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Belle Vue Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVENFriday, 19 December “Hamish? Professor Quigly?” Alex knocked twice. He pushed open the door and peered into the spacious office.His tutor’s round ebony face beamed. Hamish placed the sheaf of papers he held on top of a pile of similar documents. He moved away from the neat rows of books lining the wall.“Come in, come in,” he beckoned Alex, with the merest trace of a Scottish lilt, fluttering his fingers like streamers in a wind tunnel.Hamish nodded toward the green leather Chesterfield. Alex sat down and took out a wire-bound notebook and pen from his laptop case. Meanwhile, Hamish tidied the journals on the coffee table. Casting a rueful glance at his curious expression, Hamish gingerly seated himself on the matching armchair. “Piles,” he said, with a grimace.“Pardon?”“Hemorrhoids, man. Bane of my life. Still when you get to over forty-five.” Hamish chuckled. “Well, let’s say fifty and leave it there.” His hand lifted in the direction of his white-flecked a
Belle Vue Chapter Twelve
CHAPTER TWELVESaturday, 11 October, 1862When Mary discovered what the role of scullion in the Duc de Montalt’s London house entailed, she was not greatly impressed. Shocked would be a better description. To think Mam—as she’d called Catherine then—and Father Patrick had put her forward for such a lowly position. Nothing but grinding drudgery in the kitchens from first thing in the morning to gone midnight. It was the only vacancy, they’d said, but for all their poverty, she thought Mam had been preparing her for better work than this. She even slept in a box bed that folded out of a cupboard in the scullery corridor, for God’s sake. No privacy at all. Mam had responded by saying if she used her brain and worked hard, she could rise one day to become a cook or housekeeper. Mary noted she hadn’t said Lady’s Maid, as Catherine had been when her family fell on hard times. As though Mary wasn’t cut out for that exalted position. No doubt, the precious Ellen, safe and cosseted by Mam at
Belle Vue Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEENFriday, 16 January Claire gripped the steering wheel, pressed the accelerator, and crossed the junction as the light turned red. She drove back to her apartment by rote, her mind a whirl. The exam this morning had been a disaster: so much for Public Relations being her best subject. On her answers today, she couldn’t manage a good turnout for the Pope at a Catholic convention.What was wrong with her? Okay, she hadn’t done as much revision as she’d have liked. She found it so hard to concentrate these days and couldn’t remember a thing. Her stomach had rumbled its way through the seemingly endless three hours, despite the cereal, toast, chocolate bar, and banana she’d eaten at breakfast. To top it off, Alex was miffed because she’d told him she was going to stay in and crash this weekend: catch up on her sleep and hopefully get some work done on her own dissertation. Talk about selfish. It was as if he didn’t want her to do well. His first class honors was in the b
Belle Vue Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEENWednesday, 30 June, 1869Fanned by the breeze, the warm rays of the afternoon sun caressed Johnson Nottidge’s face. He relaxed and indulged himself in a recollection of his numerous sexual encounters over the past month or so. Eyes closed, his memories flitted from his conquests in London to those closer to home. As his mind wandered to his current location—the grounds of Belle Vue—thoughts of Samuel and Adelaide Fishburn turned up like bad pennies to blight his enjoyment.Dreadful man, with a dreadful wife. Fishburn was nothing but a stooge for his ‘lean and hungry’ spouse. She was about as trustworthy as Cassius, too. Given the choice though, he still preferred the Matron. Greed, lust, wrath, and vanity were all emotions he understood. He remembered how surprised he’d been when he’d peered through the front window of Bill Callahan’s cottage last week and saw her fellating the Head Attendant like some third-rate whore. He had not made a sound and they hadn’t notice
Belle Vue Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEENFriday, 6 February “Not another workout?” Claire asked, raising her eyebrows in obvious disbelief.Marianne bustled into the sitting room in her old tracksuit. She stopped by the sofa where Claire reclined with her feet up.“I know. Weird, huh? It’s like a magnet. If you told me a month ago how much I’d be using the health club, I’d have said you were mad.” Marianne laughed and wondered aloud, “Maybe there are forces here compelling me to get fit.”“Well, they don’t work for me. I feel lousy and can’t remember the last time I had the urge to do any exercise.” Claire yawned. She ran her hands over her face. “Ugh. Spots, bags, and crusty eyes. I bet I look awful, too.”Marianne gazed at Claire with dismay at how frail and washed out she looked but responded automatically. “No, you don’t.”A telling pause as Claire’s face seemed to acknowledge her tactful, but untrue words. Marianne continued, “You’ve lost a bit of your oomph with all this final year stress. Why do
Belle Vue Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEENSaturday, 24 July, 1869“Who could have done such a terrible thing?” The Reverend Theodore Croft’s nose quivered with righteous indignation.Bill Callahan stifled a yawn. Normally, he and Croft saw eye-to-eye since the vicar took it as one of his functions to strengthen the arm of authority in the asylum. He did this by persuading inmates to accept confinement in this world on the promise of freedom in the next. On this occasion, however, he was on his high horse about a bit of damage in the chapel where they now stood. And, he told Callahan, holding him as Head Attendant responsible.Croft picked up one of the blood-spattered Bibles. “Such mindless desecration. It only proves my argument that moral turpitude causes insanity.” The Chaplain’s voice rose. “But how did they get in? I locked the door after evening prayers last night, and I unfastened the padlock this morning.”“Is there another entrance, Vicar?” Bill asked, making no effort to keep the mockery out of h
Belle Vue Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER SEVENTEENMonday, 9 February Lost in thought, Claire sat at the dressing table brushing her hair. The dark smudges under her eyes testified to her continued lack of sleep. The sore on her genitals worried her, and the damned noises were still keeping her awake. But now she knew it wasn’t only Sally who couldn’t hear them. On Saturday afternoon she and Marianne had been in the kitchen chatting over their coffees when the chapel bell tolled. Marianne didn’t seem to notice the sound. In the end, she’d asked if the bell bothered her, but Marianne’s response, “What bell?” said it all.She’d pushed it aside by saying, “Just testing.” but Marianne had looked at her in an odd way, calculating almost, as though trying to gauge what was going on in her head.Claire glanced at her watch. Swapping her brush for her mobile, she rang the surgery number. Engaged. As usual, getting through would be a long slog. She shifted on the padded stool and tried to ignore the twinge of discomfort.
Belle Vue Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEENThursday, 12 August, 1869Of the high temperatures endured during the past few weeks, today seemed to be the hottest yet. Ellen, bored and slightly nauseous, lay on her cot. Her skin, a mass of red marks from her rough shift and continual itching, caused her intense discomfort.Harriet, on the other bed, lay curled toward the window. A couple of the small panes in each window of the asylum could be opened but by only a few inches. As an unfortunate consequence, the cramped dormitories and rooms were stifling and smellier than rotting fish at Billingsgate.Hardly any staff had shown up this morning, so straw plaiting had been cancelled for the day. Mrs. Craven, cranky to the extreme, had told them to stay in their room.Their door was open in the vain hope of some circulating air, but the stench from the crowded halls far from any windows, almost overpowered the instinctive impulse to draw breath. Ellen stared at the ceiling. For what must have been the hundredth t
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