Human Traces (12 page)

would give him a foothold from which he could step onto the nub of the thick upper bolt and thence lever himself onto the top of the gate. "I'll go first, Daisy. You watch what I do and follow me. When you get to the top you must swing over and hang down off your hands because it's too high to jump down." Daisy put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. They walked across the cobbled courtyard, trying to make no noise, though the hobnails of Daisy's boots clicked on the stones. The laundry cast a giant shadow in which the other brick workshops seemed shrunk, and deprived of their institutional grandeur just buildings, idle and alone at night, thought Thomas, not mills where lives were ground out. After four years of scaling walls and gates in Cambridge at odd hours of the night, he did not find the brewery gates a difficult proposition. He squatted on top for a moment to whisper encouragement to Daisy, then dropped down on to the path outside. A minute later, she was with him. They walked for a mile, away from the town, until they came to a village in which, Daisy said, there was a friendly inn where she had once performed as a child. They picked out the lights, some way back from the main road, and went down the path to a side entrance. Thomas looked through the window in the glow of lamps on the tables and the fluttering firelight. "Try and keep your boots out of sight. Pull your skirt down over them when we sit at the table," he said, even though most of the men looked too inebriated to notice two strangers. They made their way over the stone flags to a corner, where Thomas sat Daisy down and brought some beer over from the bar. The landlord's eyes took in Thomas's frock coat and white tie with more curiosity than Daisy's shabby black dress. At the table, Thomas raised his glass and clinked it against Daisy's. He noticed the reek of the ward on her clothes as she leaned in, but when he sat back against the wooden settle he saw that there were tears of exhilaration in her eyes. "Good health, Daisy. May we never be found out, and may your life take a turn for the better." "Already has, Doctor." "Good. Drink up, then. You're almost as slow at drinking as my real sister. She takes an age to drink a glass of wine." "What's her name?" "Sonia." "Is she married?" "Yes." "Tell me about her then. Talk to me, Doctor. You've no idea what it's like in there, how much I've wanted someone just to talk to." Thomas told her about Sonia and a little about Richard Prendergast. At her prompting, he described Torrington House and what they had done as children. "Sounds ever so grand. Sounds like where I used to be in service." "Not really. It's a lovely house, but it's not grand. And they only have a cook and a maid to help. Though things have looked up, I believe, so maybe they have another pair of hands now." He bought more beer and carried it back through the press. It was a Friday evening, and many of the customers had clearly just received their wages. They were in high spirits, which pleased Thomas because it meant they were not likely to pay much attention to him. One of them took out a fiddle and began to play, singing on his own at first, then with half a dozen others who gradually joined in. Daisy leaned back and closed her eyes. Thomas noticed that she had combed her hair and put a ribbon in it; but her skin was mealy, blotched with sores around the lips; her red-rimmed eyes were circled with black arcs of weariness and there were streaks of grime appearing over the high-buttoned collar of her dress. He looked at the skin stretched over her temples and followed it with his eye to the hairline; as he did so, he could not help but envisage the frontal bone beneath the dermis, the rippling of sulcus and gyrus over the folded cortex inside. Daisy, a little drunk from the beer, began to smile ecstatically, still with her eyes closed. Sonia was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring straight ahead. Her father and her husband had colluded to decide the future of her life, and it seemed that there was nothing she could do to stop them. After dinner, she had been called back to the dining room and told to sit down. Her father took the lead in explaining the agreement, though Richard made it clear that he concurred by nodding his head at intervals. "So," Mr. Midwinter concluded. "I think it is a solution that suits everyone. Mr. Prendergast shall have his investment and a chance to start a family, perhaps, with another wife. You can be free to do the things you enjoy, without the restrictions of economy and, who knows, you too may find another suitor, perhaps an older man, a widower with children of his own. Your mother and I can have our dear daughter back at the house, where there will always be plenty to occupy you." "But I don't want to," said Sonia. "This is my home, here. I have put so much work into it, the curtains, the decoration, silly things, I know, but... And Richard is my husband. I married him for better or worse and though it has been in some ways worse than I foresaw, I am not in a position to abandon it. I cannot stop being who I am." "Come, my dear," said Richard, 'you cannot pretend that ours has been a marriage of romantic love or passion." "I learned to become fond of you," said Sonia tightly. "Truly fond of you. I worked for you and with you. I took real pleasure in your occasional successes. And when you failed, I wept real tears for you." The men eyed each other across the dining table, over the curling orange peel and the split walnut shells. Neither had suspected what they might unleash. Mr. Midwinter thought she was being perverse in clinging to a man she clearly did not love, yet as he moved to sweep aside her objections, he was caught by a sudden memory of her as a child, a naked three year-old, dancing alone to imaginary music in the kitchen one summer day, and felt with a panicking lurch, that he had failed her. "My dear..." Richard began. "Don't call me that! How can I be dear to you if you can sell me off like this?" "I thought," said Richard gently, 'that it would please you. I know that I have disappointed you as a husband, in more ways than perhaps your father suspects. I honestly and truly thought that you would welcome your liberation from... From me." There was something becoming in the way he spoke which made Sonia for a moment blink and look down to her lap. "I do not know how I am supposed to proceed," she said. "It is as though you were taking my name from me and telling me that from now on I am to be called something else. It is not that I love you so dearly, Richard, I suppose. It is that loving you as much as I have been able to manage has defined the person that I am. That is who I have become." Neither man was able to answer. Sonia looked from one to the other, and eventually spoke herself. "I suppose you will prevail. If a husband no longer wants to keep his wife, then that is the end of the matter. But I ask you both to reconsider this demeaning arrangement. I am happy to pretend that this conversation never took place. Discuss it between yourselves and tell me what you decide. If you want to agree that it never happened, I promise never to mention it or think of it again. If you still want to proceed, I will do as you wish. Meanwhile, I am going to visit my brother, who, I now see, is the only person I can trust, the only one who truly loved me." She stood up, holding her hand across her trembling lip, and left the room with a rustle of silk. Her father and her husband grimaced at one another and at the closed door. Their excursion over, Thomas was cupping his hands to make a foothold for Daisy, so that she could pull herself up onto the top of the brewery gate. Twice she lost her balance and fell off, giggling; at the third attempt, she secured a handhold and hauled herself up, scrabbling at the wooden doors with her boots. Thomas himself was able to reach the top without help. "I'll see you by the ice-house," he whispered to Daisy. "Are you all right?" he called after she had dropped down inside the walls. "Yes." He walked up to the main gate and hammered at the window of the small lodge. "Don't say anything about this, Patterson," he said, 'and I won't report you for being asleep." Patterson blinked several times, manifestly wondering how Thomas could be coming back when he had not gone out. Thomas ran down to the ice-house, where Daisy was waiting. "The doors are barred inside at ten," he said, 'so we shall have to climb the drainpipe at the back. I wedged the casement open on the first floor landing, so we can get in there." Daisy gripped his arm. "Listen," she said, "I must be the first lunatic to break into an asylum." It was decided by Dr. Faverill that in December the patients should have a ball. At the morning meeting in his office, he set out his plan to the staff. "It is my intention that we should invite observers from outside, representatives of the Committee of Visitors county councillors, the gentlemen of the press. They must be allowed to see how well our little society functions. I appreciate that all this will entail considerable preparation and, on the night itself, some vigilance." Faverill looked round the faces in the room: McLeish sceptical but silent; Tyson and Miss Whitman exchanging worried glances; Matilda, rocking; Stimpson, puzzled, smelling of the pharmacy; and Thomas, tired but eager. It was not a difficult choice. "Dr. Midwinter, I should like you to take charge of the preparations. I can make a small sum of money available to you, though most of the decorations, the refreshment and so forth will be homemade." "I understand, sir," said Thomas. "As for music," said Faverill, "Mr. McLeish, I believe that the asylum band is ultimately under your control. Please ensure that the conductor has a suitable programme and that they are well rehearsed." "Yes, sir. Tell me, where exactly do you envisage the revels taking place?" "The central hall. What used to be the dining room." "It's not been used these ten years, since we started to feed them in the wards." "Well, ask Grogan to set to work. Detail some men from the farm to help. Clear it up and paint it. They should enjoy doing that." "I see," said McLeish. "And what sort of numbers had you envisaged? And what manner and degree of affliction would you consider appropriate amongst the revellers?" "I suppose we could manage two hundred patients. As to which ones, I imagine there will have to be a degree of selection." "Aye." "But I should not like to think it was merely the most presentable who are invited. You should also have in mind those who would most benefit from it. A dancing party can be therapeutic' Thomas left the meeting with a youthful excitement at the prospect of a celebration, even a lunatics' ball, and found he was able to put to one side his misgivings about how much time the preparations might take from his already attenuated day: he would simply have to go to bed later, he thought. First, he needed to form a small committee. Daisy would be a good lieutenant. He had, since their night-time excursion, found her admission notes. "Overexcited and rambling in her discourse. Says she is afraid to sleep at night," the first doctor had recorded. The medical officer at the workhouse complained that "She keeps others awake at night by walking round. Has been seen engaging in self-abuse. Loud of voice, confused." She had been diagnosed, by McLeish, as suffering from mania. The only subsequent entry reported that her behaviour was improved, but that she was moody and unpredictable. After reading the notes and talking to Daisy, Thomas could see no sure evidence of organic illness because there was little in her record that could not be explained as a reaction to the conditions in which she had found herself. Although he was wary of her, he did not see why she could not be trusted to help; the more he was able to remove her from the locked ward, the more lucid she appeared. Thomas thought it would also be wise to have one of the potentially more recalcitrant staff on his side, so approached the muscular Tyson and flattered him with assurances that the success of Faverill's scheme depended on Tyson's ability to deliver the appropriate male patients, clean and compliant. Since Thomas had been given the task of admitting the women on his first day, he had become by practice if not by any design associated with the female side, so Tyson's help with the men was vital. There would need to be planning meetings, he added: in the evening, with beer. The committee of three met in the kitchen at nine o'clock, over cheese, bread and half a gallon of the asylum's best bitter. "We can disqualify all men with infectious diseases and all the chronic bedridden," said Tyson. "That gets rid of half "Daisy," said Thomas,"I would like you to ask round on the female side. I will tell the attendants that you have leave to wander. I should like you to ask the blind girl, Mary. It would be particularly good for her, I think. And any other odd cases like that." "Yes, Doctor," said Daisy. She looked distrustfully over her beer at Tyson. "What about Ward 52? You going to invite anyone up from there?" "What is Ward 52? I have never heard of it," said Thomas. "There's no need," said Tyson. "It's a back ward." "I am the senior assistant medical officer of this asylum. I think ' "We can see about that later. Let's write down some names. "Tyson pushed a pad of paper over the table to Thomas, who hesitated, then began to write. McLeish, meanwhile, told the conductor of the asylum band, a former professional violinist called Brissenden, to report to Dr. Midwinter; and with that McLeish concluded his personal involvement in the festivities. Brissenden worked in the carpentry shop, and Thomas extracted him one morning to discuss the programme. He was a tall, nervous man with woolly grey hair, and long fingers that he pulled till the joints cracked; he had an educated, high-pitched voice. "Yes, indeed, Doctor. We could manage a waltz or two, a polka I have no doubt. Would you like a quadrille? No. Too tricky, I suppose. I wonder if in addition to the dances you would like a recital or some songs? A full dance programme might overexcite some of the weaker brethren." Thomas thought. "That might be a good idea. Perhaps we could have an interval in the dancing during which we could have these other ' "Indeed, and perhaps some recitation," said Brissenden. "I believe Dr. Faverill could give us "John Gilpin's Ride"." "You must come to the next meeting of our committee," said Thomas. "I shall speak to the attendant on duty in your ward. Then we can put together some sort of programme that I can show to Dr. Faverill. Do you like beer?" "Beer? Oh, dear me no." Brissenden's knuckles went off like a drumroll. "Alcohol was part of my undoing. I was principal violin with a distinguished orchestra in Portsmouth when ' "Never mind, you can just