Page 78 of What Cannot Be Said

“Well, then.” Palmer dropped his arms to his sides and extended a hand toward a narrow corridor that opened to their left. “This way, please. She’s in the women’s wing, of course.”

The pungent stench of antiseptic did little to hide the underlying, pervasive odors of vomit, urine, feces, and raw fear. Sebastian walked with the physician down a long, low-ceilinged hall, trying to ignore the smells that clawed at his nostrils and seized the back of his throat. Doors lined both sides of the corridor, with each door containing a square barred opening that allowed a glimpse of the small cell-like room beyond. After one horrifying, unwitting glance at a woman chained naked to the wall, Sebastian was careful to keep his gaze fixed straight ahead. But he knew he would never forget the chorus of moans, shrieks, and mad, furtive whispers rising from those shadowy cells.

He glanced at the physician, who’d obviously long ago grown inured to the sights, sounds, and smells of the place. “In your estimation, was Lady Salinger insane when she arrived?”

“Of course she was,” said Palmer. “Oh, she might not have appeared so to the casual observer. But a woman doesn’t take a razor to her abigail if she’s sane, now, does she?” He drew up before a door near the end of the corridor. “Here she is. Did you want to go in? Because I warn you, she’s liable to become agitated if you do. She’s grown quite fearful and screams if anyone tries to touch her or even come near her. It makes it difficult to take care of her bodily needs.”

The room beyond was in dark shadow, for the shutters were closed over the room’s single high window. Through the barred opening in the door before him Sebastian could see a skeletally thin woman dressed in a dirty, ragged gown who sat motionless on the edge of a narrow cot, staring at the wall before her. Georgina Priestly couldn’t be more than thirty-nine or forty, but this woman’s hair was completely white, an uncombed tangle that framed a wizened, pinched face.

“That’s her?” said Sebastian, his breath catching in his throat.

“It is, yes. As I said, a sad, sad case.”

The room was small, furnished with only the cot, although he had to admit it looked relatively clean. “Was she ever given any treatment?”

“Oh, yes; of course. We tried all the usual regimens, beginning with daily cold plunge baths.”

Sebastian looked over at him. “Cold plunge baths?”

“Yes. The patient is repeatedly submersed in icy water. The idea is to shake them out of their insanity.”

“Does it ever work?”

Palmer’s broad chest expanded with his sigh. “Very rarely, unfortunately.”

Sebastian had to force himself to ask, “What else?”

“As I said, the usual regimen—bleeding, blistering, emetics, purges... Anything and everything that might expel the melancholic humors. She fought us at first, I’m afraid. We don’t like to use restraints, but with many patients it becomes necessary.”

Restraints, thought Sebastian, his gaze on the small, fine-boned woman who still showed a faint, ghostly resemblance to her younger son, Percy. Were there any patients, he wondered, who calmly submitted to being stripped naked and plunged repeatedly into icy water, blistered with caustic chemicals, and dosed with noxious medicines designed to induce violent vomiting and the voiding of the bowels? Probably not at first. But if they weren’t insane when they arrived, they soon would be.

“We even tried Erasmus Darwin’s rotation therapy for a time,” Palmer was saying.

“I don’t believe I’m familiar with that,” said Sebastian.

“It makes use of a chair suspended from a high ceiling by ropes. The chair is turned one way thirty to forty times, then let go to spin back around. The therapy is typically applied for one or two hours at a time, three to four times a day, for a month. The results are amazing, since it generally evacuates the bowels, bladder, and stomach simultaneously, making a profound impression on the patient’s organs of sensibility.”

“So I would imagine. I take it none of this worked?”

“Unfortunately, no. As I said, at first she fought us, sometimes quite violently. But the attendants soon put a stop to that. She then became fearful, cringing in the corner of her room whenever anyone came near her. After about eight months she lapsed into a deep depressive state, as you see now. She’s rarely difficult these days, as long as we leave her pretty much alone.”

Sebastian felt the bile rise in his throat and had to swallow. “Does her husband ever visit her?”

“Lord Salinger? Oh, yes. Time was, he used to come once a week. I fear at first he had difficulty grasping the importance of some of our treatments, which he found disturbing. But he was eventually brought to understand their necessity. Inevitably, his visits have become more and more infrequent over the years. In the beginning he would get quite distressed, for she used to cry and beg him to take her home. Now I’m not convinced she even recognizes him. But to give the man credit, he still comes. So many of our patients’ families leave their relatives with us and never come back, not even when the unfortunates finally ‘shuffle off this mortal coil,’ as the saying goes.”

Sebastian found he could take no more and turned abruptly away. “I’ve seen enough, thank you.”

“Of course,” said Palmer, turning with him. “Do feel free to come back anytime, my lord; anytime.”

Sebastian found himself listening to the echo of their footsteps as they walked back down that dark, hellish corridor. How could anyone be subjected to such treatment and remain sane? he wondered. He suspected the truth was, they couldn’t.

Somehow he managed to thank Dr.Palmer and the bony, stoop-shouldered matron. On the front step he paused for a moment, gratefully drawing the fresh air deep into his lungs as he heard the snick of the heavy door closing behind him. He stepped off the shallow porch, took one step, two.

He’d almost reached the dirt lane that ran along the green when he felt his gorge rise inexorably in his throat. Turning, he hunched over, his hands braced against his thighs, and was violently sick in the straggling, half-dead hedge of dusty hollies bordering that ancient, broken walkway.

?“Ye feeling all right there, gov’nor?” asked Tom as they drove away from the green. “Yer lookin’ a bit peaked.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Sebastian, guiding his horses past the scattered, tumbledown cottages and open stretches of market gardens that lined the lane leading toward Shoreditch Road.

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