I tell over his pieces, counting. The gold snuffbox, the telescope, the pocket-compass, the pen-knife; the gold watch, the silver spoons that I polished, the candlesticks with the family crest. I Live In Hope. The tartan vest. I don't know where they have gone.
I'm lying on the hard and narrow bed, on the mattress made of coarse ticking, which is what they call the covering of a mattress, though why do they call it that as it is not a clock. The mattress is filled with dry straw that crackles like a fire when I turn over, and when I shift it whispers to me, hush hush. It's dark as a stone in this room, and hot as a roasting heart; if you stare into the darkness with your eyes open you are sure to see something after a time. I hope it will not be flowers. But this is the time they like to grow, the red flowers, the shining red peonies which are like satin, which are like splashes of paint. The soil for them is emptiness, it is empty space and silence. I whisper, Talk to me; because I would rather have talking than the slow gardening that takes place in silence, with the red satin petals dripping down the wall.
I think I sleep.
I'm in the back passage, feeling my way along the wall. I can scarcely see the wallpaper; it used to be green. Here are the stairs going up, here is the bannister. The bedroom door is half open, and I can listen. Bare feet on the red-flower carpet. I know you're hiding from me, come out at once or I'll have to find you and catch you, and when I've got hold of you, then who knows what I will do.
I'm keeping very still behind the door, I can hear my own heart. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
Here I come, I am coming now. You never obey me, you never do what I say, you dirty girl. Now you will have to be punished.
It is not my fault. What can I do now, where can I turn?
You must unlock the door, you must open the window, you must let me in.
Oh look, oh look at all the spilt petals, what have you done?
I think I sleep.
I'm outside, at night. There are the trees, there is the pathway, and the snake fence with half a moon shining, and my bare feet on the gravel. But when I come around to the front of the house, the sun is just going down; and the white pillars of the house are pink, and the white peonies are glowing red in the fading light. My hands are numb, I can't feel the ends of my fingers. There's the smell of fresh meat, coming up from the ground and all around, although I told the butcher we wanted none.
On the palm of my hand there's a disaster. I must have been born with it. I carry it with me wherever I go. When he touched me, the bad luck came off on him.
I think I sleep.
I wake up at cock crow and I know where I am. I'm in the parlour. I'm in the scullery. I'm in the cellar. I'm in my cell, under the coarse prison blanket, which I likely hemmed myself. We make everything we wear or use here, awake or asleep; so I have made this bed, and now I am lying in it.
It is morning, and time to get up; and today I must go on with the story. Or the story must go on with me, carrying me inside it, along the track it must travel, straight to the end, weeping like a train and deaf and single-eyed and locked tight shut; although I hurl myself against the walls of it and scream and cry, and beg to God himself to let me out.
When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.
34.
From the Governor's wife, Simon accepts a cup of tea. He doesn't much like tea, but considers it a social duty to drink it in this country; and to greet all jokes about the Boston Tea Party, of which there have been too many, with an aloof but indulgent smile.
His indisposition appears to have passed. Today he's feeling better, although in need of sleep. He's managed to get through his little talk to the Tuesday group, and feels he's acquitted himself well enough. He began with a plea for the reform of mental asylums, too many of which remain the dens of squalor and iniquity they'd been in the last century. This was well received. He then continued with some remarks about the intellectual turmoil in this field of study, and about the contending schools of thought amongst alienists.
First he dealt with the Material school. Such practitioners held that mental disturbances were organic in origin - due, for instance, to lesions of the nerves and brain, or hereditary conditions of a definable kind, such as epilepsy; or to catching diseases, including those that are sexually transmitted - he was elliptical here, considering the presence of ladies, but everyone knew what he meant. Next he described the approach of the Mental school, which believed in causes that were much harder to isolate. How to measure the effects of shock, for example? How to diagnose amnesias with no discernible physical manifestation, or certain inexplicable and radical alterations of the personality? What, he asked them, was the role played by the Will, and what by the Soul? Here Mrs. Quennell leaned forward, only to lean back when he said he did not know.
Next he proceeded to the many new discoveries which were being made - Dr. Laycock's bromide therapy for epileptics, for example, which should put paid to a great many erroneous beliefs and superstitions; the investigation of the structure of the brain; the use of drugs in both the induction and the alleviation of hallucinations of various sorts. Pioneer work was constantly going forward; here he would like to mention the courageous Dr. Charcot of Paris, who had recently dedicated himself to the study of hysterics; and the investigation of dreams as a key to diagnosis, and their relation to amnesia, to which he himself hoped in time to make a modest contribution. All of these theories were in the early stages of their development, but much might soon be expected of them. As the eminent French philosopher and scientist Maine de Biran had said, there was an inner New World to be discovered, for which one must "plunge into the subterranean caverns of the soul."
The nineteenth century, he concluded, would be to the study of Mind what the eighteenth had been to the study of Matter - an Age of Enlightenment. He was proud to be part of such a major advance in knowledge, if only in a very small and humble way.
He wished it was not so damnably hot and humid. He was drenched by the time he concluded, and is still conscious of a marshy smell, which comes from his hands. It must be the digging; he'd done another spell of it this morning, before the heat of the day.
The Tuesday group applauded politely, and Reverend Verringer thanked him. Dr. Jordan, he said, was to be congratulated upon the edifying remarks with which he had honoured them today. He had given them all a great deal to think about. The Universe was indeed a mysterious place, but God had blessed man with a mind, the better to understand whatever mysteries were truly within his comprehension. He implied that there were others, which weren't. This seemed to please everyone.
Afterwards, Simon was thanked individually. Mrs. Quennell told him he'd spoken with heartfelt sensibility, which made him feel slightly guilty, as his chief goal had been to get the occasion over with as quickly as possible. Lydia, very fetching in a crisp and rustling summer ensemble, was breathless in her praise, and as admiring as any man might wish; but he could not shake the notion that she hadn't really understood a single word he'd said.
"Most intriguing," says Jerome DuPont now, at Simon's elbow. "I notice you said nothing about prostitution, which, along with drink, is surely one of the major social ills afflicting our age."
"I did not wish to bring it in," says Simon, "considering the company."
"Naturally enough. I would be interested in your opinion of the view held by some of our European colleagues, that the penchant for it is a form of insanity. They link it to hysteria and neurasthenia."
"I am aware of it," says Simon, smiling. In his student days, he used to argue that if a woman has no other course open to her but starvation, prostitution, or throwing herself from a bridge, then surely the prostit
ute, who has shown the most tenacious instinct for self-preservation, should be considered stronger and saner than her frailer and no longer living sisters. One couldn't have it both ways, he'd point out: if women are seduced and abandoned they're supposed to go mad, but if they survive, and seduce in their turn, then they were mad to begin with. He'd said that it seemed to him a dubious piece of reasoning; which got him the reputation either of a cynic or of a puritanical hypocrite, depending on his audience.
"I myself," says Dr. DuPont, "tend to place prostitution in the same class as the homicidal and religious manias; all may be considered, perhaps, as an impulse to play-act which has run out of control. Such things have been observed in the theatre, among actors who claim that they become the character they are acting. Female opera singers are especially prone to it. There's a Lucia on record who actually did kill her lover."
"It's an interesting possibility," says Simon.
"You do not commit yourself," says Dr. DuPont, gazing at Simon with his dark, lustrous eyes. "But you will go so far as to admit that women in general have a more fragile nervous organization, and consequently a greater suggestibility?"
"Perhaps," says Simon. "Certainly it is generally believed."
"It makes them, for instance, a good deal easier to hypnotize."
Ah, thinks Simon. Each to his own hobby-horse. Now he's getting to it.
"How is your fair patient, if I may call her that?" says Dr. DuPont. "Are you making progress?"
"Nothing definitive yet," says Simon. "There are several possible lines of enquiry which I hope to follow up."
"I would be honoured if you would permit me to try my own method. Just as a sort of experiment; a demonstration, if you like."
"I am at a crucial point," says Simon. He doesn't wish to appear rude, but he does not want this man interfering. Grace is his territory; he must repel poachers. "It might upset her, and undo weeks of careful preparation."
"At your convenience," says Dr. DuPont. "I expect to remain here for another month at least. I should be pleased to be of help."
"You are staying with Mrs. Quennell, I believe," says Simon.
"A most generous hostess. But infatuated with the Spiritualists, as are many these days. An entirely groundless system, I assure you. But then, the bereaved are so easily imposed upon."
Simon refrains from saying that he doesn't need any assurance. "You have attended some of her ... her evenings - should I call them seances?"
"One or two. I am, after all, a guest; and the delusions involved are of considerable interest, to the clinical enquirer. But she is far from closing her mind to science, and is even prepared to fund legitimate research."
"Ah," says Simon.
"She would like me to attempt a session of Neuro-hypnosis, with Miss Marks," says Dr. DuPont blandly. "On behalf of the Committee. You would have no objection?"
Curse them all, thinks Simon. They must be getting impatient with me; they think I am taking too long. But if they meddle too much, they will upset the apple cart, and ruin everything. Why can't they leave me to my own devices?
Today is the Tuesday meeting, and as Dr. Jordan is speaking at it I did not see him in the afternoon, since he had to prepare. The Governor's wife asked if I could be spared for a little extra time, as they were short hands and she would like me to help with the refreshments, as I have often done. Of course it was a request in form only, as Matron had to say yes, and did so; and I was to take my supper in the kitchen after, just like a real servant, as the supper at the Penitentiary would be over by the time I got back. I was looking forward to it, as it would be like the old times, when I was free to come and go, and there was more variety in my days, and such treats to look forward to.
I knew however that I'd have to put up with some slights, and hard looks, and spiteful remarks as to my character. Not from Clarrie, who has always been a friend to me although a silent one, and not from Cook, who is used to me by now. But one of the upstairs maids resents me, as I have been in this house longer, and know its ways, and enjoy the confidence of Miss Lydia and Miss Marianne, which she does not; and she is bound to make some allusion to murders, or strangling, or some such distasteful thing. Also there is Dora, who has been coming in to help in the laundry, but not permanent and only paid by the hour. She is a large person with strong arms, and useful for the carrying of the heavy baskets of wet sheets; but untrustworthy, as she is always telling tales of her former mistress and master, who she says never paid what they owed her, and carried on in scandalous ways besides, with him so far gone with drink he was no better than an imbecile, and blacked his wife's eye for her more than once; and her taking sick at the drop of a hat, and Dora wouldn't be surprised to find there was drink at the bottom of her vapours and headaches, as well.
But although Dora says all these things, she has accepted to go back there, and to be the maid-of-all-work again, and indeed has already begun; and when Cook asked her why she would do it, considering they are such disreputable people, she gave a wink and said that money talks, and loudly too; and that the young doctor who boards there has paid out her back wages, and begged almost upon his bended knee to have her back, as no one else was to be found. And he is a man who likes his peace and quiet and for things to be clean and tidy, and is willing to pay for it, although the landlady cannot, her husband having run off on her, so that now she was no more than a grass widow, and a pauper at that. And Dora said she won't take orders from her any more, as she was always a carping and peevish mistress, but only from Dr. Jordan, as he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Not that he is up to any good either, she says, having the air of a poisoner about him, as so many doctors do have, with their bottles and potions and pills, and she thanks the good Lord every day that she isn't a rich old lady under his care, or she would not be long for this world; and he has a strange habit of digging in the garden, although it is now much too late to plant anything, but he goes at it like a sexton, and has turned over almost the whole of the yard, nonetheless; and then it's her who has to sweep up the mud he tracks in, and scrub the dirt out of his shirts in the wash, and heat up the water for his bath.
I was astonished to realize that this Dr. Jordan she was talking about was the same one as my Dr. Jordan; but I was curious as well, for I hadn't known all those things about his landlady, or indeed anything about her at all. So I asked Dora, what sort of a woman was she, and Dora said, Skinny as a rail and pale as a corpse, with long hair so yellow it was almost white, but despite that and her fine-lady ways, no better than she should be, although Dora did not yet have proof of it; but this Mrs. Humphrey had a wild rolling to the eye, and a twitchy manner, and those two things together always meant warm work behind closed doors; and that Dr. Jordan should watch himself, because if ever she saw a determination to get a man's trousers off him, it was there in the eyes of Mrs. Humphrey; and they took breakfast together every morning now, which to her mind was unnatural. Which I thought was coarse, at least the part about the trousers.
And I think to myself, if that is what she says about those she works for, behind their backs, then, Grace, what will she say of you? I catch her looking me over with her small pink eyes, and devising what sensational tales she will tell her friends if any, about taking her tea with a celebrated murderess, who ought by rights to have been strung up long since, and cut into slabs by the doctors, like butchers dressing a carcass, and what was left of me after they'd finished done up into a bundle, just like a suet pudding, and left to moulder in a dishonoured grave, with nothing growing on it but thistles and nettles.
But I am all for keeping the peace, and so I say nothing. For if I was to get into a fight with her, I know sure enough who would be blamed.
We had orders to keep our ears open for the end of the meeting, which would be signalled by applause, and a speech to thank Dr. Jordan for his edifying remarks, which is what they say to everyone who speaks on these occasions; and that would be our signal to bring up the refreshments; and so o
ne of the maids was told to listen at the parlour door. Down she came after a while, and said the thanks were being given; and so we counted to twenty, and then sent up the first urn of tea, and the first trays of cakes. I was kept below, cutting up the pound cake, and arranging it on a round platter, for which the Governor's wife had given instructions that there was to be a rose or two in the centre; and very nice it looked. Then word came down that I was to bring in that particular plate myself, which I found odd; but I tidied my hair and carried the pound cake up the stairs, and in through the parlour door, expecting no harm.
There amongst the others was Mrs. Quennell with her hair like a powder puff, wearing pink muslin, which was far too young for her; and the Governor's wife in grey; and Reverend Verringer looking down his nose as usual; and Dr. Jordan, somewhat wan and limp, as if his talk had worn him out; and Miss Lydia, in the dress I'd helped her with, and pretty as a picture she was.
But who should I see, looking straight at me with a little smile, but Jeremiah the peddler! He was considerably trimmed as to hair and beard, and got up like a gentleman, in a beautifully cut sand-coloured suit, with a gold watch-chain across the vest; and holding a cup of tea in the best mincing gentleman's manner, just as he used to do when imitating the same, in the kitchen at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson's; but I'd have known him anywhere.