And I can’t say why, but somehow the idea was worse and put me in more of a creep than if the place had looked like a dungeon after all.
I shuddered and slowed my step, then almost stumbled. The india-rubber boots were hard to walk in.
‘Come on,’ said Nurse Spiller, giving me a prod.
‘Which do we want?’ asked the other nurse, looking at the doors.
‘Fourteen. Here we are.’
All the doors had little plates screwed to them. We stopped at one of them, and Nurse Spiller gave a knock, then put a key to the lock and turned it. The key was a plain one, shined from use. She kept it on a chain inside her pocket.
The room she took us into was not a proper room, but had been made, by the building of a wooden wall, inside another.—For, as I said, that house had been all chopped up and made crazy. The wooden wall had glass at the top, that let in light from a window beyond it, but the room had no window of its own. The air was close. There were four beds in it, along with a cot where a nurse slept. Three of the beds had women beside them, getting dressed. One bed was bare.
‘This is to be yours,’ said Nurse Spiller, taking me to it. It was placed very near the nurse’s cot. ‘This is where we puts our questionable ladies. Try a queer trick here, Nurse Bacon shall know all about it. Shan’t you, Nurse Bacon?’
This was the nurse of that room. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. She nodded and rubbed her hands. She had some ailment that made her fingers very fat and pink, like sausages—an unlucky ailment, I suppose, for someone with a name like hers—and she liked to rub them often. She looked me over in the same cool way that all the other nurses had, and she said, as they had,
‘Young, ain’t you?’
‘Sixteen,’ said the dark nurse.
‘Seventeen,’ I said.
‘Sixteen? We should call you the child of the house, if it weren’t for Betty. Look here, Betty! Here’s a fresh young lady, look, almost your age. I should say she can run very quick up and down a set of stairs. I should say she’s got neat ways. Eh, Betty?’
She had called to a woman who stood at the bed across from mine, pulling a gown on over a great fat stomach. I thought her a girl at first; but when she turned and showed her face, I saw that she was quite grown-up, but a simpleton. She looked at me in a troubled sort of way, and the nurses laughed. I found out later that they used her more or less as they would a servant, and had her running every sort of chore; though she was—if you could believe it—the daughter of a very grand family.
She ducked her head while the nurses laughed, and cast a few sly looks at my feet—as if to see for herself how quick they might be, really. At last one of the other two women said quietly,
‘Don’t mind them, Betty. They seek only to provoke you.’
‘Who spoke to you?’ said Nurse Spiller at once.
The woman worked her lips. She was old, and slight, and very pale in the cheek. She caught my eye, then glanced away as if ashamed.
She seemed harmless enough; but I looked at her, and at Betty, and at the other woman there—a woman who stood, gazing at nothing, pulling her hair before her face—and I thought that, for all I knew, they might be so many maniacs; and here was I, being obliged to make a bed among them. I went to the nurses. I said,
‘I won’t stay here. You can’t make me.’
‘Can’t we?’ said Nurse Spiller. ‘I think we know the law. Your order’s been signed, ain’t it?’
‘But this is all a mistake!’
Nurse Bacon yawned and rolled her eyes. The dark nurse sighed. ‘Come, Maud,’ she said. ‘That’s enough.’
‘My name ain’t Maud,’ I answered. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? It ain’t Maud Rivers!’
She caught Nurse Bacon’s eye. ‘Hear that? She will speak like that, by the hour.’
Nurse Bacon put her knuckles to her hips and rubbed them.
‘Don’t care to speak nicely?’ she said. ‘Ain’t that a shame! Perhaps she’d like a situation as a nurse. See how she’d like that. Spoil her white little hands, though.’
Still rubbing her own hands against her skirt, she gazed at mine. I gazed with her. My fingers looked like Maud’s. I put them behind my back. I said,
‘I only got hands so white through being maid to a lady. It was that lady that tricked me. I—’
‘Maid to a lady!’ The nurses laughed again. ‘Well, don’t that take the cake! We got plenty girls suppose themselves duchesses. I never met one that thought herself a duchess’s maid! Dear me, that’s novel, that is. We shall have to put you in the kitchen, give you polish and a cloth.’
I stamped my foot.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ I cried.
That stopped them laughing. They caught hold of me, and shook me; and Nurse Spiller hit me again about the face—upon the same spot as before—though not so hard. I suppose she thought the old bruise would cover up the new. The pale old woman saw her do it and gave a cry. Betty, the idiot girl, began to moan.
‘There, now you’ve set them off!’ said Nurse Spiller. ‘And here’s the doctors due, any minute.’
She shook me again, then let me stagger away so she might put straight her apron. The doctors were like kings to them. Nurse Bacon went to Betty, to bully her out of her tears. The dark nurse ran to the old woman.
‘You finish fastening your buttons, you creature!’ she said, waving her arms. ‘And you, Mrs Price, you take your hair from out your mouth this instant. Haven’t I told you a hundred times, you shall swallow a ball of it, and choke? I’m sure I don’t know why I warn you, we should all be glad if you did . . .’
I looked at the door. Nurse Spiller had left it open, and I wondered if I might reach it if I ran. But from the room next to ours—and then, from all down the corridor, from all the other rooms we had passed—there came, as I wondered, the sound of doors being unlocked and opened; and then the grumbling voices of nurses, the odd shriek. Somewhere, a bell was rung. That was the signal that meant the doctors were coming.
And I thought, after all, that I should make a far better case for myself in standing and talking quietly with Dr Christie, than in running at him in a pair of rubber boots. I moved close to my bed, putting my knee to it to keep my leg from trembling; and I felt for my hair, meaning to tidy it—forgetting, for the moment, that they had stitched it to my head. The dark nurse went off, running. The rest of us stood in silence, listening out for the sound of the doctors’ footsteps. Nurse Spiller shook her finger at me.
‘You watch your filthy tongue, you trollop,’ she said.
We waited for about ten minutes, then there was a stir in the passage and Dr Christie and Dr Graves came walking very quickly into the room, their heads bent over Dr Graves’s note-book.
‘Dear ladies, good morning,’ said Dr Christie, looking up. He went first to Betty. ‘How are you, Betty? Good girl. You want your medicine, of course.’
He put his hand to his pocket and brought out a piece of sugar. She took it, and curtseyed.
‘Good girl,’ he said again. Then, moving past her: ‘Mrs Price. The nurses tell me you have been giving in to tears. That is not good. What will your husband say? Shall he be pleased to think you melancholy? Hmm? And all your children? What shall they think?’
She answered in a whisper: ‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘Hmm?’
He took her wrist, all the time murmuring to Dr Graves, who finally made some note in his book. Then they walked to the pale old lady.
‘Miss Wilson, what complaints have you for us today?’ asked Dr Christie.
‘None but the usual ones,’ she answered.
‘Well, we have heard them many times. You need not repeat them.’
‘The want of pure air,’ she said quickly.
‘Yes, yes.’ He looked at Dr Graves’s book.
‘And of wholesome food.’
‘You will find the food wholesome enough, Miss Wilson, if you will only sample it.’
‘The frigid water.’
‘A tonic, for shattered nerves. You know this, Miss Wilson.’
She moved her lips, and swayed on her feet. Then all at once she cried out: ‘Thieves!’
I jumped at the sound. Dr Christie looked up at her. ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘Remember your tongue. What have you upon it?’
‘Thieves! Devils!’
‘Your tongue, Miss Wilson! What do we keep upon it? Hmm?’
She worked her mouth; then said, after a minute:
‘A curb.’
‘That is right. A curb. Very good. Draw it tight. Nurse Spiller—’ He turned and called the nurse to him, and spoke to her quietly. Miss Wilson put her hands to her mouth, as if to feel for a chain; and again, she caught my eye, and her fingers fluttered, and she seemed ashamed.
I should have been sorry for her, at any other time; but for now, if they had laid her and ten more ladies like her down upon the floor and told me my way out was across their backs, I’d have run it with clogs on. I waited only until Dr Christie had finished giving his instructions to the nurse, and then I licked my mouth and leaned and said,
‘Dr Christie, sir!’
He turned and came towards me.
‘Mrs Rivers.’ He took my hand about the wrist, not smiling. ‘How are you?’
‘Sir,’ I said. ‘Sir, I—’
‘Pulse rather rapid,’ he said quietly, to Dr Graves. Dr Graves made a note of it. He turned back to me. ‘You have hurt your face, I am sorry to see.’
Nurse Spiller spoke before I could.
‘Cast herself to the floor, Dr Christie,’ she said, ‘while in the grip of her fit.’
‘Ah, yes. You see, Mrs Rivers, the violence of the condition in which you arrived here. I hope you slept?’
‘Slept? No, I—’
‘Dear, dear. We cannot have that. I shall have the nurses give you a draught. You shall never grow well, without slumber.’
He nodded to Nurse Bacon. She nodded back.
‘Dr Christie,’ I said, more loudly.
‘Pulse quickening, now,’ he murmured.
I pulled my hand away. ‘Will you listen to me? You have got me here, by mistake.’
‘Is that so?’ He had narrowed his eyes and was looking into my mouth. ‘Teeth sound enough, I think. Gums may be putrid, however.—You must tell us, if they start troubling you.’
‘I’m not staying here,’ I said.
‘Not staying, Mrs Rivers?’
‘Mrs Rivers? For God’s sake, how can I be her? I stood and saw her married. You came to me, and heard me speak. I—’
‘So I did,’ he said slowly. ‘And you told me how you feared for your mistress’s health; how you wished she might be kept quiet and free from harm. For sometimes it is easier—is it not?—to ask for assistance in behalf of another, than for ourselves? We understand you, Mrs Rivers, very well.’
‘I am not Maud Rivers!’
He raised a finger, and almost smiled.
‘You are not ready to admit that you are Maud Rivers. Hmm? That is quite a different thing. And when you are ready to admit to it, our work shall be done. Until then—’
‘You shan’t keep me here. You shan’t! You keep me, while those swindling villains—’
He folded his arms. ‘Which swindling villains, Mrs Rivers?’
‘I am not Maud Rivers! My name is Susan—’
‘Yes?’
But here, for the first time, I faltered.
‘Susan Smith,’ I said finally.
‘Susan Smith. Of—where was it, Dr Graves? Of Whelk Street, Mayfair?’
I did not answer.
‘Come, come,’ he went on. ‘That is all your fancy, is it not?’
‘It was Gentleman’s fancy,’ I said, thrown off. ‘That devil—!’
‘Which gentleman, Mrs Rivers?’
‘Richard Rivers,’ I answered.
‘Your husband.’
‘Her husband.’
‘Ah.’
‘Her husband, I tell you! I saw them married. You may find out the vicar that did it. You may bring Mrs Cream!’
‘Mrs Cream, the lady you lodged with? We spoke at length with her. She told us, very sadly, of the melancholy temper that stole upon you, in her house.’
‘She was speaking of Maud.’
‘Of course.’
‘She was speaking of Maud, not me. You bring her here. You show her my face, see what she says then. Bring anyone here that has known Maud Lilly and me. Bring Mrs Stiles, the housekeeper at Briar. Bring old Mr Lilly!’
He shook his head. ‘And don’t you think,’ he said, ‘your own husband might be supposed to know you, as well as your uncle? And your maid? She stood before us, and spoke of you, and wept.’ He lowered his voice. ‘What had you done to her, hmm, to make her do that?’
‘Oh!’ I said, twisting my hands together. (‘See her colour change now, Dr Graves,’ he said softly.) ‘She wept, to trick you! She’s nothing but an actress!’
‘An actress? Your maid?’
‘Maud Lilly! Don’t you hear me? Maud Lilly and Richard Rivers. They have put me here—they have cheated and tricked me—they have made you think me her, and her me!’
He shook his head again, and drew close his brows; and again, he almost smiled. Then he said, slowly and very easily:
‘But, my dear Mrs Rivers, why should they go to the trouble of doing that?’
I opened my mouth. Then I closed it. For, what could I say? I still supposed that if I only told him the truth, he would believe it. But the truth was I had plotted to steal a lady’s fortune; that I had made myself out a servant, when I was really a thief. If I had not been so afraid, and so tired, and so bruised from my night in the pads, I might have thought up a clever story. Now I could not think, at all. Nurse Bacon rubbed her hands and yawned. Dr Christie still watched me, with a humouring expression on his face.
‘Mrs Rivers?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered at last.
‘Ah.’
He nodded to Dr Graves, and they began to move off.
‘Wait! Wait!’ I cried.
Nurse Spiller came forward. ‘That’s enough from you,’ she said. ‘You are wasting the doctors’ time.’
I did not look at her. I watched Dr Christie turn from me, and saw beyond him the pale old lady, her fingers still chafing at her mouth; and the sad-faced woman with her hair pulled all before her eyes; and Betty, the idiot girl, her lip gleaming with sugar; and I grew wild again. I thought, ‘I don’t care if they put me in a prison for it! Better a prison, with thieves and murderesses, than a madhouse!’ I said,
‘Dr Christie, sir! Dr Graves! Listen to me!’
‘That’s enough,’ said Nurse Spiller again. ‘Don’t you know what busy men the doctors are? Don’t you think they got better things to do than hear all your nonsense? Get back!’
I had stepped after Dr Christie and was reaching for his coat.
‘Please, sir,’ I said. ‘Listen to me. I haven’t been perfectly straight with you. My name ain’t Susan Smith, after all.’
He had made to shake me off. Now he turned a little to me.
‘Mrs Rivers,’ he began.
‘Susan Trinder, sir. Sue Trinder, of—’ I was about to say, Lant Street; then knew that of course I must not say it, for fear it should lead the police to Mr Ibbs’s shop. I closed my eyes and shook my head. My brain felt hot. Dr Christie drew himself from my hand.
‘You must not touch my coat,’ he said, his voice grown sterner.
I clutched it again. ‘Only hear me out, I beg you! Only let me tell you of the terrible plot I was made to be part of, by Richard Rivers. That devil! He is laughing at you, sir! He is laughing at all of us! He has stolen a fortune. He has fifteen thousand pounds!’
I would not let go of his coat. My voice was high, like the yelp of a dog. Nurse Spiller got her arm about my neck, and Dr Christie put his hands over mine and worked free my fingers. Dr Graves came to help him. At the feel of their hands, I shrieked. I suppose I
really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded. I shrieked, and Dr Christie got out his whistle, just like before. There was a bell rung. Mr Bates and Mr Hedges came running, in their brown-paper cuffs. Betty bellowed.
They put me back in the pads. They let me wear the gown and boots, however; and they gave me a basin of tea.
‘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!’
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!’