apologetic shake of his head.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bishop. It’s not safe for a lady like yourself to go in there alone. The poor wretches can be unpredictable. The worst of them are, I’m afraid, often violent.”
“I don’t believe my cousin is violent. Or insane, for that matter, Mr. Beaufort.”
His mouth turned down in a look of feigned sadness. “Not to doubt you, ma’am, but I’m afraid they all say that. It don’t make it true.”
Harriet sniffed again. “Send for the nurse, then. But do, I beg of you, hurry.”
Mr. Beaufort nodded to his secretary, and the woman bolted out of the office as if she had been stung. Mr. Beaufort said to Harriet, speaking as if Annis weren’t there, “Won’t you have a seat? I’m sure it won’t take long to find a nurse.”
“I won’t, thank you,” Harriet answered.
He nodded again, looking uncomfortable and not a little perplexed at having been so quickly and completely mastered by a woman whom he had never met and whose name he didn’t recognize. Luckily, the nurse appeared almost immediately, giving him no time to reconsider his capitulation.
The nurse was a woman who, had she been able to stand straight, would probably have been as tall as Harriet, but her back was rounded, as if she hadn’t grown up with enough sunshine. Her thin neck jutted out from between her shoulders, making her look a bit like an underfed and poorly bred horse. Mr. Beaufort said, “Fleming, take Mrs. Bishop along to see Frances Allington. A quick visit, mind you! We don’t want the ward upset.”
There was a moment of fuss over whether Annis, whom they obviously believed to be the lady’s maid, would be allowed to accompany Harriet. It was soon settled with another impatient tapping of Harriet’s foot and another glance at her watch. These actions seemed to roil the magic that clung to her, to make her every wish irresistible.
The asylum lobby had been bad, but the ward itself was a nightmare. The smell of urine intensified as the nurse opened the door, and moans and wails rose from rows of hard benches where women in various states of dress sat or slumped or, in some cases, were collapsed completely. Those who weren’t groaning stared blankly, hopelessly, at the walls. One woman stood facing a corner, tearing at her hair and shouting something at regular intervals, as if it were her task to do it.
There must have been forty or fifty women, and Annis knew this was not the only building housing females. Gaslights cast a sickly glow but left the room mostly in shadow. The floor felt sticky underfoot. Two women whose hair looked as if it had not been washed in weeks limped toward the newcomers, hands out in supplication.
Annis couldn’t help shrinking back a little as the women approached. One of them tried to snatch the linen bag from her hand. Harriet set her feet, folded her arms, and glared as Fleming herded the women back to their bench, muttering threats of punishment until she had them settled again.
“I believe,” Harriet said, when the nurse returned, “that there were supposed to have been improvements in the living conditions here.”
“Oh yes, ma’am,” Fleming said. “There’s been plenty improvements. They get an extra meal now, and every one of ’em sees a doctor once a year.”
“Once a year.” Harriet spoke with the same disgust Annis felt. “You call that an improvement?” Annis wondered if Harriet experienced the queasiness that churned in her own belly. She wanted to touch the adder stone, to hurry this along, to escape into the fresh air. She gritted her teeth against her weakness.
The nurse didn’t respond to Harriet’s remark. She peered around the room, then wound her way through the benches to lift someone ungently by one arm. She yanked the woman forward, half dragging her down the aisle, and pushed her forward so they could see her. “This the one? Allington?”
Annis nearly cried out in horror. Her stepmother’s grimy face was nearly unrecognizable. Her hair hung in ragged hanks around her face, obviously sliced off with the dullest of shears and without thought for cosmetic effect. Her complexion was sallow and bruised, and her eyes were as dull as if she had gone blind.
Her father had said Frances would be better off here. Gazing upon this ruined, ragged figure, it was tempting to believe him.
Harriet took the bag from Annis’s hands and held it out to Frances. Frances, gazing at some point past Harriet’s