Victorian Maiden

by Gary Dolman

  Atticus turned to her.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  She’s dead! Dear Lord, her dear, sweet mama is dead. And yes, it surely is true. She had seen her pall being lowered deep into the ground, lowered onto the peeling, grey, mud-smeared coffin of her dearest papa, whom she had never even known. The bell had rung, and now she had gone to be with Jesus and his angels in Heaven. Or had she? Dear Lord, had she? She hoped and hoped that the vicar was right; that her uncle was wrong, and that her mama was safe in Heaven. She prayed and prayed that she was an angel for Jesus, just like her dearest papa. But her mama had said that she would never leave her. She had said that she loved her more than anything else in the world. Everyone had said that her mama would get better; that she wouldn’t die like her papa had died. Everyone had said that she would be cured. They had said that everyone is cured at Harrogate.

  But her mama wasn’t cured and she had died. She had left her. Her Uncle Alfie said that her mama must have been especially wicked and sinful to die so young at Harrogate. But how could someone who was so especially wicked go to be with Jesus and his angels? Jesus hates people who are wicked. Her Uncle Alfie had said that she, Elizabeth, must be wicked and sinful too; that she was a wicked little girl who must be punished and have a special kind of medicine. But why did he smile so when he said that? And why did his smile chill her to her very core?

  Atticus’ sharp rap on the big knocking-iron of the door was answered almost immediately by Petty, Dr Roberts’ butler. His neutral expression hardened briefly into curious disdain as he caught sight of Elizabeth at the foot of the steps, dressed as she was, in her shabby, workhouse uniform. She was huddled against a nurse; a woman who also awakened memories he had kept carefully hidden for so, so long.

  “Good evening, Mr and Mrs Fox,” he said, dutiful nonetheless.

  “Good evening to you, Mr Petty,” Atticus replied.

  The butler’s eyebrows rose a little. Atticus had referred to him as ‘Mister’ on a previous occasion, but it was still a surprise, it was still rare above stairs even for a butler to be accorded such respect as a friendly tone and a title.

  “I have Miss Elizabeth Wilson, and Miss Lovell, a nursing sister from the Union Workhouse in Knaresborough, to see Dr Roberts,” Atticus continued.

  Even though he had been expecting – dreading, even – their arrival, the butler’s expression stiffened yet further at the mention of the names, and of the workhouse. His eyes flickered briefly towards the Stray for casual eavesdroppers, but the gods were smiling and there were none.

  “You had better all come inside, Mr Fox, if you please,” he said hurriedly, and waved them in.

  She followed the gentleman as he led her up the great, stone steps of her aunt and uncle’s house. Lizzie had visited the grand house many times before, but that was always with her mama. This time she was alone, except, of course, for Mary. Her mama was with Jesus now and the house seemed different; much larger and strangely forbidding, somehow.

  Her arm stung and she remembered her Uncle Alfie. He always insisted that she call him Alfie and not Alfred, even though her mama had told her that it was awfully disrespectful. He said that he’d had a special new part of the house built recently. It was called an annexe. She was to sleep there – in the Annexe – where she wouldn’t be disturbed by the noise of the servants and where it was private. There would be other children there too; her cousin John, and those her mama used to call the ‘waifs and strays.’ Those were the children her uncle had rescued; the ones who were to be sent on to better lives. Her arm stung and she remembered the waifs and strays.

  She remembered her uncle unlocking the door next to the scullery. It was a big door, with leather padding on the back just like a cushion, and it led to a steep, spiral staircase. She remembered him taking her around and around, down and down the staircase, with its cast-iron treads that rang when you stepped on them. The waifs and strays were all down there. They were in a big, special room called a dormitory, and they were all little girls.

  The waifs and strays had a narrow, iron bed each, and a man called Mr Otter to look especially after them. She thought Mr Otter a little discomforting to look at, with his ugly, scarred face and his eyes like a monster. He had his own room, right next to the row of beds, but she thought that she would have hated living down there; it was so gloomy and depressing.

  She thought it was strange that the girls all seemed frightened. Some of them were even sobbing. But why were they frightened and why were they sobbing? Didn’t they know Uncle Alfie was a great philanthropist? Didn’t they realise that he had saved them, and that now they could each look forward to a much better life?

  Everyone said her uncle was a philanthropist.

  When she told Uncle Alfie that the dormitory was gloomy and depressing, he had laughed. He had told her not to worry; that she didn’t have to sleep in the dormitory with the waifs and strays. She was to have her own bedroom, just as if she were a grown woman and not a little girl at all. It would be the bedroom right next to his own son John’s, with a beautiful, carved fireplace and an enormous brass bedstead that was almost too big to be just for one little girl. He said it was because she was his now. He possessed her. And Uncle Alfie was to sleep in the new part too – in the Annexe – so he could see her whenever he wished and he could always make sure that she was being a good, little girl.

  He said that she had always to be a good little girl, and that she had always to do everything exactly as he said. If she took care to do that, then one day she too could be an angel with Jesus and see her dear mama once again, in Heaven.

  “Mr Fox – Atticus, old fellow, and the delightful Mrs Fox – how wonderful it is to see you both again so soon.”

  Dr Roberts’ eyes sparkled as he burst into the library where the butler had shown them to wait. He stopped abruptly and stared.

  “And you have some first rate news for me I see.”

  “We have indeed, Dr Roberts,” Atticus replied, grinning broadly.

  Then with a flourish: “I would like to present Miss Elizabeth Wilson, cousin of your late father and until this very afternoon, long-time inmate of the Knaresborough Union Workhouse. I also have Sister Mary Lovell, a nurse from the same worthy institution who, with your permission, is here to help Miss Elizabeth settle in.”

  “You’re most welcome, Sister Lovell, you’re most welcome indeed. Furthermore, I hope I can persuade the Master to allow you to remain here permanently. After all, even when she’s settled, I will still need someone to look after my Aunt Elizabeth through her dotage.”

  Dr Roberts stooped and gazed directly at Elizabeth, his eyes drinking in every detail of her features. He made no attempt to wipe away a single, large tear as it ran down his cheek and disappeared into his rich, dark whiskers.

  “My own dear Aunt Elizabeth,” he whispered huskily; “Dear God, what have they done to you?”

  It seemed to cost him a mammoth effort to eventually wrench his gaze from her face. He closed his eyes tightly shut until, it seemed, he had forced something deep inside to quell itself, and then he spoke again.

  “Mr and Mrs Fox, I would be honoured if you would consent to stay for dinner this evening and help me celebrate being united with my dear long-lost aunt. Sister Lovell – Mary – if you would be so kind as to help Aunt Elizabeth to get changed into her new clothes, I would be delighted if you too would join us. If you can remember her old bedroom, it has been prepared for her return.”

  She gazed despairingly around her room at the enormous brass bed, and the two beautifully carved angels cavorting under the mantelshelf. They were cherubs and they seemed almost alive – almost. If only they were, maybe they could help. Maybe they could carry a message to her mama, far away in Heaven. They could tell her to come and watch over her at night, to be her own guardian angel. Bad things happened at night. Night was when her uncle came to tell her how naughty she had been, with his medicine for wicked girls and his eyes that froze the very blood i
n her veins; those ravenous, beastly eyes.

  And then, as she stared at the angels – the two little cherubs – she remembered the two worst memories of all. She remembered how they waited to torment her as they festered away, deep in that farthest, most remote part of her mind that she kept especially for them and their foul and loathsome kin. Her fingers gripped again the warm, silver handle of the knife lying hidden in her sleeve and she sobbed as the pain, the delicious, soothing pain kept the two worst memories of all from slipping their bonds, and from coming to hurt her.

  Chapter 6

  “So we’ve not just one, but two nurses in the room with us. Good lord, Atticus, if you were planning on falling sick, now would be an excellent time to do so.”

  Dr Roberts chuckled at his own wit and beamed fondly at his guests seated around the large teak dining table. It had been waxed and polished until it reflected the rays of the evening sun streaming in through the tall windows as perfectly as any of the glass table vases with their bouquets of sweet briar.

  “Two nurses, and a doctor,” Lucie reminded him.

  “Ah yes, Mrs Fox, I am a doctor but a head-doctor only I fear.”

  Dr Roberts’ eyes twinkled as he held up a finger in mock admonishment.

  “And I’m not sure that counts. You see, I am a psychiatrist, and psychiatry is easily the least precise of all the branches of medicine. It’s more art perhaps than science. Indeed many would say it’s just one step removed from black magic.”

  “So why become a psychiatrist at all if you believe it to be so – ineffectual?” Atticus asked, deeply puzzled.

  “I don’t, Atticus. On the contrary, I believe it can be effective, very effective indeed. What I’m trying to say is that too many people, including sadly many of my own fellow physicians, believe psychiatry to be little more than a dark art and just so much mumbo-jumbo. But I disagree. I profoundly disagree!”

  He slapped the table with the flat of his hand and Elizabeth started.

  “Make no mistake: Pain of the mind – pain of the very soul itself – can be every bit as insufferable as any other pain, and oftentimes, far more so. Psychiatry can help to relieve that pain certainly, but unfortunately the path to relief is all too often a very long and tortuous one. We may take many – often very many – trips into purgatory before we finally get to paradise.

  Atticus, Mrs Fox, let me share with you something of my own experience. If you feel better or worse towards me as a consequence, well then, so be it; it can’t be helped. When I was younger…”

  “Are you sure that this is wise, Dr Roberts?” Mary Lovell interrupted, grasping Elizabeth’s hand.

  Roberts’ smile was serenely reassuring.

  “I believe so, Mary, yes. There is no cause for alarm.”

  He put his elbows on the tabletop and pressed his fingertips together as if in prayer.

  “When I was younger, in my adolescence and early manhood, I was tormented by all manner of anxieties; by all kinds of unwelcome thoughts that kept plaguing, kept torturing my mind. Maybe I was one step from madness, or maybe I was quite mad. Who knows? Perhaps it was others who were mad.

  Before he took his life, my father told me how he had once gone away on a grand tour of Europe for the sake of his own sanity. It had helped him greatly, he said, and he urged me to do the same. So I did. The distractions of the great cities of Europe, and the time away from Harrogate, and especially away from this house, helped me to regain much of my health. Then, when I was travelling through Germany, I began to learn of the great advances in the fields of psychiatry and psychology that were being realised there. I had an epiphany. Standing in the middle of a Berlin slum, I determined right there and then to put whatever wit and resource I possessed into the treatment of mental illness.

  I enrolled at the Charité institute in Berlin and eventually, I became a psychiatrist. I believed that if I could prevent just one person, even for a moment, experiencing the torment I had gone through, then my life and all my pain and suffering wouldn’t have been completely in vain. It might actually have all been worth it.

  I’m happy, of course, to treat the well-to-do of Harrogate, and where necessary, to pander to their hysterics and their ridiculous theatrics. They pay handsomely for my affectations. But let me tell you this: I’m happier still to help the poor and the destitute, to help those with real pain, real anguish; those in our own slums, for example, or those, like my poor aunt, who rot away in the workhouse infirmaries.”

  “Bravo,” Atticus said.

  “Bravo indeed, Dr Roberts,” Lucie echoed. “It’s very clear that Miss Elizabeth is in capable hands here.”

  Roberts’ face was still flushed from his jeremiad as he turned to her.

  “She’s in excellent hands, Mrs Fox, and all the more so as she still has her devoted nurse and companion with her, as she has since childhood.”

  He smiled fondly at Sister Lovell, and his eyes suddenly reflected the sun as much as ever the table did.

  “Mary, while I think of it, may I ask that you take the bedroom adjacent to Aunt Elizabeth’s? It’s the one my father had as a child. If she were to cry out in the night, you know as well as I that we would never hear her from the main house.”

  Sister Lovell nodded once, without speaking.

  “My grandfather still lives in the Annexe too,” Roberts continued.

  “If they were by chance to meet, it might well trigger rather unpleasant memories for her, and it would be for the best if you were on hand to reassure her.”

  Sister Lovell pursed her lips and nodded once again.

  “But if that is the case, wouldn’t it be better if she was simply lodged elsewhere in the house?” Lucie asked. “It is a very large house after all.”

  Roberts stared at his aunt for a moment as he considered Lucie’s question.

  “I don’t know if you are aware, Mrs Fox, but Aunt Elizabeth suffers from something called senile dementia. As a nurse, you’ll know all too well what that means: that her brain is gradually deteriorating, and as a result, she’s slowly and inexorably losing both her memory and her powers of reason. It’s been demonstrated at the Charité that a sudden change of environment, a move from the familiar to the unfamiliar, for example, can greatly accelerate the condition. I’ve decided therefore, that painful though it might be in some ways, it is far better to return her to her childhood room. She will likely still remember it and that recollection in itself may well stimulate her mind. A strange room would undoubtedly frighten and confuse her, and might ultimately even shorten her life. If Sister Lovell is on hand to help settle any of the more unpleasant associations she may have with the room, then that’s the very best anyone can do for her.

  My aunt ran away from this house to escape ill-use at my grandfather’s hand. I believe that if she can meet him now, without him causing her any harm, then that too might help to reduce the fear – the very great fear – she must undoubtedly still have of him.”

  “Mr Alfred is not joining us for dinner?” Atticus asked.

  “No!”

  Roberts’ retort was a whiplash. It seemed to surprise even him.

  “I’m so sorry, Atticus; that sounded far harsher than I intended. The polite answer to your question is that no, my grandfather will not be joining us for dinner, today or any other day. He will spend all of his days in the Annexe. As his doctor as well as his grandson, I insist that he never leaves it. There’s a lock on the door between the Annexe and the rest of the house, and the double carpets, thick walls and heavy drapes across all of the doors mean that nothing will disturb him there.”

  “It seems sad that he must be locked away like that,” Lucie said. “Is he so very frail?”

  An inexplicably discomforting silence followed her question; a silence that was mercifully broken by the appearance of a large lurcher dog that nudged open the door. It stopped abruptly as it spotted the strangers and gently sniffed at the air. Apparently satisfied, it walked timidly into the room, wagging its tail af
fectionately towards Dr Roberts. It had a distinct limp.

  Roberts clicked his fingers and the dog trotted obediently up to him. It turned and sat down against his boots, gazing up at his face in adoration.

  “Aunt Elizabeth, Mr and Mrs Fox, Miss Lovell; I have the pleasure of introducing you all to Gladstone.”

  The dog’s ears twitched at the mention of its name.

  “Gladstone is my eternal friend and faithful companion, and is named after our great Prime Minister, the ‘Grand Old Man,’ now sadly out of office.”

  “He’s a lovely dog,” Atticus said, “With an intriguing choice of name. What made you name him for Gladstone?”

  Roberts gently scratched the top of the dog’s head, and the steady thump of its tail beating against the leather of his boots measured out several seconds before he replied.

  “It was because I greatly admire Mr Gladstone the man, Atticus. I especially admire his work with prostitutes… and the child prostitutes in London.”

  He suddenly grinned.

  “And because Her Majesty our Queen once complained that he addressed her as if she was a public meeting, and that’s exactly how Gladstone here regards me.”

  They all laughed, except Elizabeth, and the atmosphere in the room lightened and lifted once again.

  Lucie asked: “What happened to his leg, Dr Roberts?”

  Roberts’ grin froze as he looked down at his dog.

  “Gladstone is a dog I had cause to rescue,” he replied. “You see, he was once owned by a notorious scoundrel who lived just outside of the town. He used him to course hares, I believe. One day, I was out riding near to the hovel where he lived, and I came across him thrashing the poor beast with a cudgel. I can still hear the cries and the yelps even now. He had broken its leg already and he was well on the way to beating it to death.”

  He looked up and his eyes erupted in fire.

  “So I took that cudgel from him and I held him down, and I damn well smashed his own leg for him. It was perfect, natural justice do you see, Mrs Fox. I did unto him exactly as he had done unto this poor, defenceless hound: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a leg for a leg. Then I brought the dog back here to Sessrum and nursed him back to health, both physically, which was easy, and – dare I say it – psychologically, which, as always, was that much harder. Two or three years ago, Gladstone would have taken one glance at you, Atticus, and run to hide in the scullery for the rest of the day. Now, well you can see for yourself, apart from that limp he has and the tiniest bit of skittishness, he is a perfectly normal and happy dog.”