“Would you like to tell me about James? About how you feel?”
Annis twisted back to gaze at her aunt. “You’ve guessed, I think.”
“I suspect your heart and your mind are divided.”
“Yes. For one thing, I still worry that he’s under the influence of the maleficia.”
“I doubt that very much. It’s my opinion that he’s made a full recovery.”
“I also want to stay in New York, to study with you, to breed horses.”
“You are fortunate in having choices. So many young women don’t.”
“Oh, I know. I do know that.” Annis bit her lip. “It’s hard to think about.”
“Tell me, Annis. Do you love your James as much as you love Black Satin?”
Annis hesitated, then gave Harriet a rueful, slightly guilty smile. “I can assure you I love James as much as I love Black Satin.”
“Well.” Harriet smiled back. “I suppose that’s enough.”
“James is going to speak to Papa today, while we’re out.”
“I don’t envy him having to speak to George,” Harriet said mildly.
“He insists on doing it.” Annis worried at her moonstone with her fingers. “I don’t know what Papa will say. Now the dowry money has been paid back to Mr. Neufeld, and… it shouldn’t be all about money, should it?”
“I hope it won’t be. But you must put it out of your mind for now,” Harriet admonished. “Distractions are dangerous.”
Annis bit her lip, ashamed of her selfishness. “Yes. Sorry.” She released the moonstone and shifted her hand to the adder stone, safe beneath her chemise. Her worries about her future faded as she felt the silhouette of the ancient stone under her hand. The magic of the herbarium returned in full force, swirling through the inside of the carriage, uniting her with Harriet and reminding her of their purpose. “Yes,” she said again. “I will focus.”
The exterior of the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island was as bleak as any place Annis had ever seen. There was almost no landscaping, no decent walkways, nothing to look at except the gray walls and the small barred windows that trapped the unfortunates within.
The interior was infinitely worse.
The smell that struck them when they walked through the double doors of the entrance made Annis want to pinch her nose shut. She was used to the smells of refuse often dumped on the city streets, but this air was thick with the stench of urine, of spoiled meat, of gas and kerosene and unwashed bodies. The odors seemed to have permeated the walls and soaked into the lobby furniture, only to be exhaled by oil heaters struggling to warm the cavernous place.
Harriet was wearing her single fur, a beaver cape with a standing collar, and a matching hat on her upswept hair. Stern faced, she strode through the lobby to the superintendent’s office as if she knew exactly where she was going.
She pushed through the door without knocking. A thin woman behind a wide desk looked up. “I want to see my cousin,” Harriet declared, as if she was not accustomed to being refused. “It’s Frances Allington. I’m in a hurry.”
Annis marveled at the aura of magic that surrounded Harriet as she infused her voice with a tone of command, sending the woman scurrying into the office behind her.
A moment later a stout man in shirtsleeves, with ink protectors reaching to his elbows, emerged. Scowling, he stamped around the desk to the spot where Harriet stood, her booted foot tapping with impatience.
As he drew near her, the man’s expression altered. Irritation gave way to confusion, and then, by the time he had reached her, to deference. He inclined his head and said politely, “Stephen Beaufort, at your service. I don’t believe you gave my secretary your name, Mrs.…?”
“Harriet Bishop.” Harriet made a show of pulling back her lapel to glance at the gold watch pinned to her shirtwaist. “You are the medical superintendent, are you not?”
“Yes,” Beaufort said warily.
“Your name is known to me from the hearings. The Times covered them extensively.”
“Oh yes, yes. Of course, the hearings were—that is, we’ve been trying to—”
“Never mind that now. I’ll speak to the mayor if I have questions. In the meantime, if you don’t mind,” Harriet said, with an aristocratic sniff, “I have so little time. We’ve brought Mrs. Allington some things, and I wish to deliver them personally.”
She gestured to Annis. Obediently Annis held up a linen bag holding a piece of cake from Mrs. King and a chemise and nightdress Velma had begged Annis to bring.
Mr. Beaufort said, with an apologetic air, “I’m afraid we’ll have to look inside the bag, Mrs. Bishop.”
“Indeed?” Harriet raised one haughty eyebrow and nodded permission to Annis. Annis pulled the neck of the bag open and held it out so Mr. Beaufort could peer inside.
He leaned forward, though he kept his hands behind his back, and peeked into the bag. He nodded approval and straightened. “I’ll send for a nurse to accompany you.”
“We won’t need a nurse,” Harriet began, but Mr. Beaufort gave an apologetic shake of his head.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bishop. It’s not safe for a lady like yourself to go in there alone. The poor wretches can be unpredictable. The worst of them are, I’m afraid, often violent.”
“I don’t believe my cousin is violent. Or insane, for that matter, Mr. Beaufort.”
His mouth turned down in a look of feigned sadness. “Not to doubt you, ma’am, but I’m afraid they all say that. It don’t make it true.”
Harriet sniffed again. “Send for the nurse, then. But do, I beg of you, hurry.”
Mr. Beaufort nodded to his secretary, and the woman bolted out of the office as if she had been stung. Mr. Beaufort said to Harriet, speaking as if Annis weren’t there, “Won’t you have a seat? I’m sure it won’t take long to find a nurse.”
“I won’t, thank you,” Harriet answered.
He nodded again, looking uncomfortable and not a little perplexed at having been so quickly and completely mastered by a woman whom he had never met and whose name he didn’t recognize. Luckily, the nurse appeared almost immediately, giving him no time to reconsider his capitulation.
The nurse was a woman who, had she been able to stand straight, would probably have been as tall as Harriet, but her back was rounded, as if she hadn’t grown up with enough sunshine. Her thin neck jutted out from between her shoulders, making her look a bit like an underfed and poorly bred horse. Mr. Beaufort said, “Fleming, take Mrs. Bishop along to see Frances Allington. A quick visit, mind you! We don’t want the ward upset.”
There was a moment of fuss over whether Annis, whom they obviously believed to be the lady’s maid, would be allowed to accompany Harriet. It was soon settled with another impatient tapping of Harriet’s foot and another glance at her watch. These actions seemed to roil the magic that clung to her, to make her every wish irresistible.
The asylum lobby had been bad, but the ward itself was a nightmare. The smell of urine intensified as the nurse opened the door, and moans and wails rose from rows of hard benches where women in various states of dress sat or slumped or, in some cases, were collapsed completely. Those who weren’t groaning stared blankly, hopelessly, at the walls. One woman stood facing a corner, tearing at her hair and shouting something at regular intervals, as if it were her task to do it.
There must have been forty or fifty women, and Annis knew this was not the only building housing females. Gaslights cast a sickly glow but left the room mostly in shadow. The floor felt sticky underfoot. Two women whose hair looked as if it had not been washed in weeks limped toward the newcomers, hands out in supplication.
Annis couldn’t help shrinking back a little as the women approached. One of them tried to snatch the linen bag from her hand. Harriet set her feet, folded her arms, and glared as Fleming herded the women back to their bench, muttering threats of punishment until she had them settled again.
“I believe,” Harriet said, when the nurse re
turned, “that there were supposed to have been improvements in the living conditions here.”
“Oh yes, ma’am,” Fleming said. “There’s been plenty improvements. They get an extra meal now, and every one of ’em sees a doctor once a year.”
“Once a year.” Harriet spoke with the same disgust Annis felt. “You call that an improvement?” Annis wondered if Harriet experienced the queasiness that churned in her own belly. She wanted to touch the adder stone, to hurry this along, to escape into the fresh air. She gritted her teeth against her weakness.
The nurse didn’t respond to Harriet’s remark. She peered around the room, then wound her way through the benches to lift someone ungently by one arm. She yanked the woman forward, half dragging her down the aisle, and pushed her forward so they could see her. “This the one? Allington?”
Annis nearly cried out in horror. Her stepmother’s grimy face was nearly unrecognizable. Her hair hung in ragged hanks around her face, obviously sliced off with the dullest of shears and without thought for cosmetic effect. Her complexion was sallow and bruised, and her eyes were as dull as if she had gone blind.
Her father had said Frances would be better off here. Gazing upon this ruined, ragged figure, it was tempting to believe him.
Harriet took the bag from Annis’s hands and held it out to Frances. Frances, gazing at some point past Harriet’s shoulder, didn’t reach for it, nor so much as blink in recognition.
The nurse said, “Ain’t any good giving this one anything. She don’t know nor care.”
“On what grounds do you make that claim, Fleming? Have you tried to talk to her?”
“No point,” Fleming said. “Just another crazy.”
“I object to your choice of words.”
The nurse shrugged. “Just the way things is, ma’am.”
Harriet sniffed. “I believe I read from the transcripts of the hearings that you’re keeping your patients dosed on chloral. Have you been drugging Mrs. Allington?”
“No need,” Fleming answered. “This one don’t give no trouble at all. Just sits and stares.”
“And you do nothing for her?”
“What do you want I should do? Won’t do no good.”
“This place is an abomination,” Harriet said crisply. “As a nurse, I should think you’d be ashamed to work here.”
“Got to work somewheres,” Fleming said. She peered at Harriet, her thrust-out neck wobbling. “Not everybody can do it.”
“I can imagine.” Harriet pressed the linen bag into Frances’s limp hand, and in the process, despite her cousin’s unwashed and decidedly noisome condition, put her long, strong arm around Frances’s shoulders.
It was the signal. Annis stepped swiftly forward, elbowing Fleming aside, and linked her arm with Frances. Now, at last, she pressed the adder stone beneath her bodice as the two of them, she and Harriet, held Frances between them.
The glamour enveloped Frances, rendering her instantly invisible. No one but Annis and Harriet could see her. Even to Annis’s eye she looked shadowy and vague, a figure half-seen.
Harriet said, in a voice that rang with authority, “Fleming, that will be all. Thank you.”
The nurse stared at them in confusion. “What—you mean you’re done now? Visit over?”
“Yes. We won’t need you further. You may stay with your patients.”
Fleming’s mouth opened and stayed that way. She stared at them, her eyes narrowing as if she were trying to remember something, a chore she was supposed to do, an order she was supposed to be following.
Harriet said, under her breath, “Now, Annis. Let us go.”
As quickly as they could, they moved out of the dimness of the ward and into the brighter light of the corridor. It was difficult, urging Frances to walk between them. Her steps were uncoordinated, as if her feet were numb. It made for an awkward progress, but they had to remain in contact to close the circle of magic.
It was an agonizing walk down the hallway and around the corner. It helped that Frances weighed almost nothing, but they had to half carry her, not daring to release her arm or her shoulders for even a moment. Once or twice her feet simply stopped moving, and they found themselves literally dragging her. As they labored across the lobby, Annis felt as if the distance to the doors had tripled, but it seemed they were going to make it without interference.
“Wait! Mrs. Bishop!”
Harriet muttered, “Damn.”
It was Beaufort, trotting across the lobby toward them, his round belly bobbing as he ran. “Mrs. Bishop, a moment, please!”
Annis couldn’t see a way out of it. She and Harriet exchanged a glance above Frances’s head and slowed their steps. Frances slumped against Harriet as they came to a stop and waited for Beaufort to reach them. They must have looked odd, with Harriet’s arm around Frances’s shoulders, and Annis with an arm around her waist, holding her up as best she could. To her own eyes they made a suspiciously awkward trio, an unnatural formation of bodies.
Annis could hardly breathe with tension as Beaufort walked around to stand in front of them. He didn’t look at Annis, which was no surprise, since he believed her to be Harriet’s maid. He didn’t look at Frances, either. The glamour was holding.
Harriet said, in a haughty tone Annis had never heard her use, “Yes, Mr. Beaufort? I believe I made clear that I am in a great hurry this morning.”
“Oh, I won’t keep you,” he said hastily. “I simply wanted to make certain everything is to your liking in the ward. You will tell Mr. Allington—that’s George Allington of the Allington Iron Stove Company, is it not? I looked it up. Please tell him we will take the best possible care of his wife. I’ll see to it personally.”
“He will be glad to hear that, Mr. Beaufort,” Harriet said. “And no, I did not find everything to my liking. It’s far too cold in that room, and many of those women need warm baths and fresh clothes.”
“Oh yes, ma’am, yes indeed. I’ll speak to Fleming about it.”
“Mr. Allington will expect no less,” Harriet said. She shifted her feet, as if she were about to walk on to the door.
Annis, alert to this move, shifted her own feet. Frances, now sagging under her supporting hand, did not. Instead she drooped farther. Her knees buckled, and her head lolled as she crumpled all the way to the floor. Annis lost her grip on Frances’s waist, and Frances slipped from under Harriet’s arm. As they lost contact, the glamour broke.
The lights in the lobby seemed to flicker, as if the gas had flared high and then dropped. Frances appeared as if through a mist, an untidy specter huddled on the bare wooden floor.
Beaufort’s eyes went wide, his eyebrows lifting impossibly high. His swarthy face blanched, and he tottered back on his heels. “What—” he choked. “What has—”
Annis swiftly bent to slide her hands beneath Frances’s armpits. At the same moment, Harriet grasped Frances’s shoulder and slid her hand down to grip a handful of her ill-fitting dress. They were connected again, the three of them enclosed by magic. The lights in the lobby steadied. Frances disappeared.
Beaufort’s mouth hung open for a long, painful instant. When he closed it, he rubbed his eyes as if he thought his vision had failed.
“Are you quite well, Mr. Beaufort?” Harriet said in a silky tone.
“Oh, I—yes, I think—took a turn there for a moment. I’m all right now.”
Harriet said, “Very good. Thank you, Mr. Beaufort. We will return soon, and I expect to see the women in Mrs. Allington’s ward in far better condition.”
They were on their way again. Hauling Frances between them was like trying to move a piece of furniture. Annis managed to get an arm around her back, her hand still under her armpit. Through the flimsy fabric of her dress, Frances’s skin felt like ice. Harriet, the linen bag in her left hand, kept her grip on Frances’s dress in her right. They pushed through the front doors and staggered down the steps, Frances’s feet missing every other tread.
They were exhausted by the
time they reached the boat. They let the glamour fade as they maneuvered Frances into it. The air around the three of them shimmered, as if a ray of sunshine had broken through the clouds, and there she was, drooping, dirty, as if they had picked her out of a gutter.
The startled boatman’s shaggy eyebrows rose. “Where’d that one come from?”
“She is leaving the asylum. We’re taking her home.”
“But she—I dint see her before.”
“Did you not? How odd,” Harriet said. “The light must be bad.”
He stared at Frances for a moment, then turned his grizzled face to Harriet. “One more fare, missus.”
“Very well. I will pay it. Now hurry, please.”
He nodded, settled onto the bench seat to unship his oars, and began to row without another word. Annis took a last look back at Blackwell’s Island, shuddered, and vowed she would never set foot on it again.
Robbie was waiting at the horses’ heads when they disembarked from the rowboat. When he caught sight of them, he gave an exclamation and hurried to help lift Frances out of the boat and onto the unsteady dock. Annis and Harriet between them managed to get Frances off the dock and up the little slope to the carriage. As they settled her inside, she slumped, unaware, in the corner. Robbie stood by the door, wringing his hands.
“Poor Mrs. Frances,” he said. “Poor lady. Whatever did they do to her? Are we taking her home? Did Mr. Allington—”
Annis interrupted. “No, Robbie. Papa doesn’t know, and we’re not going to tell him.”
Robbie froze for a moment, his hand on the carriage door, his cap in his other hand. “Miss Annis—”
Annis said, “Please, Robbie. He’ll never know you helped us.”
Harriet said, “It’s for Mrs. Allington’s sake, Robbie. That place is unbearable.”
Robbie’s stiff posture began to relax. Slowly, as if it were part of his making a decision, he replaced his cap on his head and pulled the brim low over his forehead. He gave Frances a sorrowful look. “I’ve heard that,” he said. “I was hoping—that is, I sure didn’t think Mr. Allington would—”
The Age of Witches Page 32