Human Traces Page 22

  ‘I think you are quite the teacher’s pet, Thomas.’

  ‘Ssh. This is my beloved Underwood. Reliable, portable, and with beautiful tapering bellows. You see? If they did not taper it would be twice the size. The real joy of it is that it takes dry plates. I put one in here like this. Shall I take a picture of you? Come outside for a moment.’

  He posed her against the brick wall of the shed. ‘Smile, Sonia. Think of the great adventure you are about to begin.’

  Sonia looked at Thomas and the expanse of the lunatic asylum behind him. He uncovered the lens and she smiled shyly into it.

  ‘Perfect! Now I just slide the cover onto the plate again, take the plate holder out of the camera and I can develop it any time I like.’

  ‘Will you develop it now?’

  ‘Come on.’

  Back inside, Sonia looked round the first room of the shed and saw that the walls were covered with photographs of the insane. Some of them looked bedraggled and retarded, some vacant and some quite rational. Sonia felt a faintly demeaning curiosity to know more about each one, and what their problem was, but Thomas called her in to watch him at work.

  He turned off the white light and lowered the red one, so that the square space took on an unreal glow. There were a dozen brown pharmaceutical bottles on a shelf in front of him from which he poured quantities into three dishes. ‘I am hopeless at all this,’ he said. ‘Pass me that book, will you? Mr W. K. Burton. He tells me how to do it.’

  Sonia watched in amusement as Thomas bent over one dish, then the next, the chestnut hair falling over his forehead as he occasionally reconsulted Burton, before lifting the plate up to the red light, where he held it for a second. He rinsed it beneath a tap and moved it on.

  ‘This is taking a long time,’ said Sonia.

  ‘Sometimes I am in here half the night.’

  ‘And what exactly is the point?’

  ‘I am making a reference library of the patients, so we know which one is which. They are stored in McLeish’s office with their names on the back. All right, now I have to leave it under running water. Come and have a look in the other room while we wait.’

  He pointed out various patients to her on the wall. ‘This is Daisy. She is a very nice girl.’

  ‘And what is the matter with her?’

  ‘Nothing very much. She has spent too much time in an asylum. This poor lady on the other hand is as mad as a March hare.’

  ‘Is that the diagnosis you offer to the Commissioners?’

  ‘No. I make up something more sonorous to impress them. Let’s walk in the fresh air while we wait.’

  As they made their way slowly towards the ice-house, Thomas said, ‘There is a famous man called Galton who takes photographs of mad people and then lays the images one on top of the other. He is trying to show that all murderers have the same shaped head, or that if you have a long jaw you are likely to be melancholic.’

  ‘And that is not what you do?’

  ‘No. I do just the opposite. I use them to make the patients look like less of a type and more of an individual. When I see them in their wards, I see a sort of undifferentiated mass. But when I take a picture, I see each man and woman. And each one is in fact a human with a story. In some ways the insanity is the least important thing about them. In a photograph they are still complete, so one is not tempted to see them so much as something broken.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Though of course that makes it in some ways even worse. If each is not just an example of an illness but a man or woman, then in each one you are trying to restore something like the fullness of being human when in every case this means something slightly different. And all that without having any real cures, even for their symptoms.’

  ‘No wonder Dr Faverill seems sad.’

  Thomas glanced at her. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose he does. I do not always think of them in that individual, photographic way. It is too much to bear. When a general orders a column to attack, he does not think of each man in it. If he did, he would be lost.’

  Sonia, put her arm through his. ‘If we walk back slowly, will the photograph be ready?’

  ‘Just about. The other thing I do with these pictures is show them to the patients. They are very interested in them. Some keep them by their beds. They find it comforting to think that they exist.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If you live in a world that is full of delusion, it is novel to be confronted with evidence of your existence in a solid place. Some of them do not recognise themselves. Some look as though they cannot quite place the face they are looking at. But some of them are really heartened by the evidence that they have solidly gone on, grown older, that they are still someone. They deduce that their existence must seem real to others.’

  Back in the darkroom, Thomas turned off the running water and lifted the plate from the sink on to a towel; he then leaned it against the wall to dry.

  ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘One half-plate portrait fit to hang in any lunatic asylum in England.’

  Sonia peered at the image. ‘It is horrible,’ she said.

  ‘No, it’s not. You are beautiful. You look eighteen years old. Your eyes are full of kindness.’

  ‘My dress is full of creases.’

  ‘I think we should send it to Jacques.’

  ‘Oh no! Youmust take a better one. Not with that cameo brooch Mama gave me. I had no idea how ugly it looked. And my eyes have lines at the corner!’

  ‘Nonsense. You have the skin of a child. My dearest Queenie, if you truly imagine you are more beautiful than . . .’

  Thomas tailed off because there was a hammering at the outer door of the hut.

  ‘Dr Midwinter!’ It was Miss Whitman.

  ‘Come quickly,’ she said. ‘There has been some trouble. In Room 52. Mr Tyson is hurt and Dr Stimpson ain’t here.’ In the panic of the moment, her genteel speech was overwhelmed by the local idiom.

  They ran across the grass towards the asylum. Inside the long corridor, Miss Whitman unlocked a gate and led them down a spiral staircase into the basement. She ran ahead in the gloom and paused outside a barred iron door where she fumbled with her bunch of keys. They could hear the sound of shouting from the other side. Miss Whitman pushed open the door.

  Inside were about a dozen men, mostly without clothes, chained to the unplastered brick. A little light came through a half-window at the end of the room. One of the men, naked and streaked with blood, was holding a manacle, which he appeared to have wrenched from the wall, aloft in his hand. Tyson was sitting on the floor, leaning against an iron cot; he had a wound in his cheek, which was bleeding onto his uniform jacket, and his lower jaw hung down on his shoulder.

  Thomas turned to Miss Whitman. ‘Go at once to the pharmacy. Find a dressing and something to bathe the wounds. I need also some tincture of opium. Go to Dr Faverill’s office. Tell him to send three male attendants as fast as possible. Sonia! Why on earth have you followed us? Go up with Miss Whitman at once. Stay in Faverill’s office.’

  Thomas was left alone, like Daniel, though most of his lions were chained. He stared at the blood-streaked patient and began to speak calmly to him. ‘I am a doctor. I do not know your name but we are going to help you. Please be calm.’

  He could not think of anything helpful to say, but he wanted his voice to soothe the other patients, all of whom were moaning and distressed. Some were pulling at their restraints. He repeated quiet platitudes while he looked about the room. The resemblance to a feral den was increased by the scattering of straw on the stone floor and the smell it gave off. As Thomas bent over to examine Tyson’s injury, he looked up to the mattress, on which lay a creature, barely man, no threat to anyone because so much of him was missing – limbs, hands, half a face – so that he was not much more than a trunk with most of a head, breathing, alas; scraps of human matter cohering sufficiently to live.

  Thomas held the flesh of Tyson’s cheek together as they waited. The instigator
of the trouble began to turn his violence on himself, hammeringhis head against the rim of a bedstead. Thomas knew he should intervene to prevent self-harm, but hoped the man would stun himself sufficiently to become more docile.

  There were running footsteps at last, and Miss Whitman returned with two attendants. ‘Morphia,’ she said, holding out a bottle toThomas. ‘That’s what they give me for him.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Thomas. ‘You dress MrTyson’s wound, you two help me.’

  The attendants reluctantly approached the naked man, who now stood up and turned to face them. He was well-made, muscular, the torso part-covered in curling black hairs, but his eyes seemed disconnected from the activity behind them; looking into them, Thomas understood why people in earlier times had spoken of possession: some other force did seem to own him. He made little effort to resist, until they had him sitting on the floor and Thomas uncorked the bottle; then he began to escape their grip. Neither attendant was strong or particularly willing, but eventually they managed to sit one on each arm and to hold his head.

  ‘I need him to open his mouth,’ said Thomas.

  The attendants glanced at one another.

  ‘You do it,’ said one.

  The man selected punched the patient hard in the solar plexus. He gasped, and Thomas poured the medicine into his open mouth, then clamped his hand over the man’s lips. The three of them held him till they saw his Adam’s apple drag reluctantly upward in his throat and heard him swallow.

  ‘Miss Whitman, please take Mr Tyson up to Dr Faverill to be examined. I shall stay with the patient until he is calm. Then we will take him to a padded room upstairs until whoever runs this ward arranges for his safety.’

  ‘We are not allowed to use the padded—’

  ‘Please do what you are told. It is only for a short time and it is a better place for him than . . .’ Thomas looked round about them. ‘Than this.’

  Dr Faverill invited Thomas and Sonia into his private rooms for dinner that night. He had a panelled apartment on the second floor, high enough to give him a view above the brick wall and over the Downs to the south. The food was not from the asylum kitchen but was prepared by Matilda, who joined them at the table. There was soup and lamb cutlets, then pigeon with bread sauce and leeks from the kitchen gardens. Faverill poured wine from an old ship’s decanter he told them had belonged to his father, who worked for the East India Company.

  ‘I should like to apologise to you, Mrs Prendergast,’ he said, filling her glass, ‘for the distressing scenes I understand you witnessed today.’

  ‘It was my fault,’ said Sonia. ‘I ran after Thomas without thinking whether it was proper for me to be there or not.’

  ‘I should not wish you take away a poor impression of our asylum. The patients in Ward 52 are those who have proved beyond our capabilities. The man in question is someone who was sent to us from prison. We have repeatedly asked for him to be transferred to Broadmoor, but so far without success. The communication between hospitals, the county councils and the Home Office is not as it should be. There is another poor wretch there who should not be with us, but in some hospice or house of God.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Sonia.

  ‘That is very gracious of you. I wish I could say that I also understood. I believe your brother dealt with the situation very well. We shall miss him.’

  Thomas put down his knife and fork. ‘Why don’t you come?’ he said.

  Faverill spluttered over his wine. ‘What?’

  ‘Give notice in writing to the Committee of Visitors, saying that in one year you wish to retire. By that time we shall have finished our work in Paris and shall be installed in a fine clinic somewhere in the Alps. The medical staff will consist of myself and another young doctor. It would be wonderful for our venture if we were able to boast also a senior consultant, an éminence grise. You could decide how much work you would like to do, how many hours. The air will be pure, the surroundings congenial. Our patients will represent a mixture of fascinating ailments, and some of them,’ said Thomas, leaning forward to engage Faverill’s gaze more closely, ‘we expect to cure.’

  Faverill leaned back in his chair and laughed, not bitterly, thought Sonia, but with a richly sardonic enjoyment. ‘Cure! My dear Midwinter, I believe you may have found a marketplace. All of Europe is crying out for a cure for its madness. The doctors of my generation have failed. By bringing so many lunatics into one place we have merely demonstrated how numerous they are. But you . . . Ah yes, you must find the solutions. When the snake-oil salesmen sold their bottles from the back of their wagons in Colorado it was to a population crying out for medicine. You have the demand, you have the need. Now indeed is the time to supply the cure.’ His renewed laughter gurgled in his throat.

  Thomas was flushed with indignation. Sonia was ready to lay her hand on his sleeve, but she watched with relief as he controlled himself. ‘The knowledge of science does go forward,’ he said quietly. ‘It does not go back. My generation will do more than yours. And my children’s will do more than ours. We will never end our work because new illnesses will arise to test us. Occasionally in history, however, there are leaps. Progress is not smooth. I believe we are on the verge of such a leap, but even if not, I would be happy to contribute to a steady accumulation of knowledge. I am sincere in asking you to join us.’

  Sonia saw tears gather at the rim of Faverill’s eyes and wondered how much of his previous mirth had been genuine. ‘My dear Mid—’

  ‘Just let me make it clear, sir. A place in which we would take some wealthy clients, whose fees would fund the enterprise, but poorhouse patients too, whom we would treat pro bono. A private clinic with a proper research facility, set in beautiful surroundings. And Dr Faverill, the senior consultant, with the room of his choice, an Alpine view, working the hours that he chose, lending the lustre of his experience to two young men’s endeavour. And the literature we should send out for our clinic, our hydro, whatever we should call it, decorated with your name and the initials of your many honours.’

  Faverill resumed his humorous manner. ‘Now you flatter me too much, though I am indeed honoured by your words. Deeply honoured, sir.’ He raised his wineglass towards Thomas and inclined his head. ‘However, I must make it plain to you that I shall not be tempted into leaving England. I doubt whether I shall leave the grounds of this asylum.’

  ‘Why?’ said Thomas.

  Faverill breathed in deeply. ‘Love,’ he said.

  ‘Love?’ said Thomas. ‘Of country? Of place?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Faverill sighed and bowed his head in the direction of the fourth person at the table. ‘Of Matilda.’

  ‘In-deed.’

  Sonia noticed how Thomas managed to control the degree of surprise with which he had begun the word.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Faverill. ‘We cannot be wed because she is married to another, but I have pledged my life to her, most excellent woman.’

  Sonia looked at Matilda, who smiled back at her beneath her white bonnet, and ground her fingers into the palm of her hand with unusual force. She spoke, and her voice was thin and high, with a hard edge to the brogue of the county. ‘Good Billy,’ she said. ‘Good boy, Billy.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Faverill. ‘Thank you. It would take me a long time to explain the circumstances and I do not wish to breach any confidences. I hope it is enough to say that I admire Matilda more than any woman alive. I have the very highest opinion of her character, formed from a long and intimate acquaintance. She was once, as you may have surmised, a patient in this asylum. The county council records still have her as such. She was never my patient, but was treated by my predecessor. All I have shown towards her is concern. She is a lovely creature, I think, quick as a little thrush on the lawn, lively as a sparrow. She has shown me great kindness, for which I shall be for ever grateful. As for love . . . We know it comes unbidden, blind. So it was for me. A day without Matilda is for me a day not worth living.’

  Thomas
opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Sonia, feeling one of them should respond, said, ‘What a charming story, Dr Faverill. I am so pleased for you . . . Both.’ She smiled at Matilda, but what she said did not sound adequate to her ears.

  ‘Alas,’ said Faverill, ‘my devotion to Matilda prevents me from travelling. She is the most intelligent of women, thoughtful and percipient, but she is sensitive to change. Her life before she came here was one of extreme difficulty. She has found her sanctuary here, inside these walls. She has her own room in the tower, a little boxroom with a view, nothing more, but it is a world to her.’

  Matilda nodded vigorously. ‘That’s my home,’ she said.

  Faverill smiled at Thomas, who was still speechless. ‘We all acknowledge the random power of love,’ he said, ‘but we do not quite believe it, do we? Men and women are drawn to those of their own age and station. Their marriages are negotiations. Even in the poets we see no more than lip service paid to the idea. Ophelia is in love with . . . Not the grave digger, nor even Fortinbras, but of course with Prince Hamlet. Romeo’s love may be star-crossed but it is inevitable, is it not? The family feud only makes it more so. And as for Miranda . . . Had she fallen in love with Trinculo – no, had she fallen in love with Caliban – ah, what a play that might have been!’

  Even on the subject of his favourite playwright, Thomas could find no words to contribute and Faverill looked amused by his discomfort. ‘Come, Midwinter,’ he said, ‘you look as though you had seen a ghost. You look like Marcellus on the night watch. Have another glass of wine. At least it will bring some colour back to your cheeks. Is that not right, Matilda?’

  In her room that night, Sonia sat down to write to Jacques. This was something she enjoyed because it allowed her legitimately to indulge herself in thinking about him. At other times she tried to stop herself from picturing the dark brows, the anxious eyes with the sudden dilatation she had taken for evidence of steel but knew now was no more than a reflex of self-defence that covered his gentler feelings – the emotions that now included love for her. Several months had passed since his visit to Torrington and she had no photograph of him, no sure way of knowing that she had not imagined the episode beneath the cedar tree, except on the rare days in between that she had spent with Thomas, who, she and Jacques agreed, must be included in the secret. The plan was that Jacques should return in the summer and that they should have a marriage ceremony in England before returning to Paris. Thomas had been thrilled by the news of his sister’s engagement to his best friend; he told her it was the happiest day of his life and served to underline the fact that their joint venture (what he now called their ‘folie à trois’) was predestined. Sonia was touched that Thomas was so unaffectedly pleased, but a little put out that he was not more surprised; she did not altogether enjoy the feeling that a passion which had crept up behind her in the dark and filled her with joy and awe at the mysterious movement of providence should, to her younger brother, have been obvious all along.