Victorian Maiden (4 page)

“
So we've not just one, but two nurses in the room with us. Good lord, Atticus, if you were planning on falling sick, now would be an excellent time to do so.”

Dr Roberts chuckled at his own wit and beamed fondly at his guests seated around the large teak dining table. It had been waxed and polished until it reflected the rays of the evening sun streaming in through the tall windows as perfectly as any of the glass table vases with their bouquets of sweet briar.

“Two nurses, and a doctor,” Lucie reminded him.

“Ah yes, Mrs Fox, I am a doctor but a head-doctor only I fear.”

Dr Roberts' eyes twinkled as he held up a finger in mock admonishment.

“And I'm not sure that counts. You see, I am a psychiatrist, and psychiatry is easily the least precise of all the branches of medicine. It's more art perhaps than science. Indeed many would say it's just one step removed from black magic.”

“So why become a psychiatrist at all if you believe it to be so – ineffectual?” Atticus asked, deeply puzzled.

“I don't, Atticus. On the contrary, I believe it can be effective, very effective indeed. What I'm trying to say is that too many people, including sadly many of my own fellow physicians, believe psychiatry to be little more than a dark art and just so much mumbo-jumbo. But I disagree. I profoundly disagree!”

He slapped the table with the flat of his hand and Elizabeth started.

“Make no mistake: Pain of the mind – pain of the very soul itself – can be every bit as insufferable as any other pain, and oftentimes, far more so. Psychiatry can help to relieve that pain certainly, but unfortunately the path to relief is all too often a very long and tortuous one. We may take many – often very many – trips into purgatory before we finally get to paradise.

Atticus, Mrs Fox, let me share with you something of my own experience. If you feel better or worse towards me as a consequence, well then, so be it; it can't be helped. When I was younger…”

“Are you sure that this is wise, Dr Roberts?” Mary Lovell interrupted, grasping Elizabeth's hand.

Roberts' smile was serenely reassuring.

“I believe so, Mary, yes. There is no cause for alarm.”

He put his elbows on the tabletop and pressed his fingertips together as if in prayer.

“When I was younger, in my adolescence and early manhood, I was tormented by all manner of anxieties; by all kinds of unwelcome thoughts that kept plaguing, kept torturing my mind. Maybe I was one step from madness, or maybe I was quite mad. Who knows? Perhaps it was others who were mad.

Before he took his life, my father told me how he had once gone away on a grand tour of Europe for the sake of his own sanity. It had helped him greatly, he said, and he urged me to do the same. So I did. The distractions of the great cities of Europe, and the time away from Harrogate, and especially away from this house, helped me to regain much of my health. Then, when I was travelling through Germany, I began to learn of the great advances in the fields of psychiatry and psychology that were being realised there. I had an epiphany. Standing in the middle of a Berlin slum, I determined right there and then to put whatever wit and resource I possessed into the treatment of mental illness.

I enrolled at the Charité institute in Berlin and eventually, I became a psychiatrist. I believed that if I could prevent just one person, even for a moment, experiencing the torment I had gone through, then my life and all my pain and suffering wouldn't have been completely in vain. It might actually have all been worth it.

I'm happy, of course, to treat the well-to-do of Harrogate, and where necessary, to pander to their hysterics and their ridiculous theatrics. They pay handsomely for my affectations. But let me tell you this: I'm happier still to help the poor and the destitute, to help those with real pain, real anguish; those in our own slums, for example, or those, like my poor aunt, who rot away in the workhouse infirmaries.”

“Bravo,” Atticus said.

“Bravo indeed, Dr Roberts,” Lucie echoed. “It's very clear that Miss Elizabeth is in capable hands here.”

Roberts' face was still flushed from his jeremiad as he turned to her.

“She's in excellent hands, Mrs Fox, and all the more so as she still has her devoted nurse and companion with her, as she has since childhood.”

He smiled fondly at Sister Lovell, and his eyes suddenly reflected the sun as much as ever the table did.

“Mary, while I think of it, may I ask that you take the bedroom adjacent to Aunt Elizabeth's? It's the one my father had as a child. If she were to cry out in the night, you know as well as I that we would never hear her from the main house.”

Sister Lovell nodded once, without speaking.

“My grandfather still lives in the Annexe too,” Roberts continued.

“If they were by chance to meet, it might well trigger rather unpleasant memories for her, and it would be for the best if you were on hand to reassure her.”

Sister Lovell pursed her lips and nodded once again.

“But if that is the case, wouldn't it be better if she was simply lodged elsewhere in the house?” Lucie asked. “It is a very large house after all.”

Roberts stared at his aunt for a moment as he considered Lucie's question.

“I don't know if you are aware, Mrs Fox, but Aunt Elizabeth suffers from something called senile dementia. As a nurse, you'll know all too well what that means: that her brain is gradually deteriorating, and as a result, she's slowly and inexorably losing both her memory and her powers of reason. It's been demonstrated at the Charité that a sudden change of environment, a move from the familiar to the unfamiliar, for example, can greatly accelerate the condition. I've decided therefore, that painful though it might be in some ways, it is far better to return her to her childhood room. She will likely still remember it and that recollection in itself may well stimulate her mind. A strange room would undoubtedly frighten and confuse her, and might ultimately even shorten her life. If Sister Lovell is on hand to help settle any of the more unpleasant associations she may have with the room, then that's the very best anyone can do for her.

My aunt ran away from this house to escape ill-use at my grandfather's hand. I believe that if she can meet him now, without him causing her any harm, then that too might help to reduce the fear – the very great fear – she must undoubtedly still have of him.”

“Mr Alfred is not joining us for dinner?” Atticus asked.

“No!”

Roberts' retort was a whiplash. It seemed to surprise even him.

“I'm so sorry, Atticus; that sounded far harsher than I intended. The polite answer to your question is that no, my grandfather will not be joining us for dinner, today or any other day. He will spend all of his days in the Annexe. As his doctor as well as his grandson, I insist that he never leaves it. There's a lock on the door between the Annexe and the rest of the house, and the double carpets, thick walls and heavy drapes across all of the doors mean that nothing will disturb him there.”

“It seems sad that he must be locked away like that,” Lucie said. “Is he so very frail?”

An inexplicably discomforting silence followed her question; a silence that was mercifully broken by the appearance of a large lurcher dog that nudged open the door. It stopped abruptly as it spotted the strangers and gently sniffed at the air. Apparently satisfied, it walked timidly into the room, wagging its tail affectionately towards Dr Roberts. It had a distinct limp.

Roberts clicked his fingers and the dog trotted obediently up to him. It turned and sat down against his boots, gazing up at his face in adoration.

“Aunt Elizabeth, Mr and Mrs Fox, Miss Lovell; I have the pleasure of introducing you all to Gladstone.”

The dog's ears twitched at the mention of its name.

“Gladstone is my eternal friend and faithful companion, and is named after our great Prime Minister, the ‘Grand Old Man,' now sadly out of office.”

“He's a lovely dog,” Atticus said, “With an intriguing choice of name. What made you name him for Gladstone?”

Roberts gently scratched the top of the dog's head, and the steady thump of its tail beating against the leather of his boots measured out several seconds before he replied.

“It was because I greatly admire Mr Gladstone the man, Atticus. I especially admire his work with prostitutes… and the child prostitutes in London.”

He suddenly grinned.

“And because Her Majesty our Queen once complained that he addressed her as if she was a public meeting, and that's exactly how Gladstone here regards me.”

They all laughed, except Elizabeth, and the atmosphere in the room lightened and lifted once again.

Lucie asked: “What happened to his leg, Dr Roberts?”

Roberts' grin froze as he looked down at his dog.

“Gladstone is a dog I had cause to rescue,” he replied. “You see, he was once owned by a notorious scoundrel who lived just outside of the town. He used him to course hares, I believe. One day, I was out riding near to the hovel where he lived, and I came across him thrashing the poor beast with a cudgel. I can still hear the cries and the yelps even now. He had broken its leg already and he was well on the way to beating it to death.”

He looked up and his eyes erupted in fire.

“So I took that cudgel from him and I held him down, and I damn well smashed his own leg for him. It was perfect, natural justice do you see, Mrs Fox. I did unto him exactly as he had done unto this poor, defenceless hound: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a leg for a leg. Then I brought the dog back here to Sessrum and nursed him back to health, both physically, which was easy, and – dare I say it – psychologically, which, as always, was that much harder. Two or three years ago, Gladstone would have taken one glance at you, Atticus, and run to hide in the scullery for the rest of the day. Now, well you can see for yourself, apart from that limp he has and the tiniest bit of skittishness, he is a perfectly normal and happy dog.”

“But what if the scoundrel had killed the dog?”

The flames in Roberts' eyes burned brighter still.

“I'm not sure what I would have done in truth, Mrs Fox. Killed him, perhaps?”

He shrugged.

“I might have done. Who knows? Righting injustice is what I must do, you see? That was my epiphany all those years ago in Berlin; I must rescue those less fortunate than myself and try to give them some semblance of a normal… of a just and normal life. Like Gladstone here, and like Aunt Elizabeth. We only have one life, and surely everyone deserves at the very least for it to be bearable. There would be much less mental anguish in the world and so much more happiness if everyone was allowed a normal life, with kindness and simple, natural justice.”

“Then you are to be warmly commended for your humanity, Dr Roberts,” said Lucie, “And in continuing in the family tradition of philanthropy.”

“The problem with Aunt Elizabeth,” Roberts continued, a little hurriedly, as if perhaps he might have been embarrassed or otherwise discomforted by her words.

“The problem with Aunt Elizabeth is that she lost everything at the age of thirteen; her happiness, her family, effectively her whole life. Now her senile dementia means that she has no chance of ever regaining it. Yes, we can feed her fine food and keep her in warm, comfortable surroundings, but her essence – her mind,” he tapped his forefinger frantically against his temple, “What made her Elizabeth Beatrice Wilson has gone. She's regressing further and further back into childhood. Eventually the point will be reached when the dementia finally overwhelms her and she moves on to the next world. Please God it will be kinder to her than this sorry one has been.”

“But life in the workhouses can't have been nearly as bad as you say,” Lucie countered. “The principles governing them mean that they don't provide for a life of ease to be sure, far from it, but that can't be to say that she was never happy.”

“Lizzie was never happy; is never happy.”

Sister Lovell spoke for the second time at the table.

“She only ever worked. She worked until she could work no longer. But not because she revelled in the fruits of her labour, or because she enjoyed the reward of an honest day's toil. Lizzie worked, and worked frantically, only to keep herself from thinking; from remembering the awful things that had happened to her. And when she wasn't working, it was only because she was either exhausted or buried under depression in the workhouse infirmary. Now that she is old and frail, she can work no longer, and so those memories must haunt her night and day. It must truly be purgatory for her.”

Dr Roberts leaned back in his chair, twisting his napkin between his fingers as if he was trying to wring the very dye from it. The fire was burning in his eyes once more.

“It seems the very cruellest of ironies that something that robs us of our memories should be the very thing that tortures us with them. Well, no-one can change the past, but I for one, and Mary for another, are going to do our damnedest to make certain the remainder of her days are the happiest she has had since she was a girl.”

He threw the rope of napkin onto the table. It lay there for a moment, twitching and uncoiling, mesmerising them all as their silence paid respect to his words.

“Now, Mr and Mrs Fox, we get back to business. I have two further commissions for you. Firstly, when she died, Aunt Elizabeth's mother left a fortune of several thousand pounds in her will as well as Halcyon, her family home. Aunt Elizabeth is the sole beneficiary of that will. I would like you to pay a visit to the lawyers who administered the estate and advise them that you have found her safe and well.”

“Didn't your grandfather get his clutches on it all?” Sister Lovell asked.

Roberts shook his head.

“He wasn't the slightest bit interested in any part of his sister's estate, Mary; except for the two hundred pounds worth of course.”