John Harwood - The Asylum

The hatbox and valise were placed exactly as they had been in the infirmary. I went through them both very carefully, and felt all around the linings, without success. There was no money concealed amongst my clothes, or underneath the mattress, or in the oak chest: the bottom drawer opened an inch and stuck fast, but when I removed the other two I saw that it was empty, and there was nothing attached to the inside of the cabinet except dust and grimy remnants of cobweb. I examined every piece of furniture in the room, even removing the drawer from the writing desk to look into the cavity, without finding a single farthing.

Defeated, I knelt down beside the oak chest, intending to replace the drawers, but instead began to fiddle with the one that had stuck, rocking it diagonally back and forth until it began to emerge in tiny increments. I braced one hand against the cabinet for leverage. As I did so, I had a sudden vision of a serpent coiled in the darkness beneath, waiting to strike.

I shuddered violently, and the drawer shot out, colliding painfully with my shin. Something gleamed faintly in the dusty recess: not a serpent, but a gold clasp—the two gold clasps of my writing case. Kneeling closer, I saw that it was covered in a fine layer of dust, floating up around me as I lifted it out with unbelieving hands. The impression left in the dust was plainly visible.

Part Two

Rosina Wentworth to Emily Ferrars

Portland Place,

Marylebone

10 August 1859

Dearest Emily,

You will scarcely believe what has happened. Clarissa has eloped! With a young man called George Harrington, the one I told you about. She was flirting quite shamelessly with him at the Beauchamps’, but I never dreamt that anything would come of it—I thought she had resigned herself to marrying that horrid dried-up Mr. Ingram—but I must try to tell you everything in order.

On Monday, my father took the early train to Manchester. He was to be away two days, and that same afternoon Clarissa left—as I believed—to spend a week with the Fletchers in Brighton. She took an immense quantity of luggage, even for her, but I was looking forward to having the house to myself, and thought no more of it until my father returned on Friday evening. I was playing the piano in the drawing room when I heard him berating one of the maids; as usual, he did not even look in but went straight to his study.

A few moments later I heard him tramping along the hall; I assumed that he was going out again, but he burst into the room, seized me by the arm, and lifted me right off my feet, waving a letter in my face and shouting, “Where is your sister?” All I could reply was, “In Brighton, with the Fletchers,” which only enraged him more, until I understood that the letter was from Clarissa, telling him that she had run away. He ordered me up to my room to await his summons. By the time Lily brought me my supper, the news was all around the servants’ hall, but she knew no more than I did.

When he called me into his study the next morning, he was his usual cold, implacable self. “Your sister’s name is never to be spoken in this house again,” he said. “Henceforth it will be as if she never existed. And be warned: I will not be embarrassed a second time.” He told me that he had dismissed Miss Woodcroft—did you ever meet her?—without a reference. “I will have no more paid chaperones,” he said. “I have written to your aunt; she will be coming to live here, and you will be in her charge until I find a suitable husband for you. In the meantime, you are not to leave the house: if I hear that you have disobeyed me, you will be confined to your room.”

He did not even raise his voice, but I have never been so afraid of him. I had always assumed—perhaps I mean hoped—that beneath that cold exterior must be

some

feeling for me, but I saw in his eyes that there is none. I am a piece of property, a negotiable security, as he would say, and that is all. It is what poor Mama must have realised, and I am sure it is what she died of. She was a failure as an investment, because she gave him daughters when he wanted sons. And now that Clarissa has run away, he is all the more determined that I, at least, will yield a profit.

He went out soon afterward, and I retreated to the drawing room, too shaken even to open the piano. I still knew nothing of where Clarissa had gone, or why, but a little later I heard the doorbell, and Mrs. Harkness came barging in, with Betsy trailing helplessly behind her. She took great pleasure in telling me that Clarissa had fled to Rome with George Harrington—“

quite

the rake, my dear, and

so

untrustworthy, and

fancy

you not knowing,

all

of London is agog”—until I could bear it no more, and showed her out myself. When I went upstairs, I found the entire contents of Clarissa’s room—clothes, ornaments, bedding, curtains, furniture, even the carpets—heaped in a great jumble on the landing, and the footmen stripping the paper off the walls—“master’s orders, miss”—because she had chosen it, I suppose. Everything was carried off in a cart, to be burnt, for all I know.

I hope that Godfrey is not overworking himself again. I should so love to see you, but I am forbidden all visitors until my aunt arrives. I shall write again as soon as I can.

All my love to you, and to dear Godfrey,

Your loving cousin,

Rosina

Portland Place

19 August 1859

Dearest Emily,

It is even worse than I thought: I am to be a prisoner, and I may not receive visitors or leave the house unless I am manacled, in all but name, to Aunt Harriet—of whom I shall write when I can. She will open all letters addressed to me, and I am not allowed to send anything she has not seen. I shall write you dutiful letters to ward off suspicion—do not believe a word of them, but tell me all your news.

It is Lily’s afternoon off, and she is going to smuggle this to the post. I shall write in earnest when I can.

Your loving cousin,

Rosina

Portland Place

7 October 1859

Dearest Emily,

I have not dared to write candidly before this, for fear that Lily would be searched on her way to the post, and then I should be altogether cut off from you. But writing to you with Aunt Harriet peering—sometimes literally—over my shoulder has become intolerable.

All joy withers in her presence; not that there was ever much of it in this house, which seems more than ever like a mausoleum. You would not know to look at her that she is my father’s sister, but they are alike in that regard at least. She is gaunt and boney, and wears her hair, which is the colour of cold ashes—indeed, she

smells

of cold ashes—drawn back so tightly that it makes her look even more like a death’s head. And she dresses only in black: the dullest, drabbest, most funereal shade that money can buy. She has spent her life as companion to Grandmother Wentworth in Norfolk—a fate that would make me feel sorry for anyone else—and reminds me frequently of the sacrifice her mother is making in “sparing” her.

I tried, at first, to placate her, but she would have none of it. I have come to realise that she hates me, simply for being young, and—if I could only escape her—capable of delight. I fear that I am growing to hate

her,

though the worst I have done thus far is to practise Beethoven very loudly, knowing that she dislikes it, but she cannot say so beyond complaining that it gives her a headache, because to ask anything of me would mean that I might ask something in return.

You will not be surprised to hear that, apart from church, I have not left the house for weeks. My aunt announced when she first arrived that she would accept invitations from those she considered respectable. But wherever we went, she hovered at my side like a gaoler. And, of course, everybody wanted to know about Clarissa, and no matter how tactful the allusion, my aunt would fix the enquirer with a basilisk stare and change the subject, usually to some question of religious doctrine, and so the conversation consisted mostly of silences. I was pitied by those of our acquaintance who were truly fond of me, and gloated over by those who were not, until it became easier—though that is hardly the word—to refuse.