Hidden Company

by S E England

  “You will be going to your room soon enough, Mrs George. First we must document your arrival here, after which you will be bathed and provided with clean clothing–”

  He appears to have forgotten his manners. “May I sit?”

  He indicates a hard-backed wooden chair in the middle of the room. The harridan seems to be standing in attendance and I wish she would leave. I do not wish for the embarrassment of having the staff know my personal details.

  “I would like that woman to leave, please.”

  “Mrs Payne is here for your protection and you should be grateful to her. She will be your personal attendant during your stay. Thus, she needs to know everything about you in order to offer you the best of care. Do you understand?”

  “Of course. I am not without wit, sir.”

  On his desk is a large copy of the bible, and a ledger. The latter he pulls towards him. This, it transpires, is what is known as a Letter Book, in which our diagnoses, histories and prognoses will be recorded for the Commissioner of Lunacy. He takes his time writing, dipping the nib into ink, deliberating on each word. Occasionally his gaze flicks to my face, while presumably he judges and describes my appearance. At long last he puts down the pen. “Would you take off your gloves now, Mrs George?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I asked if you would take off your gloves, Madam.”

  “I would rather not.”

  “Please do as I ask. I am a doctor and I need to examine you.”

  I could flee the room right now, run down the drive to the road and flag a passing carriage. But in that flicker of a glance to the double doors, the harridan steps a little closer. Perhaps for the moment it would serve better to feign serenity and do as the doctor says. He is my best chance of an early discharge.

  Alas, on taking off my gloves his eyebrows shoot up at the sight of the shredded skin and congealed blood where my nails should be. “What caused you do that to yourself, Flora?”

  “I really do not know. And my name is Mrs George.”

  He pauses from scribbling, looks up. “You do not remember doing it or you do not know why you did it?”

  “I had something irritating my skin. I expect I must have done it during the night.

  His gaze locks on mine. “You pulled your nails out in your sleep?”

  “I must have.”

  “Did you see a physician?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what was his diagnosis?”

  “An irritation of the skin. I had to wear gloves and apply cream.”

  “I see.”

  He stares directly into my eyes. Several minutes pass in this manner. Voices from the far reaches of the house carry like ghosts on a breeze. And only after the longest time does he apparently allow the matter to drop.

  “I would like you to remove your bonnet now, please.” He motions to the woman behind me. “Mrs Payne, would you–?”

  “No, do not touch me. I am quite capable of removing my own hat.”

  My hair is coiffured to perfection day and night and with good reason, but Mrs Payne is already marching forth and unpinning the bonnet, tugging at my coil of hair… Letting it fall in long, burnished tresses to my waist…exposing the all too visible patches of shiny, bare scalp the size of guinea coins.

  There is a tiny gasp from someone.

  Shame roars into my ears.

  Like my hands, I do not know how or when this happened. Sometime during those weeks…days or weeks…in the dark chamber…Oh dear God, I cannot remember…

  “What happened to your scalp, Flora?”

  Amid the thumping in my head, my ears, my chest, a small voice is saying, “My name is Mrs George. I would thank you to address me in the proper manner.”

  “What happened to your scalp? To your hair?”

  “Yes, yes, I believe it was after the child was born. It started to come out… in my hairbrush. Nurse said it would grow back and it happens to everyone, well to many people, lots of times, and…and…” Grief seizes hold of me with an almighty squeeze to the chest. My voice falters as desperately I’m trying so hard to think of something else and failing. Anything…but not that…

  “Child? Hmmm, I am particularly pleased you brought up the subject of the child, Mrs George. Good, yes, very good indeed ” He puts down the pen and leans back in his leather armchair, eyeing the top of my poor scalp in the harsh, grey light of morning.

  “And what do you recall about this child, Mrs George?”

  A sudden flashback. Of the sash window slicing down like a guillotine…of the howling pain in my black, empty soul….

  “Mrs George?”

  There were faces…everywhere…whispers...

  “Flora? Can you hear me?”

  I can see them now, just as they appeared to me then - faces, spirits from the woods – in the fabric of the wallpaper, carved into the bedposts, hidden in the patterns of the curtains, the knots in the floorboards….chattering, whispering. It grew louder and louder, ever more incessant.

  But then one morning the maid came chattering in and stopped dead in the doorway, dropping the tray, hands cupped to her face. “Oh, Madam.”

  I turned then, and saw clearly a reflection of myself in the dressing table mirror. An emaciated, hollow-eyed woman with plugs of hair pulled clean out of her scalp, her hands and arms all covered in blood.

  After that a different doctor came – one wearing a top hat - and instructed the maids to tie my hands to the bed posts with sheets, to nail shut the window

  His voice is harder now. Louder. More insistent. “Flora! Mrs George! I am asking you a question. What do you recall about the child? Most particularly the birth?”

  They would not tell me. No one would tell me anything. I was lying in the dark…

  “Your husband informs me you tried to take your own life. Do you remember–?”

  “He lies.”

  “What does he lie about?”

  “He lies, all the time, about everything–”

  “Flora, do you recall if your child lives?”

  Does he? Oh pray to God he does. But where? That is the thing. Where is my child? What happened to him? I simply cannot remember. I travel so far along a tunnel of recollection and then it just stops. There is no more. It is akin to picturing infinity - what happens outside the expansion of the expansion of the expansion? Every single time the mind blanks out.

  Dr Fox-Whately’s red worm lips are moving but his voice is projecting from another part of the room entirely - a distortion of sound from a faraway place just like it was with the pudding-faced maid back in the carriage. An age ago. A lifetime. I should have jumped. But I have a child, I know I do. I gave birth. My breasts leak and my womb aches.

  “Well, perhaps after six months here at Lavinia House you will start to remember, hmm?”

  Why can I not remember? Why? Every time I try to recall the birth or the baby’s face, there is nothing there. It is quite as if all memory has been excised, and because of that, part of myself is lost forever - my history, my life. How can that be? How?

  He is scribbling again in the ledger, dipping the nib in and out of the ink pot with painstaking pedantry. “I’m prescribing laudanum and a moral treatment regime. You must work hard and have a healthy diet. I am confident that with the help of the good Lord and our capable staff you will make a good recovery. You are very ill, Flora. You do see that?”

  “I must see Amelia. May I write to my sister? I cannot be simply left here.”

  “Your sister and your husband may correspond with you, of course.” He turns away, done with me now. “Mrs Payne, please take this lady to the admissions room–”

  I hear no more. His words have caught up with me. And registered most fully.

  Six months, he said six months!

  ***

  Chapter Four

  I hear no more… I hear no more…

  I must have screamed myself hoarse, and thus it is with a sore throat and a pounding head that I jump awa
ke. There is a weight on the bed like that of a small animal…and the sound of malicious chuckling.

  I had been dreaming, careering in a horse-driven carriage over mountain tops, telling the baby I was clasping not to fear the Otherworld. That we were travelling far too quickly to be caught…that no one could catch us…faster, faster, faster…

  Alas, it was merely a dream. In reality the night is black as pitch, and staring at me - a matter of inches away - is a most unearthly face.

  “Oh, dear God!”

  At my sharp lurch backwards, the creature skulks closer, stealthy as a cat, its weight straddling my chest. Its skin is parchment white and crinkled as tissue, its darting eyes of madness peering into mine with a fiery glee. The overwhelming stink of urine and sulphur catches in my throat. This creature, this repulsive, filthy creature, is squatting on my bed, and fingering my scalp.

  Scalp!

  Oh God yes, I remember now. They held me down, cut off my hair….I cannot bear it. Oh God! I have no hair! I have no hair!

  The creature starts in delight at my sudden consciousness. Its eyes search mine, enthralled with the expression of what must be profound horror. Fascinated to the point of excitement, its bony fingers begin to trace down my cheek, down and down…to the neck, before, in a sudden jerk of movement, it pins my arms with a grip belying its fragile form and snatches back the covers. Sniggering now, it shuffles down the bed to further examine, prod and poke, yanking up my nightdress.

  “No! Get off me. Christ!”

  It stops instantly, glancing up in surprise, eyes of black flint. Then suddenly my head is rammed so hard against the metal bedhead it knocks the breath clean out of my chest with shock. Swiftly followed by one bony hand winging back. Too late I see it is clutching a shoe. As with sickening pain it wallops into the side of my face.

  Something cracks. Sears. Skin splits open.

  And through the blinding tears of my scream the creature recoils, hops from the bed and scampers across the floor on all fours. The image is only on the periphery of a vision blurred with pain, already dissipating into the gloom, but I am not mistaken. It skitters like a dog, scuttling sideways on spidery limbs, cackling hysterically.

  I cannot stay here.

  I cannot…will not….

  That thing, that unworldly creature, no – it could not be human – it had to be a hallucination, yes an opiate-induced dream. That would explain it. None of this is real. I have had terrible dreams before - during those long days and nights in the chamber…batting away giant spiders on the bedspread that swelled in size and ran into my hair…being unable to stop them because my hands were tied. It was punishment, you see? That is what the whispers were about. And the more I screamed the more they ran across my face and into my mouth…

  Alas, my cries have brought her forth.

  Myra Strickland, the housekeeper, holds a lantern over my bed, her long, coffin shaped face swinging in and out of shadows. “What on earth is all this screaming for? Lie down in your bed properly or you will have to be restrained.”

  “I was woken…I think one of the–”

  “Silence! Do not answer back. Go to sleep. Nor do I expect to be wakened from my bed again this night, do you hear?”

  Her voice is a bark laced with barely contained loathing, one which triggers the padlocked memory of that belonging to a nurse I once had as a child. It claws now into the vessels of my heart and squeezes. Certainly it is one I will never forget to my dying day. And why it is so easy for her to thrust a spoonful of laudanum to my lips.

  Slowly after that, the unnatural cries, moans and banging noises from within this dreadful place, begin to mute and fade.

  It is a respite. A hazy, grey place of limbo.

  Before the full horror is revealed.

  ***

  Morning is a chill, grey dawn of rain smattering across barred windows, coupled with a stench like no other. Wild screams and deranged moans resound in what is a cold, hollow dormitory lined with sash windows jammed shut. There is no fire to warm the freezing, fetid air, the small grate at the far end a gaping black hole.

  Someone is shouting the same words over and over again, ‘Get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head…’ One or two of the women have soiled themselves and are being cleaned up in full view of the rest of us; a mobile basin unit wheeled from one bed to another without the water being changed. Surely they will not bring that filthy water to me? Surely?

  A few yards from the foot of my bed a used commode has been parked, left uncovered for all to see its contents. The whole floor stinks of human waste, disease and filth. It is a smell I am sure I will never forget, mixed as it is with that of unwashed bodies and entrenched sickness – an all pervading, sour stench of sepsis. This will stay with me. Haunt me. As will the bursts of maniacal laughter, screeches of rage and howls of torment.

  How long must I stay?

  I pray like I have never prayed before, that it will not be the six months cited. Please God, please God I beg you – set me free from this appalling plight.

  In the opposite bed a woman lies staring at the ceiling. Bald and cadaverous, half her face has decayed, bones and toothless gums exposed, facial tissue wasted away. What is left of her skin is covered in lumpy warts, the hands clutching at the sheets weeping with open sores. She resembles a corpse ready for the ground. How can she still be alive? Is she still alive? From time to time a wet, gurgling moan escapes from her throat, her sunken eyes rolling back in the sockets.

  I have been sleeping opposite this poor, diseased creature? They put me here?

  And what of the one who attacked me last night, the one who lopes on all fours like a wild dog? Does she walk normally this morning or cower in the shadows. One or two of the rake-thin, half-naked people being herded into a communal bathroom take off their nightdresses in full view, exposing hunched spines and jutting ribs; others wring their hands and mutter to themselves; some lie still manacled to cots, their screams renting the air.

  And now it seems, it is my turn. The harridan, Mrs Payne, stands over me, sleeves rolled up.

  “Out of bed, Flora. Bathroom and breakfast.”

  Flora!

  Instantly the memory of last night flashes before me - the stripping of my clothes, the confiscation of purse and possessions, even the locket with pictures of Samuel and I on our wedding day. How I stood naked and shameful while she and the other one scrubbed my body with cold water and detergent, before chopping off my hair to the scalp. I fought back with everything I had but those two women are not only as strong as farmhands but brutal with it, and I will not make that mistake again. The doctor was called and the horrible red-faced man, Gwilym held me to the floor while morphine was administered. After that I do not recall much, except the familiar sinking, heavy limbed feeling as the opiate took hold. And sniggers from corners I could not see.

  She whips back the sheets. “Take off your nightdress and go to the bathroom.”

  There is little choice but to join the herd of disgusting imbeciles who talk to themselves and pick at their sores. We share hairbrushes, towels, and bath water. Misery streams down my face. I shut my eyes. Sliding into a filthy tub while she pours buckets of icy water over my head and scrubs my back with a brush just used on another.

  “And you can stop that blubbering.”

  The dress she hands over is of scratchy grey wool with a red asylum label blatantly sewn on the outside. And on top of that there is an apron, worn like that of a maid.

  “Why an apron?”

  “Because after breakfast you will be starting work, Flora. It’s called moral therapy – you’re all treated the same here, we’ll have no airs and graces.”

  Despite the sickly growl of hunger, all thoughts of eating anything in this foul dwelling are repugnant. “I do not wish to partake of breakfast.”

  “Oh, you will.”

  “I will not.”

  “You will, Flora. And if you don’t you will be made to. It is not your place to de
ny yourself food.”

  But I will not eat. Not here. I would rather die.

  The dining room is a madhouse full of toothless, dribbling lunatics shovelling slop into their mouths. Long wooden benches ensure close proximity, the food is rancid and the grain alive with crawling things.

  It is the most diabolical breakfast hour, quite unendurable, with my neighbour constantly fingering my clothes, peering into my face, touching and pawing. Have they no social mores? Another sits in a pool of her own urine, clearly having some kind of dreadful fit, her neck and face contorting with jerks and tics.

  I can take no more and bolt from the room.

  Alas, it is at the foot of the stairs where they wait. Mrs Payne. And Myra Strickland.

  For a second confusion clouds my brain.

  And then all becomes clear. Myra is holding a length of tubing. And Mrs Payne is armed with restraints. Frantically I look for a way of escape but all routes are blocked.

  You will eat, Flora. And if you don’t you will be made to…

  ***

  Chapter Five

  2018

  Isobel, The Gatehouse

  04:00 hours and perishing.

  The pilot light on the boiler would not ignite, and her breath steamed on the air. Isobel sat at the kitchen table staring into the blue light of her laptop and drinking scorching coffee. At least there was electricity and, thank goodness, an internet connection. At the time of choosing somewhere to rent, Wi-Fi hadn’t featured high on the list of ‘must-haves,’ but right here and now it was a godsend. Half way through the email to Nina, her closest friend, she paused to listen once more to the silent house. The banging noise had finally stopped, but if she relaxed even for a moment it would start up again for sure. For pity’s sake, this was precisely what she’d come here to escape!

  Nina - half Indian, half Yorkshire - brooked no nonsense whilst holding deeply spiritual beliefs. Nina listened with an emotional intelligence rarely found in today’s selfie-obsessed society, seemingly without ego and brimming with compassion. They’d come together in an environment mutually detested but unavoidable at the time - that of corporate meetings, workshops and seminars. Catching each other’s eye during a particularly life-draining session, they exchanged a complicit smile and soon became experts at trying to make each other laugh at the most inappropriate moments.