As Doctor Phillips turned the key in the lock, invited me through, and locked the gate behind me, I wondered how it was that Verity had managed to escape our rooms. Looking back through the bars as we headed for the floors below, I saw the dumb waiter set into the wall of the corridor and I felt anger and disbelief, equally.
She couldn’t have. But how else then had she got out, unless she’d convinced the head warder to let her out?
“The floors and wings of the asylum are carefully organized,” Doctor Phillips was saying, and I reminded myself that I have a new employer to impress.
I joined him at the door to the west wing of the sixth floor.
“The wings divide the sexes. In here, and the five floors beneath, are the women. The men are housed in the floors in the east. From here you can really see the benefit of the Kirkbride system. See how much light each corridor receives?”
That was obvious. Compared with the dark squalor of the hospital in New York, Orient Point is flooded with light. The idea is ingenious. Rather than just have two long wings stretching away from the central block of the asylum, each wing runs for no more than a hundred feet before turning ninety degrees and then immediately ninety degrees again back to its original direction. What this results in is therefore a series of staggered corridors, and each one has full-length windows at either end, through which the powerful light of Long Island Sound pours in. Seen from above, the asylum must seem like a formation of strange oblong geese in a V, and in the center, the glass cupola with the staircase winding down like a screw into the building.
“We arrange the patients by floors, according to the degree of their disturbances.”
Doctor Phillips peered through the glass doors of the women’s wing of the sixth floor.
“These are our most docile customers,” he said. “Those with profound melancholia, for example. As you can see they are of outwardly normal appearance, and may have even survived in society for some time before their commitment here. Note how the wide corridors permit social interaction. All corridors are at least twelve feet wide. The main arteries are no less than sixteen.”
I joined him and looked through the glass.
I saw a group of three women standing at the far end of the first corridor, by the window. They were talking to each other and if not exactly chatting away as if at a temperance meeting, they would have indeed appeared nothing but normal on an urban street corner.
“The men are on this side,” Doctor Phillips said. “Would you like to meet one or two?”
I told him I would, and after he unlocked the door, we strolled along the corridor of the men’s wing, until we arrived at a particular room.
He knocked and without waiting for a reply, we entered.
The room inside was cramped, but ample enough for a single bed, a chair and a washstand. A small man sat on the bed, and rose immediately as we entered.
“Jonathan,” said Doctor Phillips, and the man nodded. I could see at once that he was disturbed. He had extreme nervous reactions and yet was eager to please and answer all the questions that Doctor Phillips and I posed, albeit with one word answers, in general.
I thanked Jonathan for his time, and we left to continue our tour.
“You’ll see how Jonathan, like all other patients on the sixth floor, wears his own clothes. Of course they all have to be tagged with their owner’s names, but otherwise this enables these patients to feel a certain degree of normalcy.”
That was true, I thought: normalcy. Though that normalcy is somewhat of an illusion. Even on the sixth floor, I noted that Jonathan’s door has no handle on the inside, and therefore can only be opened from without. Also, there are bars on his window.
“The same is true of patients on the fifth, fourth, and third floors. So the majority of patients here wear their own clothes, or if they have damaged or lost their own, we provide them with simple alternatives. See this lady here.”
We were at the third floor landing, and he pointed through the glass to a woman standing by the door, in a plain white dress with a pinafore. She had no hair on her head, none at all, and stood motionless, but for her hands which she wrung together endlessly.
“From here down, the final two floors, we house our most intractable patients.”
“Everything is well thought out,” I said.
“Of course it is,” said Doctor Phillips somewhat tersely, and I felt I ought to make amends.
“Things are nothing like this in New York,” I said. “It’s very gratifying to see such grand aspirations.”
“Year after year, our society is producing an increasing number of lunatics,” he said. I winced slightly at the old-fashioned word. He seemed not to have noticed. “We grow embarrassed by them and seek to deal with them in ever new ways. So now we have moved out of the city, for the most part, to places such as these. With air, with land, with nature all around, with honest work for the patients to engage in. In our embarrassment, we give the lunatics new names. So, some years ago, the Orient Point Lunatic Asylum spent four hundred dollars on a new set of letters to be welded over the gate. Now we are an Insane Asylum. In the next decade no doubt we will have to spend six hundred dollars changing our name again.
“But it is all for the best, perhaps. Our ways are changing. Here we use new ideas and new methods and cast aside the grim medieval notions of the madhouse.”
He paused.
“The first floor.”
We had completed our circular descent down the floors and were now at ground level. From here, sounds of human voices floated down the wide, sunlit corridors. I could hear sobbing, and also the occasional cry and shout. I am used to these things, from my days in New York, but it is strange to hear these sounds in an environment that does not seem to match. Even the Kirkbride ideal has its extreme cases, I suppose. As if to emphasize that point, just as we made to leave, a naked man ran across the end of the hall, saw us, and ran out of sight again. I saw him for no more than a second or two, I suppose, but that was more than enough to see the dirt on him, and the wildness in his eyes.
“Shall we?” suggested Doctor Phillips, and we moved on, the noise of something or someone banging repeatedly dying away as we came to the outside.
* * *
The front of the buildings face south, and from here a wide lawn slopes away to the beginning of the gardens. I could see patients pruning hedges, weeding flower-beds, with warders supervising, dotted here and there, so distinct in their white uniforms.
I stole a look toward the gate behind which lay the cemetery, but I could see no sign of Verity underneath the tree.
“Our patients, those who are able to at least, take part in a variety of meaningful activities at Orient Point. They help with the grounds and ornamental beds. Our head gardener is a wonderful man who has infinite patience. Behind the main building is our farm. We keep livestock—sheep mostly, some goats and cows. We grow all our own vegetables, and have a fruit orchard, despite the perishing winds from the sound. The bulk of all this is done by the inmates here, with the lightest supervision possible by staff.”
We continued our walk, passing some single-story buildings to the flanks of the main one.
“We have carpentry workshops and metal shops. There are washing rooms and drying rooms. Rooms for ironing and rooms for baking. There is an infirmary, a mortuary. In short, we have everything here that a small town would have.”
“Even a cemetery,” I said.
“Just as you saw.”
“And a crematorium, too.”
“Just so. There is the question of choice, when it comes to these matters. There is also the question of money. Not every patient has relatives who are able to afford the cost of a burial. Cremation is a considerably cheaper option.”
Then, as we rounded the corner of the main building once more, Verity appeared.
She was standing talking to that man, the one in gray.
He looked up immediately as we approached, and smiled.
“Y
ou must be the new assistant superintendent,” he said, and held his hand out. He nodded to Doctor Phillips.
“Yes, I’m Doctor James,” I said, and shook his hand. “Doctor Phillips, may I present my daughter, Verity? Verity, this is Doctor Phillips. Say hello.”
Verity did us proud. She gave a little curtsy and said, “How do you do?” in the sweetest way that I swore Doctor Phillips could not possibly be angry either at her, or me.
“A pleasure to meet you, young lady,” said Doctor Phillips. He turned to the man in gray. “Charles.”
The man turned back to me.
“I’m so sorry, forgive me. I’m Charles Dexter.”
I nodded, offering him a smile, taking him to be one of the junior doctors who I had not yet met.
“A pleasure,” I said, and then we were joined by the head warder, a man called Solway whom I had met only briefly when we arrived.
He bowled round a corner and stopped when he saw us. He said nothing.
Doctor Phillips turned to me.
“I think that’s enough for one morning, Doctor James. We will see you on the wards early tomorrow and we can begin our work in earnest. I look forward to that. For now perhaps you should take Verity to see the sights of the island. The coastline is quite pretty I think, and it’s a pleasant day for March.”
I had the feeling I was being dismissed. There was perhaps something private that Doctor Phillips wished to discuss with Dexter or Solway, or both.
I took Verity’s hand and bidding everyone a good morning, we set off. I decided to head back up to our rooms first because I had a conversation to have with her about her escape.
As we stepped into the entrance hall, however, I remembered that I had meant to ask Doctor Phillips if I could receive an advance on my salary. I would not have done so if matters were less pressing, but I had left New York with some financial trouble over me.
“Go straight upstairs and wait for me by the gate,” I told Verity, and for once I was glad she did just what I said, because as I stepped out again and round the first corner of the building, I found a terrible scene.
There stood Doctor Phillips, his hands on his hips. He stood a little way away from Solway, who was bent over Dexter, who half lay on the ground as the head warder rained a series of blows about his head and his shoulders. Blood was running across his face from a cut above his eye.
Dexter tried to ward off Solway’s fists, but Solway is a tough character, and kept up this assault. I heard Doctor Phillips speaking to him.
“What did I say, Dexter? What did I tell you?”
Dexter did not reply, but as he struggled under the blows, he saw me staring at the three of them, and managed to stumble out some words, still with that same smile with which he had greeted me earlier.
“Doctor James!” he cried, and his eyes were bright. “Welcome to Orient Point!”
Monday, March 28—early morning
Today I will begin my work as the assistant superintendent of Orient Point, but I will do so with a clouded mind.
I slept badly.
On my first night I had been tired from the journey, but Sunday’s events had stimulated my thoughts, so that I could not find an easy path to sleep.
Of course I asked Doctor Phillips about Dexter.
My arrival seemed to bring an end to his assault by Solway, who then escorted the injured man off to the infirmary to have the cut above his eye dressed.
“Who is that man?” I asked. “Is he not then one of the doctors?”
“Such can be the drawback of those patients who wear their own clothes,” he said. He showed no hint of concern at having been discovered meting out this punishment to Dexter. “It can be hard to tell them apart from the rest of us … to the untrained eye.”
This last remark I felt could only be directed at me.
“He’s a patient?”
“Of course. One of the most awkward we have. In some ways.”
“But he seems to be normal. Rational.”
Doctor Phillips raised an eyebrow at me.
“Seems?” he said. “You ought to know better than seeming, Doctor James. Charles Dexter is a constant source of friction in this hospital. And he is dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“I use my words accurately,” he said, “in all things.”
That was the end of the interview, and he left me. Of course I forgot to ask about my salary, and must find the courage to do so at the first opportunity.
* * *
Verity and I walked as much of the coastline as I could bear, and I asked her how she had escaped from our rooms. I told her that she had to obey me, and she said she was sorry and didn’t think she was doing anything wrong.
“This is to say nothing of the danger,” I said, trying to worry her, just a little.
Her eyes lit up.
“The danger?”
“Of traveling in the dumb waiter. You could have been hurt, Verity. Or worse.”
“But I didn’t go in the dumb waiter,” she said and then I had to remind her that we don’t lie.
“I’m not lying!” she said.
I was patient. Everyone deserves that.
“Then how did you get down from our floor?” I asked, pointing out to her that there was only one explanation. “There’s no other way.”
“Unless someone let me out,” she said.
“Who?” I asked. “Only Doctor Phillips, Solway, and I have a key. I was with Doctor Phillips and I know Solway didn’t let you out.”
Verity said nothing.
“Did he,” I stated.
Verity looked really worried. I could see she wasn’t playing games.
“Did he?” I asked.
“You’ve told me not to break promises,” she said.
“I have,” I said. “What of it? Have you made a promise to someone?”
She nodded and looked even more worried.
“To whom?”
“That’s the promise. I can’t tell you.”
“Verity, you have to tell me the truth. I’m your father. We must have no secrets.”
“But you said never to break a promise.”
I held my breath for a moment.
“Yes,” I said. “You’re right. But if you are telling me that Solway let you out and made you promise not to say anything about it then that is a bad thing. Are you saying that?”
“Father, please. I can’t break a promise.”
I could see it was hurting her, both to think of breaking her word and to keep things from me. So I let it go.
“If that’s what happened,” I said, “you need to make a new promise. Which is not to do anything that you cannot tell your father about. Do you understand?”
She nodded and I let her go and paddle in the freezing ocean until I dragged her back to our new home, wondering all the while if Solway really had let her out, and if so, why?
* * *
In the night, I heard the sea. I must have been so tired on Saturday that it did not disturb me, but last night I could not hear anything else but the constant soft roar of the beach that lies just beyond the grounds of the asylum.
I wonder if it will drive me mad.
Maybe it will save me. Perhaps that’s why I’ve come here. Not because of the promotion, or the salary. Not because it means I can be close to Verity. But because it means I will be close to the sea. Not just close to it. Surrounded by it. Perhaps I have intended to force a cure on myself.
* * *
In the smallest hours, as sleep still eluded me, I got out of bed and went to the window. A weak waning moon shone through a bank of clouds that drifted steadily across the sound, and I was about to step out onto the balcony, when I remembered the spiral stair up to the cupola.
A desire to torture myself crept into me, and though I fought it, I did not try to fight very hard.
I found myself at the foot of the elegant spiral that led up to the circular balcony and in bare feet I padded up the smooth wooden steps.
>
There, from that narrow circular gallery, was a pale night view of the whole of Orient Point and the sea surrounding us on all sides, save for that one narrow and low stretch where the road comes in from Greenport.
I stared at the blackness where the sea lay, unseen in the dark, and I thought long and hard about Caroline, my beautiful wife.
Monday, March 28
I spent the morning doing rounds in the company of Doctor Delgado, one of the junior doctors. He told me that Doctor Phillips wished me to start with the men’s wards, and we began on the sixth floor, working our way downward. Doctor Delgado is a young man and I asked myself why I didn’t feel as I should be feeling. As assistant superintendent, I am Delgado’s superior, and yet, as he spoke to me, I sensed that he didn’t see it that way. Perhaps I’m being arrogant. We are all engaged on the same mission here. But, something made me uncomfortable, and it is the sense that I cannot seem to gain respect from others.
Of course, it’s natural. I know little of the hospital. Doctor Delgado has worked here for four years, he told me, and therefore knows everything. He had a story about every patient, even the newest ones, and he was not shy about telling me these tales. I grew to dislike him before we had even finished the first ward.
All the way, however, was something more pressing in my mind. I found myself thinking about Dexter, who had seemed perfectly rational when I met him, albeit a very brief meeting. I have worked with the insane for ten years now and never met anyone as composed as he seems. I assumed therefore that he would be housed on the sixth floor, for the least disturbed of all the patients, but as we passed room after room and Delgado gave me his withering opinions of man after man, in their rooms and to their faces, Dexter was not among them.
We made our way onto the fifth floor by way of a no more than functional set of stairs at the far end of the wing, and once again I expected, with each door that opened, to greet Dexter. I found myself wanting to talk to him, and guessed that he would be somewhere on this floor, since he had not been on the one above.