Page 35 of Strangers in Time

B REATHLESS

T HE DAY WAS NEARLY done when Molly finally sat up in her bed with her cheeks stained reddish pink, her hair matted to her head, and her breathing sickeningly lopsided. She felt slow, feverish, and doddering, as though an illness had overtaken her. Mrs. Pride had knocked on the door several times, but Molly had simply not answered, and finally her old nanny had gone on her way. And then Molly had fallen asleep, apparently from mental exhaustion.

You must get a hold of yourself, Molly, because what good does crying ever do?

Ignoring the ache in her belly and head, for she’d had nothing to eat all day, she opened the letter from the sanatorium in Cornwall. The stationery was peculiarly stiff, and Molly thought she could detect an odd chemical odor from within its folds.

The letter was addressed to her father, Herbert James Wakefield.

The words were stark and antiseptic, constituting a blunt assessment of her mother’s condition. The author of the letter was Dr. Thaddeus P. Stephens. It was his decided medical opinion that Eloise Mary Wakefield was suffering from an acute anxiety neurosis. But Dr. Stephens felt that with certain treatments her prognosis might improve. Stephens did not say precisely what the treatments were, but he did bandy about certain abstruse medical terms.

Molly needed to see the other, more recent letters from Dr. Stephens to which Mrs. Pride had referred. And she also needed something to eat. She had never been without food this long. As she washed her face at the bathroom tap and smoothed out her hair, Molly looked in the glass above and, in her mind’s eye, she saw a much older woman there. She went downstairs, her hand holding tightly to the banister, as she still felt wobbly in her legs.

“Mrs. Pride?” she called out.

To her surprise, the woman didn’t answer.

Molly went up the back stairs to Mrs. Pride’s small apartment and knocked. There was no response. She eased the door open and looked inside. The bed was made and no one was there. She ventured to the toilet that was Mrs. Pride’s, but it was empty as well. Molly walked to the kitchen and looked through the pantry. It was quite bare. She opened the icebox and found a slice of bread, some margarine, and cheese. She put the cheese on the bread, placed it on a plate, set the kettle on, and boiled the water, then had her tea and cheese and margarine sandwich at the kitchen table.

After she finished, Molly wondered what to do. Should she search Mrs. Pride’s room for the letters? Or were they perhaps in her father’s study? She hadn’t been in there since she had returned, though it was a room that as a child she had adored. It held shelves of old books and the sweet smells of her father’s strong pipe tobacco and the nuanced aromas wafting from old inkwells. Comfy, cracked leather chairs and a small couch with worn upholstered cushions with images of horses and buggies from another era sat in one corner. The room also had a sturdy fireplace and a decanter of whiskey with glasses on a wooden sideboard with a granite top that, as a little girl, she had dared not touch.

It was her father’s sanctum. It reeked of him.

She had vivid memories of opening the door to that room and seeing her father at his desk writing a letter on crisp, monogrammed paper with his favorite pen, a Conway Stewart trimmed in herringbone with a gold nib. He had allowed her to practice her letters with that very pen. It had felt so wonderful, so important and weighty, in her small grip.

It was then that she heard the latchkey in the kitchen door and looked around in time to see a hatted Mrs. Pride briskly walk in with her market basket.

“Oh, Molly. I thought you’d still be asleep.” When she saw the dirty plate and empty cup on the table she exclaimed, “Oh, luv, please tell me you didn’t prepare a meal for yourself. I went out with the ration books to get the makings for your dinner.”

Though Molly’s stomach was still quite empty, she said, “Oh, that’s all right, Mrs. Pride. I’m quite full up. You can use what you purchased for your meal.”

Mrs. Pride looked at her nervously. “I hope you had a good lie-in. And I’m sorry if… if the things we discussed upset you.”

“They absolutely did upset me. And while I wish you had sent word to me about all of this, I can understand why you might have been hesitant to do so.”

“Well, thank you for saying that, dear.”

“But Father should not have left you in the dark, and without a word to me. And what of Mother? Does she know that he’s gone?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Molly closed her eyes for a moment. She had revered her father all of her life. She had never questioned his judgment about anything. Now she was both hurt and disappointed by him.

Molly opened her eyes. “Now, the other letters from the sanatorium? Could you bring them to me? I’ll be in Father’s study.” It seemed to Molly that she had adopted the tone of the mistress of the house. And she supposed she was now.

But for how much longer?