I nodded, shoving my hands into my pocket. That’s when I felt the box.
‘I forgot to give you this.’
She peeled back the paper and opened it. Her eyes widened and her hand went to her chest. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘What is it?’ the old lady asked, struggling to put on her glasses.
‘It’s a Mont Blanc pen.’
‘On ne voit bien qu’avec le c?ur.’
‘Henry, I can’t accept it. It’s too much!’
I just smiled and hoped she knew that she was worth so much more than she knew.
‘I thought you’d need a good pen for university.’
She took it out and held it close to her chest. ‘I love it. Thank you.’
‘Now, I really must go,’ I said, my voice breaking slightly, ‘but your door seems to be stuck.’
Madame Bowden reached out her hand and opened it easily.
‘Goodnight, Henry,’ she said with a wink.
Chapter Forty-Three
OPALINE
Connacht District Lunatic Asylum, 1923
I don’t know how long I lay on that bed, if it was cold or warm, or if I was alone or in company. All of my senses were dulled by one overwhelming urge – to hold my baby.
‘Sure, why do you want to hold a dead baby?’ the nurse snapped, probably not for the first time.
I hadn’t the energy to answer, or cry. My only hope was that I would die too. Mary tried to bring me food but I wouldn’t touch it. They came in and stripped the clothes off the bed, opened the window to the cold January air, but I did not move. They lifted me and brought me to the bathroom, washing away the dried blood between my legs. I didn’t care any more who saw or touched me. I wanted to die and be with my baby.
Then it was night and I woke screaming from a nightmare – Lyndon was tying a noose around my baby’s neck.
‘What is it?’ Mary was beside me, stroking my brow.
I grasped her hand. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t live.’
‘You have to.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I said, turning away from her.
‘Oh, but I do. He punched my baby out of me, and the guilt—’ She stopped short. ‘That’s why he put me in here. He couldn’t live with what he did either, so it was easier to blame me. Lock me away.’
I turned around to face her again. It was dark, but her features held a grace I could never have imagined possible in such dire circumstances.
‘Mary, I’m so sorry.’
‘I don’t need your pity, Opaline. I need you to survive. We need each other if we’re going to get out of here.’
She seemed so strong and independent, I hadn’t thought that she needed me at all.
‘Let me help you now and you will get stronger. You will survive this.’
‘But what’s the point?’ I asked, raising myself up on my elbow. ‘What kind of future can we hope for?’
‘I don’t know, but hope is all I have, and I felt my prayers were answered the day you came here.’
I laughed bitterly. ‘I would advise you to pin your hopes on anyone else in this establishment; you will find in them more inspiration than you will ever find in me.’
‘You feel that way now but—’
I sat up and was almost nose to nose with her. ‘I will always feel this way.’
She went back to her own bed.
The next morning, however, she brought me a saucer of oatmeal. I knew the risk she took; taking food out of the hall was expressly forbidden and was punished with solitary confinement. I said nothing, but sat up in my bed and began to eat. Later that afternoon she came with a piece of unbuttered bread and an enamel cup with some tea. The following morning, I leaned on her and walked to the hall myself.
‘Can you sew?’ Mary asked.
I had watched as she mended the threadbare clothes of the other women. She was the only one trusted with the use of a needle in that place.
‘Before I came to this place, I was a dressmaker. My mother taught me. You have to keep busy, Opaline.’
‘I could try,’ I agreed, never even having sewed a button in my life.
Dearest Jane,
I find myself in circumstances I can hardly believe myself and so I am at a loss as to how I should describe them to you, my closest friend in the world. In fact, just imagining our childhood together makes this seem like a dream. However, my time is short so I must rush these few words – I am resident in an asylum. I can assure you that I am sane and still in possession of my wits. Lyndon is behind it. I need say no more than that and I am sure you will understand. Also, I had a baby. She did not live. Please help me, if you can.
Your friend,
Opaline
A year had passed and any hope of escape seemed like a distant dream I couldn’t quite recall.
Mary spoke less and less. She had developed a worrying cough and could not sleep at night, so I sat up with her, wrapping her in my blanket.
‘Tell me about your life,’ she asked one night, as we lay in the darkness. ‘Before you came here.’
My life before. How could I even begin to describe a life that no longer felt like my own? I was worried that speaking about it would push me further away from it.
‘I used to sell books.’
There was a silence while we both adjusted to the reality of those words.
‘I’ve never read a book,’ came the reply.
I was glad the darkness of the night hid my features, which were a mixture of shock and pity. Mary wouldn’t want either of those. Then she became seized by a fit of coughing that lasted more than five minutes. The wheezing sound of her lungs affirmed to me that she was suffering from influenza. With no heat, threadbare rags for clothes and a diet of porridge and watery soup, I feared for her health.
‘Can you tell me a story? From one of your books?’
At that moment I would have done anything to offer her comfort and so I began to recite Emily Bront?’s manuscript, picturing the tiny handwriting in my mind’s eye. The words came easily, as I had read them in a way that was distinct from all other books. I was the only one to have seen them since they had been secreted in Charlotte’s sewing box and so they entered my soul in a way that no other writing had previously.
Mary was calmed by them and, just like a child, asked for the same story every night, as her condition deteriorated.
Chapter Forty-Four
MARTHA
I closed the book and felt the room settle around me. I turned it over and looked at the front cover again with its image of Mr Fitzpatrick’s shop. I let my fingertips run over the title, tooled in gold leaf.
‘A Place Called Lost,’ I whispered to myself. There was no doubt in my mind now that Opaline Carlisle had written it. I was almost at the end and I was trying to ration it out, like saving squares of a chocolate bar as a kid to make it last longer. The feeling was bittersweet, as the one person I wanted to tell about it probably hated me. Henry.
I was in the library at Trinity, where I was supposed to be writing an essay on Persuasion with Logan. He was sneakily looking up new dishes on Instagram, so at least we were both procrastinating.