The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

  And with that, Diary, we arrive at the present. It is the following evening, and I have been using the little silver pencil to tell my story such as you have seen unfold thus far. Writing upon the scraps of black-and-white striped paper torn from my cell walls, I hope to find something more suitable on which to record my entries. No one shall read them, and I do not care—they are not for the world’s blind eyes, but only for yours, Diary, whom I address as a friend, knowing well that you are merely the mirror of myself. No, it is the act of writing that may save me, for through my pencil the story is exorcised; left inside my head, it smothers me. May the future grant us a happier chapter . . .

  Asylum Letter No. XVI

  I did not come face to face with the great Dr. Stockill until I had endured five whole days in the Asylum. I had been installed in Ward A at the top of a dangerously dilapidated staircase for the last three of them, my first two being passed in the dark of Quarantine.

  I had learnt that the young Doctor was most often occupied in his Laboratory, being the Asylum Chemist as well as Head Physician and Superintendent. Most institutions employed an independent chemist who was well below the physician in rank and stature, yet our medical prodigy claimed to elevate chemistry from a profession to an art, and was said to be always at his experiments, making ‘new and useful discoveries’ for which he was both respected and resented amongst his equally ambitious peers.

  As I was led by Madam Mournington to the Doctor’s chamber for the first time, an animal instinct from deep within advised me to run, but my escort gripped my arm with a preternatural strength, sharp, skeletal talons digging into my flesh. The rings ornamenting the fingers of her other hand clicked against the large, tarnished key she held, the same that had opened the Asylum doors to me less than a week earlier. This was the closest view I had yet achieved of the Ward Key; the object had been burnished to a dull sheen, no doubt by our Headmistress’s fastidious claws.

  Down the rickety staircase we went, turning left onto the stark stone landing, and finally arriving at the Medical Floor. Upon reaching the door to the chamber, Madam Mournington tapped lightly, and a silvery voice bade us to enter. I felt an icy draft rush up my legs and under my shift as I stepped across the threshold into a room decorated with such masculine refinement as to be entirely at odds with the deteriorating structure it resided in.

  Dr. Stockill thanked his mother most courteously, and I was left alone with him.

  From behind his desk of richly polished wood, the Doctor tapped his long, tapered fingertips together and looked at me with unmistakable disdain.

  I was unknown to this man—could he dislike me already?

  With studied delicacy, he lifted my commitment form from his desk. The Doctor was quite as elegant as the portrait I had seen mounted so proudly in the Entrance Hall downstairs, though it cannot be denied that he appeared crueler in person; the lines were harsher, and the mouth that I had not felt at ease with in the painting coiled into a sneer as he spoke.

  ‘No one’s head may be higher than the king’s.’

  He did not look up at me, but continued to peruse the document.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sir?’

  ‘Sit!’ he barked.

  I quickly installed myself in a wooden high-backed chair opposite the desk, noting the leather straps hanging loosely from the back of it.

  ‘Emily . . .’ he read. ‘No last name. How quaint.’

  The Doctor’s pattern of speech was unemotional in tone, yet somehow entrancing in its strangeness. I sensed he was not waiting for an answer, and remained silent. He continued to read the document aloud.

  ‘Attempted suicide by leaping into the Thames . . . Insane behaviour indeed, but not very original these days.’

  ‘I’m afraid I had not many options at the time, Sir.’

  He looked up.

  ‘Doctor, if you please. Doctor is superior to sir.’

  ‘I am sorry, Doctor, I was not aware of that.’

  The Doctor glared at me.

  ‘Once again: Attempted suicide by leaping into the Thames, prior to which was physically violent towards Guardian, one Count de Rothsberg . . . Tell me, Emily, do you always aim your hostility so high?’

  ‘I consider my target rather low in this instance, Doctor.’

  ‘Do you? Subsequent to rescue from drowning by fishing boat, stole valuable goods from London merchants. Intent to prostitute. Taken into police custody. Declaration of Insanity signed by both present Guardian (C de R) and previous Guardian, the Unfortunate Girls’ Musical Conservatoire. There. I suppose you have something clever to add to this as well?’

  ‘Indeed, Doctor. I assume by “valuable goods” you are referring to the bit of bread I stole from a baker’s cart. Whilst I doubt that the bun was of irrecompensable value to the baker, I was starving, and so it was quite valuable to me. I had no intent to prostitute myself—that claim is false, and the rest such obvious fiction that I care not to dispute them.’

  ‘You accuse the police of lying?’

  ‘Would I be the first?’

  ‘Tell me, Emily, with no last name . . . do you consider yourself mad?’

  ‘I consider myself considered mad, and that is all that matters.’

  ‘Would it surprise you terribly to know that the Count de Rothsberg is one of the Asylum’s most generous benefactors?’

  ‘Nothing would surprise me terribly, Sir.’

  ‘Doctor.’

  ‘Doctor.’

  ‘Then I suppose you will not be surprised when I inform you that you have been committed to the Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls for a stay of infinite length; there is not a soul who cares to petition for your release.’

  ‘Not at all, Doctor.’

  ‘And, as such a clever girl, you surely realize that, in the eyes of the law, you are a common criminal, and, in my eyes, you are less.’

  ‘A common criminal receives a trial, Doctor, and, if it pleases you, send me back to prison; I would gladly have remained there, as Madam Mournington was made quite aware of at the time—’

  ‘Do not speak of my mother, you filthy thing!’ shouted the Doctor, having turned suddenly fierce and rising from his chair.

  He was terrifically tall, and I imagined that many thought him imposing. I am not yet certain what I think him.

  Turning round to a cabinet behind his desk, Dr. Stockill withdrew a small bottle of green liquid and shook precisely three drops onto his handkerchief. As he did so, I spied an object gleaming from deep within the open cabinet, elaborate designs engraved upon its oblong surface. Having wiped his bloodless hands with the handkerchief, the Doctor soon regained his calm.

  ‘No . . . no, it would not please me to send you back to prison . . .’

  He had gone to the window looking down upon the front courtyard far below; from this view he would be able to see all who came and went from the Asylum.

  ‘It would please me . . . if you would tell me something I have always wanted to know.’

  Dr. Stockill carefully folded the starched white cloth; he had a way of moving his hands that reminded me of a lace maker . . . or a spider.

  ‘I have never understood why someone would willingly choose to die. Can you tell me that?’

  ‘In your own estimation, Doctor, to take one’s own life is madness, in which case it is impossible to explain.’

  ‘I grant you this solitary moment in which to speak freely, and that is all you have to tell me?’

  I chose my words carefully.

  ‘I believe that suicide is most often committed in self-defense, Doctor.’

  There was a lingering silence, and, when the Doctor again spoke, it was with civil detachment. He remained facing the window.

  ‘Get out.’

  Safe upon the other side of the door, I closed my eyes and exhaled for the first time since entering Dr. Stockill’s cha
mber. Then, my arm was seized and I saw that Madam Mournington had been waiting just outside the door for me all the time; she marched me briskly across the Medical Floor and to the right towards the Bloodletting Wing.

  hospital entry 16: what violet said

  I am sitting alone upon the shabby green couch in the Day Room as the other inmates are either maundering about on their own or sitting upon the floor, rocking back and forth whilst watching random game shows on the ancient television set. I am taking advantage of this rare moment of relative solitude in which to write without having to look over my shoulder.

  Violet hobbles in and comes to join me on the couch. I resent this. She doesn’t look at me—she never makes eye contact with anybody, and I wonder what it feels like inside that head of hers. She is staring straight ahead. I try to ignore her, and continue writing my pointless memoirs.

  “They’ll read that when you’re asleep,” Violet mutters.

  “What . . . what did you say?”

  “They’ll read that when you’re asleep,” she repeats.

  “My notebook? Is that what you mean?”

  Violet does not respond.

  “How do you know that, Violet?”

  She stands up and shuffles away.

  “Violet?” I call.

  She doesn’t hear me.

  Suppose the staff does read my notebook when I turn it in at night—the notebook containing my blackest secrets, the past year of my life . . . What happens between the moment I hand it to the nurse in the glass booth and the moment she places it in my closet compartment? Can they do that? Maybe they have to do it. Maybe that’s why they let me have the notebook to begin with—they’re setting me up.

  Asylum Letter No. XVII

  What luck that I should have been allowed the pleasure of an audience with both good Drs. Stockill and Lymer upon the same day!

  Madam Mournington pulled me towards a set of doors bearing a bronze plaque engraved with this inviting title:

  Dr. Francis Lymer: BLOODLETTING

  The doors crashed open from within; two medical assistants emerged carrying between them a girl paler than death. Blood soaked her white shift, and her striped legs were limp as a rag doll’s. The men fumbled and the girl was nearly dropped; how fortunate she was to be unconscious.

  I stood staring down at the drops of blood that had spattered onto the wooden boards, but my mistress had her pincers in my arm, and she forced me onwards.

  I shall describe to you, Diary, the Bloodletting Wing: It is a vast, open room lined with row after row of metal beds set upon wheels. The beds are fitted with thick leather straps and rusty buckles. From the walls hang medical tools of a decidedly medieval appearance.

  How extraordinary, I thought, that a veritable host of diseases can be so easily cured by the draining of the patient’s blood.

  In truth, Diary, it is a miracle! Headache? Too much blood. Melancholy? Impure blood. Misbehaving? Poison in the blood. Fainting from too much bleeding? Bleed some more. Any ailment, real or imagined, is subject to the same treatment, and, in a manner of thinking, I suppose it is ingenious: Bleed a girl to within an inch of her life, and she hasn’t got the strength to cause trouble. Is this how a staff of thirty manages a thousand inmates?

  Dr. Lymer, a rather stout sort of man who was occupied in pounding a bladed chisel—which I have since learnt is called a fleam—into the arm of another inmate, commanded me to wait in a corner of the room over which hung a painted sign:

  LEECHING

  Every bed in the Wing was occupied save one near myself in the Leeching corner; the empty bed was spotted with fresh red stains, presumably having belonged to the girl who had been rushed from the Wing unconscious mere moments ago.

  I had first learnt of leeches and their gruesome purpose upon the day that the Headmistress of the Conservatoire had fallen ill. A doctor had come bearing jars filled with the creatures, and had taken particular delight in dangling them in front of Sachiko and myself, their wriggling bodies dripping with crimson. I was more repulsed by the man than by his insects, and found the entire process highly suspect from the start.

  I had asked him from whence the leeches came.

  ‘These slippery little bloodsuckers begin their lives in your lakes, your swamps—that sort of place. Little boys and little girls, just like you, are sent bare-legged into the water, and there they wait for the leeches to bite into their flesh.’

  At this, Sachiko ran screaming from the room, but I was transfixed.

  Would you like to be a leech-catcher, little girl? You could make a penny a week, you could . . . now show Doctor your legs . . .’

  I shook my head. He had been trying to frighten me, and he had succeeded.

  Amused by my distress, the Doctor invited me to stay as he applied the leeches to the unconscious Headmistress’s chest and throat. The very worst of it was the method by which the Doctor removed the leeches from the old woman’s flesh: He poured salt over their delicate skins. I watched as they recoiled in pain, gushing forth every drop of the blood they had only just swallowed, and writhed in obvious agony as their skins dissolved. I could not sleep for days after.

  Now, it was my turn.

  I was lifted onto the bed by a waiting attendant, that same giant who had first led me to the Asylum by collar and leash; he wore a heavy apron of rough leather, stained with great red blotches. Nobody spoke to me; I was merely another body filled with blood that must come out. A filth-encrusted jar was opened, and the Doctor lifted out a single leech by its tail.

  Naturally, I did not want the leech upon my arm—not because I was afraid of it (though it was a good deal larger than I had expected), but because of the horrific demonstration I had witnessed so long ago.

  Dr. Lymer sent his brute to retrieve a cracked porcelain bowl, and I saw that it was already filled with blood—someone else’s blood. Having selected a prominent blue vein within the inner part of my wrist, the Doctor dipped one of his fat fingers into the bowl and smeared the blood over the area. When I began to struggle, the giant strapped my limbs to the bed, pinning my bloody arm and tethering it beside my face.

  I know what they’re doing, I said to myself. They are trying to break me by making me watch.

  The Doctor approached me with the hapless creature, and I heard myself screaming.

  ‘No, no, no!’ I cried. ‘They’ll kill you! They’ll kill you, you idiot leech!’

  Dr. Lymer nodded to his assistant, who then produced a stiff, yellowed rag and pressed it over my mouth.

  ‘You might feel a little pinch,’ said the Doctor.

  Asylum Letter No. XVIII

  During a girl’s first week in the Asylum, she is sentenced to silent neglect by all inmates of sound mind. Her first bath, her first examination, her first leeching—all will come to her as an excruciating surprise.

  With the passing days, I have begun to realise the purpose of this apparent cruelty: It is a sort of test. Would the new inmate be capable of enduring this hell with even the slightest degree of sanity after a day? Two days? A fortnight? If the poor prisoner seemed still to possess some control over her mind and had not fallen prey to babbling and hysterics, then she would be welcomed, as I have been, into the most exclusive and well-guarded organization within the Asylum: the Striped Stocking Society.

  The S.S.S. is a small and secret consortium consisting of the inmates of intellect, and existing solely for the purpose of keeping each other alive, for we all know that once we lose our wits we will begin to die.

  Asylum Letter No. XIX

  I have been repeatedly awakened by a scratching emanating from somewhere inside the cell wall. I cannot guess what it is, nor can I locate the exact source, except to say that it seems to be coming from within the striped wallpaper directly behind my bed . . .

  I shall report any progress I make towards enlightenment.

  hospit
al entry 17: rat dream

  After waking up at four o’clock in the morning yet again, I tried to go back to sleep, but fidgeted restlessly as I usually do.

  Finally drifting off, I had the strangest dream . . . strange even for me. In it, I was lying upon a bed high up off the ground. From a dark corner of the small, confining room I was in crawled a rat. Much larger than I imagined any rat had a right to be, it moved along the floor next to my bed. A blurred female figure more familiar than I with the comings and goings of the Asylum’s resident rodents entered my cell.

  “What was that?” I asked the figure, whose face I could not make out, just to be certain that my eyes had not deceived me.

  “A rat, of course,” she replied, not at all shocked as another rat of the same size darted from one side of the room to the other, followed by several smaller rats as well as some big as dogs, all seemingly appearing out of nowhere for the solitary purpose of proving their bizarre existence.

  As this extraordinary scene played out, I was hypnotized by what had become a living, bustling carpet of grays and tawny browns, and when a particularly large rat (funny how things become relative so quickly) with sleek white fur and a fawn-colored hood and stripe running down its back scurried to my bedside and raised itself to rest its hands (paws? claws?) on the edge, peering at me and sniffing like a hound, it seemed to me to be utterly natural, and I let the rat inhale me until it had learned whatever secrets I had to hide. When the fawn-colored rat had satisfied itself, away it scampered, and all of this I believed was a dream until I never woke up.

  What is happening to me?

  Asylum Letter No. XX

  I have been an inmate of the Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls close on three months now, and have come to know the following with the utmost certainty: If madness exists here, it does not live behind the bars.