Page 55 of Lady Beast's Bridegroom
She had refused to untie Arial but had otherwise been gruffly kind since Arial had woken once again, her head pounding and her stomach even more rebellious than when she first came round.
When the male warden who had been sharing space with them threatened to strike Arial for spattering his boots when she was sick, Mrs. Parker took him to task. “The poor lady cannot help it, can she? It’s that foul ether. There was no need for it. I don’t like this, George, and that’s a fact.”
Mrs. Parker had insisted that the driver stop so she could fetch a bucket of soapy water to clean Arial and roughly sluice out the cell. She had also fetched the tea. And when George had declared he would sit up with the driver and leave Mrs. Parker tocosset and to coddle the patient, she had said, “Good riddance,” as soon as he closed and locked the door.
Since then, Arial had coaxed her name out of her, and learned a little about the elderly parents she supported with her wages at the asylum.
Arial thought telling Mrs. Parker why she was here might win the woman’s support. “I have been kidnapped, Mrs. Parker. My cousin tried to convince a magistrate I was insane. He failed. So, he has gone behind the law. He is locking me up because he wants me to sign my will in his favor, and I refused. My husband, Viscount Ransome, will be looking for me.”
She swallowed a lump in her throat. She had to believe that Josiah was lying about Peter. “My household and my solicitor, too.”
“Well, dearie,” the big woman said, “yon earl told us that’s what you would say. Said you didn’t have a husband. Said you didn’t have any money. Said you were mad but very convincing.”
“He lies,” Arial insisted.
Mrs. Parker shrugged. “That’s for the doctor to decide.”
But when they arrived at the asylum, and Arial met the doctor, she knew she would not get a fair hearing from him. Unlike the two wardens, he would not look her in the face. He gave her one glance when she shuffled into his office, her gait limited by the bindings that linked her ankles and turned his eyes on Mrs. Parker. “Lock her up immediately, somewhere I don’t have to look at her,” he demanded.
“But, sir, I don’t think she is insane. She says her cousin is after her money. Don’t you want to talk to her?”
“Talk to her!” said the doctor. “I don’t even want to look at her. She makes my stomach turn. She stinks, too. No wonder the poor earl was driven to having her confined for treatment.”
The place was a large house, perhaps once someone’s country seat, perhaps even a home where children once played, andfamilies loved. Now, it resonated with misery, loneliness, and despair. Mrs. Parker and the grumpy George conducted Arial up the stairs, following another warden with a lamp. When her bindings made climbing the steps slow and awkward, her two wardens picked her up by an elbow on each side.
A scuffed door at the top let on to a long passage. The doors on each side had barred windows, through which leaked moans from one, high-pitched singing from another, cackling from a third, and so on down the passage. Latches, locks, and bolts, firmly fastened, kept each inhabitant within their room.
Halfway down the passage, a door stood open. Mrs. Parker nodded to it. “This will be yours, dearie.”
It was small and drab. As she shuffled inside, Arial catalogued the contents. It did not take long. A bed and a chair, both bolted to the floor. A washstand, likewise. There was no bowl and jug. The bed had a sheet and blanket. The window had bars but no drapes. And that was it. Nothing else to see.
Arial turned to Mrs. Parker. “May I have a wash?”
George snorted. “Fancies herself, doesn’t she? Ugly witch.”
“I’ll see what I can do, dearie. First, let’s get those bindings off you.”
Arial sat in the chair while Mrs. Parker undid the knots at her ankles and loosened the cloth bandages enough to slide them over Arial’s feet. “If I let your arms free, dearie, will you sit still and be good?”
George snorted again. “Can’t trust a madwoman.”
Mrs. Parker ignored him. At Arial’s nod, she began wrestling with the knots behind Arial’s back. The man with the lamp said nothing.
As the bindings that held her arms to her torso loosened, Arial became aware again that she wore nothing but her shift, and the two men showed no signs of leaving. Indeed, they studied her body with interest.
“Pity about the scars,” said the other warder. “Wonder how far down her body the ones on her shoulder go?”
George grunted. “The scars don’t bother me none,” he claimed. “Bit of a surprise, at first. You don’t have to look at them, do you?”
The other warder chortled. “Could use a flour sack!” he proposed.
George thought that was hilarious, and repeated the words, “Flour sack!”
Mrs. Parker tensed, her hands stilling on the last swathe of bandage.
The other warder felt it necessary to explain his joke. “Lovely curves she’s got. I’d like a piece of that, if I didn’t have to look at her face.”
Mrs. Parker dropped the bandage and turned on the men. “You two stop ogling the poor lady and making disgusting remarks. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Arthur, what would your wife say if she heard you? And George? Your mother would clip you over the ear. And I will, too, if you don’t go and make yourself useful. Get Lady Ransome a bucket of warm water. Warm, mind, and clean. And some of the nice soap.”
