Mr. and Mrs. Turner followed the lanky porter who struggled with their luggage down the narrow aisle-way. Whistles and shouts could be heard from outside the passenger car windows that had fogged over from the misty marine air. Only a few passengers were scattered about the car, newspapers ruffling on the laps of the male ones, and teacups clinking against their saucers in the hands of the females. No conversations bubbled. No children giggled. Perhaps it was the sudden turn in the weather that had mellowed everyone’s spirits. Or perhaps those aboard the train could sense that something terrible had befallen the Turners, their silence a show of respect to the somber young couple dressed all in black.
It was just one week ago that the Turners had arrived in Cornwall. It was their annual tradition with their close friends, the Carters and the Dunbergs, to spend the summer at a splendid manor overlooking the sea. The holiday never failed to refresh the spirits of everyone in the party. Which was why Mrs. Turner was always so insistent that they go, knowing it would do her husband a great deal of good. Although this summer, the trip was cut tragically short.
Now, it was back home to Bath.
Mrs. Turner took advantage of the many open seats in the car by seating herself on the green upholstered bench across from her husband instead of beside him. While she slipped off her black lace gloves which she slid inside her reticule, Mr. Turner, who had not bothered to remove his bowler hat, stared out at the railway platform, his fingers tapping wildly against his knees.
“Is everything all right, darling?” Mrs. Turner asked him.
The tapping of his fingers continued and her question left unanswered. A moment later the train lurched forward. Mrs. Turner joined her husband in gazing out the window, and both watched the platform slide away from view. The train chugged along the tracks, out into the sprawling countryside that was masked by the thick white fog. Only some trees growing near the tracks were visible. Everything beyond, including the sea, would never be seen again by the Turners until the following summer. That is, if they ever returned.
“A terrible, terrible, thing,” Mr. Turner muttered under his breath.
“What was that, darling?” his wife asked.
His eyes darted from the window to her. “The boy. Whatever else?”
Mrs. Turner nodded. “I’m sorry, darling. I only didn’t hear you,” she replied coolly.
“A terrible way to die, falling from a balcony. His parents are beside themselves.”
“I know, darling,” she answered, closing her eyes. “I was there.”
“Indeed.” The finger tapping grew even more furious. Only now, instead of looking out the window, he stared straight at his wife, an all too familiar wild look in his eye. “I know you were there.”
A long pause extended between the couple, with no other sound besides the rumbling of the train. Mrs. Turner gulped.
“What are you saying, my dear?”
Her husband leaned forward, so closely she could see some crumbs in his black moustache from his morning biscuits.
“I know it was you,” he said. “I know you killed him.”
Mrs. Turner had to look away upon hearing this. Her chest rose and fell in a fashion of someone who was finding breathing difficult. She looked out to the other passengers who were completely oblivious to the quiet murmurings between the married couple.
She turned back to Mr. Turner a second later with a sharp intake of breath. “The Carter boy fell, as you said,” she insisted. “It was an accident.”
Mr. Turner’s right eye twitched, whenever it did when he thought he was being lied to. “I saw the body. That was no accident. The boy was pushed.”
“You do realize what you are accusing me of, darling?” she asked him, speaking barely above a whisper. “Murder.”
“Yes, something I know you are perfectly capable of.”
Mrs. Turner brought a hand to her lips. Her eyes grew red and moist. “Could I please have some tea?” she asked another porter who was passing them by.
“Certainly, ma’am.”
A cup of steaming black tea was brought, and Mrs. Turner brought it to her mouth with a shaking hand. All the while Mr. Turner kept his eyes fixed on his wife, watching her every move.
“Why don’t you take a nap, my darling?” she suggested. “You’re not yourself at the moment.”
“You cannot fool me, Jane. I know perfectly well the kind of woman you are.”
Mrs. Turner set the cup back in its saucer with more force than she meant to, causing a loud clash that turned the head of the man seated closest to them.
“Please, stop,” she begged Mr. Turner. “You must realize what a story like this could do to me. It’s not like the other rumors you spread about me, like how I enjoy taunting our servants, or that I put my sewing needles in your shoes. Or worst of all,” she closed her eyes once more, “that I snuck worms into the pies I brought to the orphanage. I can’t show my face there ever again, and you know how much I loved serving there.”
“You say they’re only rumors, but I know them to be true.”
Mrs. Turner pressed her lips together. “No, my darling. I know you may think they are, but they’re not. You must remind yourself of that, because people believe what you say. Your rumors are never so wild for someone not to believe them. And who would not believe a gentleman such as yourself? But your words have cost me a great deal. My reputation will never be what it once was.”
“Don’t try to deceive me, woman,” he growled. “I see you for what you really are.”
“Richard. Please.” She gave a look around the train before reaching out to him, clutching his hand and giving it a squeeze. She sighed. “Remember five years ago after we were married, how happy we were? You called me your angel, spoiled me with all sorts of gifts, and wrote songs for me on the piano. You loved me once.” She smiled, but it quickly faded. “Before your deluded mind convinced me I was some sort of monster.”
He retracted his hand at once. “How dare you. You think I’m imagining all of this?”
“I know you are, my darling,” she said. “And it pains me to see it because I love you too, so very much. You’ve suffered a shock. I see that the boy’s death has triggered the greatest delusion of them all. But you must put this to rest, and never speak a word of it to anyone.
You’ve dropped enough vile little crumbs about me to others in recent years, that when lumped all together might frame me as the sort of person capable of such an atrocity. But I did not kill that boy. No one saw him fall, this is true. But I would never do such a thing.”
She sensed by his cold, penetrating stare that her words had come out of her mouth and perhaps fallen down onto the carpet, not making it across the aisle to the man sitting across from her. Not sinking deep into his heart, causing him to see sense like she so hoped.
“It is the husband’s words that are always viewed as truth,” she reminded him. “So let’s never speak of this again. Let’s return home and try our best to refresh our minds, and to recover from this most tragic event. Hopefully soon this will all be behind us.”
This time it was Mr. Turner’s left eye that twitched.
“It’s too late, Jane. For I have already told someone.” He reached out, clamping his hand around her petite wrist. “Just yesterday I placed a telephone call to the head of a mental asylum in Bristol, informing him of my suspicions. Together, we came to the conclusion that you be brought there immediately to receive the treatment that such a demented person as yourself requires.”
Mrs. Turner tried to pull away her hand. But her husband simply gripped it tighter and gave it a twist.
“That is where we’re headed now, Jane. Not home to Bath. I pray that this institution to which I’m sending you can cure you of the wickedness that runs so deeply inside you.”
“But it’s not me that needs to be cured!” she cried. Now the attention of every passenger was directed toward them. “My love, it’s you that needs help. Please, believe me. I would never lie to you.”
“Enough talking,” he ordered. “You should be thanking me. I know the rest of society will for helping to lock away a depraved madwoman keen on harming others.”
Mrs. Turner’s face turned the starkest of whites. Those watching this scene play out between the man and his wife knew not what to think. Mouths were agape with horror at the words which were being spoken at a volume loud enough for all in the car to hear. But there was nothing anyone could do aside from whisper amongst themselves.
Mrs. Turner herself could not have been in a more helpless position. With every second that passed, the train was barreling closer to her new fate decided by her husband. All she could do was remain seated in obvious distress.
When finally the train came to a stop several hours later at a station Mrs. Turner did not recognize, Mr. Turner stood, keeping his wife’s wrist in the firmest of grips. There it remained as he escorted her off the train.
The passengers who stayed seated watched them go, and were quite unable to keep themselves from continuing to observe them on the platform from the windows. At first the wife appeared docile and compliant. But a closer look at her face would have allowed them to see the look of fierce indecision in her eyes.
Gasps filled the car when a moment later, the passengers saw with a violent yank, the wife tearing herself away from her husband and gathering her skirts. Then, she ran.
“Jane!” they heard her husband shout after her, his voice muffled through the glass.
“Oh dear, she’s very clearly lost her mind,” a passenger observed, shaking his head with pity.
“A terrible thing,” the man next to him replied.
“Yes, a terrible, terrible thing,” spoke another.
Mr. Turner paid no attention to the noses pressed against the windows watching this scene transpire. His eyes were on his wife who was racing away from him at a desperate speed.
Let her go, a soft voice he so rarely heard anymore urged him. Let her be free.
But the voice was quickly silenced by another. It rang inside his head, almost as if someone was standing beside him and screaming into his ear. No, stop her!
Pounding could be heard on the train windows, its passengers also compelling him to chase after her through such animated gestures that the entire car was shaking. The train whistled, signaling its departure.
She’s wicked. A demon, the voice insisted. A murderer!
The fuse was lit. The other voice won. His wife was growing smaller and smaller in the distance, but he could still catch her.
He took a step but let out a most vile curse word when his body was suddenly jerked sideways.
“Oh, I beg your pardon!”
A young woman who was part of a passing throng placed her gloved hand onto his arm, but let out a yelp when Mr. Turner grabbed it and twisted it.
“Have you no care where you walk?” he snarled.
Gasps rippled from the surrounding crowd as they who bore witness to this most alarming act by what looked to be a respectable gentleman.
Surely no one could believe their eyes when this gentleman proceeded to shove the woman off the platform, and onto the tracks of the now-departing train.
*****
Kelsie Thorschmidt is an emerging writer whose work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review. She recently graduated from Southern New Hampshire University with an MA in English & Creative Writing. She is now a middle school Language Arts teacher in Portland, Oregon.
