Human Traces Read online

  ‘I love it,’ said Jacques. ‘I feel I am Englishman already.’

  ‘Good. Then you will want to ride with us tomorrow.’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘I suppose that is another of your talents.’

  ‘We had a violent mare at home. If you could ride her, my father used to say, you could ride any horse in France.’

  Thomas laughed. ‘You wait till you try Achilles. Do you have a clean shirt and all that nonsense for dinner? Tell me about your journey. And what is happening in the world of the nervous system? Tell me everything.’

  ‘First, you tell me what I need to know for tonight. Who else will be there? What special customs do you have?’ said Jacques, trying to sound facetious, not just worried. ‘What English rituals are there?’

  ‘Early June,’ said Thomas. ‘The sacrifice of the virgins. You have missed the maypole dancing, but it is the season for the burning of the Roman Catholics. I have told my father you would be happy to oblige.’

  ‘Delighted, of course. Provided that I am allowed to witness the sacrifice of the virgins.’

  ‘But of course. Noblesse oblige. And you pass the port to your left. Or is it your right? I can never remember. Do not kiss anyone. Do not shake hands. That is considered vulgar and foreign.’

  ‘And foreign things are bad?’

  ‘Invariably. Is that not your experience?’

  ‘It was until a few moments ago. Now I see possibilities. There is a part of me that feels almost English.’

  ‘Make sure it is a thinking part. We are entering the village of Torrington. They may never have seen a Frenchman before. I wish you good luck. After dinner we shall meet again.’

  The new maid, who turned out to be called Violet, showed Jacques to his bedroom and told him to be downstairs in ten minutes. Jacques had time to take out his best suit and shirt for dinner, to wash his face and hands and to check his appearance in the mirror on the dressing table. There was something about the room that pleased him – the planed and polished floorboards, the jar of fresh wild flowers, the selection of books on a side table: Atkinson’s Flora of Lincolnshire, a translation of Eugénie Grandet and an old copy of The Lancet. Someone had been thoughtful on his behalf – that was what it was, more than the details of the room itself – and he was touched by it. He peered at his face one more time in the glass. Although he had slept only a few hours the night before in a Holborn inn, his brown eyes were bright, and the skin below was clear; he was excited for no reason he could tell, merely that he was young, there was an evening ahead, friendship, wine and much to say.

  Thomas’s family was in the library, to which the waiting Violet escorted him. ‘This way, sir.’ Jacques felt fraudulent, being called ‘sir’ by a servant in a big house in a foreign country; he felt the gloom of his humble home envelop him like a flag that said ‘impostor’. Thomas sprang from the sofa where he had been lounging and put his arm round Jacques’s shoulders as he introduced him. Jacques’s eyes took in people – English people, lumpish, powdery, stiff. He held out his hand, then, remembering, rapidly thrust it back behind him. On his shoulder was Thomas’s arm – ‘My mother . . . father . . . Mrs Meadowes . . .’ – and round his knees were what appeared to be a pack of Dalmatian dogs, snuffling and grinning, thrashing his thighs with their tails. ‘. . . Dr Meadowes . . . Stop it, Dido, get down . . . Gordon, sit down . . . And my sister Sonia Prendergast whom you will remember from Deauville.’

  Jacques found himself bowing, and as his eyes went down to the carpet saw a proffered pale hand briefly appear then vanish.

  ‘I remember very well,’ he managed to say, looking up again into Sonia’s slightly amused eyes, dark and rapid, exactly as he did indeed recall from the walled garden of the Pension des Dunes: that look – sardonic, but modest. She wore a dress of burgundy silk with a row of pearls; the skin of her throat and upper chest, Jacques noticed, was still that of a girl.

  ‘Welcome to Torrington, Mr Rebière,’ said Mrs Midwinter. She stressed it on the first syllable, as though it were‘Rebbier’.

  ‘A glass of Marsala, perhaps,’ said Mr Midwinter. ‘Don’t let the dogs do that or you’ll have white hairs all over your trousers.’

  ‘Not black hairs,’ said Jacques, ‘from the spots? That would be preferable.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Midwinter, without any acknowledgment that Jacques might have been attempting a pleasantry, ‘it is only the white hairs that moult. Most inconvenient.’

  Jacques stood with his back to the fireplace, trapped in an enfilade of polite inquiry: journey, family, home, work . . . He turned to left and right and knew, like a St Cyr infantry subaltern, that it was a matter of standing firm and soaking up the fire. He felt the affectionate eyes of Thomas and – he thought – Sonia on him as he held his position until relief came with a knock at the door: ‘Dinner is served,’ said Violet, giving a small curtsey, blushing and disappearing swiftly back into the hall.

  The French doors of the dining room were open on to the terrace, and a light breeze cooled the overdressed company as they took their seats. Jacques found himself between Mrs Midwinter and Mrs Meadowes, wife of the local doctor; he disguised the weakness of his English by asking numerous questions of the ladies and obliging them to talk. Opposite him was Dr Meadowes, who had a swollen foot and walked with a stick; his ailment seemed to make him short-tempered and disapproving. Thomas was two seats to the left, out of range for Jacques, unless he were to crane rudely in front of Mrs Meadowes’s bosom or sneak behind her back; but diagonally across from him was Sonia, who was doing her best to humour Dr Meadowes.

  Jacques found his eyes aching to return to Sonia’s face, but forced them to remain on the plump and powdered cheeks of Mrs Midwinter, as she explained the expense of keeping horses. When she looked down for a moment to her soup, he let his glance flick once across the table and found that Sonia was looking steadily at him. She smiled at him in an unembarrassed, sisterly way without breaking off her attempts to be pleasant to Dr Meadowes. She had no need actually to look at Meadowes, because he did not raise his face from the soup plate.

  Sisterly, thought Jacques. Of course: I am her little brother’s friend. Why would she not be cordial and unembarrassed? Nevertheless, he felt inexplicably deflated by Sonia’s friendliness as he turned to find out more about Mrs Meadowes’s herbaceous borders.

  The English food was surprisingly palatable. After the soup, there was roast pork carved by Mr Midwinter at the sideboard and taken round by Violet. Jacques noticed that her hand was shaking when she served him. He did not often eat so much or so well on his unforgiving budget and only wished they had not served vegetables at the same time as the meat.

  ‘All our own, you know,’ said Mrs Midwinter. ‘Jenkins has made rather a good job of the kitchen gardens this year.’

  Jacques noticed the enthusiastic helpings that she took for herself; he caught Sonia’s eye again and thought he saw a light of amusement in it. His glass was filled with red wine from Bordeaux; his plate was cleared and another, with cold fowl, was placed in front of him. Perhaps he had imagined Sonia’s look.

  After a peculiar milk dessert, Jacques was surprised when Mrs Midwinter abruptly stood up in mid-conversation, put her napkin on the table and made to leave the room. He hurried from his chair, presuming that dinner was over, hoping to be in time to open the door for her. Sonia and Mrs Meadowes followed Mrs Midwinter out, and Jacques stood by the door, waiting for the men. Thomas, still seated, shook his head and pointed Jacques back to his seat. Mr Midwinter fetched a decanter of port from the sideboard and motioned the others to move up to his end of the table. The sweet wine was unfamiliar to Jacques, but he found it pleasant enough and pushed the decanter across the table into Thomas’s waiting hand.

  ‘So, Midwinter,’ said Dr Meadowes. ‘Are you pleased to have your daughter back? What sort of fellow did he turn out to be, this Prendergast?’

  ‘A rascal,’ said Mr Midwinter, sitting back in his chair. ‘Not a
rogue, not a cheat, but a man of straw. Couldn’t keep the girl in a respectable way. Built up huge debts and had no chance of getting out of them. There were no children, so we did well to cut our losses.’

  ‘It must be disappointing for you.’

  ‘A little. But she is still young. The divorce settlement has been agreed. I still have hopes for her future, though of course she will be seen as tarnished goods, so one’s hopes are modest.’

  ‘It is difficult to see how she is tarnished, father,’ said Thomas, ‘when she acted in such good faith.’

  Mr Midwinter chuckled. ‘That was the damn funny thing about it, Meadowes. When I had negotiated her release from this fellow – this impecunious rascal she wasn’t even fond of – then blow me down she says she wants to stay!’

  Dr Meadowes coughed into his glass. ‘Why? In God’s name, why? Frightened of being an old maid?’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Midwinter. ‘It was a sense of duty, I think. She said a lot of things I didn’t understand. About how being his wife was what she did for a living, or some such thing, and she couldn’t change that any sooner than she could change her parents. It was a rum thing, I can tell you. I would have been out of there like a shot.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Meadowes. ‘Queer cattle, women.’

  ‘Exceedingly queer. But she seems all right. She’s a little quiet, but I think in a way she’s glad to be home. I know we’re pleased to have her back. She’s a good girl at heart.’

  Thomas put down his glass. ‘Papa, I think you might try a little harder to understand Sonia’s position. I am sure you acted in her best interests, but can you not see how powerless and forlorn she must have felt to see her life decided for her, wondering about the lack of children, too, and whose fault that was? And then for you to call her “tarnished”, as though—’

  ‘It’sjust a word, Thomas, just a blasted word. And what’s more it is a word that will be used, whether we like it or not. You were always such a pedant, weren’t you, as though the future of the world depended on the choice of a single word or a line of Shakespeare. It doesn’t.’

  ‘But, Father—’

  ‘Let it lie, Thomas.’

  Jacques watched asThomas controlled himself, cleared his throat and reached for the decanter, from which he filled his glass, before passing it silently to Dr Meadowes. Jacques felt sure the Thomas he had encountered on the beach at Deauville would have poured the contents on his father’s head; perhaps his acquiescence showed that Thomas, like him, had moved on from the days of student self-assurance.

  ‘So,’ said Mr Midwinter, unable quite to keep a note of triumph from his voice, ‘how is your boy, Meadowes? Following in the family profession, I understand.’

  After the port, they rejoined the women in the morning room, though it was not long before Thomas, drawing on the privilege of youth, asked if he and Jacques might be allowed to walk in the garden.

  ‘My God, this grass,’ said Jacques. ‘It is like velvet.’

  ‘But you have lawns in France, Jacques.’

  ‘My father had a stable yard with fields behind. But this is wonderful, it’s like walking on cloth.’

  ‘In the morning I shall take you for a tour of the grounds. I have brought a cigar for you. Shall we sit beneath the cedar? Hello? Who’s that?’

  Jacques turned round to see a female shape hurrying towards them in the darkness. ‘Do you mind if I join in your walk?’said Sonia, a little breathless. ‘I could not bear another of Dr Meadowes’s case histories.’

  ‘Come and sit down,’ said Thomas.

  ‘“Have I told you about the old farmer’s deaf wife who fell downstairs?” he asks. And you say, “Yes, you told me earlier.” But then he just carries on and tells you again anyway.’

  ‘Ah, but we like case histories out here,’ said Thomas. ‘It is part of what we need to talk about.’

  ‘I am sure that you will not repeat yourself so soon or so often.’

  ‘We will try,’ said Jacques, emboldened by Sonia’s modest manner.

  ‘Mama thinks I have a headache, so perhaps it would be best if she does not know I came to join you,’ said Sonia.

  ‘It shall be our secret,’ said Thomas. ‘Now Jacques was about to tell me what he has discovered since I saw him last.’

  Jacques puffed at his cigar. Although he felt inhibited by Sonia, he thought he might as well be serious. ‘I think what I am finding,’ he said slowly, aware that he could not express himself in English as well as he would like, ‘is that there may be very little time left in the life of what one calls psychiatry. From what I have seen in the Salpêtrière and from the place where Olivier lives, most of the illnesses are of neurological origin. Neurology, as you know,’ he said to Sonia, ‘is the study of diseases of the nervous system which stem from some lesion in the brain or the spinal cord. Anyway, in Paris there are certain eminent men who are making progress in attributing to the different parts of the brain the functions of speech, movement and so on. I believe that soon we will be able to diagnose at post-mortem the half-dozen most important diseases. Then we can set about finding cures.’

  ‘It is a shame you have to wait until they are dead,’ said Sonia. ‘I suppose there is no other way of inspecting someone’s brain.’

  ‘Not yet. Though one day we may be able to take a photograph through the bone of the skull.’

  ‘Not with my Underwood,’ said Thomas.

  ‘But when this task of nosology is complete,’ said Jacques, ‘the majority of mental patients will become neurological. The remainder, whose damage is incurable, can only be nursed, but they may be looked after in hospital with the limbless or the blind. No more asylums.’

  ‘My dear Jacques, we have barely begun our lives as alienists and already you are declaring the profession moribund.’

  ‘All this is happening very quickly,’ said Jacques. ‘Itis time for us to move, or we shall be overtaken.’

  Thomas sighed. ‘I agree with you that there is no time to waste. From my point of view the urgency is to discover treatments before all lunatics are classified as incurable and fit only to be managed. For you, the urgency seems to be to make our contribution before all the answers are discovered!’

  Jacques laughed. ‘It is good that we have different views. As long as we agree that speed is essential.’

  Sonia coughed. ‘May I ask a small question? What exactly is this thing that you are going to do?’

  ‘We are going to set up in private practice,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Not in Lincoln. The competition from Dr Meadowes would be too fierce.’

  ‘Don’t mock, Thomas. He told me his son is to become a doctor as well.’

  ‘We will have to follow money, to some extent,’ said Thomas. ‘You cannot be a specialist without clients.’

  ‘Suppose we go to Paris,’ said Jacques. ‘That is where the best research is. And there is money.’

  ‘Suppose we go to Heidelberg or Munich,’ said Thomas. ‘I think the Germans have a broader outlook.’

  ‘Suppose we go to Vienna,’ said Sonia. ‘The music and the—’

  ‘No, it must be Paris,’ said Jacques. ‘At the Salpêtrière, the senior neurologist, Professor Charcot, gives public lectures which have changed the face of medicine. He uses hypnotism to demonstrate the nature of hysteria. He is able to induce bodily changes in the patients. These lectures are open to the public. Anyone can go.’

  ‘It sounds a little cruel,’ said Sonia.

  ‘No, the completion of the grand mal is good for them. The convulsion itself brings relief.’

  ‘I have another small question,’ said Sonia. ‘Do you not believe that talking to people and treating them kindly might have a beneficial effect?’

  Thomas laughed. ‘You must not start us off on the psychological question. We are not yet at one on that.’

  ‘You don’t appear to be at one on very much.’

  ‘Thank you, Sonia,’ said Thomas. ‘I believe that mora
l treatment, concern and so on, may well help sick people; even if it does not, it is still kind to ask them about their thoughts and feelings. It is clear to me that many of my patients are suffering from organic illness of the brain that no amount of good will can reach. Jacques, on the other hand, I think, is sceptical about the achievements of his own countrymen in this field. He thinks—’

  ‘I think,’ said Jacques, ‘that some of those apparently cured in small and wealthy asylums are not suffering from mental illness as you and I understand it. But what most persuades me is my own case.’ He turned to Sonia. ‘My brother has been in an asylum for ten years. Before that, he lived in the stable at home. When I go to see him, it is like talking to someone who lives in a world close to our own, but divided from it by an impenetrable barrier. I wonder if he inherited some abnormality of the brain. But I do not have it and neither does my father. As for my mother, I do not know because she died when giving birth . . . To me.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Sonia.

  ‘So perhaps Olivier’s illness is the result of what Pasteur would call a “germ” that he breathed in somewhere. Or maybe he has been driven to behave like this by the circumstances of his life. Yet these were not so different from my own, or from those of most of the young men in our village. And until a certain age he seemed happy.’

  ‘Also,’ said Thomas, ‘we have noticed, and so have other alienists, that Olivier’s symptoms are similar in pattern to those of many others. You feel there is a recurring shape to them. A large number of the people in my asylum have it, and it is hard to believe that so many disparate individual lives could produce such a similar pattern of symptoms, unless there were a common physical base, something they have inherited.’

  ‘And how are things inherited?’said Sonia. ‘In the blood, somehow?’

  ‘The precise mechanism is still, alas, unknown. But it would be similar to whatever transmits family resemblances, colour of eyes and so forth.’

  ‘I see,’ said Sonia.

  ‘But the interesting thing,’ said Jacques, ‘is whether there could be some process by which the patient’s experience can somehow release an inherited organic illness that until that moment was lying dormant.’