This, I thought, staring down at the bowl of glistening, honey-glazed fruit that had just been set before me, this is insanity. How can they just sit here, eating like kings, pretending they’re out at some fancy dinner party?
Throughout the meal, Amelia Langdon chattered incessantly about which dishes were her kids’ favorites and who among her “darlings” couldn’t tolerate fish or refused to eat carrots. Toward the end of the meal, she tugged on the sleeve of one of the servers and quietly asked him to have a box of the diminutive iced cakes delivered to her “silly brood.”
“And be sure to sign the card ‘From your loving Mummy,’” she called as he walked away. Spearing a slice of pear, she smiled over at me. “I’m sure my babes miss me terribly. Such a long holiday this is. I should think of heading home soon.” She chuckled. “Until I can make arrangements, the cakes shall be a sweet reminder that their mummy thinks of them always and—”
Annabelle Allen’s little-girl voice cut in. “Begging your pardon, dear Mrs. Langdon.” The girl’s head turned in odd, bird-like increments toward the older woman. She smiled sweetly, patting Mrs. Langdon’s arm. “Perhaps I am mistaken,” she said. “But I thought your children were all dead. Yes, yes. I’m quite certain I remember hearing that. All of them. Dead. I believe it was Bootsie who said as much?” She looked down at the kitten in her lap. “Didn’t you, Bootsie? Dreary, dreary. Dead. Dead. Dead.”
Mrs. Forbes gasped as Annabelle Allen began rocking her kitten, crooning to it in a high, childish soprano: “Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And down will come ba—”
“Stop!” Lila Jamesson shot to her feet, lips peeled in fury. “Stop this instant, you stupid girl. Can’t you see what you’re doing to Amelia?”
Annabelle only looked puzzled, as if someone had just asked her to solve a complex math equation.
I felt like someone was pinching my heart between giant fingers as Mrs. Langdon slowly got to her feet. The photograph still clenched in one hand, she began to back away. “I—?I believe I shall lie down for a spell. The, um.” She licked her lips. “The children. They . . . They need their mummy well rested.”
Mrs. Forbes pushed her plate of half-eaten food away, and buried her face in her hands. Lila Jamesson stormed off without another word. A terrible sadness washed over me as I realized that fancy food or no, the women were all prisoners trapped inside a pretty box.
Coffee was served in the sitting room. I downed it, thinking it might help stave off the exhaustion.
“What happened to her? To Annabelle, I mean?”
Suspicion narrowed Lila’s gaze as it sharpened on me. “How could you not know? It was in all the papers. Everyone knows about Annabelle Allen.”
“I—”
“Then again, your accent reveals your Southern origins, yes?” At my hurried agreement, she sneered. “Your ignorance, then, is not at all surprising. In fact, I would wager very little of importance makes it through that region’s filters of bigotry and narrow-minded provincialism.”
I opened my mouth in defense, then let it close.
“One night, seven years ago,” Lila said, “when Annabelle was but thirteen, she went down to the kitchen. Took a butcher’s knife from the rack. Crept into her father’s bedroom. And with the help of two young serving girls, stabbed him to death in his own bed.”
My hand flew to my mouth. Like icy pebbles of sleet, horror pinged me in a thousand places. “Why?” I croaked, unable to reconcile the odd, child-like young woman with her cat and her blank eyes with cold-blooded patricide.
“Why do you think?” Lila spat. “Why else would a thirteen-year-old girl murder her own father? He’d been ‘bothering’ her since she was a child. The serving girls too. Annabelle has a younger sister, only seven at the time. When that degenerate began turning his eye on the sister, Annabelle had finally had enough.”
“What about her mother?”
“The mother,” Lila scoffed. “She knew. She must have known. I believe it was her own guilt that caused her to hire the best lawyers. They fought to have Annabelle committed, rather than sent to prison for life. The woman did that much, at least, before disowning Annabelle and fleeing the continent with the other daughter.”
“She was different before.” Lila and I both jumped when Mrs. Forbes spoke from just behind us. “I was here. I knew her prior to the doctor’s . . .” She waved a hand. “Intervention. The girl was kind to me. Troubled, yes, but smart as a whip. Most of the time, she was fine. But on occasion, she would suddenly blurt out the most awful things.” Chin quivering, Mrs. Forbes whispered, “Lewd, intimate things. Or she would remove her clothing and go running around in the altogether. Then one day, a guard got familiar with one of the younger girls. Annabelle drove a hat pin through his eye. They removed her to Ward C and two months later, she was returned to us with parts of her hair shaven away and horrific scars on each temple. From that day until this, she has been as you see. An imbecilic shell.”
Psychosurgery? But . . . But that can’t be right? Surgical intervention for psychiatric purposes didn’t begin until sometime in the 1930s. It makes no sense.
Sick, furious, and utterly confused, I followed Mrs. Forbes’s gaze. Annabelle Allen noticed us watching and gave a brilliant smile that set my teeth on edge.
Chapter 28
WHILE EVERYONE BUT ANNABELLE CHATTERED OVER needlepoint and mending, I roamed the area, searching for any possible escape route.
There were only two doors. One to a short hallway that housed our six bedrooms and single lavatory. The other to the main hall outside. That one was firmly locked. And—?I deduced from the male voices and occasional phlegmy cough—?constantly guarded.
The window was out, too. No bars, but with Ward B’s third-floor location that didn’t much matter. With no handy trellis or opportune rain gutter, shimmying down the redbrick wall was not an option.
Heartsore and exhausted, I rested my forehead against the thick, cold glass. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Lightning flashed behind an ominous roiling cloud bank. Heavy raindrops smacked against the panes.
As the storm raged toward us, the muffled booms intensified, turning to cracks that beat at my eardrums like a battery of gunfire. The scent of ozone suffused the air as bolt after sizzling bolt slammed to earth. Then came a lengthy flash that momentarily destroyed night’s concealing shadow, and I jerked suddenly upright, certain I was seeing things.
I mashed my nose against the glass as if I could push right through it and into the rain-soaked darkness.
Come on. Come on.
Flash. Crack.
There it was again. It hadn’t been my imagination, or even wishful thinking. It was real. He was real.