"Tell me what?"
My aunt looks as if she would rather be anywhere else but here.
"Charles said—" She stops and seems to gather herself for a moment. "He said that, if we didn't commit you to an asylum, he would break off his engagement to Grace."
The silence is absolute.
My aunt and my cousin are looking at me, but I can't move or speak. A hand is squeezing my heart.
It's Grace who speaks first. "Lou, I'm sorry ... so, so sorry." She looks ashen-faced.
"You knew?"
"No."
Aunt Phyllis, then, on her own, her decision.
I can hardly bear to look at her, but I make myself do it.
"You sacrificed me for Grace's sake."
My aunt lifts her chin in the gesture I know so well, that I have seen Papa make, that I make myself when I am convinced I am right. "Any mother would have done the same!"
A bitter thought flashes through my mind: Not my mother, for me. But I dismiss it. It's irrelevant. What matters now is my aunt, the cold anger I feel.
Perhaps she senses it. At any rate, she says in a softer tone, as if to explain herself, "I did think you were ill. And I couldn't bear to see my darling unhappy."
I can't sit still any longer.
As I stand up, my aunt starts in her chair as if she thinks I'm going to attack her.
I'm not. I never want to touch her again. But she has to see what she has done to me.
Pacing up and down, I fling out, "You didn't care that I was wretched."
"I didn't know."
"You never came to see me to find out." I spit the words at her.
She puts out her hands in a helpless gesture. "We were told it was best not to. John Sneed said that visits from family upset the patients and interfered with their recovery."
"And you believed him?" I swing round to face her. I'm aware of Grace watching me tensely.
"Why would I not? He seemed an experienced doctor—he came with the highest recommendations."
"From whom?"
"An associate of Bertram. Mr. Sneed is his brother-in-law."
I might have known.
"I worried about you, of course I did. I sent money so you could go out for carriage rides or have nice treats, like fruit or flowers in your room."
With a cry, I strike the mantelpiece. "Aunt, none of that happened. Someone must have kept your money."
"But—"
"That was the kind of place it was. Your respected Mr. Sneed probably had no idea what was going on because he didn't trouble himself to find out. Just as you didn't."
My aunt is on her feet now. "But I didn't just take it all on trust. Before I made up my mind, I went to look at Wildthorn Hall and was shown round. It seemed a decent sort of place."
"That's because they only show you what they want you to see. What galleries did you visit?"
"I don't know. It was a ward upstairs, very spacious, with a library and a pleasant sitting room. I spoke to some of the ladies there and they seemed quite content."
A great wave of anguish floods over me. "Aunt, that was the First Gallery, the best ward, the only ward like it! You should have asked to see the cell where I was tied down on a filthy mattress for weeks and fed nothing but bread and water, or the ward where there was nothing to do but sit on my bed day after day and watch the other patients being hit or smearing the walls with their own excrement!"
I'm shaking now and can't stop crying.
There is a long silence.
When I finally raise my head, I see that Grace's face is wet, too. She murmurs, "I had no idea ... Oh, Lou, I'm so, so sorry..."
Then she says, "Mamma?" in a quite different tone.
Aunt Phyllis bridles. "I'm sorry, too of course. Especially as it was all for nothing—"
I wonder what she means, but before I can ask Grace leaps in, "We're all upset. Perhaps we've said enough for now." She looks at her mother meaningfully.
My aunt hesitates. "Yes, of course, you're right." She turns to me. "Really, Lou, I never meant for you to suffer."
I don't know whether I believe her. I don't know what I think or feel.
Sighing, she goes across to the looking glass and makes some small adjustments to her hair. Then she turns and says, "Lou, I'm forgetting myself. Will you take some refreshment?"
The perfect hostess! As if I'd just come for a nice visit!
"That's a good idea," Grace says hurriedly. "Why don't you go and ask for some tea, Mamma. And would you like something to eat, Lou?"
I shake my head. Eating is the last thing I want to do.
As soon as my aunt has gone, I collapse on to the low chair and shut my eyes.
There is still so much I don't know. For instance, was Mamma involved?
But right now, I don't care.
I want to go back to Smallcote. I want Eliza to help me think about what it all means and what I should do.
But Aunt Phyllis isn't just going to go away and leave me. She will have plans for me. And I feel so worn out, I don't know whether I have the strength to fight her.
After a while I open my eyes to find Grace watching me. We exchange rueful smiles.