The Watch
By Krista Bean
Copyright 2012 Krista Bean
Cover Photo: © Satori13 | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos
My mother took her own life when I was seventeen years old. She had been mentally unbalanced for years, degenerating to the point where my father was forced to employ multiple nurses to care for her. He even installed them in upstairs bedrooms rather than the servants’ quarters, so they could be on hand at any hour. At the time of the tragedy, I had only been home for a few weeks after graduating from North Haven Finishing School. I spoke French, was proficient on both the piano and the flute, and could rival anyone in the fine art of charming conversation. These most essential feminine accomplishments were enhanced by the fact that I had grown into quite a pretty young lady. But my girlish mirth was extinguished when I arrived home to find my mother swimming in a haze of perpetual dementia.
I was dismayed, but not wholly surprised at her state. In my childhood, she became susceptible to bouts of hysteria. I would awaken in the middle of the night to her shrieks and sobs, which carried down our cavernous hallways like the voices of angry spirits. The first time I heard this commotion (I could not have been more than five years old) it chilled me to my core because my mother was always so dignified during the day. She would glide around the house with her enormous hoop skirts swishing this way and that, her porcelain face and delicate shoulders perched atop a waist she still managed to pull in to twenty-two inches. She commandeered her household with an unshakable dignity, ordering the servants about and playing hostess to our continual stream of guests. She was stern and aloof, and she intimidated me – as much with her composure as with her insanity. Of course word of her mental predicament never entered dignified, daytime conversation; her fits were dealt with at night, and willfully forgotten as the sun came up. Not three or four years passed, however, before my mother’s erratic behavior began disrupting her social schedule. She became paranoid and withdrawn, and more and more often we were obliged to make excuses on her behalf.
My father was a tolerant but somewhat bewildered man, who never seemed to know quite what to do with our name and money, despite the fact that he had held both since birth. Even before my mother’s illness, he spent many long days hunting or holed up in his study, leaving her to her friends (and later her nurses) and me to my governesses before I left for boarding school.
Naturally, it was my great escape to enter North Haven, and I was blessedly spared from the cattiness and cruelty that so often pervades the institutions of young people. But while I had a group of close friends, I never divulged a thing about my mother. Not that I feared my friends would shun me, but I was loathed to instigate any unfavorable opinions about my family. Little did I know that my mother’s condition was already the height of gossip all the way to New York; I assumed, in my naivete, that because she was tucked away in an upstairs bedroom, she was naturally shielded from the world. I did not realize that secrets were inadvertently leaked, servants talked, and word spread faster than galloping horses.
One night in mid-summer, only a few weeks after I returned home, I awoke to yet another fit of screaming. It had pulled me out of a pleasant dream, and I wrapped my pillow around my ears, trying to return to sleep. But then there came another scream, a different voice. It sounded like the night nurse, Helena. This was a new development and, with a strange sense of foreboding, I leapt from my bed and hurried down the hall. What I came upon is almost too terrible to describe, but as it is essential to my tale, I will make an attempt. I found Helena, her hands clapped to her mouth, the front of her shift covered in blood. My father was slumped on the floor holding my mother’s limp, crimson body, rocking her back and forth. Blood streamed from a deep wound in the side of her neck, flowed down her arm, and pooled next to a letter opener on the floor. That was all I saw before I was spun around and rushed back down the hallway by the head housekeeper. She closed me into my room and I sat on the bed – dazed, but at the same time acutely aware of what I had just seen.
My father, his face wan and wracked with guilt – perhaps for always categorically refusing to place my mother in a “barbaric” institution – called me into his study the day after the funeral. The service had been a hushed-up affair, so as not to incite any worse speculation about crazy Caroline Lancater drowning in her own blood. My father sat behind his desk, his hands folded as though in prayer.
“Sit down, Marie.”
I sat, feeling as though we were about to discuss politics, or the sale of a prized horse.
“This is an unfortunate situation with your mother,” he said. His eyes were rimmed with red, and I was not sure whether it was due to crying, exhaustion, or merely an excess of brandy. “Word has spread, and I fear the Lancater name may be irreparably damaged. I fear for your future.” He rubbed his eyes with his short, think fingers. “It would be wise to absent ourselves from New York until this passes. I am going to stay with your Uncle Edward in London for a few months, and then perhaps find a quiet place to reside on the Continent. Your Uncle Ralph and Aunt Victoria have offered to take you in.” My father looked not at me, but at his hands. In his own, gentle way, he was abandoning me. He was, and would always be, a man unto himself, who would grieve in Italy or France, without the hindrance of an unmarried daughter. I nodded stiffly.
“Yes, father. I understand.”
I had to learn to grieve for my mother in my own way. We had never been close; I had always spent far more time with any given governess than with her. I was not sure how sad I was supposed to feel, and was constantly worried that I was not sad enough. Perhaps the grief would come later, at an unexpected time; perhaps walking in the park one day I would see a girl and her mother together, and be suddenly overcome with emotion. For the time being, however, I adorned myself in black (which was to be my signature color for the next nine months) and abstained from the parties and jaunts that were becoming commonplace for other North Haven graduates.
A week later I stepped into the coach upon which my belongings, so recently unpacked from school, had been reloaded. I sat stiff-backed against the velvet seat, across from my father who said little during the journey.
Uncle Ralph and Aunt Victoria lived on an estate in Rhode Island called Tullemont. It was well after sunset when we clattered through the gate and up the long carriageway. I could see little of the grounds, but the enormity of the house was unmistakable; its white stone glowed in the darkness like a specter. We were shown inside by a bustling maid, and greeted by my aunt and uncle.
Aunt Victoria was my father’s sister, a plump, wide-eyed woman who often seemed more like a confused adolescent than the lady of a fine house. She would constantly check and double-check her dress, her hair, the table layout, the menu, the decor. Her hands fluttered about her face when she spoke, and her feet often tapped anxiously under her waterfall of skirts. More than once Uncle Ralph would bark, “What is that incessant noise?” and the tapping would stop.
Uncle Ralph was a man of modest stature, but he possessed a strong voice and stronger ambitions. He was frighteningly nouveau, but had vaulted into society by marrying a Lancater, and while my father was content to sit on his respective fortune, Uncle Ralph was a shrewd businessman, always working to turn money into more money. And (although it is vulgar to speak of such things) by the time I arrived to live with them, he had vaster wealth than any of us.
Despite the size and comfort of my bed, I slept fitfully that first night. I kept seeing flashes of red and hearing shrieking in my dreams, but the silence to which I jolted awake in the middle of the night mere
ly served as a reminder that I would never hear my mother’s voice again. I was then quite suddenly engulfed in a sadness which sat oppressively upon me until I returned to sleep. But of course, I could tell no one about it. Although it was perfectly natural that I should feel upset for a time, I could do nothing that would indicate I might be following in my mother’s grisly footsteps. Not a gasp, not a sigh, not a tear. I had to be stoic and well-mannered at all times, especially since, when my mourning period ended, my search for a husband would begin.
The pleasant fall weather, complete with its breathtaking foliage, soon gave way to winter’s chill. My father sent sporadic letters from France, where he had taken up residence in Cannes. He was recuperating, he said, but would not be back before spring at the earliest.
I sat in the