Dr. Todson's Home for Incorrigible Women Page 3

  Success was nothing, she supposed, to a man like her father if he couldn’t keep to his own schedule. As a boy, he never got to eat dinner with his Ma, Pa, brothers and sisters. Half his family worked the coal mines and the other half the paper mills, each with their appointed jobs to do. Separated from sunup to sundown, they scarcely got a word in passing, let alone full meals together.

  If success for Papa wasn’t all that he had accomplished, burrowing his way from that shack outside of Langley Moor to their house in Mayfair through sheer, persistent digging, but eating with his wife and daughter each night, Eirinn and Mama could see to it. No matter how many times he told them to eat without him if he wasn’t there on time. We were playing Hearts and lost track of the hour . Or The roast took longer than expected , Bally would lie for them. There was always some excuse to be found.

  Tonight, though, tonight Papa wasn’t just on time, he was home early, coming through the door with a whistle and time enough to change his jacket and comb his hair before he came into the dining room.

  “You look nice,” Eirinn said with just a tinge of suspicion. Papa, with his thick dark hair and easy good looks, cleaned up as handsome as just about any man in town, but he was far more likely to toss off his jacket and loosen his cravat around them.

  “Thank you very much,” Papa returned, running a hand down his checked jacket front, pleased that she had noticed. “I had to clean up somewhat. We are celebrating.”

  “Celebrating? What are we celebrating?” Eirinn asked.

  “What are we…?” Glancing to Mama with a bemused expression, Papa seemed to hold the secrets of the universe in his very eyes. Papa often looked like that, on the verge of some great discovery. “You, of course.”

  “Me. Why me? What did I do?” Eirinn asked.

  “Your last day of advanced medical theory.” Much to her chagrin, he remembered. “We haven’t the day wrong, have we? I was certain it was today.”

  “It was today.” Realizing what was happening, and why Mama had been so chipper ever since she returned home from university, Eirinn busied herself with her napkin, taking it from its triangular fold to spread across her lap, wondering how she was supposed to eat with the pressing ache in the cavity of her chest.

  “And? How did you fare?” Papa asked her.

  “I fared fine,” Eirinn said.

  “Only fine?”

  She had made it home in one piece with some new knowledge in her head. Given the circumstances, Eirinn wasn’t sure how much better it could have gone. But Papa didn’t just look as if he held secrets. He did have a few tucked up his sleeve. And he loved to do this, needle her about something he already knew and see if she would first confess. Tonight, at least, Eirinn had the luxury of knowing she had nothing worthy of confessing.

  “I stopped by the university to speak with Everett on my way home.”

  “Ah.” Small sound worrying her throat, Eirinn should have considered that possibility. Papa was friendly with Mr. Hays in a passing fashion, and an expert at getting information in roundabout ways.

  “He told me, had you been allowed to test, you surely would have had the highest score in class.”

  “Did he?” Eirinn feigned surprise, despite the fact the information wasn’t new to her. Mr. Hays announced it to the class that very afternoon. Eirinn was his shining example, his paradigm of female pupildom. A prototype. So, he slapped her publicly on the back and spread the target already there.

  “Oh, Eirinn, that’s wonderful.” Mama smiled. Eirinn didn’t look up to see it, but she could hear it in her voice. The affection. The pride. “And not at all a surprise to us. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter, does it?” Frustration flaring, Eirinn’s voice cracked on a sob, and she felt both of the emotions, the simmering anger and the utter hopelessness. She hated feeling this way, so sorry for herself. Self-pity wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Only hard work and persistence would do that, and, even then, it could only get her as far as women were permitted to go.

  “It may not matter now, or feel as if it does,” Papa said, and if he were in less of a position to know, she might not have listened. If Papa had been born into this house, instead of clawing his way into it. But Papa knew exactly what it meant to be told over and over the odds were not in his favor, only to beat them in the end. “You will be a doctor one day, Eir, if that’s what you want. Women in the United States are already being licensed as physicians. If all else fails, we will put you on a ship and educate you there.”

  Where I will have to stay if I want to practice , Eirinn thought. Because, degree or not, no hospital in England was going to employ a woman.

  But she had no doubt her parents would do just what Papa said. They would spend every last penny they had in pursuit of the life that she wanted. But why should they have to? Why should her parents - her father who worked himself ragged in the mines at five years old, her mother who loved him before she dare should - have to spend all they had worked so hard to build together to get Eirinn exactly the same title as snotty Paul Browning who lived two streets over and was completely unaware of how stupid or lucky he was?

  “All right.” Eirinn forced a smile, not feeling it at all. “But, if this is a celebration, where are Bally and Rand? Shouldn’t they be in here?”

  “They’ll be in after dinner with the cake,” Mama said. Softly. Disappointed.

  For good reason.

  There wasn’t a cake baked in their house by Bally alone. Mama was the hostess of many a party and celebration, and she liked to do the work that needed doing with her own two hands. She and Bally had probably spent the better part of their day trying to make this dinner special for Eirinn.

  “Thank you, Mama,” Eirinn said, and Mama forced a smile too, but there was a melancholy in her eyes Eirinn felt cruel for putting there.

  And spoiled.

  And selfish.

  Papa grew up on the road and in the underground. He lit streetlamps at dusk and snuffed them in the mornings, working every waking hour between to rise above his meager beginnings.

  Mama loved him before it was possible to love him. She waited years to marry, putting off other enthusiastic suitors, until Papa was able to make enough of himself to earn her parents’ approval.

  I knew who he was the first time I met him, she always said to Eirinn. I felt like I knew him in another lifetime. And Eirinn believed it.

  Her parents had done all the hard work. They had built a life on her father’s shoulders and her mother’s devotion. The least she could do was be grateful.

  N ight fell on the house like a Poe story. Not entirely gloomy, but haunted with the memories of a young girl. Four years old, running half-naked through the halls, perilously curious. Nine years old, nose in a book, vexingly precocious. Fifteen years old, hands folded - quieter, sadder - fading confidence hiding behind perfect poise.

  In the light of her lamp, Eirinn watched older versions of herself disappear into the shadows.

  On the first-floor landing, she was startled by voices, intimately familiar, but unexpected at this time of night, and the murmured sounds drew her gaze to the soft glow of candlelight that still flickered beneath her parents’ bedroom door. Guilty once more. Not only had she ruined their dinner, she was clearly keeping them awake. She knew of nothing else that could be so occupying her parents’ minds, and, sure enough, the conversation proved out as she drifted toward their door, canting her head closer to listen.

  “…to Everett. He has contacts in America. I’m certain some university there will admit her.”

  “We cannot send her to America, Simon. For God’s sake. The country is at war with itself.”

  “Exactly. All those young men rushing off into battle. With the lack of available students, they should be happy to fill a vacancy.”

  “That is not funny,” Mama said, but Eirinn could hear the trace of amusement in her voice.

  It was fascinating, she had always thought, how differently people spoke to each other behind closed doors. The jokes they shared. The improprieties they indulged in. Millions of things that should never be said had to have been said between two people in intimate confidence.

  “I know,” Papa admitted, and it was followed by a long spell of silence.

  Wondering if they were finished, knowing she should stop listening in regardless, that she should either knock or leave, Eirinn was just on the verge of sneaking off when Mama spoke again.

  “I do wish you wouldn’t get her hopes up like that.”

  Statement gluing her to the spot, she wished for a second that she had left. That was the problem with listening in on other people’s conversations. One never knew what she might hear.

  “I just want her to believe she can have anything she wants.”

  “Why, when it isn’t true?”

  Words striking her with the venom of a snake, Eirinn had to remind herself she was never meant to be in their path. She was the one with her ear to the serpent’s mouth. Mama would never say these things in front of her.

  “One day, it will be.”

  “Will it? I’ve been waiting more than forty years and it hasn’t happened yet,” Mama said, and there was a longing in it. A sorrow. Like some long forlorn acceptance. “You have done everything in the world to make this life for us.” Her voice growing softer, Eirinn had to press recklessly close to the door to hear. “You have given Eir every opportunity. Do you know how helpless it feels that there is nothing I can do to open them up for her?”

  Pained sob and shuffle of linens coming from behind the door, Eirinn knew Papa was embracing Mama as she cried. She shouldn’t be listening to this. If her mother wanted her to know her concerns, her torment, she would tell her.

  But it was a
lso good she had heard it. Because she forgot sometimes. She forgot that all Papa had done, his personal glory, their family’s great success story, he had done only because he had the right to do it. Mama was born into a far better life than him - all her needs provided for, no cause to work or scrap to survive - but was it a better life? Papa could drag himself through the grime of a coal mine into a lovely home and a gentleman’s station, but what if their places had been reversed? Where would Mama be right now if she had been the one born into poverty? There was very little room for men to climb through the cracks of caste. For women, there was none.

  I should leave . The thought went through Eirinn’s mind again, but hearing Mama weeping through the door , she couldn’t. She couldn’t just let Mama cry on her behalf, and, almost reflexively, she raised her hand to knock.

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Papa.”

  “Eir, come in.”

  Putting on a brave face so they wouldn’t know she had heard anything - everything - Eirinn pressed open the door to her parents’ bedroom, revealing them just as she expected to find them, side by side in bed, separated just enough not to make her blush.

  “Are you all right?” Mama looked much too worried, tears still shining in her eyes, like dew through a greenhouse window, and it struck Eirinn with inspiration.

  Mama used to smile more too, it occurred to her. All their smiles were so much easier to come by when Eirinn was young.

  “I’m fine. I was just wondering, could we go to Kew Gardens tomorrow?”

  Joy instantly appearing on Mama’s face, like a rainbow through the storm, it was everything Eirinn hoped it would be. Mama was so surprised, so instantly eager, it wiped out all traces of despair.

  “I can’t remember the last time we rode out there.”

  “I know. I think it’s high time we did. My memories of our days there are so good. I think it would make me feel better.”

  “Yes. Of course, we can. I would love that,” Mama breathed.

  “Sorry, Papa. Since you do have work to do, maybe you can join us next time. After all, the museum is terribly behind shed-jule.” Eirinn overemphasized the word as she had heard it from the mouths of Papa’s stuffy fellow investors. He would always be a risk for them, the man who came from nothing managing their precious fortunes, and they reminded him of it, in small, petty ways, as often as they could.

  “I am quite all right with that. You should have time alone with your mother. But I would love to see you on your way back through the city. You can route right through Chelsea. We’ll have tea and I can show you the progress on the museum.”

  “That sounds nice too.” Hand wrapping around Papa’s arm, Mama gave it an affectionate squeeze. “Eir?”

  “That sounds perfect,” Eirinn agreed, and, watching her parents go from sorrow to delight in an instant, she realized she felt better already.

  Chapter 3

  Caroline

  1886

  S ome instances of waking felt illusory. They might be waking from a dream into reality or waking from reality into a dream.

  Caroline remembered waking the morning after she married Thomas, alone in a new house and a new bed, able to recall he had been there, but unable to grasp the peculiarity that her life should change so much from one day to the next.

  She remembered waking the morning after they found Sarah and Nathaniel - and not waking - drifting in and out of sleep and consciousness, never quite sure which one was which.

  Now, she’d had two of those wakings in a row - dream into reality, reality into dream - the first the night before when she startled awake on the fainting couch at Lei’s appearance and now in the quiet, comfortable bedroom at Dr. Todson’s Home for Women.

  Stretching her legs beneath the weighted quilt didn’t help matters. Its warmth, delicate and inviting. What sort of madhouse gave a woman her own, private bedroom with a well-stuffed mattress and beautiful appointments?

  But this wasn’t a madhouse.

  And it was a madhouse.

  Both had been proven the night before.

  Awake and asleep.

  Dream and reality.

  Caroline recalled it like a mirage. The brightly lit hall, not as big or as opulent as a hall in a palace, but still quite grand and ornamental. Angels dancing in its friezes. Decorative tiles lining its floor. A bountiful spread on a large banquet table, women dancing and laughing around it, eating and drinking of its offerings. It might have been a debutante ball, if the women were, on the whole, younger. Or a harem, if the king wasn’t particularly picky.

  It’s a party

  I’m the party

  Dancing in the night so gay

  Music, food, a lady new

  Banquet, ball, a big soiree

  A woman in a nightdress with a full head of unruly gray hair twirled amidst the others, arms thrown open to the world.

  “That’s Imogen,” Dr. Todson introduced from afar, taking a snifter from Dr. Rand, whom Caroline would soon discover wasn’t a doctor at all, but the herbal specialist and Dr. Todson’s oldest, dearest friend. At least, that was how Dr. Todson described him. “Here. Drink this. It will counteract the sleeping draught.”

  “Did you give me opium?” Caroline asked. It didn’t feel like opium, not exactly, but given its undeniable effectiveness, she didn’t know what else it could possibly have been.

  “No. That was my own special formula,” Rand said. “So is this. Healthy herbs. Non-addicting. Brewed from the plants in our very own gardens.”

  Not sure that made her feel any better, Caroline stared into the copper snifter, unable to determine the color of the drink from the metal, a rational, but troubling thought forming in her slowly-working brain. Testing on patients. That was certainly straight out of madhouse lore.

  “Drink it, Caroline.” Before she could refuse, Lei, who had been largely silent on their way back up the stairs, but ever in her reach, leaned over her shoulder, one hand pressing into the small of her back. “It’s all right. You will feel better.”

  Dream, reality. Reality, dream. The line between the two was at its most blurry as Caroline looked to Lei, meeting her gaze at close range, and, not sure how she could get any more incapacitated, other than being unconscious again or dead, she drained the snifter of its contents, grimacing as the bitter taste enveloped her tongue.

  “Yeah,” Rand said as he took the empty snifter out of her hand. “It doesn’t taste great. But you’ll see.”

  And, over the next few minutes, Caroline did. The sluggishness in her muscles releasing, the clouds in her head clearing, she found normal, or a close approximation of it, as she looked around the room, finding everything exactly as it had been before. A woman in a fitted blue frock still played imperfect piano in one corner. Thirty or so women still ate, danced, and conversed as if they were at a society gala and not shuttered away in a madhouse in the countryside.

  “All right. If everyone is in acceptable condition, I should get to bed. Enjoy the party. I’m on the top floor if you need anything, Caroline.” Dr. Todson lightly touched her arm, and it was only as she was disappearing out the door that Caroline realized she had a head full of questions she hadn’t gotten to ask.

  She would get another chance, she assumed, that Dr. Todson, being the doctor of name on the building, would still be there come morning. But she couldn’t be sure. Was Dr. Todson part of her reality or of her dream? The woman did have a rather dreamlike quality about her, despite the fact she turned out to be a flesh-and-blood human and not the ghostly specter Caroline first believed her to be.

  “I’m up there too, if you have any problems.” A few minutes later, Rand also retired, and, left alone in Lei’s company, Caroline turned to her, gaze moving over Lei’s uniquely attractive features, trying to detect any deceit or oddity that might be left for her that day.

  “I know,” Lei said, and just that, those two simple words, gave credence to everything Caroline was feeling. “It’s a lot. I’m sure it feels unreal to you. You’re confused and you’re dazed. Rand is good with his potions, but they aren’t magic. Might I suggest…” Hand moving slowly up her arm, Caroline felt a flimsy tether to reality. And an equal tie to her dreams. “For tonight, don’t worry about real or unreal. Just enjoy the food and the music and know you are not where you thought you were going to end up.”