The Medea Complex

by Rachel Florence Roberts

  “I'll try my best,” Doctor Savage says, before bending and sitting next to my lawyer. I'm not even tempted to offer him my chair.

  “Let me tell you both what I'm thinking. Remember when your wife was admitted to Bethlem Hospital?” I move to answer but he shakes his head. “Just let me speak. It was a strange enough request at the time, that a woman found unfit to stand trial should enter Bethlem. All criminal lunatics get sent to Broadmoor. Naturally, I put this down to the fact that her father contributes heavily to the hospitals' fund. With enough money, you can do and request almost anything, unfortunately. Yet I accepted her as I saw her as a genuine case...why would I not have?” He laughs, bitterly. “To tell you the truth, I’m still not sure. But here's the thing. I only realized as time went by, that Lord Damsbridge had only started contributing six months before Lady Stanbury killed your child. Number One. Number Two: she never quite fit into the diagnostic box of puerperal mania. Sure, she did, but there was something about her physical symptoms that never quite tallied with the psychological ones. But who was I to think otherwise? Everyone is different. If there's anything I've learned from science, it’s that one man can have a pulse of fifty, and another a pulse of one hundred. And they can both be perfectly well. Yet, she didn’t remember you, which was unusual enough to pique my interest at the time but unfortunately, not my curiosity.

  “Number Three: You told me she hid the pregnancy from you for five months. I then believed it to be her anxiety, and her love for you as her husband to not cause you any grief if she miscarried for a second time. I now think she hid the pregnancy from you, as if she were planning on giving birth to the baby, and never letting you know you had a son. If she had access to those letters of yours, I guarantee you that’s what she was trying to do. She knew you were going to divorce her and take away her baby-"

  "The Custody Act-"

  Dr Savage whirls upon my lawyer.

  "Damn the Custody Act! You and I both know it doesn't work, and so did she! She was more intelligent than any of us gave her credit for!" He turns to me, the desperation in my eyes reflected in his own. "You thwarted her plan, Edgar, to quietly give birth and take the child safely away, so she hatched a new one.

  “She actually admitted killing the child to one of my attendants. The nurse naturally told me of this, but I put it down to the remnants of a hypnosis session which Lady Stanbury had undergone a few weeks prior. Oh, I knew she killed her child: that came out wrong. What I meant to say is that she admitted doing so whilst she was sane. And now the letters, confirming the story you told me about William IV and Dorothea Bland. Oh, drat, the hypnosis session!”

  My mouth is hanging open. What is he telling me? I verbalise the question, but he ignores me, pulling anxiously at his beard. We already know she killed my son. What on earth is he trying to tell us?

  “Who has been hypnotised?” asks my lawyer from the floor. Doctor Savage ignores him.

  “I should have known from the minute she admitted everything!” He looks to the ceiling and shouts. “Damn you, Tuke! Our research was far from finished, you old bat!” Who is Tuke? I don’t have any time before he gazes at me and continues talking a mile to the dozen. “Why, those letters that have just convinced the jury of your guilt, only prove that she was telling the truth, and that you are an innocent man! One in twenty…by god, you are to be the one in twenty!” He leaps up, and runs to the door. “I repeat: your wife saw those letters whilst she was pregnant! She believed you were going to take the child away from her, so she took the child away from you! She knew that if you divorced her, she would lose her child forever, but she was unable to divorce you so she did the next best thing! My God! A woman will do anything to protect her child, and I mean anything! I don’t know how exactly she did it, only that she did!”He hammers at the door. “Guard! Let me out at once!” He turns to me, a manic look in his eyes. “The key to your freedom Stanbury, I have it! I wrote down the transcript of her confession! Guard, let me out!” He kicks the door. “Guard!” The door opens, and he runs out.

  My lawyer and I look at each other, each one as confused as the other.

  Did We Do The Right Thing

  Beatrix

  March 6th, 1886

  A small cottage...somewhere

  "Of course we did the right thing, Beatrix. Really, I can't believe you're even questioning it now," Anne says, lifting a cup of beef tea daintily and carefully; ever mindful of the babe in her arms. "You know what it is like to want a child and I, what it is to be without a mother. We provided that for one another, and for that I am ever grateful to you. Yet..." She shifts her gaze to John with a smile of love. "A child needs its mother, above and beyond anyone else. Nothing can replace that, I'm afraid. Here, could you make me another? I'm loathe to move in case this one wakes up."

  "Of course." Taking the cup from her, I glance at John. His tiny hands are curled up in front of his face, poking out of the blanket swaddling him; almost as if in his sleep, he is already trying to hide from the world into which he has been borne. A horrid world where young women sell their babies for pennies, and baby farmers murder them for a price.

  I walk the five steps it takes to transport me into the kitchen, a tiny space. The entire home is tiny; not much larger than that I grew up in. But this house is indeed a home; warmth blankets every corner of the air, the glow from the log-fire sends a dusky, orange glow over everything. I can't help but compare my current comfort to the girl I left to freeze on the road; no less than I can compare her child to the one Anne cradles to her breast.

  Three women pinned me to a dirty mattress, and ripped my baby from my womb before it even had a chance to grow. I was no use to them with-child, and so of course, that was the most logical solution.

  Except it wasn't logical. They didn't have an ounce of intelligence in their heads when they stuck a piece of wire into me. They didn't stop to imagine for one moment that they might end up killing not only their maids unwanted child, but their maid as well.

  That's how Anne's mother found me. Bleeding to death by the side of a road.

  "Beatrix? You've been in there an age!" Anne calls to me, authorial, sure of herself. I adopt the same tone as I pick up the two steaming cups, and carry them back into...what? The drawing room? The parlour? This is the only room besides the kitchen on the ground level.

  "I'm quite alright, Anne. Here." I put the tea on the small, round table beside her.

  "Thank you." She raises herself up in the chair, and starts to rock it back and forth. "Sends him into a deeper sleep," she says, answering my unasked question. She stops after a few minutes.

  "Would you like to hold him for awhile?"

  No. No, I can't. Not now. I look at him, and now, all I see is an innocent baby, split into the same amount of pieces as the one they scrambled inside of my belly. Except it was on the outside, and this baby was fully grown, alive. I took part in an innocent child's murder, and then I murdered it's mother as surely as if I had raised a knife against her when she came to claim him.

  "Beatrix, I can see the worry etched into those ever-deepening frown lines of yours. Will you stop it? At least, tell me what you are thinking."

  "I'm thinking of a baby, Anne; killed, butchered, by us." I've always been open and honest with Anne, but this time she flinches as if I have pinched her.

  "My God, Beatrix. Do you know what I have been through? I cut a child into tiny, unidentifiable pieces. I risked the gallows in doing so, and then risked my sanity by acting insane. Do you have any idea how difficult that was for me?"

  "Yet you will sit back, and watch another innocent die. Edgar is going to hang."

  She sighs.

  "That wasn't the plan Beatrix, and you know it. Who was I to know about the 'no body, no murder' rule? Why, I took it as writ! At the very most I expected him to go back to his hovel with his tail between his legs, and forget all about this nasty episode of his life. Unfortunately, the law appears to be a bit vague in books. Mr Tumsbridge is better t
han I expected."

  "'Better'?" For the first time in her life, I no longer adore her. Love her, yes. Stand by her? Forever. Lie for her? As deep as hell runs black. But sit here, and be unable to judge her? I cannot.

  "I can't help but judge you, Anne. I left that child's mother to die by the side of the road."

  A small, sneaky look of slyness crosses her face.

  "Well in that case, who are you to judge?" She stands slowly, pulling John tighter into her breast. "You were fighting for your child, just as I was for mine. Now," she says, crossing the room and leaning into my cheek, "you're just as bad as me."

  Her kiss is ice.

  "The only truth in this world is a mother's love for her child, and I don't regret a thing." She turns from me, taking her son to bed.

  We all enter this world covered in blood. Some of us survive the brutal entry. Yet only a few of us exit it without any still on our hands.

  A Mockery

  Dr Savage

  March 6th, 1886

  Royal Bethlem Hospital

  “Wait for me here!”

  I don’t give the coachman time to reply and can only hope that he heeds my request, as I run up the stairs into my hospital and sprint into my office.

  Everything is just how I left it.

  A mess.

  I search the papers on my desk frantically, swiping each useless one onto the floor quickly until moving onto the one underneath. When I get to the wood, the floor is littered with notes and medical files and yet none of them are what I am looking for.

  What did I do with the transcript?

  I start emptying drawers.

  I did it because I love my child. Wouldn't any mother care to do the same? I didn't feel guilty when the blood ran over my hands, yet neither did I feel vindicated. I just felt I had protected my child in the only way I knew how.

  There it is!

  As I move to tear off the page, a previous entry catches my eye.

  Anne was clearly distressed following the miscarriage she suffered. This grievance left Anne extremely susceptible to future mental problems. I do not believe that she fully mourned the loss of her first child, and when faced with her second pregnancy, she thereupon read any and all literature she could lay her hands on with regards to midwifery and childbirth in a misguided attempt to keep the second baby safe. This in turn filled her mind with apprehensions at to the horrors that might be in store for her, and she thus developed a cerebral disturbance.

  It is noteworthy here that Anne gained access to advice books, medical literature and periodicals, and, having an intellect great enough to both understand and digest this information, Anne was open to terror and anxiousness regarding the impending birth of her second child.

  My legs become weak, and I my stomach drops even further. How could I have missed this? How could I have missed everything? She didn't read to keep the baby 'safe' as I previously assumed: she read to learn the symptoms of puerperal mania!

  'She always was an avid reader, Doctor. It helped more than you know.'

  Everything has been a lie, everything!

  Swiping the entire file, I make it to the office door in two strides, when I bump into someone coming in the other way.

  “Oh, Doctor, sorry, I...”

  “Agnus?”

  Nurse Agnus, coming into my office.

  An office that she knew was empty, until now.

  “Doctor, I-”

  I grab her by the arm, and push her up against the wall.

  “Doctor! What are you-”

  “Tell me what you know! You knew Lady Stanbury wasn't insane, didn't you?”

  She blinks at me, her face inches away from my own, but it is Miss Fortier's' face and words I hear inside my head.

  She was gifted in the art of reading.

  Gifted in the art of reading.

  Reading.

  By Lord, Nurse Ruth was right!

  “Well, did you? Child, if this be the case, an innocent man is about to be sentenced to death in,” I look at my watch, “half an hour, or thereabouts! Tell me!”

  “Doctor, I...what do you mean she wasn't insane? Who’s about to be sentenced to death...surely not that Mr Stanbury? I remember him well, he was such a lovely looking young man. I read about him in the newspaper recently, but I don’t understand what you're asking me...” Her blonde hair loosens from its bonds and wisps around her face, making her look every inch the child that she is.

  I resist the urge to shake her, and let go. I don’t know if she knows anything or not, for sure, but I don’t have the time to interrogate her. It’s at least a ten minute cab ride back to the courthouse, and I need to be there before the jury decides Mr Stanbury's fate...

  “Sir?” A tugging at my arm, a gentle voice. I realize I am bent over on the floor. This burden is too much; too heavy upon me. All I ever wanted was to make people well, and my good intentions have been made a mockery of.

  “Sir, alls I know is that Miss Fortier approached me a few months ago, she said that I was to get myself employed here as Lady Stanbury would be admitted here. She said that it was important she had a friend on the inside, as they'd heard awful things about asylums, and it was my job to make sure she was alright, and that nothing happened to her. But that’s all I know, I wasn’t told anything about her not being crazy or anything like that...She said-”

  Lord. I want to break out of my own skin, I want to scream and howl and break things.

  “How did she know of you, child?” I believe her when she says she didn't know anything. She is too sweet, too innocent. She is, at least, thankfully, one person whom I have judged correctly.

  “She said my mother used to work in Asquith House as a scullery maid, but she was sacked...I don’t know what for. Beatrix felt badly for her, and all she told me was that she used to send her money on a regular basis so's she could survive. I believed her, Sir, because I don’t remember my mother working after that, and it was only me and her like, but we were okay for money. We never starved or nothin'.”

  “So she asked you to secure a job here as some sort of favour, is that correct?”

  She shrugs. “I guess so, Sir. There was no reason for me to question her motives. I always quite fancied doing my nursing exam anyway, and it’s nice to have a bit of extra money to buy some nice things for me and me' mother. An' I’ve really enjoyed working here Sir; I hope you don’t think I’ve done anything wrong...”

  Doctor, it has come to my attention that you have adopted a regime of mechanical restraint since the retirement of your eminent predecessor, Dr William Reece Williams.

  I never questioned it. I never questioned how he knew such a thing. Oh, how could I have been so idiotic?

  A clock starts to toll, and I realise we've been talking for five minutes.

  “Good Lord, child! Move out of the way! I must get to the courthouse!” I sweep past her, bumping her accidentally on the way and I hear her gasp, but I don’t stop...I don’t look back as I leap down the steps, I don’t look up until I get to the gates and rise myself up to get into the coach.

  It’s gone.

  The cab has left without me.

  Until You Are Dead

  Edgar

  March 6th, 1886

  Defence Table

  It takes the jury twenty minutes to make their decision.

  They bring in closing speeches, whereupon Mr Tumsbridge brings tears to the jury's eyes. Mr Smithingson seems merely outraged, and resorts to slander of the prosecution. “They speak words not as evidence, but as a barely concealed, narratively-loaded pile of rubbish!” But the jury have already made up their minds Listening to the obviously inexperienced defence lawyer is akin to a mosquito buzzing around their ears on a midsummer’s evening.

  The Judge stands.

  “Mr Foreman, have you agreed upon a verdict?”

  “Yes, we have. We find Mr Stanbury guilty of murdering his wife.”

  The world turns hazy.

  The Judge passes his sentence.


  I don’t hear or see anything after, ‘hanged by your neck until you are dead’.

  Popped Right Off

  Edgar

  March 14th, 1886

  Newgate Prison

  Condemned Cell

  “Hey, do ye' 'ear tha' sound? They're out there testin' t'drop wi' bags o'cement. Do ye know yer' less than fifteen feet away from t' gallows right now?” The prison warden pokes me through the blanket, taunting me. When I refuse to answer, he continues. "I 'ope they tested ye' weight properly like; ye got t' same executioner who as decapitated sum' poor fella' last year, ye' want t' know 'ow? T' rope was too long, like, and 'is 'ead popped right off his shoulders. I saw it 'meself, made a right mess, it did. 'Eee...but 'ye might just get lucky; the year befoor 'e failed 't 'ang a man, cos t' trapdoor wouldn' open. Again, and again, the funniest sight 'ye ever did see. In t' end, the lucky mans sentence was commuted. Think the angels were smilin' on 'im that day.”

  “Go away,” I tell him, huddling further into the mattress. They weighed and measured me yesterday. Now I know why. I wish the other warden would come back. Although I’m not interested in playing cards or dominoes right now, his gently pressing attitude for me to engage on some level is preferable to this evil idiot, whom is perfectly nice whilst in the others company but a demon by himself. He leans in close to me.

  “But what I want t' know 'is, will t' angels be smilin' on ye today, Stanbury? Or d' 'ye reckon t' ropes gonna' be t' long like, and pop ye' head off just like a conker?”

  I ignore him, thinking of my son. His face, his tiny hands, his wisps of hair-

  “Ye' know, I 'ope they've got a good rope; strong, fine an' soft. I 'ear Mr Berry uses rope made out o' fine Italian Hemp. Such a waste. It's a pity though....tha' the woman’s family can't come an' see ye hanged. Stupid law.” He pokes me again. “Hey, I 'eard durin' your sentencin' 'ye wept like a baby and screamed for mercy. Did ye' wife scream fer mercy, when ye' killed 'er? Did ye' think she knew she was goin' t' die? How does it feel now like, t' know you're gonna die in,” he pauses. “fifteen minutes? Eight in the mornin'...wha' a time t' 'ang a fellow. Think they'd let ye' 'ave a lie in, wouldn't ye?” A knock on the door resounds around the cell. “Aye up, no doubt that's t' Chaplain. Ready t' confess ye sins? Not tha' it'll do ye much good.” The door unlocks with a click. “Bu' I suppose ye know you're goin t' 'ell, don't ye?”