Mad Alice Lane

Chapter Fifteen

Martha

Isak. All I can do is wait. He has my number, not the other way around, and yet, it has been several days since Evie and I had that conversation, and still no contact. It just proves everything I thought about him. At the very least he knows I lost my baby, and yet, even with my number, he hasn't taken a minute to call me, and see how I am. I've had quite a lot of time to think about him since Evie first brought up his name. I can't believe he didn't leave a number for me to contact him on. The bloody nerve of the man.

I check my phone again but the screen remains resolutely blank. No flashing alerts that I've missed a call or that a text message has been delivered undetected; everything is as it was a few minutes ago. In frustration, I hit the power button, pressing it firmly until the screen goes dark, and carefully place the phone on the coffee table in the hall. There. Now he can't even contact me if he wanted to. Which I doubt he does. Obviously.

Without Evie as transport, or a willing confidante in my mother, I am stuck with scant information about Deepdene, and so, as suggested by Evie, I turn my attention to Alice, but here, once again, I find myself thwarted.

The other day at the library, I was so thrilled to have uncovered her in the local records, and after only a little more searching, I found a double entry: "Joseph s Thomas & Alice Smith of Pg. shoemaker by W.L.", followed by 'Rebecca' of the same. Twins; baptised on July 29 1824.

How overjoyed Alice and Thomas must have felt; their first children, born not long before their first anniversary. Seeing those names had given me renewed energy for my research. If Alice had had children, then perhaps, there might have been a way to sort the fact from the fiction in this story. Perhaps, there might even be living descendants?

Considering the era as well, it was unlikely that these were Alice's only children. Her mother had given birth to an eye-watering thirteen after all. And yet in only one flick of the page my enthusiasm and pleasure were dashed. I had read, "Aug 6 Rebecca Smith of Pg. 1 wk by W.L." Only three entries below, I saw, "Aug 8 Joseph Smith of Pg. 1 wk by W.L." Dreading what I was next to read, a few pages later I came across another entry that made my heart sink, but for different reasons. "Oct 26 Thomas Smith of Pg. 54 by W.L."

Unsure as to whether I could photocopy the delicate pages of the register, I had snuck a photo on my phone, and without even bothering to re-shelf the book, quickly walked from the library and out into the cold air, and not returned since.

"It's so disheartening," I had said, on the phone to Evie, that evening. "Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, the trail goes cold. I was so pleased to see that she'd had children, and then to lose them both so young, and her husband not long after. I wonder what happened. Maybe she did kill him after all."

"Martha, I'm certain that if she murdered her husband, there would be some records of it. I think you can relax on that front."

"But what about the twins?"

"What year did you say it was?"

"Erm, 1824."

"I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure there was a big cholera epidemic around about then."

"Cholera? In York?"

"Well yeah, of course. Living conditions were pretty dire."

"I suppose. It's just, well, I always thought of it as one of those tropical diseases." I hit the search button on my screen. "You're right. Cholera did come to York then, and, let's see," I scrolled down the page. "It says here that it reached its peak in July."