Chapter Twenty-Two

Meg

I felt nauseated and could hardly see, struggling up from unconsciousness like someone striding against an incoming tide. There was something terrible lurking close by that I knew I wanted to hide from, but it would find me before much time passed.

I couldn't move. I was somewhere I didn't recognise and I was tied down like a sacrificial lamb on an altar. And then the thing came, the awful face of Emily Tamworth, eyes and mouth open too wide in a silent scream, and it echoed the eyes and mouth of a man I had seen many years ago. Joseph Buquet, hanging from the neck above the stage, his face directly level with mine. Although my throat felt as dry as a sand dune, the horror rose and came out in a shrill, anguished cry—

"Shh!" Someone clamped both hands over my mouth and I only panicked further, trying to thrash limbs that were pinned like butterfly wings to a board. "Shh! Meg, you must be quiet! Please, for God's sake!"

It was a woman's voice close to my ear in a low, desperate whisper, a woman's hands across my mouth.

"Listen to me, if you carry on like that they really will think that you have lost your sanity altogether, so please, Meg, stop screaming!"

I pressed my lips together against the sound, feeling the tears roll horizontally onto the pillow behind my head. I was cold, wearing something that might have been a shift or a nightdress, leaving my arms and legs bare.

"Try to breathe now. That's it."

It was Nell Brown at my side, gently removing her hands from my mouth as I struggled to keep my whimpers to a minimum, her pale brown eyes full of concern.

"It's alright. Here, sip this." She slid a hand under my head to lift it slightly and pressed a glass of water to my lips. "Take it slowly."

The water was an immense relief against a throat that felt so sore that the noose may have been around mine instead of another's.

"I—I can't move," I managed.

"You're in the infirmary and they have you restrained."

As she said it, I realised that I could feel the leather belt-like restraints forcing my wrists and ankles against the mattress beneath me and swallowed down another wave of panic.

"Emily—I saw—Is she—?"

"I'm so sorry," Nell stroked my hair. "I know that she was your friend."

"Oh, God!" I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Meg… Meg, please listen to me. I have to let you know that I'm leaving Kirkbride, and I didn't want to go without saying goodbye."

"Leaving?" My eyes snapped open again. "What do you mean, leaving? You're not going to—"

"No, of course not. Do not fear for me." She smiled.

"Then how can you leave?"

"I told you," she said gently, "that there is nothing wrong with me. I am here as a journalist, and my editor is funding my stay. I came here to find out everything I could about places like this. After what happened the other day, I have learned all I can."

"The other day?" My bewildered mind played back the horrific sight of Emily, hanging like a carcass in a butcher's window. "I don't understand."

"It's been two days, Meg. They kept you sedated, for your own safety. There's going to be a memorial service for Emily early next week."

"And you're not staying?"

"I can't, Meg, not now. So I wanted to tell you to be strong, and when you get out of here, we will meet again. I promise."

"You be strong too, Nell," I told her. "And may I never see you back in this place."

"You can't keep me here," I kept my voice quiet, calm, as unhysterical as it was possible to be. "Not after what has happened."

Lockwood looked at me wearily from the other side of his desk. Like all of the staff, he was a black band around his upper arm in tribute to Emily.

"What happened to Emily Tamworth was a tragic mistake—"

"Suicide is never a mistake," I fought against the growl that crept into my voice. "I would know."

"We are investigating what happened with Mrs Tamworth's case—"

"She was your patient, Dr Lockwood!"

"—and we are doing everything in our power to stop anything of the sort from happening again."

"But what does that mean? You're going to take away sheets and blankets so that another poor, lost soul cannot tie one into a death knot? Or are you just going to keep those of us that you believe are a risk to themselves sedated, like slabs of meat in your own little abattoir?"

"That's enough." Erik spoke from the chair beside me. It was the first thing he had said since the meeting had begun, and I turned to plead with him directly.

"You can't make me stay here, look what he's done."

"Yes, look what I've done," Lockwood said. "I have made you talk about your past, raised thoughts and feelings that were buried so deeply that they were causing you harm. I don't know what happened to Mrs Tamworth, but I do know that there are some people who cannot be saved. You are not one of those people, Miss Giry, and we are already making progress, through your own efforts. Please do not bring that to an end now."

Erik was looking between us, his expression unreadable behind his mask, his fingertips drumming on his knee.

"Lockwood is right," he said at last. "You have been making progress, the staff know you now and have been caring for you well. It might set you back to relocate you at this juncture."

"Erik, he kept me sedated for two days—"

"With my permission."

"What?" I felt the hurt flash across my face.

"I was worried about you. I agreed with him that it was the best option. Now, I believe that you have built a foundation of trust with Dr Lockwood. He is helping you, and he can continue to do so. You must—"

"Ah," I gasped, my hand flying to my abdomen.

"What's wrong?" Erik's voice was sharp with alarm. "Is it the baby?"

"I—I don't know, I just felt something inside… so strange…"

"Was it a pain?" Lockwood was reaching into his desk drawer for a stethoscope, already half out of his chair.

"No, it felt like…" I looked at Erik helplessly. "Papillons."

"Butterflies," he translated after a moment, and the doctor paused.

"Like a fluttering sensation?"

"Yes."

Lockwood sat down again, and smiled at us both.

"Some people call it 'the quickening'. Your child is moving, Miss Giry. It is completely usual and very healthy."

Erik was staring at me as though I had just pulled a rabbit out of a hat, and lifted his hand hesitantly.

"May I?"

"Of course."

He laid his palm on my rounded abdomen, but whatever the strange feeling was, it did not happen again.

"This is normal?" He asked.

"Absolutely. You are over four months pregnant now, Miss Giry, so your little one is beginning to develop a will of his own."

"Her own," I corrected automatically, and Lockwood raised his eyebrows.

"As you like."

Erik sighed and withdrew his hand. "Another reason why you should stay where you are, Meg. Lockwood has had pregnant patients before, he knows what he is doing and can help you understand what is happening to you."

"But you won't be delivering the baby yourself?" I asked Lockwood and he shook his head.

"Not unless there is some complication that requires a doctor's intervention. The sisters of Saint Gerard Majella will be visiting during the final days of your pregnancy and will help you give birth."

"Sisters? What do nuns know about childbirth?" I could not help asking the question aloud, since I was under the impression that celibacy was a requirement for being a nun.

"They are also nurses and midwives. It is a very common practice all over the world, that is why women who are just nurses without any religious affiliation also have the title of 'Sister'. It would be complete inappropriate for a man to be present during a birth."

I glanced at Erik, and knew by the way he shifted in his seat, that he was remembering the circumstances of my own birth.

"Many people begin thinking of names around this time," Lockwood added.

"I have one name," I admitted.

"Oh?" Erik asked.

"Danton. If you are going to acknowledge paternity of her, then she should have your surname. Danton."

"Of course."

"Then you have one initial," Lockwood seemed much more cheerful now that he knew I would not be absconding from his care. "D. You want to make sure that the little one's initials don't end up spelling something unfortunate, like my medical school friend Andrew Sylvester Sullivan."

"Aha," Erik snorted slightly, quicker at the acronym than I was.

"There is something about Emily Tamworth," I was reluctant to bring the conversation back to my deceased friend but felt that there was no use in holding my tongue.

"Yes, Miss Giry?"

"Do you remember when she was sent to the—the Quiet Room for fighting with Harriett Turney?" The doctor nodded. "Emily had a locket made of gold, on a chain, with a lock of her son's hair inside. Her son drowned when he was four," I explained to Erik. "It's what sent her... here." He nodded and Lockwood gestured for me to continue. "It went missing several weeks ago, and she was sure that it had been stolen, maybe by Ms Turney. It was all she had left of her little boy. Could it be possible that the loss of it made her…?"

"It is possible," Lockwood answered when it became clear that I was not going to finish the question. "Thank you for telling me."

"Keep me updated," Erik said as we reached Kirkbride's foyer. "You know that you can write to me whenever you need to. In an emergency, telephone or send a telegram."

I nodded miserably, and he touched my chin so that I raised my head.

"Courage, little dancer. You are climbing back to the light. No one said this journey would be easy, but you are well on your way."

He kissed me on the forehead and took his leave. I watched him go, and remembered the first time he had kissed me, pressing his lips to his fingers and his fingers to my brow. I had believed at the time that that was the only kiss I would ever receive from him. How naïve I had been.

The memorial service for Emily was conducted by the priest who visited once a month to provide Holy Communion, and it was utterly devoid of personality. It was only to be expected, I supposed, given that we had only known Emily as the grief-stricken shell of the woman she had once been. There were no words on her kindness or her sense of humour, the good she had done or the mistakes she had made, as one would expect at a normal funeral. I hoped that her family and friends had done better by her than Kirkbride's depressing offering, and sank into gloom.

Nell was not the only patient to leave Kirkbride after Emily's death; the mute Catherine Fox and the anorexic Alice Hattersley were also taken away, to other facilities where I feared they would suffer terribly. Kirkbride had failed them, and I was scared that it might yet fail me.

I had been moved from 2G to a room on the first floor, 1D, which I was sharing with a newcomer named Mrs Tillie Maynard. She was twenty-five years old, taller than me by about four inches, and had very straight hair the colour of weak tea which was always pulled back from her face. Her official diagnosis was a nervous debility, although I did not know what this meant, and she did not seem inclined to tell. She was neither welcoming nor standoffish, but seemed to watch me as though suspecting I had some ulterior motive. She talked in her sleep, words and phrases reaching me through the darkness while she dreamed. One morning, as we entered the laundry room to wash our linens, she waylaid Nurse Reardon with the knowledge that she knew what Kirkbride was.

"Have you only just found out that Kirkbride is a hospital for the insane?" Reardon asked.

"Yes. My family said that they were sending me to a convalescent ward to be treated. I want to get out of this place immediately."

Reardon smiled, and I wondered whether she was trying to be kind or patronising. "Well, that is not likely to happen quickly. Your doctor will determine when you are well enough to return to your friends and family."

"But you should be able to tell that I am perfectly sane. I had an attack of brain fever, but I am better now. Why don't you test me?"

"We know all we need to on that score," Reardon answered, and went about her other concerns, leaving Tillie staring after her in dismay.

"Are you crazy?" She turned to me as I emptied by bedsheets into the laundry vat and scanned my figure. "Did the baby make you crazy?"

"No," I told her. "I am ill. But I am getting better. And since you ask, the illness came long before the baby did."

"You're not American," she observed.

"French."

"Then how come you speak English?"

"I learned," I told her, wondering if she might not be mad after all.

"Well, I am not crazy either. But these people keep asking me questions and trying to confuse me, and I don't want to stay here!"

"I know," I told her quietly. "I know you don't."

Tillie. I considered the name as I did my work. A shortening of Matilda, maybe. But I could not choose Matilda as a name for my daughter, as Christine had already done so. What then? I wanted a French name to reflect my French heritage, I decided, and she would grow up learning my mother tongue as well as the language of the country in which she was born.

The new woman was as restless as I had been in my first few days at Kirkbride, only more so because of the lie she had been told to get her there. She was angry and defiant, fighting against the nurses and the orderlies and their medications.

"You would do better to co-operate with them," Sally told her, as we walked the gardens with Annabella Lawrence, Tillie fuming at the treatment she had received. "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

"We all know how you feel," I contributed. "Not one of us came her voluntarily. I've always been so scared of medical men, because of what they did to my father. He was in an asylum in France when I was a little girl. They tortured him there. At least it's not like that anymore."

"Speak for yourself," Annabella glared at me. "You're pregnant."

I frowned. "Yes, I had noticed."

"What I mean is that they can't do the things to you that they do to us, because they're scared of hurting the baby. They can't inject you with poisons to make you sick. They don't give you hydrotherapy or this electroconvulsive therapy that Wilmot is so keen on."

"I've had hydrotherapy," I objected.

"You had a nice warm bath and then a nasty tepid one. They don't spray freezing water over you for hours at a time. That little thing inside you is saving your life. You don't seriously believe that all this softly-softly treatment will continue once you've given birth?"

"Once I've given birth, I will be going home. That is the hope, anyway."

Annabella laughed at me. "If you believe that then you're even madder than I am. This place is a human rat trap. Easy to get into. Impossible to get out."

"You'll frighten Mrs Maynard," Sally rebuked her. "We're not all sexual deviants like you."

Annabella stormed off, and I watched her go, unnerved. It was true that there were many different methods of treating the patients' various ailments at Kirkbride, and that I had expected something so much harsher than the talking therapy and daily medications Dr Lockwood had prescribed. But those expectations were terrors of my own mind, conjured by a child's recollections of practices long outdated, by institutions that were nowhere near as well funded as this one. Even so, I had to remind myself daily how lucky I was that my madness had led me here, and not into one of those pits of Hell.

It was not just my mental state that worried me; my body was changing as the child grew within me, and I was unsure of what was happening to me or what to expect. I was surrounded by women, some of whom were mothers themselves, but their advice was contradictory and confusing, and for those sicker than I, talk of children caused undue distress. I felt it best to keep my worries from them.

Dr Lockwood tried to patiently explain to me what would be occurring within the next few months, but he was more concerned with my mind than my body.

"It is time for us to talk about your parents," he told me a few days after Erik's visit.

"Must we?"

"We must," he was gentle but firm. "You lost your mother a few months ago, is that right?"

"At the end of last year. On her birthday, in fact. We were having a party for her, everything was winding down. She was sitting beside me while we listened to Erik play his violin, and she just… went. She had had an aneurysm sometime before which had robbed her of her ability to do things like walk and of her literacy. She couldn't really communicate much in English anymore by the end, so we mostly spoke in French. There was nothing dramatic that night, Dr Lockwood. She just went."

His reply was gentle: "A death is often distressing, even when it is expected. The death of a parent changes one's life, it does not have to be dramatic to have an impact."

"Yes, I understand that."

"Were you close with each other?"

"Very," I nodded. "I was an only child, and after my father died, it bound us together even more. Papa was an orphan and Mother's parents disowned her because of her choice of husband, so I never knew my grandparents. As I grew up, I realised that really, we only had each other. But I lived in the Opera House dormitories with other dancers and singers and actresses, so it was like having sisters. From the age of six I shared a room with one particular girl, who was my best friend."

Lockwood waited, a technique he often used with me, that left me looking for anything to say to fill the silence.

"Antoinette Giry, Dr Lockwood, was one of the greatest women I have ever known. She had a seemingly endless, insurmountable energy. When I was little, she was the prima ballerina for the Paris Opera House, and she was the most amazing dancer. I admired her, greatly. When I was about six years old, I think, she was involved in a carriage accident and her left leg was crushed. She nearly lost it and I believe that if it had not been for the hospital care she received, then she might well have died. She recovered, although the injury meant that she could never dance again. I don't remember her mourning that. If I lost my ability to dance, I think it would be just as bad as losing a limb. I don't know how I would cope. Anyway, she became the assistant choreographer to Monsieur Carvello and the assistant concierge to Madame Mercier, and took over both positions when they retired. Maybe she did it for the money; I know that she was earning both salaries for working both positions. And she loved her work, I remember how devastated she was when there were talks of her being sacked as concierge when I was sixteen. She was such a hard worker, and she inspired me to work hard too, all this while raising me on her own. She absolutely adored my father, and I think his death affected her more than I ever knew. She wore black almost exclusively from the day he died to the end of her life, like Queen Victoria. She was highly intelligent, a woman of extreme compassion, although many of my fellow ballerinas found her to be very strict. Of course she was firm, but she was always fair and she could not bear to see others suffering. She made it her business to look after those who were lost or alone. She wanted everyone to be the best that they could be, and that included me. She wanted me to follow in her footsteps and become the prima ballerina for the Paris Opera House, as she had been."

"Did you ever feel resentful for that, because you could not choose your own path?"

I shook my head. "I don't think I ever knew that there was any other path open to me. The Opera House was all I had ever known. I always assumed that I would be the prima ballerina, that I was marry someone within the company and have children who would go on to be performers too. It never crossed my mind that I might live a life outside of that, so I never yearned for one. My parents loved me very much, Dr Lockwood, and they always wanted what was best for me."

"I would never imply that they did not, Miss Giry." He put his elbows on the desk, laced his fingers together, and rested his chin on them. "Tell me about your father."

Again I hesitated, trying to order my thoughts.

"His name was Claude Giry and he was a pianist at the Paris Opera House. He had lived in Paris all his life and was from a poor family. I believe that it was only by chance that he became employed as a pianist, I think he was originally part of the Opera House's backstage crew. It was there that he met my mother, a girl from a far wealthier background than his. I think there was an elderly aunt or something who left them money in her Will so that they could have a proper wedding. I suppose she found the whole notion of marrying for love romantic."

Lockwood gave a small, private smile, and I wondered how he had met his wife, and hoped their relationship was a happy one.

"Papa and I looked very much alike, in that we had the same hair colour and skin tone, and the shape of our faces were the same. We both have blonde hair and brown eyes. His hair was curly like mine too. I don't think he was particularly tall, probably about average height, but he was very thin. I wish I had a photograph of him."

"And what sort of a man was he?"

"Well, he was a talented man and a loving father; I always knew that he loved me. I knew that he would protect me. When I was tiny, just learning to dance, I remember being scared witless by a trick used to get an actor playing a demon onto the stage through a trapdoor. It was only a rehearsal, but Mother was the prima ballerina at the time and could not leave the stage to comfort me, and Papa was in the orchestra pit. He swept me up and took me into the pit with him, letting me sit on his knee while he played the piano."

"He took you into the pit with him," Lockwood repeated. "That is an interesting turn of phrase. So he comforted you and that is what made him a good father to you?"

"There was so much more than that. He loved me. He would take me for walks by the Siene, or in Paris's parks and let me pick flowers. We even rescued an injured bird once and looked after it until its broken wing had healed. Then we took it back to the park where we found it and let it go. Father played games with me, read with me, he taught me to play the piano." I stared at the glint of light reflecting off of the doctor's wedding ring. "I thought, when I was a little girl, that I was going to grow up to be a pianist like him, rather than a ballerina like Mother. It wasn't as though I thought I was a bad dancer, I knew that among my peers I was skilled at ballet, but I think that of the two of them, Father was the one I wanted to be. I don't know why," I added, before he could ask. "And when I saw how his sadness impacted him and how he perceived me, that was when I became scared." My voice sank to a murmur.

"What were you scared of, Miss Giry?"

"I was scared because even though Papa and I were so much alike, when he grew so sad and distant like that—I suppose you would call it depression, now—the connect between us was gone and I wasn't able to make him better."

"Why did you think that it was your job to make him better?"

"I didn't think that it was my job; I just wanted my father back, the man who loved me and taught me and played with me." I twisted my fingers into a complicated knot in my lap. "And you want to know the truth? After he died and I began to experience those bouts of depression myself, I was worried that our similarities would result in me following the same path. Many people, yourself included, have told me that it is not the case, but it always was and still is my fear, however unreasonable and unfounded it may be."

Lockwood tapped a fingertip against his lips.

"You said that your mother was the prima ballerina when you were small. Does that mean that more of her time was taken up by her career than your father's? I imagine an Opera House has many pianists, but only one prima ballerina, is that so?"

"I suppose so."

"So your father was the one who was primarily looking after you?"

"I don't really remember, but I suppose that is true. I remember spending more time with him than I did with Mother, apart from watching her dance, and there was certainly more than one pianist, that is true. I may even have had something to do with that."

"How so?"

"Mother went into labour with me during a performance of Faust—that is why my name is Marguerite, after the leading lady. My father was the pianist for that performance and was unable to assist her. It was Mr Danton who brought me into the world."

"Well that certainly explains a lot," the doctor's tone was thoughtful.

"What do you mean?"

"Not a thing, I was simply thinking aloud. Now, if your father was your primary carer, then it stands to reason that he was the main disciplinarian as well? Children are want to stray from the path of righteousness, as it were, how did he punish you when you were bad?"

I shrugged. "The usual ways, I suppose. If I was naughty I was sent to bed without supper, or forbidden from doing things that brought me pleasure, like playing with my friends. If the offense was particular severe then he would beat me, usually with his hand or a hairbrush."

"And we come to the crux of an issue. Mr Danton told me that your father beat you, severely, for what I would consider to be a minor offense, and as a result it was decided that he should be institutionalised, am I right?"

My heart heavy with reluctance, I told Lockwood about that terrible occasion and the days leading up to it, feeling the terror and the humiliation rise through me again in the dull, muffled way of a traumatic memory.

"I wish I could forget the whole incident!" I burst out. "But it still gives me nightmares, even though it has been more than a decade since! It's not like that was the only beating I ever received, from him or from anyone. Mother used her cane on me for serious offences, and when I was learning to write she used to hit my palm with a wooden ruler to stop me from using my left hand. Not that it worked. God, even Erik thrashed me with his belt once."

"Mr Danton did?" The doctor looked surprised. "When? Why?"

"He didn't tell you about that? Well, maybe it shames him these days. I was seventeen, and I disobeyed his direct order to stay at home and not follow him to a certain place. I'd been a bit of a brat over the past few days, truth be told. He talked over my punishment with Mother and they decided that twelve strokes of Erik's belt would teach me a lesson. If I had held my tongue then I expect no more would have been said on the matter."

"But you argued with Mr Danton about it?"

"Of course I did. I argued that I was too old for such a punishment, that he had no right to administer it as he wasn't my father, and twelve strokes increased to eighteen, twenty-four and then thirty. Needless to say it had the desired effect upon me, although now I suppose I truly am too old to be treated like that." I sighed. "I don't think I will treat my own child so harshly."

"Returning to your father," Lockwood steered me gently back onto the subject. "It seems that when he was released from this French asylum, he was quite frank with you about the conditions he experienced there."

"I saw enough for myself on my single visit that it would have been pointless to deny them."

"But he need not have gone into extreme detail in front of his ten-year-old daughter, or do I have an incorrect impression of events?"

I looked down at my hands, the fingers still twisted together. "When he came home, I was delighted to see him. But he looked much different, and he still wasn't the happy man I remembered. I know he had nightmares about the asylum. I asked him to tell me what it was like, and he told me. I don't think he meant to frighten me, I think he just needed to tell someone, and I was there. I don't even think he realised that what he said was inappropriate."

"I'd say it was far more than inappropriate," Lockwood's tone had darkened. "And he did far more than frighten you, Miss Giry, he darkened your mind against any and all medical professions on God's green earth and that has caused you tremendous harm."

"Please don't speak ill of the dead," my own tone was haughty.

"Miss Giry, I do not mean to speak ill of someone you very much loved and admired, but think about what you have just asked me. When someone dies, we are not expected to speak ill of them because it seems disrespectful. Their death seems to make them invulnerable to criticism, especially if they died suddenly and violently. Believe me that I am not being disrespectful, but your father was not a saint, and he unintentionally caused you to develop a phobia that has dogged you into your adult life. It is important to acknowledge that, and to realise that his impression of doctors, that you unknowingly expanded in your mind, is wrong and dangerous to you."

"I know that he wasn't a saint. But he was not a bad man, he was trying his best in difficult circumstances. Until it was too much for him."