by Ros Franey
I nod, miserably.
She looks at me for a moment, then says in a softer voice, ‘Don’t worry: I shall still speak to Dr Squires about her coming to the concert, but I hope this has taught you a lesson.’ Then she turns on her heel and goes back to her seat.
As I hurry up the aisle towards Millie, the nurses around us are starting to pack up their thermoses and coffee cups. I sit down beside her, my mind in tatters as to how I’m ever going to speak to her about these things now time is so short.
She looks at me expectantly. ‘Did you get into trouble? I’m terribly sorry. It was just a shock – what you said.’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ I tell her, groping for the words I need to continue. ‘Millie, I was only trying to tell you that my father might fear you could at some point accuse him.’
‘That’s over,’ she murmurs. ‘It’s in the past.’
‘Listen.’ I take a deep breath and return to my theme that for this reason, he and Dr Squires may believe it’s perhaps safer to keep her in hospital. I look at her anxiously, wondering how she will take this. ‘I’m afraid they may want you to believe you’re more sick than you really are, Millie, so you don’t think of leaving.’
She shakes her head. ‘It can’t be so, Annie. It would be too cruel.’
I say fiercely, ‘My father has already done the cruellest thing!’
‘But Dr Squires is good and honourable. He found me a piano. He has entrusted me with this privilege of playing for the choir. I can’t betray his trust.’
I feel I’m sinking again. ‘It’s very difficult,’ I agree. ‘I would find it as hard as you. But—’
She breaks in, ‘It would be dishonest of me to run away, Annie.’
‘But I’m afraid he’s not being honest with you, Millie. You know you’re not as ill as the others. You shouldn’t be in this horrible place. You don’t belong here.’
‘I don’t belong anywhere else!’ We’re speaking in whispers, but her voice is bitter, her face angry.
The choir are moving back to their places. The break is over. There’s one thing I still urgently need from her tonight. As we sit down side by side at the piano again, I ask, ‘Will you at least let me write to Edwina about this?’
Millie looks down at her hands and out into the shadowy chapel. ‘How can I disobey Dr Squires? Why won’t you let me speak to him?’
This is what I’ve been dreading. I try to say it calmly, but my words are stuttering and jumping. ‘Because I’m afraid that if you do, he … If you let him know you want to go … he will lock you up further. If he fears you may leave, we will miss our only chance!’
It sounds so melodramatic, I don’t know if I’d believe it myself – yet I’m sure it’s true. She is staring at the piano keys. Poor Millie: it seems brutal to be trying to undermine her trust in the one person who has encouraged her – and after all, I may be wrong! Seeing her face so strained, I suddenly feel very uncertain I’m doing what’s best for her. ‘You’re not betraying him by going to Canada, Millie,’ I point out, as much to reassure myself as her. ‘You’re simply seeking a – a second opinion.’
Dr Squires, who as usual has left the chapel during the break, now returns to the rostrum and taps his baton on the music stand to bring us to attention. It’s my turn to play for the choir now – for the very first time – and I have never felt less capable of doing so, my whole being jangling with the sense of a mission not accomplished. I stumble on two notes in the opening introduction, aware of the intense figure of Millie sitting beside me. She is turning the pages, but I know her mind is in turmoil, too.
At the end of the rehearsal she stands up rather awkwardly as Doris approaches to lead her away. ‘You may write, as we discussed,’ she murmurs, her voice distant and formal. ‘But for myself…’ She gathers up her music then drops her voice so Doris can’t hear. ‘I’m not ready yet, Annie. I need to think.’
Sunday, August 28
The great event of this week is that Fred was given weekend parole last Friday and has come home for a whole three days! He looks around him with a sense of wonder, as if not quite believing he’s no longer on the ward, and we walk up the Oaks arm in arm as if he’s afraid to walk unaided, his confident striding around the hospital grounds quite forgotten. I remember what he said about no longer belonging to our family; it seems to be written in his face as he watches us having our mundane conversations at mealtimes, his eyes moving from one of us to the next, without apparently being able to take part himself. When I raise it with him, all he says is, ‘You’ve all got smaller – the house, everyone.’ And later, ‘None of it’s real, Annie.’
In an effort to involve him in my own all-too-real adventures, I tell him, on that first walk, about our plans for Miss Blessing.
‘You’ve changed your tune, haven’t you? The last time we spoke,’ he reminds me, ‘you were four-square behind the Mission and all its works. What happened to that?’
‘I understand more about it now,’ I say stiffly. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’
‘And Miss Blessing has agreed to this?’ he asks.
‘She’s thinking about it.’
‘Ah. Thinking.’
‘I’m sure she will come round to it,’ I tell him, with a confidence I don’t feel.
‘Are you? And what about her sister? Will she play ball? It’s an expensive journey from Canada. Does she want the responsibility of a mental patient on her hands? Can she even get away to come and collect her?’
‘I’m waiting to hear,’ I tell him. ‘But if Edwina understands what’s really going on, I believe she will come somehow.’
‘And what is really going on, Annie? Explain it to me. What’s changed? Why does Miss Blessing have to be set free?’
‘Because …’ I glance at him, unsettled by his tone. ‘Because, actually, of something you said about her life being over.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ he protests.
‘You did. You said that having broken the rules, she must pay the price – which is that she’s expendable.’
‘In the view of some people.’
‘All I can do is help her, Fred.’ I’m conscious I mustn’t get riled on account of his state of mind. ‘What would you do if someone were incarcerated in that place for ever, and you kind of owe it to them?’
‘Do you owe it to her?’ he asks. He sounds surprised rather than sarcastic.
I hesitate. I haven’t mentioned the revelations of Iris Bagshaw. ‘The circumstances are more complicated than they seem,’ I say at last. ‘I have heard it and Beatrice knows it.’
‘Are you going to tell me what they are?’
I’m thinking of Fred’s own words many years ago: on the night I was locked in the cellar, Nana must have known the wearer of the blue shoes well enough not to bark. Beatrice says she saw Miss Blessing with my father near the house even before that. Has Fred always known, perhaps, the way things were between them? But no, I can’t risk telling him: it’s far more important that Fred recovers and gets out of hospital himself.
‘I’ll tell you one day, perhaps, when you’re not being so grumpy!’ I give him a dig in the ribs, hoping he will take a teasing in his present mood. ‘But you’ve met her; you know she’s no business being on that locked ward. Don’t you think we should help her get out?’
‘It’s down to her doctor, really, isn’t it?’
We walk on in silence. There is a voice screaming in my head; it’s Marjorie Bagshaw’s again, from when we were children: Freemasons help each other. Dare I suggest my Dr Squires theory to Fred? I wonder if I’ve taken his support too much for granted. If he disapproves, he could easily betray us. We talk about other things as we continue our slow walk around the reservoir, but my mind is racing. I say: ‘D’you feel up to going to the Arboretum?’
He stops to catch his breath. Then he says, ‘Why not?’ And we continue on, instead of turning back to the house.
Only later, when his mood has softened in the fresh air and he’s almost hi
s old self again, do I return to the subject of Miss Blessing. ‘You know the choirmaster is her consultant,’ I tell him. ‘Dr Squires.’
‘Yes, you asked me about him before,’ Fred says. ‘Means nothing to me.’
‘He’s in the Lodge with Daddy.’ I try and say it as neutrally as possible. ‘Isn’t that a coincidence?’
Fred stops in his tracks. This is clearly news to him. ‘No,’ he says quietly. ‘No, it’s not.’
We walk on in silence for a full five minutes till we’re almost home, but I can sense something in him has changed. ‘So …’ I venture, ‘coming back to my earlier question, are we right to get her out?’
He turns and looks at me. ‘How can I help?’ he asks.
As he leaves on Sunday evening to go back to Mapperley – Daddy has gone to bring the car round to St Ann’s Hill – Fred places his hands on my shoulders and looks at me seriously. ‘Annie, you don’t have to protect me. I know it all.’
‘“The dog that didn’t bark in the night”?’
‘Yes. I’ve known for a long time.’
I wonder how, but there isn’t time to ask.
‘I want to say, I support you all the way,’ he tells me. Gone is the sarcasm now. ‘If I wasn’t stuck in there …’
‘Fred!’ Our father’s voice up the back steps.
‘You’ll be home very soon.’ I give him a hug, but he isn’t used to it. He stands stiffly with his arms stuck out at an angle. ‘You’re better, Fred,’ I tell him, pulling back. ‘You’ve got your part to play. We need to know you’re with us. We couldn’t do this without you.’
‘I wish I could do more,’ he mutters.
‘Fred, are you coming?’
Mother enters the kitchen. ‘Frederick, what are you loitering around for? Can’t you hear your father?’
He looks at her over my shoulder. ‘I’m off. Goodbye, Mother.’
He hesitates. It is an awkward moment, as it always is in a family that never touches. She waves him away. ‘Get along with you. I’ll remember you in my prayers.’
He stays a moment longer, squeezes my hand, and is gone.
Tuesday, August 30
I cannot say how heartened I am by Fred’s support for our plan, because – as the day approaches – I have become less certain we’re doing the right thing. I’m feeling more and more uneasy about forcing poor Millie out of the one place where she feels safe and dispatching her across the world just because, according to some notion of mine, I feel she must be set free! Of course my family are right: I’m no doctor. My father may have committed a terrible crime but can he be the monster I’m taking him to be? And Dr Squires is a respected psychiatrist, not an evil demon. Who am I to know better than all of them? There is a part of me (I have to admit it) that hopes Edwina Blessing will write back and tell me not to be so fanciful, so I’m forced to drop the whole hare-brained scheme. But then Fred’s endorsement brings me back to the reason for hatching the plot in the first place: my father is a monster. And so doubt and determination wash over me in contradictory waves.
It’s too soon to have heard yet from Canada, but every lunchtime I imagine it is morning in New Brunswick and that my letter is reaching Edwina and she is reading it at the breakfast table. What will she say? Will she be shocked and angered by what she reads and resolve to rescue her sister? Or will she dismiss me as a hysterical, meddling girl? Will she respect my request for secrecy, or report us to the hospital authorities?
There is a silent player in all this, and I’m conscious I haven’t mentioned her since my meeting with Iris Bagshaw: I could almost say that Mother has been avoiding me. Our conversations at mealtimes have been perfunctory and she has neither set me Mission tasks, nor suggested any further visits to the sick of the parish. Sometimes I have the feeling she is watching me, an instinct so strong that I dare not turn and look at her for fear of catching her at it. I still can’t fathom what she’s up to, sending me to see Iris, and I certainly don’t want to discuss it with her; the very idea would be horrifying. So her sudden appearance in the room today while I’m practising the Requiem makes me physically jump. I can feel my shoulders tense and in an effort to shut her out I lean in to the keyboard, peering at the music as if I’ve never seen it before.
She stands by the door until I finish the passage, and then advances towards the piano. I fold my hands in my lap and look up at her, waiting for her to speak. ‘It requires a particular skill to accompany singers,’ she says. I brace myself for the criticism that I’m sure is coming next, for of course – unlike her – I have no experience of this at all. But she continues, ‘You took over from … whom, exactly?’
‘A patient,’ I say. I watch her face warily, willing her not to ask if it’s Miss Blessing, and wondering whether I’ll tell a lie, if she does.
She nods. ‘A patient. Yes. The accompaniment is not easy.’
‘No,’ I agree. I wonder where this is going.
‘Whoever plays it needs to have their wits about them. Wouldn’t you say, Annie?’
I nod. Is this a macabre joke about the patient’s state of mind? But Mother is not breaking the habit of a lifetime: she means it literally.
‘However, you are taking over for the concert, after all.’ She smiles a thin smile, turns and leaves the room.
Tomorrow is the penultimate rehearsal and I’m jumping with nerves. I should at least get Dr Squires’ answer from Sister Jones about whether Millie can come to the concert. My brain tangles up whenever I try to imagine what our strategy will be if he has said no: Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (Matthew 6:34). As to Miss Blessing’s own decision about whether she wants to be rescued, the answer has to be yes! No other decision will do.
Thursday, September 1
Dr Squires has given permission for Millie to attend the concert, as long as she stays in the vestry. I said when we hatched it, our plan had four big holes and since last night, this one is resolved. The second is Millie herself, but I cannot push her for a decision. The third is Edwina: I believe that if Edwina makes the journey, Millie will agree to escape – so we are both waiting for letters from Canada. The final unknown is Maisie. We cannot free Miss Blessing without her help, but I’ve no idea how she will react when I tell her what we’re up to. I can’t put it off any longer; but it’s the most enormous risk.
Ever since Maisie kept her word and never told Mother about Nana and me, I’ve felt I could trust her with my life; but of course Beatrice never knew that particular secret, so I can’t tell her now. She’s unhappy about Maisie for a different reason. ‘You can’t ask her to defy her employer,’ she argues. ‘Maisie could lose her job, and her references.’
This is true, and it worries me. ‘What about Iris Bagshaw, then?’ I suggest. ‘We could ask her.’
‘And have it all the way round the Mission?’ says Beatrice.
I don’t think this is fair; in the matter of Millie Blessing, Iris would be solid. I haven’t had any further dealings with her since our one encounter, though I know her little girl has recovered and is out of hospital. She would probably agree to help us.
‘But she’d have to tell her husband!’ Beatrice points out. ‘It’s too risky.’
So Maisie it is. We’ll just have to make sure she’s not caught.
Thursday, September 8
Time has dragged this week. I started to believe Edwina had found it necessary to tell the authorities, and when I reported for my normal volunteer shift I fully expected to be hauled into Matron’s office and dismissed. It was a huge relief, of course, when this didn’t happen; but since then I’ve been fretting dreadfully about what to do if we haven’t heard from Edwina by the concert, which is now just two days away: our one chance – lost.
Then, this very morning, we’re sitting at the breakfast table when Mother enters with the first post. She gives my father two or three letters and keeps one to herself. I can see it’s an airmail envelope. She is surveying me critically.
‘This letter is for
you, Annie.’
I don’t doubt it. I take a sip of tea to try and disguise the fact that my cheeks are flaming.
‘I wasn’t aware,’ says Mother, ‘that you have correspondents overseas.’
Naturally, I have my story prepared. ‘That’ll be one of the girls from Bordeaux,’ I say as lightly as I can.
‘But this letter isn’t from France.’
‘Oh, it must be Françoise from La Réunion. Or maybe one of the French Canadians,’ I tell her, and hold out my hand. ‘Please may I see it, Mother?’
‘I’m not sure. Who is this person? How do we know she – if indeed it is a she – is suitable?’
Stealing a glance in my father’s direction, I’m relieved to see he is deep in his own letters and paying no attention. ‘Mother, the students I knew in Bordeaux are all from good families,’ I reassure her. It’s meant to sound like sweet reason, but it comes out wheedling and prissy.
‘The writer has withheld their name and address from the envelope, a fact I find suspicious. I may need to read the letter first.’
The dismay in my face must be plain to see. For us to founder on this! I want to say, May I ask you, please, that you don’t? I’m not a child any more. At least give me credit for choosing suitable companions! But I can say nothing. Mother’s chipping away at me over the years has done its work. Our plan will fail, of course; foolish of me not to realise it earlier. With my whole being I want to scream and snatch the letter from her bony hand, but all I can do is stare at her helplessly in silence.
Mother, her eyes never leaving my face, takes the butter knife and slits open the envelope. To my added horror, I realise Daddy has finished his own correspondence and is looking at us curiously. Mother glances at the address, and then turns the letter over to read the signature. I see her lips purse, a momentary hesitation … then, to my utter shock, she pushes letter and envelope at me across the table as if they’re on fire. ‘Very well.’ She can’t meet my eye. Now it’s her turn to conceal her own confusion. Does she understand, then, whom it’s from? I cannot read it in front of them. I take up the letter and fold it back into the envelope with shaking fingers. Somehow we continue with breakfast.