| |
“The trial had been a matter of days. With his own confession, Jonathan Dowie had sealed his fate and was sentenced to hang by the neck until dead. Appeals for clemency were made on his behalf but fell on deaf ears. John Dowie had killed an important man. Ernest Arsenault, a man committed to the development of Charlottetown, had been killed and made a cuckold of. Many residents of Charlottetown, by proxy, also felt like they’d been wronged.
Dolores Arsenault, Ernest’s former wife, was unable to attend. It was decreed, despite her absence, that all of Ernest’s assets would be reverted to his sister Ethel, in light of Dolly’s adultery. Dolores Arsenault would not hang for any crimes.”
Proclamation of Town Crier
––––––––
––––––––
It had been a week since Dowie’s trial, and several days since Ethel first got word that Dolly was allowed to leave Falconwood. The rumours of Typhus were squashed by the news of the hanging. Many people of Charlottetown loathed the idea of such barbaric corporal punishments but found their voices lost in the face of such tragedy.
“Are you finished with that one, Beulah?” Ethel called from her room. “I don’t want to leave anything behind. All else will be going to the estate sale.” She peered at the bed, at the worn copy of Little Women, and her own journal. “I can’t believe I haven’t found a single photograph of him...”
The sun was strong and cast its shine across the floor in a brilliant curtain. There were only a few chests in here, packed with the scarce amount of belongings Ethel had thought to bring. A few portraits had been removed, and ornaments deemed important were wrapped and put away for transport. In the corner of most rooms were white sheets, draped over furniture deemed too cumbersome or unimportant to take.
“Everything is finished over there, Miss Ethel.” Beulah was rubbing at her hands with a cloth. Her hair was tied up with a few added ribbons that she’d been gifted recently. “The only thing left is upstairs and... Ernest’s office.”
Ethel nodded. “Leave the office. There will be people coming to make sure it all goes where it’s supposed to.”
“Are you sure about all this, Miss Ethel? I don’t mind accompanying you.”
Ethel turned, and her shadow fell across Beulah. Ethel thought the woman looked lovely, and younger since they’d first arrived at Eden Hall.
“Fritz will be my escort. You need to stay, take care of things, live your life and come to know it.” Ethel gripped her friend’s biceps and squeezed, in part because she was happy, and because she knew she’d miss Beulah terribly. “Al is here... so I know he’ll keep you out of trouble.”
“Trouble?” Beulah laughed, kicking a fuss as she pulled away and meandered back towards the hall. “That’s all that man knows! I’ll be lucky if I’m back by next summer with all the trouble he’s bound to unearth.”
Ethel chuckled, glad for Beulah’s mirth. She would miss her terribly when she left Eden Hall, and yet, even Beulah couldn’t make Ethel stay.
“I know I’ve said this before, Miss Ethel, and I’ll only bother you about it once more, but... shouldn’t you visit Dolly? At least once before you leave?”
Ethel offered a sad smile, her eyes drawing from Beulah towards the floor.
“I don’t... know,” she said, moving towards the bed to take a seat as Beulah joined her. Her eyes stared ahead, towards the door, unfocused as she built the scales of pro et contra in her mind. “After speaking with Mr. Dowie, I—I didn’t want to at all. In my mind, Dolly helped to murder my brother.” Ethel cocked her head to the side. “What could Dolly ever say that could change my mind? That’s what I thought, and still think now.”
Beulah exhaled through her nose, her words of comfort: wind against a rock wall. Not knowing what to say, she took and held on to Ethel’s arm.
“You don’t have to, Miss Ethel, but if you don’t, you could regret it.”
“I wonder if regret is stronger than spite and anger?”
Beulah shook her head. “Maybe not, Miss Ethel, but are you certain you want all three?”
Ethel frowned and leant in against her.
Jonathan Dowie was set to hang, and though Dolly had been proven innocent, she hadn’t been able to leave Falconwood until the quarantine was lifted. It had been so several days ago, and yet Ethel had refused to let Al go fetch her.
After I leave, you may go. But I’ve no wish to see her. Not now or ever again.
Had Ethel changed her mind?
“I’m sorry, Miss—”
“No. Don’t be.” Ethel shook her head, interrupting with a reassuring pat. “You’re right. I—despite it all, I need to see her before I go. I’ll leave no ghosts behind this time...” Ethel stood and took Miss Murphy with her. “Thank you, Beulah,” she said, pulling the woman in for a warm embrace. “You will be more than enough reason for me to come back here.”
“It’s a lovely city, really,” Beulah replied, sniffing to hold back tears.
“All the more lovelier with you in it.” Ethel pulled away and waved a hand in front of her face to keep herself from crying. “All right now, no more of this. If I have to go to Falconwood, I’ll do it without having cried once already.”
The two women laughed and righted their attire as the sun shined in luminous ribbons.
“I’ll tell Al to get the carriage ready.” Beulah paused on her way to the door, as though a thought had just occurred to her. “Do you wish for me to come with you, Miss Ethel?”
Ethel’s smile grew, a hint of appreciation softening her features. “No, that’s all right Beulah. A quiet ride there and a quiet ride back, will clear my mind.”
“Well... I can be quiet, you know?”
Ethel chuckled, louder this time. “Not with Al Carlow driving the coach!”
Beulah made a face, sticking out her tongue like they used to do as kids.
As Beulah left the room, Ethel sighed and pivoted on her heel to take in the entire bedchamber. She wondered when they were planning Eden Hall, who they intended this room for. What did her brother have in mind when it was first designed?
It doesn’t matter now.
She was set to leave in a week or two. She both dreaded and looked forward to it.
––––––––
––––––––
Ethel had enough time to wash up, pack her Gladstone, and find her shawl before Al came to fetch her. It was a ride she was well used to by now, and yet, as the wheels conformed to the dry ruts of the road, she found it bumpy and the stagecoach cramped. The day was unseasonably warm for April, and her high-necked, black dress was like a heavy wool around her. Ethel dabbed at her chin with a handkerchief, wondering if this was Ernest telling her to go back, that this was folly.
He wouldn’t say that. Not Ernie. Like Beulah, he would want me to go. To look at her in his place and ask why.
The main hall inside the asylum was a chasm compared to the first time Ethel had arrived. The audience of residents, clustered for a photograph, was replaced with trolleys and polished floors. The doors to each room were all shut, though a nurse was at the front, sitting at a desk that hadn’t been there before.
“Hello.” Ethel removed her gloves and glanced towards the hall. “I am here to see Dolores Arsenault.”
“Oh! Miss Arsenault.” The nurse looked up and patted her skirts as she stood up from the desk and walked around it to meet her. “Thank you for coming.”
Ethel recognized her. “You’re the photographer,” who had paled when I had first come to see Dolly.
“I am. Nurse Grubb.” Her sunny enthusiasm faded, though Ethel could see the woman was taking pains to hide it. “It’s so nice to see you again. I-I must apologise for everything, Miss Arsenault. We had a Typhus outbreak before and it—”
Ethel nodded and tried to stop the worms in her belly from squirming. “I understand, Nurse Grubb. How is she doing?” Ethel frowned, catching the panic in the woman’s eye as she began to lead her out from the entryway.
“It’s—well,” the nurse stumbled. “I mean, she’s doing as well as expected. It may be better to hear it from her, though.”
Why? Her interest was charged with worry and doubt, made more so as they continued down the same route they’d first taken weeks ago.
“Dolly’s still down in the cellars? But she’s not being watched anymore, is she?”
The nurse flashed her an anxious glance before looking away.
Ethel thought perhaps Nurse Grubb intended to pretend she hadn’t heard her, but after a moment of walking, she spoke up.
“No. All the officers have gone, but... it’s more comfortable for her down there, c-considering all her belongings.”
There was a pang of guilt that speared Ethel’s breast.
I should have sent someone to get her. I should have come sooner...
The door to the room was closed, though the lock had been dismantled. Dolly could come and go as she pleased, and that was a small comfort.
“She’s inside. I—” the nurse hesitated, backing away towards where they had just come. “I need to attend to the other residents. Is there anything more you need, Miss Arsenault?”
Ethel shook her head and watched the woman leave. She wondered if all the staff of Falconwood were anxious, and if it were due to the trial and eventual hanging of John Dowie.
Looking askance towards the door, Ethel pursed her lips. A wave of trepidation was stiffening her muscles.
Why am I here? To confront her? To say goodbye?
No. What Ethel really wanted was to see if Dolly was all right, and to see, after the fact, if the last several days had changed her.
Ethel opened the door, and like last time, stepped across the large threshold. The heat of the afternoon didn’t penetrate the cellar as it did the upper floors and was a small mercy to those confined here. She could hear a woman yelling from somewhere, but the voice was faint, blocked by the heavy stone walls.
Dolly looked up from the bed as Ethel entered, her hair undone and limp around her shoulders. Her face was pale, and though the curtains were open to let in sunlight, the rays did not penetrate as far as the bed.
She was wearing a shift, and her legs, thrown over the side of the bed as she sat, were bare. A sheen of perspiration made her face look like the belly of a clam, and a bucket at her bedside gave the impression that she had been ill for a few days.
“Dolly?” Ethel called, her anger and spite melting before the sickly face of her sister-in-law. Dolly looked more like a resident of Falconwood than she had the first time Ethel had visited.
“Etty...” Her eyes were tired and red, and dark bruise-like bags hung beneath them. She was holding her belly as though she may retch, and Ethel had to keep herself from going to fetch the bucket for her.
“Dolly, I—What happened to you?” The rumours of Typhus had been squashed. Falconwood had opened under the pretence that there was no risk of contagion. Was this a result of the news? Of Dowie’s hanging and prosecution?
“Ethel I... I am so glad you’ve come. I worried that you’d leave without seeing me.”
Another spasm of guilt wracked her brain, and despite all that had happened, Ethel couldn’t help but wish she had come right away.
“I’m sorry, Dolly.”
Dolly held up a hand. “No,” she replied, her breathing laboured. “I am the one who is sorry. If I am in such a pitiful state, it is of my own doing.” She groaned as she attempted to stand. The shift floated around her body, and Ethel saw how much thinner Dolly was now.
“I found this in some of the chests that were brought out to me. I wanted you to have it.”
It was sealed within an envelope, and as Dolly tore the paper open, Ethel saw her own name scribbled on the front.
She must have meant to send it out. Dolly didn’t think I’d come...
It was a photograph of Ernest. He was younger, thinner, his face regal and serious. It must have been from before the two were married, but only just, as it had a line written on the back.
“With love, from Ernie,” Ethel read, tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t keep her emotions in as she clutched at the photograph and thought of her journal.
I’ll never forget his face now.
“I know you think I’m a monster, Etty. That I used your brother and betrayed him.” Dolly avoided her gaze. Her hand was resting on the back of the chair for support, and she groaned as though something unseen was causing her pain. “But, despite all that, I never wanted to see him hurt... I never wanted—” she buckled over, knees crashing to the floor as she clutched at her midsection. Ethel started, eyes wide and worried. Setting the picture on the desk, Ethel crouched to look at her and hovered her hands about Dolly’s shoulders, unsure as to whether she ought to reach out.
“I loved them both, Etty. I loved them both! They were both chambers in my damned, foolish heart.” Dolly squeezed her eyes shut, a shock of pain crumpling her in half before she could speak again.
“Dolly, what—”
“I never meant for any of this to happen, Etty. I didn’t mean for Ernest to die. I was a stupid girl who scorned the home Ernest had so lovingly built.” She sat up a little. Her eyes stared ahead as though phantoms were dancing in the beading tears falling in streams down her cheeks. “Now John is going to hang because I couldn’t give anything up. I had to have it all!”
Ethel sat back, disgust and worry enveloping her features.
“I was lonely.”
Loneliness.
Ethel understood loneliness.
Loneliness was being called Miss Arsenault, even though she’d been engaged and married to Roland in her heart. Loneliness was drawing those you missed in a journal. Loneliness was a black dress. Everyday. Until your normal clothes no longer fit you.
“You think I’ve never been lonely?” Ethel said, her fists hammers in her lap. “Or is it that you know I’ll understand? Poor Dolly, she was lonely. So much so that her husband called his sister out to keep her company.” She yelled, “You had everything, and you threw it all away! You had Dowie in the house, even when I was there. You poisoned me! You made me think the house was haunted! You asked me to lie and say it was a ghost.”
Ethel turned her head away and stared at the exit, unlocked beyond the threshold. She thought of leaving, of locking the door and never coming back, but as Dolly cried and crawled away, Ethel watched as she retched into the bucket.
“Dolly—”
She did it again and again, until she was dry heaving from an empty stomach.
Ethel collected a glass of water by the bedside and proffered it to her. “Dolly, what is—”
“I’m pregnant, Ethel,” she said between gasps. “I’m pregnant. They thought I was afflicted with some horrible contagion, but all it is is...”
“Pregnant?” Ethel sat back along the floor. The cool press of stone beneath her palms felt like fire. “Pregnant,” she said again, touching her belly. “Dolly, for how long?”
Dolly took a drink, spat it out into the bucket and took another. “Several weeks, at least. The doctor said I was not far along, and that’s the reason for my sickness.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, and as though expecting the question, said, “I don’t know who the father is.”
Ethel was lost. Memories of Roland crashed to the surface. Stale hopes, seasoned with her brother’s death.
Auntie Etty...
Ethel covered her mouth to keep herself from sobbing. “Are you sure, Dolly?”
She nodded. “I am. I wasn’t going to tell you, even in that letter.” Dolly looked up towards the envelope that had contained the photo. A small, folded paper had been tossed beneath it. “But now that you’re here—”
“How could you consider not telling me?” Ethel cried, her bottom lip quivering.
“Because I didn’t know if it was Ernest’s! Because I didn’t want you to hope that it was, when we will never, ever know for sure!”
Her heart was rending in two, and yet, as Ethel wept upon the floor, she glanced at Dolly’s belly and saw the subtle bump of impending motherhood.
What should I do?
Ethel tore at her hair and squeezed her eyes shut.
Auntie Etty! I wanted to be Auntie Etty... but Dolly—she killed Ernest. Shot him! What if the baby isn’t an Arsenault at all? What if the baby’s a...
“Dowie’s been sentenced to hang. Dolly, what do you plan to do?”
“I don’t know.” She pushed the bucket away and drug her knees up to her chest to hold them. “I’ve thought about it over and over. One of the nurses suggested... but I can’t. What if it was Ernest’s? What if it was John’s? This child would be my only reminder of them.”
She looked up. “Ethel, I loved your brother! I loved him more than anything, but... John and I grew up together. He worked on the farm, was a stable boy for my father. He was my first kiss, my first little love affair, and when I saw him again, I—all my loneliness faded for a while.
“I loved Ernest so much, but he was always gone. My family and friends were all back home. I tried to make friends here, but I never really fit in. I wasn’t born to wealth, Ethel, and when Ernest’s business took off, all of a sudden, he was gone all the time.”
“Why did you never tell him you were lonely? He would have understood.”
Dolly shook her head, and a few loose strands stuck to the side of her face. “I didn’t want to hurt him. He had built an entire paradise for me at Eden Hall. How could I tell him it felt more like a cage?”
“So, you killed him?” The words were like a gun blast from Ethel’s mouth, and even though it hurt to say them, Ethel was relieved when Dolly recoiled.
“No. It was all an accident. A terrible accident.” She inhaled.
“Ernest came home and found us together. I think he thought Johnathan was a burglar. Ernest had the gun on him, but as the two fought, Ernest was the one who was shot. Ethel, Johnathan was the one who spiked your drink. He thought Ernest had already left, and he wanted, well... a night together. He got a kick out of terrorising you, and I... didn’t stop him.”
Dolly regarded her, and though she seemed like she was trying to hold herself together, anguish shattered her features. She set her head down and banged her forehead on her knees.
“He said it was all in good fun, that he was having a hard time sneaking out, and that staying in the attic all day was lonesome.”
“Why the attic? How could there have been no other place for him to stay?”
“I’m sure there was, but I was... daft. John was a sailor. If he wasn’t sailing, then there wasn’t much money. I gave him a few pieces of jewellery to sell, but I foolishly rationed that if he just stayed in the attic, then he didn’t have to spend anything.” Dolly gave a dry chuckle. “Of course, then, anytime I was alone or depressed, he was there. It was mutually beneficial.” Ethel frowned, and catching it, Dolly sighed.
“This is all so selfish of me, I know. But, when I first saw John after so many years, it... it wasn’t like a surge of emotions had overwhelmed my senses. It was more a subtle curiosity. I had been in town with Adella, and he had come in with the other sailors. We had a drink, reminisced a bit, and went our separate ways.” Dolly chewed at her inner cheek. “It wasn’t some re-lived romance. I didn’t feel anything for him that day except curious.”
How could that be true?
“Except I kept seeing him, running into him. And when the occasional coincidence became more than was deemed appropriate, I’d make excuses.
I wanted a friend. I wanted someone I didn’t need to spend time getting to know in order to open myself up to them. John was... already half there, and the more we saw of each other, the more the feelings changed.
“I spent... so much time with him, Ethel. And even when I had realised that I crossed the line, I didn’t want to give either one up, because I loved them both.
“On occasion, John did go off to sea. When Ernest was scheduled to be home, or when John had debts to pay, he’d leave for a while.”
“He came back the night we went to the Windmill, right?”
Dolly nodded. “I’m sorry, Ethel. I didn’t know you were set to arrive here so early.” She smiled. “I think Ernest meant for you to be somewhat of a gift.”
From Ernest. Because of course, you’d try and surprise your wife.
Ethel wiped at her eyes, though a small smile graced her lips.
Dolly continued, “I thought maybe I could have them both, both Johnny and Ernest, but... I was being selfish and cruel, and now...” she began to cry anew, “and now Ernie is dead and John’s to be hanged and the only memory I have of them both is this child, who will never know who their father really is!”
Ethel crawled forward, her beating heart pounding past the pain and hurt of Dolly’s words. She was sobbing for Dolly, her heart twisting in pain at the anguish pouring from Dolly’s chest. Ethel took her in her arms, and the both of them rocked back and forth, crying and clinging to one another.
“It doesn’t matter. Dolly, it... doesn’t matter. The child will be an Arsenault because you are an Arsenault, and I am your sister.”
“Ethel—”
“I won’t abandon you, Dolly,” Ethel said, cradling Dolly’s head beneath her chin. “I may not forgive you right away, but I won’t leave you here alone. You can come to Summerside with me. We will harvest potatoes and catch fireflies and raise this child to know where his father came from.”
“But—”
Ethel shushed her. “You’re not an evil woman, Dolly. I don’t believe you meant ill, even though your actions were selfish and self-serving. And—” Ethel stared ahead, her thoughts unfocusing her eyes. “I’ve lost enough people in my life. I understand. And whether or not you were selfish or cruel, I do believe you loved those men.” Both of them, who were fated to die.
Could I stop it? Should I? Do I want to?
No... but I can be here when it happens for you. And for the pain that it causes, I will forgive you, because we both have suffered much too much for the length of time we’ve been alive.
Ethel kissed the crown of Dolly’s head, and the girl shivered.
“Let’s get you back to Eden Hall,” she said, helping Dolly to her feet.
“Thank you, Etty.”
Ethel wiped her eyes and nodded as Dolly embraced her. She could feel the press of Dolly’s stomach squeeze against her own, and the warmth therein delighted her.
“You’re welcome,” Ethel said. A small thanks, for making me Auntie Etty.
