“I’ll take you to that room,” Mrs. Vance said. “It’s a very nice room. And you would have it all to yourself, not like in the dormitory you sleep in now.”
Liddy nodded and went upstairs holding Mrs. Vance’s hand while Julia helped a weeping Cecilia slowly climb the stairs.
“What is going on?” demanded Matron. She squinted at Cecilia as she and Julia came up the last few steps.
A door suddenly slammed. They heard people running and Dr. Worcham shouting.
Miss Dorn came screeching down the hall in her nightgown. She ran up the staircase toward them, saw them at the top ofthe stairs and turned to run the other way. Cecilia dropped her plaintive pose and hurried after her. “Miss Dorn!” she called out.
Julia followed after her. Liddy pulled free of Mrs. Vance’s hand to stand by the banister and look down into the hall below.
Cecilia grabbed Miss Dorn’s arm, pulling her about, causing Miss Dorn to stumble and fall. Liddy cheered, clapped, and jumped up and down with Mrs. Vance smiling and clapping behind her. “Well done!” she crowed. Miss Dorn fought Cecilia, until Julia joined in, holding her. Miss Dorn collapsed and started crying.
“My word,” uttered Matron. She started down the stairs.
Dr. Worcham ran into the main hall from where Cecilia and the others had been earlier. His hair stood in wild disarray, his banyan hung off one shoulder, the sleeve ripped. Mrs. Worcham ran after him.
“Thaddeus! You were wonderful!” his wife cried, her eyes shining through tears.
He ignored her as he went to recover Miss Dorn from Julia and Cecilia.
Julia and Cecilia let go of her and made a show of brushing off their dresses in attitudes of feigned nonchalance. But when they looked at each other, they couldn’t help but giggle.
“Miss Dorn? What were you about?” asked Dr. Worcham gently.
Miss Dorn’s crying had turned to hiccups. “I just want a ba-baby,” the poor woman said.
He sighed.
Suddenly, Cecilia felt like the lowest fiend for capturing her. Miss Dorn was not well. Her obsession drove her into the arms of any man who would service her.
Matron now came rapidly down the stairs. “I’ll take her to the kitchen to have some warm milk, and I’ll watch after her,” she said.
“Thank you, Matron,” Dr. Worcham said. “I need to deal with the miscreant who thought to take advantage of a patient. I’ll join you when I finish with him!”
He then turned to look between Julia, Cecilia, Mrs. Vance, and his wife. “I understand you all thought to search Mr. Montgomery’s room. I’ll do better than that. I’ll let you all clean it in the morning. For now, return to your rooms. I need to deal with Mr. Turnbull-Minchin.”
“You captured him? He didn’t get away?” said Cecilia.
“How far and fast can a man with pants around his ankles run?” Dr. Worcham said sarcastically. “He’s locked in a treatment room. Those are the only room for which he doesn’t have keys.”
“What are you going to do with him?” Julia ventured to ask.
“I don’t know,” he said heavily.
Cecilia cameout of her room in the morning to find Liddy humming to herself and dancing. She still wore her nightgown as her day clothes were in her dormitory living space. Her dark hair was in a wild, tangled disarray. The child appeared so cheerful that Cecilia had to smile.
“Did you sleep well, Liddy?” Cecilia asked.
“Yes. The bed was soft like my bed back home,” she said, skipping over to Cecilia. She grabbed Cecilia’s hand and started to swing it.
“Tell me about your home,” Cecilia prompted.
“I had a pony. I called her Bluebell. I like bluebells.”
“So do I.”
“Papa took me with him sometimes when he visited the home farm and tenant farms, and I did not have to wear that awful cream on my face Mama made me wear in company. Yuck.”
