Sparks of Light

by Janet B. Taylor

  How long was I out? Had to have been hours. I remember . . . what? Those men carrying Doug out. Being manhandled into a carriage. And then . . . something else, but what?

  Come on, Walton. Think!

  As I made myself relax against the restraints, I realized the drug was dissipating. I was sore, stiff from lying here so long. A nagging ache scratched behind my eyes. But my brain was beginning to clear.

  Collum! He and Mac, there on the sidewalk. Just before sleep pulled me under, they had seen me being hauled away in the doctor’s carriage. Surely they’d followed.

  Surely.

  “Miss Randolph.” Dr. Carson’s face appeared above me as he spoke. “If you can remain calm, we shall remove your restraints and have you escorted to the ladies’ ward, where you will remain until it is time for your evaluation. If you cannot remain calm, we shall bring in the other device I mentioned. You shall be placed in an isolation cell for twenty-four hours. For your own safety, of course,” he said. “Do I make myself clear?”

  Biting my lip so hard I felt the edge of my teeth pierce the skin, I nodded.

  “Good girl.”

  Chapter 25

  I dON’T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I WAS EXPECTING OF Greenwood Institute.

  Something out of a horror movie, maybe, with crazed, wild-haired patients chained to the walls. Darkness. Filth. Wraiths in white gowns, shrieking and ripping out their own eyeballs.

  I was pleasantly surprised.

  At first.

  I mean, academically I knew that by the end of the Victorian era, changes had begun to take place in mental health care, particularly in America. When wrestling with some of my own “issues” I’d come across plenty of material about this innovation, the private asylum. Generally administered by nonmedical personnel and set up for wealthy, cash-paying patients, these “clinics” boasted elegant lodgings, pastoral settings, light and air and decent food. More spa than nightmare, these substitutes for the horrific, overcrowded public asylums actually did a lot to reform treatment of the so-called deranged.

  If you were rich, that is.

  But I’d also read plenty about the atrocities that often took place at these private institutions. With no governing council to keep a sadistic owner in check, the people inside fell under his complete control. Trapped behind wrought-iron gates and green lawns and lovely brick walls, the helpless patients were subjected to cruelty, experimentation, and unspeakable, indescribable barbarity.

  After giving the order to release me, Dr. Carson bustled from the room, followed by the matron, who murmured something about a Mrs. Caldecott and surgery. A broad-backed guard in a quasi-police uniform of dark blue cloth, epaulets, and gold buttons unlocked the leather bonds at my wrists and ankles.

  A young nurse rolled in a primitive wooden wheelchair. “Name’s Hannah, if’n it please you, miss.” She maneuvered the bulky conveyance close and patted the seat. “Now take your time. Don’t want you goin’ all muzzy-headed afore me and Sergeant Peters can get you settled.”

  I started to refuse the chair, hoping if I walked . . . maybe I’d get a chance to run. But the instant I sat up, my vision went splotchy. I felt as though every drop of blood in my head had suddenly surged down into my gut. I gagged. Thankfully my stomach was empty and I only dry-heaved into the metallic pan the girl hastily retrieved.

  Cheery and chirpy, Nurse Hannah’s voice drilled into the back of my sore head as she wrinkled a pert little nose. “Forgive me, miss,” she said. “But you look like someone’s painted your skin with lead, like in those old queen days. And I bet ye’re powerful thirsty. Most of ’em are, comin’ off of the new drug.”

  New drug. I recalled, then, Carson’s bragging. He’d dosed me with heroin. Freaking heroin.

  Hannah hurried back with a metal cup of lukewarm water that smelled and tasted of dirt and the pipes it had traveled through. I downed it in three slugs. It was so delicious, I moaned.

  A veil draped from the girl’s white cap, covering the back of her upswept, dirty-blond hair to the shoulders of her black dress. A high collar and full apron were bleached a brilliant white and starched crisp as a potato chip. When Hannah gave me a reassuring smile, her apple cheeks gleamed from a recent scrubbing.

  The guard leading, our group of three wheeled out of the room. I craned my neck around to look up at the girl.

  “Um . . . Nurse Hannah?” I figured polite was the way to go here. “Excuse me, but do you know what happened to my . . . servant? The boy who was brought in with me? Tall fellow with glass—​with spectacles? His name is Douglas, and—”

  “Wouldn’t know, miss,” the girl cut in. “Men are taken to D and E wings, they are. We nurses aren’t allowed over on that side. And I’d never break the doctor’s rules. No, never that.”

  Her gaze slid from mine to skitter across the carpeted floor and floral-papered walls. The round cheeks flushed to crimson.

  She’s lying. Why would she lie about that?

  No clue. But Doug was here, somewhere. I just had to find him . . . somehow . . . and get us the hell out.

  In the corridor, electric sconces lined the walls, interspaced with soothing paintings of country meadows and flower gardens. The air smelled sweet. Too sweet, as if the myriad bouquets that topped a series of narrow tables barely concealed a whiff of decay.

  As we rolled along, Sergeant Peters didn’t say a word, though Nurse Perky sure kept up her end of the conversational stream.

  “Yer awful lucky to be here, miss,” she said. “Some of the other hospitals . . . Oh, you don’t even want ter know. Had an aunt what was in Bellevue. That were a horrible place.” She patted my shoulder in what I assumed was meant to be reassuring. “Not to worry, though. Our Dr. Carson’s a right genius, he is. Here at Greenwood, we treat our patients like human beings. The doctor insists on all the most modern treatments. Some of the other docs in town even come here to study his methods. And he’s come up with so many new ways to help all these poor souls . . .”

  Hannah waxed on about the amazing Dr. Carson as we passed bright, elegantly appointed rooms lit by electric chandeliers. Marble fireplaces, plush carpets, and luxurious furniture filled each space. And the people who populated them appeared well dressed and calm, as if they’d just popped in for a little chat.

  But there are bars on the windows, I noted. And as we neared another doorway, I heard sobbing. Hannah sped up, but I caught a glimpse of an older woman kneeling in the center of an oriental carpet. Ignored by the others in her area, the woman rocked back and forth, hands pressed to her temples as she wailed incoherently.

  The cries quickly faded as we crossed the brick-lined breezeway that led into the next wing. I squinted at the darkened, expansive lawn. Strewn across grass still brown with winter were groupings of ornate iron benches and tables. An evening breeze blew by, bringing with it the sweet scents of daffodil and narcissus and freedom.

  “See how nice it is here?” Hannah went on. “It’s a far cry from where I live, I can tell yer that. Me and my Freddie’s building? Smells like sauerkraut and soiled nappies most ’er the time. Course we ain’t been blessed with one o’ our own yet. See, my Freddie, he’s gone out on the fishin’ boats for weeks and . . .”

  Hannah droned on as the mute Peters removed a ring of jangling keys from his belt. As he unlocked the door to the next wing, I gnawed at a cuticle, hiding a frown. Locked. Dammit.

  This corridor was identical to the last, though here, the doors were all shut. Hannah trailed off as two nurses and a man in surgical whites pushed a covered gurney down the hall toward us. Beneath the rattling of metallic wheels, I could hear a woman’s soft, slurred cries.

  “No,” she moaned. “Please! Do not do this to me. Where is Albert? Where is my husband? I demand you get him at once!” Her head rose from the flat pillow. “Albert!” I winced as the desperate cry echoed off the scalloped ceiling. Sobbing, babbling, begging, she cried, “Please. Wait. Just . . . just wait. I’ll be good, I swear it! I shouldn’t have spoken out.
I know that now. Please, allow me to speak with my husband. Please.”

  The nurse at the head of the gurney leaned down and whispered something in her ear. The sheet writhed and twisted. I saw, then, the leather bonds strapped at wrist and ankle. Loose curls the color of autumn leaves cascaded over the sides of the gurney as the woman whipped her head back and forth.

  “Mrs. Caldecott,” the nurse snapped. “Control yourself. Your husband has, in fact, given his full approval for the procedure. Signed the papers this very morning, he did.”

  Hannah wedged my chair against the wall as the other group approached. Mrs. Caldecott had gone limp. She looked to be in her late twenties, with lovely pale skin and delicate bones. As they squeezed by in the narrow hallway, her hand shot out. Dark green eyes bleary with terror locked with mine as her fingernails dug into my arm.

  “Help me. Please.”  The words dropped hopeless and limp from her chapped lips. “I am not deranged. Do not let them do this to me.”

  I sucked in a breath. I wanted to say something . . . anything . . . but before I could force out a word, Hannah wrestled her away. I flinched as Mrs. Caldecott’s nails scored five desperate lines into my skin.

  “No-o-o-o-o.” The cry cut off abruptly as the outer door slammed shut behind them.

  I am not deranged.

  Snippets I’d read about Victorian asylums flapped open inside my mind. The most haunting had been penned in 1879 by the wealthy writer and attorney Herman Charles Merivale. My Experience in a Lunatic Asylum by a Sane Patient was a first-person narrative of the author’s own entrapment inside a private mental institution.

  If the readers of this true history will imagine for themselves a number of hospitals for typhus fever, where any one of them, man or woman may, upon the first symptoms of a cold in the head, be shut up among the worst cases—​with moral, social, and physical consequences beyond man’s power of description—​they will know something of the meaning of private lunatic asylums.

  I remember thinking, at the time, how terrible it must be to feel so helpless. So caged.

  Mrs. Caldecott’s eyes haunted me as I pressed my back hard against the wooden slats of the wheelchair.

  “Miss?” Nurse Hannah started, but I interrupted.

  “What—?” I had to stop, to swallow down a diamond-hard nugget of fear. “What are they doing to her?”

  “Aw now, miss,” Hannah said, her chipmunk voice unaffected. “Don’t you worry none about Mrs. Caldecott. She’s been here a long time, she has.”

  We moved ahead toward a wide set of double doors. A brass plate mounted beside them read GREENWOOD LADIES’ WARD B.

  “What’s Ward B mean?” I asked, though I kept careful watch as the guard removed the ring of skeleton keys from his belt again and rattled through them.

  Okay. Locks from the outside. Sergeant Peters has keys. Check.

  “We just passed through Ward A, see?” Hannah was explaining. “Most of the patients on that ward either have very minor problems”—​she whispered the last word as if it were something obscene—​“or they’ve been here long enough, and are responding well to treatment. They may have earned special rights and privileges, see.”

  “Can they leave here if they want?”

  Hannah chuckled. “Oh no, miss. No one leaves Greenwood but what the doctor releases them. I mean to say they are allowed additional freedom within the hospital. They may have visitors whenever they wish. Go outside on the lawn when it suits them. Walk the gallery. All Ward A patients are allowed to attend the special entertainments. Things such as that.”

  “What special entertainments?”

  “Oh!” Hannah cried. “We have the loveliest performances here. Just last week, we had an entire orchestra. We’ve had a magician, an opera singer. Dr. Carson spares no expense.”

  As the guard continued to sort through the keys, Hannah tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Aw, don’t look look so glum, miss. You’ll be reassigned to Ward A a’fore you know it. Dr. Carson will know what’s best for you.” Eyes alight with hero worship, she said, “He’ll fix you right up. The doctor can fix anyone.”

  Peters gave a loud cough, then grumbled about keys and locks. I looked up as he raised the jangling ring up to the light of a nearby wall sconce. Metal sang on metal as he slid one key after the other slowly around the brass circlet, lips moving as he silently counted.

  He made a selection, then held the key aloft as if examining it for nicks. I could smell pipe tobacco and starch on the navy wool of his coat as his eyes flicked sideways to mine.

  Seven, I noted as he slowly turned to insert the key into the lock. Seven keys in all. And the one for this door is right in the middle, three on either side. Did . . . Did he just show me that on purpose?

  “What in blazes is taking so long, Sergeant Peters?” Hannah whined. “It’s nearly time for my shift to end, and I’ve still Miss Randolph to get settled.”

  Peters nodded as he reattached the ring to his belt and opened the double doors. As Hannah pushed past, I risked a glance up at him. One side of his bushy mustache twitched at the edges before he turned to lock the doors behind us.

  Another set of keys opened the brass doors of a small elevator that juddered us up two flights.

  “Welcome to Ward B, miss,” Hannah said as she wheeled me out of the elevator and into a corridor that stretched out so far, I couldn’t see the end. “This is the main ward. Ain’t much different from A, ’ceptin’ there’s just a few more restrictions is all. Ain’t that so, Sergeant Peters?”

  The nurse leaned down and whispered in my ear as the wheels bumped along the wooden floor. “Just be glad Dr. Carson didn’t assign you to Ward C. I hate seeing new patients get sent there straightaway.”

  Before I could ask what went on in Ward C, we stopped before a door of dark, glossy wood. A guard with a weedy goatee stood sentinel. “Gotcher self another victim, eh, Nurse?”

  “What are you doing here, Dupree?” The sergeant snapped, an edge to his rumbly voice. “Your shift ended two hours ago. Where’s O’Connell?”

  Dupree grinned, his narrow jaw and protruding yellow teeth giving him a distinctly rat-like appearance. “Had to go. Wife’s birthin’ their next brat. That’s six for him.” He poked the older man in the shoulder. “Ole O’Connell must be gettin’ it pretty regular to get that many pups out of her, eh? Course, they’re papist, and you know how they are. Breed like rabbits they do.”

  Sergeant Peters stiffened. The muscles in his neck went rigid as he stared at Dupree. “I’ll hear no more bawdy talk in front of the patients. We clear on that, Dupree?”

  “Take it easy, Eldon,” Dupree replied, palms out in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m just talkin’.” His tiny black eyes roved toward me, then glided down my body until I felt like I’d been slimed. “Well, well,” he said. “Doc sent us a looker this time, didn’t he?”

  Peters moved so that his bulky form blocked me from the other guard’s line of sight. “Open the door, Dupree,” he said. “Then go. I’ll take the rest of your shift.”

  “But—”

  “You are dismissed.”

  Sergeant Peters’s tone brooked no argument. Dupree sneered as he wrenched the lock open, then elbowed past Peters. Pausing, he bent until his face was inches from mine. Dupree’s nostrils quivered as he inhaled slowly through his nose.

  “Ohh . . . you’ll be a fine addition to Ward B, miss.” I hid a shudder as the tip of a pale tongue darted out to wet his lips. “A fine addition indeed.”

  Chapter 26

  “SHE’S BACK!”

  We’d barley crossed that threshold when a sturdy older woman, dressed in at least a dozen yards of heavy black silk, stormed us. Tall black feathers protruded from her snow-white hair. They wobbled when she stopped abruptly and glared down at me.

  For some reason, I didn’t want the sergeant to leave. I twisted in my chair to look at him, but the door was already closing, and he was on the other side. The lock clicked. There w
as a finality in the sound that tugged my stomach up into my chest.

  The elderly woman’s strident voice pulled me back around. Punctuating each word with a thrust of her folded fan, she said, “This. Is. Not. Mrs. Caldecott. Where is she? Where is Louisa? Tell us at once! Where did they take her?”

  “Now, now, Mrs. Forbes,” Hannah said soothingly. “You know we ain’t to discuss ’nother patient’s treatment with—”

  “Treatment?” Mrs. Forbes’s voice sliced through Hannah’s speech like a light saber through butter. “Ha!” The woman turned to address the two ladies perched in the ornate seating behind her. “Treatment, she calls it. You have the unmitigated nerve to call it treatment?” She scowled at Hannah. “If that doctor scrambles her brains like he did poor Miss Allen’s over there . . .”

  The slender young woman Mrs. Forbes indicated was seated in a wing chair, a kitten sprawled on the lap of her frilled pink gown. Paying no attention to the shouts, the girl smiled blandly at the tabby as it batted one of the ribbons that threaded through her cascade of white-blond ringlets.

  “Oh, do stop playing with that blasted cat, Annabelle, and pay attention.”

  When Annabelle Allen looked up, I realized there was something deeply wrong with her. Though pretty, with doll-like features, the girl’s vacant smile never altered. Her huge, hazel eyes looked vapid, empty, fixed on nothing as she stroked the cat.

  “Whatever is the matter, Mrs. Forbes?” Annabelle said. “Bootsie and I have come up with the most marvelous game.”

  Mrs. Forbes stared at the girl, her large baggy eyes softening before she whipped back in our direction.

  “Mrs. Forbes.” Hannah spoke up before the woman could start her tirade again. “This here’s Miss Randolph. Maggie is supposed to be bringing clothes from the community wardrobe, as the dear ain’t got a stitch with her but what she has on. Please make her feel at home, won’t you?”