'When I get out, you'll be sorry!' I said, as they closed the door on me. 'I got a mother in London. She is looking for me, in every house in the land!'
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Nurse Spiller nodded. 'Is she?' she said. 'That's yours, and all our other ladies', then'; and she laughed.
I think the tea— which tasted bitter— must have had a draught in it. I slept through a day— or it might have been two days; and when I finally came to myself, I came to stupid. I let them take me, stumbling, back to the room with the beds. Dr Christie made his tour, and held my wrist.
'You are calmer today, Mrs Rivers,' he said; and my mouth being dry, from the draught and from sleeping, it was as much as I could do to unstick my tongue from my gums, to answer,
'I ain't Mrs Rivers!'
And he had gone, before I said it.
My head grew clearer as the day wore on, though. I lay on my bed and tried to think.
They made us keep to our rooms in the
morning, and we were meant to sit and be silent— or to read, if we liked— while Nurse Bacon watched. But I think what books there were in the house, the ladies had already read; for they only, like me, lay upon their beds, doing nothing, and it was Nurse Bacon who sat, with her feet put up on a stool, looking over the pages of a little magazine— now and then licking one of her fat red fingers, to turn a page; and now and then chuckling.
And then, at twelve, she put the magazine away and gave a great yawn, and took us downstairs for our dinners. Another nurse came to help her. 'Come on, come on,' they said. 'No dawdling.'
We walked in a line. The pale old lady— Miss Wilson— pressed close at my back.
'Don't be frightened,' she said, 'of— Don't turn your head! Hush! Hush!' I felt her breath on my neck. 'Don't be frightened,' she said, 'of your soup.'
Then I walked faster, to be nearer Nurse Bacon.
She led us to the dining- room. They were ringing a bell there, and as we went our line was joined by other nurses, with ladies from the rooms they watched in. I should say there were sixty or so ladies kept in that house; and they seemed to me now, after my spell in the pads, a vast and horrible crowd. They were dressed as I was— I mean badly, in all sorts of fashions; and this— and the fact that some had had their hair cut to their heads; and some had lost teeth, or had their teeth taken from them; and some had cuts and bruises, and others wore canvas bracelets or muffs— this made them look queerer than perhaps they really were. I'm not saying they weren't all mad, in their own fashions; and to me, just then, they looked mad as horse- flies. But there are as many different ways of being mad, after all, as there are of being crooked. Some were perfect maniacs. Two or three, like Betty, were only simpletons. One liked to shout bad words. Another threw fits. The rest were only miserable: they walked, with their eyes on the floor, and sat and turned their hands in their laps, and mumbled, and sighed.
I sat among them, and ate the dinner I was served. It was soup, as Miss Wilson had said, and I saw her looking at me, nodding her
head, as I supped it; but I would not catch her eye. I would not catch anyone's eye. I had been drugged and stupid, before; now I was back in a sort of fright— a sort of 267
fever of fright— sweating, and twitching, and wild. I looked at the doors and windows— I think, if I had seen a window of plain glass, I should have run through it.
But the windows all had bars on. I don't know what we should have done in a fire.
The doors had ordinary locks, and with the right sort of tools I suppose I might have picked them. But I hadn't any kind of tool— not so much as a hair-pin— and nothing to make one with. The spoons we ate our soup with were made of tin, and so soft, they might have been rubber. You could not have picked your nose with them.
Dinner lasted half an hour. We were watched by the nurses and a few stout men— Mr Bates and Mr Hedges, and one or two others. They stood at the side of the room, and now and then walked between the tables. When one drew close I twitched and lifted up my hand and said,
'Please, sir, where are the doctors? Sir? May I see Dr Christie, sir?'
'Dr Christie is busy,' he said. 'Be quiet.' He walked on.
A lady said, 'You shan't see the doctors now. They come only in the mornings. Don't you know?'
'She is new here,' said another.
'Where are you from?' asked the first.
'From London,' I said, still looking after the man. 'Though here they think I come from somewhere else.'
'From London!' she cried. Some of the other ladies said it, too: 'London!' 'Ah! London!
How I miss it!'
'And the season just beginning. That is very hard for you. And so young! Are you out?'
I said, 'Out?'
'Who are your people?'
'What?' The stout man had turned and was walking back towards us. I lifted my hand again, and waved it. 'Will you tell me,' I said to him, 'where I can find Dr Christie? Sir?
Please, sir?'
'Be quiet!' he said again, moving past.
The lady beside me put her hand upon my arm. 'You must be familiar,' she said, 'with the squares of Kensington.'
'What?' I said. 'No.'
'I should say the trees are all in leaf.'
'I don't know. I don't know. I never saw them.'
'Who are your people?'
The stout man walked as far as the window, then turned and folded his arms. I had raised my hand again, but now let it droop.
'My people are thieves,' I said miserably.
'Oh!' The ladies made faces. 'Queer girl. . .'
The woman beside me, however, beckoned me close.
'Your property gone?' she said, in a whisper. 'Mine, too. But see here.' She showed me a ring that she wore, on a string, around her neck. It was gilt, and wanted stones.
'Here's my capital,' she said. 'Here's my security.' She tucked the ring beneath her collar, and touched her nose, and nodded. 'My sisters have taken the rest. They shan't 268
have this, however! Oh, no!'
I spoke to no-one, after that. When dinner was ended the nurses took us to a garden and made us walk about it for an hour. The garden had walls on every side, and a gate: the gate was locked, but you could see through its bars to the rest of the park that the house was set in. There were many trees there, some of them close to the great park wall. I made a note of that. I had never climbed a tree in my life, but how hard could it be? If I might get to a high enough branch I would risk breaking both my legs in a jump, if the jump meant freedom.
If Mrs Sucksby didn't come first.
But then, I still supposed, too, that I should make my case with Dr Christie. I meant to show him how sane I was. At the end of our hour in the garden a bell was rung, and we were taken back to the house and made to sit, until tea-time, in a great grey room that smelt of leaking gas, that they called the drawing- room; and then we were locked back in our bedrooms. I went— still twitching, still sweating— and said nothing. I did all that the other ladies— sad Mrs Price, and pale Miss Wilson, and Betty— did: I washed my face
and hands, at the wash- stand, when they were finished with the water; and cleaned my teeth, when they had all used the brush; and put my hateful tartan gown in a tidy heap, and pulled on a night- gown; and said Amen, when Nurse Bacon mumbled out a prayer.
But then, when Nurse Spiller came to the door with a can of tea and gave me a basin of it, I took it, but did not drink it. I tipped it on the floor, when I thought no-one was looking. It steamed for a second, then seeped between the boards. I put my foot on the place I had tipped it. I looked up, and saw Betty watching.
'Made a mess,' she said loudly. She had a voice like a man's. 'Bad girl.'
'Bad girl?' said Nurse Bacon, turning round. 'I know who's one of them, all right. Into your bed. Quick! quick! all of you. God bless me, what a life!'