Page 116
This time Kate caught him looking, and he snapped his gaze back to Lucy.
“The wild girl might be out. She’s very popular. Mr. Wilkes can give you the tour, if you like. He’s one of the alienists.”
“We don’t want Mr. Wilkes.” Kate tossed her head and one of her hair combs slid alarmingly, undoing Lucy’s handiwork. The curls were still pretty, but the effect was less realistic.
“You can show us the grounds.”
“Oh, I can’t.” The porter appealed to Lucy. “I stay right here and collect a shilling each from the paying guests.”
“Suit yourself,” said Kate cheerfully, walking past him. Lucy hurried after, and the porter followed. Kate put her hand over her mouth, turning her head so only Lucy could see her lips.
Larva, she mouthed. Lucy shrugged. They were everywhere, underwhelming young men, mostly in the way, sometimes of use.
The outbuildings were one-story bunkers arranged in rows, the effect bleak, even frightful. Muddy patches abounded where grasses had been trampled away. Lucy couldn’t help but imagine that each raw slash of earth was the mark of a struggle.
“Criminals there,” said the porter, indicating with a jerk of his head. “Pauper men there, pauper women there.”
Beyond the bunkers, the space opened up. Women of all ages walked in the airing courts. Most of their backs were hunched, faces turned to the ground.
Lucy’s stomach clenched. She heard the horror in Kate’s voice as she rounded on the porter.
“Why are they here?”
The boy hesitated, picking at a blemish on his chin. “Mr. Wilkes could tell you. All sorts of reasons. Idiocy, epilepsy, mania, hysteria, dementia, novel reading . . .”
“Novel reading!” Kate gave a strangled cry and strode ahead of them. The heathland rose in a mild hill and the structures built around it resembled cottages. Wealthier patients were housed here. Dense stands of holly provided the illusion of privacy. From the main building atop the hill, the guards could see everything.
“Do you know of a Mrs. Nixon?” Lucy asked, and the boy brightened.
“Moral insanity,” he said wisely, evidently pleased with the phrase. “She was admitted shortly after I started here and made all sorts of trouble. A difficult case.”
He was quoting someone, Mr. Wilkes perhaps. Lucy smiled encouragingly.
“And she was admitted by her father?”
“That’s right. Nice fellow, heartbroken. She was in a very bad way.” The boy sighed, leading them onto a path edged with primroses that wound toward the hill. “He still visits from time to time, to meet with the superintendent.”
Lucy’s smile froze, and she missed a step.
“Still visits?” She laughed with disbelief. “But . . . her father is dead.”
“I don’t know about that. He looked alive the other day.” The boy shrugged. “Of course, I’m not a doctor,” he added with diplomacy.
“What does he look like? Her father?” Lucy stopped, and he stopped as well.
“He’s a big man,” he said. “Ginger-haired. He creases up smiling when he comes through the gate and asks me about my sweetheart, which is a bit of a joke, as I haven’t got a sweetheart.”
He was gazing off. Heart pounding, Lucy turned to follow his gaze. Kate was marching back to them, skirts gathered too high for propriety. The porter was getting an eyeful of her stockings.
“The woman in the chair, under that big tree.” She was out of breath. “She’s sketching, and it’s shockingly good.”
The boy worried his chin again with a ragged nail, turning to Lucy.
“That is Miss Fox,” he said. “She killed her mother and her father.”
Lucy looked for the big tree. There she sat, Miss Fox, bent over her drawing. Just beyond the tree, a woman was walking. A woman with black hair.
Before she knew it, Lucy was running down the path and veering off, flying over the grass.
