The Broken Hours: A Novel of H. P. Lovecraft (24 page)

I gripped the chunk of gravestone in my overcoat pocket and walked directly to the admittance desk. The nurse there frowned deeply over her typewriter and, when she looked up at my approach, frowned more deeply still. I wondered if I had the visiting hours wrong after all.

She was older than the nurse I’d met on the steps, and thin, with dark hair pinned in tight coils around her sharp face. Her lips were rouged heavily in a cracked, unbecoming color that reminded me of old geraniums.

Good afternoon
, she said, and far from the voice I had been expecting, hers was melodious, silvery.

Good afternoon
, I said.
The nurse I spoke with earlier said visiting hours—

You were here this morning?

Yes, only to drop some letters.

Whom did you speak with?

A nurse, I didn’t get her name. She’s new,
I said.
Three days, I believe. About so tall.

Fat?

Plump
.

That would be Ivy. Did she say her name was Ivy?

She didn’t say her name at all. No, wait—
I recalled the doctor—
it is Ivy. Was Ivy.

But she told you to come back later?

She said visiting hours were this afternoon. Am I mistaken?

And you gave her letters?

Yes, I—

Please wait a moment
, she said, and rose from her chair, walking briskly to a windowed room just behind the reception area. Inside, two nurses and a hunched, aged sister stood flipping through a chart, and when the nurse spoke, they all three looked out at me. They seemed to be in mild disagreement over some matter, and finally the sister, a shrivelled crone of a woman, handed her clipboard to the reception nurse and came out, tapping along on an ivory cane, her black habit buckling with starch. She fixed me with a gaze so rheumy it was impossible to tell what color her eyes might once have been.

Can I help you
, she said.

I hope so
, I said mildly.
As I explained to the nurse, I left some letters this morning—

The sister plunged a hand behind the reception desk, rummaging there blindly until she came up with the envelopes.

Are these your letters?
she asked, looking hard at me. I wondered just how poor her eyesight was, how much she could see.

Why, yes. May I ask—

Who are these letters for?

I noticed then that the seals on both letters had been broken. Someone had opened them, perhaps read them. I suspected it had not been my employer’s mother.

For … Mrs. Lovecraft … ,
I began cautiously.

Mrs. Lovecraft
, she said.
I see.

The reception nurse had followed her back out and waited poised at her chair, watching. In the room beyond, the other two nurses stood at the window. When I looked at them, they turned quickly away.

Is there some problem?
I asked.

Problem? You have brought letters. For Mrs. Lovecraft, you say
. The sister looked sidelong at the nurse.
But, as you must know, we have many patients here, don’t we, Nurse?

Yes, we do.

We want to be sure, of course, that anything left for the patients, flowers, or small gifts, or personal items, or letters, say—
she flapped them and I had the distinct image of a white bird in her clutches, trying to escape—
we would want to make quite certain they are received by the correct patient, would we not, Nurse?

Yes, we would. Ivy said—

That’s quite enough
, the sister said to the nurse, snapping her cane against the desk. I looked down to see that the bottom corner of the desk was pocked with dents. The pink-lipped nurse retreated instantly into her former subordination. It was an impressive power this sister wielded.

Ah,
I said, remembering something Ivy had said that morning.
You must be Sister Clementine?

She looked at first surprised, and then sly, narrowing her eyes and stepping closer.

So
, she said.
You do know me.

Only by reputation
.

I tempered myself. I would, after all, not want to say anything to put the pleasant nurse from that morning, Ivy, in any jeopardy.

And what
, Sister Clementine said,
do you know of my reputation?

See here now,
I said, refusing to be bullied by the woman.
If there’s some confusion, some trouble, I’d appreciate if you’d out with it.

Sister Clementine smiled slowly, revealing remarkably lovely teeth. The contrast, the impossible perfection of those teeth, somehow made her face all the more terrible.

Is it
, she said mildly,
is it, this Mrs. Lovecraft …

Yes?

… is she a relative?

I almost lied. I almost said yes. But at the last moment I caught myself.

Certainly not
, I said.
I am no relation to Mrs. Lovecraft. I am merely delivering letters on behalf of her son.

And yet you’ve come back
, Sister Clementine said.

Yes.

During visiting hours. Clearly you wish to see her, do you not?

On behalf of her son. He is my employer, and … look here, I hardly think this bears explaining to you.

Sister Clementine turned then on the nurse, who stood looking rather terrified.

Make yourself useful
, she commanded, and the nurse was gone.

You see,
she said, watching me closely.
I have some unfortunate news. For your employer.

Has something happened?

You might say that.

I waited, impatiently.

Your employer’s mother, have I got that right?

Yes,
I snapped.

Is dead.

She said it flatly. It was a moment before the meaning, in fact, registered. Sister Clementine seemed to be waiting for me to say something, a very particular thing.

My god. When?

She paused, satisfied, and showed her teeth before responding.

Fifteen years ago
.

I could not sleep for thinking of it.

I rose and paced the room, sat at the desk in lamplight, flipping pages without seeing them. Stretched out on my bed again and, taking up the magazine that had arrived only that morning by post, I tried to read one of the stories, “The Albino Deaths.” I read the same paragraph three times before tossing the magazine to the floor. It lay face up, its cover—a shackled woman in lingerie, crouching in fear before a red-cloaked figure with a whip (the latter, though hooded, looking also distinctively female)—seemed more absurd, more objectionable, than ever. I rose and kicked it under the bed. Then, not liking the thought of it there, got down on my hands and knees and rummaged it out again, throwing it in the trash.

I turned out the light and undressed and stood a long time at the window looking out over the night city. Scarcely a light shone anywhere. Even the asylum, for once, was dark. The thought of it brought the taste of paste wax to my mouth, and the image of Sister Clementine’s milky eyes.

Fifteen years ago. Fifteen years.

I rubbed my own eyes to rid myself of the image of Sister Clementine, then pulled from the bedside table my bottle of aspirin and shook out the last two tablets—had I emptied it so soon?—into my palm. I ground them to powder between my teeth, chucked the bottle into the trash can with the magazine. I lay down on the bed. Thought of Jane. Wondered what, in fact, we would say to one another.

The horror magazine stuck up over the lip of the trash can. “The Albino Deaths.” What rot. Life, in my experience, provides all we need of horror.

I must have slept. The sound of church bells roused me, ringing against the cold windowglass, and I wondered if it was Sunday. I’d lost my grasp on the passing of days, on the most elementary order, as if I had entered some void in which the laws of time and space were meaningless. There was a kind of comfort in such drift, I was aware. The chiming of the church bells ceased.

I lay brooding still over the events of the previous day. I wanted answers, a reasonable explanation to it all, to this mistake. I felt almost certain Sister Clementine was in error. It was too macabre. Too inexplicable. The woman was clearly senile and should have been relieved long ago of her responsibilities there. I felt I must get to the bottom of it all; I did not relish the thought, but I resolved to return to Butler and settle the matter clearly, to demand an audience with my employer’s mother.

As I lay in bed I could hear voices, silvery in the street. A child’s trill and the slamming of automobile doors. How remote it all seemed. How ethereal. The circumnavigatory light of the attic room.

I closed my eyes again, just for a few moments. I was not ready to face it. For if Sister Clementine was not mistaken—but this I did not wish to consider.

2

I rapped for some time at Flossie’s door. But she appeared to have gone out again. The cellar door stood closed, the potted palms in their places, ordinary, as if none of the events from two nights previous had happened. I felt the wound crusted over on my temple. That, at least, was real.

I rapped once more at her door, just to be certain, but there was no answer.

The house was silent around me as I stood with one hand on the opened padlock. The steel felt cool to the touch. I pressed my ear to the door, then got down on my hands and knees and tried to look beneath it, but it was impossible. I could see nothing.

If she did not wish to see me, very well. But surely she did not need to hide herself. I wrote a hasty note inquiring after her health and slipped it under the door, then made my way hurriedly out into the sunlight.

Sister Clementine blinked her eyes in the antique light.

Back again?

She nodded to one of her underlings, dispatching the girl post-haste. I leaned with both hands on the polished desk, firmly.

I’d like to speak with someone in charge, please.

I am in charge.

Then I would like to speak with a doctor.

About Mrs. Lovecraft. Your employer’s mother.

I’m afraid I must insist upon speaking with a doctor.

In fact I’ve already sent for one. Phillips, of course, was her maiden name. When she first came here. Sarah Susan Phillips. She was a maiden once, too,
Sister Clementine said, displaying again those impressive teeth.
They all were.

Sister Clementine,
a voice said sharply behind us.

Ah
, Sister Clementine said.
Here is your doctor.
And disappeared in a slow, stiff flapping of black down the hall.