Elijah’s Mermaid (40 page)

Left alone again, in this cell again, I sit with my knees drawn up to my chest, rocking slowly back and forth as I stare at the unshuttered grille in the door, wondering, wondering whether it is true – if I really did see Lily Lamb – if Mrs Hibbert could have come. How long I wait I do not know, suspended in this awful state of hope intermingled with gnawing dread. Has Mrs Hibbert come with Tip?

And then the clatter of feet on stone interspersed with the knock of the Cruikshank’s cane. The turn of a key, the creak of the door, and he glances at me, then back again, at what I cannot see behind. He speaks through tetchy tuts and sighs. ‘Pearl, you have two visitors. It really is most irregular. Even so, they make unusual claims . . . about which your husband must now be informed. It is only under the
greatest
duress that I have agreed to this meeting. No more than fifteen minutes, mind,’ he glares back out at the corridor, ‘during which the door will be locked up and Mrs Cruikshank will wait outside . . . to witness whatever is said or done.’

He leaves the room. I hold my breath. A black apparition comes gliding in. Mrs Hibbert, the woman who haunts me still. And is this the devil in her wake?
Don’t look at him. Don’t make him real
. I drop my eyes, afraid to see, even though I can feel his on me, staring, intent, from his place at the door, his back pressed up against the grille, which means that for anyone peering in the room’s view must be all but obliterated. And there he remains, quite motionless, while Mrs Hibbert
approaches me, and when she takes my hand in hers, I am weeping. ‘No, not Tip . . . not Tip.’

Silky black fingers stroke my brow, caressing my cheek when she murmurs low, ‘Oh no. Not Tip. He is not here.’

Her voice is somehow different, but then it is nearly seven years – but not so long that I forget what lies beneath the muslin veils. And when she starts to lift them I have to look away. I cannot bear to see that face, though my own must be just as shocking, because Mrs Hibbert sighs and moans, ‘Oh, Pearl . . . my bella . . . my sweetness. What have these monsters done to you?’

I feel ashamed and bow my head, but when she drapes the muslin there it seems that I am being crowned, and not with a circlet of tinkling shells but in the mantle of a ghost.

LILY

It is further imperative that the doctor nurtures trust in his patients, developing the intimacy that past isolation may have irreversibly fractured. When contained within the asylum walls, however distracted the female may be, her recovery is dependent upon the comfort and the kindness of masculine guidance, no longer daily present in the form of a father or husband
.

From
Observations on Hysteria
by Rufus W. Cruikshank

After the ring of the dawn alarm I was told to wash and dress myself, then trudged down several flights of stairs with twenty or so other grey-gowned souls, all varying ages, sizes and shapes, all resembling nothing so much as nuns when we entered a dreary breakfast room. At the table we had to bow our heads while Dr Cruikshank’s sour-faced wife stood at the end reciting ‘grace’ – though for all her impression of being religious I thought her only sadistic, seeing how, when her prayer was done, she snatched at the sleeve of a woman close by, a woman with darting, fretful eyes who was fidgeting, swaying from foot to foot – until Mrs Cruikshank pinched her arm, and I heard the spite in her vinegar voice. ‘Must I tell you
every
day? Stillness is a virtue!’

The woman’s eyes welled up with tears, blinking at the tormentor, who, having let go of her victim at last, was now standing erect and breathing hard as she stirred a great vat of steaming grey porridge, its contents spooned into plain white bowls, each one being passed down the table’s line, each one of us offered just enough to bring some warmth to our bellies and
bones. But I couldn’t eat. I felt too sick, watching an old woman dribbling, spit from her mouth, snot from her nose, rheumy pale eyes gazing into thin air – though she smiled when Dr Cruikshank appeared to read a short text from the Bible –
The lips of the righteous feed many: but fools die for want of wisdom
. . .

I was very glad when that Bible closed, when he limped his way out of the room again, leaving his wife and six other nurses to sit there as miserable as the patients. Mrs Cruikshank’s lips were tightly pursed as she stared at the closed refectory door. But I – I breathed a sigh of relief, no longer feeling his eyes on mine – just as they’d been when I woke in the night and saw him standing in my room.

He’d been holding a candle in his hand. He brought his face very close to mine, which scared me almost out of my wits, though in the event he only smiled, a smile not kind but menacing, owing to his eyes being made so large behind the thick glass of his spectacles. The candle’s gleam made them glimmer and flash when he lowered his bristle-whiskered lips. ‘You must not be afraid. I often do the rounds at night. Every patient’s welfare is my concern . . . so important for us to become well acquainted. Is there anything you need? Anything I can do to comfort you?’

I was shaking my head. I was speechless, outraged at this lack of privacy – but then came a wail from a room near by, the sound of singing, a nursery rhyme, a tuneless, mournful, wretched sound. He gave a sharp sigh of exasperation and then stood up and made to leave. Not another word was said. The rattle and click as my door was locked, after which the singing came to an end; a pathetic percussion of whimpers instead, punctuated by grunts and slapping sounds.

After that, I could not sleep a wink. My heart was thudding in my ears. My ears listened out for the tap of a stick. My eyes strained through darkness towards the door – in case it should open up again. And all the next day that memory plagued me, and I thought that I should have to leave whether our plans were successful or not, whatever the outcome might be for Pearl
– for what if that man came back to my room? What if nothing occurred to divert him?

It was later that morning I found her. It was when we were being ‘aired’, condemned to the freezing gardens, at peril of catching our deaths of cold. But all such discomfort was forgot when I saw how pitiful Pearl looked, even worse than I’d found her in Dolphin House with those sores now spread and weeping, crusted around her lips and nose, and her cheekbones so sharp they might break through the flesh. Still, I’d managed to contrive a disruption so that she and I could speak alone, which was when I was able to ascertain where about she was being kept in the house – a fact passed on to Freddie in turn when he visited me that afternoon, so that when Mrs Hibbert and Samuel arrived – she armed with the papers to prove her claim as legal guardian to Pearl, he charading as a lawyer to confirm the plea’s veracity – Freddie could tell them where to search, should Dr Cruikshank choose to object, should our friends then find that they had need to take matters somewhat more firmly in hand.

Desperate needs require desperate measures. But in the event no violence was used. At least, not then. Not on their part.

At a little after half past three Freddie arrived in a covered cab. From the drawing-room window I watched him alight, and soon he was sitting at my side, with the moon-faced child, my pliable friend, happily playing her own little game. She was acting as ‘mother’ to us both, pouring out imaginary cups of tea, offering plates of imaginary cake which Freddie then pretended to eat – seeing how much it pleased her to please him. Such a way, such patience, with children he had, such a warmth that glittered in his eyes, and I felt a sudden surge of emotion, recalling his visits to Kingsland House and – though why that should enter my mind just then I really couldn’t think to say, but so vivid was the memory of when we’d said goodbye one day, my heart full of sadness to see him go, as heavy and dark as the dusk’s purple shadows that hung around Kingsland House like veils. I remembered running down the drive, seeing Freddie
about to climb into a cab, and begging my uncle to take me too. He turned to me with tears in his eyes before scooping me up into his arms, saying, ‘Lily . . . dear Lily. I’ll visit again. And yes, one day you shall come with me. You shall live in my house in London. You shall . . .’

I couldn’t remember any more, overcome with a dizzy exhaustion through which I heard Freddie speaking. ‘Lily, I could not sleep last night for thinking about what best to do when this horror is finally over and done. I mean to repent of the wrongs I’ve done. I have plans to invest in a studio where Elijah can forge his own career and you . . . if you also chose to stay, then I should like to cheer you, my dear, to see you laugh and smile again. I should like to adorn you with clothes and jewels and take you out upon my arm.’

It was then Freddie lifted my hand to his lips and I simply stared in disbelief when he kissed it, his eyes still fixed on mine. Surely, this was not a proposal? Freddie was my ‘uncle’. Freddie was old. Not as old as Papa, but even so. And it might be that others still found him attractive – why, Ellen Page, she always had, and that nurse now standing at the door, she fluttered her eyes and smiled his way as if she was playing love’s young dream.

It made me feel decidedly queasy to think of the presents he’d bought before – the clothes, the jewellery, toys and games. And that doll’s house, exactly like his own. Was I now the doll that played the wife rather than being a favoured child? Or was it even worse than that? Did he want me as a mistress? Had I given him some secret sign, an intention unknown even to myself, some false impression of desire in the kisses and touches so often exchanged in the years when he came to Kingsland House – and that day when we went to Cremorne; I had been fourteen years old at the time, some kernel of sexual awakening already flickering inside – but that was for Samuel Beresford – the man who now made it all too clear that he thought me no more than a headstrong fool, already halfway to a lunatic!

I was certainly close to hysterics then, dragging my hand
from Freddie’s grasp, saying, ‘Freddie, don’t be ridiculous! You know I must go back to Kingsland House . . . and if God should choose to spare him, then I mean to take Elijah too! Please, don’t ever mention such things again.’

Freddie said nothing in return. I saw the sadness in his eyes, but right then that only irked me more – as did the giggling grunting sounds being issued by the moon-faced girl. I started at the slightest sound – the snapping of logs on the drawing-room fire – the dreaming snorts of the sleeping old woman who seemed not to have moved one inch since we had first seen her yesterday, except that I knew she had, having been seated beside her at breakfast, and her slurping and farting and tugging my arm, asking over and over and over again what time the Queen would be visiting.

Freddie now sat mute at my side as I stared across the gravelled drive, and the closed-up iron gates at its end – holding my breath when they opened, when a hansom cab came rolling through and crunched to a halt before the house, where two darkly clad visitors emerged. I don’t know about Mrs Hibbert, she saw us looking out at her when she made towards the asylum doors. As always, her face was concealed by veils. But Samuel, he did. I know he did. His eyes briefly lifted to meet with mine.

It seemed like for ever we waited then, though in truth only half an hour elapsed, during which our younger friend grew bored with playing at making tea and returned to her puzzle on the floor, and Freddie’s smiling mask soon fell, his features drawn in deep strained lines, his breaths too fast and panicky. I thought my nerves should fray away – at the clicking of needles as one woman knitted, at the humming of the moon-faced girl, and that tune too familiar, too recently heard. I knew then that child had been struck last night, her pain the price of my release, and while looking out of the window, seething at the thought of that, wishing to take Dr Cruickshank’s stick and beat him with it ’til he bled – that was when Samuel reappeared, leaving the house by the main front steps, and perhaps it was all of Freddie’s
talk but he looked just like a groom to me, and there on his arm a black-veiled wife.

The fine drapes of muslin that covered her features suddenly rose in a gust of wind, and how delicately he pulled them down, and how tenderly he held her when she staggered and fell against him when, for a moment, their bodies pressed close – and I felt such a pang of jealousy before my senses were gathered again, when I turned to Freddie and gave a nod to confirm that ‘the thing’ had been achieved.

Looking back, I saw another nurse. Like a bridesmaid she followed in the wake of the pair who now stood by the covered cab. Her face was lowered to the ground, concealed by the white of her bonnet’s lace, but I knew it to be Mrs Hibbert – her posture erect and slender, and when she neared the carriage door, into which the others by then had climbed, she reached up to take the cloak passed down with which she covered her uniform’s blue, drawing the hood up over her head before taking Samuel’s outstretched hand and joining him and Pearl inside. The door of that growler was slammed with a bang. The driver whipped the horses’ backs – and another ten minutes or so went by, during which we remained in the drawing room, both Freddie and I on tenterhooks, afraid of raising any suspicions, of doing anything at all that might chance to hinder our friends’ escape. My fingers possessed a life of their own as they plucked at the rough grey serge of my dress, right through to the flesh of my legs beneath, encased in those woollen stockings, worn through by who knows how many before, being frayed and darned at the heels and knees. My feet in thin slippers shuffled on boards, creating a rasping, hushing sound – over which came Dr Cruikshank’s shouts, his voice very urgent and loud it was, calling for someone to ‘Fetch Osborne Black . . . from Dolphin House. Be as quick as you can. His wife has gone!’

A nurse went scuttling down the steps and headed towards still-open gates. My eyes met Freddie’s. This was our cue, and I
finally cried in faltering tones, ‘Oh look, Uncle Freddie . . . your cab, it’s gone!’

‘Dear God, so it has!’ Freddie leapt to his feet in mock alarm, an impressive rendition of shock on his face.