A White Room
Authors: Stephanie Carroll
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Literary, #Literary Fiction, #Historical, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Romance, #Women's Fiction, #New Adult & College, #Nonfiction
A White Room
Stephanie Carroll
UNHINGED BOOKS
Copyright © 2013 by Stephanie Carroll.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Published in the United States.
Edition ISBNs
Trade Paperback: 978-0-9888674-0-6
eBook: 978-0-9888674-1-3
LCCN: 2013930913
Cover Design by Jennifer Quinlan of Historical Editorial
Original Painting:
Lady Astor
by John Singer Sargent, 1909
Author Photo by Corey Ralston
Book Design by Christopher Fisher
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events, is entirely coincidental.
Never without Jonathan …
It is not that women are really smaller-minded, weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating, but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always in a small, dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
—Mark Twain
Table of Contents
Prologue
October 1901
Labellum, Missouri
M
y father died with the taste of blood on his lips. To think that’s why I now sat covered in blood. That’s why there were red handprints on the walls, crimson footprints on the floor, and screaming streaks across my white dress.
The investigator scrutinized me, and I rubbed my hands together under the table, the blood dry and cracking on my fingertips. I had been caught, and the house smirked in triumph. The furniture trembled with joy, and the critter designs on the dishes bit their tongues, holding back cheers. Had the house won? Would it finally swallow me whole? Would my husband—still very much a stranger to me but a man who only hours ago claimed to love me—would he choose to turn me in to his colleagues waiting outside?
Now I had to choose. I could fight for my freedom—my sanity—or I could keep the promise I’d made my father. After all, it had been such a simple request made with blood-smeared lips.
One
March 1900
St. Louis, Missouri
F
lorence squealed and dropped the pot onto the iron range with a loud clang.
“What’s wrong?” I looked up from chopping carrots on the breadboard.
“I burned myself.” Cringing, she held her hand palm up. “It hurts a lot.”
“Let me see.” I dunked a cloth into the cool water I had used to soak the vegetables.
Florence walked over, passing through a ray of light coming from the window. It cut through the kitchen and illuminated the dust in the air. “I thought I had enough cloth on the handle. Sin to Moses, it hurts!”
Florence and I had offered to help with supper after our father started feeling poorly that morning. It was probably just a cold, but my mother had a tendency to overreact. She’d had herself and our handmaid Kathy fluttering for the better part of the day.
I studied the puffy red streak across Florence’s palm. It had reacted quickly but wasn’t bubbling or peeling. Still, it was probably enough to burn for a few hours.
She winced. “What should I do? I don’t want to bother Mother.”
“No need.” I grinned mischievously. “Follow me,” I said.
We slipped out of the kitchen, skittered down the hall, and made a hard right up the central staircase. Florence hid the burn on her hand as we noisily scaled the steps, our skirts swishing and our boots clunking.
In our room, I clipped some leaves from an aloe plant I had learned how to grow in class at the university. We sat on Florence’s bed, and I broke open a fleshy clipping and applied its liquid with cotton.
She squirmed a little when I touched it. “This is extraordinary, Emeline,” she said.
I glanced up for a second and then back down. “What do you mean?”
“That you know things like this.” Although I’d say my brother, James, was my best friend, my seventeen-year-old sister, Florence, understood and admired me more.
I held down a flattered grin. “I don’t know much of anything, no more than what Mother knows. She probably has some of this in her kit.” I placed the clippings on the nightstand.
Florence lifted her brown eyes. “But she didn’t grow it.” She used her other hand to scratch her head.
“Be careful. It took me all morning to get your hair right.” Florence still needed my help to create the popular pompadour look, a style that required me to tease the hair at the crown, flip it up and back, high off the forehead, and shape the curls into an ornate bundle on top of a hidden crepe pad pinned underneath.
“Sorry.” She lowered her hand.
I heard the sound of little bare feet scampering across the wood floor. It was probably my youngest sister, Ruth.
Florence shrugged. “Anyway, I think it’s just extraordinary.”
“I’ve only taken a few introductory courses. After I go to an actual nursing school, I’ll really impress you.”
“You’re not going anywhere unless you ask.”
I focused on the red skin. “I’m just waiting for the right time.” I had returned from college at the end of the year. My parents had sent me in hopes that I’d find a husband or at least acquire enough education to engage in meaningful conversation, but instead I discovered a passion for medicine. “They want me to hurry up and get married. They won’t automatically say yes. If I had asked right away, Mother would have assumed it was a silly whim and refused. Then I didn’t want to spoil the holidays with arguments and debates, and everyone gets so tired after the holidays, and before I knew it—”
“It’s March,” Florence said.
I nodded.
“What’s wrong with right now?” she asked.
“Father isn’t feeling well.”
“It’s just a cold.”
I heard a scuff at the door. A little voice said, “Ahh. Shhh!”
Florence and I squinted at each other and then at the door.
Another noise, and someone whispered, “Listen.”
I sighed and stood. I walked to the door and swung it open to reveal my two youngest sisters, thirteen-year-old Lillian on her knees with her hand cupped around her ear and seven-year-old Ruth standing by her side. Lillian had recently taken little Ruth under her wing, which meant trouble for all.
“Lillian, what kind of nonsense have you gotten Ruth into now?” I could hardly scold. They’d learned this from years of my own coaxing to listen at closed doors.
Kathy had clothed Ruth in a puffy lavender dress with little green and pink flowers, and her long dark hair was tied in two braids, but Lillian was still in her nightclothes, with a single knotted plait down her back.
“And why aren’t you dressed? It’s half past one. Mother will have a fit.”
Lillian unfroze and jumped to her feet. “Are you really going to be a nurse?”
I slapped my hand to my face.
“You should help Father.”
“It’s just a cold,” Florence interjected from the bed.
“Get in here.” I grabbed Lillian by the nightshirt and pulled her into the room. Ruth followed willingly, and I clacked the door shut.
“Use a special nurse thing,” Lillian said. “Then he’ll let you go.”
Ruth inched toward Florence, quickened her step, and jumped onto the bed with her.
I sighed. “I don’t know any special nurse things. I have to go to school for that, and I didn’t want to talk to you about this anyway.”
“Tell Father you could fix his cold if you went to school.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Florence said.
“Tell him! Tell him!” Ruth interjected, unable to glean my annoyed tone.
I looked from Lillian to Ruth, hardening my face. “This is a secret. I haven’t asked Father or Mother, and I don’t want anyone telling them.”
“That’s a great idea.” Lillian pointed to herself. “If I tell him, then you won’t have to.” She whirled around.
I snatched her by the nightshirt, grabbed her shoulder, and flung her back. “You wouldn’t.”