Island of the Mad Read online

  Vivian’s mother died of a fever in the winter of 1912, when her daughter was twenty-one. The following year, the aged Seventh Marquess faded away as well, and Edward inherited the title and lands. The new Marquess was happy at Selwick Hall in London and the family château in the south of France, leaving his brother to oversee things in Surrey. Thomas Beaconsfield—now with a lesser title of his own, Earl of Pewsley, a reward for steering some very important men away from some very costly financial mistakes—came to be known by the jocular nickname of “Lord Waterloo” for his idiosyncratic habit of commuting up and down between London and Surrey. He was often joined on these journeys by his wife, who was active on various Arts ventures, and Ronnie, who came to Town for tutoring. But they went home each night to Selwick, and to Vivian, his fragile younger sister.

  Then came the War. Despite his title, his age, and his responsibilities, Thomas Beaconsfield enlisted, and volunteered for the Front. There he died, a bare twelve months later. His wife and sixteen-year-old Ronnie were bereft. His twenty-four-year-old sister was devastated.

  Vivian had always been eccentric, and vulnerable—even physically so, being delicate of bone, pale of hair and skin. Her coming out in 1910, at the alarmingly late age of nineteen, had been a trial for all concerned, and she fled London even before the Season was at an end, with no sign of a ring or even an agreement. She spent some weeks in Europe before returning to her refuge in the country, there to remain.

  Selwick having no master and London being under attack, Edward had little choice but to return home. Ronnie and her mother spent much of their time away, burying their grief in war work and grim preparations for University exams. The Marquess had moved their things into the east wing, that he might take up residence in the main house. His sister, Vivian, was moved to the women’s side as well.

  That disruption, added to the deaths of both parents and brother and the long absences of sister-in-law and niece, seemed to push Vivian’s eccentricities into something darker. The servants’ reports of her behaviour grew more and more alarming—her habitual country walks would extend long after sunset; her shyness grew into a pathological avoidance of former friends. There were occasional outbursts of temper that would be followed by unnatural, almost cringing withdrawal. She grew ever thinner, would pick at her finger-nails until they bled, bit at the corner of her mouth, nervously pulled locks of hair. Ronnie and her mother, coming back from London in June to help with harvest chores, found a quivering and nervous woman. One day, the maid discovered a sharp little kitchen knife in Vivian’s pocket. The next afternoon Ronnie came upon her, weeping uncontrollably in the morning room. A few days after that, one year to the week after Thomas’ death, Vivian tried to murder the Marquess with a fireplace poker.

  Her first committal to a private institution was voluntary, lasting three months. Vivian returned home, rested and eating, seeming restored to sanity. In a few weeks, the darkness began to return.

  It became a pattern: irritability, silence, the first signs of chewing at the edges of her body, then an outburst—invariably against Edward, which even he agreed was something of a blessing, since he was the one most able to defend himself. Committal would follow, as she acknowledged that she was in need of a “rest.” This went on for three and a half years. Then came the fifth such cycle, in 1920. Instead of attacking her half-brother, Vivian went after herself, using another purloined knife. A chambermaid found her. The next committal was not voluntary.

  By this time, Vivian Beaconsfield had exhausted the patience of private hospitals. For some ungodly reason—a mix-up? Her brother’s pique?—she was taken to Bedlam, London’s home for the mad since the fourteenth century. Her sister-in-law was appalled, her brother refused to speak her name—but strangely enough, Bedlam of all places saved her life.

  One’s first reaction to the name—which in fact was Bethlem Royal Hospital—was a queasy horror: Bedlam as a charnel-pit of cries, filth, brutality, the chaining of inmates, and visitors in Regency silks paying to be amused by the inmates’ antics. However, even by Dickens’ time, the humane treatment of the insane had made enormous progress. Now, Bedlam housed the educated mad, from schoolmasters to seamstresses, with a handful of talented artists for whom the outside world was too much. Nonetheless, the hospital’s image was softened neither by its location in a rough district south of the River, nor by its hulking grey appearance. I admit, despite my intellectual knowledge of improvements, my thoughts of the place tended towards Hogarth’s image of writhing and half-naked lunatics.

  Still, Ronnie felt that her aunt was happy there—that yes, the blood in Lady Vivian’s veins might run a shade bluer than that of the other inmates, but she seemed to have found her peers.

  Ronnie took me once to visit her aunt. It was a wintry October afternoon in 1922, and not an ideal time to be crossing London with an infant in arms. Still, my old University friend was determined to introduce her young son to his great-aunt, and asked me to accompany her—why, I was not sure, other than my being one of her few friends who might not be shaken to the core by a trip to Bedlam. But as we motored through the rough streets of the South bank, I noticed how closely Ronnie held the child, and how warily she eyed the windows. Perhaps I was more of a bodyguard—certainly more so than the white-haired driver.

  Bedlam was tucked behind high stone walls, the better to keep the wandering mad on one side and any tormenting onlookers on the other. The hinges screeched as the iron gates were pulled open by the guard, an aged fellow who looked barely adequate to corral young Simon, much less several hundred of London’s mad.

  Inside the walls, the dark and dirty stones of Southwark gave way, unexpectedly, to a garden: trees, lawn, a flower bed neatly mulched over for winter. Over to our left, some well-bundled women walked along a path-way, giving no indication that they were even aware of the gates, much less eager to flee through them.

  Had it been a sunny morning, the stone façade might have given off an air of dignity, even welcome, but as we circled around to park, it simply…loomed. Four storeys high, with sixty or more windows on each floor, centred around a portico with columns resembling massive bars and a high dome that looked like a stone tea-cosy. The portico, ten steps above the drive, faced north, putting the entranceway in shadows. Even young Simon protested, although that could have been a reaction to the slowing of the motor. Ronnie wrapped the blankets around him as the driver came back to open the door. Bitter air rushed in—along with a high, drawn-out wail from the building itself that raised the hairs on the back of the neck. Ronnie gathered her soft armful and dashed up the steps, with me hastening to follow her through the columns to the hospital doors.

  Inside, visitors were greeted by two immense stone carvings of male nudes, one cringing but hopeful, the other stretched in agony and bound by chains (named, I later found, Raving Madness and his brother, Melancholy). But the air was warm, as were the greetings of the staff, and smelled less of the expected despair and cabbage than it did of coffee and furniture polish.

  The porter, a nurse, and soon the hospital superintendent himself appeared, greeting Ronnie as an old friend and making much of the tiny creature, yawning and stretching in her arms. Our coats were taken, our hats (and their pins) laid aside, and we were ushered across a hallway to what looked like a Victorian sitting room, with solid furniture, marble statues, potted palms, ancestral portraits, and comfortable chairs dotted with crisp white antimacassars. A radiator ticked on one side and a fire crackled on the other; the curtains were drawn back from high windows that looked out on a neatly tended garden. Despite the cold, three women strolled the paths, one of whom appeared to be carrying on a learned debate with an invisible friend.

  The nurse who had brought us in lingered to coo over the lad, clearly tempted to prise him bodily from his mother’s grasp. Before open battle could break out, an older woman in a grey dress stepped through the doorway, her authority sending the attenda
nt scurrying back to work.

  This woman Ronnie had no hesitation about, freely plunking the armload of blankets into the experienced hands, then turning to introduce me. It was the hospital matron, competent, iron-willed—and with an unexpected trace of humour at the back of her eyes. The sort of person no young mother would hesitate to entrust with her progeny—or her beloved aunt.

  “How is she?” Ronnie asked once the initial fuss over the five-month-old was over.

  “A bit sad,” Matron replied without hesitation. “Her favourite nurse has just left to be married, and a patient she was friends with was moved to a private hospital nearer her family. But she’ll be much cheered to see you.”

  “I’m so sorry, I should have come sooner, but—”

  “Child, that’s not what I was saying. Indeed, you’d have worried her by coming here in a…vulnerable state. Your letters have been quite pleasure enough.”

  Ronnie looked at the child in Matron’s strong arms. “She will be fine with him, won’t she? I needn’t…”

  “Worry about the little mite?” Matron gazed at the pink face with affection, then transferred him easily back to Ronnie’s care. “She’ll be perfectly fine with him. She’s in a good phase at present. Even when she’s not, the only person she tries to hurt anymore is herself.”

  With this sorry pronouncement, Matron left us alone with our thoughts and the child.

  In a few minutes, the door opened, and in came two women. One was a tall, black-haired Sister in a dark blue uniform with stiff white collar, cuffs, and belt. Her right hand grasped the other woman’s arm—which might have brought to mind control, strait-jackets, and shackles except that there was a degree of what almost seemed like affection in the gesture. I did not know if she showed that respect to all her patients—Vivian had to be one of the most high-ranking patients she would ever treat—but to my eye it looked more like helping a myopic friend across an uneven floor than it did controlling a certified lunatic.

  Once inside the Sister let go, allowing Vivian Beaconsfield to continue across the room towards her niece.

  At first glance, my eyes interpreted the figure as Ronnie’s ancient grandmother: tiny with age, white-haired, kept upright by the nurse’s assistance.

  Certainly she was small—and she did look older than the early thirties I knew her to be, with thin, somewhat greasy pale blonde hair scraped back against her head. She wore normal day clothes, somewhat out of date and with the dullness of coarse laundry soap. It also lacked the belt its side-loops intended. However, the woman herself seemed neither worn nor particularly dull. Vivian greeted Ronnie with warmth, acknowledged my introduction with a hand-clasp, then bent over the infant with all the proper exclamations. She looked less mad than tired, like a woman recovering from a long and dreary fever.

  Aunt and niece settled on chairs before the fire to examine young Master Fitzwarren in all his splendour, and were soon oblivious to the world. The nurse remained near the door, which might have been a hospital requirement, although she did not appear impatient or eager to get away. I moved over to her side. She was nearly as tall as I and only a few years older, with short, neat dark hair—short hair perhaps being an advantage to those working with the aggressively insane. She wore no more makeup than I did, not even to lessen the prominent mole along her jaw-line. I nodded towards the Beaconsfields. “I don’t imagine your patients get to see many children.”

  “You’d be right there.” Her accent was London, although I’d have said to the north of the River and some miles west. “A sweet world it would be if the mad could be put in charge of the nursery.”

  I smiled at the image, and held out a hand. “Mary Russell. I’ve known Ronnie since University.”

  “Rose Trevisan. I’ve known Miss Beaconsfield since she arrived.” Miss Beaconsfield, I noted, rather than Lady Vivian. Socialist doctrine, hospital policy—or simple ignorance of titles? Her own name sounded Cornish, but her black hair and olive skin suggested that her people were of a more recent immigration.

  “I hope she’s doing all right here, Sister?”

  “You knew her before?”

  “I met her once, five or six years ago. That was before…”

  “Before her troubles descended,” Nurse Trevisan provided.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s doing well. Finding peace.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Bedlam—sorry, Bethlem—has a rather dubious reputation, but Ronnie says her aunt is happy here.”

  The nurse smiled. “An evil reputation can be a protective wall. Those who imagine a vicious dog behind a fence don’t climb over and discover the spaniel.”

  It was a startling thought. The wail that had greeted our arrival was far from contented—but before I could say anything stupid, “Miss Beaconsfield” looked up from her great-nephew and called her attendant over to admire him.

  We took tea, an oddly normal ritual undermined in part by the pre-buttered scones (rendering knives unnecessary) and institutionally sturdy tea service (which, if broken, would have nothing resembling a sharp edge). The conversation flowed nicely when it ran through the safe territory of books and babies: Ronnie kept her aunt well supplied with reading material, and Vivian’s memories of an infant Ronnie were fond. When those streams ran dry, it was up to Ronnie to supply news, there being little point in asking what her aunt had been doing. Politics was too complicated, mutual friends too few—although when Ronnie happened upon the topic of a formal wedding she’d attended a few weeks before, Vivian’s face came alive, and she wanted to know every detail of dress and music and the foods served.

  Eventually, Ronnie’s grasp of the details grew thin, and Vivian sat back with a tiny sigh. The garden outside was fading in the dusk, and Nurse Trevisan—who had remained in the room, reading a book in the corner—took out her watch. As she stood, we heard raised voices from the hallway outside, building in fury to a scream and a scuffle, then silence.

  Ronnie bit her lip, not looking at her aunt, but the older woman reached out to take her hand. “Dear child, a disrupted mind is not a pretty thing. I thank you for not coming in recent months. The memory of my dishevelled hair would forever lie between us.”

  Ronnie gave out a noise that was halfway between a sob and a laugh, and gripped her aunt’s hand. “Oh, Auntie Viv, I’ve missed you so, I wish I…I could do something for you!”

  “Nonsense! Your letters have been life-savers. I treasure the photographs you have sent. Those are the world to me.”

  “But, isn’t there anything you need? Would you come and live with Simon and me? Oh, anything at all, Auntie, just ask.”

  “Ronnie, dear, I need to stay at Bethlem for a time. I’m safe here. Although if you’d like to send me a present, I’d adore a pot of your mother’s damson preserves, when she makes some. If you posted it to Nurse Trevisan, she could dole it out to me.” She glanced across the room at the nurse, who smiled back at her. “Oh—and I nearly forgot!” She patted at her garments until she heard a crinkle, and pulled out a folded drawing. “This is for the young man. Not terribly colourful, but all I have is a regular pencil. Ah—perhaps if you send me some pastels, I might do a better one for his nursery wall.”

  When Ronnie unfolded the paper, her face went soft with delight. She held it up for me to look at: a black-and-white Pierrot with ruffled collar and rounded hat. His expression was bashful yet mischievous, perfect for a child’s room; my hand wanted to smooth away the fold lines across his face.

  Ronnie let me hold it as she prepared to depart, bundling the boy, embracing her aunt, taking her leave of Nurse Trevisan. It was near-dark outside, the motor a rumbling oasis on the forecourt, and I laid the drawing on the seat to help Ronnie climb in with her arms full of child and blankets.

  As we drove through the gates of Bedlam, back into the streets of London as if we were crossing over from a calm island, young Sim
on began to raise protests that sounded eerily like the voice of madness. I folded the drawing and tucked it away in Ronnie’s handbag. When she’d got the boy settled, she remarked, “Aunt Vivian used to do the most beautiful watercolours. We have some at home—that one of the cottage, that I have in my sitting room?”

  “Yes, I remember. I wonder if she’s started again? I imagine it would do her good.”

  “I hope so. Mummy says Auntie Viv closed her sketch-books the day Daddy died, and hasn’t touched them since. She’ll be so happy to know that Auntie Viv’s drawing again.”

  Drawing, yes—although I had to think that Pierrot was a rather mixed image for a child’s room: a too-trusting, isolated figure of derision, rejected by his love and mocked by his betters, the most poignant of the commedia dell’arte characters.

  And what on earth had the woman meant by I’m safe here?

  Chapter Three

  “THE LADY VIVIAN SOUNDS LESS of a lunatic than many of those freely walking the streets of London,” Holmes remarked. His pipe had gone cold, and he fished around for the ceramic bowl to knock out its burnt remains.

  “She came very near to killing herself,” I noted. “And she’s been known to attack her brother with a steel poker.”

  “I have been tempted to do the same to mine,” he murmured.

  “She ended up in Bedlam, Holmes. That says a lot.”

  “Although you say she’s not there now?”

  “She’s been doing so well the past few months, Ronnie says, that there’s been discussion about moving her to Bedlam’s other facility down in Witley, which is a sort of halfway-house where patients are sent to test if they are ready to be de-certified. So when Vivian got news of her brother’s celebration and asked if she might attend—taking an attendant in case of distress—the doctors agreed to issue her a pass. The party was on Saturday. Vivian and the nurse went the Monday before. All seemed fine until Thursday, when she told Ronnie’s mother she was feeling overly tired, and thought she should return to London. She and the nurse left the next morning, and the birthday celebration went on without her. But the following Monday, the hospital sent a wire to say that Miss Beaconsfield—which seems to be what they call her there—would require hospital permission if she wished to prolong her stay.”