Call Down the Moon
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
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New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 1998 by
Julia Jay Kendall
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email
[email protected]
.
First Diversion Books edition October 2013
ISBN:
978-1-62681-142-3
To Pat Kendall
Who has guided, nurtured, and cherished me
for the larger portion
of my life, and always with great good grace.
With all my love.
Ipswich Orphanage
Ipswich, Suffolk
August 1816
“M
eggie Bloom, you are an utter disgrace to yourself and those around you,” the Mother Superior announced in chilly tones.
Meggie stood before her, her pride commanding her posture into a rigorous upright position. It wasn’t easy, considering that she’d just come from a caning.
The stripes on her back stung ferociously, but Meggie reckoned every one that Sister Luke of Mercy had delivered was worth the pain. At least she’d finally gotten a bit of her own back at the silly nun, who had been tormenting her for years. The temptation had been irresistible.
No matter how much Sister Luke of Mercy might deny it, it was true that the sister harbored lust in her heart for Father Kent. All Meggie had done was to repeat the exact words that she’d heard clear as a bell inside the sister’s head when the priest had arrived to celebrate morning Mass.
That they happened to be rather explicit hadn’t been Meggie’s fault. That Meggie had chosen to ask Sister Luke of Mercy what “wishing I had the Father’s body heaving inside me” meant, and whether it had anything to do with Holy Communion, had.
But oh, the satisfaction.
“I realize that I should not have spoken to Sister Luke of Mercy as I did, Mother. I ask your forgiveness for my impertinence,” Meggie said in the litany she’d been repeating for eight long years. She might not be a Catholic, but she knew the rituals inside out.
“For your
impertinence?
My girl, your sins go far beyond something so elementary. This latest incident has led me to decide that you are not fit to live in any level of society.”
The Mother Superior folded her hands together in a beatific fashion, as if she were enrolling for sainthood, and regarded Meggie grimly. “I have therefore concluded that the only place you
are
suited for is the Woodbridge Sanitarium.”
“The—the sanitarium, Mother? Do you mean the asylum for the insane?” Meggie asked faintly. She prayed that dizziness had distorted her understanding.
“Yes. The asylum for the insane,” the Mother Superior agreed, her lips thinning. “There is no need to look so shocked, Miss Meggie. Consider your fate a blessing. I might have sent you to work at Bedlam, since the insane are all you’re suited for. At least the Woodbridge Sanitarium is a private institution where the families of the afflicted pay well for their keep.” Her lips thinned even further until they looked positively ghoulish. “Maybe the inmates are already so afflicted by the curse of Lucifer that they will not notice his handmaiden in their midst.”
“You—you will not honor your agreement?” Meggie whispered, her hand at her throat, which was so constricted she could hardly breathe, let alone speak.
“Our
agreement
?” the nun said, peering down her long nose at Meggie with the utmost disdain. “We had no agreement, other than that this orphanage would feed you, clothe you, and educate you until you reached the age of eighteen. Although it is true that you are only seventeen, you are no longer welcome here. We are a Christian institution and have suffered your depravity long enough.”
Horror turned Meggie’s blood cold as the nun’s words sank into her numb brain. Teaching was what Meggie had always wanted to do—the Mother Superior knew that! Meggie had worked extremely hard over the years to prove herself. Academics was the one thing that she
had
done right, excelling in nearly every class.
She’d made a huge effort with her elocution, too, modeling her speech after that of Sister Prudence who had been born an earl’s daughter. Even given the unfortunate circumstances of her birth, it had been Meggie’s highest hope that if she spoke correctly, she might find a position as a governess in a fine family. Failing that lofty ambition, she could have been a teacher in a fine school at least. She’d had every reason to expect a good reference from the Mother Superior when the time came for her release.
It never occurred to her that the Mother Superior would be so cruel as to punish her this unjustly. To sentence her to five days of confinement in one of the outhouses to be followed by a caning was one thing—but to sentence her to life in an asylum? And a sentence it was, for the Mother Superior knew Meggie had no choice but to do as she was told. Where else could she go? She had no money, no relatives to whom she might appeal.
“I have already applied to Sister Agnes, a nun from my order who is director of the sanitarium, to take you on,” the Mother Superior continued. “She has agreed, but only because she is so badly short-handed. She knows all about your wicked ways, and I can only pray that you will not torment the nuns under her charge as you have done here.”
What little blood was left in Meggie’s face drained out of it. Not only was she to be condemned to life in an asylum, but far worse, to an unending life with the nuns. The thought was almost more than she could bear.
She wanted to cry, to beg the Mother Superior to change her mind and give her the chance to be a teacher, but her pride wouldn’t let her. She knew it wouldn’t do any good, anyway. The Mother Superior had never changed her mind about anything in all the years Meggie had known her.
Meggie bowed her head in acknowledgment, refusing to give the woman the satisfaction of seeing how devastated she was.
She packed her few possessions in the same carpetbag she’d arrived with eight years before and walked out of the door of the orphanage without once looking back, her spine straight and her chin raised. Whatever life brought next, Meggie refused to be broken or bowed.
As she started down the road from Ipswich that would take her the twenty miles to Woodbridge, she told herself she would ignore the whispers that were bound to continue. She would suffer the inevitable punishments in silence. She would do whatever work was given to her without complaint.
And she would never let anyone know the bitterness she carried in her heart.
Woodbridge, Suffolk
March 1822
H
ugo heaved a sigh of annoyance as he regarded the gray facade of the manor house. Taking another step closer, he peered at the discreet brass placard to one side of the heavy door.
Woodbridge Sanitarium
it announced, as if it were some sort of benign rest home for the infirm instead of a residence for raving lunatics. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d let his mother talk him into this thankless mission, although the sight of her streaming nose and red-rimmed eyes and the sound of her raspy voice and congested cough had certainly helped to persuade him.
Her severe cold might have prevented her from carrying out the errand, but he’d been an idiot to agree to come in her place. He loathed infirmity of any kind and paying a duty call to an establishment like this was
not
his cup of tea. He cursed himself silently for allowing himself to be put in this position.
Of course it was his own fault for mentioning that he was on his way to inspect a piece of property for sale on the Suffolk coast near Woodbridge. How was he to have known that his mother’s pet charity was practically on its doorstep?
Still, there was nothing to be done; he was here now and had an obligation to carry out his duty. He lifted the door knocker, letting it fall with a loud thud.
In a matter of moments, the door opened and a pleasant-looking woman in her middle years clad in a neat gray dress, white headdress, and a starched apron peered out at him.
“May I help you, sir?” she asked, gazing at him with no more than a curious expression. No insanity there, he thought with surprise and relief.
“You may,” he replied in his most imperious manner. “Please inform the matron that Lord Hugo Montagu would like a moment of her time,” he said, attempting to appear perfectly calm. “You might add that I am the younger son of your patroness, the Dowager Duchess of Southwell.”
“Indeed I will, your lordship,” she replied equally calmly, oblivious to his discomfort. “Would you care to step inside while I inform her that you are here?”
Hugo cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said, much against his better judgment. He had no idea what to anticipate once inside the door. Wild screaming from behind heavily barred doors, a sour, noxious odor of filth and overcooked cabbage, perhaps?
In this preconception too, he was mistaken. He removed his hat and crossed the threshold into the main hall, finding it much the same as any other civilized manor house he’d ever visited. Comfortable chairs were arranged in cozy groups, and the only smell to reach his nostrils was the sweet fragrance of fresh flowers placed in strategic positions. For all outward intents and purposes, this might have been the home of a family friend.
He wondered how much his mother had to do with the pretty deception, given that she had been a patroness of this particular establishment for years—something he’d only just discovered. He didn’t understand her motive for supporting this particular cause with her position and money. Why on earth had she chosen to befriend madmen when there were plenty of other worthy charities?
But that was none of his concern and his thoughts moved on to his real mission for having come to Suffolk. The area had the advantage of having one of the milder climates to be found. Also in its favor was that it was far enough from his brother’s ducal seat in Leicestershire that he wouldn’t be on the family doorstep where they could watch his every move.
In any case, it was time that he invested in a place of his own, now that he could afford to. He needed a nice country pile where he could entertain properly, make the right sort of impression. The address of the land agent sat in his breast pocket and he was expected this afternoon. He needed a place that would keep him busy and away from the temptations of London. He was bloody tired of living at Southwell right under his mother’s nose.
He started as a door banged somewhere above him and the sound of voices came faintly, then faded away down a corridor. He sat back in his chair again and took a deep breath.
They were absurd, these nerves of his. What was he afraid of, some deranged person leaping upon him out of the blue? The inmates were carefully guarded, surely, as carefully and quietly controlled as their environment was. Yet he still couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was about to pounce upon him.
Whatever had his mother been thinking to send him here? He couldn’t imagine a more awful fate than not being in one’s right mind.
He spun around at the sound of footsteps coming across the marble floor. It was only the woman who had opened the door, he realized with infinite relief as she came toward him.
“Your lordship, the matron will see you now. If you’ll just follow me?” she said in that cool, controlled voice, inclining her head toward the far side of the hall.
The corridor down which he was led was agreeable enough, brightened by the sunlight that flooded in through the tall windows on the ground floor. No, there was nothing he’d seen so far that could be described as even remotely sinister.
Perhaps the insane were locked up elsewhere, out of the sight and sound of visiting relatives who would naturally be anxious that everything seem as normal as possible. After all, the families paid handsomely to be sure that appearances were kept up.
The woman in the gray dress abandoned him outside a paneled mahogany door, disappearing down the hallway.
Hugo watched after her, reminding himself that he had survived a handful of duels. What did he have to fear from a starched matron who had nothing better to do than look after a houseful of lunatics?
He knocked firmly.
“Please come in,” intoned a brisk voice from the other side.
Hugo pushed the door open—and stared.
An elderly woman garbed in black and white robes sat behind a large desk in an equally large room, regarding him with what he could only describe as a no-nonsense expression. A
nun
? It was the last thing in the world he expected.
“Lord Hugo,” she said, gesturing for him to sit on the chair facing her desk. “What a pleasant surprise this is. I am Sister Agnes. I was expecting your mother, but she has obviously sent you as her emissary.”
“She did,” he replied after a moment’s hesitation. “She neglected to tell me this is a nunnery,” he added. Nuns and lunatics didn’t mix in his mind. Nuns were supposed to be holy, sacrosanct. They upheld the laws of God. Lunatics defied it.
“This is no nunnery, Lord Hugo,” the matron said with the touch of a wry smile. “I was merely called by my order to be director here and some of the other sisters fill out the staff. However, we do strive to alleviate the suffering of those in need, and those here are in great need indeed. Compassion for the mentally ill is in short supply.”
Hugo regarded her in silence. He didn’t need a lecture from a nun of all people, although he couldn’t help wondering if she had read his mind.
“Do you doubt it, Lord Hugo? Perhaps you think, as many people do, that those who are unstable in mind and spirit should be cast to the winds, that their affliction is of their own making?”
“I think nothing of the sort, er—Sister,” Hugo said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “Actually, I have no opinion at all. I merely came on my mother’s behalf. She has a bad cold, you see.”
The comers of her mouth lifted in a knowing smile. “I think I do see,” she said gently. “You are not comfortable here, and there is no reason why you should be—most are not. Your mother is an exception to the rule, an exceedingly sympathetic woman to whom we will always be grateful. Without her patronage, we might have had to close our doors years ago, but she has been a staunch supporter even in our times of greatest trial.”
Hugo nodded. “My mother is a staunch supporter of whatever she believes in. Although I happen to be a fortunate beneficiary of her great faith, I am not like her. Sister. When it comes to virtue, I am no example to live by.”
“This is not the confessional, Lord Hugo,” the nun said with a low chuckle. “Our sins are our own and only between us and our Heavenly Father. So tell me. What missive did your mother send you with?”
He didn’t know why he had broached the topic of his past sins, many though they were. Feeling acutely ill at ease, he slipped his hand inside the breast pocket of his coat to retrieve his mother’s letter. He proffered it to the elderly nun. “My mother sent me with this offering, Sister, and with an inquiry into the health of Lady Eunice Kincaid.”
Hugo knew Eunice Kincaid only slightly and liked her even less. He had been present when Eunice had experienced her final descent into madness in Ireland six months before. That the episode had happened the same day that his brother Raphael was being married to Eunice’s stepdaughter was extremely unfortunate. Hugo thanked his lucky stars that he’d been laid up in bed with an injury and had thus missed witnessing the actual breakdown. From what he’d heard of it afterward, it hadn’t been a pleasant scene.
Naturally his mother had known exactly what to do and she’d had the unfortunate woman shipped off to this very place shortly thereafter. Hugo really didn’t care to know much more.
“The duchess is very kind to ask after Lady Kincaid,” the nun said, placing his mother’s letter on the desk unread and folding her hands together in front of her. “You might tell her grace that Lady Kincaid is doing very nicely. Oh, she is mostly lost in her childhood, but I can only see that as a blessing, as it keeps her content for much of the time. She is certainly improved from the time of her arrival.”
Hugo felt relieved. So far, so good. No suggestion that he pay a social call to the madwoman. “I am pleased to hear it. From what I understand, she gave little pleasure in her life in the outside world. It is good to know she is not creating problems here as well.”
He rose and walked over to the elongated window behind Sister Agnes’s desk, gazing out over the manicured lawns. Everything looked perfectly normal.
A frown creased his brow as his gaze wandered yet farther. It drifted up over the tops of the bare trees to the high walls that ran around the perimeter of the property, once built to keep the public out, but whose purpose now was to keep the demented in.
“Lady Kincaid causes no trouble,” the nun agreed. “Her former life is now forgotten. We do not judge our patients for their prior behavior, Lord Hugo. Many of them had no control over their actions, and those who did … well, as I said, we do not judge. We only seek to support and to heal where God shows us that healing is possible.”
Hugo only dimly heard her. A young woman had appeared out of thin air, walking directly past the window where he stood. She was dressed all in white, her uncovered hair as fair as corn silk in midsummer, falling down her back in a loose braid. The sun, on a lowering westward arc, caught her from the far side, backlighting her profile and casting a nimbus about her head. Hugo drew in a sharp breath between his teeth.
The girl looked like a bloody angel straight out of a church frieze, complete with halo.
He raised his hand and reached out to touch her and to determine if she was flesh and blood or just a product of his fevered imagination. His fingertips met only cool glass.
The illogical disappointment that flooded through him made him feel like a fool. What had he expected? That his hand would magically pass through the windowpane? And yet he refused to lower it, pressing his palm against the glass.
At that exact moment her step slowed and she glanced to her left, as if she had sensed not only his presence but his frustration. Her eyes met his full-on.
Hugo wasn’t prepared for the piercing jolt that he felt, as if God had deliberately aimed a bolt of lightning at him for presuming to stare at one of His own. Hugo was mesmerized by the young woman’s astonishing eyes.
Her eyes were light gray and as translucent as starlight—so translucent that he felt they had seen straight through him and out the other side, as if he were nothing more substantial or significant than a cloud.
She held his gaze for the space of a few heartbeats, and then she calmly looked away and continued on her way. A moment later she disappeared from sight.
Hugo blinked. And blinked again, his heart pounding furiously in his chest. He wanted to call after her, tell her to return, to explain herself to him. He’d never had any experience with angels—he didn’t even believe in their existence. So if she wasn’t an angel, then what
was
she?
She wasn’t an ordinary woman, he was certain of that. He’d never been affected by a woman in this way, nor had he ever seen a face like hers before. It was so clear and tranquil, as if the cares of this world had never touched it. It was as if
she
didn’t exist in this world at all.
As if she didn’t exist in this world at all…
Hugo’s eyes widened in horror.
How could he have been so stupid? She was one of
them.
He had been exactly right, but in the worst sort of way. She didn’t exist in this world in the least, but in some different world of her own making, the world that lunatics inhabited.
An angel indeed, he thought cynically. Obviously the air in the asylum was contagious, for he’d clearly caught some form of dementia for even thinking such things, even if she did resemble something out of a blasted Byzantine fresco.
It seemed a hell of a waste that Mother Nature had bestowed such bounties on a madwoman, but he supposed that couldn’t be helped.
On the other hand, the tightening in his groin he most
certainly
should be able to help, he thought, infuriated with himself. The unsolicited physical reaction was utterly ridiculous, given the circumstances.
“Lord Hugo? Did you hear me?”
“Sister,” he said, clearing his throat, speaking over his shoulder as he tried to suppress the evidence of his baser nature in front of the nun. “I was wondering. Is
anyone
allowed to wander freely about the grounds?”
“That entirely depends on who it is,” Sister Agnes replied, her tone unconcerned. “Why do you ask?”