Pearl in a Cage (33 page)

‘Indeed, Mr Morrison. In two such similar cases, I have achieved quite remarkable results and returned formerly demented women to their homes and families where they continue to lead useful lives.'

Norman stood too quickly. This was not why he was here. His chair fell to the floor. He picked it up, stood it on its legs, his own legs trembling with the need to run. But he could not run. He had come here to make a decision and one must be made.

Always decisions. He did not make them lightly.

‘I have . . .'

I have heard enough. I have done enough.

‘I want . . .'

I want to run. I want to return to the place of peace I have found.

Like a hamster surrounded by killer dogs, his eyes darted from door to doctor, Gertrude to door, from the doctors to the medical forms Gertrude had brought him here to sign.

‘If she's left in that place untreated, she'll be dead in six months,' Gertrude said. ‘She's sick, she's angry, but she's not mad. She shouldn't be in that place.'

‘I don't . . . I don't . . .' His eyes pleaded with her to release him.

‘I don't know either,' Gertrude said. ‘All I know is that I'm paying these two men to tell me what can be done. If the
operation is as safe as they say, if there's one chance in a hundred of it getting her out of that place, then you have to sign those papers and give her that chance.'

‘Take . . .'

Take this cup away from me and from my children, Mother Foote.

‘She's thirty-seven years old, Norman.'

And I am not yet fifty, but today I feel . . . I feel that my life is ending.

The red-faced specialist of the mind was offering his pen. Gertrude took it. She offered it to Norman. It was a very fine pen. He could not refuse it. He studied it a moment, glanced at Gertrude, at the doctors, then sighed.

Knew he was signing away his life, and the lives of his girls. He knew it, but he signed.
N.J. Morrison. N.J. Morrison
.

Each fish, each frog in the creek will create its own ripples. Amber Morrison's ripples, always more problematical than most, began washing against Woody Creek in March of 1933.

Gertrude was never seen in a bank, then two Fridays in a row she was seen walking out of the National Bank, and on the second occasion she was clutching what looked like a chequebook.

‘What does she need with a chequebook?'

It was rare for her to receive a letter. Each Friday now she queued for her mail and usually received something — and replied by return mail.

7 April 1933

Dr J.T. Waters,

Please find enclosed cheque in payment of your accounts to date, with my appreciation
.

Yours faithfully, Gertrude Foote

15 April 1933

Dr W. Rouse,

Please find enclosed cheque in payment of your account, with my appreciation
.

Yours faithfully, Gertrude Foote

There were whispers regarding Amber's finding, of her major surgery, spoken of behind hands with the occasional whispers of
growth in her female organs
. There were whispers too of a
private sanatorium
, which, to many rumour-mongers, spelled consumption.

‘Does anyone know how they found her?'

‘Someone said Ernie Ogden found her.'

‘Maisy would know then. Her second girl has just got herself engaged to Ernie Ogden's oldest boy.'

‘If she knows, she's not saying anything.'

Mr Foster, Woody Creek postmaster and, for a short period, neighbour of Amber Morrison, felt the ripples. He knew the address to which Gertrude addressed her letters, but few spoke to Mr Foster. Most took their mail and got out of his pokey little office.

Ripples usually die a natural death, but those created by Amber Morrison continued to widen. Charles Duckworth, who for the past six years had been hard pressed to post off the obligatory Christmas card to Norman, now sat to put pen to paper.

7 May 1933

My dear Nephew,

It is with a heavy heart that I put pen to paper this day. It has been brought to my attention by my good wife that, during her charitable work amongst the unfortunate, she came upon the woman who was your wife. My further enquiries ascertained that she was admitted to the institution with your full knowledge
.

I sympathise with your situation, and might add that I would expect no less from you. Certainly the deserving amongst these wretched women should be treated with all care. However, I stress, and in the strongest terms, nephew, that under no circumstances should you involve yourself again with that woman, nor consider allowing her to come within a hundred miles of your impressionable daughters, nor should you waste more of your limited funds on the rehabilitation of a woman who, to quote her treating physician, has neither conscience nor remorse
.

Trust that these harsh words have been written with only your best interests and the interests of your daughters at heart
.

Your loving uncle, Charles Duckworth

1 June 1933

Dear Doctor J.T. Waters,

Please find enclosed cheque for April and May accounts. Yours sincerely, G. Foote

23 June 1933

My dear Nephew,

In my capacity as a minister of God, I have taken it upon myself to attend the clinic where the woman is being held, and this day spoke at length to the treating physician, who is convinced that a cure for many forms of madness and immoderate behaviour can be effected by the use of electrical current applied to the brain, which he believes can readjust the thought processes of his patients and in some cases erase all previous memories. The treatment is experimental, and considered to be without merit by his colleagues, however, when the woman was brought into the room and introduced to me, she greeted me civilly, as she might a stranger
.

My fear, nephew, is that he will indeed be successful, and that you will consider it your Christian duty to take that woman back into your home
.

Thus, though it pains myself and my good wife, we feel it is our duty now to inform you that seven years ago, whilst that woman was a guest at the manse, and during a period when she was considered to be sane, her deeds were such which cannot, will not, be forgiven by myself and my wife — nor should they be forgiven by you
.

Your cousin, an inexperienced and impressionable young minister, who sought only to bring comfort to a bereaved cousin, became hypnotised by her wiles and was led by her from his chosen path in life. To this day your cousin remains
in Port Moresby, consorting with natives and leading the life of a drunken waster. I do not write these words lightly. Do not read them lightly
.

With my best regards, your uncle, Charles Duckworth

30 June 1933

Doctor J.T. Waters

Dear Sir
,

Thank you for your report of the seventeenth. I am relieved to hear of Mrs Morrison's continuing improvement and congratulate you. You state in your letter that she is eager to see her daughter. She should be made aware that she has two daughters, sir, both as eager to see their mother, however, at this time, it would not be in their best interests to reopen old wounds. If in time her recovery is proven, I will re-evaluate the situation
.

Further to your letter: I am prepared to offer Mrs Morrison a reference stating that prior to her illness she was an excellent pastry cook with good housekeeping skills, certainly sufficient to secure for her a position in some large establishment. Her monetary independence can only be beneficial to her continued recovery
.

Your faithfully, N.J. Morrison

6 July 1933

Doctor J.T. Waters,

Please find enclosed cheque
.

G. Foote

18 July 1933

Doctor J.T. Walters
,

Dear Sir
,

Further to our last correspondence, accommodation has been secured for Mrs Morrison at a respectable rooming house in Richmond. Details below. Until such time as she is well enough to find employment, I will cover the cost of her lodgings
.

As to suitable clothing, the Reverend Duckworth and his wife have offered to secure for her an adequate wardrobe, which will be delivered to your establishment prior to her release
.

Yours faithfully, N.J. Morrison

1 August 1933

Dear Doctor J.T. Walters
,

Please find cheque for July's account, with my gratitude. Yours sincerely, Gertrude Foote

5 August 1933

Dear Norman,

There's nothing I can say except I'm sorry . . 
.

There was more, much more, two pages more, though Norman read no more. Had he recognised the handwriting on the envelope, he would not have broken the seal. He felt disgust, revulsion at the handling of the paper, and quickly lifted the stove's central hotplate, thrusting pages and envelope into the embers. Only when it flared did he think of Gertrude, who may well have been pleased to read it. She had paid for her daughter's cure in a private sanatorium and clinic at no small cost, but had heard not a word from her.

Maisy was in touch. Her engaged daughter, who travelled each month to the city to spend time with her fiancé, had visited Amber in Richmond. She was not immediately recognised, but seven years is a long time in the life of a young woman. Maureen Macdonald had grown from a shapeless thirteen into a womanly twenty. Maureen reported that Amber looked like hell, but seemed well.

Then in late August, Maisy came to the station with pages of familiar handwriting, addressed to
My darling daughters
.

‘I've read it, Norman. There's nothing in it that they shouldn't see.'

‘No,' he said.

‘They'd love to —'

Norman stepped back, lifting a hand to keep her and that defiled thing at bay.

‘Sissy is fourteen,' Maisy said.

He did not need to be told his daughter's age, nor did he require any further disruption to her life. She had been eight when Amber left and remembered her well. He had not been able to keep her mother's rise from the dead from her, nor from Jennifer, though he had tried. Jennifer had no memory of the woman, but was enchanted by the idea of ‘mother'.

‘I understand how you feel,' Maisy said. ‘And I won't go against your decision. But I'm telling you now, Norman, if they find out when they're older that she wrote to them and you wouldn't let them read the letter, they'll hold it against you for life.'

‘So be it,' he said.

She turned to leave, but changed her mind.

‘Someone has probably told you I was born, as they say, on the wrong side of the blanket. My mother got herself into trouble when she was sixteen. Her aunty raised me to believe my mother didn't give a damn about me. I didn't know she wrote until I started working for George and he came home from the post office one day with a birthday card addressed to me, a ten-shilling note in it. She'd sent me a card and money every year, and I'd never seen card nor money. She died the year Maureen was born. I never got to see her. My aunty died a few years later and everyone thought I was terrible because I didn't go to her funeral.' She placed the folded page on the station windowsill. ‘At least think about it,' she said and she left.

A gust of wind blew the thing to his platform. He could not leave it there. He retrieved it and took it into his office, where with fingertips he opened its folds.

My darling daughters,

It has been so long since I've seen you. I've been very sick but now I'm feeling well again and the one thing that could make me feel better still would be a letter from my darling girls . . 
.

The letter moved him. He offered the page that night after dinner, and later, the table wiped down well, he offered each of his girls a sheet of paper and a pen.

Few children remained in the schoolroom after their fourteenth birthday. Cecelia did not do well there, had no desire to be there, but her reading was barely adequate and her handwriting was not. Perhaps some good could come from this.

He sat with his girls, watched the pens dip into the well, overseeing each word written.

Dear Mummy
,

We are well up here. I hope you are well down there . . 
.

Then Sissy's desire to write waned. He suggested she tell her mother of her picnic at Hoopers' farm.

I went out to Hoopers' farm on Sunday and Jimmy drove all the way there. I made some toffee to take and put peanuts in it
.

She looked at him for inspiration. He suggested a mention of school.

I'm old enough to leave school now but Dad won't let me
.

He suggested she begin again, and to delete mention of school. She refused to begin again, managed two more lines, and finished with,
Love from Cecelia XXX
.

Jenny's pen continued to drink at the well. Her handwriting was large as yet, but well formed.

My dearest Mummy
,

I wish I could remember you. Granny says I can't because I was only about the size of a skun rabbit when you first got sick, so in case you can't remember me either, I will put in a photo that Mr Mcpherson took at the concert last year. I'm the fairy in the middle with the magic wand. I had to touch all of the little flowers' heads and wake them up so they could dance. Anyway, I asked Daddy if I ever looked like a skun rabbit and he said that I was as bald as a newborn mouse when I was born, which was really very funny because we were having
dinner at Granny's, and afterwards, when Joey and I went out to play in the shed, what should we find but six baby mice underneath some old wheat bags!!! They were about as big as my pointer finger and pink, so I took one inside and opened my hand to show to Daddy, and I said is that what I looked like when I got born? Exactly, he said . . 
.