by John Harwood
I realised with a start that I had almost forgotten I was in a lunatic asylum, waiting not just for Frederic but for Dr. Straker to return from London. The thought of Dr. Straker struck me like a dash of cold water. Why had he been so willing to believe that I was not Georgina Ferrars, even before the telegram had come?
It was now Saturday afternoon; Dr. Straker was due back on Monday. There was really no reason to doubt that he would release me—Frederic, for one thing, evidently admired him above all men—but all the same, just supposing something had gone wrong at Gresham’s Yard . . .
Frederic was the heir; he must have some authority here. When he came back, I would tell him I wished to leave at once, and ask him to lend me the fare home—which would give me an excuse to write to him. Of course he might refuse me, but I would be no worse off if he did. He might even offer to escort me back to London.
Imagining that prospect, I leant forward and stirred the coals, enjoying the warmth on my face and thinking how absurd my suspicions about madness in my family would seem to Frederic. The nearest I had come to acute melancholia was, I supposed, my grief for my mother, but I could not recall the actual emotion, only a vision of myself weeping, and of my aunt’s dry, stricken face as she sat beside me on my bed, awkwardly patting my shoulder; and how could this be a true recollection when I seemed to be looking down upon the two of us from somewhere near the ceiling?
There was also the time I remembered as “the estrangement,” for want of any better description. It came on so gradually that I could not say when it had begun; only that I became aware of it in the autumn, a few months after my aunt’s passionate outburst on the subject of Nettleford. It was as if an invisible film had come between me and the world; or as if I were looking through the wrong end of a telescope, except that instead of the people around me appearing physically smaller, it was my feeling for them that had grown distant and remote. The lines, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?” were often in my mind.
I was not unhappy, at least not consciously so, only detached from everything and everyone around me. If anybody had asked me, I would have insisted that I did not love my aunt any less, but my heart was unmoved by the sight of her; I seemed to have lost the power of feeling. I sensed that she was uneasy about me, but I was afraid of hurting her, and there seemed to be some inward prohibition against speaking of it. And so, all that winter, I insisted that nothing was amiss; I was not even aware that my heart was slowly reawakening until the day, early in the following spring, when I realised I was my old self again.
It was then, for my sixteenth birthday, that Aunt Vida had given me the writing case, along with a journal in a slipcover bound in the same blue leather. “Think you should keep a diary. Never got into the habit myself. Often wished I had. Try to write something every day.”
I wondered if she was inviting me to speak of the estrangement, but still the strange prohibition kept me silent, and as a sort of recompense I began my journal that very night. I had never corresponded with anyone, apart from dutiful letters to my uncle, and I found the act of setting down my most intimate thoughts both unsettling and compelling. Until then, I had seldom remembered my dreams, but the more assiduously I recorded them, the more frequent and vivid they became. There was one in particular that recurred several times, in which I was moving from room to room, searching for my mother. There was no one else in the house, and the echoes of my footsteps sounded unnaturally loud. The dream always began on the ground floor, but as it went on, I realised, with a growing sense of foreboding, that every surface was covered in a layer of fine white dust. Sometimes the thought, But Mama is dead! would flash across my mind, followed an instant later by the realisation that I was dreaming; but in at least one such dream I continued on up the stairs, with the dust growing thicker at every step, until it rose up in a great choking cloud and I woke with a cry of horror.
A coal burst with a sharp crack and a shower of sparks. My writing case and brooch! “We’re all honest girls here, miss.” I remembered, with another stab of apprehension, Dr. Straker saying that I—or Lucy Ashton—had given my address as the Royal Hotel in Plymouth. Could I have left them there? Perhaps, now that I was calmer, I would begin to recall something of those missing weeks. I summoned all of my concentration, but still nothing would come, only a jumble of grey, featureless autumn days in my uncle’s shop, and then, with no perceptible interval, my awakening here in the infirmary.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, and Frederic, slightly breathless, reappeared in the doorway.
“Miss Ferrars; I am sorry to have been so long. Bella is bringing us some more refreshment.”
To me, the time seemed to have flown, but I discovered to my surprise that I was hungry again.
“I would not have left you,” he explained as he sat down, “but there were papers I had to get off to Liskeard in time for the London train.”
“Do you mean there are no more trains today?”
“No—why do you ask, Miss Ferrars?”
“Because—how much is the fare to London, can you tell me?”
“Two guineas, for a first-class ticket.”
My heart beat faster, and my mouth felt dry, but I made up my mind to ask him.
“Mr. Mordaunt, you must have some authority here. You will understand that I am very anxious to see my uncle; I know that telegram is a mistake, and I do not wish to wait for Dr. Straker. I should like to leave by the first train tomorrow, and if you will only lend me the fare to London, I shall repay you as soon as I am home again.”
“Miss Ferrars, you are not a prisoner here, and if you choose to leave, no one will hinder you. But I urge you with all my heart to remain until Dr. Straker returns. Remember that you have suffered a seizure; and there is the question of—what happened during the interval, and why you chose to arrive here as Miss Ashton. If you leave us before these mysteries are solved, you may suffer a relapse. I wonder, myself, if some healing instinct drew you to us: Dr. Straker is a leading authority on disorders of the personality. I am not saying that you have any such disorder, but if you do, you could not be in better hands.”
“And can you assure me that if I do wait for Dr. Straker, he will let me go whenever I wish?”
“My word upon it, Miss Ferrars. You are a voluntary patient, and need only give twenty-four hours’ notice in writing. And, of course, since you are here as our guest, even that would not be necessary.”
“But—” I was about to say that Dr. Straker had twice refused me permission to leave, when it occurred to me that Frederic might not know this.
“It is only that—Dr. Straker seems far too disposed to believe that I am not Georgina Ferrars.”
“But you must understand, Miss Ferrars, that he sees many patients who are utterly convinced of things which are—well, quite mistaken. I am not saying that you are mistaken, only that he is bound to consider that possibility. I assure you, Miss Ferrars, you have nothing to fear; I would trust him with my life.”
He spread his arms wide in a gesture of reassurance. His hands were naturally expressive, the fingers long and flexible, unconsciously dramatizing the flow of his emotions as he talked. Every so often he would become aware of them, and blush, and clasp them tightly in his lap, until gradually he forgot, and his hands would unclasp, and begin to speak again. I wanted to tell him that he need not restrain them on my account, but it would have seemed far too intimate.
“And you have no idea,” he said after a pause, “as to why you presented yourself here as Miss Ashton?”
“None at all; I have tried and tried, but nothing will come . . . Have you any notion, Mr. Mordaunt, of what might have happened to me? How could I have lost all memory of the past six weeks, and yet recall everything before that perfectly—as I assure you I do?”
“Well,” he said hesitantly, “it can happen that, after a particularly terrifying experience, one loses all memory of the event—the mind
protecting itself, like a scab growing over a wound before the wound itself has healed. But in your case, the seizure itself is the most likely cause, as I am sure Dr. Straker has indicated. Indeed, Miss Ferrars, you are fortunate to be alive; two of our patients have died of seizures in the past year—”
He stopped short with a look of consternation.
“I am very sorry, Miss Ferrars; I should not have mentioned that. Dr. Straker would be most displeased. You are recovering well; that is the important thing. The real question is what brought you here in the first place.
“Most likely, Dr. Straker has already seen your uncle and reassured him; he may even have solved the mystery. Why risk a long, cold, and tiring journey before you are fully recovered? You are safe here, on my word of honour, and I shall be delighted to keep you company whenever I can—if that is agreeable to you—until Dr. Straker returns.”
I could see the sense in this, and the thought of another day—perhaps two—in his company was tempting, indeed. But a small, persistent voice urged me not to weaken.
“Or,” he continued, “if you absolutely insist upon leaving tomorrow, is there someone else—a close friend, a relation?—in this part of the world, to whom you could go?”
“There is no one, apart from my uncle,” I said. “I am quite alone in the world.” The words echoed in my mind, as if I had heard them very recently.
It occurred to me that I need not leave by the very next train; I could wait until tomorrow afternoon, or even take the first train on Monday morning.
“I should like to think about it,” I said at last, “and decide in the morning, if I may.”
“Of course, Miss Ferrars; I am entirely at your disposal.”
He was interrupted by Bella appearing with a substantial tea of sandwiches, scones, and cake. Again I was struck by the incongruity of taking tea in a madhouse; so much so that I almost laughed aloud. I realised, too, that I had grown even hungrier, and we ate for a few moments in silence, glancing covertly at each other.
“Miss Ferrars,” he said suddenly, “since you asked me to lend you the train fare, I presume you have no money with you?”
“None at all; but the valise I arrived with is not mine, and neither are the clothes; though they are exactly what I should have bought if I had to outfit myself for a journey. But why would I have done that, when I had perfectly good clothes already?”
“That is very strange—very strange, indeed. It almost suggests . . . But you must have had money to get here.”
“My own thought exactly. Bella says I gave her a sixpence when I arrived, but that she found no purse when she unpacked my—the valise. And I am anxious about two other things I am sure I would never travel without: my writing case, and a dragonfly brooch my mother left me: it is the only keepsake I have of her.” I described them both in some detail, hoping that I might have produced the writing case when he admitted me.
“I’m afraid not. Bella, I’m sure, is honest, and we take great pains to ensure that all of our staff are trustworthy, but there is always the possibility . . . The room you occupied is on the floor below this, on the opposite side of the building; I shall start by—”
“Mr. Mordaunt, I am not accusing anyone here of theft; I am worried that I have left them somewhere else—the hotel in Plymouth, for example, which I gave as my address, because of—whatever has befallen me.”
“Yes, I do see that. Staying alone at an hotel—I know you don’t remember, but it suggests that you are accustomed to travelling, are you not?”
“I would not say accustomed, but yes; my aunt and I made several journeys together, after—” I almost said, after the estrangement, but changed it to “after I turned sixteen. She said it was time I saw something of the world; she used to make me buy the tickets at the station, and write ahead for our lodgings, and make the introductions when we arrived. My aunt was determined that I should grow up to be an independent woman, you see.”
“And where did you travel—abroad?”
“No, not abroad. We went to Scotland twice, and to Yorkshire, and Kent . . .”
“And Plymouth?”
“No, never—that I can recall, I mean.”
And never to Nettleford, I thought. I had tried to persuade Aunt Vida, saying that I should love, more than anything, to see the place where I was born, only to be met with a barrage of objections: she was sure we would never find the house; it had probably been knocked down by now; the countryside there was just like the Isle of Wight, but not nearly as interesting; and so on until I gave up, inhibited by the memory of her distress that day by the lighthouse, and her impassioned cry: “You were her joy, her happiness: hold to that, and ask no more!”
I looked up from the flames and saw that Frederic was studying me intently. He blushed as our eyes met, and we finished our tea in awkward silence. I felt suddenly, overwhelmingly fatigued; he remarked upon it a few moments later and took his leave, promising to return in the morning.
I slept, that night, without the aid of chloral; a long, dreamless sleep from which I woke in grey twilight to the sound of raindrops spattering against the window. I got out of bed, moving much more freely, and pressed my face against the grille. Steady, drenching rain was splashing along the paths below and bouncing off the tops of the walls. The trees beyond were no more than dim, skeletal shapes, wreathed in vapour.
It was raining like this, I thought, when we lost our house. The autumn was almost over, and the weather had been so wet that I had not ventured out of doors for days. The roof had sprung a leak; water was dripping loudly into a bucket on the floor of Mama’s old room, and our garden had become a swamp, with rivulets streaming around the house and gouging deep channels in the sodden earth. All week the mercury had hovered beside “Rain”; there had not been much wind, only the relentless downpour. But when we woke on Saturday morning, the glass had fallen toward “Stormy,” and a heavy swell was running. As darkness gathered, the roar of the waves grew louder still, and the wind was rising.
Amy and Mrs. Briggs were away, staying with relations as they did on the last Saturday of every month. My aunt and I had finished our supper and drawn our chairs close to the sitting-room fire; she was playing patience, as she often did to settle her mind, but I could tell that she was uneasy. I was sitting with my back to the flames, listening to the gusty roar of rain upon the roof, the creaking of the house, the wind shaking the windows and flinging torrents of water against the glass, and beneath it all, the deep, echoing boom of the waves.
Without warning, the house shuddered violently. Ornaments jangled and fell; a cupboard door flew open; the floor lurched and rebounded. A roar like thunder followed, shaking the walls until my teeth rattled; I thought for an instant we had been struck by lightning, but how could that be, when we had seen no flash?
“It is the cliff,” said my aunt. “Quick, fetch the lantern.”
I seized a candlestick and hurried downstairs, with my aunt close behind me despite her rheumatism. We kept a hurricane lamp on a hook by the kitchen door; I fumbled with the chimney and the box of vestas for an age before the wick caught and the harsh white light flared up.
We hastened along the passage, and threw open the front door to the rush of wind and the deafening roar of the sea, louder and closer than I had ever heard it. I could see our four stone steps, black and glistening, and a little of the gravel path below, but the light was drowned in the confusion of the deluge, like bundles of fine steel rods hurtling past an impenetrable curtain of blackness.
“Shall I go down and see, Aunt?” I shouted, reaching for my waterproof.
“No—too dangerous—must leave now,” replied my aunt, struggling into her oilskins as I closed the door against the noise. “We must find the path—make for the vicarage.”
“Mama’s brooch!” I cried, and was racing back upstairs before she could stop me. I dashed into my room and seized the jewel in its red velvet case. My writing case lay on the bedside table; I seized that too, thrust it into
the bosom of my dress, and was back in the hall before my aunt had finished tying on her sou’wester. I threw on my own oilskins and galoshes; we returned to the kitchen door and faced the downpour again. Not long before my mother died, a gate had been let into the back wall: to reach the village, we would have to climb a steep, narrow path up through the gorse for a hundred yards or more, and then follow the road—a welter of mud, after such a deluge—for at least a quarter of a mile before the lights of Niton came into view.
“The rain is too heavy!” I shouted. “If the lamp goes out, we’ll be lost!”
“Must chance it—keep together!” She seized the lamp with one hand, clutched my arm with the other, and plunged into the storm.
I must have walked this path a thousand times; even on a moonless night, my feet would carry me from the kitchen door to the gate with scarcely a thought on my part. But the light showed only a teeming chaos of darkness and rain. We were sheltered, at first, from the full force of the wind, but the lamp still flared wildly, and the hot glass hissed and sputtered as we lurched in what I could only pray was the right direction. Branches clawed my face; black, clinging mud wrenched at my galoshes. I could not tell whether the quivering I felt was simply my own body shaking with fear, or the ground itself trembling; with every thunderous crash from the sea at my back, I expected the earth to vanish from beneath my feet.
After an age of splashing and stumbling, I blundered against stone, and felt my aunt tugging me to the right until we reached the gate and began to climb. Black, streaming gorse caught at our oilskins, leaving scarcely room for us to walk abreast, and the wind grew fiercer as we dragged our way upward, tugging at my sou’wester and sending jets of icy water down my neck.
I was trying to count my steps, and had got to something like fifty, when my aunt gasped and fell heavily, dragging me down with her. The lamp flew from her hand and went out in a flare and a clatter of breaking glass, and we were plunged into absolute darkness.