“Give me more food and more clotherings.”
“A little quieter, please, Mrs. Hammond,” Miss Scot| said. “We have a new guest today. Tell Miss Parsons to give you an apple.”
Miss Parsons herself appeared in the corridor. She was younger than Miss Scott and less sure of herself.
“Well, she’s already had two apples and a banana, Miss Scott.”
“Goodness,” Miss Scott said. “You don’t want to get a pain in your tummy, Mrs. Hammond.”
“Give me more food...”
“I could give her a milk shake,” Miss Parsons said nervously.
“There,” Miss Scott said cheerfully, “if you’re good and behave yourself Miss Parsons will give you a milk shake. You go back to your room, Mrs. Hammond. Rest period isn’t over yet.”
Majestically, Mrs. Hammond went down the corridor and disappeared into her room.
“Where does she put it?” Miss Parsons said in a worn voice. “Where does she put it?”
“Go down for Miss Cora. She’s in the library.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t think Mrs. Morrow is going to be any trouble at all, except that Dr. Goodrich wants everything she says put on her chart.”
Miss Parsons looked desperate. “Everything?”
“It’s all right. She doesn’t say much. Here’s the key to get Miss Cora.”
Miss Scott returned to her desk. It was in the center of the short corridor and from it she had a view of the open door of each room and the locked door that led to the incline.
She looked at her watch. Two-forty. That left her twenty minutes to introduce Miss Cora to her new roommate, get the ward ready for their walk and persuade Mrs. Morrow to leave her room, peacefully, and see Dr. Goodrich in his office.
She sighed, but it wasn’t from weariness. It was the contented sigh of someone who has a hundred things to do and knows she can do them well.
The incline door opened and Miss Parsons came in with Miss Cora Green.
Miss Green was a small sprightly woman in her sixties. Her black silk dress was immaculately clean and pressed and her white hair was combed in hundreds of tiny pin-curls with a pink velvet bow perched on top of them. She moved quickly and delicately as a bird.
“Is she here?” Miss Cora said.
“Is who here?” Miss Scott said, quite severely. She had to be severe with Miss Cora in order not to laugh. Miss Cora was so sharp, she knew almost as much about the patients as Dr. Goodrich, and she was continually trying to wheedle more information from the nurses.
“You always send me to the library when I’m getting someone new in my room,” Miss Cora said. “What’s the matter with her? What’s her name?”
“Mrs. Morrow,” Miss Scott said. “Come along and make a good impression.”
“Well, the least you could do is to tell me what’s the matter with her.”
Miss Parsons and Miss Scott exchanged faint smiles.
“I don’t know,” Miss Scott said.
“Well, the least you could do is tell me how bad she is. Is she as bad as Mrs. Hammond?”
“No.”
“Thank heaven! I find Mrs. Hammond a dull woman. If I were the superintendent I’d feed her and feed her and feed her, just to see what happens. I wonder how much she could really eat.”
Miss Scott, who had wondered the same thing herself, looked pleasantly blank. She took Miss Cora’s arm and they went together into the room.
“Here is Miss Green, Mrs. Morrow.”
“Miss Green?” Lucille looked up. The fear that had sprung into her eyes slid away slowly. “Miss Green?” A tiny old woman, no threat, no danger. “How do you do, Miss Green?”
“How do you do, Mrs. Morrow?” Miss Cora said. “What perfectly beautiful hair you have!” She glanced back at Miss Scott with a sly smile that said: that’s the kind of thing you say but you’re not fooling me.
Miss Scott pretended not to notice. “It is lovely, isn’t it? Such a pretty color. I’m sure you and Miss Green will get along splendidly, Mrs. Morrow. I’ll be right out in the corridor if you want me for anything. You remember my name?”
“Miss Scott,” Lucille said.
“That’s fine,” Miss Scott said, sounding very very pleased. She went out.
“She says a lot of silly things,” Miss Cora said. “They’re trained to say silly things.”
“Are they?” Lucille said.
“They underestimate our intelligence, especially mine.” She studied Lucille for a minute and added pensively, “Perhaps yours too. Is there anything special the matter with you?”
“I don’t know.” She had felt cold and detached before, but now she had a sudden wild desire to talk, to explain herself to Miss Green: there is nothing the matter with me. I am afraid, but it is a real fear, I didn’t imagine it. I am afraid I am going to be killed. I am going to be killed by one of them. Andrew, Polly, Martin, Edith, Giles, one of them.
She whispered, “I came here to be safe.”
“Are people after you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, dear, they all say that,” Miss Cora said, disappointed. “You mustn’t tell that to Dr. Goodrich, you’ll simply never get out of here. They have such suspicious minds around this place.”
Miss Scott stuck her head in the door. “Get your coat on, Cora. Time for a walk.”
“I am not going for a walk today,” Miss Cora stated firmly.
“Come on, that’s a good girl.”
“No, my neuritis is bothering me this afternoon.”
“You haven’t been outside for a week,” Miss Scott said. While it was impossible for Miss Cora to prove she had neuritis it was equally impossible for anyone to disprove it. Miss Cora’s neuritis was hard to pin down. It skipped agilely from limb to limb, it settled in the legs if a walk was necessary, in the arms if Miss Cora didn’t feel like doing occupational therapy, and in the head under any provocation.
“There is also,” Miss Cora pointed out, “my weak heart.”
“Nonsense,” Miss Scott said brusquely. “Gentle exercise is good for heart patients.”
“Not for me.”
Miss Scott retreated without further argument.
“The walks are very boring,” Miss Cora explained to Lucille. “They do very naive things like gather leaves. The level of sophistication in this place is very low.” Miss Scott appeared again, a navy-blue cape flung over her uniform. “Good-bye, Cora. You’ll be sorry you didn’t come. We’re going to build a lovely snow man.”
“Isn’t she absurd?” Miss Cora cried, shaking her head. “A lovely snow man. Really!”
Mrs. Hammond strode past the door muffled in an immense fur coat, with a woollen scarf tied around her head. Behind her came two stout middle-aged women who looked and were dressed exactly alike. They walked arm in arm, and in step.
“The Filsinger twins,” Miss Cora said, without bothering to lower her voice. “I can’t tell which is which any more. A while ago you could tell which was Mary because she was crazier. Now Betty’s as bad as she is.” Miss Cora waved her hand at them and the twins disappeared, scowling.
“Mary was in here first,” Miss Cora explained. “Betty used to come to see her, and was all right till a few months ago when she began to copy Mary’s symptoms. Now they’re both here. Mary looks after Betty, she even gives her baths.” Miss Cora sighed. “It’s all very Freudian. I have a sister myself but the mere thought of giving her a bath is abhorrent to me. She’s quite stout, and rather hairy.”
She paused, looking down at her own white delicate hands. Her movements were a little too brisk and her talking a little too fast for a woman of her age. But Lucille felt that here, of all the people she had known, was one who was entirely sane.