Ten Days in a Mad-House and Other Stories (3 page)

that she was a Southern woman. Then she said that I had a Southern

accent. She asked me bluntly if I did not really come from the South.

I said “Yes.” The other woman got to talking about the Boston boats

and asked me if I knew at what time they left.

For a moment I forgot my
role
of assumed insanity, and told her the

correct hour of departure. She then asked me what work I was going

to do, or if I had ever done any. I replied that I thought it very sad

that there were so many working people in the world. She said in

reply that she had been unfortunate and had come to New York,

where she had worked at correcting proofs on a medical dictionary

for some time, but that her health had given way under the task, and

that she was now going to Boston again. When the maid came to tell

us to go to bed I remarked that I was afraid, and again ventured the

assertion that all the women in the house seemed to be crazy. The

nurse insisted on my going to bed. I asked if I could not sit on the

stairs, but she said, decisively: “No; for every one in the house would

think you were crazy.” Finally I allowed them to take me to a room.

Here I must introduce a new personage by name into my narrative.

It is the woman who had been a proofreader, and was about to

return to Boston. She was a Mrs. Caine, who was as courageous as

she was good-hearted. She came into my room, and sat and talked

with me a long time, taking down my hair with gentle ways. She

tried to persuade me to undress and go to bed, but I stubbornly

refused to do so. During this time a number of the inmates of the

house had gathered around us. They expressed themselves in

various ways. “Poor loon!” they said. “Why, she’s crazy enough!” “I

am afraid to stay with such a crazy being in house.” “She will

murder us all before morning.” One woman was for sending for a

policeman to take me at once. They were all in a terrible and real

state of fright.

No one wanted to be responsible for me, and the woman who was to

occupy the room with me declared that she would not stay with that

“crazy woman” for all the money of the Vanderbilts. It was then that

Mrs. Caine said she would stay with me. I told her I would like to

have her do so. So she was left with me. She didn’t undress, but lay

down on the bed, watchful of my movements. She tried to induce me

to lie down, but I was afraid to do this. I knew that if I once gave

way I should fall asleep and dream as pleasantly and peacefully as a

child. I should, to use a slang expression, be liable to “give myself

dead away.” So I insisted on sitting on the side of the bed and staring

blankly at vacancy. My poor companion was put into a wretched

state of unhappiness. Every few moments she would rise up to look

at me. She told me that my eyes shone terribly brightly and then

began to question me, asking me where I had lived, how long I had

been in New York, what I had been doing, and many things besides.

To all her questionings I had but one response–I told her that I had

forgotten everything, that ever since my headache had come on I

could not remember.

Poor soul! How cruelly I tortured her, and what a kind heart she

had! But how I tortured all of them! One of them dreamed of me–as a

nightmare. After I had been in the room an hour or so, I was myself

startled by hearing a woman screaming in the next room. I began to

imagine that I was really in an insane asylum.

Mrs. Caine woke up, looked around, frightened, and listened. She

then went out and into the next room, and I heard her asking

another woman some questions. When she came back she told me

that the woman had had a hideous nightmare. She had been

dreaming of me. She had seen me, she said, rushing at her with a

knife in my hand, with the intention of killing her. In trying to

escape me she had fortunately been able to scream, and so to awaken

herself and scare off her nightmare. Then Mrs. Caine got into bed

again, considerably agitated, but very sleepy.

I was weary, too, but I had braced myself up to the work, and was

determined to keep awake all night so as to carry on my work of

impersonation to a successful end in the morning. I heard midnight.

I had yet six hours to wait for daylight. The time passed with

excruciating slowness. Minutes appeared hours. The noises in the

house and on the avenue ceased.

Fearing that sleep would coax me into its grasp, I commenced to

review my life. How strange it all seems! One incident, if never so

trifling, is but a link more to chain us to our unchangeable fate. I

began at the beginning, and lived again the story of my life. Old

friends were recalled with a pleasurable thrill; old enmities, old

heartaches, old joys were once again present. The turned-down

pages of my life were turned up, and the past was present.

When it was completed, I turned my thoughts bravely to the future,

wondering, first, what the next day would bring forth, then making

plans for the carrying out of my project. I wondered if I should be

able to pass over the river to the goal of my strange ambition, to

become eventually an inmate of the halls inhabited by my mentally

wrecked sisters. And then, once in, what would be my experience?

And after? How to get out? Bah! I said, they will get me out.

That was the greatest night of my existence. For a few hours I stood

face to face with “self!”

I looked out toward the window and hailed with joy the slight

shimmer of dawn. The light grew strong and gray, but the silence

was strikingly still. My companion slept. I had still an hour or two to

pass over. Fortunately I found some employment for my mental

activity. Robert Bruce in his captivity had won confidence in the

future, and passed his time as pleasantly as possible under the

circumstances, by watching the celebrated spider building his web. I

had less noble vermin to interest me. Yet I believe I made some

valuable discoveries in natural history. I was about to drop off to

sleep in spite of myself when I was suddenly startled to wakefulness.

I thought I heard something crawl and fall down upon the

counterpane with an almost inaudible thud.

I had the opportunity of studying these interesting animals very

thoroughly. They had evidently come for breakfast, and were not a

little disappointed to find that their principal
plat
was not there. They scampered up and down the pillow, came together, seemed to hold

interesting converse, and acted in every way as if they were puzzled

by the absence of an appetizing breakfast. After one consultation of

some length they finally disappeared, seeking victims elsewhere,

and leaving me to pass the long minutes by giving my attention to

cockroaches, whose size and agility were something of a surprise to

me.

My room companion had been sound asleep for a long time, but she

now woke up, and expressed surprise at seeing me still awake and

apparently as lively as a cricket. She was as sympathetic as ever. She

came to me and took my hands and tried her best to console me, and

asked me if I did not want to go home. She kept me up-stairs until

nearly everybody was out of the house, and then took me down to

the basement for coffee and a bun. After that, partaken in silence, I

went back to my room, where I sat down, moping. Mrs. Caine grew

more and more anxious. “What is to be done?” she kept exclaiming.

“Where are your friends?” “No,” I answered, “I have no friends, but

I have some trunks. Where are they? I want them.” The good woman

tried to pacify me, saying that they would be found in good time.

She believed that I was insane.

Yet I forgive her. It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes

how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world. The women

in the Home who were not afraid of me had wanted to have some

amusement at my expense, and so they had bothered me with

questions and remarks that had I been insane would have been cruel

and inhumane. Only this one woman among the crowd, pretty and

delicate Mrs. Caine, displayed true womanly feeling. She compelled

the others to cease teasing me and took the bed of the woman who

refused to sleep near me. She protested against the suggestion to

leave me alone and to have me locked up for the night so that I could

harm no one. She insisted on remaining with me in order to

administer aid should I need it. She smoothed my hair and bathed

my brow and talked as soothingly to me as a mother would do to an

ailing child. By every means she tried to have me go to bed and rest,

and when it drew toward morning she got up and wrapped a

blanket around me for fear I might get cold; then she kissed me on

the brow and whispered, compassionately:

“Poor child, poor child!”

How much I admired that little woman’s courage and kindness.

How I longed to reassure her and whisper that I was not insane, and

how I hoped that, if any poor girl should ever be so unfortunate as to

be what I was pretending to be, she might meet with one who

possessed the same spirit of human kindness possessed by Mrs. Ruth

Caine.

CHAPTER IV.

JUDGE DUFFY AND THE POLICE.

BUT to return to my story. I kept up my
role
until the assistant

matron, Mrs. Stanard, came in. She tried to persuade me to be calm. I

began to see clearly that she wanted to get me out of the house at all

hazards, quietly if possible. This I did not want. I refused to move,

but kept up ever the refrain of my lost trunks. Finally some one

suggested that an officer be sent for. After awhile Mrs. Stanard put

on her bonnet and went out. Then I knew that I was making an

advance toward the home of the insane. Soon she returned, bringing

with her two policemen–big, strong men–who entered the room

rather unceremoniously, evidently expecting to meet with a person

violently crazy. The name of one of them was Tom Bockert.

When they entered I pretended not to see them. “I want you to take

her quietly,” said Mrs. Stanard. “If she don’t come along quietly,”

responded one of the men, “I will drag her through the streets.” I

still took no notice of them, but certainly wished to avoid raising a

scandal outside. Fortunately Mrs. Caine came to my rescue. She told

the officers about my outcries for my lost trunks, and together they

made up a plan to get me to go along with them quietly by telling

me they would go with me to look for my lost effects. They asked me

if I would go. I said I was afraid to go alone. Mrs. Stanard then said

she would accompany me, and she arranged that the two policemen

should follow us at a respectful distance. She tied on my veil for me,

and we left the house by the basement and started across town, the

two officers following at some distance behind. We walked along

very quietly and finally came to the station house, which the good

woman assured me was the express office, and that there we should

certainly find my missing effects. I went inside with fear and

trembling, for good reason.

A few days previous to this I had met Captain McCullagh at a

meeting held in Cooper Union. At that time I had asked him for

some information which he had given me. If he were in, would he

not recognize me? And then all would be lost so far as getting to the

Ten Days in a Mad-House

island was concerned. I pulled my sailor hat as low down over my

face as I possibly could, and prepared for the ordeal. Sure enough

there was sturdy Captain McCullagh standing near the desk.

He watched me closely as the officer at the desk conversed in a low

tone with Mrs. Stanard and the policeman who brought me.

“Are you Nellie Brown?” asked the officer. I said I supposed I was.

“Where do you come from?” he asked. I told him I did not know,