I pace my room. From the window to my bed and back again. From my dressing table to the door, to the end wall and back to the window again. Mama cannot mean it. She cannot mean to have me sent to an asylum. The word fills me with horror. It is where the mad are sent: wretches with no minds of their own. It is the sort of place that people only speak of in a whisper. The madhouse. I shake my head. Am I dreaming this whole morning? If I am, it is a nightmare. I pinch my arm hard.
But I heard them outside my door. Mama and Dr Danby. Although muffled, I heard it all. I heard the doctor call me mad and I heard Mama, only too eager to have me sent away. Even though I know it is still locked, I pull and turn the door handle. Someone must come to me soon. To explain it all away. To tell me what I heard was a mistake. I bang on the door with my fists. ‘Eli!’ I shout. ‘Eli! Eli!’
But no one comes.
What have I done to deserve this? Nothing, I think. Nothing, but to be myself.
I pace some more, but my legs are weak now. They tremble, and my head feels light. It is only hunger, I tell myself. It is not a symptom of madness. Even so, I walk to the bed and lie down, curling myself into a ball. I close my eyes and I think back to when I was small and how I used to curl like this into Papa’s lap when Mama allowed me and Eli down from the nursery. She would scold me for running across the drawing room and jumping into Papa’s arms. ‘Alice! Walk. Do not run!’ I would bury myself in his lap and fold up into the smallest ball I could, thinking that if I could not see Mama, then she could not see me. But I could always hear her. As Papa stroked my hair and rocked me gently on his knee, Mama would spoil every moment of it. ‘You indulge her too much, Arthur,’ she would say. ‘It will do her no good in the long run.’
Eli would sit quietly with his hands folded neatly on his lap. ‘And what have you been reading today?’ Mama would ask him.
‘I have been looking at the atlas,’ Eli would reply. ‘I know where Africa is now.’
I remember Mama clapping her hands in delight. ‘See, Arthur? See how clever our little boy is?’ I would wait, trembling, in Papa’s lap, knowing it was my turn next. I pushed my face deep into the tired tobacco musk of his waistcoat, until my breath was moist on my hot cheeks. ‘Alice! Get down from there.’ There would be Mama’s accusing voice. ‘She is not a dog, Arthur. Please do not treat her like one.’
Then Papa’s legs would shift and he would sit forward and grip me around the waist. ‘Come on, Alice. Enough now. Do as your mother says.’
But I wouldn’t let go. I never wanted to let go. And Papa would have to stand up and peel my small hands from their grip on his jacket. When he finally managed to set me on the floor, I was so angry with Mama that when she asked me, ‘So, Alice. Tell me what you have learned today,’ I would screw my face up tight and refuse to speak a word.
‘You see, Arthur?’ Mama’s shrill words would follow me out of the room when the nanny came to usher me away. ‘You see how you’ve spoiled her? She is like a little wild animal!’
A noise outside my room pulls me sharply away from my memories. I look around, hoping to see Eli’s face appear as the door opens. But it is just the maid again, from earlier. This time she is carrying a tray which she sets down on my bedside table. She looks at me warily, then turns to go.
‘Wait!’ I say. She stops. But her hand reaches for the doorknob, and she lets it rest there. ‘What is your name?’ I ask her.
‘Sarah, miss,’ she says. ‘Me name’s Sarah.’
I sit up and swing my legs off the bed. I see Sarah’s hand tighten its hold on the doorknob. She looks to be the same age as me – sixteen or so – but her plain face still has the touch of a child to it, despite the tired circles under her eyes. ‘Do not look so frightened,’ I tell her. ‘I only want to know if you have seen Master Eli today.’
‘Oh no, miss.’ She shakes her head. ‘I only normally works in the kitchens. First time I’ve done upstairs duties is today.’
‘Well then,’ I say. ‘Do you think you could do the kindest of favours and take a message to him from me?
Her eyes widen. ‘Don’t think I could, miss. I wouldn’t know how.’
‘It’s simple, Sarah,’ I tell her. ‘I will write a note and all you have to do is take it to his room. It is the fourth door on the right, down the corridor.’
She shakes her head again, vigorously. ‘I couldn’t, miss. Sorry, miss. But I’m to go straight back to the kitchens. Got me orders, you see.’
‘But it would only take you a moment. Look, I’ll write the note now.’ I fly across to my desk and tear a page out of my journal. I pick up my pen and, too late, I remember it is broken. ‘Sarah … ’ I turn to her. ‘You will have to tell Eli my message instead.’
But Sarah has already opened the door. She looks close to tears. ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ she says. ‘I can’t do it. The mistress would have me guts for garters if I’m caught, I have to go.’ With that she leaves the room, and once again I hear the key turn in the lock.
A blade of fear slices through my insides.
I swallow hard. Eli won’t allow anything to happen to me. He won’t allow Mama to send me away. He won’t, will he? And besides …
I am not mad.
I am not mad.
I am not mad.
I chant the words over and over to myself. And as I do, I see Lady Egerton again, tumbling down the stairs, and I see Lillie’s gaping mouth, empty of words but full of blood. I did those things. I wished for those things to happen. And like a miracle, those wishes came true. For a brief moment, I forget my fear and am filled instead with a wonderful sense of power, as though the sun is caressing my bones from the inside. But the feeling is only fleeting. Soon, the dread is back, and I have to stand and walk again. I follow the same path as earlier: from the window to the bed and back again, from the dressing table to the door to the end wall and back to the window again. Nothing will happen until Papa comes home, I tell myself. Papa would never let Mama send me away. I am not mad. Papa knows that I am not mad.
I see the tray that Sarah left on my bedside table. I lift the white linen cloth and there is the usual cup of beef tea and bowl of watery gruel that Mama sees fit to punish me with. I spoon out a small amount and put it to my lips. It tastes of nothing. It is invalid food. I spit the gruel back into the bowl and throw myself on the bed.
Then the tears come, taking me by surprise. A torrent of them, bubbling up from some place deep inside me that I never knew I had. They keep coming, robbing me of my breath and soaking my pillows. I cannot stop. I cry until my throat hurts and my tongue grows thick in my mouth. I cry until my head pounds and my stomach turns inside out. Then a shaft of sunlight creeps from the window and slides across my legs, covering me like a warm blanket. And gradually, with great shuddering gulps, I fall into an exhausted sleep.
Grey light filters through my eyelids. How long have I been sleeping? I ease one eye open, but it aches so much that I have to close it again. For a brief, blissful moment, my mind is empty of thought. But then I try to open my eyes again and I feel my face tight with salt and suddenly everything comes rushing back and my mouth turns dry.
Where am I? I look around wildly, staring into the gloom. Strange shapes loom in the shadows. There are bars at the window. I sit up and my breaths turn to gasps.
It is too late. They have taken me while I was sleeping. My heart batters against my ribs as the horror of it all dawns on me. I am locked in a cell. In the madhouse.
I push back against the headboard, my knees drawn up to my chest. Oh God! Mama did it. She finally got rid of me. And she didn’t even wait for Papa to come home.
I press harder against the headboard, praying the solid oak will stop me from falling down the dark hole that has opened beneath me. As I struggle to make sense of my surroundings, I suddenly hear a sound in the distance, a familiar sound, a sound I have heard every day of my life. I half laugh, half sob with relief as I count the long-case clock down in the hall strike eleven times. I look around the room again, and the strange shapes rising up from the gloom room reveal themselves to be my wardrobe, my washstand, my desk, my dressing table and chair, and the bars at the window to be simply the folds in the curtains.
My hand shakes as I reach out to my bedside table and feel for the cup of beef tea. It is cold, and a film of grease coats my teeth as I swallow it hurriedly. The liquid swirls nastily in my stomach, but it is nourishment, at least. After a while, when my nerves have calmed and my stomach has settled, I climb from the bed and pull the chamber pot from underneath. A pungent smell catches at my nostrils and tells me that no one has been to empty it since I relieved myself earlier. I squat over the pot, knowing that I will have to bear the indignity of its contents for the rest of the night. Someone will surely come to attend to me in the morning. When I have finished, I walk over to the window. There is no means of lighting a candle, but the moon is high and silver and I can see the empty street below my window almost as clearly as if it were daylight. There is a yellow gaslight spluttering at the end of the street, but other than that, there is no other movement.
I am gripped by a sudden and horrible sense of loneliness. Is there no one in this world that I can turn to? Is there no one in this world who understands me? Only Papa, I think, but he is not here. Eli has abandoned me and as for Mama, she has never wanted me from the moment I was born. I am not the daughter she wanted. But how can I be someone else? How can I be anyone other than me? I lean my forehead against the glass. Would it help if I opened the window and screamed for help? Would anyone answer me? And if they did, would they too think I was mad?
I have already slept for so long that when I eventually return to my bed, all I can do is lie there and count the hourly strikes of the clock, and watch how the grey light darkens to thickness in the dead of the night, and how it gradually pales again as dawn approaches and another day begins.