I shook my head.
'Come, come,' he said, 'this word is not difficult. And you know the first letter of it, we have seen you write that already.'
Again, I hesitated. And then, because he watched so closely— and because, beyond him, Dr Graves and Nurse Spiller and Nurse Bacon, and even Mrs Price and Miss Wilson, also tilted their heads to see me do it— I wrote an S. Then I made a hazard at the other letters. The word went on and on, and grew larger as I wrote.
'You still press hard,' Dr Christie said.
'Do I?'
'You know you do. And your letters are muddled, and very ill- formed. What letter is this? It is one of your own imagining, I think. Now, am I to understand that your uncle— a scholar, I believe?— would countenance work like this, from his assistant?'
Here was my moment. I quivered right through. Then I held Dr Christie's gaze and said, as steadily as I could:
'I haven't an uncle to my name. You mean old Mr Lilly. I dare say his niece Maud writes neatly enough; but you see, I ain't her.'
He tapped at his chin.
'For you,' he said, 'are Susan Smith, or Trinder.'
I quivered again. 'Sir, I am!'
He was silent. I thought, That's it! and almost swooned, with relief. Then he turned to Dr Graves and shook his head.
'Quite complete,' he said. 'Isn't it? I don't believe I ever saw a case so pure. The delusion extending even to the exercise of the motor faculties. It's there we will break 271
her. We must study on this,
until our course of treatment is decided. Mrs Rivers, my pencil if you please. Ladies, good-day.'
He plucked the pencil from between my fingers, and turned, and left us. Dr Graves and Nurse Spiller went with him, and Nurse Bacon locked the door at their backs. I saw her turn the key, and it was just as if she had struck me or knocked me down: I fell upon my bed and broke out crying. She gave a tut— but they were too used to tears in that house, it was nothing to see a woman sitting at dinner, weeping into her soup, or walking about the garden crying her head off. Her tut turned into a yawn. She looked me over, then looked away. She sat in her chair and rubbed her hands, and winced. 'You think you've torments,' she said, to me or to all of us. 'Have these knuckles for an hour— have these thumbs. Here's torments, with mustard on. Here's torments, with whips. Oh! Oh! God bless me, I think I shall die! Come, Betty, be a good girl to your poor old nurse. Fetch out my ointment, will you?'
She still held her chain of keys. The sight of them made me cry worse. She shook one free, and Betty took it to the nurse's cupboard, unlocked the door, and brought out a jar of grease. The grease was white and hard, like lard. Betty sat, took a handful of it, and began to work it into Nurse Bacon's swollen fingers. Nurse Bacon winced again.
Then she sighed, and her face grew smooth.
'That finds the mark!' she said; and Betty chuckled.
I turned my head into my pillow and closed my eyes. If the house had been hell, and Nurse Bacon the Devil, and Betty a demon at her side, I could not have been more wretched. I cried until I could cry no more.
And then there came a movement beside my bed, and then a voice, very gentle.
'Come, my dear. You must not give in to tears.'
It was the pale old lady, Miss Wilson. She had put out her hand to me. I saw it, and flinched.
'Ah,' she said then. 'You shrink from me. I don't wonder at it. I am not quite in my right mind. You will grow used to that, here. Hush! Not a word. Nurse Bacon watches.
Hush!'
She had taken a handkerchief from her sleeve, and made signs that I should dry my face. The handkerchief was yellow with age, but soft; and the softness of it, and the kindness of her look— which, for all that she was mad, was the first piece of kindness that anyone had shown me since I came to the house— made me begin to cry again.
Nurse Bacon looked over. 'I've got my eye on you,' she said to me. 'Don't think I haven't.' Then she settled back in her chair. Betty still worked grease into her fingers.
I said quietly,
'You mustn't think I cry so easily as this, at home.'
'I am sure you do not,' answered Miss Wilson.
'I'm only so frightened they will keep me here. I have been done very wrong. They say I am mad.'
'You must keep your spirit. This house is not so hard as some others. But nor is it perfectly kind. The air of this room, for example, that we must breathe, like oxen in a stall. The suppers. They call us ladies, yet the food— the merest pap!— I should blush 272
to see it served to a gardener's boy.'
Her voice had risen. Nurse Bacon looked over again, and curled her lip.
'I should like to see you blush, you phantom!' she said.
Miss Wilson worked her mouth and looked embarrassed.
'A reference,' she said to me, 'to my pallor. Will you believe me if I tell you, there is a substance in the water here, related to chalk— ? But, hush! No more of that!'
She waved her hand, and looked for a moment so mad, my heart quite sank.
'Have you been here very long?' I asked, when her fluttering hand had fallen.
'I believe— let me see— we know so little of the passing seasons ... I should say, many years.'
'Two-and-twenty,' said Nurse Bacon, still listening. 'For you were quite an old hand— were you not?— when I first come in as a young one. And that was fourteen years, this autumn.— Ah, press harder, Betty, there! Good girl.'
She pulled a face, let out her breath, and her eyes closed. I
thought in horror, Two-and-twenty years!— and the thought must have shown on my face, for Miss Wilson said,
'You must not think you shall stay so long as that. Mrs Price comes, every year; but her husband has her home again, when the worst of her spells are past. It was a husband, I think, who signed your order? It is my brother who keeps me here. But men want wives, when they may do without their sisters.' Her hand rose. 'I would speak plainer, if I could. My tongue— You understand.'
'The man,' I said, 'that has put me here, is a dreadful villain; and only pretends to be my husband.'
'That is hard for you,' said Miss Wilson, shaking her head and sighing. 'That is the worst of all.'
I touched her arm. My heart, that had sunk, now rose like a float— so hard, it hurt me.
'You believe it,' I said. I looked at Nurse Bacon; but she had heard me and opened her eyes.
'Don't make anything of that,' she said, in a comfortable voice. 'Miss Wilson believes all sorts of nonsense. Only ask her, now, what creatures live in the moon.'