The Bird’s Nest (9 page)

I myself had already met Miss R. in three personalities: R
1
, nervous, afflicted by driving pain, ridden by the horrors of fear and embarrassment, modest, self-contained, and reserved to the point of oral paralysis. R
2
was, it was assumed, the character Miss R. might have been, the happy girl who smiled and answered truly and with serious thoughtfulness, pretty and relaxed, without the lines of worry which so deformed R
1
's face; R
2
was largely free of pain, and could only sympathize sweetly with R
1
's torments. R
3
was, on the other hand, R
2
with a vengeance: where R
2
was relaxed, R
3
was wanton; where R
2
was unreserved, R
3
was insolent; where R
2
was pleasant and pretty, R
3
was coarse and noisy. Moreover, each of the three had a recognizable appearance—R
1
, of course, the character I had first met, shy and unattractive by reason of her timidity and clumsiness; R
2
, amiable and charming; R
3
, the rough, contorted mask. The shy, fleeting smile of R
1
, the open, merry face of R
2
, were in R
3
a sly grin or an open shout of rude laughter; if it be suspected that I did not particularly love our new friend R
3
, it can as readily be seen that I had good reason; when my good R
2
began to raise her hands to rub her eyes, when her voice grew louder and her expressions freer, when her eyebrows went up sardonically and her mouth twisted, I had perforce to spend a while with a creature who felt and showed me no respect, who attempted enthusiastically to undo any good I might have done Miss R., who delighted in teasing all whom she met, and who, after all, knew no moral sense and no restrictions to her actions save only those of lack of sight; who, upon occasion, called me a damned old fool!

Now, it seemed to me that we had come closest to R
3
on the question of Miss R.'s defaced letter, and perhaps that thought, aided by a chance reflection of my own, put us first directly on the track of R
3
; I, looking at the letter when Miss R. first showed it to me, thought irritably that I could write a better hand with my eyes shut—and had, although it was a while before I perceived it, my clue. In the course of a seemingly aimless discussion of the letter with R
2
, I had asked her, placing pencil and paper by her hand, to write a few words to my dictation, that I might see her handwriting, and, bringing her hands feverishly to her eyes, she first cried out “I can't, I can't, I must open my eyes,” and so awoke, voluntarily, although she had never done so before. I wondered if she had perhaps not forced herself awake because of the pressure of R
3
to come to the surface. Miss R., questioned again at another visit about the letter, burst into tears and refused to speak of the matter, saying only that her headache was too severe to allow of any discussion.

Steeling myself, I determined to summon R
3
to an interview which I was not disposed to enjoy, but which I felt might be enlightening; I had seen almost nothing of her since her last visit, except for an occasional quick grin or gesture through R
2
's conversation, or now and then an echo of her mocking laughter in R
2
's merry voice, and, of course, the frequent gestures with her hands, accompanied by entreaties to be permitted to open her eyes. Summoning her required, I knew now, only inducing Miss R. into a deeper hypnotic slumber than that which brought R
2
, when she immediately began to take on the characteristic facial and vocal qualities of R
3
.

“So we meet again, Doctor Wrong,” she said at once, and quite in the fashion of the possessing demon, “I wondered how long you could struggle on without me.”

“I suspect, Miss R., that you can give me information I need.”

“Not,” said R
3
flatly, “if you call me by that disgraceful name. I am no more Miss R. than
you
are. I am only inside her.” She finished off this remark with a disgusting leer and an additional remark which was to me so distasteful that, not content to omit it from my notes, I have since made every effort to forget it, and all similar remarks made by R
3
. Consequently, it was a moment or so before we could get on; R
3
had the disagreeable ability to confound me and render me speechless for important seconds at a time, so that I lost my train of thought and had perforce to allow her free rein during my own moments of distraction.

Now she continued, while I sat aghast, “Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy, and Bess, they all went together to find a bird's nest . . . Perhaps, you handsome Doctor Wrong, you would care to rename us? We must surely not be the first children you have brought into the world.” And she burst again into her wild laughter, and—although Miss Hartley, my nurse, must surely by now be accustomed to loud noises from my office—I was half-afraid that Miss Hartley might conclude that I was being laughed at by one of my own patients, since the laughter was so clearly not hysterical. Interesting R
3
, or threatening her, were the only two methods I so far knew to quiet her, so I said in a low voice, “I shall awaken you, Miss R., if you do not tranquillize yourself.”

She was silent at once, but murmured wickedly, “Someday you will not be able to get rid of me, Doctor Wrong; someday you will try to awaken
her
, and, when you think you have got back your disgusting Miss R., will find that you still have just me. And then,” she said, her voice rising and her hands at her eyes, “and then, and then, and then!”

Fear touched me lightly, but I said, “Why, then if I find I have only you no matter who I seek, I shall have to learn to love you.” I smiled wryly at the thought of loving this monster, and I suppose she detected my expression in my voice, for she said at once, “But do you suppose I could learn to love
you,
Doctor Wrong? When you wish me evil?”

“I wish no one evil, Miss R.”

“Then you are a liar as well as a fool,” she said. (I note down these remarks in the interests of thoroughness; I know I am not a liar and I hope I am not a fool, and I perceived that R
3
's object was to enrage me; I am happy to add that although I was irked at her rudeness, I endeavored, I believe with success, to keep her from realizing it.) “I know a good deal about people,” she continued with complacency, “and when I have my eyes open all the time I will get along nicely. No one will ever suspect how long I have been a prisoner, I think.”

I hardly dared breathe, hearing R
3
rattle along so, revealing herself more with every word; this boastful chatter made it unnecessary to question her, and I would not have interrupted her for the world.
“Now,”
she said, as one explaining an awkward position, “I can only get out when
she
is looking the other way, and then only for a little while before she comes back and shuts me in again, but someday very soon she is going to find that when she comes back and tries to—” She broke off suddenly, and chuckled. “Eavesdropping, Doctor Wrong?” she asked, “do you add poking and prying to your list of sins?”

“I am trying to help my friends, Miss R.”

“Please
stop
calling me that,” she said petulantly. “I tell you, I am
not
Miss R., and I
hate
her name; she is a crybaby and a foolish stupid thing, and I certainly am not.”

“What shall I call you, then?”

“What do you call me in those notes? The ones you showed
her
once?”

I was astounded at her knowing of my notes, and that Miss R. had once seen them, but I only said, “I have no name for you, since you disclaim your natural one. I have called you R
3
.”

She made a face at me, putting out her tongue and shrugging her shoulders. “I certainly don't choose to be called R
3
,” she said. “You can call me Rosalita, or Charmian, or Lilith, if you like.”

I smiled again at the thought of this grotesque creature naming herself like a princess in a fairy romance. “Do you also disclaim the name Elizabeth?” I inquired.

“That's
her
name.”

“But,” I cried, struck with an idea, “you yourself have suggested it: ‘Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy, and Bess . . .'”

She laughed rudely. “Elizabeth is the simple, Beth is the doctor's darling; very well, then I choose Betsy.” And she laughed again.

“Why do you laugh?”

“I was wondering about Bess,” she said, laughing.

And so, my dear reader, was I.

 • • •

So Betsy she was till the end of her chapter. I found that as these several different girls grew more familiar to me, and of course in the second case more dear, the names Betsy had chosen for them became easier and pleasanter to use than the cold clinical R
1
and R
2
; R
2
consented graciously and with a smile to my plea to be allowed to address her as Beth, and I think the name suited her quiet charm. I do not know if Miss R. ever perceived that I had moved quietly away from addressing her formally, or at least from calling her “my dear Miss R.” to calling her Elizabeth; I suppose that she was too accustomed to constant authority in the shape of her aunt to remark being addressed as a child. Betsy, of course, was Betsy and nothing else, although she sometimes amused herself by giving herself grandiose titles or surnames, and I had no difficulty, subsequently, in identifying a note signed Elizabeth Rex as of Betsy's doing.

 • • •

My immediate attempt must be, I thought, to discover the point at which the unfortunate Miss R. had subdivided, as it were, and permitted a creature like Betsy to assume a separate identity; it was my old teasing analogy of the sewer, but complicated in that I was now searching for a branch line! (I do most heartily wish that I had chosen some comparison nearer the stars; a flourishing oak tree, perhaps, but I confess that I misguidedly chose that which seemed most vivid to me, and most indicative, although ignoble, of the circumstances; I am ashamed to think that without going through and correcting all of my manuscript, and my notes, too—for this comparison found a place even there—I must abide by it.) It seemed to me that only a very severe emotional shock could have forced Miss R. to slough off the greater part of herself into subordinate personalities (until I had, with a magic touch, called them into active life) and I was fairly certain that their separate existence—although Betsy claimed a life of her own, in thoughts at any rate, ever since Miss R. had been born—must date from the most patent emotional shock in Miss R.'s life, the death of her mother. To show what kind of a problem I was manipulating, let me from my notes present the reader with the varying descriptions of this event which I received, first from R
1
, or Elizabeth, then from R
2
, the cooperative and lovely Beth, and then, lastly, from our villain Betsy.

(On May
12
, to Elizabeth, in office consultation): Wright: Do you think you can tell me anything about your mother, my dear?

Elizabeth: I guess so.

W. When did she die?

E. I guess over four years ago. On a Wednesday.

W. Were you at home?

E. (confused) I was upstairs.

W. Did you live then with your aunt?

E. With Aunt Morgen?

W. Do you have any other aunts?

E. No.

W. Then, when your mother died, were you living with your aunt?

E. Yes, with Aunt Morgen.

W. Do you think you can tell me anything more about your mother's death? (She seemed most unwilling, and I thought on the edge of weeping; since I knew I could secure all the information I needed from the other selves, I did not intend to persist in a cruel cross-examination, but I did want as much information as possible for purposes of comparison.)

E. That's all I know. I mean, Aunt Morgen came and told me my mother died.

W. Came and told you? You mean, you were not with your mother when she died?

E. No, I was upstairs.

W. Not with your mother?

E. Upstairs.

W. Was your mother downstairs, then?

E. Aunt Morgen was with her. I don't know.

W. Try to stay calm, if you please. This was all very long ago, and I think talking about it will be helpful to you: I know it is a painful subject, but try to believe that I would not ask you unless I felt it to be necessary.

E. No. I mean, I only don't know.

W. Had your mother been ill?

E. I thought she was all right.

W. Then her death was quite sudden, to your mind?

E. It was—(thinking deeply)—a heart attack.

W. But you were not there?

E. I was upstairs.

W. You did not see her?

E. No, I was upstairs.

W. What were you doing?

E. I don't remember. Asleep, I guess. Reading.

W. Were you in your own room?

E. I don't remember. I was upstairs.

W. I beg you to compose yourself, Miss R. This agitation is unnecessary and unbecoming.

E. I have a headache (touching her neck).

And that was, of course, the end of my information from Elizabeth; I knew by now that her headaches, all-enveloping, would obliterate almost all awareness of myself and my questions. So I pursued my line of questioning, most pleasantly, by summoning Beth. I longed, at this time, to chat with Beth informally, and at length, and I longed to permit her to open her eyes, so that we might seem friends rather than doctor and patient, but the ever-present fear of Betsy prevented; since blindness was now the only thing I knew of which held Betsy in check, I dared not follow my inclinations and admit Beth as a free personality. I was sad, frequently, to think that Beth's whole existence had heretofore been passed only in my office, and that none but I knew this amiable girl; my conviction that Miss R. must once have been very like Beth was so far unconfirmed, and yet I deeply wanted to see Beth take her place in the world and in her family, the place to which my most unscientific heart told me she was entitled. At any rate, it was always a great pleasure to me to call Beth, and hear her affectionate greeting. Here are my notes on this conversation, which followed immediately upon the conversation with Elizabeth which I have just described.