Free Another Heartbeat in the House by Kate Beaufoy Page B

and crannies you were probing with barely a by-your-leave. She made a pot of tea, carried a tray through to the library, and started to sift through the papers stowed in the box file.
    Finally, she managed to sort another sheaf into some kind of chronology, and this is what she ended up with.

    In the cabin it was agreed that I should strip the poor creature of her sodden garments and get her into a nightgown. With difficulty, I managed to unlace her water-logged stays and divest her of her gown and petticoats. The ship’s doctor – a florid man with mutton grease on his waistcoat and whiskey on his breath – prescribed rest, and administered a sleeping draught. I piled all the pillows I could find onto the narrow berth and laid the patient against them, and then I removed the pins from her long red hair and set about untangling it.
    Mr Thackeray had fetched a cup of hot negus. He sat on the edge of the crib and coaxed his wife to take sips while I brushed her hair dry. She remained inert and uncomplaining while we tended to her, and finally her measured breathing told us she was asleep.
    Mr Thackeray set the cup upon the locker, and took the hairbrush from me. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
    â€˜I am glad to help.’
    He was drawing strands of his wife’s hair from between the bristles of the brush and laying them on his lap. His fingers were long, the nails well cared for – but for the one on the index of his right hand, which had been gnawed to the quick.
    There was silence between us for several moments, and then he began to speak in a low voice. ‘Isabella is the best of wives, but she believes herself to be a demon of wickedness. I can see what I never did until now, that she has been deranged for several weeks past. I fear she is quite mad.’ He did not raise his eyes from his lap, and I made no comment. ‘A year and a half ago, we lost a daughter. Her name was Jane. She was sickly, but Isabella would not see it. For two nights the infant reposed a corpse upon her mother’s breast, but she would not give her up. In a locket at her throat she keeps a kiss curl, which she took from the child’s head as she lay in her coffin.’
    I glanced at the locket that lay upon Isabella’s breastbone; I had remarked it as I’d combed out her hair, and had removed a strand of seaweed that had caught in the clasp. Mr Thackeray continued to toy with the filaments he had pulled from the brush.
    â€˜A little more than three months ago, another child was born, very like the one that had been lost. I had thought Isabella would take comfort from the arrival of our darling Harriet – we call her Minnie, as a pet name – but after her confinement she remained curiously lethargic. I sought the help of a physician; sea air and sunshine were prescribed. In August we journeyed to Margate; there her strength continued to fail and her spirits became ever more dejected. Sometimes her mind flew away from her – like a balloon, she said,
une femme sans tête
.’ He gave me an uncertain look. ‘It means, “a witless woman”.’
    â€˜I know what it means.’
    â€˜And then one day at Margate sands she tried to drown herself.’ His eyes met mine. ‘She tried to drown herself, and to take Annie with her.’
    â€˜She tried to drown your daughter?’
    â€˜Yes. I am at my wits’ end. I am at my wits’ end.’
    I rose to my feet and moved to the porthole, to allow him time to recover. ‘Why are you taking her to Ireland?’ I asked.
    â€˜Mrs Shawe, her mother, and her sister Jane are there.’
    â€˜She is Irish?’
    â€˜Her mother is – Isabella was born in Ireland. They have lived for many years in Paris, but her mother has returned to Cork.’
    To uproot the young woman from her home and transport her to another country did not seem to me to be the most sensitive solution to the problem, but I refrained