The Queen of Lies: The Madwoman
Story Intro | Content Warnings | Mood Board | Vibey Song Lyrics | Ao3
Contains: asylum; outdated/problematic/ableist language; feelings of humiliation, hopelessness, and helplessnes; bullying; uncomfortable nonsexual nudity, lady whump
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Word count: 4350 || Approx reading time: 18 mins
The Madwoman
Teaser: Bree nodded, glancing up to inspect her seemingly benevolent jailer. He was a pale man, dark-bearded and bespectacled, with brown eyes wreathed in the red and grey hues of one who never got quite enough sleep. And no wonder. Would it haunt him, the sight of her watching and weeping as Baden departed, free as a bird while she remained an inmate of the asylum?
“Mrs. Hatchett?”
Bree stared at her feet, loath to meet the gaze the man who approached—terrified to see what expression waited in his eyes. She wondered if he could read what was in hers.
His footsteps were slow and soft against the wooden floor as he drew near. “I didn’t properly introduce myself,” he said, seating himself next to her. The bench built into the wall was uncushioned and hard as a rock, but he did not complain. Nor did he sit too closely; he left enough space between them that they could speak comfortably and unobtrusively, but their elbows did not brush.
Perhaps, Bree thought bitterly, he did not want to get close to her. Breanna Hatchett, the madwoman.
“I’m Dr. Armstrong,” he said, clasping his hands in his lap. “I’m an assistant physician here. We met earlier. I work under Dr. Richards.”
Dr. Richards. The all-powerful superintendent with the authority to scribble his name on a piece of paper and lock her up without a chance to plead her sanity, all because Baden had made his case first.
“Hello,” she said flatly, not meeting his eye. The floorboards must have once been a warm golden colour, varnished and glistening. Now they were dull and greyish, worn from years of being trod upon. She could bring herself to add no more to her greeting.
“It’s very nice to meet you.”
She swallowed. His voice was so cordial, as if he meant every word. But he couldn’t. He’d signed the page. He’d signed his name: A.A. Dale. He was just as guilty as Baden. And Gysborne. And Richards. She despised him.
A tear burned her cheek, rolling until it slipped down the slope of her jaw and dampened the collar of her dress. “Armstrong,” she repeated dully. “The paper said Dale.”
“Oh. Yes. It does.” He sounded surprised that she had noticed the discrepancy. “Armstrong Dale is my full surname, but I prefer to be addressed as Armstrong.”
“What’s the first A for?”
Why was she asking? She didn’t truly want to speak to him. But striking up such conversation, even for a few scant moments, kept at bay the awful truth: that Baden had gone from Greyhurst Asylum and left her behind, imprisoning her in a way that said to the world he still cared for her and ensured her safety, when in truth her incarceration protected only his own immaculate reputation.
She could ignore Dr. Armstrong, certainly. But if she did not indulge the doctor in his discourse, she would be forced to admit to herself the awful reality—that there was some dreadful catharsis in stripping away the artifice behind which she’d hidden for much of her life. That it was almost a relief to bare the truth: just like Will and now his brother, she was a prisoner.
She always had been, and if Baden had any say in the matter, she would remain so until she was dead.
“You have a keen memory,” he said. “My given name is Allan.”
Bree nodded, glancing up to inspect her seemingly benevolent jailer. He was a pale man, dark-bearded and bespectacled, with brown eyes wreathed in the red and grey hues of one who never got quite enough sleep. And no wonder. Would it haunt him, the sight of her watching and weeping as Baden departed, free as a bird while she remained an inmate of the asylum?
She doubted it.
Allan Armstrong Dale was studying her, too, she saw, with a calm and dispassionate gaze. The pity she thought she had seen earlier was wiped away, and he scrutinized her now with only quiet, clinical curiosity.
“I expect you have some questions,” he said.
Swallowing a fresh onfall of tears, Bree looked back at the floor. “How long am I to be kept here?” What a selfish question it seemed, when Will’s brother would be interrogated and maybe even tortured the way Will had been, and Will would be hunted for crimes he had not committed.
Accusations which her self-serving lies had only corroborated.
“That depends,” he said. “Enough time to allow you rest and recuperation until you are cured.”
“But how long will that be?” she asked, clutching the fabric of her skirt, still damp from the rain. Although the outer layer had dried, her petticoat remained claggy and sticky against her skin, a disgusting sensation she would simply have to endure. Until Baden saw fit to return with more of her clothes, she had nothing else to wear.
“Many patients are discharged within several months,” said Dr. Armstrong.
Pain burst into her bottom lip as she bit down on it. Months. Months. How much time did Will have before Baden caught up to him?
Drawing in a long breath, Bree raised her gaze again. “Dr. Armstrong,” she said, “I am not mad. My husband is mistaken.”
Sorrow flooded into his eyes.
“In fact,” she said, her voice trembling, “if you—if you will grant me another examination, another assessment, I…” She blinked back tears. Calm. She had to stay calm. “I’ll prove to you I’m sane.”
“Mrs. Hatchett…”
Bree couldn’t help it; she flinched. And her visible reaction to the sound of her name was not overlooked by the doctor.
“Mrs. Hatchett,” he repeated, “allow me to be candid with you. Three physicians have ascertained through medical examination that you are suffering from a nervous disorder.”
“I’m suffering from no such thing.” Bree swallowed. “Mr. Gysborne doesn’t count. He’d do anything Baden told him to. Sign anything, whether or not he believed it to be true.”
Dr. Armstrong frowned at the implication of her words, but he went on, “The evidence Constable Hatchett provided was, in a word, damning.”
“But—”
“And you have not,” he interrupted gently, “offered a single compelling counterargument in defence of your sanity.”
With tears spilling onto her cheeks again, Bree went over in her mind Baden’s rant against her. “There are many things,” she said, “that my husband doesn’t understand.” That he could not understand.
To her surprise, Dr. Armstrong said, “I’m listening.”
And he was, she realized. But when she opened her mouth, the words caught in her throat. What could she say? How would it help her to confess that she had willfully, not under duress, freed Will from prison? Or to return to the story of how her arm had been cut, when it would require explaining that she had been helping to reunite the members of a criminal gang?
“I did forge his signature,” she said, deciding to avoid the subject of Iustitia aecum entirely. “To join the literary society.” How long ago that seemed now. With her damp handkerchief, she brushed away her tears. “But I did it because I knew he would never allow me to attend.”
An odd look came over the doctor’s face.
“And I couldn’t bear the thought,” she said, “of being forbidden to participate. To lose access to my friends, and all those wonderful conversations, and the opportunity to learn and read…” She paused, chewing on her lip. “So I didn’t give him the chance to say no.”
Schooling his features back to impassivity, Dr. Armstrong said, “There are some who would, perhaps, argue that it is within a husband’s rights to disallow his wife’s involvement in a society with whose ideals he does not agree.”
“And I would argue,” Bree shot back, “that it is not his job to police my actions, but to be a police officer. To uphold the law and keep his citizens safe.” She swallowed a sob. “And he can’t even do that.”
For a long while, Dr. Armstrong was silent.
Bree watched the window, letting him stew in the story she had not told. As it always did in the throes of autumn, the sun was setting despite the early hour. In the dying light, the few leaves still clinging to the trees had turned murky, rusted oranges and rich browns little more than muddy shades of grey. Bars, like the ones that had once stood between her and Will, obscured her view of the outside world almost as much as the sinking sun.
Will, who she had set free—and ultimately condemned. Will, who would suffer yet again because of her. Will, who would die. Jamie would get his penalty for being the leader of Iustitia aecum, but Will would be executed. Because of her.
“Is your arm in pain?” Dr. Armstrong asked suddenly.
With a startled gasp, Bree twisted her handkerchief in her hands, cursing her wandering thoughts and inexpedient distraction. The doctor thought she was mad; daydreaming and working herself into a panic while he was trying to have a civil, sane conversation would do her no favours. “No. Not anymore. Thank you.”
“I confess,” he said, “that I don’t understand.”
At the puzzled, probing quality to his voice, Bree swallowed and kept her eyes on the window.
“This cut, in the exact right—or perhaps wrong—circumstances, could have been devastating. Left to bleed or get infected, it could have killed you. It is no small wound. Someone did this to you, yet you stayed and then defended the man who hurt you. Why?”
The man who hurt you.
You stayed.
“I was frightened,” she told him. “I have always been so frightened.”
Dr. Armstrong’s brow furrowed, and she knew she had not said enough.
“Some things...” Her throat ached in the wake of this failure and so many others. “Some things are stronger than reason.”
As he opened his mouth to reply, the clang of a bell rang through the ward, and whatever he had intended to say was lost. “Shall I escort you to the dining room, Mrs. Hatchett?”
The name tore at her, vicious as teeth and claws. “Don’t call me that.”
Dr. Armstrong blinked. “Don’t call you what?”
“‘Mrs. Hatchett.’”
“But…that is your name.”
Of course, he spoke the truth. Of course, that was her name. Didn’t he understand? That in itself was the problem. “I know, but please, I beg of you. Please don’t call me that.”
Slowly, Dr. Armstrong nodded, and Bree recalled what he had said about preferring Armstrong over Dale. “What shall I call you, then?”
Dull warmth spread through her chest, dim as embers but emitting the faintest glow, nonetheless. “My maiden name is Cooper. Or Breanna will do. Just…not…” She gulped, shuddering. “Not that.”
“All right, Mrs. Breanna.” How strange it was to hear her given name follow Mrs. How terribly she missed being Bree. But how much better it was than the alternative. “Let’s proceed to the dining room, and then I’ll continue my visits.”
The dining room was small and crowded. Bree’s heart quivered as the doctor guided her inside and directed her to a table occupied by at least ten other women, some of them her age and some older. A slim measure of relief stole into her at the revelation that they all, to her eyes, looked perfectly civilized, some even kind-eyed and friendly. A few were fashionably attired, with lovely dresses adorning too-thin figures and disguising the wretchedness that lurked in each melancholy countenance.
“Good evening, ladies,” said Dr. Armstrong, eliciting a round of greetings. “This is Mrs. H—” He paused, then gestured and deferred to her. “Why don’t you introduce yourself and have something to eat?”
Bree blinked, and her resolve to detest him crumbled.
As if the lady next to whom she took a seat could read her mind, she said, “That new doctor’s not so bad, now, is he?”
“New?” Bree glanced back at the retreating physician, watching him quietly greet the patients at each table.
“Mmm hmm.” The woman might have been approaching fifty years, with streaks of silver in her hair and wrinkles around her eyes. How tired she looked, Bree thought, and yet there was a tenderness to her face that put Bree at ease. “Only started…oh, last week, perhaps?” She gave Bree a small smile that could not conceal the sorrow in her gaze. “And what’s your name, darling? I’m Mrs. Strickland. Eugenia Strickland.”
“I’m Bree…” It felt wrong, giving Will’s name for her here. “Breanna.”
“Pleasure to meet you, dear.” Mrs. Strickland laid a soft hand over Bree’s. “Did you only arrive today?”
Bree jumped when someone gave a loud shout across the room, and the sound of silverware clattering to the floor split the air.
“Don’t worry.” Mrs. Strickland patted her hand. “You’re all right. That sort of thing’s bound to happen, even in this ward.”
“This ward?” Bree repeated faintly.
Mrs. Strickland nodded, and she did not elaborate, for dinner was being served.
It was unappetizing—boiled fish, the smell of which made Bree’s stomach turn. The poor, unenticing creature was accompanied by a small pile of potatoes, also boiled and dismally devoid of salt, crowned with a most meagre dash of yellow butter.
Bree could only stare at the plate.
“Come now, love,” said Mrs. Strickland quickly, seeing that she did not move and her eyes were filling with tears. “You must eat up, or the nurses will report that you’re refusing meals.” A quick squeeze, and then her hand was gone. “You mustn’t give them more reason to believe you’re unwell.”
Bree looked up from the food, astonished. Was Mrs. Strickland just as sane as she was?
“I don’t think I can,” she whispered, swallowing the sickly taste already brewing in her mouth.
“Well,” said the woman apologetically, “you really must try.”
Bree picked up her fork and forced herself to take a bite.
Dinner was underscored with quiet chatter, though not everyone participated. The other women were kind, mostly—those who weren’t merely remained silent and ignored her. Bree wanted to weep at the sight of so many hollow cheeks and haunted stares.
“Did you see the new girl?”
Bree stiffened at the sound of a voice—not one of the other patients, but a tall, blonde-haired woman in a black dress and white cap who was looking right at her with an unmistakable smirk upon her face. Bree’s stomach plummeted. It was the nurse from earlier.
“Did you hear the story?” the nurse asked smugly. “I did. I was there when they brought her in.” Her bored-looking colleague shushed her half-heartedly, but the woman went on. “You want to know why her police officer husband dumped her here?”
Bree suddenly found she could not make her body move. The effort of lifting her fork to her mouth seemed a monumental undertaking. All that mattered was what that golden-haired nurse said next.
The nurse sneered, “She ran off with some criminal.”
The other woman gasped.
“Didn’t make it far, of course, but, oh, what a scandal.” The nurse’s eyes glittered. “If you look hard enough, you’ll even see for yourself. The indecent little mark that man left on her neck. Well…not so little.” With a widening smile, she brushed her spiny fingers along her throat, a prattling laugh spewing forth. “I saw it. It’s obscene.”
“You’re making things up, you insufferable gossip,” said the woman next to her, but now her gaze was wandering across the room, too.
Bree ducked her head, blood rushing in her ears as her face flooded with heat.
“I most certainly am not,” the blonde nurse giggled. “Could I dream up such a story? A constable’s wife running off with some good-for-nothing jailbird for a nice, dirty f—”
Before she knew what she was doing, Bree slammed her fork back down onto the table, sending a crack and a thud through the room.
Mrs. Strickland jumped at the noise, shock giving way to bewilderment and then fading to understanding as she followed Bree’s gaze. “Oh, you must ignore Miss Dugford,” she said quickly. “She’s a terrible gossip, and mean-spirited to her core, but she’s Dr. Richards’ niece, so she’s not going anywhere.” Blanching, she glanced furtively around the room. “She will try to rile you up. She does it to everyone. You mustn’t rise to her, or she’ll run straight to her uncle. She’s gotten more than one poor girl sent to another ward.” Lowering her voice, leaning closer to Bree’s ear, she said, “This is the nicest ward, Breanna. You don’t want to get on her bad side and end up somewhere else.”
But Bree’s heart was still pounding, blood still screaming, breath still choking. How dare that nurse open her mouth and speak on matters about which she knew absolutely nothing? And how dare she speak so brazenly about what was supposed to be only between her and Will?
A memory struck—Baden tipping her chin up to reveal the bruise to Dr. Armstrong and Dr. Richards, displaying her body like it belonged to him, turning what had been a beautiful moment of shared ecstasy into something shameful, perverted, and humiliating. And now this woman, this Nurse Dugford, was doing the same thing—in front of everyone.
“Maybe if we ask nicely,” Miss Dugford said, cloying sweetness oozing through every word, “she’ll show you, too. If she’s willing to lift her skirts for a filthy thief, surely showing off a little bite on the neck won’t be a problem.”
With Mrs. Strickland’s warning ringing in her ears, Bree said loudly, her eyes on the nurse’s, “Don’t you dare come anywhere near me.”
Dr. Armstrong, speaking with a fatigued-looking girl who could have only been sixteen or seventeen, looked up, immediately on alert. Dr. Richards, who was circling the room in silence with cool indifference on his face, turned to peer at Bree, too. He did not look pleased.
Miss Dugford crossed her arms. Although she met Bree’s gaze, she kept talking to her friend. “And, oh, you should have heard her! How she cried and cried. Insisting all the while that she’s perfectly sane.”
And with her full, pink lips curled and crooked, her eyes still on Bree’s, Nurse Dugford smiled.
***
It was with relief that Bree abandoned her not-even-half-eaten supper and allowed herself to be led from the dining room, but that relief was short-lived, for the nurses took her to a bathing room and bade her and everyone else to prepare to wash up.
“What’s happening?” she squeaked to Mrs. Strickland.
“It’s bath night,” said the woman, seeming to droop as she nodded toward the rusted metal tub. Her fingers moved slowly and wearily, untying the cord at the end of her silver-streaked braid.
“But…” Bree looked around, the few bites of dinner she’d choked down sitting like lead in her stomach. “There’s one tub, and…” She counted quickly. “Twenty of us.”
“Yes.”
The implications made Bree’s skin crawl. “But what of privacy?”
Mrs. Strickland sighed and patted her arm. “What of it?”
Bree watched in horror as the girl at the head of the line removed her clothing, bit by bit, until she was stark naked. In front of everyone.
“Come on, then,” said Miss Dugford to the next girl as the first one stepped into the bathtub and immediately began to shiver, whimpering audibly as a nurse began to scrub violently at her skin and hair with a lump of beige soap. “Hurry it up.”
“They can’t make me do this,” Bree said, backing away. “I won’t bathe in front of everyone.”
But another nurse nudged her back into line. “Yes, you will.”
Hugging her arms to her chest, Bree said, “I will not.”
“You will,” said Miss Dugford, listening from the front, “or we’ll help you along, and you wouldn’t want us to use force, would you, Mrs. Hatchett?” Her head tilted to the side. “And you’re a right mess from the rainstorm, there, dear, so don’t you want a nice, lovely bath to clean up and look less…” She smirked. “Less like you came straight from the barnyard?”
Mrs. Strickland reached for Bree’s hand and squeezed. “Now, Nurse Dugford, I’m sure she’s just nervous. It’s her first night here, after all. There’s no need for such…” She took a deep breath. “Comments.” To Bree, she said, “It’s nothing to be afraid of, Breanna. Quick as a flash, and then you’ll be on your way to bed. Won’t that be wonderful?”
Bree shook her head. How could the others accept this? Stripping naked in front of one another, no privacy to speak of? And the way each girl left the bathtub shaking uncontrollably, it had to be ice cold…and by the time Bree even got to it, the water would be filthy, if it wasn’t already.
“I can’t,” she said, her voice shaking.
“Sounds like Mrs. Hatchett needs some help getting undressed,” said Nurse Dugford, a snide smile crossing her face. “I didn’t think that would be a problem for her.”
Bree recoiled when the other nurse extended her hand, fingers reaching for the buttons of her dress, too distressed at the prospect of being forcibly disrobed the care much about Miss Dugford’s lewd insinuation or the titters that went through the group. “No! Don’t touch me.” Tears were already threatening to spill down her cheeks. “I don’t. I don’t need help.”
“Come on, love,” said Mrs. Strickland sadly, and Bree saw she was unbuttoning her dress, too. “You’ll be all right. It’s just once a week. You’ll get used to it.”
No, Bree vowed as she gave in, fingers shaking wildly with each loosened button. She certainly would not.
When she plunged into the frigid, greyish water, Bree bit into her tongue hard enough to send a burst of blood swishing through her mouth. The nurse with the soap and washcloth scrubbed her skin so vigorously, she wondered if that wouldn’t bleed, too—if it wouldn’t send swirls of bright red into the horrendous murk that was supposed to pass as bathwater.
The nurse did not return Bree’s clothes, but instead handed her a slip of coarse grey flannel, stamped and numbered: G.I.A., Ward 7, slip #103. To be used as her nightgown, she said. Bree found her request went entirely ignored when she asked through chattering teeth for a towel to dry her soaked, tangled hair.
“There’s a good girl,” Mrs. Strickland whispered. “I know. It’s horrific. But you made it through. We all must do what we can to just make it through.”
Bree buried her face in her hands. As Mrs. Strickland stroked what were surely meant to be comforting circles onto her back, Nurse Dugford and her colleague giggled.
Half-dizzy with exhaustion, humiliation, and fury, Bree allowed herself to be led to the room where she would sleep by a dark-haired nurse who guided her through the draughty, winding halls. She was sullen and unfriendly, but she wasn’t Miss Dugford, and Bree did not mind that she was silent.
Silent, that is, until they came to a room with starkly painted white walls, a single bed, and no window. As she ushered Bree inside, she said, “All right, Mrs. Hatchett. Give me your shoes, please.”
“What?” Bree gaped at her. “I’m not giving you my shoes.”
“Yes, you are. You can’t keep them overnight. It’s one of our rules.”
“Absolutely not,” Bree said. “You’ve already taken my clothes. I will keep these, thank you very much.”
“You will hand them over,” the nurse said impatiently. “It’s the rules, Mrs. Hatchett.” The woman tapped her foot against the floor. “Now. Chop-chop. Give me your shoes.” She gestured to a small chest outside the door. “They’ll be right here ’til morning. Locked in and kept safe.”
“If they’re just going to be right there,” Bree snapped, “then why should I give them up?”
The nurse pursed her lips, refusing to respond, and the answer came to Bree anyway: to discourage attempts to flee in the night, of course, for what woman with any sense of propriety would run around outdoors in stocking feet and a threadbare slip that barely qualified as a nightgown?
“Now be a good girl and do as I say,” the nurse said when Bree did not continue her complaints. “Or else I shall call the doctor, and we’ll have to give you chloral to calm you down.”
Chloral. Bree did not know what that was, but it certainly didn’t sound like anything that was going to help her.
With a frustrated sob, she tore off her boots, then flung them at the nurse’s feet.
“There’s a good lass,” said the nurse, “although you ought to have more impressive manners for a lady, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” Bree said, wrenching off her stockings.
The nurse sighed. “Good night, Mrs. Hatchett. I’ll be locking you in now. Is there anything else you need before I go?”
Bree shook her head. Mortified tears were already slinking down her cheeks. Furious at her own weakness, she scrubbed them away.
The sound of the key turning in the lock induced an eruption of wracking, heaving sobs. This couldn’t be real, and yet it was. She really had been hidden away, not deposited like a jewel in a safe but imprisoned behind bars and locks and keys.
Bound, too, by fear and guilt.
Will haunted the edges of her thoughts like a phantom. How was it possible she had woken up only this morning, nestled in his arms and with his lips on hers? How could everything have gone so dreadfully wrong in less than a day?
And Jamie—arrested—all because Curt had been searching for her—because he’d recognized her—and Jamie had merely been caught up in her recapture—
All of them must resent her. Jamie, Colette, Geoff—they all had to hate her to her very core. Will, most of all. No doubt, after everything, he wanted nothing to do with her ever again.
Would he have been better off, she wondered, pressing her face into the lumpy pillow to muffle her sobs, if she had never seen fit to enter his life? At least his brother would still be free. At least he wouldn’t be facing execution.
Would they both have been better off, had their paths never crossed?
At least she wouldn’t be here.
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