Bedlam (11 page)

London nowadays is one great dark shop that grows more sprawling, crowded, and foul-aired by the hour. The hackney cab I rode in that Wednesday morning to the home of Lord Liverpool carried me down the centre aisle—Cheapside, Ludgate, Fleet, Strand, Cockspur, Haymarket, Piccadilly—with glimpses left and right of bejewelled showcases of goods, while on the pavement everybody was all mixed up together, shopper and hawker alike. What democratic zeal a hunger for lamps, wine, gloves, gold, maps, cheese, soap, hats, knives, toys, fans, tea, bread, and silk brings out in people—or a hunger to grow rich by selling them. Such daily public commotion! Such hotch-potch surgings of colour in the fog! There must have been ten thousand lamps ablaze out there, and this was nine-thirty in the morning. Thanks to the King’s carriage stopped for some reason in Holywell Street, it took us an hour to pass through the City gates into The Strand. But it’s always like this, whether the King’s abroad or no. Who would guess last year’s harvest was stubble? Who if they never saw a newspaper would know this was a country at war?

Who for that matter would have predicted, now that Christianity’s grown too enfeebled to inspire yet another century of mass
slaughter, that a mere political idea could set armies marching? But how
mere
really is republican
égalité,
that has every French soldier convinced his country belongs to him and the only reason he’s marching against other countries is to hand them over to their own people? Could this deluded wretch in his motley strength be a harbinger of what’s to come in Britain, as it has in America and France? Was what I viewed from my carriage that morning human order and confidence in its new, prevailing incarnation, or was it sheer outright confusion confounded, the rush before closing time?

You travel from desperate Moorfields to gracious Mayfair with its splendid squares (Hanover, Berkeley, Grosvenor), or cross the slough of the Tyburn Road to new-built Marylebone, to Cavendish Square, or Portman, and it’s a voyage east to west, old to new, low to high, poverty and lunacy to wealth and privilege. The farther west you go, the fewer the hawkers and beggars and the quieter the streets, until by the time you reach St. James Square you have left the shop. Out here, the stables and amenities are close by but hid, and the stately silence of gentle lives conducted inside homes and private gardens leaks through stone walls and spreads along the broad streets. Here the air is breathable. Here death is unlikely and when it happens, seemly. Here is where you move your family when your stake in the shop has paid off. Here is where everybody wants to be.

Lord Liverpool lived in a house that came with his second wife. It was a handsome four-story structure designed by Robert Adam, faced in Bath stone, in Hertford Street at Hyde Park. Liverpool’s granting by next-day’s post my request for an interview on the
subject of Matthews I took for a positive sign. The matter must have weighed a long time on his Lordship’s mind, I reflected, and how grateful he must be for a chance to lift it off. When he answered his door in person, things seemed more propitious still—though strange. A roll-necked morning-gown hung askew on his clumsy frame, the sash half untied and sleeves rolled back. An ebony cane shook under his hand.

“Mr. Haslam,” he said, his breath very bad, for he leaned heavily forward on the cane as the dull rays of his eyes passed through me, scanning the street as if for one of Matthews’ assassins. “A pleasure—No end of respect for the work you’re doing—Come in, come in—”

So I did, and found myself in a hallway floored in black marble and with walls oak-panelled to twice my height. Some distance ahead, a staircase went up, with railings in Chinese fret. To the side of that, a door, through which I was directed, opened into the deeper glooms of a study, my host hobbling after.

“You must excuse the wretched state you find me in, Haslam—A rheumatism of the knees—”

He was a tall man, old and ugly, heavy-torsoed, with long, unsteady legs. He was one of those who carry about with them their own prickly climate, by which they transform entire rooms to worlds of unease. High-born, that’s all, in the old style, but in this day and age too clumsy and irascible not to
seem
as ill-bred as his visitor must have struck him.

I apologized if my visit had him on his feet when he shouldn’t be.

“Were you not invited—?” he wondered abstractedly, indicating a settee I should sit on, as with difficulty he lowered himself into an easy chair and groped for a bell set a-top a book on a little
ormolu table. We then sat in virtual darkness while he spoke gravely of his days as war minister and the long nuisance of our colonies in America. I must say I sympathized with his Stoic acceptance of a career spent mostly carrying out his superiors’ orders with no more say than concurrence. Silently I vowed to bear my Monro yoke with a dignity as seemly. He then castigated the French and the disaster of republicanism there. Like his friendship with the King, these views he was well known for, ever since things went horribly wrong across the Channel. It was an impressive note of moral indignation he struck, marred only by an unfortunate lapse now and then into a vacant grin. But when he fumbled for the book on the ormolu table and held it up and said, “It’s genius, Haslam. I never read anything so fascinating on the subject of insanity,” I knew this was a true-blue gentleman, the kind it behooves a man not born one to learn from. “I swear I don’t know what to admire more,” he declared, “your compassion for those wretched sufferers or your devotion to improvement of their care.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” I said, my face ablaze. “I do my best.”

“I know you do. This nation is in your debt.”

Now a Negro dwarf entered carrying a tea-tray, which he set on a mahogany tea-stand that he wheeled between us.

His cup rattling noisily as he returned it to its saucer, Liverpool said, “But enough of you and me. What news of our madman?”

“Simply this, my Lord—” As I started to speak, I noticed I sat forward on my seat, elbows planted on knees, hands framing air. It was an attitude intended apparently to convey that I would come direct to the point and not waste his Lordship’s time with distracting details, such as our madman’s frequently professed eagerness to murder him as a diabolical traitor. “Matthews is a lunatic but
hardly dangerous. Normally by the time they’ve been in a year, we return ones like him to their family and friends.”

“You have many like him—?”

“As harmless, yes. Few so acute of intellect. None for so long, unless—”

“Acute of intellect, yes, go on—”

“In this case too, his wife’s made it clear she wants him back and will undertake full responsibility for his actions—as, for that matter, will I. So it does seem a needless expense for Camberwell and for us, and certainly a most painful detention for his family.”

“Painful, perhaps. But not needless—By no account needless.”

I nodded, waiting to be enlightened.

Instead he said, “And—?”

“My Lord?”

“Continue.”

“I confess I have no more to say. My point is simply he’s not the kind we usually keep.”

“Well, Haslam, you surprise me. I was rather expecting you’d travel all the way from Moorfields only if you had some particular piece of intelligence from him to impart. Something—ah—telling, even useful—”

“No, nothing like that, your Lordship. The man’s a lunatic.”

“So he is,” Liverpool murmured and seemed to reflect. Then he said, “Here’s how things stand. There’s what you have determined—or haven’t—about Mr. Matthews and what I have. And it’s by reason of what I have that you’ve got him.”

“Perhaps, my Lord, if you were to indicate, in general terms, what it is you have, it might assist us in our treatment—”

This irritated him too much to conceal it. “To the deuce with your treatment, sir. It’s not your treatment you’ve come about, it’s
how to be rid of him. But allow me to tell you where this begins and ends: Your Matthews is a dangerous fellow. More dangerous than you can begin to conceive.”

“Has he made a threat against your life, my Lord?”

“Nothing so trivial, I assure you. I’m not a coward, Haslam, if that’s what you’d imply—”

“Not at all, my Lord—”

“Because a Hawkesbury shall not be shot like a dog, Mr. Haslam. A Hawkesbury laughs at death. And if you’re thinking, what harm can a peaceable madman do, remember that the radical fever that has gripped this nation for nearly a decade now is itself a state of collective mental illness. Madness is not an extenuation, Haslam, it’s the problem.”

Before I could reply to this, he started pitching about in his seat. When I saw it was a struggle to stand, I sprang forward to help. He batted me off. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

Something nudged at my hip. It was his little black man, to escort me out.

As I reached the study door, Liverpool said, “Haslam—?” He was standing in the half-light like a stricken wraith, one arm across his stomach as if that part pained him as much as his knees.

“Yes, my Lord?”

“If he says anything interesting, you’ll let me know.”

“It is mostly lunacy, my Lord. Delusions of greatness, counterfeit letters found on the ramparts at Lisle hinting plots against him, money owed him and never paid, agents on all sides. That sort of thing.”

“Yes, of course—But you know what I mean.”

“Not yet.”

“What’s bothering you, Haslam? The fact I’d expect sense from a man you’ve been asked to keep as a lunatic? Is that it?”

“Something like that, my Lord.”

“Did you never hear of such a thing as a lucid interval?”

“I did. I consider it a medical fiction propagated by private mad-doctors to encourage spurious classification of the mad, to engender false hope in their families, for the purpose of extorting money to have them kept longer.”

“Once mad, always mad, in your books, is that it?”

“Until recovery.”

“So why argue a madman’s convictions?”

“Lunatics are not unacute, my Lord—”

“You said that a few minutes ago about this one and have hammered the general point in your book. It’s the same thing I’m saying to you. Matthews-a-harmless-lunatic don’t pass muster with me, Haslam. I thought I’d made that clear.”

Here I might have stammered out a response, but he doubled back. “I take it recovery’s not also a fiction of your profession?”

“I see patients get better under our care, my Lord. In some months, nearly one in three. I don’t know how or why.”

“No, of course not—” Now, still in shadow, his back to the window, which was half shuttered, he said in a reflective tone, “These assertions, Haslam, coming from one in a position of public responsibility I confess I find astonishing. Tell me this. What if he does recover? What then?”

“Then we’ve got a Ministry that would keep a sane man locked up in a madhouse. But if you want him lucid, my Lord, you should know his recovery will be likelier out of Bethlem than in.”

“Will it? In that case, sir—” and he started out in such a slow,
quiet voice I thought,
At last, accession to my request. Birth will out. This gruffness has been my trial by fire, the resentment what any practised politician must feel at acceding to anything. It’s only a facet of his strength. The plain fact is, if he wants to know what Matthews knows, he wants him lucid.

Alas, I was mistaken. “I ask myself—” he continued, his voice rising steadily in volume and temper, “when patients are likelier to get better out of it than in—” shouting now—“if Bethlem should be a
public
hospital at all!”

In the silence that followed this outburst, he lurched sideways to wipe spittle from his chin with shaking fingers.

“If I might, my Lord, be permitted—”

I was not. A flick of his glistening hand and I was dismissed.

In the carriage back to Moorfields, still a-tremble, I fell into reflection. If this was a war of worlds, which side was I on? The one I was leaving or returning to? The noble or the lunatic? Bethlem was a hospital, not a gaol. Any approbation I had won from the right side of town I had won by knowing what was what on the wrong side. If Liverpool and the government had their priorities, I had mine. This was a case of differing professional judgments. The politicians only wanted the nation safe, I only wanted justice for my patient.

I was not on both sides but could see both.

Yet, what if Matthews was in all but name a Green Cloth case like Peg Nicholson, only happening to come into our care before that provision was formally in place? How did I know the government lacked excellent cause to believe he was a threat to the King? Why should I take offence that my expert opinion counted for nothing in the matter? What can a nobleman and politician be expected to understand of madness, even if he has read my little book? What Liverpool did seem to know was Matthews posed a danger, which would suggest, as Sarah warned me, he knew something I didn’t. Matthews must have the equivalent of pulled a
knife on the King. Who could blame Liverpool for thinking he might again?

The carriage stopping, I looked out to see if we were out of the Strand yet and was amazed to see my own door. Time passes quick when you’re at a loss. Home again reminded me I had things to do: On top of three hundred other patients to worry about, a tour of the premises by Pinel was fast approaching. I had tried Liverpool; I’d remove Matthews’ chains; I’d have him learn engraving if he would. What more I could do for him I didn’t know, only that I had no more time to think on it now.

Young John was sitting crossed-legged in the middle of the front hallway, awaiting my return, his little bow and arrow across his knees.

“What’s this, lad?” I greeted him. “Are you powwowing?”

“I made Hetty a paper canoe, but she crushed it. Did you see Lord Liverpool?”

“I did.”

“Did he give off light?”

“Light?”

“You said they call him The Dark Lanthorn because he gives off no light.”

“Ah, light. No. None.” I was hanging up my coat.

“But you thought he would—”

“Yes, I did. I underestimated him.”

“Did he mention America?”

“Yes, he spoke with grave eloquence on that subject.”

“What did he say?”

“He said we should not have wasted the resources we did on the place.”

“He said that? Does he think it was not worth the fight? How does he know? Has he been there?”

“Liverpool? No, I don’t think he ever—”

“I’m going, Father. I’ll be joining a hearty band of Indians and paddling down the Mississippi.”

“Do you need to be an Indian to paddle down the Mississippi?”

“Pardon?”

He was following me to my office.

“Does an English boy become a Red Indian, just like that?”

“Well, he can live with them—they’re not brutes, Father—and grow his hair long and wear buckskin and smear himself all over with bear grease and grow dusky in the sun—”

“Did you know, John, some say the Indians of North America are the Lost Tribes of Israel?”

Here he halted and clapped his forehead in a droll stagger of surprise. “Not red-skinned Hebrews!?”

“Aye. Why don’t you convert, get snipped, and save a voyage—”

“But I want to paddle down the Mississippi—”

I sat at my desk. He climbed into the chair opposite.

“If you were a Jew,” I said, “you could paddle down the Nile, in a bulrush ark—Mind you, some people say Moses was Egyptian.”

He gripped his chair arms in a clench of astonishment. “Not Moses an Egyptian!? An Egyptian Jew, I hope!” Growing serious he added, “Father, I do want to paddle down the Mississippi.”

“Yes, and a dozen other ippi’s, -assi’s, and -gumi’s. Why not? But you must carry a life-buoy, write often, and solemnly promise to pay a visit now and then to your aged parents, who will be thinking of you every day.”

He nodded, not listening. He was waiting for something. I looked at him. What a boy I had. “Father?”

“Yes, my intrepid voyager?”

“You said when you came back from seeing if The Dark Lanthorn gave off light you’d show me how you look inside a dead person’s head.”

But of course. This was why he’d waited and followed me so expectant.

Together we took the back way, through the Laundry House, past the maids with their arms plunged in steaming tubs, calling out endearments to their favourite, then down the side steps into the yard, his play ground, a strip of toy-littered lawn between the east wing and the Infirmary (the sod-ceiling part, now I think of it, of our Black Hole of Calcutta), and into the Dead House, which comprised on its main level the carpentry shop for coffin-making, etc., with downstairs the dissecting room, a usually-frigid half-cellar with open gratings for the longer preservation of the deceased, not the comfort of the anatomist. This was a Bethlem building John had never entered, and as we left the yard, he slipped his hand into mine, and as we descended the stairs, he squeezed hard at my fingers.

The dead person’s head I had promised to show him was Mary Creed’s, prepared by me that morning before I left to see Liverpool. Mary was a good-natured woman deserted by her husband after he defrauded her of a small inheritance. When her four children were took from her she went out of her senses, imagining herself a boy (Matron White dotingly called her
my beauty)
and would bow and scrape like a footman to everybody and took humble delight in offering assistance to all, cheerfully attending the sick and suffering with a benevolence that made her loved from
one end of the women’s wing to the other. Generally, the patients have a sympathetic compassion for their sick companions that the keepers can’t or don’t, but what Mary felt and did was exceptional. Yet she could never help others enough not to blame herself for losing her children and would tell you smiling she could hear the workmen under the window, erecting the scaffolding for her execution on the morrow. The day before her death she stole a patient’s wooden leg and mounted it in an attempt to hatch it like an egg to a limb of flesh and blood, and when she failed to effect that miracle blamed it on the misery of her sex and hanged herself with a strip of her blanket-gown.

Now Mary lay on one of our slabs, that entire world of goodness contracted to what might have been a buckle in the fabric of a canvas sheet. Setting John on a stool by the head, I asked if he was sure about this and receiving a vigorous though wordless nod that he was, lifted away the canvas to reveal the shaved cranium I had already slit across the crown, from ear to ear. Now I wondered what I was doing. It wouldn’t be the first time my boy’s preco-ciousness had me thinking he was older than he was. As I peeled down the skin of the forehead and folded it over the face far enough to expose the bone, my doubts did not diminish. But it was too late. All I could do now was act the man of science.

Saying, “Here you see, John, where earlier today I cut the skull—” I easily lifted out the segmented plates, having spent twenty minutes that morning scraping the pericranium and dura mater from the interior of the bone, not wanting him to sit through that.

Glancing at him, I saw his eyes directed where I indicated, but he was not leaning in for a better view. “And there it is—” I said.

He made no answer.

“The brain of Mary Creed,” I added, and looked at it. “This depression you see here, John, is called the lateral ventrical. This is where fluid from the spine collects. I mention it because it’s larger in maniacs. I found that out by spooning water into it—”

I looked at him; he looked at me. He seemed a little pale.

“Are you surprised the cerebrum’s not pink?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Alive it wouldn’t look so pasty—There’s copious blood, only no longer at the surface. Observe—” With my scalpel I sliced into the pia mater. The blood welled up like quality red port, as it next did from the medullary substance. “D’you see—?” Awaiting his response, I idly palpated the brain and was astonished how doughy it was. “John—?” I had never felt a brain so
impressionable.
Could doughiness, I half wondered, be the key to benevolence, to generosity, to goodness itself? Is it possible a person’s nature is nothing other than their brain state metaphorized? “John, feel this—”

When there was still only silence, I glanced round. He was clutching the edge of his stool, swaying, eyes squeezed shut. I put down the scalpel and swept him into my arms. Immediately he threw his own around my neck and held on like a drowning boy. With my free hand I re-covered Mary Creed, and we climbed the stairs. Outside, I set him on the grass. He put out a foot for balance, gazing about at his toys as if they were contraptions fallen from the moon. Then he walked over and picked up a ball and looked at it and took a deep breath, and said, “Dad, will you play catch with me?”

Thank God I said yes, because he threw himself into seizing out of the air and returning my gentle lobs with such wild, earnest energy that I have never experienced love of any human being, no, not even of his own mother, as fierce as I loved my little man then.