The population of the small parish of Banstead had doubled in 1877, when the mental hospital, then known as London County Lunatic Asylum, first opened. Thought to be an ideal place to smuggle away ‘mad’ relatives, the hospital was built on land known locally as ‘The Hundred Acres’, where a windmill and the accompanying miller’s houses had once stood.
A set-apart world designed with self-sufficiency in mind, the hospital had its own heating and water supply as well as day rooms, dormitories, attendants’ rooms, stores, bathrooms and a wing of specially designed padded cells. There was a bakery in the grounds as well as a chapel, laundry, sports ground and kitchen garden. Tucked away beneath overhanging trees stood the hospital cemetery, and since the average stay for patients was thirty years, many of them ended up interred there. The hospital accommodated 2,500 patients at its height, but was closed in 1986 and converted for use as a prison.
A light wind played at the hood of Alice’s cape as she followed the stone track from Belmont Railway Station. The tracks had been laid to ease the path of horse-drawn carts carrying coal and other supplies from the station to the hospital. Sheep grazed nearby on the open heath, rabbits emerging from the hedgerows and, at the sound of footsteps, burrowing beneath the gorse.
The weather since the beginning of the month had been unsettled but unseasonably mild and the trees overhanging the gates of the hospital were already budding with pale green leaves, the air over the Downs fresh with the promise of rain.
It was almost 2 p.m. when Alice signed in at the gatekeeper’s lodge. The porter, a man in his mid-thirties whose lips failed to stretch far enough over his teeth to meet, followed her to the gate after asking her business, as if reluctant to let go of the opportunity for conversation.
The nurse seated at the reception of Block A showed no such interest on Alice’s approach, and no sign of recognition either, even though she had been the one to accompany the almoner to the day room on her last visit. In response to the nurse’s blank expression, Alice reminded her of her name and occupation and then repeated Charlotte’s full name.
‘Yes, I know who you are,’ the nurse said, dropping her pen to her desk and giving the almoner her full attention for the first time. ‘You came last month.’ Alice nodded and pulled her handbag higher onto her caped shoulder, as if readying herself to pass through the locked wooden gate leading to the wards. There was a pause, and then the nurse said: ‘You upset her too, as I remember. Anyway, I’m afraid I can’t let you in. Miss Redbourne had a visitor two days ago and she’s limited to one a week. Doctor’s orders.’
Alice’s brows drew together. ‘A visit? From whom?’
The nurse pulled her chin in and flicked through the paperwork in front of her. She squinted down through her thick-lensed glasses, then looked up. ‘A gentleman, I believe.’
‘Her father?’
There was another fruitless rooting through the papers and then she said: ‘I don’t believe so, not from what I recall. I was dealing with another patient at the time but I remember reading the update on the log.’
‘And what was her demeanour following the visit?’
‘Agitated, I believe. But she’s picked up since.’
‘Exactly when was this visit?’
The nurse looked sideways and pursed her lips. ‘I was off-duty yesterday, so it must have been the day before, on the first.’
When pressurised to provide a description of the visitor, the nurse sighed and got to her feet. ‘If it’s imperative, come and ask her yourself.’ There was a significant amount of muttering and grumbling as the nurse escorted Alice into Block A, the dim passageways lined with hot water pipes resembling the bowels of a ship. They passed the ward and the day room, and then the almoner was motioned into a large dining hall, where several patients were moving around and carrying chairs to and fro.
A nurse stood against the far wall directing operations, and two male patients passed back and forth as they moved heavy-looking wooden tables and lined them up at the edges of the room. Dinner had been cleared away, and the evening supper would be served on trays. Meals were plain during the 1920s, but an improvement on those served to the hospital’s earliest patients – meat and potato pie was a staple for dinner in Banstead Hospital at the end of the nineteenth century, with gruel and bread and milk alternated at breakfast and tea. Patients were also entitled to three pints of ale; a balm to help them survive the rigours of each day.
‘She’s coping well,’ the nurse said briskly, as she followed Alice into the hall. ‘So don’t go upsetting her like last time. I don’t want her losing her wits and tearing the place up again.’
Alice nodded her agreement and then looked around. ‘What’s going on in here?’
The nurse explained that the patients were helping to make preparations for the weekend; the latest films available were shown on a large projector screen each Friday evening, and then on Saturdays came the highlight of the week: a dinner and dance attended by patients and staff.
‘What did you expect?’ the nurse said, chuckling in response to Alice’s look of surprise. ‘A lot of moaning and screaming and rattling of chains? Times have changed, you know.’
‘We’re going to watch a Charlie Chaplin later,’ Charlotte told Alice a few minutes later, her voice bubbling with excitement. She was wearing a clean grey dress, her hair neatly brushed into a long plait, which hung over her left shoulder. ‘I slept through most of last week’s film, I was so tired, but I feel much better today.’ They were standing together near the stage, where patients sometimes performed their own plays, the costumes they wore tailored by fellow inmates.
Alice smiled. ‘That’s wonderful, Charlotte.’ Her expression grew thoughtful as she removed her cape and gloves and set them aside on the stage. She straightened and then settled her gaze on the teenager. ‘But I’m wondering why you have not yet asked me about Daisy.’ The almoner had called in on Elizabeth on the afternoon of the 2nd to check on the infant; when she had leaned over to coo at her, she had been rewarded with a beaming smile. With Daisy over a month old, the almoner had made several attempts to persuade Dr Harland that her birth should be registered as a matter of urgency, all to no avail.
The girl’s expression faltered. ‘Oh, y-yes, how is she?’
‘She is very well.’ Alice’s gaze sharpened. ‘But then, perhaps you had already heard?’
The girl’s eyes skittered to the stage. When she looked back, she shook her head. Alice continued to look at her hard. ‘I’m told that you had a visitor on Wednesday. A gentleman …’ Charlotte nodded, her cheeks turning crimson. ‘I don’t mean to pry, but would you care to tell me who it was?’
Charlotte began fiddling with the collar of her dress. She appeared disgruntled. ‘It was a friend, that’s all.’
‘Daisy’s father?’ The teenager shook her head. Alice considered her for another moment then glanced away. Across the room, a middle-aged woman with long thin grey hair tied up in a ponytail and a girl around Charlotte’s age were carrying a large bucket of coal between them. They lugged it breathlessly over to a wide fireplace and then brushed their blackened hands over their clothes. The almoner took a slow breath in and settled her gaze on Charlotte again. She asked: ‘Have you had any previous association with Dr Harland?’
‘Who?’
‘I believe you know who I mean. Elizabeth’s brother … the doctor who helped to deliver Daisy.’
‘No,’ came the quick reply.
Alice narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you quite certain about that?’
‘Why would I lie?’ Charlotte snapped. There was a note of hysteria in her tone. One of the nurses supervising the two women as they heaped shovels of coal into the hearth glanced over and frowned.
‘Listen, Charlotte,’ the almoner said, leaning in. ‘Doctors are obliged to follow a strict code of conduct. They have a duty towards the welfare of each and every one of their patients, so if there has been the slightest impropriety –’
‘Stop it,’
Charlotte cut in, her fingers running over themselves in a frantic motion. She backed away and wrung her hands together. ‘Please, stop going on and getting at me.’ Her eyes filled with tears and there was a panicked expression on her face.
Alice held out a placating hand. ‘Don’t get upset,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m not suggesting that you are being deliberately deceitful. It is just that, sometimes, when we are frightened, it is difficult to know who we can trust, is it not?’
‘I don’t know what else you want me to say!’ Charlotte cried, raising trembling hands to her hair. A few tendrils escaped her plait and hung over her widening eyes. ‘I don’t know why you have to ask me all these questions!’
The nurse at the fireplace finally abandoned her post and began walking towards them. ‘I’m sorry, Charlotte. I didn’t mean to upset you,’ Alice said. The girl eyed Alice from beneath her long fringe and gave a small nod. ‘I’m working on a placement for you,’ the almoner continued as the nurse slipped a protective arm around Charlotte’s shoulder and gave the almoner a cold look. Alice gathered up her cape and gloves. ‘I will visit with some more news soon.’
By mid-afternoon the temperature had dropped, the mildness of the day lost in a whirl of cold winds and loose leaves. Alice tightened her cape and folded her arms around its dark wool as she crossed the driveway towards the gates, which now stood open, a dark-coloured Bentley on its way into the grounds.
Several other cars were lined up at the gatekeeper’s lodge. A portly gentleman with a head of thinning grey hair leaned out of the window of the first car as Alice approached. He spoke briefly to the porter then drove slowly on, following the Bentley as it rolled towards the main hospital building.
Alice leaned into the wind and frowned at the misted-up windows of the next vehicle. When she reached the gates she stood aside as the porter waved the car in, then followed its path with her eyes. She turned at the sound of a loud command, then edged past the next car as the porter held out a flattened hand to signal that the next driver should wait.
After signing herself out in the visitors’ book, the almoner asked if she could take a moment to examine the register of recent guests to the hospital. The porter blinked. ‘I’m afraid I can’t allow that,’ he said, puffing out his chest. ‘It’s against policy. All manner of things start to go wrong if you don’t stick to hospital policy.’
‘Gosh, yes, so I should imagine,’ Alice said with a demure smile. ‘It is such a responsible job you have, isn’t it?’
The man eyed her warily, perhaps puzzled at her sudden friendliness, but very quickly submitted to having his ego stroked. ‘Well, you’re right there, Miss. I mean, without a meticulously maintained log, them inside aren’t to know who’s in and who isn’t. If there’s a fire, or an evacuation of some sort …’ He stopped mid-sentence and took quick, loping strides out of the lodge to wave the waiting cars through. ‘No, without a responsible guard at the gate,’ he continued when he returned, ‘the security of the whole place falls apart. Then there are the privacy issues. You can’t just go letting anyone rifle through the records now, can you? You’re venturing into dangerous territory if you go down that road.’
‘Absolutely, I see. But, I mean,’ she glanced up at him through her thick lashes and gave him another glowing smile, ‘do I look dangerous to you?’ A few beads of sweat appeared on the porter’s forehead. A flush crept up his neck. ‘I just need to check back a couple of days,’ Alice continued sweetly. ‘I promise I won’t trouble you for long.’
‘A lady like you couldn’t possibly trouble me,’ he said, treating her to a wide smile of prominent yellow teeth. ‘Now, tell you what. I’m just going to see these next few cars through the gates. What you do while my back is turned is up to you.’
Alice gave him another coquettish smile. As soon as he left the lodge, she began flicking rapidly through the thick parchment in the register, running a forefinger down the lines of black ink. ‘Do you recall this fellow?’ she asked when the porter returned, a couple of minutes later. She pointed to a name written in capital letters midway down one of the pages – ‘CYRIL GARDNER’.
The porter shook his head. ‘I don’t take too much notice of most visitors. Now, if it was a lady like you, that’d be a different matter.’
The almoner ignored the compliment and pressed on: ‘Old? Young? Middle-aged? Tall? Portly? Surely you must remember something about him.’ The porter shook his head. Alice sighed. ‘Well, in that case,’ she said briskly, ‘I shall let you get on.’
His face fell. ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ he said, moving closer. ‘Stop here for a while. I get a tea break soon.’
The almoner made brisk apologies and moved to the door. Outside there was a swishing sound as another faceless driver rolled his car over the tracks. Alice stopped at the threshold of the lodge and turned back to the porter. ‘Is there a meeting of some sort going on this afternoon?’
The porter walked to the door, peered over her head at the line of cars, then motioned the drivers through with a flick of his hand. ‘Meeting? No, that’s more visitors. Regulars.’
‘Visitors? Yet you are waving them through without asking them to sign in?’
He nodded. ‘That’s because they’re not going into the hospital building. They’re going to pick the patients up at the door.’
Alice frowned. ‘They are picking relatives up?’
The porter bellowed a laugh, a spray of spittle hitting the air. The bunch of keys at his belt rattled. ‘No, love. Not relatives. At least, not in most cases.’
Alice frowned. ‘Who then?’
Another car pulled up. Alice leaned forward and peered through the windscreen as the porter waved the vehicle through. She straightened. ‘They’re all lone men,’ she said flatly, turning to examine the porter’s face.
‘Yep. Friday afternoon, isn’t it? It’s when the gentlemen knock off early, so’s they can spend an hour or two unaccounted for.’
The almoner looked at him and then shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I must be misconstruing what you are telling me.’
He grinned. ‘No, I don’t think you are, Miss. Pop here for a bit of female company, don’t they? Before heading home to the wife for the weekend.’
Alice turned slowly back towards the cars. A thin man in a dark suit was glaring at them out of the window of his car, his gloved hands tapping impatiently on the steering wheel. ‘Where do they take them?’
The porter shrugged. ‘Out for a drive, I would guess. But then, there’s plenty of woods to go to if they fancy a stroll, eh? Although it might be a bit nippy this time of year for what they have in mind. Then again, I suppose an hour in the comfort of a Bentley isn’t too arduous a task, eh? Not when the alternative is being stuck inside those walls over there.’ He dipped his head towards the hospital then waved his hand, motioning the next driver through the gates.
Alice shook her head as if trying to absorb the information. ‘So what you are saying is that these men befriend a particular patient and then take her out once a week?’
‘Not a specific patient, no. I think they take whoever’s available at the time. There’s only a certain number of patients that get let out. Most of ’em have to stay locked up, or they’re chaperoned as they wander the grounds. The men like to mix it up a bit, so I’ve heard. They like a bit of variety, you know.’
The almoner’s face clouded with fury. ‘Who sanctions these outings? Do the doctors know about this?’
‘I’d be surprised if they didn’t.’
‘It’s disgraceful.’
The porter shrugged. ‘Dirty old dogs, I grant you. But they’re not doing anything plenty of others don’t. The men get to unwind before the weekend and the girls get a chance to see all the glory that Banstead has to offer. Everyone’s happy, eh?’ He gave her another toothy grin. Alice turned on her heel and stormed away, her cape billowing out behind her.
The line of blackbirds perched along the top of the gates took flight as the engine of the next car
revved up, then followed the others up the drive.
When Alice descended the stairs to the basement an hour later, her face was drained of colour. Winnie eyed her over the top of her spectacles. ‘Are you alright, dear? she said. ‘You look quite faint.’ It was 5 p.m. and the typist was the only member of staff still on duty in the office.
‘Fine,’ the almoner said. She nibbled her thumbs and paced the floor. After a minute or so she sank down into the chair opposite Winnie’s desk. There was a long pause and then she fixed the typist with an intense look: ‘Can I talk to you, Winnie?’
Suddenly energised, Winnie’s knees cracked as she sprang to her feet and bustled over to the boiler. A few minutes later, she lowered a steaming cup of tea on the desk in front of Alice and, with a loud huff and a wince, sat back in her seat. Alice rubbed her hand over her forehead, heaved a sigh and began to speak.
The typist nodded along with her every word, the creases on her forehead deepening as Alice described the cavalier attitude of the drivers and the amused reaction of the porter in response to her shock. When the almoner fell silent, Winnie said: ‘Well I never did! Still it’s the way of the world, my dear.’
‘Well, it shouldn’t be,’ Alice raged. ‘It’s wrong!’
Winnie took a tired breath in. ‘It’s been that way since time immemorial.’
‘So what you are saying is that we should just avert our eyes, shrug our shoulders and pretend nothing is going on?!’
The typist took a sip of her tea and smiled sagely over the top of her cup. ‘I didn’t say that. There are things that can be done. I have an idea, as it happens. Are you free next Friday?’
Alice gave a slow nod of intrigue, but then she grimaced. ‘Oh no! I’m not free. We have the conference.’ She cupped her cheeks with her hands and looked at the typist. ‘It’s such bad timing for me to be away. I have a million things to do.’ She picked up her cup and then put it down again. ‘Winnie, what exactly was it you had in mind?’
Letters from Alice Page 16