A White Room (15 page)

The room sat motionless, as if nothing had happened. Had it not? I scanned the parlor and saw the disarray that had resulted from my thrashing. My heart skipped. John would be home soon. I couldn’t allow him to see it. What would he think? What a cruel and evil trick the furniture had played on me. Quickly, I ran about the room and turned chairs and tables upright and gathered the smashed pieces of bric-a-brac together. I scuttled and tripped on my skirt. I swiftly removed the broken table, dismembered pieces, and shattered porcelain and ran down the stairs to stow them with my melancholy in the basement.

As I set the rubble down in a corner, I heard thumping again. I dashed upstairs and into the parlor to find the furniture at it again, only this time instead of merely dancing, the pieces were running amok. The bastards knew I would be the one to suffer the consequences. They didn’t speak it—they couldn’t, being only furniture—but I knew they were calling out in an uproar, “Do you see? Do you see what
we
can do to
you
?”

I watched as one reached out and tipped over a potted plant, scattering soil everywhere.

“No!”

A twirling vine from a cabinet slid up the wall, lifted off a mirror and let it crash to the floor.

“You wretched things!” I scrambled to pick everything up. I moved from place to place standing tables up, positioning chairs to face the proper direction, and gathering shards of porcelain and glass. I picked up trinkets and statuettes and put them in their places. Every time I cleared something from the room, I returned to worse. Every time I put something right, I whirled around to find it all wrong again. “No, no, no.”

Finally, I couldn’t take anymore. I fell to my knees, covered my face with my hands and screamed. “Stop! Stop! I’m begging you—please stop!”

“Emeline?” A calm but curious voice broke through the insanity. Nothing around me was in motion. There was only me, a lifeless parlor, and John’s voice. I opened my eyes, lifted my head and peeked through my hands to see his lanky form standing in the open doorway, his cheeks twitching and his eyes bulging. “What happened?” He sounded oddly concerned.

I looked up, stunned. I lowered my trembling hands from my face and clasped them at my chest. My mouth hung open but could not form syllables.

He stared.

“I—I tripped?”

“You tripped?”

I nodded ever so slightly.

He pointed. “You have blood on your face.”

I lifted my hand to my left cheek and felt a wet slick but no pain. I noticed a slit in my sleeve that revealed a little blood-speckled flesh. “Uh—I—I cut myself.”

John observed the room—furniture tipped over, chairs facing every direction, dirt strewn across the floor, little piles of broken porcelain and glass throughout. He may have suspected my dishonesty.

He bent down and picked up a rounded fragment of a vase.

My eyes darted to and fro in panic. I realized how I must have looked, on my knees in the middle of the room, panting, with a red smear across my face, a cut arm, surrounded by wreckage. “It was an accident.”

He rubbed the broken porcelain with his thumb. “Well, I’ll be in the library.” He turned and walked out.

I looked over my shoulder at the destroyed parlor, everything limp and lifeless. “Damn furniture.”

That evening, I sat in the parlor in my tea gown, a loose lounging gown that didn’t require a corset or petticoats. John had decided to work in the parlor rather than his office, so I had to join him to make sure the furniture behaved. Their shadows flickered on the walls next to the garden. John sat in a brown armchair facing the empty fireplace. The chair I occupied felt like a wall between John and me. Its back rose high above my head and rounded forward. It provided a small amount of security in such an awful life—room.

I sat there and stared at the window garden with a book open on my lap. The garden was all I could bear in the parlor. There were ferns hung from the top of the window and flowers resting in jardinieres and some on stands. I had recently added the Ageratum alyssum. It was just a small white flower, but the name reminded me of the word
asylum
. I very much enjoyed the notion of a mad flower. At that moment, I wished I could crawl into the window-box jungle and build a little home there surrounded by insane flowers.

“I should let you know Mr. Coddington asked me to travel to St. Louis to meet some clients.”

My heart leapt at the opportunity. “Oh?” I could see my family, plead with my mother, and never return. “When are we to leave?”

“In the next few days, but I’d prefer it if you stayed here.”

A ball in my stomach sank like a rock. “What?”

He paused. “It is a real honor that he asked me. This is extremely important.” His tone sounded troubled. “I cannot let anything potentially make me look bad.”

He meant me.

“Besides, I think a trip might be too much excitement for you right now.”

I held back sheer hysterics. “What? Why?”

“How have you been feeling lately?”

Why was he asking
me
questions? What was he playing at? “I’ve been well.”

“You haven’t felt ill?”

“No.”

“When Margaret visited you recently…were you ill?”

I tensed. A couple weeks had gone by since Margaret’s encounter with the chair and I had yet to hear any mention of it, so I had stopped worrying about it getting back to John.

“She told her husband you didn’t seem well.”

“She caught me at a bad time, and she hasn’t visited as of late. If I were feeling poorly, I’m confident it would have passed by now.”

“Well, she told him you acted strange.”

“I’m fine.” I failed to subdue my irritation. Silence screamed in my ears until he finally spoke again.

“Actually, you have been acting a bit peculiar.”

“I’m quite well, thank you.”

“She suggested you see Walter.”

“I just told you I am not ill.”

“Maybe not
ill
.”

I twisted around in the chair and awkwardly perched myself on the arm to peer at him. “What are you suggesting?”

“She’s concerned for your nerves. I’m concerned, too. Traveling will only make it worse.”

I slowly returned to my proper sitting position and kept my voice calm. “I am well, and I would like to go to St. Louis and see my family.”

“I’ve spoken with Walter. He’s coming for a visit tomorrow.”

I grasped my wedding ring with two fingers and pulled up hard, not to remove it but to break it off and possibly tear off a digit in the process.

“I cannot delay this trip, and I wouldn’t feel right leaving you unattended if you are not well.”

“You are not listening. I just told you I am not ill.” I heard the tremble in my voice—did he?

“Walter’s coming tomorrow and that’s that.”

I glared angrily into the garden. A treelike lamp whose limbs curled over and clutched a dewdrop of light cast a shiny glow on broad green leaves. What would Walter conclude? What if he said I was out of my wits? I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. It was the house. It was this place. It’s not me, I told myself. It’s not me! I screamed it in my head. It’s not me! “It�s not me!”

“What?”

Oh my. I’d said that out loud.

“Emeline?”

“Nothing—I.” I gripped the book in my lap. “This book is all—it—it’s interesting.”

The shadows on the wall rose and fell. I looked at my garden again, but there was something strange, a dark spot that hadn’t been there before. Something moved. I jumped up and gasped, and the book fell to the floor.

John ran to me. “What? What?” His hands were up, ready to act.

I wanted to cling to him, hide behind him, but I didn’t. “There—there is something in the garden.”

John picked up the tree lamp next to my chair and peered into the garden. As he moved things from side to side, I swayed from side to side with him.

“There’s nothing there,” he said.

“No. I saw it.”

“You’re seeing things.”

“No, I am not. No. I saw it. There’s something in there.” My bottom lip shook.

“Perhaps you have a fever.” He touched my forehead.

I flinched. He pulled his hand back. Did he know? He reached for my head again, and I ducked.

“I’m worried, Emeline. You should rest until Walter examines you. Don’t worry about breakfast. Mrs. Schwab—”

“She doesn’t work tomorrow.”

“I’ll pay her extra. Now come with me upstairs.” He reached for my hand.

“No.” I pulled away. “No. Take me to St. Louis. Take me to St. Louis. I want to see my family.”

“Emeline.” He stepped closer. “I can’t take you anywhere like this.”

I went to the other side of the chair and gripped its arm. “No.”

“Emeline?”

The arm of the chair slithered beneath my grip. I screamed and leapt away.

John rushed toward me and grabbed me.

“No!”

He lifted me and cradled me in his arms.

“Please.” I kicked and thrashed. “Please take me to St. Louis with you. Please.”

“Do you really want your family to see you like this?”

“Yes, yes,” I whimpered. I stopped kicking and submitted to him. I didn’t want to be in the parlor anyway.

He carried me to the room and lowered me onto the bed. He pulled the bedspread over me even though I was still in my tea gown. I looked at the ceiling, letting tears slide down onto the pillow. The house had tricked me. I wasn’t going anywhere.

Twelve

May 1901

D
r. Walter Bradbridge leaned over me. I stared into his powder-blue eyes and tried to speak volumes to him without saying a word.

“It was good of you to keep her in bed, John.”

He must not have heard my eyes.

John stood a few feet behind him, spying over his shoulder.

If he said I was mad, I didn’t know what I would do. Then again, how could he not reach such a conclusion when I knew John had misconstrued the facts? It was up to me to sway him, but I was so distracted listening to them through the walls. The little girl was giggling and humming to the left, and I could sense that wicked being pacing behind the wall opposite the bed.

“Is she ill?” John paced behind Walter.

“I’m not ill,” I said.

“She doesn’t appear to be sick, but I’m afraid—well.” He straightened and spoke to John in whispers.

John’s blank expression grew concerned as he brought his hand under his chin.

He was telling him.

“What would bring this on?” John asked.

“She is still in mourning, which can take a toll, but there are a number of—”

“What?” I yelled, surprising myself with my outburst.

Both Walter and John jumped and looked at me.

Walter touched my hand. “It’s nothing to fret yourself over.”

He continued talking to John as if I couldn’t hear. I wished they would speak up.

John folded his arms. “Can I leave her in this condition?”

“You shouldn’t have to cancel. I know this is an important trip.” He situated his instruments in a black leather satchel.

John sighed. “That’s a relief.”

“I want to go,” I said.

“Emeline, I don’t think that would be wise,” Walter said.

“What condition?”

He shook his head. “Don’t you worry yourself about that.” He turned his back to me. “It might actually be best for her to be alone. The less stimulation the better.”

John nodded, holding his chin with one hand and an elbow with the other.

“You’ll need someone to check on her, though.”

Sounds seeped through the walls like black blood—how could they not hear it? They were so loud they drowned out their words. I watched their mouths move, but their voices no longer resonated in my ears.

Walter set his bag on the table next to the bed, and abruptly my senses returned. He spoke to me in a tone meant for a child. “I believe we are all finished here.”

My lips shook as I waited to be condemned with the diagnosis, but he said nothing more. He took hold of his bag and strode to the door. John followed. Would he not tell me? Was he to judge me to John and deny me my own sentencing? They left, and the door clacked shut.