Chapter Eleven

Marianne

Five years previously

I had been locked up for nearly three years, initially in a small asylum in York from which I tried to escape, after which I was transferred to this enormous institution in the Scottish Borders. I had attempted to escape from here too, and lost the few liberties I had as a result. Of late, I had changed my tactics, trying to reconcile myself to the version of myself they presented to me. I tried to persuade myself that I was the person they claimed I was, in order to be able to set out on the journey they wished me to take, towards recovery. But buried deep inside me was a small, resistant core. My mind was not unhinged. I was not insane.

The doctor who had been newly assigned to my case was also new to the post of Physician Superintendent to the asylum. He was younger than those who had analysed, examined and pontificated about me in the past, one of those eager men whose good looks and good birth have instilled in them a confidence in their own abilities and charm that was often misplaced.

He set about measuring my head with his metal callipers without any preliminaries, contorting my neck and shoulders to ease his endeavours as if I were a life-sized doll stuffed with straw. When I protested, he seemed taken aback to hear me speak, and when I asked him to explain what on earth he was doing, he looked even more surprised. His ego and his enthusiasm led him to do as I bid him, however. He was without guile, but weighted with prejudice.

‘The science of phrenology allows us to understand the workings of the mind,' he said pompously. ‘From my readings of your skull, it is clear to me that you are not naturally inclined to evil. Though your nature is undoubtedly degenerate, it is not vicious. Rather, it is the sensual side of your brain which dominates and has contributed to your moral decline.'

This was so different from any past explanations I had been given, that I struggled to comprehend what he was saying. ‘What has what you refer to as the sensual side of my brain got to do with my being locked up?' I asked baldly.

‘Everything! I admit my approach is not conventional, or not yet, at least,' the doctor said, looking pleased to be able to expound. ‘Let us consider your case history, Miss—er, Miss Little. You claimed to have visions of the future.' He drew the thick folder that documented my history in that place towards him, and flicked back through the pages. ‘If we disregard the more trivial allegations, it came down to three main incidents. There was the woman you claim to have "saved" from marrying a bigamist.'

‘He was a bigamist!'

‘He always denied that, and the fact is, he did not marry the woman you claim to have saved.'

‘He would have done, had I not intervened.'

‘Then there was the more disturbing case of the illegitimate child...'

I ceased to listen as he droned on. I had tried countless times since my committal to make them understand what really happened in each instance, but the ‘truth' that had been documented and used as evidence against me, the truth as presented by the man who betrayed me, his version of the truth always prevailed. My dossier proclaimed that I believed I could prophesy, and that I had used my prophesies vindictively. I could do no such thing.

The natural powers of intuition and deduction that I had had since I was a child had been turned into lunacy. My pitiful attempts to redress the balance of power, to arm vulnerable women with facts, to allow them to make better choices, had been translated as the vicious rantings of a madwoman. It would have been pointless to waste my breath attempting to defend myself again, and so I remained silent, staring at a point over the top of the doctor's head.

He was too absorbed in expounding his theory to notice my lack of response, or more likely he didn't care. ‘I see from my predecessor's notes that you have lately been less resistant to the notion that these visions of yours were a figment of your imagination. That is proof that the regime here has tempered your mind somewhat,' the doctor said. He stroked his callipers as he spoke, as if they were a much-loved pet. The change in his tone alerted me. I started to listen again.

‘The problem we have, however, is getting to the root cause,' he continued. ‘Until we know that, we cannot risk releasing you, lest you lapse into believing you can foretell again, do you understand me?'

I prayed that I did not, but my stomach began to churn in fear. I had assumed that if I continued with my charade of compliance and acceptance, I would eventually be deemed cured and then released, but this man appeared to be redrawing the rules, setting up new obstacles. I was so tired, so deeply humiliated, I was not sure I had the will to fight on.

‘Do not despair.' The doctor misread my expression, putting aside his callipers to pat my hand. ‘I believe, Miss Little, that I do understand the root cause, and shall be lauded when I am proved right. My analysis of your lunacy has shown to me that at the heart of these visions you claim to have, is a challenge to the sanctity of marriage.'

At the heart of these insights of mine was a desire for justice. The women I had helped, or tried to help, were being used, abused, lied to, robbed of their wealth, or in one case a child. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,' I said.

‘Let me put it in simple terms. Your skull, Miss Little, tells me you have an overly developed sensual nature. This is something which has been overlooked. Though the evidence is there, it was misinterpreted.'

‘What do you mean? What evidence?'

‘The prophesy you made, that the man you claimed to have been your betrothed, would—let me see, yes, I have it here, "be the death of you".'

Francis. A wave of nausea made me feel faint. I pinched my nails into the tender flesh of my wrist. Pay attention!

‘Now clearly, it was no prophesy, unless you are a ghost.' The doctor laughed at his own feeble joke. ‘Until now, the main focus of your treatment has been to show you that these prophesies of yours were a figment of your imagination, but it is the content that interests me.

‘You elected upon this unfortunate man as the answer to your dreams. You persuaded yourself that the feelings generated by your fevered imagination and overheated brain were reciprocated. The sensual nature which I have detected with my callipers, took hold of you. You could have what you had always wanted, a husband, a child. Then, when he rejected you, when he tried, in the most gentlemanly way, to refute your claim on him, your madness persuaded you that he was trying to kill you. Do you see?'

‘I never thought he would murder me. That's not what I said.' Francis had told me he loved me. I thought I loved him. I was convinced he wanted me, convinced of his desire for me, else I would never have given myself so willingly. In the aftermath, for those fleeting few moments, he let his guard down and I sensed his true feelings. If I married him, I knew he would be the death of me. Not literally, but spiritually. As his wife, my life would be lost.

I had tried to explain this countless times. Two years in this hellish place had taught me to keep my mouth shut, for my words were invariably turned against me, but this was too much. ‘Francis wanted to marry me,' I said, which was one fact I had never doubted. Not even now. ‘I didn't make that up. I wasn't deluded. He was desperate to marry me, in fact. He was devastated when I told him I wouldn't marry him.'

Also true, and one of the things I had never understood. I had asked myself over and over, why had he turned on me, why had he betrayed me, why he had engineered my incarceration and why he paid to keep me locked up? What was his motive? Was it humiliation? Vindictiveness? How could his passion for marrying me have turned to this?

‘It was you who were devastated, Miss Little,' the doctor reprimanded me. ‘The feelings you attribute to him were your own.' He spoke in the condescending tone of a man speaking to a child. They all used that tone, doctors, orderlies, nurses, but on that occasion it grated almost beyond enduring. ‘You were, let me see, almost twenty-six and already past your prime child-bearing years.'

‘My what?' My nausea had metamorphosed into a burning anger, but I tried desperately to control it. ‘What has my age to do with anything?'

‘Hysteria,' the doctor said with a smug smile. ‘The result of an empty womb. All of those visions of yours are connected in some way to the institution of marriage. An institution you, a confirmed spinster, despaired of joining. It is a pity,' he continued, looking not at me but at his own notebook, ‘for I believe a child may have been the saving of you, a natural release, as it were. Alas, without that outlet your passion turned poisonous. You set out to ruin the happy marriages of others with your so-called prophesies, and when you tired of that, you turned your perverted desires on an entirely innocent man.'

‘Innocent! Francis wanted to marry me!' Leaping to my feet, I could no longer contain myself. ‘I refused him, and as a result of that refusal, he had me locked up.'

The doctor shook his head and tutted. ‘Hysteria and delusion. We have our work cut out, I fear.'

‘I am not hysterical. I am not delusional.' My voice rose with each exclamation, but I couldn't stop myself. ‘He would have been the death of me. I am dying now, in this place.'

‘That is quite enough, Miss Little. Listen to yourself. Have you any idea how ridiculous you sound, claiming that a perfectly respectable man wanted to kill you?'

‘Why don't you listen! I didn't say he wanted to kill me, I said he would be the death of me.'

‘And here you are, alive and large as life.'

‘I am barely alive, thanks to him. Because I didn't marry him,' I said, catching my breath, sounding sullen to my own ears. A child sticking to a lie. But it wasn't a lie. When I refused him, he was beside himself. I was terrified and utterly taken aback by his white-faced fury. That was when my conviction took hold. When he left without laying a hand on me, I collapsed, and did not move for hours.

When I awoke and found myself alone, I thought him truly gone, I thought I had saved myself, but when he returned and instigated my committal, I realised my mistake. I had trusted him completely. I had confided in him, told him what no one else knew of my attempts to help people, of my ability to read them. And he used all of it against me.

The doctor, utterly indifferent to the anguish he had stirred up, was putting his callipers away in a leather case. ‘Now, if you will control yourself, I will inform you of my treatment plan. Your case is more advanced than I had thought, but I am still of the opinion that my diagnosis is correct. I shall make my reputation if I can cure you.'

I was shaking, tears streaming down my face, but I forced myself to listen to his plans for me, all the time my mind racing. I would not waste any more time wondering why Francis had taken such a vicious revenge on me. What was clear to me now was that I had been right in a very different sense from what I'd imagined. I thought I had saved myself by refusing to marry him, but I was wrong. If I did not escape this place I would die none the less, either from the treatments or of despair. I would not let it come true. It was a warning, and I would heed it.

‘Hysteria,' the doctor droned on. ‘Thinning of the blood. A cooling diet. Isolation to inure you to your cooled passions and empty womb. I do not believe it will come to surgery.'

‘Surgery!'

‘A most radical solution, and a last resort, for though it will definitely cure you, you may not survive. Hydrotherapy however, ice baths—yes, they might be of great value. Now, you have taken up a great deal more of my time than I expected, but I am confident that I have made progress. In time, a few years perhaps, when we are sure you are past the age where your womb is functional, then your release can certainly be considered. For myself, I have high hopes that my innovative work on you will assist in resolving many similar cases.' He smiled as if I should find that some sort of comfort.

‘I shouldn't be here. You have no right to hold me. I demand you release me. I demand...'

He opened the door and the orderly who had been waiting outside took my arm. ‘She may require a sedative tonight,' the doctor told him, though I was too faint with horror to require anything but to be supported back to my cell and left alone.

Days passed, and I continued to act out the torpor I was no longer feeling. I appeared to the staff languid, lethargic, co-operative, but inside, a fire was burning. I was not mad, therefore I could not be cured. What's more, I didn't want to be cured. I would not be the case that made my new doctor's reputation. I was determined that no matter how long it took me, I would escape the institution and the treatments forced upon me and I would disappear for ever from the clutches of the man who had had me locked up. All I needed was the opportunity.