by Carrie Lomax
“I won’t let you go.”
“It is not your decision to make, Edward.”
They had reached the coach and Harper held her head high as she stepped inside, her hand light on the gloved palm of the footman. The door had nearly closed when Edward’s last low words floated to her ears.
“If it takes a week, a month, a year…Harper Forsythe, I am coming after you.”
Chapter 15
High summer was no time to travel in a stuffy closed coach, regardless whose crest it bore. Harper levered herself out of the velvet seat and stepped down onto green grass. It was the hottest part of the day and the horses were flecked with foam. The footman moved to fetch Harper’s small trunk. She drank in the welcome sight of the asylum. Her sanctuary.
“Bang! Bang!” A tiny figure rushed out from behind a bush, his fingers bent in the form of a pistol.
“Matthew?” Harper gasped. She had never met her nephew, yet the resemblance to her sister was so strong that she’d have known him anywhere. The boy looked up from his play and stared for a moment, and then he ran on. Harper glanced at the house. It had always loomed large in her mind but compared to Briarcliff it now seemed small and shabby. A shutter hung slightly askew, and the painted façade was peeling in places. Harper felt a lump in her throat as she remembered another time, long ago, when her sister had held her hand and walked her to the front door of what had seemed an imposing edifice to a mute, frightened little girl.
The door opened silently, and inside Harper heard…nothing. The normal sounds of life were nowhere to be heard.
Harper removed her gloves and bonnet. She placed them on the hall table before ascending the stairs toward Dr. Patton’s office. Mrs. Patton’s voice stopped her in her tracks. She froze like a deer, listening for danger.
“I have told you before that this was inevitable, Agnes.” A hint of peevishness crept into his voice.
“Inevitable?” Indignation sharpened Mrs. Patton’s words to an accusatory wail. “We built this place together. If you had kept your…” Mumbling. She couldn’t hear what Dr. Patton said next. Mrs. Patton dashed from the room and down the hallway, away from Harper.
The doctor spied her and rose. “Harper. I thought I had heard a carriage in the drive, but as you can see, I was…preoccupied.”
He looked as though he had aged years in the few weeks she had been away, his skin having acquired a haggard, grayish cast.
“You look unwell,” she said as gently as she could.
The doctor located his spectacles and hooked them behind his ears. Sitting heavily in his studded leather desk chair, he smiled sadly.
“It has been a very stressful week.”
As she had done so many times before, Harper sat in the chair across his desk, ever the diligent, respectful student. Conscious that this might be the last time they would sit together like this, she relaxed into the worn fabric of the comfortable wingback, savoring the way its tufted padding conformed to her back. Less comforting was the tale the doctor began to relate.
Shortly before the Earl of Briarcliff’s letter had arrived, Dr. Patton had been made to understand that the asylum’s costs exceeded its income by a healthy margin. The only way to regain solvency had been to take the earl’s money while trying to find higher-paying clients.
Desperate, Dr. Patton had sent Harper to Briarcliff and begun quietly soliciting buyers. They had tried squeezing some of their longer-care patients into shared living quarters. Fights had broken out, and it became only a matter of time before the asylum went under. Given the state of the institution’s finances, he had little leverage in the negotiations. Miller spent weeks going over the books and securing financing. They only wanted the long-term, paying patients who didn’t complain about conditions, like Camilla Grey. Everyone else had been sent away.
“You see how Agnes is taking things,” Patton concluded heavily.
“She knew better than anyone that the asylum was failing. Surely you can understand this is a bitter pill.”
Doctor Paxton glared. “Not you too. Where is the sympathy for the good doctor who has lost his life’s work? Who tried to do the best thing for his last patient?”
Harper fought to catch a short, angry breath in her chest. “Did you send me to Briarcliff because you thought I had a chance at healing his lordship and establishing my own practice, or were you just trying to get me out of the way?”
“I had every confidence in your ability. I still do. But you were correct in your assessment of your employment prospects. Few would hire a female doctor with no formal qualifications, and no one would send their loved ones to your asylum even if you possessed the funds to start one. Which you do not. I know this because I have been paying you barely enough to keep you in necessities these many years, and you were an orphan before that. Your career as a healer is at an end. My suggestion is to look for work as a private caretaker. Or become a governess.”
Harper sat staring at the medical textbook perched on the edge of the desk. Harper spotted Yorick on a shelf next to a gray brain in a jar. She picked it up and sent it flying into the skull, smashing Yorick’s last remaining teeth from the jawless grin and cracking two specimen jars together. The stench of delayed rot soaked into the pages of the broken book.
Patton stared at her in astonishment.
“I will not become a governess,” she seethed.
Harper had given up Edward for this asylum. Yet her own mentor had tricked her into going to serve his own purposes. She stumbled down the rear stairs, passed through a dark hall unseeing and burst into the kitchen. Harper had been shattered by the deaths of her parents when she arrived at the asylum as a girl, but she had connected with Mrs. Patton within the warm confines of the kitchen. It had been here that she spoke her first words after months of mutism, uttering her first hoarse, “Soup. Please.”
The woman to whom she had first spoken sat at the trestle table with red-rimmed eyes, a sodden crumpled handkerchief clutched between two fists as she wept. Harper stopped short as she saw who sat across the table from Mrs. Patton—her sister.
“Viola,” she breathed, her arms reaching wide. In an instant, she was folded into her older sister’s warm embrace. Knowing that she was safe, Harper sobbed her losses and grief into her sister’s shoulder. Yet how changed her sister was. Physically, she was both larger and stronger than memory served, rounder but somehow radiating strength. How easy it was to fall into her sister’s soft shoulder and cry, a return to childhood in the most primitive sense.
“It is so good to see you,” she mumbled into her sibling’s embrace.
“Mrs. Patton, I—”
“Agnes. My name is Agnes. Use it. Please. There is no longer any need for formalities.”
“Agnes, I … I have no words to express my shock.” Harper saw the agonized look on Mrs. Patton’s face and melted.
“You worked on the account books.” Agnes sniffed, her chin trembling afresh. “You knew it was always a shoestring operation. We are old. You are the closest thing we had to children, you and the other inmates.” She sniffed and discarded her handkerchief on a pile of rags to be laundered. “We worked so hard for so long to build this place. We wanted to step back, but not like this. I cannot be a laundress and cook and accountant for much longer, and we cannot afford more help. With you gone, the strain was overwhelming. There wasn’t any choice but to sell.”
Agnes wiped her eyes with red-knuckled hands. She had put everything into making the asylum a comfortable, safe place. Loss was written on her body like calligraphy, but so was age.
“Couldn’t you have told me? I would have done anything to save this place.”
“I know that, Harper. Dr. Patton knows it too. We didn’t want you sacrificing to save us from our folly. It’s time you lived a real life.”
“I have been living a real life. My real life. There’s no other life I can live. Where am I supposed to go after this?” Harper demanded.
“There is no reason to rush into an
ything. We can stay here for a while,” Viola said gently.
Agnes nodded. “We’ve had to dismiss most of the staff. We have arranged for help from the village bringing in food twice a day until Miller sets up house. Breakfast for the remaining inmates we must manage ourselves.” The older woman shrank a little as she faced the enormity of that task. Viola poured tea. Matthew darted into the kitchen, seeking sweets.
“How long are you staying?” Harper asked her sister.
“As long as you are. It doesn’t sound as though any of us will be staying here for very long, though.”
“When do you plan to return home?”
“That is an interesting question, as I no longer have a home to return to. My husband has made a series of unfortunate decisions, including several that landed him in debtor’s prison. Our small farm was auctioned to repay his debts. I haven’t heard from him in years.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yes, indeed. Matthew and I traveled here on what little remained of our savings. So, you see I cannot state with any specificity how long we will be here, although we will certainly not be returning home.”
“You must find work,” stated Agnes stoutly.
“I could try to find a position in a family that wants private care,” suggested Harper glumly.
“Rather like you just came from. How did you like working with the mad Beast of Briarcliff manor?”
“He isn’t like that, Agnes,” Harper said too defensively. “And frankly, it was very taxing to be constantly surrounded by the quarreling family. I much prefer the asylum approach, done the right way, of course.”
“Ours was a unique place. Most are like Bedlam. They are more like prisons than places of healing, as we have tried to create here,” Agnes said sadly. “Pass the salt.”
Viola handed her the shaker. “It will not be easy for any of us to find work. Mrs. Patton, I do not mean insult, but you are not young anymore. I have Matthew, and any employer will consider a child a hindrance. Harper, your work is so specialized that it could take months to find any suitable placement.”
“You mean, I’m eccentric and pretentious in my aspirations,” Harper bit out.
“Don’t put words in my mouth. All I am saying that we must consider our options carefully. There is risk in looking for work immediately. If we leave the asylum, we’ll have to spend what little money we have left. Time is a resource too. We should give ourselves some space to think of a way forward.” Viola laughed. “And to think, I came looking for help from you, Harper.”
Indeed, were it not for the grimness of their circumstances Harper might have laughed.
“We could try London. We have relatives there who may be able to assist us for a short while. I am not anxious to live as poor relations to Grandmother and our aunts and uncles but if we must—”
“Vi, our grandparents haven’t spoken to the family since before we were born. What makes you think they’ll take pity on us now?”
“Grandfather died recently,” Viola responded simply. “I understood that he was the one who cut off Mama, before we were born. I hope that in her dotage our grandmother will take an interest in her great-grandson.”
“Matthew,” breathed Harper. “Well, it could work.”
Viola nodded, then continued thinking aloud. “We will appear on Grandmother’s doorstep as supplicants. Grandmother is never to know of your stay here, and certainly nothing of your work for the asylum. Can you even imagine how she would react, if they threw out Mother for eloping?”
“It isn’t much of a plan,” Harper commented wearily. “What if Grandmother refuses to receive us? We’ll have spent all that money traveling and will wind up stuck in the most expensive city in England.”
“Can you think of anything better?” Viola asked. Harper sighed.
“No.” They had little money and nowhere to go. They could take lodgings somewhere, but in a few weeks or months they would be homeless once their meager funds ran out. Agnes rose and set out three mismatched cups on the scarred table. Into each, she poured a finger of the sherry normally reserved for receiving new patients’ families. Resolute, the three women clinked glasses.
“To London,” they said as one.
Chapter 16
A week later, three souls stood anxiously before the imposing gray townhouse in London’s Mayfair. The smallest one fidgeted, unimpressed by the grandeur but fascinated by the bustle of traffic a few streets away.
“I thought you said Grandfather was a baron,” whispered the boy.
“He was,” Viola replied softly.
“Mama said we came from money. I never imagined anything like this,” Matthew said, awestruck.
“Shh! Matthew, we do not speak of such things so openly.”
The door swung open to reveal a liveried servant in a powdered wig. “Yes?” he drawled.
“Mrs. Cartwright, Miss Forsythe, and young Mr. Cartwright to see Dame Landor,” Viola declared crisply, handing over a freshly printed card. It was their only card, a sample they had requested under the guise that they would need more of them soon. The printer had been suspicious but ultimately obliging.
“Her ladyship is not at home,” the servant intoned.
Undaunted, Viola smiled warmly.
“Please inform her ladyship of our residences. The address is written on the back. We request only a brief audience, to introduce her to her great-grandson, Matthew.” Viola deliberately used the highest form of address for her grandmother, who by custom should be called Dame, trusting that her wording would be passed verbatim to her grandmother.
The manservant closed the door. A collective sigh of relief whooshed out of everyone.
“Well! A promising start,” exclaimed Harper.
“How do you reckon?” Viola asked, her fine brows knitting as she took her son’s hand.
“He didn’t say ‘go away’, he just said Gran’s not at home,” the boy pointed out.
“Exactly,” said Harper with as much optimism as she could muster, unwilling to disappoint her nephew by informing him that not at home might mean that Grandmother didn’t want to see them. Ever.
Viola tugged her son’s arm in a gentle reminder to rein in his exuberance. “Matthew, what did I say about best behavior?”
Then the three turned back to the hotel, where they were all crammed into a single tiny room, to wait.
* * *
London. Edward might be anywhere. It was the last thing that should occupy Harper’s thoughts. It was the only thing that occupied her thoughts.
Four anxious hours had passed before a message arrived at the hotel, requesting their presence the following afternoon. Viola was elated and took Matthew out to see an exhibit to celebrate. Harper stayed behind in their little room, grateful for some time and space to sit and think.
Harper’s anxiety over their grandmother’s invitation left her feeling exhausted.
She was also preoccupied with the wrongness of her final parting with Edward. The more she thought about it, the less Harper regretted her afternoon with Edward. There was too much sadness in life not to cling to the happy moments. She ought to have let herself enjoy it more. Now, there would be no next time, and she would have to spend the rest of her life wondering how wonderful the full experience of loving him might have been. Probably too incredible to walk away from. She had thrown his affection for her back in his face, and then she had lost her career anyway.
That night they supped on bread, cheese and boiled eggs and slept crammed into the tiny room. Viola and Harper shared the tiny bed, while Matthew sprawled out on the stuffed chair and footstool. The next morning, they all walked out together simply to avoid occupying the same space for a little while.
Harper found the city hard on her nerves. There were horses and their smelly leavings everywhere. Unwashed bodies pressed all around her. The sounds of people yelling and of vehicles rumbling over the cobblestone streets were an overwhelming, incessant din.
It was a relief to make their way to t
he quieter neighborhood of Mayfair. They were prompt for their appointed meeting time. A footman ushered the little group silently through the front door and into a large and well-appointed parlor. Baroness Landor sat imposingly before a grand marble fireplace in a room so coldly and ornately furnished that the warm afternoon sun did little more than reflect off innumerable shiny surfaces about the room into one’s eyes. Harper blinked quickly, taking in the cream figured rug, the pale green upholstered settee, the gilt frame of a very dark oil painting of an imposing, distinguished man dressed in a precise and comparatively sober version of the florid fashions popular forty years before.
Harper smiled as charmingly as she could manage as the baroness bade them to sit. They did. The horsehair settee was rigid and slippery. Poor Matthew looked miserable in his shabby best coat and mended trousers, quite obviously secondhand and let out at the ankle, as he attempted to gain purchase on the uncomfortable furniture.
“A gentleman remains standing in a lady’s presence.” The baroness glared at him. Matthew’s shoulders would have slumped if the jacket hadn’t been holding them rigidly in place as he moved to stand behind the sofa.
“So, you are my daughter’s daughters,” the baroness began without a hint of warmth. Harper inclined her head slightly and met her grandmother’s steely gaze without flinching. Beside her, Viola let her lips turn upward in a hint of a smile.
“Yes,” the sisters said in unison.
“I see far too much of that music teacher in you,” her grandmother declared, looking hard at Viola. “You favor him. It is not to your advantage. At least your sister has your mother’s coloring.” The baroness slid her gaze back to Harper. “You, Miss Forsythe, bear a passing family resemblance.”