And they were gone.
Shade immediately headed toward the nearest gate at a brisk trot. He glanced back at Tyler in impatience. Tyler hurried to catch up.
“There is more than one asylum, you know. The closest is still under construction, which leaves Providence Lunatic Asylum and the Erie County Almshouse-”
It wasn’t hard to read the next look he received.
“I apologize. Yes, Sister Rosaline Brown’s would be the ‘good one.’ And of course you will know the way and of course you will be admitted, although large black dogs, as a rule…”
Shade wagged his tail.
Providence Lunatic Asylum was operated by the Sisters of Charity, who had previously established a hospital in Buffalo. They had arrived in the city just in time to deal with the early cholera epidemics and were considered heroes by many. In 1860, horrified by conditions in the Erie County Almshouse and Insane Asylum, Sister Rosaline Brown started the asylum, which attempted a more humane treatment of the insane.
The dog paused at the small building closest to the cemetery’s main gate. Tyler understood what he was meant to do. Hailing the man who was keeping watch, Tyler said, “A severe storm is coming. Please call the other men in.”
“Storm?” the man said, bewildered.
“Yes, it’s calm now, but I just saw a flock of storm petrels. Sea birds. The only reason they’d be this far inland is if a hurricane had blown them here.”
He bid the man a quick good night and wondered if he would heed the warning.
In the next moment the wind came up, and trees began to rustle and sway. Shade leaped into the gig Tyler had left tied at the gate. Tyler glanced over his shoulder and saw the watchman gather a large lantern, and soon heard him calling out to the others.
“WHY, DOCTOR! I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SEND A BOY OUT TO FIND you!” the porter said. He peered out at the downpour. “Where’d all that come from, I’d like to know? Come in, come in out of the rain. You, too, Shade.”
Once he closed the door behind them, he said, “The sisters are doing their best, but Miss Bailey has been asking and asking for you and the dog, which is passing strange, because she’s never been known to speak a word of sense in all the time she’s been with us, so the sisters thought-we were hoping-well, we didn’t even know you knew her!”
“I met her brother Andrew briefly.”
“Ah, during the war,” the porter said knowingly. “Sad, that. Very sad.” He took Tyler’s hat and driving coat, then led the way.
As they followed the porter down the hallways, Tyler noticed that the few patients who were awake grew quiet as the dog passed their doors. The porter noticed it as well, and whispered, “I don’t know what it is about him, but he brings peace to the place. Soothes my own nerves, for that matter.”
“Mine as well,” Tyler said quietly.
This asylum was vastly different from the Erie County Almshouse, where the poor and the insane of all degrees were housed together. At the county facility, those in charge seemed to be more concerned over expenditures than care or feeding of its residents, and the suffering there was unimaginable. Fifteen or so years ago, the Buffalo Medical Journal said the diet there was one that exceeded “anything Dickens ever described” in estimating the starvation point. Matters had not really improved since then.
As they neared the room in which Susannah Bailey was being kept, they heard her become quieter. “Poor lady has been having seizures. They’ve exhausted her.”
“She is epileptic, then?”
“Yes, and no trouble!” He frowned. “A kind soul, even if she can’t speak sensibly. I don’t believe she would ever hurt anyone.”
Before Tyler could ask him what he meant by that, the porter tapped softly on the room’s door and said, “I’ve brought them, Sister Elizabeth.”
A tall nun opened the door. “So quickly!”
“He arrived here just as I was about to send the boy out,” the porter confessed.
“Well, how good of you to bring him to us right away,” she said. “Any word from her family?”
“Her stepfather, well, imbibed a bit too much and is in no condition to be out. But the servants said her mother was in Williamsville, where she was staying with a friend, and would be sent for straightaway, but there’s a storm, Sister, so I don’t know if she’ll make it back in time.”
“We’ll leave that in God’s hands then, and do our best for Miss Bailey. Come in, come in, Dr. Hawthorne. And you, too, Shade. It’s as if she heard your approach.”
“They all did,” the porter said, stepping aside. “Listen.”
She did. The only sounds to be heard were made by the steady fall of rain. “A blessed silence it is, too.” She smiled at Shade. “How true that the Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Tyler thought of the initial resistance he had faced when he had asked to bring Shade inside with him. It was not necessary that Shade be at his side when he did his work, but he had long ago noticed the dog’s effect on those whose minds were troubled. It took only one demonstration of this fact to make the dog a welcome guest at the asylum.
“They are here!” the woman in the bed cried out.
“She spoke clearly!” one of the nuns said in amazement.
Tyler moved quickly to Miss Bailey’s side. Her features were twisted as if in a spasm. She was restless and tried to sit up, reaching out with thin hands. He took them in his own, and she sighed and fell back onto her pillow, keeping her gaze on him. In that moment, her facial features relaxed, and he saw that she was a beautiful woman, probably in her early twenties. It was hard to tell. After all, he appeared to be about the same age.
Oh, at last you are here!
He read her thoughts as clearly as if they were his own. Keeping silent, he said to her, Yes. Your brother Andrew asked us to come. He conveyed to her all that Andrew had said.
She was marveling, as many had before her, at the transformation felt by the dying when in contact with him.
How wonderful to have my thoughts clear, to be able to speak to someone! Ah, and no seizures. I was growing so tired. How lovely to have strength again!
It will not last, I’m afraid. Tyler replied. I know you can tell that we have only a little time. What can I do for you?
I am so glad to hear this news of Andrew, she said. Thank you. Please thank Sister Elizabeth and all the others here, and especially Sister Rosaline. The Sisters of Charity saved me from a horrible fate.
A series of images and sensations flashed across his mind, as she relayed memories of being chained to a wall, of hunger, of cold, of darkness and isolation.
“I am so sorry,” he said aloud.
Sister Elizabeth said, “We have been unable to stop the seizures. They come frequently, and as a result, she has been growing exhausted. We’ve done our best to prevent injury, but-”
“I am sure if she could speak, she would thank you for rescuing her from the almshouse, for all your merciful care of her.”
“Sister Elizabeth,” one of the others said softly, “look at her face. She’s smiling.”
He focused again on Susannah Bailey.
Thank you, she said. As you say, I must tell my story quickly. Ten years ago, on June 7, 1861, my sister Amelia disappeared. She left the house early that morning, dressed in a pink gown and wearing a bright gold locket, as well as a ring with a small ruby at the center.
When she did not return that evening, my stepfather, Ira Podgett, hired a person he said was a detective to look for her. A Mr. Briggs. A few days later this seedy-looking man returned to our home and made his report. After he left, my stepfather told my mother that Amelia was well but refused to return home, that she had eloped with a soldier. He told my mother that he didn’t blame Amelia, that living with me had been too much for her. He said that only his love for my mother allowed him to tolerate my dangerous presence in the house, and he again pleaded with her to have me locked away.