The Girl Who Couldn't Read

by John Harding

  ‘Yes, and if you did, that would be you out of a job and no mistake if O’Reilly was to catch you,’ came the reply of the other woman. ‘We’re not even supposed to know there’s anyone up there at all.’

  ‘O’Reilly’s on shore for the night,’ said the first woman.

  ‘No matter if she is, it’s the same difference,’ said the other. ‘See no evil, touch no evil and just put up with having to hear a bit of evil, that’s what I say,’ and she let out a guffaw at her own good humour.

  ‘Well, that’s true enough,’ said the first. ‘I ain’t never seen her and I ain’t never touched her, but I damned well heard her sure enough.’

  ‘Perhaps another glass will help block out the noise,’ said the other.

  There was the sound of glasses clinking and then their quiet muttering resumed. I ducked up the narrow flight of stairs to the attic, not an easy climb, for there was a turn in them that took them under the sloping eaves of the building and meant I had to bend low to mount them, difficult for someone of my height, especially when carrying a candle. I reached the top, where there was a single central corridor with doors either side. Opening the first, I found a large room piled with lumber, folded wooden chairs, boxes, the disassembled frame of a bed and the like. Everything was layered deep with dust. My nose began to tickle and I had the devil of a job to prevent myself sneezing and giving myself away. I closed the door and explored the other rooms on this side of the corridor; all were unlocked and were either empty or contained the same sort of unwanted lumber as the first. I made my way back along the corridor, switching my attention to the rooms on the other side, which again were unlocked and put to the same purpose as before. But when I reached the last door, the one nearest the staircase, and turned the handle, the door refused to yield. I pushed my shoulder against it in case it was merely stuck, but it didn’t budge; it was definitely locked. I put my ear to it and held my breath to listen. There was perfect quiet and then, before I could move, a sudden rush of footsteps on the other side and the door almost exploded into me, crashing against my ear, as something – someone – cannoned into it on the other side. I fell back in shock and my candle went out.

  ‘Let me out, you devil, let me out!’ It was a woman’s voice, although you could only just tell, for it sounded like no human I had ever heard, a banshee straight out of Hell. My blood ran cold. Everything was dark and I could almost feel the madwoman’s fingers reaching out and taking hold of my throat. She began wailing and sobbing, and banging on the door. I was by no means safe here. It seemed entirely possible to me that the monster on the other side of this flimsy piece of wood – who I was sure was the madwoman I’d come in search of – might smash her way through it.

  In my shock at the prisoner’s frenzy, I had all but forgotten the precariousness of my situation, that she was not the only thing I had to worry about, when the darkness began to recede. There was a glow of a light from the staircase, growing brighter by the second. Someone was coming up it.

  I was in a desperate plight. In a moment the person on the stairs would reach the top, light would flood the corridor and reveal me where I had no right to be. I fumbled around in the dark, seeking the handle of the door opposite the prisoner’s, but met only the wall. Just then the person ascending the stairs must have reached the turn, because the intensity of the light doubled. It was bright enough for me to see the door handle. I grabbed it, opened the door and ducked inside, closing it as quietly as I could, although the little noise it made would have been inaudible over the racket the fiend opposite was creating.

  I put my ear to the door and listened. Footsteps stopped at the door across the way. And then, the most surprising thing of all, the thing I least would have guessed would happen, a voice, speaking quietly and patiently, evidently through the door to the woman inside. It was a voice I knew only too well.

  ‘There, there, my dear, calm yourself,’ whispered Morgan. ‘Come on, quiet down. If you’re a very good girl, I have a present for you, something very nice indeed.’

  He paused and the rattling of the door opposite ceased. The woman’s fierce cries subsided into a kind of moan. ‘That’s better,’ said Morgan. ‘Now, my dear, you must get back into bed. I’m not coming in unless you do. And if I don’t come in, I can’t give you any chocolate, can I?’

  There was a long silence and then I heard the sound of a key in a lock, the opening of the door and its closing and the sound of the key being turned once more. I held my breath, thinking what to do. Had Morgan gone inside the room, or was he still waiting in the corridor? Perhaps he had just opened the door a fraction, tossed the chocolate through the gap and then closed and locked it again. He might be in the corridor still. I bent down and looked through the keyhole of my door and everything outside was black, from which I deduced Morgan, with his candle, was inside the woman’s room. I opened my door and was out in a trice. I stepped softly across the passage, put my ear to the door and listened.

  I heard the strangest sound: Morgan’s voice, there was no doubt about that, but humming. It was an old tune, one of those popular songs you get in vaudeville shows, although I could not place it, a ballad of some sort. Beneath it I could hear a low accompaniment, a sort of murmuring which put me in mind for some reason of the purring of a cat. It suggested the wild woman within was humming along while nibbling contentedly upon the chocolate.

  Here was strangeness indeed! Morgan, the brusque little martinet, the man who happily half drowned helpless women, or chained them to chairs for hour after hour, sitting and lullabying this mad monster.

  I longed to stay and listen more, in case Morgan said something that might give me a clue about what was going on, but the risk was too great. He might emerge at any time and I would be caught out – redhanded – with no excuse. I had to get away fast while it was still possible. I didn’t dare light my candle. There was a faint sliver of light seeping out from under the woman’s door, barely anything, but just enough to show me the way to the top of the stairs. I crept to them and began to inch my way carefully down, terrified that all the noise might have drawn the attendants below from their room. I had no idea what I would say if confronted by them. I just prayed it wouldn’t happen.

  At last, after what seemed an age, I came to the bottom of the stairs and peeped around the corner. The passage was empty and there was enough light from the attendants’ open door for me to start my way down the next flight of stairs. Once I reached the turn I paused, took out my matches and lit my candle. It took a moment for my eyes to get used to the sudden brightness but once they had, I hurried the rest of the way down and a couple of minutes later reached the part of the hospital where it was legitimate for me to be. If I was caught now, I could always plead a trip to the library as my excuse for being abroad.

  In the security of my room I tried to make sense of all that had passed. It was clear the attendants knew of the woman’s existence – how could they not with the noise she made, which seemed to be a regular occurrence – but also evident that they were expected to turn a blind eye and had scarcely any more knowledge about her than I did. I had at least seen her – and touched her, or rather felt her hands touching me. The woman was O’Reilly’s special charge. It was she who took her her meals, as I had seen. And what I’d witnessed suggested that, on the rare occasions when she was away, Morgan took over. But a different Morgan from the one I knew in our daily work together. He had calmed this special patient by talking to her softly and soothingly, not by threatening her or tying her up. Why, when I thought about it, his behaviour toward this woman was like nothing so much as Moral Treatment. Morgan, in this particular case it seemed, practised what I preached.

  But why? What was so special about this woman that she merited a different regime from all the other patients? Why was she kept such a secret? Why had both Morgan and O’Reilly lied to me, pretending that the person who attacked me in his office was just one of the women from the third floor?

  I went to sleep feeling
that I had got almost nowhere in solving the puzzle. I had confirmed the existence of the woman, but for the mystery surrounding her, I had no explanation.

  24

  We were now moving toward the end of November and the weather had worsened. There were more heavy falls of snow and, looking from a window at the back of the second floor, I noted how pleasingly the snow had drifted so that a great bank of it lay over the remains of the late Miss Adams. She might have been in a pharaoh’s tomb for all the likelihood of anyone finding her, although her mausoleum was not permanent and I knew I must solidify my plans for departure. I had hit upon the end of January as the time to go. I would be able to count upon a good month’s start before there was any possibility of a thaw and the discovery of the body, and probably as much again after that before any police investigation was on my trail. I knew it was likely they would connect her with Shepherd pretty quickly. Eva, for one, and perhaps others too, had seen Miss Adams and knew she had visited my alter ego.

  But after that I reckoned they would lose track of me. They would be looking for Shepherd, after all, not Jack Wells, who was certified as dead and gone. If they traced back and managed to find a photograph of Shepherd, the only people who might spot that it was not the man of that name who had worked at the hospital would be Morgan and the rest of the staff. But even that was uncertain. Shepherd and I looked reasonably alike. We were the same type, and a photograph of him might look sufficiently like me to fool them into thinking the ‘doctor’ they knew was who he’d said he was. They had no reason to suspect otherwise. The natural conclusion would be that he had killed his fiancée in the heat of some lovers’ quarrel and then fled.

  At breakfast next morning Morgan said to me, ‘I had a long night going over your reports, Shepherd, but everything was in order. You seem to be getting the hang of things here.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I replied. ‘I thought perhaps you wouldn’t have had time.’

  ‘Why would you think that? Didn’t I tell you I would go through them?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir, it’s just that I called into your office last evening and you weren’t there.’

  He coloured and took a sip of coffee. ‘Well, I must have popped out for a moment. Nature’s demands, you know.’

  I could not help teasing him further. ‘I went back twice and you still weren’t there. The reports were hardly started on.’

  He stared at me, with that familiar look of barely controlled anger boiling up inside him. Then he looked away and began buttering a piece of toast as though it demanded his full concentration. ‘Ah yes, I remember now. I was tired and needed to clear my head to prepare myself for the long haul ahead of me. I went out for a stroll.’

  ‘What, in the snow, sir? For over an hour?’

  He looked me straight in the eye. He challenged me one. ‘Yes. I find the cold air very bracing.’

  I shrugged. ‘Rather you than me.’

  We concentrated on our food, neither of us looking at the other. Finally he cleared his throat noisily. ‘Anyway, what was it you wanted to see me about?’

  ‘See you about?’

  ‘Yes. Confound it, man. Your visit to my office must have been important for you to return twice. What was it for?’

  My questioning had put him at a disadvantage. I reckoned he would be agreeable to my suggestion now, to repair the rift between us and smooth away the suspicions my tone had suggested.

  ‘Jane Dove. I was thinking about how it is good for her to be segregated from the other patients, not surrounded by madness as it were, and to be able to pursue other things, sewing and knitting and –’ I was trying to think of something else.

  ‘Reading,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget her reading. She’s going great guns at that.’

  ‘No, of course.’ A nervous laugh trickled from me. ‘Indeed, how could I forget that?’

  ‘You may be right, you may not. I concede there have been some beneficial developments, but overall I couldn’t begin to count it any kind of cure.’

  ‘You’re perfectly correct, sir. I am not at all satisfied yet. That’s why I’ve been thinking that perhaps keeping her away from the others has accidentally disadvantaged her too.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, apart from the limited time I can spend with her and those occasional visits from one of the attendants who has been instructing her in her needlework, she is in effect in solitary confinement.’

  ‘Well, hardly, man. She has a nice comfortable room, armchairs, books – not exactly the prison cell that phrase “solitary confinement” suggests.’

  ‘You’re perfectly correct, sir. What I meant was that she’s effectively shut up alone for long periods of the day. I was wondering if we mightn’t let her out a little.’

  ‘Let her out? Let her out?’

  ‘Yes. If you remember the idea behind Moral Treatment.’

  ‘Pshaw! Moral Treatment!’ I had forgotten how like a red rag to a bull the phrase was to him.

  I tried again. ‘The idea of the experiment is that she should be treated as much as possible like a normal person in order to help her become one. Well, it’s not normal to spend most of the day sitting looking at the same four walls on your own. In order for the experiment to have a chance to succeed, she must be given a certain amount of freedom, allowed to wander about a bit.’

  He took a swig of coffee and tilted his head from side to side, mulling this over. At last he swallowed and said, ‘I’m not sure we can have a patient roaming all over the building unsupervised.’

  ‘I agree, sir,’ I said, concentrating on cutting up my fried ham. ‘It wouldn’t do for her to be venturing upstairs, for example.’ I paused and could feel his eyes boring into me. I had to resist a smile. He was wondering whether this last remark had any significance, connecting it in his mind with my visit to his office last night. ‘Or into your office. We would have to define at exactly what times she was allowed to leave her room and where she was permitted to go. For one thing, it would be no use to my trial if I couldn’t find her when I wanted to talk with her.’

  He picked up his napkin and wiped his lips, then pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Very well. Work out the details and report back to me.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I realise it’s a big step and I really appreciate your willingness to give me every opportunity to make my experiment work, even though you don’t agree with it at all.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort, man,’ he said, pulling out his watch and frowning at it. ‘I’m just giving you enough rope to hang yourself, that’s all.’

  As I hurriedly took a final mouthful of coffee and stood up, I could not help shivering at that most unfortunate turn of phrase.

  Over the next few days I thought about how Jane Dove’s increased liberty might be made possible and, when I had arrived at a plan, negotiated it with Morgan. She had exercise already in the afternoon, and it was the mornings that were extremely long for her. The patients had breakfast at 6.30 and after that I was at my busiest, supervising treatments, examining any newly arrived patients and writing reports. Before lunch I rarely managed more than a few brief minutes with her, and sometimes not even that. It made sense, then, that she should be allowed to roam at that time.

  Morgan set the limits on where she could go. She was not permitted to be where the other patients were; he thought it would upset some of them to see one of their number at liberty when they were so constrained. She was allowed to wander the corridor on the second floor while the others were down in the day room. She could use the main staircase, although she was on no account to venture up to the third floor; she could go outside, providing she kept to the paths immediately around the house. Any deviations from these rules and the privilege would be rescinded. There would be no excuses allowed and no second chance.

  After we had settled this and I was about to leave his office, Morgan said, ‘Wait a minute, what fools we both are. We’ve forgotten the most obvious place for her to go.’

  I must have
looked puzzled.

  ‘Why, man, the library, of course.’

  My mouth was half open to protest that it would be of no use to her because she couldn’t read when, just in time, I recollected myself.

  ‘She can look at the books and choose them for herself. Such a proficient reader will find a whole new world there.’

  I smiled. ‘Of course, I cannot imagine why I didn’t think of it.’ At least Jane would be able to amuse herself there and while away a few otherwise dull hours by looking through any illustrated books she could find.

  In fact, once she had her freedom, the library turned out to be where she passed most of her time. Whenever I couldn’t find her in her room or walking the grounds, I knew where to look. She spent the long morning hours leafing through the neglected volumes and, coming upon her there one day, going through an illustrated book, I remarked that it was of little use setting her free, because she had made herself as much a prisoner here among the dusty books as she had been when immured in her room.

  ‘Oh, but I like it here,’ she replied. ‘I feel at home with all these books around me. It’s like being among friends. There are so many stories I can construct from the pictures I find. If you have imagination, sir, you are never in jail.’

  Well, I could have argued with that, but instead I took the book she’d been looking at from her. It was a fine edition of Robinson Crusoe, with beautiful colour plates of the castaway’s adventures. ‘What story have you made from this?’ I asked, handing it back to her.

  ‘I have only just begun to look at it, sir,’ she said. ‘Do you know the book?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s very famous.’ I told her the title.

  She opened the book at an illustration. ‘Is that the man in this picture?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a sailor who is shipwrecked upon an uninhabited island and has to build his own civilisation from scratch. He’s stuck there. There’s no way to escape.’