The Conviction of Cora Burns

by Carolyn Kirby

  Sixteen

  Sat 17th

  I received Matron Abbott (who seems so different without her starched apron and tall nurse’s bonnet!) in my rooms this afternoon, and in the course of arranging for the delivery of Mary B from the infirmary to my office, we enjoyed a most stimulating discussion about the conduct of hypnosis upon the insane. Mrs Abbott asked pertinent questions regarding what I imagined might transpire. I then outlined Dr Voisin’s methods for hypnotising lunatics by simply addressing the subject with a repeated verbal instruction to stare into the instructor’s eyes. Sleep, he says, almost always descends voluntarily. If it does not, hand-passes may be made across the subject’s head (without touching). This process should be continued for at least thirty minutes. Should it not be successful, Dr Voisin recommends restraining the lunatic in order for the eyes forcibly to be kept open whilst they look into a magnesium lamp for up to three hours if necessary (however, I do not think that I could in conscience employ this method). Mrs Abbott then made the excellent suggestion that, after bringing Mary B to my office, she herself might stay on to act as a note-taker. I had not previously considered the benefits of having a witness present but I immediately accepted. What luck to have chanced upon such an intelligent associate for my research!

  I suspect that Mrs Abbott may be only a few years older than I, but her life, from the few facts she told me about it, has been turbulent. Her pleasant West Country lilt originates not from the rolling hills of Devonshire (as I had fondly imagined) but from Bristol’s grimy docks. It was there that her late husband met his end in a ship’s hold. She told me (with great bravery) of this event; of the pressure upon the dockers to unload the valuable cargo of tobacco bales swiftly; of how the stevedores all knew the crane’s rope to be rotten but the dock owners, consumed by their love of profit, refused to replace it. The result was Mr Abbott’s tragic (nay, unlawful) death at the age of just 26 years. Mrs Abbott then realised that she must make her own way in the world and took up a situation as an attendant in the asylum at Wells, studying Nursing in her own time and by her own efforts fitting herself for the responsible position she now holds.

  Sun 18th

  I have set up a therapeutic area within my office along the lines recommended by the French experts. Being unable to procure a couch, I have pulled in an old wing-back chair and placed my stool directly in front of it. As arranged, Matron Abbott brought Mary B to my office directly after chapel. The patient is a small neat woman in early middle age who at first glance appears sane, if a little pale and nervous-looking. Her countenance is moderately grey and her eyes dull. They are, nevertheless, the same striking eyes that I had seen in the likeness appended to her admission certificate. The likeness did not, of course, reveal their remarkable porcelain blue.

  Mary B sat in the large chair somewhat reluctantly. Perhaps it was my proximity which unsettled her as our knees were almost touching, but I judged her sufficiently compos mentis to proceed. Mrs Abbotts’s discreet presence in the corner with her notebook was, I think, reassuring. Thenceforth the session proceeded more dramatically than I could have imagined. My hand, indeed, shakes as I here transcribe Mrs Abbott’s notes.

  10.30am

  Dr F uses a quiet, sonorous voice. He instructs Mary B to relax each part of her body into the chair.

  Dr F says: ‘Look at me. Think of nothing but sleep. Your eyelids begin to feel heavy; your eyelids are tired; your eyes are getting moist; you cannot see clearly.’

  Mary B’s eyelids droop but she remains awake.

  Dr F makes some passes of hands over her face.

  The eyelids quiver.

  Dr F says: ‘Can you still hear me, Mary?’

  She nods. Her movements are slow and deliberate, her lids flutter.

  Dr F says: ‘You have now regained the power of speech. You will retain this power even after you wake up.’

  10.45am

  Dr F asks Mary B to tell him about her work in the kitchen.

  She sighs loudly and then yawns. Her eyes are closed.

  Dr F talks a little more about the kitchens; how pleasant it must be to work in the warmth, preparing the wholesome ingredients which are pleasing to the patients and aid their recovery.

  Mary B’s mouth flickers into a trance-like smile and her chin slowly nods. Dr F continues in a low rhythmic voice: ‘The quality of the pastry at the asylum is better than I have tasted anywhere. There must be a special recipe that is followed here to make it so light and tasty.’

  Then, Mary speaks: ‘Tis the table, sir.’

  Dr F: (after a slight pause) ‘How do you mean?’

  Mary B: ‘It is a marble-topped table that we use to roll out the dough. The coolness of it is good for pastry.’

  Her voice is a little hoarse but the words, in a north-country accent, are clear.

  Dr F: ‘Do tell me, Mary, how you prepare your pastry.’

  Mary B: ‘The flour should be sieved, the beef fat and butter kept in the larder to stay hard. The rolling must be quick.’

  Dr F: ‘I see you are an expert. Where did you learn these skills?’

  Mary B: ‘My mother taught me.’

  Dr F: ‘On a marble-topped table?’

  Mary B: (slight chuckle) ‘Nay, sir. There be nowt of that sort in our village.’

  Dr F: ‘And what village was that?’

  Mary B: ‘Salt.’

  Dr F: ‘The village of Salt?’

  Mary B: ‘Aye, sir.’

  Dr F: ‘In Staffordshire?’

  Mary B: ‘Aye.’

  Dr F: ‘And when did you leave the village?’

  Mary B: (eyes crimp into a frown) ‘I was sent as a scullery maid when I was fifteen…’

  Dr F: ‘To Birmingham?’

  At this, Mary B’s face begins to redden and her lips press together. Her head turns from side to side.

  Dr F: (his upturned hands pass across her face without touching) ‘Mary, do not tire yourself. Sleep now, a deep refreshing sleep. When I clap my hands you will awake and remember the ease with which you have spoken. Your difficulty with speech will disappear.’

  11.10am

  Mary B is calm now, with eyes closed; breathing deep and steady. At the clap of Dr F’s hands, Mary B blinks and yawns.

  Dr F: ‘Tell me what you remember about our talk.’

  Mary B coughs then shakes her head.

  Dr F: ‘Do you remember anything?’

  Mary B: No response.

  Sun pm

  I had agreed with Mrs Abbott that we should take a turn around the asylum meadow after luncheon in order to discuss the morning’s events. She met me by the main entrance door. In her knitted red scarf and tam o’shanter, she seemed almost girlish. Indeed we were both giddy as schoolchildren as we talked of the near-miraculous breakthrough we had witnessed a few hours before.

  I confessed that I had been a little overwhelmed by the effectiveness of Dr Voisin’s method, having used it only once before on a friend (and I did not tell her that I suspected the trance induced on that occasion was faked to keep me happy!). I admitted that I should have thought harder about how to encourage Mary B to talk. The nonsense about pastry-making was entirely thought up on the spur of the moment – my main object being simply to hear Mary B’s voice. Nevertheless, my embarrassing chitter-chatter seemed to work.

  Mrs Abbott then asked whether I have any theory regarding the cause of Mary B’s insanity. I took a deep breath and ventured to explain a little of my Political theory of madness. This was prefaced, as it must be, by a vignette of my own rather miserable childhood – the failure of my father’s business, my mother’s subsequent incapacity – and how, early on in my medical studies, I had decided to specialise in malfunctions of the mind. Insanity, I explained, may express itself in many bizarre modes of behaviour – peculiar delusions, religious mania, an obsession with cleanliness, sel
f-starvation – but at the root of all symptoms lies the despair of inequality. That, as any disinterested person must see, is why the Borough Asylum is more stuffed with paupers than any other category of lunatic.

  I think I found a receptive audience. Mrs Abbott confided that my ideas chimed very much with her own. Indeed, she wondered if Mary B may be a personification of my theory. Then, somewhat haltingly, she began to describe one of Mary B’s verbal episodes upon emerging from the stupor of chloral hydrate in the infirmary. Matron Abbott witnessed Mary B falling, at the point of consciousness, into a sudden terror akin to a fit. The words wailed by the patient at this point seemed to describe the terrifying birth of a child upon the floor of a gaol cell. Naturally, Mrs Abbott judged the details too indelicate to relate to me exactly. My face must have conveyed my fluster at the subject matter because Mrs Abbott briefly laid a reassuring hand on my sleeve. I was torn by a desire to know exactly what had been said and an embarrassment at the thought of it coming from Mrs Abbott’s lips. I then ventured a suggestion that, although she would not wish to relate this unseemly anecdote to me directly, she might instead write it down as best she could remember and keep this testimony safe. It may form an aid (as yet unforeseen) to Mary B’s recovery. Mrs Abbott agreed gladly to do so.

  I was so affected by our conversation that I asked if Mrs Abbott would do me the courtesy of calling me by my first name, at least when we are out of earshot of the staff. Again, she quickly agreed and asked if I would return the compliment by calling her Miriam.

  Seventeen

  November 1885

  face

  When Cora woke, the babe was in her bed. She felt the warm hard ball of his head tucked below her breast and the soft smell of his new skin wafted up between the stale sheets. But when she put her hand to him, there was nothing. Then the dream came back to her; he’d been laughing and gurgling, a dark-eyed child of six months or more. Nothing like the tiny bloodied scrap she last saw.

  She opened her eyes on to the beginnings of thin wintry light and wiped at the tear that had slipped into her hair. Her legs ached under the weight of blanket and clothes. She had forgotten the toll that fighting took. Her eyelids sagged but she would not let them close. The boy might still be there in the darkness to tear at the knot of sorrow in her throat. She thought of the day ahead and could not see her way through it; her limbs would be too feeble to take her from one vigorous task to the next. By now, she should be dressed, her hair brushed and bound under a fresh cap. Cook expected the range to be aglow by the time she came down and the kettle already in a hiss.

  Cora pulled herself up, one limb at a time and sat on the mattress. Her head throbbed. Yesterday seemed more dream than real. Had she really mashed Samuel’s face into the brambles and put her naked parts on show to Ellen? And had the missus, mad as you like, been crying over her in the night and calling her Annie? Yet it must be so, for she was still naked apart from the half-medal around her neck.

  She took a long breath and reached for her nightdress amongst the rumpled bedclothes. As she pulled it free, a rectangle of speckled paper fell on to the floor. Cora picked it up and a woman’s face looked back. She dragged on the nightgown and scrabbled for a Vesta, striking one to the candle’s blackened wick. Then she held the stiff paper beside the flame that tongued through the smoke and her heart gave a beat so hollow that she felt it might stop for good.

  The girl in the small cabinet portrait was dressed in an expensive, if outdated gown with a full skirt and a high waist. Her thick, dark hair hung in coils about her shoulders and her face was a pale oval with thin cheeks and rounded brows. The face could not have been more familiar, because it was Cora’s own.

  Unsteadily, she stood up, still clutching the portrait to the light. It must be a trick; some photographic sorcery that could paste her face on to another woman’s body. The master must have done it. But the angle of the face looking away from the camera was unfamiliar. Cora had never before seen her head from the side. And there was no line or join between her own pale cheek in the likeness and the woman’s complicated twists of hair and jewel-drop earrings.

  A shiver prickled into Cora’s scalp and she dropped the print to the bed. It must have been left here, unseen, as the missus came towards her in that pale shimmer of distress. Perhaps the woman in the photograph was Annie, the imagined foe who just happened to look like Cora. That would explain everything. And perhaps Cora should, right now, march upstairs and bang on the bedroom door to tell the missus what was what. And warn her to leave Cora alone.

  But Mrs Jerwood was a mad-woman. She would believe what she wanted and no proof of anything solid would persuade her to change her mind. Cora knew enough about lunatics to know that. And no good could be done by drawing attention to herself. Neither would it do to leave this picture where it might be seen. Any of the other servants who saw the likeness would surely think it showed Cora and then wonder by what means she could have decked herself in such finery. There was only one way. The gown’s swags were as scandalous as prison stripes.

  Cora tucked the cabinet portrait into her nightdress sleeve and wrapped the blanket around her. Boiled wool itched through her nightdress as her bare feet twisted into the slippery leather of the button boots. Outside, damp air reeked of earth and dead fires. White mist lightened the brick path past the coal house to the servants’ privy. Cora banged the privy door to warn off rats and went in.

  Dirty light from the dripping window showed up the O of the bowl but not much else. The seat was icy against Cora’s thighs; the uneven floor pitted with small puddles. She kept her foot against the door. Samuel might already have heard her come this way and know that she was alone, the rest of the house still abed. Who could blame him if he tried to get some revenge? She’d almost think better of him if he did.

  She pulled the likeness from her sleeve but the light was too weak to see more than an outline of the ballooning crinoline. The stiff paper creased to a sharp point as she balled it in her fist. She squeezed harder, pressing with her thumb until it had crumpled into a soft lump. Then she dropped it into the lavatory and pulled the chain.

  The grey ball of card bobbed around in the roll of water and piss, reluctant to sink. Perhaps water would destroy this likeness no better than fire had worked on the last. If she had to, she’d put her hand in the bowl and scoop it, then try something else. But then the water settled to smooth emptiness and the fine lady with Cora’s face was gone.

  temper

  When Cora got back to the kitchen, black tufts already smoked between the bars of the range. Cook sat in the Windsor chair with a sour look watching a silent kettle on the hotplate and didn’t turn around when Cora came in.

  ‘Sorry, Cook. I had to visit the privy.’

  ‘Are you poorly?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Not something you’ve eaten, I hope. Like brambles?’

  Cora shook her head. ‘Time of the month that’s all.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Cook’s eyes narrowed. Perhaps she thought Cora was hiding some other complaint; one that gave her good reason to beat Samuel Shepherd to a bloody mess.

  Cora tried to move and speak as she normally would. ‘I’ll be right presently.’

  ‘Good. Master has specially asked for you to take up his tea.’

  Cora stiffened. He must by now have spotted the gap in his box of prisoner portraits. Perhaps he also knew about the mishap in the brambles. She could not bear the thought of facing him.

  ‘If my stomach is out of sorts it might be catching.’

  Cook raised her voice just enough to quash further discussion. ‘He particularly asked for you. So you’d best get your clothes on sharpish.’

  The four-legged tray weighed heavy on Cora’s arms as she climbed the back stairs. Halfway up, she stumbled on the print dress and thought that the whole thing, steaming silver teapot, flower-edged china and fishy-sme
lling toast, was about to fly into the air and crash on to the treads. She was almost disappointed when it didn’t. The print dress seemed to drag on the floor as if to press home the notion that Cora would never again wear it. The master would no doubt want her changed back into her own clothes and gone from his house before he was even up for the day.

  Well, he could stuff his tweeny position between his bare arse cheeks. And once he’d sacked her, Cora would give him a piece of her mind; tell him to keep his damned eight pounds and his button boots and stop taking pictures of her face to do Lord knows what with without so much as asking. A hollow lightness started to rise inside her. Perhaps it would be a relief to be away from this house and all of the black looks that would be coming her way from Samuel and Ellen and Violet if she stayed. She could do with keeping the boots though, and a blanket. Her prospects in town were no better than they’d been last month, and the weather was colder.

  ‘Come!’

  Mr Jerwood seemed to answer before she’d even knocked. Inside his chamber, dark velvet curtains were still closed and two gas wall-burners hissed. Stacks of books sprouted from the patterned carpets. He sat in the middle of the brass bedstead, propped against pillows, a brocade dressing gown over his nightshirt. The shiny coverlet was almost hidden by a spread of white paper, each sheet covered in dense pencil handwriting. He must have been awake half the night.

  Cora stood inside the door. ‘Tray, sir.’

  ‘Ah yes. Put it here, over me, if you would.’

  ‘On the bed, sir?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  He scrabbled some of the paper away from his knees and Cora felt the unexpected rise of a blush as she placed the tray across his legs. A slightly rank smell came up from the bed although Cora knew the sheets were not long changed; she’d washed them herself. She stepped backwards with her eyes firmly on the Turkey carpet, narrowly avoiding a pile of books.