by Karen Essex
A woman in the blue apron indicating that she was on the staff sat in the corner. Seward nodded to her. No one else looked up.
“The patients come to us distracted, their minds dizzy with all sorts of worries, phobias, and concerns, and we settle them by having them work with their hands,” the doctor said. “In turn, we sell the goods they make to raise funds for the asylum. We even fulfill personal orders from our neighbors. And the uniforms of the staff and the patients are all made in this room from donated cloth.”
“Impressive,” I said. “Very efficient.”
“Jemima?”
A young raven-haired woman looked up. When she saw Seward, she put down her embroidery frame and ran to him. Her creamy skin and bright eyes distracted from the drab gray dress hanging loosely around her frame and the fact that her nails were bitten to nothing, the surrounding cuticles and skin gnawed red. She tried to put her arms around the doctor for an embrace, but he held her at a distance. “There now, that will do,” he said, embarrassed, taking her by the wrist and placing her arm by her side. “Jemima, how are you feeling today? Well, from the looks of it.”
“Yes, Doctor, I am well. Very, very well.”
“Your chart says that you have been eating your meals. This is Mrs. Harker,” he said. “She might be bringing you your lunch tomorrow.”
The girl gave a little curtsy, though she was just a few years younger than I.
“If you continue to take your food and work steadily, you will be able to go home soon,” he said.
The girl took two steps back, firmly planting her feet in a show of protest. “No! I don’t want to go home,” she shrieked. “I’m not well at all. Not well, I tell you!”
The outburst was so sudden that I took a few steps back, in case she tried to attack us. The attendant rose from her seat, but the doctor motioned for her to sit back down. “There, there, Jemima. I did not mean to upset you. Of course, you won’t be sent home until you are ready.”
That seemed to settle her down. “Be a good girl and go back to your sewing.” She thrust her shoulder forward and rolled her head back in a sort of dance hall girl pose, and Seward escorted me out of the room.
“Do you see how changeable they are, Mina?” His eyes drooped at the corners. I knew that he wanted me to feel pity for him, but it occurred to me that the girl Jemima was probably in love with him, and that is why she wanted to remain in the institution. I even wondered if something might be going on between them.
“She has been with us for six months.” He fumbled through the charts and produced one with her name. He put the others in my hand while he read from hers.
“‘Facts Indicating Insanity: The patient left the family house for three days and nights during which time she claims that she married a railway policeman, though she cannot say where it was or recall his name. She ran away repeatedly to try to return to the policeman, whom the family says does not exist. At home, she displays herself in a window wearing a dressing gown without modesty.’
“The family physician committing her wrote: ‘She has lost all mental control in consequence of morbid sensual desires.’ She has attempted to escape Lindenwood by shattering windows and has subsequently been restrained.”
“Restrained?” I asked, smiling pleasantly, remembering Lucy’s letter and Kate’s instructions.
“In the most humane manner, I assure you,” Seward said. “Would you like to see the restraining instruments?”
“Oh yes!” I said with the enthusiasm of a child who had been offered candy.
Seward led me further down the hall to a mezzanine area, where we turned a corner. With a key, he opened a door, and we entered a room. Light streamed in through the single source of a small arched window. The room smelled of chemicals. He must have heard my little sniff. “It’s the ammonia used to clean the leathers. We sterilize them after every use. We are very modern here.”
Leather cuffs and straps of many sizes hung in bundles on hooks on the wall. He opened a closet, taking out a heavy linen garment with long sleeves that ended in mitts and a complex system of tie strings that dangled chaotically.
“Whatever is that used for?” I asked.
“We use the jackets in the more difficult cases to prevent the patients from harming themselves and others. In less severe cases, we use them to pacify.”
I cocked my head. “Pacify?”
“With male patients, we use them to control violent behavior. But with female patients, we have found that confinement of the arms and hands soothes the nerves. So many things cause ladies to become overexcited. You are such sensitive creatures. Prayer, which settles the male conscience and soothes his soul, has the opposite effect on ladies. We do not know why this is. Reading novels can have the same effect. We call these jackets camisoles because they calm a lady’s nerves in the same way that putting on a lovely garment might.”
“How does it accomplish that?” I asked, assuming a guileless face. I wished that Kate could be there to see me.
“I will show you,” he said. He walked behind me, reaching around and holding the jacket in front of me. I could feel his body, or some kind of kinetic energy, coming from it, though inches separated us. “Hold out your arms.”
I reached forward, and he slipped the sleeves over my arms. “It’s a bit too large for you,” he said. He tugged on the sleeves, pulling me backward so that I rested my back on his chest. He took a deep breath, and I felt his chest expanding against my shoulders. He worked the sleeves all the way up my arms, first one and then the other, until my hands were in the mitts. “There we are,” he said. “All snug.” He crossed my arms over my chest turning me into a mummy, and for a moment—just a moment—he stopped, wrapping me into his embrace. I shivered. If the garment was meant to settle nerves, it was having the opposite effect on me. I felt a stretch across my shoulders and forearms as he laced the strings hanging from the mitts of the garment behind my back, imprisoning my hands and arms and making me immobile. I thought I might panic, but I fought the urge. He rubbed his hands on my upper arms. “How does that feel?”
Though I was ashamed of the thought, I did not want him to stop touching me through the coarse linen. I was afraid, and yet I did not want the moment to end. I wanted to feel him, but not see him.
“Mina.” He said my name softly, letting the sound float past my ear and into the dark, damp room. I faced the wall of restraints, a jungle of buckles and straps.
“I feel helpless,” I said. “The more that I know I cannot move, the more I want to move. It’s a little frightening.”
“There is nothing to be frightened of,” he whispered in my ear. “Would I ever let anything happen to you?”
He guided me to a straight-backed chair and sat me down, kneeling in front of me. “Doesn’t that make you feel at peace?” he asked, his gray eyes looking up into mine, questioning me. To have said no would have shattered him.
“The goal is to make the patient feel secure,” he said. He reached around and tugged at something on the back of the jacket. “Feel these loops?”
His cheek was so close to mine. I had not taken a breath in some time. My throat and lungs seemed to have shut down. Unable to make myself speak, I nodded. He stood, walking over to the wall and returned with a long leather strap.
“If the patient continues to struggle, we attach the strap to the jacket and hook it to the wall. That way we may calm the patient without confining her to a bed. I want you to know how humane our treatments are. No one is hurt in our care.”
He took another leather strap off the wall, and then came behind me, and I felt two little tugs at my shoulders as he clipped the straps to the jacket. My arms were going numb inside the garment, but the beating of my heart overrode the feeling. He yanked the straps tight, pulling my back straight against the chair, correcting my already impeccable posture. I had the image of using this contraption on my pupils; they would never complain about the backboards again. He hooked the straps to the wall and came round t
o look at me and admire his work. I was rigid and completely imprisoned.
“Now that doesn’t hurt a bit, does it?” he asked, his voice as smooth as warm butter. “It can’t be any worse than a corset. In fact, my theory is that women are accustomed to submitting to the corset, so it predisposes them to the straitjacket.”
Still struggling to take more than the shallowest of breaths, I could not quite speak. Nothing was smothering me, or physically hindering my breathing, but the feeling of being helpless overwhelmed me. He could do anything he liked to me, and I would be powerless to stop him.
Seward knelt in front of me again. “You are struggling, Mina, but in reality, you are swaddled like a baby in the safety of its cradle. Struggle heightens the very hysteria we try to cure. Don’t struggle, Mina. Submit.”
Submit. Where had I heard that command before?
“I—I want to submit, John, but my body wants to struggle.”
“It’s not the body that is struggling but the mind.” He put his finger under my chin. “Relax, Mina. Relax. Let the sound of my voice relax you.”
He went back to the wall, returning with two black leather cuffs. “When the jacket is not enough—which is rare—we confine the feet. It helps, as you will see.” He knelt, buckling a cuff around each of my ankles, and then hooked them together. He scooped a chain from under the chair and attached it to the buckle that united the cuffs. I could barely move my feet at all.
Seward was on his knees now, staring up at me like a suppliant praying to a saint. He looked at me with the sort of adoration and excitement that he claimed prayer aroused in women. I was afraid, desperate at being denied the use of my hands, arms, feet, legs, but at the same time, I suddenly felt powerful, as if I could demand anything and not be refused.
“How beautiful you are, Mina,” he said, his eyes grazing every inch of my face. “How your skin glows. And your eyes, well, they are devastating.” He let out a loud sigh and moved closer to me. His eyes were focused on my lips, and I was sure he was about to kiss me. I was afraid of what he would do if I tried to stop him, but I knew that I must.
“Was Lucy confined this way?” I blurted it out on hot, fast breath, and he jumped back as if he had been kicked in the stomach, bending over so that I saw the top of his head, and the funny way that his hair was parted on a diagonal, like an incision across the scalp.
“Lucy.” He said her name, looking at me with emotions I could not identify—pride? loss? humiliation? weariness? anger? “No, not like this.”
He did not meet my eye but began to unfasten the buckles and ties that bound me. Once loosened, I slipped the jacket off and handed it to him. “Rub your arms to bring back the circulation,” he said.
I did as he instructed, and the blood flowed back into my arms.
“I do not think it wise to speak on a subject that will undoubtedly cause pain,” he said.
I did not know if he meant to me or to himself.
“She was my dearest friend. I thought that knowing about her final days would help. I need some satisfaction, John, or my grief will go on and on.” My eyes began to well up with tears.
He handed me a monogrammed handkerchief, but he did not look at me. “I must finish my morning rounds with the patients. I think it best if you rest before lunch.”
Sniffling, I followed him out of the room, where he handed me over to a hall supervisor, who escorted me back to my quarters, where Jonathan was in good spirits after his first examination by Dr. Von Helsinger. “I believe he can help, Mina. I believe he can get to the bottom of what happened to me, and why the experience has left me in this weakened and melancholic condition. He uses the method called hypnosis to lull the patient into a relaxed condition where memories return and are easily related.”
“Has he given you any medication?” I asked. “Or any treatments?”
“Nothing of the sort,” he replied. “We talk, that is all. Unburdening myself to him leaves me feeling uplifted and more hopeful, though when it is all over, I barely recall what I have said.”
I satisfied myself with this offer of hope, remaining confident that I had done the right thing in bringing him to the asylum. At least Von Helsinger did not seem to be harming him.
I sent a note to John Seward asking him again to allow me to volunteer in some way, and he sent a note back suggesting that I might read to the more lucid, calm patients. I was happy with this idea; I thought that if I could be alone with some of the patients, I could question them about Lucy.
The following morning, Mrs. Snead came to fetch me, and I accompanied her on her rounds to deliver breakfast trays to the patients. The wealthier patients, I had learned, had private rooms, while the others slept in dormitories, “where they fight like dogs, madam, sometimes tearing the hair out of each other’s heads. The medicines calm them, though, so most sleep like babes.”
I tried to inure myself to the pervasive moans, screams, and shrieks filling the atmosphere, but each loud cry released a fresh burst of pain or anger into the air, rattling my nerves. “Why are they screaming?” I asked.
She looked at me as if I were the crazy one. “Because they are out of their heads, madam. The worst ones are shackled to the beds and they do not like it.” Yet Seward declared that he calmed patients without strapping them to their beds. What else was he lying about?
“Do you remember the patient Lucy Westenra?” I asked.
“I do, indeed. The poor thing was as thin as a rail and refused to eat. They did what they could for her, madam. Tended to her day and night. The doctors did it all themselves. No, none of us was good enough to touch Miss Lucy. Broke the young doctor’s heart when she passed. The old doctor’s too. And the young gentleman who was her husband, all of them sat up with her for so long. Didn’t want to give up the body. ’Twere all so sad.”
I wanted to ask her more questions, but she was fumbling with her great ring of keys. She found the right one and opened a door, gesturing for me to go into the room where a lone woman sat, face upturned and lips moving, talking into the air. I had seen this lady, Vivienne, playing cards the day before, and something about the way that she had held my gaze with her deep green eyes had intrigued me.
“Mrs. Harker is going to visit you and read to you, Vivienne,” Mrs. Snead said. “Be a good girl, now.”
“You finished your porridge, I see,” I said, looking at the empty bowl on her tray as Mrs. Snead whisked it away. She shut the door, locking it behind us. The openings with bars on them ensured that a cry for help would be heard immediately. Nonetheless, I did not like the sound of the key twisting in the lock. But looking at the elderly lady wrapped in an old shawl with moth holes, I could not see a reason to be afraid.
Vivienne waited until she heard Mrs. Snead’s footsteps recede. “I always take every scrap of my meal,” she replied. “I must be strong when he comes for me. He is going to take me away.” She smiled like a little girl with a secret.
Seward had said that Vivienne had been in the asylum for many years. Was she actually being released? “Who is coming for you?”
She motioned for me to come closer. She whispered. “I am Vivienne.”
“Yes, I know. Vivienne is a beautiful name,” I said. Something in her voice triggered a memory in me. “You’re Irish!” I said. “I am Irish too, but I have lived in England for a long time.”
“Irish, you say? Well then, kinswoman, you are familiar with their ways.” She sat back, assessing me, a brick of silence.
“Whose ‘ways’ are you talking about?” I asked.
She retreated from me even more. “Oh no. I know your tricks. They sent you to run him off when he comes.”
“No one sent me, Vivienne. I came here to help the patients. I had a friend who was here for a little while. Her name was Lucy. She was very pretty with long golden hair. Did you see her?”
She sat up a little straighter. “Maybe I did,” she said. She looked as if she was reaching back in her memory, and my heart began to race, thinking th
at I might have another witness to Lucy’s last days. I patiently told Vivienne a little more about Lucy.
“Was she one of them?”
“Who are they?” I asked very quietly, trying to look profoundly curious. I thought that if I imitated her secretive tone, she would be more receptive to me.
“Who are they? They are listening to us right now, so we best be careful what we say and do not insult them. They are the Sidhe.” She pronounced it shee. “They are also called the Gentry. They go by many names when they walk among us.”
“I have heard of the Sidhe,” I said. It must have existed somewhere latent in my memory because it did sound familiar. “They are the fairies. Is that right?”
She looked at me with disdain. “Yes, the fairies, but not the little sprites and sylphs that live in the forest. The Sidhe are royalty. They are the windborne spirits who can make their bodies as solid as yours or mine if they want to have truck with us. I have been among them. I have seen their queen,” she said, her voice and body animating with a new energy. “She sits on a throne, surrounded by a fire of shining light, the light from which they all emerge and to which they return to rejuvenate themselves!”
I sat back discouraged. I was not going to get any information about Lucy; I was going to once again be the captive of an elderly person’s fanciful stories.
“I think I may have heard these legends when I was a child,” I said.
“It is no legend. They are the elder race, child, the original people, the dreamers who dreamt up the world. They formed themselves out of the swirl of life that flows through all things.”
With her remarkable eyes that locked tight on mine as she spoke, her long still-beautiful hands that gesticulated with her words, and her singsong Celtic voice, she began to captivate me. Perhaps it was my destiny to be a companion to half-mad elders. “How do you know these things?” I asked.
“It started on midsummer’s eve, when I was just a girl of seventeen. I had joined the followers of Áine, the fairy goddess who still walks among us in disguise.”