#i don't know exactly how to tag for 'historical mental health language'

[little-peril-stories]

The Queen of Lies: Her Speech is Nothing

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Contains: outdated/problematic/ableist language, icky gender and power dynamics, asylum, death mention, lady whump, betrayal, generally uncomfortable medical setting, statements by the antagonist that allude to sexual assault and fall into both ableism and victim-blaming

Please heed the warnings!

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Word count: 3000 || Approx reading time: 12 mins

Her Speech is Nothing

Teaser: After the darkness of the carriage, it was bright outside despite the lack of sun and the still-falling drizzle, and Bree blinked as her eyes adjusted. Something twisted in her stomach when she realized they were not where she expected. “Where are we?”

Baden spoke quietly to Dr. Gysborne, and Bree didn’t listen.

He brought her back outside, and she let him.

He did not tell her where they were going when he helped her into a carriage, and she didn’t care.

What difference did it make, anyway? She knew where they were going. He would take her back to the house, and she’d be his pretty possession once again, and unless she could find another way out, everything she’d done to escape her fate as Baden Hatchett’s wife would mean absolutely nothing.

The city rolled past, grim and soaked with rain. In a motion stiff and hurried, Baden tugged the curtains closed, concealing the world outside behind a bulwark of maroon velvet. With nothing to look at, Bree leaned against the wall and pretended to sleep. The minutes dragged on, poisoning every thought with guilt and sorrow.

She tried not to think of Jamie, who had to be cursing her very name—she, the silly girl he’d worked for so many years ago, grown into the silly woman who’d ruined his life and his brother’s. And Colette and Geoff? They must be cursing her, too, especially Geoff, for she’d seen the way he and Jamie looked at each other, the way their hands entwined whenever they were at rest.

It took all her self-control not to open her eyes and peer down at her own empty hands and think of the fingers that should have been laced with hers.

No matter how she tried, she could not banish Will from her thoughts.

Will, and how he must be hurting. How he must resent her, too.

“All right, Breanna. Let’s go.”

She opened her eyes. The carriage had stopped, and Baden was holding out his hand.

With no other choice, she accepted it.

After the darkness of the carriage, it was bright outside despite the lack of sun and the still-falling drizzle, and Bree blinked as her eyes adjusted. Something twisted in her stomach when she realized they were not where she expected. “Where are we?”

It seemed for several long moments that Baden would not answer.

“We’re at the hospital,” he said, pulling her forward. “Were you not listening? Gysborne suggested I take you to another doctor. To ensure you’re well enough to…” He paused. “Return.”

“I feel fine,” she said, although it was perhaps the most blatant lie she had ever told. “I want to go back. I only want to rest. I want to go home.”

Home. Bree felt sick. Home was not that cold and draughty manor with its locked windows and doors. Home could not be found in a four-poster bed shared with a man who didn’t want to be there, either.

Home was a tiny townhouse with thin, warped windows and uneven floors. Home was sunlight streaming through too-old curtains and mingling with the earthy-scented steam of freshly brewed tea. Home was a warm hand in hers, worn books with the pages falling out, generous laughter, and happiness like she had never known before.

Home was Will.

But, she tried to comfort herself, the sooner she made it back to the house she’d once called “home,” the sooner she might make it back out.

“I am concerned, and I want you to be well,” said Baden, his fingers crawling to her upper arm. “Come along.”

The hospital was almost pleasing to look at, rather like a house: a sprawling manor with glass windows and lovely, old trees dotting its grounds, tendrils of ivy swirling up the red-brick walls. On a sunny day, in the brilliance of summer, it might have looked homely. Welcoming.

Today, in the autumn gloom, it seemed to Bree like the nightmarish, haunted building of a Gothic novel; there was something insidious about the dim light, the choking ivy, the dead leaves scattered on the ground, the bare branches scraping at the air. Something about the shadows and the rain created the impression of bars over the windows—almost as if they had not left the prison at all.

“Good afternoon, doctor.” With a curt nod, Baden greeted the man waiting for them. Behind him, in the doorway, stood a nurse in a stiff white cap.

“Where are we? Which hospital?” she pressed. A sensation like thousands of tiny legs crawling over the back of her neck made her shiver with unease. “Baden, tell me, please—”

“Thank you for being so accommodating,” Baden said to the gentleman, shaking her into silence, “on such short notice. I would like you to examine my wife, Mrs. Hatchett. I have an initial report from Dr. Bernard Gysborne.”

Now there were two of them: the older doctor with cold blue eyes and a red beard peppered with silver, and a younger one with dark hair and a pale complexion. He was silent, watching Bree with a mixture of wariness and pity.

“Of course, Constable Hatchett,” said the older doctor. “I’m Dr. Richards. Please, come inside, out of the rain.”

“Baden,” Bree said, her heart pounding, although she did not know why it protested so, “I want to go home. Please. Now.”

But Baden said, “Once I am convinced of your good health, Breanna.”

“I’m not hurt,” she said, pulling away from the door. “You heard what Dr. Gysborne said. The cut is healing. Please. Let’s go.”

He jolted her forward with an impatient sigh. “Come along.” As they crossed the threshold, the wind began to howl outside, and the rain began to fall in a violent barrage once again. “This is for your own good.”

So he said, yet this examination seemed much the same as Gysborne’s. In a bleakly lit room lined with dusty wooden panels, the younger doctor, whose name Bree had missed, checked her breathing, her heartbeat, her eyesight, and her healing arm, while Dr. Richards asked a series of irritating questions that all had obvious answers—her name, her age, what had happened to her. It seemed to Bree he might have known if he’d simply read Mr. Gysborne’s report. There were a few others, though, that puzzled her: And what is your husband’s name? Where do you live? In what country do we live? What year is it?

“I’ve already been through this,” she said when her patience was wearing thin. By the desk, the doctors spoke quietly to the nurse. She could not hear what they said. “Baden, just show them Dr. Gysborne’s report. He already did these tests. Please, I’m—I’m so tired—I just—”

A crackle of paper had her lifting her head in surprise. Baden had listened; he had done as she said. For once, he had obeyed her.

Dr. Richards scanned the report with a frown.

“This seems insufficient evidence,” said the dark-haired doctor, peering over the elder one’s shoulder. “One prison medical officer’s quick assessment hardly seems adequate reason to—”

“You don’t understand,” said Baden harshly. “It’s much more than what is written here. You want evidence? You shall have plenty.” When he looked at Bree, she quailed again, her mouth going dry when she beheld the grey fire in his eyes. “Ask anyone who has witnessed her behaviour these recent weeks. Even before she was abducted. She forged my signature to join some silly women’s society—yet never once mentioned it to me, never even asked. She repeatedly, illicitly entered the prison under false pretences to visit a known criminal with whom, as far as any of us know, she had never had any contact before. And not just to visit him, but to enter his cell and care for him like she fancied herself some sort of nurse. She was caught, of course, and could not give a single good reason for why she did it.”

“Baden,” Bree whispered, a dreadful sense of cold settling over her body. “Why are you telling them all—”

“The housekeeper reported she wasn’t sleeping and was speaking and behaving strangely. She sent a letter filled with sheer nonsense to one of her friends, feigning a need to prepare for a visit from some fictitious cousin. She lied to me and my superior. She stole a set of keys from a constable. And she helped that blasted criminal escape.”

Dr. Richards gaped at Bree in horror, while the younger doctor’s face turned a brilliant shade of red.

“She was seen in men’s clothing, gallivanting around town and fleeing from those who tried to help her, and when we found her again today—just look at this!” He took hold of her arms and wrenched them both upwards, displaying the cut and the Iustitia aecum emblem.

Bree tried to jerk out of his grasp, to no avail. “Baden, what—”

“And this!” Releasing her arms, he forcibly tilted her chin up to expose the bruise, that scarlet letter on her neck that she should have known would spell her doom—the evidence of her infidelity, illuminated for these two strange men who now would not take their eyes off her.

Mortified, Bree jerked from his grasp and leapt to her feet.

But Baden was quick and strong as he always was; he apprehended her easily. As the nurse darted to block the door, Bree cried out, struggling to fight Baden’s grip while he held her still. No one else seemed to realize that Baden was clenching her tightly enough to hurt.

“Does any of that,” Baden snarled, his grip constricting even more as he pointed at the bruise on her throat, “sound like the behaviour of a sane person? Would a woman in her right mind let such a beast defile her in this way?”

Bree’s vision went, for an instant, pitch-black.

“It is clear to me,” Baden said, letting go only long enough to spin her around and force her to face him, “that you are very ill, Breanna, and I cannot help you through whatever hysteria you are presently suffering through.”

“Hysteria?” she repeated, as black spots threatened to eat away at her consciousness again.

“The lies. The sneaking around. The forged signature. Running away. The marks that bastard left on you.” Without warning, he let go. “Everyone agrees that you have been out of sorts. Officer Lenton. Mrs. Dennison. Your friends, even the silly one married to the soldier who tried to cover for you—even she was swayed in the end. It cannot be denied that you are unwell. And dangerously so.”

“Dangerously so…” she echoed. “What are you saying, Baden?”

“I am saying…” he began, his voice tight. No emotion leaked through now; he’d locked it away behind its usual frigid barricade. “I’m saying that you need help that I cannot provide, but I cannot trust you in our home, nor can I, despite all you’ve done, have my wife as an inmate in my prison.” He swallowed, every muscle rigid, his throat bobbing. “You have left me no choice.”

It sank in.

“No, Baden, please don’t do this.” Bree’s eyes finally took in what was all around her, what she had missed because she hadn’t been paying attention: boxes and papers stamped with three letters: G.I.A.

She looked frantically around again, seeking the answer.

Greyhurst Insane Asylum.

“You can’t leave me here!” she gasped.

“I can, and I will.” He shook his head. “You expect me to leave you in our house unsupervised? What will you do next? What will I come home to? A pile of ash and rubble? A corpse? A gang of thieves planning their next heist in my sitting room? No. I can’t. You’ve humiliated me, and perhaps you did not know what you were doing. In fact, I’m quite certain you did not. But all trust between us is gone.”

“Don’t,” she begged. “I’m not—I’m not mad.”

“Then explain yourself!”

Bree shook him off, and when, to her surprise, he let go, she backed away. “You’re just going to lock me away? I’m your wife! And I’m perfectly sane! How could you?”

“Do you see this?” Hatchett said, gesturing furiously as she tried to run, only to find herself immediately detained in the arms of the younger doctor. “Do you hear this? How she denies her mental infirmity? How she defies me at every turn? My wife has completely lost her senses.”

“You can’t do this to me!” she gasped, trying to wrench herself free of the doctor. “I’m—not—I’m not—ill!”

“The injury,” Baden said, pointing at her arm. “She did that to herself.”

Time seemed to freeze.

No. No. He couldn’t be saying that—couldn’t be using her own lie against her.

“Perhaps a straitjacket would be best?” Dr. Richards mused, utterly calm while Bree’s world crumbled around her. He rummaged in his leather bag for something Bree couldn’t see. “If she’s a danger to herself? Nurse Dugford, if you please—”

A straitjacket. One of those—god, one of those wicked contraptions they made poor, unfortunate folks wear that bound their arms—

“No!”

Bree’s shriek sliced through the air. Even Baden took a step back upon hearing the terror in her voice.

“I lied,” she said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t cut my arm.”

Baden watched her, face impassive.

“He did it to me,” she choked, letting her limbs end their struggles, letting her body surrender alongside her resolve. As she gave her husband the story he wanted to hear. The only one he would believe. “It was him. He hurt me.”

“I knew it,” Baden breathed. His eyes flashed. “Why did you lie? Why do you insist on protecting him? After all he’s done?” He took a step toward her again. “What is he to you?”

Bree began to sob. How could he ask her that? For words she could not say, for an answer she could not give?

Her legs gave out beneath her, forcing the young doctor to cautiously release her. “Nothing,” she said. The word hurt. “He’s nothing to me. I was just afraid.”

Baden flung his hands into the air. “Nothing she says makes a whit of sense. This is the third story she’s given today to explain the cut. First, it was a pair of strange boys. Then she cut her own arm. Now, she didn’t.” His breath, too, was rapid. “He means nothing to her, but she lies and lies, all to save his sorry soul from the gallows.”

Gallows.

The gallows.

“The—what?”

But Baden ignored her, as if he hadn’t shattered her completely with that single word. But it was wrong—that word was wrong. What would Will’s sentence have been if she hadn’t helped him escape? Labour. Prison. Some other miserable, drawn-out fate.

Execution was never supposed to be the end of his story. Never.

What did he do to you?

He made good on his threats, didn’t he?

Would a woman in her right mind let such a beast defile her in this way?

No matter what she said, no matter what she did, Baden would only believe that Will had taken her by force in every sense of the word. And that was a crime a man like Baden Hatchett would never let slide. Not against his property.

A crime for which Will was now sentenced to pay the ultimate price.

You did this. A smug, sneering voice sang out from the recesses of her psyche, vindicated in every accusation that had hovered half-hidden in her thoughts from the first time she and Will kissed. No, even before. Long before—but she had buried them deep. You couldn’t stay away. You couldn’t keep your ridiculous whims to yourself. Couldn’t keep your legs closed. Couldn’t help yourself, and for what? Now, once Baden gets his hands on him, he’s dead.

Dead.

“You can’t do this!” Each word burst forth as if it might rend a hole in her very chest. “You can’t. He didn’t—he wasn’t—and I’m—Baden, please, you must listen, I’m not mad, and—and you can’t—you can’t—”

Will, dead, for being a thief. For stealing her away, for hurting her, for committing other atrocious crimes Bree knew he would never, never even think of.

And she, locked up for her lies.

“You will find,” said Baden coldly, “that everything which has transpired today is well within my rights under the law.” He pointed toward the paper still clutched in Dr. Richards’ hand. “Two signatures, superintendent approval, and reasonable evidence to make a charge.” His gaze grew even colder. “Entirely lawful, as a constable and as your husband. And so you will remain here at Greyhurst until you are deemed ready to be in society again.”

“But you can’t,” she said. “I’m not insane. I’m not.”

Will, dead, for daring to look at Constable’s Hatchett’s wife. For being the only person Bree had ever seen stand up to her husband.

She, locked up for loving him from the very start.

Baden said, “Yes, you are. But you will get better. In time.”

Will was dead, and she was the one who had killed him.

Like an arrow nocked and fired, her last and most abhorrent lie had sealed his fate.

Now, Baden would lock her away, hide her treachery, infidelity, and insanity from the world, so she could never, ever make it right.

Bree could only watch in horror as Dr. Richards, who was no mere doctor but the superintendent of the asylum, signed his name alongside Gysborne’s. As he beckoned the dark-haired doctor to do the same. As Baden took the pen and added his own signature, then wrote a final name that belonged to none of them. When Dr. Richards read the document out loud, Bree found she could not move a single muscle, even as her mind screamed and screamed and screamed.

“We, B. Gysborne and A.A. Dale, certified medical doctors, attest that we are graduates and practitioners of medicine; that at the request and in the presence of Medical Superintendent G. A. Richards, we have carefully examined Breanna Hatchett in reference to the charge of insanity made by Constable B. Hatchett and find that she is insane, and by reason of said insanity should be confined forthwith to a medical facility until it is determined that her mental infirmity has been cured.”

End note: If you are very uncomfortable with the asylum/mental health setting: Ch. 27 is from Will's POV so it's only discussed/mentioned, and the last chapter taking place there will be Ch. 29, although it will be mentioned pretty regularly after that.

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