Among the Mad (17 page)

“Always sticks, that one.”

Maisie nodded, but did not look at Billy. She felt his
composure breaking again, realizing that his wife was now deeper in the bowels
of asylum control, kept behind another set of locked doors.

“I understand that Mrs. Beale has undergone some kind
of insulin therapy.” Maisie volunteered the statement in a conversational
manner.

“Yes, she had the second treatment yesterday.”

“Do you know why?”

“The doctor thought it would get her mind on the rails
again, give her the push she needs to overcome her melancholy.”

“And there were difficulties?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. She became a bit
hysterical as she came out of it, so she’s been sedated.”

“I see. So, the insulin therapy is having no effect
whatsoever, then?”

The nurse did not respond to Maisie’s question.

They reached another door, and through the small
observation window could see that this was the room where Doreen Beale was
recovering. The nurse set the key in the lock and turned to Billy. “Now, she’s
not to be excited. She should remain calm—remember she’s still not quite
conscious.”

She led the way into the room, where Doreen was lying
on a cast-iron bed, her eyes wide open, her face contorted as she jerked her
head back and forth on the pillow. Her wrists were secured to the bed on either
side of her body, and her feet had been strapped to the bottom of the bed. Her
slender wrists reminded Maisie of a sparrow’s tiny bones, set against the dark
leather biting into her skin. Doreen had lost so much weight it seemed as if
the sheet and blanket were flush across the bed, with slight protrusions to
indicate the position of her feet, knees and hips.

“Oh, my darlin’ girl, my darlin’ girl.” Billy rushed
to his wife’s bedside and rested his hand on her damp brow, then leaned down to
kiss her cheek.

Doreen stopped struggling and began to weep, tears
falling across her face. “It’s bad, Billy. It’s bad here. Take me home, please,
Billy. I want my boys, I want my Lizzie, take me home.”

“We’ll get you out of here, don’t you worry. It won’t
be long now.”

“Don’t let them put them needles in me again, don’t
let them do it.” Her breath came in short, rapid gasps, and her chest rose as
she struggled for air.

A staff nurse entered and stepped across to the
opposite side of the bed. “Now then, Mrs. Beale, you don’t want any more
injections, do you? Take a deep breath, come on, Mrs. Beale.”

“I can look after my wife while I’m here, Nurse.
Please leave us.”

“Now, look here—”

Maisie moved toward the woman. “I can be of assistance
while you are out of the room, Staff Nurse. I am sure Mrs. Beale will settle in
a minute or two—and I was a nurse in a secure institution, so I understand the
importance of summoning you if help is required.”

Doreen calmed as she listened to the exchange, and the
rhythm of her breathing slowed as Billy stroked her brow to settle her.

“Ten minutes, that’s all you’ve got.” The staff nurse
shook her head and left the room.

“Who does she think she is—ten minutes, my eye!”

“Billy, you’re not helping Doreen,” Maisie whispered,
as she came to the opposite side of the bed. She took a clean linen
handkerchief from her pocket and wiped saliva from the sides of Doreen’s mouth,
then turned toward the side-table, where a pitcher and bowl had been placed,
along with a square of clean white muslin. Maisie poured cold water into the
ewer, then steeped the cloth into the water and squeezed out the excess.
Shaking out the fabric, she folded it horizontally and smiled at Doreen. “Now
if Billy will just lift his hand for a minute, let’s cool you down a bit.”

Doreen nodded, and looked at Billy, who was trying to
release the straps that held her hands in place. And as Maisie wiped her face
with soft strokes, then rinsed the cloth and swabbed her neck, she began to
weep again.

“I want my boys, I want my little girl.”

“Love, Lizzie’s gone now, she’s gone. That’s why
you’ve come here, so they can help you get over it.”

Doreen began to gasp again, and Maisie shook her head
at Billy. “Let’s just keep her calm. If we can get her transferred to the
Clifton, Dr. Masters will know exactly how to approach her treatment. Let’s
just settle her so they’ll release her from the straps and take her back to the
women’s ward.”

“I don’t want them doing this to her again.”

Maisie continued to draw the cool cloth back and forth
across Doreen’s forehead, and soon her eyes were heavy, her breathing became
more shallow and she began to fall asleep.

“Poor love, look at her, there’s nothing of her. She
looks barely more than a child herself.” Tears welled in Billy’s eyes.

“They’ll work through a standard set of treatments,
trying to find something that works,” whispered Maisie. “I am sure she has had
some kind of Faradism, and as for this insulin treatment—” She said no more,
but gave silent thanks for the fact that removal of the ovaries, the
fashionable treatment for melancholia in women some thirty years earlier, had
long been abandoned.

“What do you think will help her, Miss?” Billy rested
his hand on his wife’s forehead once again, as Maisie ran the cloth down her
arms and into her palms, removing the sticky sweat of fear from the exposed
parts of her body.

Maisie did not speak for some seconds, instead
stroking the cloth back and forth along the inside of Doreen’s left arm, her
eyes fixed on the thick leather strap and buckle that secured the sick woman to
her bed. “Time is the great healer. I once knew a doctor who said that his real
job was to keep the patient occupied while time and nature did their work. Doreen’s
grief has run so deep that it now colors every waking and sleeping moment. It
has leached down into the fibers of her being, so there are physical as well as
mental disturbances and consequences.” She paused. “I do not want to preempt a
doctor, however, I would imagine she will need a period of time in hospital, to
stabilize her melancholia—the fatigue, anxiety, depression. She has doubtless
suffered from the headaches and neuralgia that accompany her condition, so the
doctors will want to get her on an even keel, alleviate her physical suffering
to the point where they can address the deep-seated grief that has led to her
malaise, her instability. She needs good nutrition, she needs to be calmed. And
she needs to talk, but not to you or me or someone close to her. She needs to
shed her sadness, like a snake sheds its skin, and that can be a troubling
process, for a snake is at its most vulnerable at such a time.”

“When you say, ‘talking,’ do you mean like Dr. Blanche
did with me, when I went through my bad turn, a couple of years ago? And like
you do with the people what come to you?”

“That’s more or less what I mean.” Maisie wondered how
to express her frustrations without upsetting Billy. “The trouble is, it’s
always been those of a higher station in life than either you or I who could
afford the sort of therapeutic process that Doreen needs. And progress must be
accompanied by direction from a clinician such as Dr. Masters.”

“Bleedin’ typical, ain’t it—about the toffs getting
the best treatments, while the likes of us are packed away in nuthouses?”

“You could say that. Frankly, it stems from a belief
that the lower classes—and that means both of us—do not think and feel in the
same way as our betters. Times are changing, though.”

“But not fast enough, eh?”

“No, not fast enough.”

Billy and Maisie remained with Doreen until the staff
nurse returned, and as she strode into the room, Maisie lifted a finger to her
lips.

“Mrs. Beale is resting now,” she whispered. “May we
leave Mr. Beale alone with his wife for a moment?” She stood up and moved
toward the nurse, taking her by the arm. “Perhaps you and I can have a word
outside, while he says his good-bye.”

The nurse frowned, but acquiesced, allowing Maisie to
lead her from the room.

“She’s a right nutter, that one,” said the nurse, as
Maisie closed the door without a sound.

“I beg to disagree with you, Staff Nurse. She is a
woman who is wracked with grief, a woman who has buckled under the weight of
losing a child. We now have to help her to her feet again, though that loss
will always be with her.”

“But thousands have lost, haven’t they? They don’t all
end up inside, though, eh? Made of stronger stuff, that’s what they are.” The
nurse tensed her jaw, and Maisie noticed the way she rubbed her hand back and
forth across her abdomen as she spoke.

“Mrs. Beale’s husband took her to the doctor, which is
why she is here now.”

“I don’t know, I think she’s had some mollycoddling,
that’s what it is. I mean, when I lost my—” The staff nurse paused, clutched
her hands together, then released them to reach for the door handle. “It’s time
for him to go now. If she remains calm like this for the afternoon, then she’ll
be back on the main ward by evening.”

Maisie looked on as Billy lingered with his wife a
moment longer, then she reached forward and set her hand upon his shoulder.

“Better be off now.”

Billy nodded, kissed Doreen on the cheek, and walked
from the room without looking back.

“I do hope you can get her out of here, Miss. I’d
discharge her, if I could.”

“I know, Billy, I know. She won’t be here for long.”

And as they left the building, she thought of her
father, and his words echoed once again: this was another desperate sort of
place.

MAISIE DROPPED BILLY at Fitzroy Square and made her
way directly to Camberwell and the Clifton Hospital. When Maisie was shown into
her office, Dr. Elsbeth Masters looked up over her tortoiseshell spectacles,
smiled broadly, and reached across the desk to shake her hand.

“Maisie Dobbs. I haven’t seen you since you worked for
dear Maurice—how is he?”

“In his mind, still very busy, but slowing down in his
body—he’s getting on now.”

Masters held out her hand for Maisie to be seated,
then sat down herself, moving a patient file to one side as she spoke. She
leaned forward, hands clasped, as they exchanged pleasantries and caught up on
Maisie’s progression from Blanche’s assistant to proprietress of her own
business. When Maisie first came to work at the Clifton, it did not surprise
her in the least to meet someone who knew Maurice. There always seemed to be
someone, somewhere in her life, who was acquainted with her longtime mentor.

“Frankly, Maisie, I always hoped you would move into
the clinical arena—we could do with more women doctors in the care of the
mentally ill, you know, and things have moved on since my early days at the
Royal Free. But I am sure your work is more than satisfying.”

“Yes, it is—very much so.”

“Now then, tell me what I can do for you.”

“There are two reasons for my visit—the first is
regarding the wife of my employee. I am close to the family and want to see an
end to a difficult situation.”

“Go on.” Masters took off her spectacles and leaned
forward as Maisie continued.

“Last year their young daughter died of diphtheria.
They have two boys as well, but Lizzie was the apple of her mother’s eye, and
such a dear, dear child.” Maisie bit her lip and paused. She felt quite ready
to weep, an emotion that gripped her with such suddenness that she fought to
stem the tears. “Since their loss the parents have struggled to come to terms
with the fact that Lizzie is no longer there, but Doreen, my employee’s wife,
has taken a downward spiral. She had been under the care of a doctor for some
months—the child died last February—when it was decided to section her and she
was sent to Wychett Hill a couple of days ago with a diagnosis of melancholia
and hysteria.”

“Oh, dear . . . ” Masters shook her head.

“They have already proceeded with insulin shock and
changes of diet, and I can see—we visited her this morning—that she has been
sedated with narcotics. When we arrived she had been strapped to a bed and left
alone in a room. I think the treatment is rather harsh, and that she would do
better closer to home and under your care, if it were possible to effect a
transfer.”

“I see.” Masters tapped the desk with her long
fingers, the backs of her hands embossed with a mesh of veins and dotted with
liver spots. “Certainly, I believe we could make more progress with such a
patient here. Let me make some inquiries—who was the admitting doctor, do you
know?”

Maisie reached into her document case, brought out a
sheet of paper and handed it to the doctor. “You’ll find all the information
you require here.”

“Ah, as efficient as ever, Maisie.” She took the page
of notes and slipped it into a fresh file, which she then marked with Doreen
Beale’s name. “I take it I could telephone Mr. Beale at your office, if I need
to reach him as a matter of urgency?”

“Yes, of course. However, we are out of the office a
great deal, so if you do not receive an answer, please send a telegram or
postcard.”