“There is nothing in there of any interest, Lizzie,” she warns. “You’ll find it dull. Are you sure you won’t stay out here with me and help polish these spoons? The time would be better spent.”
“A tantalizing offer, thank you, ma’am, but no. I must be of service to the hospital, and I’m sure some of those papers will be invaluable.” I keep my voice breezy.
“I doubt it,” she snaps. Oops, too much breeziness annoys her. “Run along then.” She goes back to her spoon with a vigorous attention to detail.
“Oh,” I say as though I had just remembered something. In truth, my pause is rehearsed. I place my hand on the doorframe and do my best to look casual, not that she looking my way anyway. She is peering intently into her spoon. I expect it to spontaneously explode any second now. “Did Mr. Connelly find his missing person?”
Miss Helmes turns her intense stare towards me now. “I expect he did. Why do you care? Run along.”
Run I do—partly because of my renewed energy at the prospect of finding out more about Rose, and partly because I have to pass a wing of the hospital that I have always been frightened of. It’s a deserted place now; even when the rooms were all full of patients and they were all free to run about the place, no one ventured this way, so I’m told. They have a haunted feel, a neglected, whispering mood that murmurs of the not so distant past. Tiny medical examining rooms that once were pristine and sterile (well, perhaps not so sterile), the occasional one with just a lone operating table or an overturned chair. A tattered white jacket lies forgotten in a doorway. The air teems with other’s memories that are just beyond my mind’s reach. I know they’re there though, these reminiscences of tragic illness, and they float, unbidden through the tainted, stuffy air. It’s always hotter, darker, and stuffier here; it feels as though there are too many people in one place, in spite of it being only me. The air has weight to it. Weight that could bury you alive if you let it. I cannot imagine being held a prisoner in this place. It makes my skin crawl.
I am through the hated wing soon enough, and when I enter the old doctor’s room, I let out the breath I had been holding. His old office is not nearly so bad, though it’s already full of cobwebs and dust. There is nothing left really, besides stacks of papers and an ancient, heavy desk that I don’t blame them for not moving. It must way a ton, even when emptied. Bookshelves are here too, though at least half the shelves are empty. The other half is full of dusty books that are too outdated for anyone to want, and stacks of papers. Though there is a chill in the air in this room, I opt to crack open a window for the cooling breeze and the tie it gives me to the outside world. Though I’d like to hang my head out the window for a bit and gulp in some freshness and admire the view, this isn’t a room I’d fancy turning my back on.
I begin my search and very quickly find my enthusiasm dwindling. The doctor needed a secretary and badly. His form of filing was archaic, senseless, and utterly useless.
After a couple hours of searching and finding nothing on Rose Gray or anyone who fits her description, I nearly miss the hypnotic comfort that only polishing spoons can give.
I woke and found myself in a very crowded market place. People were colorful and dressed in strange garb, and no one seemed to be speaking English or German, the two languages I spoke at home with Old Babba and the villagers. They were darker skinned than I, though not as dark as some, maybe the same shade as the man in the village that used to sell peaches. He was from India.
I was under a table, and I only awoke because someone had kicked me. You’d think I’d be scared, not of being kicked (I’d had worse from Old Babba), but of finding myself some other place other than where I fell asleep. Some place other than where I had grudgingly called home for seven years. That’s what you would think, but no. No, I was delighted! I had been rescued! Like a fairy princess in a fairy story, I had been set free. My captor was gone—dead as a doornail—and my true life was about to begin. It was though someone opened my book, my story, and began to read right then and there, Once upon a time…
My life had truly started then. No more spiteful looks from Old Babba, no more cold nights, no more loneliness and emptiness, no more hungry belly, and dirty clothes.
I scrambled out from under the table and blissfully joined the throng of shoppers. I was eyed a bit strangely, certainly, but that didn’t faze me. I was quite used to the stares of people, and they didn’t bother me or put a damper on my happiness. I had never much cared what people thought of me. I ran around merrily for most of the day, and since no one spoke my language and I didn’t speak theirs, we all got along beautifully. I’m sure when concerned adults did speak to me that day, they were trying to deduce where my parents were, but I smiled innocently and managed to convey that nothing was wrong, nothing was out of the ordinary. I found myself even saying things like (though no one could understand me anyway), my mother is over there, buying cinnamon, do you see her there? Over there? See? And I would wave and smile some more and they would shade their eyes from the sun and look intently, but of course there was no one there to find, no one who looked like me, no one with yellow hair and blue eyes. I would wave at my imaginary mother anyway, and sometimes when I was playacting at my very finest moments, I would nearly see my mother wave back.
Yes, sometimes I was quite certain I could see her.
Goodness, Rose, try to blend in a bit better, I think. Her story has become fantastical. Though the glimpse into her strange little mind was disturbing, it was also addicting.
My feet are propped up on the old mahogany desk, and I am reclining (quite in an unladylike fashion) in the worn chair. I have given up entirely on finding any records of Rose, so I have removed her diary from my pocket and am reading once again. Her handwriting is better in this part, and I can speed through quickly.
I have no idea why she thinks she has moved countries in the night, but since not much has made sense before now anyway, I don’t bother trying to find the logic in the story, and I read on.
I spent a happy day at the market. When night fell, my stomach was at last full for the first time since I could remember. When my exotic looks and blonde hair didn’t get me free samples (which they did, often), then I simply snatched them. I had my fill of apricots, strange rice balls, cookies that tasted like tea, spicy breads, and nuts. I tried to join in a game with a group of children, but they were unfriendly towards me. The ball they were kicking came hurtling at me, and I ran to fetch it and throw it back to them, but they angrily took it from me. They wouldn’t let me in their silly game, and I tried not to let it bother me, this knowledge that my fairy tale peers were as cruel as my former village peers, but I rubbed the tears away very quickly and admonished myself for being a weak ninny. I was sad, but only for a moment.
I have always been very, very good at turning sorrow into anger, where it can be properly trained and taught basic survival skills.
Those first few weeks I slept in the market place. I was a little thing, very small for seven years of age, I could easily have passed for a child of five, and I was also quite sneaky. The two attributes served me well. It was an easy enough matter to remain undetected, and it became a game for me, a sort of cat and mouse. I even made up scenarios of fake guards and soldiers who would march through the square, determined to find the little orphan urchin. Their ineptness would result in hilarious adventures, and I would drift off to sleep quite content and happy with my stories to keep me warm. In truth, no was chasing me because no one was looking for me.
I suppose the idea of a small child living on her own that way seems strange to those who do not know me, but I am special. Those times, in that year, in that place (it was India, I learned eventually and nearly one hundred years ahead of where I had spent my first seven) were among the best times of my life.
Whatever was she going on about? One hundred years from her village? India? She really was mad.
Poor, dear, wretched girl. Had her family truly abandoned her then? Left her to an old la
dy who was abusive to her? Much less has been known to turn a person insane, I suppose. Nothing bad has ever happened to Mr. Limpet, and he’s as crazy as they come.
When the rainy season came I knew I had to find different shelter than my beloved market place. I hated to leave it, and yet, I knew with a maturity that did not match my years, that it was time to move along.
A strange group of traveling performers came through, and they took me in. A girl with yellow hair and light eyes was good for business. They were experts in magic, illusion, sleight of hand. They made a living swindling people out of their wages, and the people were all too willing to hand over those wages. They sold worthless trinkets for pennies on the dollar and bottles of tonic that promised to cure everything from wasting diseases to hair loss to infertility to death. The cure for death in a bottle. Some people will believe anything. Idiots.
And I? I could sell anything. With a wink and a smile, wearing a fluffy pink skirt and sparkles in my hair, I was golden, their golden girl.
My once upon a time had come. Could it be that my happily ever after had already arrived as well? It seemed for a time that it had. My days were spent doing whatever I liked: wandering, picking up the language, eating, pretending, turning cartwheels in the grass. My evenings were spent selling broken promises and dreams. We traveled quickly, avoiding angry customers who may return for a refund (that was key to our success), and we were never in the same place twice.
It was a lovely life, while it lasted.
I gnaw on the end of the pipe I had found in the drawer of the desk. I chew on it contentedly and enjoy the stale smell of the cherry tobacco that drifts up to my nose as I nibble on the pipe. If I could have, I would have lit it, just for the wickedness of it. When someone walks in unannounced, I nearly fall off the chair, and the pipe clatters to the floor with a telltale clank. My wickedness is purely speculative.
“Ah, there you are,” says Mr. Connelly. He tips his hat at me and leans against the doorframe, crossing one foot over the other in a casual manner. I hurriedly remove my feet from the desk and tug my skirt down modestly.
“Oh. I was taking a break from cleaning. This isn’t what it looks like, well, that is,” I give up excuses and try a smile instead. “It is what it looks like, I suppose. I’m bored stiff and was relaxing.”
“Can’t blame you there. Though I have it on excellent authority from cutting edge medicine, that tobacco is quite bad for you. Blackens your lungs, I believe,” he crosses the room in three long strides and picks up the pipe from the floor. He hands it to me with long fingers. “Your grandchildren will agree with me someday.”
I wave away his words and drop the pipe back in the drawer where I had first found it. “That’s silly. Anyway, did you need something?”
“You,” he drawls out the word casually, making it sound almost tantalizing. I feel either nervous, or scandalized; I’m not sure which since I’m unfamiliar with both emotions. At my blank look, he speaks again. “Miss Helmes asked me to fetch you. It’s time to move along to hospital.”
“Hospital?” I know I sound ridiculous, but it’s as though I’ve lost my train of thought altogether around him. I shake myself out of my stupor and nearly glare at him in my attempt to show him how he does not affect me. Which, of course, he does. “Yes, of course. I’m nearly ready. Am I to accompany the last of the patients then?” It is our last day here: a monumental day in history really, and I’ve been wasting it, chewing on a pipe and reading a story. I can’t really think of Rose’s missive as non-fiction, though she evidently believed it to be autobiographical.
“Yes, I believe there is a Mrs. Ness and a young girl they call Marie. The very last now of the patients and then we can stay away from this place forever. Such an end of an era, isn’t it?” He appears especially thoughtful all at once, and it’s almost as though I am not in the room with him at all.
What an odd thing to say, I think. What an odd man. Barely beyond boyhood, yet there is something strangely old about him. An old soul, some would say. An odd soul, I would say. And in my limited, parentless childhood, odd is something not to be trifled with. I dislike odd intently.
“There’s nothing here worth taking.” I say, stepping away from the desk and stepping near Mr. Connelly. “I’m ready if you are. You are to accompany us, then?”
“Yes, I thought I might, if you have no objection. I believe I will find what I am looking for at the country hospital. As you can imagine, patients and staff can be quite lost in the shuffle during this move.”
“Yes, I can imagine.” My voice sounds tart. “Since I’ve been working so hard to get there myself. It’s been very colossal, this relocation.” Actually, it’s been quite boring, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“I hope you haven’t been overworked, my dear?”
And now he speaks to me as if I am a small child, in need of his petting and soothing? My attraction to him is quickly dwindling into a sort of irritation at his meddling. Perhaps I am just unused to the attention; perhaps the coddling is distasteful to me; perhaps I do not want this old soul to treat me like a delicate little girl when I want him to look at me as a capable woman.
Perhaps I analyze myself too much.
“I enjoy my work, sir,” I pass him as he lounges in the door frame and turn to smile back at him. “There is no place I’d rather be than in Bedlam.” Well, there are some words that have never been spoken before in history, and most likely never will be again.
4
I realize, quite stuck between that stage of not quite asleep, not fully awake, that I have lost the diary. I realize it with a pang of dread, a sense of loss that hits me so deeply that I jerk myself back to awareness with a start. I had come to my bed so fully exhausted from my day of work that I had fallen into my typical pattern of tucking myself in tightly, warming my feet deliciously with my hot water bottle, and plumping up my pillow. I hadn’t even thought of the diary until it appeared, unbidden, in my mind’s eye. Without any warning at all, I felt as though I heard the word “Rose” whispered in my ear, and I jerked myself upright, knocking the hot water bottle to the floor and grabbing my blanket tight around my chest.
I had left it at Bedlam. Not Bedlam now, but Bedlam before. There was no one there now in the abandoned building; everyone was gone, and whomever they sold it to would presumably destroy any rubbish left behind. I had declared that room, with the big old desk and the pipe (that now, somehow, I desperately want as well), to be full of useless junk. Quite unworthy of the trouble it would take to pack it up. Now, Rose’s diary was there, locked up tight, where I’ll never see it again, never open its red cover, never make sense of its garbled, sometimes nearly unreadable print.
I need to hear the end of Rose’s story, like I need to know my own.
Frantically, I try to think of a reason for Miss Helmes’ to allow me to go back. Something I’d forgotten, perhaps? An instrument? A book? A novel of medicinal importance that could not be left behind as they start their hospital in their new location?
Try as I do, I come up with nothing. Lying has never been my strong suite. I become fidgety with the first hint of suspicion, and I begin to twirl the ends of my braid and look about as casual and nonchalant as your basic, run-of-the-mill axe murderer. I have no gift for it. Also, truth be told, I’m a bit scared of Miss Helmes and her eagle eyes, if not scared exactly, then respectful. She could fire me without so much as a by-your-leave, and where would I be? On the streets, that’s where. I’ve been there and am not terribly fond of them.
Two things I’m not scared of though: the dark and the hospital. Well, there is that one shady wing, but I can hold my breath and pray my way through it. Though I’ve not come to any personal conclusions about God, it really doesn’t do to hedge your bets when you need Him.
My flat is tiny, infested with vermin that keeps Hamlet busy, and is not far from Bethlem Royal Hospital. Well, the giant building that was Bethlem Royal Hospital for hundreds of years, I mean. As of the sun ri
sing this morning, it is simply another building, with tales to tell that are perhaps more sensational and titillating than most, but a building just the same.
Nothing to be nervous about.
Simple breaking and entering really.
A child could do it.
Determined, I shake off the last of my sleep and with it, the last of my doubts. How hard could it be, really? I know the place like the back of my hand; even in the dark, I’m sure I’ll find my way, and besides, I have a trusty torch that is not only excellent for seeing in the dark, but also for clubbing any accosting marauders I might meet. This midnight adventure will be a story I can tell my grandchildren! They’ll find me so spunky and brave.
April in London in the dead of night isn’t the cheeriest, and my feet carry me swiftly through the dark alleyways and around the shadows. I see no one in the short walk to the hospital, and when I am in sight of the place itself, it looms like a misshapen monster out of a fairy story or a sea monster, biding its time, sitting still like an island, until I tread upon its scales of brick and stone, and it awakens with a roar to devour me.
I feel quite devoured actually when I jimmy a window and find myself inside. “In the belly of the beast, dear girl,” I mutter. “As long as you’re here and no one’s home, might as well steal an old, unwanted diary.”
The silence is overwhelming, and I miss the sounds Bedlam had during the daylight hours. Even a familiar shriek or the rantings of the criminally insane would make me feel better. The quiet is quite oppressive and heavy. I pass by the stain on the dining hall wall, and as if I have no control over my own limbs, my hand reaches out and touches the red. My torch hadn’t even picked up the stain—its yellow glow was trained straight in front of me—yet somehow I knew instinctively where to find it. I don’t find that knowledge nor the compulsion comforting, and neither is the sight of my pale, ghostly hand against the dark red, comforting. Ghostly. What a wonderful word to pop, unbidden, into my head as I’m locked in an abandoned insane asylum. “Wonderful, Lizzie. Really wonderful. You do come up with the most lovely ideas before dawn. You should write a book, 101 Things to Do in a Mental Hospital for Fun and Profit. Or perhaps, How to Scare Yourself to Death for No Good Reason. Suddenly, my reasoning for coming in the dead of night seems ridiculous. It would have been easy enough to simply ask Miss Helmes; she isn’t Lucifer himself. She surely would have let me come back to retrieve my shawl or my spectacles (which I don’t wear, but I doubt she’d know or care).
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