the nursery, was just visible. I imagined I could see the abandoned statue of Mary through the waving branches, but the truth was, of course, that she was hidden from here.
I took another breath of salty air, heavy with oncoming heat, and turned back down the path. There was work to be done.
• • •
We now had two injured men, on top of our five sick with influenza. Once we’d moved Roger and Captain Mabry, and Nina had awoken, groggy and rather angry, all of us had set to work. We’d brought three more mattresses to the common room, including one for Douglas West to use when he wasn’t in his chair. Roger would need surgery, but we had no means to perform it. We disinfected and bound their wounds as best we could, stanching bleeding and changing dressings. Jack’s bullet had taken Mabry through the meat of his calf, a neat flesh wound that hadn’t even broken bone. Roger’s shoulder wound was more serious, and I worried he would never have full use of his arm again.
Roger had been the first to see that Mabry, with Creeton’s gun in his hand, intended not to defend himself but to kill himself. He’d actually tried to stop “the stupid bastard,” as he put it. Mabry had shot him; Creeton had witnessed it. Then Mabry had continued on out into the rain. Roger suffered so much pain his first night that, after conferring with the others, I’d finally given him one of Jack’s pills to ease him into sleep until help could arrive.
Creeton himself sat subdued. He had come into the common room voluntarily, as we’d been busy with the injured, and now sat quiet and cross-legged on his mattress. Jack had bound his hands as a precaution, though Creeton had not struggled. Creeton would not look at Nina or me.
I came up the circular drive, passed the statue of Mary, and walked up the steps to the portico and through the front door. The main hall was empty now. I passed the little sitting room where I’d met my brother, the dining room where I’d first been so terrified and where I’d sat on the floor with a bleeding Captain Mabry in my lap. I poked my head into the common room and found everything calm; the patients were either asleep or dozing. Nina and Anna weren’t there, but Douglas sat comfortably in his chair. “Vries cooked some food,” he said to me without preamble. “They’ve gone down to eat it.”
I took a pitcher of water, gave a few sips to the men who asked for it. “All right. I’ll go. I just checked and the bridge is clear. We should get help now.”
“That’s good news,” he said.
“D’you want me to bring you some breakfast?”
“Anna said she would. But thank you.”
I made myself turn, look down at Creeton, who was now sleeping. He was lying on his back, his mouth open a little as he dozed. His tied hands rested limply on his stomach. “Did he speak?” I asked Douglas.
“Yes. Didn’t say much.”
“Was he—?”
“No. I don’t think so. He wasn’t like before.”
I looked around the room. “Someone’s missing.”
“Archie Childress,” Douglas said. “Said he felt well enough to help out. I didn’t see a reason to stop him.”
I nodded at him and put the pitcher back. Then I went down the corridor to the stairs.
The kitchen smelled like bacon, and suddenly I was ravenous. Everyone was there, filling their plates. Paulus had done a decent job, it seemed; I’d had no idea he could cook. Archie stood at one of the large sinks, his sleeves rolled up, scrubbing pots and pans. He glanced at me and gave me a quick smile.
There was a strange moment when we all sat down at the small table and looked at one another. We were mismatched, for certain: a mental patient, a false nurse, a real nurse, a South African orderly, a murderess, and Brave Jack Yates, sitting down to breakfast. We were like a shipwrecked crew stranded on an island and not sure what to say to one another.
I looked at Jack. He was still wearing his everyday clothes, shirt, suspenders, and trousers. He looked a bit tired, but not much the worse for wear. He was picking thoughtfully at his breakfast, but when he felt my gaze he looked up at me and returned it. He seemed to be looking me over as I’d just done him. My wrists were sore, as were a few spots where I’d gotten the worst of my struggle with Creeton, but otherwise I was fine. I was exhausted, but the walk had given me a second wind, and I felt the blood pumping in my veins again.
I cleared my throat. “I’ve checked the bridge,” I said to everyone. “It’s clear.”
“Thank God,” said Archie. He did not stutter.
“I’ve just been on the telephone in Matron’s office,” said Jack. “The phone lines seem to be up again. I spoke to the hospital at Newcastle on Tyne. It seems all the patients arrived safely. I told them we’ve casualty cases, and they’re sending ambulances as fast as they can.”
“It will take a few hours,” I said.
“That gives us some time,” Paulus broke in. When we all looked at him, he said. “Well? What are we going to tell everyone?”
He was right. “The truth doesn’t sound . . .” I paused, not certain how to word it.
“It sounds mad,” said Archie.
Anna stopped eating and put down her fork.
I pictured it: one of us—any of us—telling the authorities in Newcastle on Tyne that Creeton and Mabry had been possessed by ghosts, and Creeton had tried to kill Mabry in appeasement to the ghost of Nils Gersbach, and Mabry had tried to kill Anna instead, but the ghost of Mikael Gersbach had saved her. “No one would believe me if I said it,” I said. “I’m hardly credible.”
“Neither am I,” offered Archie, gesturing to the prominent lettering on his shirt. “You have the best chance of any of us, Jack.”
“I would, if I hadn’t just spent six months in a mental hospital,” said Jack. “That might tell against me. Paulus or Nurse Shouldice, you’re probably the most credible witnesses here.”
“God, no,” said Paulus. “I need to work, and this place is finished. Who’s going to hire an orderly who believes a story like that?”
“I need my job, too,” said Nina. She was eating steadily, as always; being struck and drugged seemed to have made her hungry. “Here’s the best way. We got hit by the flu. We evacuated as many as we could. The stress got to Creeton and he became aggressive. He attacked Kitty and me, and then Mr. West. Mabry and Yates got the gun out of Matron’s safe to defend us. Creeton fought with Mabry, who shot Roger by accident. Yates shot Mabry in the leg when he was aiming at Creeton and his rifle went off by mistake.” She put another bite of bacon into her mouth. “I think that works.”
Jack had put his fork down and stared at her. “That’s missing quite a few pieces of the story. And I’d never let a rifle go off by accident.”
She glared back at him from behind her spectacles. “You did this time, Patient Sixteen. You most definitely let your rifle go off by mistake. As for the rest of it, no one’s going to know that Mabry shot at Anna if we don’t tell them.”
“It’s not bad,” Paulus said. “I come out of it looking rather good. At least I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“What about me?” said Anna. “Where do I come into the story?”
“Just as you did,” Nina replied. “Your mother died and you came back here. You hid in the west wing. When we found you, we took you in until help arrived.”
“Or she was never here at all,” said Paulus.
“What does that mean?” said Archie.
“Well, we’re the only ones that know she’s
here, really. She could disappear again and no one would be the wiser.” He turned to her. “Is that what you want to do?”
Anna looked down at her plate. “I don’t know.”
“It’s going to come out, Anna,” Jack told her softly. “Maisey knows everything, and she can prove it. Whether you’re found or not, it will all come out.”
She nodded, did not look up.
“The story is rather hard on Creeton,” Archie admitted, pouring himself some water with a hand that did not shake. “He did do those things, I know, but he wasn’t entirely in charge of his own actions. Neither was Mabry.”
“What are you worried about?” Jack asked.
“Well, I assume that we patients will all be reassigned to different hospitals, especially when the scandal breaks. It could go hard on him. He might even face criminal charges.”
“I don’t think his family will help him,” I added.
“Still, they won’t want a scandal,” said Jack. He sighed. “I don’t really know what to do. I’ll have to think it over.” He looked at Archie. “Where do you think you’ll go?”
Archie shrugged. “Wherever they assign me, I suppose.” He smiled a little. “Maybe I’ll go to a hospital where they have a gramophone.”
My mind was turning with an idea. “Has Mabry woken yet?” I asked.
“Only briefly,” said Paulus. “He was still groggy.”
I nodded, the idea still going round in my mind. I’d talk to Mabry when he was awake.
There was nothing to do, then, but wait. We went our separate ways. Anna took West his breakfast, and they sat talking quietly. Nina flung herself on the spare mattress set up for the on-duty nurse and was asleep in minutes. Paulus disappeared to his own devices, probably to sleep as well, and Jack went to his room. Portis House was silent, the air changed. There were still cracks in the walls and the cellar was still flooded, but it didn’t seem like a haunted place. It was a big, somnolent house in the summer heat, a rich man’s folly purged of its nightmares, dozing as if already abandoned. I climbed the stairs to the nurses’ bathroom and turned on the taps in the bathtub. I unbraided my hair, took off my uniform. I sat in the bath for a long time, thinking about things. About ghosts. About endings. About beginnings.
When I got out, I didn’t rebraid my hair. I left it loose and clean; it hung to the middle of my back, swaying with my movements in a way I wasn’t used to. It was, I realized, rather a nice chestnut color. I’d never really taken the time to look at my hair in daylight. Perhaps, at almost twenty-one, it was time I did.
I found my cotton nightdress and pulled it over my head, even though the warm sun of midmorning was rising in the sky. Then I padded down the stairs in my bare feet. I made no sound. I saw no ghosts.
Jack’s room was darkened. He’d drawn the curtains, and as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I could see he was lying on his bed, on his back on top of the covers. He’d taken off everything but his undershorts, and he had his fingers linked over his flat stomach as he stared at the ceiling. He went very still when he saw me.
I closed the door behind me, and since it wouldn’t lock from the inside, I propped the room’s only wooden chair against the knob.
We didn’t speak for a moment as my heart careened in my chest. I could hear nothing but the blood rushing in my ears. Courage, Kitty. I took a step forward, took my nerves in hand. “You said you’d go through hell to see me naked,” I told him. “I think you win.”
In one motion, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. “Come here,” he said softly.
I came closer, fighting shyness, fighting all the fears that had held me back. When I came in range he took my wrists and pulled me in until I stood between his knees. He took my face in his hands and kissed me.
It was everything, that kiss. It was the closeness of him, his skin setting a reaction off mine like sparks, even when we weren’t touching. It was the goodness of it, the rightness of it, the fact that I was afraid, and that the fear was right, too. I could be afraid, and I could still do this, still do anything I wanted. It was the fact that he’d come back from that dark, dark place he’d been. It was the fact that both of us had thought ourselves alone in the world, and that we’d both been wrong.
He broke the kiss and bunched his hands in the skirt of my nightgown. “Is there anything under this?” he asked.
“No.”
He groaned gently. “Dear God. Give me a moment.”
“You don’t have a moment. Take it off.”
He pulled it up to my waist. “Just your legs are killing me.”
I was laughing now. “Jack, stop it.”
“Any higher and I may die.”
I pulled the fabric from his hands and wrenched the entire nightgown off over my head, dropping it to the floor in one motion. And then I was on the bed with him, on his lap, my legs wrapped around his waist, and we were kissing again, and his hands were traveling everywhere on me. I wanted them everywhere at once. His skin was beautiful in the dimmed, lazy morning light, and I felt the muscles move in his back, the bones of his shoulder blades. His hands cupped my breasts and I laid my cheek on his shoulder, reveling in the sensation of it, the scent of his skin.
He lifted my head a little and kissed his way up the side of my neck, under my ear. He was very, very good at this, I was noticing. “Jack,” I whispered, “I’m nervous. You’re going to have to be gentle with me.”
His teeth scraped my earlobe, and if I hadn’t already been sitting, I would have dissolved into a heap of wet lust. Well, perhaps not exactly gentle. “I mean it,” I said. “I didn’t think I would ever do this, so I haven’t practiced.”
“That makes no sense,” he pointed out. Before I could argue, he tenderly nipped the skin behind my ear, and when I shivered and moaned, he slid his hands under me and pulled me even closer, wrapping my legs more tightly around his waist. “I think you’ll be very good at it,” he said into my ear, and then he pulled away and looked at me. I thought I was about to die. “But you know,” he said, “if it makes you feel better, there’s a way that we—well, that you can be on top.”
I stared at him. “There is?”
He watched as the possibilities struck me, and the smile he gave me was slow and nothing if not wicked. “Oh,” he said. “This is going to be fun.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The ambulances arrived before supper. We were ready, all of us: the sick prepared for evacuation, the staff and the able-bodied patients standing under the front portico, waiting. Nina and I had even emptied Matron’s safe and the cabinet of the men’s belongings, putting all of it in a box that now sat between us. A second box contained some of Matron’s most important files. When Matron was well, she would want them.
This time, when the ambulances pulled up, we had no argument. Paulus helped the attendants load the sick as the sun stayed high in the clear sky of the long summer day.
An ambulance attendant balked when he saw our boxes. “No one said anything about this,” he said. “Are you sure it’s important?”
“I’m sure,” I said.
“If it’s so important,” another attendant broke in, “just come back for it. This place isn’t going anywhere.”
I glanced at Nina, and then at the others. We were all thinking the same thing. Jack’s blue eyes were dark. Even Paulus looked a little pale.
“We won’t be back,” I assured the attendant. “Load the boxes.”
We pulled away in a convoy down the long, muddy drive. I didn’t look back as the house receded behind me. And even though I couldn’t see them, I knew none of the others looked back either.
• • •
In the end, we lost four patients.
It was the likely outcome of influenza. Everyone knew that. I knew that. Twenty-one had fallen sick. That seventeen had recovered was a good ratio. We’ve seen waves
of it over the last year, the doctor at the hospital in Newcastle on Tyne told me. It’s different strains, I think. This one was not particularly bad.
Four men buried. Not particularly bad.
George Naylor, with the gap in his teeth, was one of them, his weakened constitution having done him in. The ones who didn’t die were sick, or weak, for weeks. Matron had a constitution of iron and was one of the first to recover; Boney, ever her faithful servant, followed shortly after, sitting up in bed with flushed cheeks and trying to give orders before passing out into sleep. I nodded at her and told her I’d do everything she said. She never remembered what she’d told me, anyway.
Martha was one of the sickest. We thought, for a long time, that she wouldn’t make it. But Martha had always been stronger than her fragile body appeared.
Matron had Nina and me sit at her bedside. Even in sickness, she knew everything, absolutely everything. “Paperwork,” she told us. “Each man must have a transfer form.” There was separate paperwork for the men who had died, arrangements to be made to send their bodies back to their families or, if their families refused, to have them buried.
Matron was concerned about Douglas West, Archie Childress, and Captain Mabry, whose flesh wound required only a bandage and a pair of crutches. The hospital had discharged Mabry as quickly as they could, claiming it needed beds. We’d put the three of them in temporary housing under the supposed care of Paulus Vries.
“I do hope he is maintaining their routine,” Matron fretted. “Rest and routine are essential to their mental state.” Nina and I nodded, not bothering to tell her that Paulus’s “care” translated to drinking in the pubs of Newcastle on Tyne and trying—with what success I had no idea, nor did I ask—to pick up girls, while West and Archie smoked cigars and played cards, gambling matchsticks back and forth.
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