The Gilded Cage Page 17

  We move through the corridors as if in a dream, our feet fleet and silent, every step perfectly placed, and I think to myself again, This could work; we’ve very nearly done it. My heart beats so loudly that Temperley himself must hear it, and my neck is cold with sweat. But we’re not followed, the other women don’t give us away, and no lights turn on in our wake.

  Down the stairs, through the hallway, and finally to the front door. It seems to pulse in the dark, with its promise of escape.

  Dorothy dawdles a bit as we reach it, and I grab her arm to pull her along. With a stab of pity, I remember that she has not left this place in almost three years. “It’s all right,” I whisper as I scramble through the keys. “I won’t leave your side.”

  Miraculously, the front door unlocks with the second key I try. Then it opens, and I can smell the fresh air beyond.…

  But a bell starts to ring, high and frantic, clearly meant to alert Mr. Temperley to fugitives. With no time to rue my foolishness, I run, yanking Dorothy into motion beside me.

  We flee over soggy ground, wisps of fog lapping at our ankles. There’s a shout from behind, but we’re moving too quickly to hear it clearly. I duck my head against the rain, and the gate looms up so suddenly I can barely stop myself in time.

  “Climb!” I scream, gripping the freezing metal slats in my fists. The metal is rough through my thin slippers, but I start climbing steadily. I’m nearly at the top when Dorothy cries out, a long sound as the breath is knocked out of her.

  She’s lying on her back at the foot of the gates, looking stunned from the fall. I hesitate for one long moment, and then climb down beside her.

  “Get up, get up!” I cry frantically. “Can your legs still work?” She turns her face away, wincing miserably. She’s given up.

  And by then it’s too late. A guard in a flapping coat is bearing down on us. I see the short club in his hand before I feel it: one quick rap at my ribs, and the pain drops me to my knees in the mud. I try to block Dorothy’s body with my own, but no more blows come. The guard is looking away from us, back toward the house.

  A wavering lantern beams thinly through the rain. I smear the water from my face, panting against the sharp pain in my chest. Soon Mr. Temperley comes into view, his lantern casting deep shadows over his furrowed face. Though it’s the middle of the night, he’s fully dressed and moves without hurry.

  “Did I not warn you?” He speaks low, but I hear him clearly. “I told you to behave, lest we need to put you on a more trying regimen.”

  Dorothy cringes away, hiding her face in her hands, and an abyss of guilt opens up beneath me. She wasn’t ready for this. Of course she wasn’t ready for this.

  Temperley snaps his fingers. “Get up, both of you. And you,” he addresses the guard, “ready the cells for solitary confinement.”

  At those words my mind goes blank, and I scramble onto my knees, as if I can try one more time for freedom. This is clearly what Mr. Temperley has been waiting for. “The straitjacket,” he says grimly.

  As Dorothy lies hopeless on the ground, the two men bring me to my feet, and the guard produces a white jacket from inside his coat. They wrap me tightly, pinning my arms uselessly to my chest. Though I know struggling will only make it worse, I can’t stop screaming. My breath rasps against the place in my chest where I was hit.

  “Tomorrow, your new treatment will begin.” Temperley’s face is so close to mine that I cannot miss the sadistic gleam below his usual impassiveness. “Bloodletting and emesis will be required to bring you into order. But do not despair, child. You may one day be fit to return to society—once your waywardness has been purged.”

  CHAPTER 26

  MY EYES ARE barely open when the guard’s upon me, pulling me to my feet. The blank mercy of dreamless sleep is quickly overtaken by the reality of my tiny cell, the stink of stale urine, the ache in my chest. I feel a sick scraping when I breathe too deeply, and wonder if something inside of me has been broken.

  My body keeps fighting by instinct, though the guard only laughs at my feeble struggles. We pass another barred cell some yards down a skinny corridor, where Dorothy still lies asleep. Silently, I wish her many hours of uninterrupted slumber.

  I’m dragged up a short flight of stairs to a flat trapdoor in the ceiling. We emerge, blinking, into a windowless, white-walled room. An ominous stain stretches across the wooden floor, nearly reaching my feet in their sodden slippers. But I’m more frightened by the table at the room’s center: long, flat, bristling with leather restraints. The guard lifts me onto it with no more trouble than he’d have had with a baby.

  My mind flashes back to George, lying on his cold table in the west wing. It seems impossible that there ever existed a person who loved me as much as he did, who could protect me from the world.

  “There, you’ve shut up a minute,” the guard is saying, securing the bonds around my feet. “Clever of you. It’ll go easiest that way.”

  When the door swings open, I can see enough clean white light to guess that it’s at least midday. A man enters the room wearing a slightly overlarge dark suit. The lamplight beams dully off his large signet ring, and in his hands he holds a tray. On it lie white bandages, a scalpel, and a length of tube.

  “Where is Mr. Temperley?” I say, my voice spiking with panic.

  “Keep your voice down, Miss Randolph,” the man says in blandly soothing tones. “This process will be far more comfortable if you don’t struggle.” He nods, and the guard leaves the room.

  I watch him go, tasting acid at the back of my throat. “Please, let me speak to him. I’ll be good. You don’t need that scalpel; he’ll tell you. Please…”

  “Mr. Temperley is gone for the day, tending to business in Bath. And besides, he’s the one who prescribed your treatment.”

  He cuts methodically through the stays of the straitjacket, until my left arm can be pulled free. It looks small and pale, like it belongs to someone I do not know. The pitiful limb is pulled straight and belted to the table.

  The man’s fingers run over the tube, the bandages. They settle with a featherweight touch on the shining scalpel. As he lifts it, I bring my eyes back to the white expanse of my arm, its unbroken skin. Then I squeeze my eyes shut and pray.

  There’s a knock at the door. My eyes snap open and fly to the man’s impatient face. He seems to weigh his options a moment before sighing and replacing the scalpel gently on the tray.

  He opens the door partway. “What is it, Mr. Cosley?” His voice is sharp.

  “The girl has a visitor. Waiting now in Mr. Temperley’s study.”

  The doctor huffs loudly. “Can it not wait? I have very specific instructions.”

  “He’s some kind of legal fellow—perhaps best if we leave the girl in one piece, at least until he’s seen her.” Cosley laughs as the doctor casts an indifferent look back at me.

  “Yes, I suppose so. Make her presentable first.”

  I’m flooded with dumb, animal relief, so that I can barely stand. The two men untie me, drag me to my feet, pull the jacket off the rest of the way. A clean gray dress is found and given to me. After they turn their backs, I slide it over my skin, so sensitive with fear that it tingles as if slapped.

  I’m praying that it’s Mr. Simpson. I can think of no one else. The two men flank me on the silent walk toward Temperley’s office. And when I see his face, brooding in the underlit anteroom, my heart swells with painful gladness. I break from Cosley’s light grip and run straight into William’s arms.

  He allows me to hold him a moment, before detaching himself and stepping back. “Good afternoon, Lady Katherine,” he says with careful politeness. His eyes on mine bring me back to myself.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Simpson.” My dirty fingernails are fisted into my palms, out of sight. Mr. Simpson silently takes in my ratted hair, my shock-white skin, before putting a firm hand out to the doctor.

  “Thank you for harboring Lady Katherine in this difficult time. My clients and I take
great comfort in knowing that she was given proper treatment and rest. But now I must get her home to Walthingham.”

  “I had no such information from Mr. Temperley,” the doctor says suspiciously. “The girl will stay here until we’re given express orders otherwise by him.”

  Mr. Simpson draws himself up. His eyes grow bored and his jaw juts. “Sir, I am the solicitor acting on behalf of the Walthingham estate. Understand that I have the full authority of Walthingham at my back, and am therefore authorized to remove Lady Katherine from your care at any time.” With a sharp snap he opens his flat leather case, removing a piece of paper from within. He passes the thing beneath the doctor’s skeptical eyes, and I hold my breath. I feel if I try to lend my voice to his, it will do no good.

  The doctor’s tone is more conciliatory now. “All the same, I prefer that we wait until the Temperleys return. It won’t be long now, Mr.…?”

  Mr. Simpson returns his cool gaze. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m Mr. Campion himself—I’m operating under his express orders.”

  That’s when I know for certain that Mr. Simpson is operating under no one’s orders but his own. The doctor falters for a moment, and then looks at me. He hardens on seeing my hopeful eyes. “Maybe so, but I must insist you go nowhere without talking to Mr. Temperley. He will answer to your employer if there are objections to how we handle the patient’s release.” As he exits, he calls back to Mr. Cosley, “Please stand outside the door, and do not let them leave until Mr. Temperley has returned.” Cosley follows him out and shuts the door. A lock scrapes in the keyhole.

  Mr. Simpson turns to me, his cool mask fallen and his eyes warm with concern. “Katherine, please tell me you’re all right,” he says in a whisper.

  I nod, worried a sob will escape me. “I’m fine now, now that you’re here. Henry did this to me. I can’t even tell you all that I know of him now.”

  He doesn’t pull away from me, from my hot whisper, though I know I must stink from my confinement. “Little of what you can tell me is news,” he says into my ear. “For a while now I have suspected your cousin was not what he appeared to be. I had it on good authority, in fact, though it took me far too long to believe it. But we can’t dwell on that now—first we must escape this place.”

  “The document you showed them, ordering my release?”

  “A bluff. A convincing one, I thought, but no, I have no authority here. Which Mr. Temperley will be very aware of, once he returns. Now, quickly—any ideas on how we can get out?”

  CHAPTER 27

  I LOOK TOWARD THE door of the anteroom, imagining the guard on the other side in the corridor. “There’s a window in Mr. Temperley’s office,” I whisper, nodding at the other door. “But even if we could get out that way, we’d still have to climb the gates.”

  “Then we’ll climb the gates.” Even in the dim room, his skin retains its warm glow, and he looks taller than I remember, pacing toward the office door. He tries the handle. “Locked.” He looks back at me, concern in his eyes. “I have a horse waiting just beyond the grounds. Do you feel strong enough to run?”

  “But there’s nowhere to run,” I say, starting to panic.

  He takes two long steps back, and then rushes at the door, driving his foot into the wood. With a splintery shudder, it starts to give. He kicks it again, again, until it’s hanging loosely on its hinges.

  My mouth hangs open a bit as I stare. He smiles. “After you, Lady Katherine.”

  I get hold of myself and run to the office window, hearing the warning slap of approaching feet from the hallway beyond. Thankfully, Mr. Temperley felt no need to put bars on his own personal window.

  “Quickly,” William cries in a tight, authoritative voice. He props the door back into place, and then shoulders Mr. Temperley’s desk against it, forming a barricade we both know can’t last long.

  At a glance I can see that the lock on the window is hopeless, so I grab blindly for the heavy brass paperweight on Temperley’s desk. Shielding my face, I send it sailing through the window. Heavy fists beat against the blocked office door in response to the sound of shattering glass.

  “Move aside, Katherine, now! They’ll try to catch us on the grounds; we must hurry.” William pushes his weight against the wooden framework of the window, shards of glass raining onto the thick tweed at his shoulders. Finally, the whole frame gives way. He leaps with surprising nimbleness to the ground below, and reaches back to retrieve me.

  My leg scrapes across the window’s raw edge as I tumble into his arms, but I barely wince. For one moment we’re in each other’s arms, surrounded by fallen stars of window glass. Then we run. Muck sucks at my feet, and each breath claws at my bruised ribs. I can see William checking his speed to keep apace with me, and I force myself to go faster, faster.

  “Stop!” cries a voice at our backs. Cosley. “You cannot take that girl!”

  The run to the gates is even more surreal by daylight. Once we reach them, William boosts me up, and we both begin to climb. The spikes at the top stab menacingly into the sky, but I can just slide my body between them. William stands fully upright atop the fence, slipping his legs through, then half climbs, half jumps to the ground below. He puts his arms up to meet mine, and then we’ve done it: We’re over the gates.

  His horse is loosely tied a few paces away. Though she’s just a middle-aged brown mare, a bit temperamental if I had to guess, I think she is the most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen. Cosley and another guard, Mr. Smith, are pounding toward us as William fumbles her free. By the time she’s untied, I’ve already swung myself into the saddle. “Let me take the reins,” I cry. “Get up!”

  He swings fluidly into place behind me as the men fumble at the locked gate. I hear Cosley scream a curse as we start to ride away. The horse pulls against me at first—cantankerous, just as I suspected. “Left, left!” cries William, his body warm and close behind. I swing the horse’s head around, and soon I’ve got her in a hard trot, which I bring up into a gallop as soon as I’ve got a feel for the marshy road. The trees here are ancient and high; we ride between walls of black trunks. The shouts of Temperley’s men quickly fade, replaced by the whipping cold air of the outside world.

  When we’re far enough away, William makes me slow down so that he can transfer his coat onto my shivering shoulders. “We must go back for Dorothy,” I say through gritted teeth, wringing my frigid hands.

  He reaches around my shoulders and takes my fingers in his, rubbing them to warmness. “You will never go back to that place,” he says. “We’ll help her as soon as we can, but you will never see the inside of Temperley’s again.”

  The true desperation of my plight before his arrival starts to sink in, and my face streams with silent tears. We ride over sunken lanes and open fields, pausing to let the horse drink at streams as we pass them. My body is warmed by the coat and by his nearness. He directs me to the most remote paths, and we see no one. The world feels abandoned, as if we are the only riders for miles.

  When it’s become clear that we’re not being followed, I break the silence. “How did you know where to find me?” I ask him. “I thought Henry would have told you I’d returned to America.”

  He’s so close behind me that I can feel his voice in his chest. “That’s what I was told, yes, when I came to the estate with the papers you requested. For five days running I’d been turned away at the door, told that you were indisposed or unable to see me. Finally, Mr. Carrick, that abominable man, told me you had set sail the day before. I didn’t believe it, that you’d leave without saying good-bye, and I insisted on speaking to Henry. When Mr. Carrick went to fetch him, your dressing maid, Elsie, came to me. She looked frightened—so frightened I had to take her seriously when she told me you’d been spirited off in the night. When Henry did finally come to the door, he was as cool as ever, and repeated what Mr. Carrick had said.

  “I rushed to Bristol, hoping that, of the two tales, Henry’s was the true one. There I learned that you had
not yet boarded a ship. So I thought on Elsie’s claim, and surmised that you would be in this place. I have known of it for some years, because of payments made from Walthingham to the proprietors.”

  His tale first made me angry, and then warm with confused happiness.

  “There is something else,” he said. “As I waited at the harborside, I took out the watch you gave me. I thought I might figure out why it had stopped running, and began fiddling with it. But when I opened up the back … well, I discovered something remarkable.”

  “What?” I ask breathlessly.

  “I’ll show you soon. Let’s keep on toward Walthingham. No, we’re not going to the estate—but to somewhere safe, nearby.”

  We ride on. Mr. Simpson calls out from time to time to direct my path, but is otherwise silent. Always his hands are sturdy at my waist, keeping me upright and brave. Soon I start to recognize the terrain, and understand that we’re nearing my land—the land that is mine to sell or to keep, that I will not allow to be stolen from me. “We mustn’t get too close, Mr. Simpson. What if Henry is out riding today?”

  “I’m taking you somewhere we won’t be found. Here, let me have the reins.”

  He leads us straight through the trees and over the unused tracks. When we skirt the edge of Henry’s quarry, I can orient myself again—the house is nearly a mile away as the crow flies, and we’re moving away from it.

  Now the sun has dipped to the level of our eyes. Orange light spills over the rocks and paints my skin gold. “We’re here,” he says softly, pulling the horse to a halt. He ties her up in a copse of trees, where she’s unlikely to be seen, then turns to study the tree line.

  “It should be just through there. Keep behind me, now.”

  The air, though biting cold, feels wonderfully fresh on my skin. We duck into a tunnel of tight-packed pines, the air between them heady with resin. I keep my eyes trained on Mr. Simpson’s back under his dark tweed coat as he sweeps the trees’ piney arms from our path. They shush closed behind us, hiding our trail from prying eyes. Soon the scent of pine and snow melt is overtaken by a more civilized smell—that of fire and cooking meat. I clutch the back of Mr. Simpson’s coat.