The Asylum by John Harwood Page B

take the first train on Monday morning.
    “I should like to think about it,” I said at last, “and decide in the morning, if I may.”
    “Of course, Miss Ferrars; I am entirely at your disposal.”
    He was interrupted by Bella appearing with a substantial tea of sandwiches, scones, and cake. Again I was struck by the incongruity of taking tea in a madhouse; so much so that I almost laughed aloud. I realised, too, that I had grown even hungrier, and we ate for a few moments in silence, glancing covertly at each other.
    “Miss Ferrars,” he said suddenly, “since you asked me to lend you the train fare, I presume you have no money with you?”
    “None at all; but the valise I arrived with is not mine, and neither are the clothes; though they are exactly what I should have bought if I had to outfit myself for a journey. But why would I have done that, when I had perfectly good clothes already?”
    “That is very strange—very strange, indeed. It almost suggests . . . But you must have had money to get here.”
    “My own thought exactly. Bella says I gave her a sixpence when I arrived, but that she found no purse when she unpacked my—the valise. And I am anxious about two other things I am sure I would never travel without: my writing case, and a dragonfly brooch my mother left me: it is the only keepsake I have of her.” I described them both in some detail, hoping that I might have produced the writing case when he admitted me.
    “I’m afraid not. Bella, I’m sure, is honest, and we take great pains to ensure that all of our staff are trustworthy, but there is always the possibility . . . The room you occupied is on the floor below this, on the opposite side of the building; I shall start by—”
    “Mr. Mordaunt, I am not accusing anyone here of theft; I am worried that I have left them somewhere else—the hotel in Plymouth, for example, which I gave as my address, because of—whatever has befallen me.”
    “Yes, I do see that. Staying alone at an hotel—I know you don’t remember, but it suggests that you are accustomed to travelling, are you not?”
    “I would not say accustomed, but yes; my aunt and I made several journeys together, after—” I almost said, after the estrangement, but changed it to “after I turned sixteen. She said it was time I saw something of the world; she used to make me buy the tickets at the station, and write ahead for our lodgings, and make the introductions when we arrived. My aunt was determined that I should grow up to be an independent woman, you see.”
    “And where did you travel—abroad?”
    “No, not abroad. We went to Scotland twice, and to Yorkshire, and Kent . . .”
    “And Plymouth?”
    “No, never—that I can recall, I mean.”
    And never to Nettleford, I thought. I had tried to persuade Aunt Vida, saying that I should love, more than anything, to see the place where I was born, only to be met with a barrage of objections: she was sure we would never find the house; it had probably been knocked down by now; the countryside there was just like the Isle of Wight, but not nearly as interesting; and so on until I gave up, inhibited by the memory of her distress that day by the lighthouse, and her impassioned cry: “You were her joy, her happiness: hold to that, and ask no more!”
    I looked up from the flames and saw that Frederic was studying me intently. He blushed as our eyes met, and we finished our tea in awkward silence. I felt suddenly, overwhelmingly fatigued; he remarked upon it a few moments later and took his leave, promising to return in the morning.
     
    I slept, that night, without the aid of chloral; a long, dreamless sleep from which I woke in grey twilight to the sound of raindrops spattering against the window. I got out of bed, moving much more freely, and pressed my face against the grille. Steady, drenching rain was splashing along the paths below and bouncing off the tops of the walls. The trees beyond were no more than dim,