Whispers of Bedlam Asylum (Sigmund Shaw Book 2) (19 page)

27.

The minutes had stretched by with a sadistic pace. Charlotte had spent the day sitting with Jena and Anne, as she usually did, but no book or conversation could take her mind off of Sigmund. A thousand times she wondered if she should tell her friends, but without knowing a little more, it could be a dangerous situation. The last thing she wanted to do was to make life harder for these two dear ladies.

At lunch time, Charlotte ate little, her stomach sour from nerves.

At dinner, she managed a few bites, but left the moment that the community room was opened. Choosing a table against the far right wall, she would have a view of the door. The instant that Sigmund entered, she would see him – assuming he came.

Slowly, the room filled. With each new person that entered, Charlotte couldn’t stop the brief butterflies in her chest. She could not determine why she was so nervous, exactly, but she definitely was. Was she worried about the flood of memories and emotions of her husband that the meeting would no doubt increase? Was she confused as to her feelings towards Sigmund? He had helped London, but inadvertently killed her husband. How should she feel about that? These were questions she had never answered and was not sure there were acceptable answers to be had.

When Sigmund walked in, she took a deep breath and watched as he scanned the room. When his eyes fell on her, he headed straight over. At least he wasn’t trying to avoid the meeting. As he got close, she greeted him, “Good evening, Mr.
Maxwell
.”

His eyes narrowed a little – anger? Confusion? “Right,” he said pleasantly. “Good evening to you, Miss Caine. May I sit?”

“Of course,” she smiled as she said this. Her nervousness was still there, but she found that she was enjoyed the bit of leverage she had over him.

When he sat down, he looked at her, evidently wanting her to start. She took this opportunity to study his face. His dark hair was decently groomed for a patient with limited means. His deep brown eyes looked tired, and he hadn’t shaved in days. Her own appearance was well below her usual standards, so she figured she had no grounds to judge him.

Finally, she said, “What you did last night was commendable.” She surprised herself with this statement. Complimenting this man was not exactly her goal.

“Tell that to my back,” he said amiably.

Charlotte smiled and winced. “It looked pretty bad. How are you?”

“It hurt and I’m pretty sore.” Sigmund then leaned onto the table closer to Charlotte and said, “But, Miss Caine, we are here not because of my back. Please tell me how you know me? Should I know you?”

“I guess that is the pertinent question. You see, Sigmund, I recognized you as one of the heroes of the Grimkraken Affair.”

Sigmund started to lean back in his chair at this, and then jumped forward at the pain. He blinked a few times and appeared to try and swallow the hurt. He said, “It’s been well over a year since I’ve been recognized by anyone. That grainy photograph of me in the paper didn’t exactly capture my essence.”

She was glad he was being a little light-hearted. At least, she thinks she was glad. Would that make this conversation easier or harder? “I recognized you, Sigmund, because I have a much greater interest in who you are than most.”

“Oh? Why so?”

“My husband, Edmund, died in the Grimkraken Fires.” Charlotte watched his face closely. His reaction would tell her much about this man. His body seemed to deflate some, his head suddenly looking too heavy for his neck, while his eyes shifted down to the table between them. It was as if an invisible weight was instantly burdening him. Maybe there was.

Without looking up, Sigmund said in a small voice, “I tried to stop him.”

“I would say you succeeded, Sigmund. Grimkraken will not bother anyone anymore.”

With a shake of his head, Sigmund continued, “No, not Grimkraken. I tried to stop Jeremiah Maxwell and his way of bringing the airship down in that fiery apocalypse.”

Maxwell
! That is why Sigmund chose that name. Jeremiah Maxwell, according to the papers, was a man Sigmund had come across while onboard the Grimkraken Airship. The two of them collaborated to bring it down. However, this Jeremiah Maxwell is a hotly debated subject among Londoners. He’s never been seen and many feel that he is a creation of Sigmund’s to take the blame off of himself, the blame of raining fire on London. So, he still is keeping to that story. Maybe that is why he is here! Maybe Jeremiah Maxwell is not a creation but an alternate personality for Sigmund… “Are you saying that Jeremiah Maxwell is real?”

Sigmund’s eyes looked up from the table at her. “You are not one of those, are you? A conspiracist who thinks I invented him?” He shook his head.

“Well, he’s never come forth. He would be recognized as a hero, would he not?”

“Yes, I believe he would. But, Jeremiah Maxwell is a unique chap. He does exactly what he wants to do, regardless of other people’s expectations.”

They sat in silence for several seconds. Charlotte thought over the possibility of being wrong about Maxwell – she was firmly in the camp that he was not real.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Sigmund saying, “I am sorry about your husband.”

Emotions were growing inside of her, but she fought to keep them down. “I’ve read every article that I could about the whole affair. I studied them to try and understand, to try and find answers. Your face is etched in my mind – which is how I recognized you immediately. Tell me, did you even think about the people of London while on that ship?”

“Yes, but not in the way that you mean. I thought a lot, not only about London citizens, but about citizens around the world. Grimkraken needed to be stopped or war would have raged resulting in thousands upon thousands of deaths. But when it came to actually bringing down his ship, I didn’t give much thought to what would happen below, not until the instant that I saw the fire as it rained down.”

There was a sincerity that Charlotte couldn’t deny. Unless he was a very good actor, his words and expressions were real.

Sigmund continued, “I tried to stop it. I did not want that ship destroyed like it was. For selfish reasons, I didn’t want the ship destroyed at all. Stopped, yes, but not burned up. There were inventions on that ship that could have helped my niece. Watching it be consumed by fire was almost like learning all over again that she could not walk.”

Tears began to well in Charlotte’s eyes as she took deep breaths to control herself. Her emotion was not just for her husband, but now included feeling a little sorry for Sigmund. He was not the man that she thought he was – and that was a good thing for Sigmund, for his character, but made him harder to hate, harder to blame for her husband’s death. After a deep breath of control, she asked, “It is clear that the whole affair was trying on you. Is that why you are here?”

Sigmund smiled and said, “No. It was trying, but with the help of family and friends, I think I’ve come through alright. It is not forgotten and will always be a part of me, but it is not the reason why I’m here.”

Charlotte kept looking at him, waiting for him to continue. Knowing why he was not here wasn’t the answer she was after.

With a sigh, Sigmund continued, “There is a doctor I know that believes there is a previously unheard of disease here at Bedlam that is killing people, attacking and physically damaging their brains. I am here to find out if that is true.”

This was not her expectation at all. He was here on some kind of errand, undercover, just like her. Her curiosity started to battle her emotions. She asked, “What have you found?”

“I’m not sure. But something is definitely wrong. There are reports of several patients being cured and released. I believe most, if not all, of those supposedly released are dead. Maybe it is a disease, but other facts make me think that there is something else.”

“Something else? Like what?”

“Very late the other night, a truly crazed patient was wheeled out of his room and then the next day when he was absent, it was declared that he was cured and released. This man was as far from sane as anyone could be. I believe he too is now dead. I’m also having a hard time imagining that he had this supposed disease.”

“You are saying that he was murdered?”

“My thoughts are leaning that way. But, I need more proof.”

Bedlam Asylum was already an abysmal place from Charlotte’s view, but to add murder to its faults took it to another, darker, level. Her article for
The Strand
needed to include what Sigmund was doing.

“However,” Sigmund said, “if it is known who I am or why I’m here, then the investigation stops. Are you going to expose me?”

Charlotte was a little surprised by the question as that was the furthest thought from her mind. “No, of course not. I am glad you are trying to help.” She couldn’t stop herself from seeing her husband in Sigmund, not in appearance, but in action. She wanted to hate the man in front of her, she wanted him to be a callous monster, an easy target to blame for Edmund’s death. But Sigmund was not callous and he was no monster. He was just like the man she had loved.

Her emotions were confused, but a sense of loss was growing. The tears were unwanted but unstoppable. She dabbed her eyes as they began their flow.

“Charlotte,” Sigmund said softly, “I cannot apologize for what I did. Thousands of people were saved. But I am truly sorry that your husband was not one of them.” He was not looking down this time, his eyes were fixed on hers. He seemed eager for her to understand that he meant what he said.

His continued sincerity ate away at her blame, but she was not ready to forgive him. Her anger towards him was cultivated, tended to over time, and not easily undone. She always knew that her blame was not totally fair, but this conversation showed her that it was more irrational now than ever before, but she couldn’t help herself. Yes, he probably saved a lot of lives. But they were lives that didn’t affect her, that she wasn’t married to. She allowed this selfish thought as she asked for an uncountable time,
Why did Edmund have to die?

Sigmund continued to look at her and his presence was becoming uncomfortable. His stare felt like it was asking for something that she was unwilling to provide. She so wanted to hate him, but after talking with him, Charlotte had less reason than before. The conflict battled inside and she didn’t know what to do. Finally, unable to accept the consequences of an answer to his unasked question, she stood up from the table and said, “I must go.”

She wanted to talk with Anne and Jena, but how could she without giving away more information than she was willing to. Her only other option was the growingly familiar solitude of her asylum bed. Once again, she curled up on her mattress and withdrew. Her placid appearance gave no indication of the vicious war that waged inside of her between resentment and forgiveness.

*   *   *

Sigmund sat at the table and watched as Charlotte walked away. He was dumbfounded. Should he follow her? What else could he say? He also wondered why he was so forthcoming with his current situation. Something about her seemed genuine and trustworthy.

The nervous ignorance he had before the meeting had given away to a new feeling, one of heavy guilt. This woman, he reasoned, was likely in this awful place because of the death of her husband, because of an indirect outcome of his exploits.

Sigmund had had this argument with himself many times. How responsible was he for the unintended results of his actions? Usually he was able to satiate his conscience by thinking of the greater good. But not that night. Not in the face of a victim who was still struggling, still hurting, who looked him in the eye and held him personally responsible.

As he left the community room, he headed to his room and his bed. The distraction of people, the measure of relief they could provide from his guilt was not something he felt he deserved. No, a quiet place to contemplate his culpability, to beat himself up internally was his self-imposed penance.

Any thoughts of investigation that night were now forgotten. It was hard to care for things when one couldn’t find a way to care for himself. As he crawled into bed, he purposefully laid on his back, the pain adding to his punishment. After a little while, he moved to his side, not because the pain of his wounds were too much, but because they were not enough. His internal pain was greater than the external and he wanted, he needed, to keep it in sharp focus. No distractions were allowed from the torture of his heart.