PS Please do say yes.

The atmosphere in the dining room in the Pension des Dunes was even stuffier than Sonia had feared, since most of the residents appeared to dread fresh air, frowning and clacking if the waiters left a sliver of door open. There were about forty guests in all, a few families whose small children were made to sit up straight with their hands visible on the table, but mostly grey-haired couples of long familiarity, who faced one another in committed silence. Richard Prendergast ran his finger round the inside of his collar. "I wish they would open a window." "We can have coffee outside," said Sonia. "There's a charming little garden. Did you see it?" "Yes," said Thomas. "With lanterns and red creeper on the walls." The waiter placed a tureen of soup on the table and invited them to serve themselves. Sonia lifted the lid and a smell of cress and summer savoury floated upward. "I see you have grown a beard' Thomas said Richard. "Do all your fellow-students have beards beneath their scholar's caps?" "Almost all. Do you like it?" "It makes you look older," said Sonia. "It's a bother keeping it trim." "You should visit my barber in Leadenhall Street," said Richard. "Now let's hear some French from you, young man." "After two days? You are a hard master. But I can speak to the waiter if you like. Shall I ask him for some wine?" As Thomas looked about the room, he saw an unusual couple seated at a table by an enviably open window. One was a Curé, sweating a little beneath his soutane, the other a young man of about Thomas's age with black brows, a moustache and staring brown eyes. Something about his expression made Thomas want to smile. "I wonder what brings them together," he said quietly to Sonia, gesturing with his head. "I suppose the young man is being prepared for the priesthood." "In Deauville?" said Thomas. "More likely to be prepared for the Turf here, isn't he? And somehow he doesn't have a devout look about him. He reminds me of a fellow I know in Trinity." Their waiter was a tall, mournful man with a bald head and a thick moustache that gave him a look of the late Prince Albert. His manner was also regal, as he endowed the table with the burgundy; to each diner he offered a half glass of wine, then bowed slightly, and moved off on flat feet. He returned a few minutes later with some plates of sole in a cream sauce and a china dish of petits pois. "Nothing wrong in drinking red wine with fish," said Richard, looking round for the bottle which Prince Albert had secreted. "Drink what you dash well like, that's what I always say." "The sole is good, isn't it?" said Sonia. "Yes," said Thomas. "Has my sister proved a satisfactory housekeeper, Richard?" "Adequate, thank you. We had to let the cook go at Christmas. Domestic economies, you see." "I enjoy it," said Sonia. "It's a pleasure for me to make a dinner for Richard's friends, then to manage the budget with some modest suppers." She did not look up from her plate as she spoke. In the garden after dinner, they found themselves seated at the table next to the Curé and his charge. "Here's a chance," said Richard. "Ask the young fellow what he's doing. Let's see what your French is made of." "Not much," said Thomas. "That's why I have come. Let me have a cognac, I need some courage. Sonia speaks better than I do. Papa once sent her for a summer to a family in Brittany, I believe." "That's enough excuses. Go on with you." Thomas shifted his chair against the paved courtyard and cleared his throat as he leaned across the neighbouring table. In an accent in which he himself could almost hear the roar of the Wash, he said, "Good evening. My sister and her husband and I, we were asking ourselves what was bringing you to Deauville this summer and if the boarding house pleases you." "Good evening, Monsieur," said the Curé. "My friend and I have come for a week's holiday. I promised him that if he was successful in his examinations I should reward him with a week at the seaside. Although his family lives near the sea, he has never had a holiday in all his twenty years. As to the boarding house ' "Me also," said Thomas, "I mean, I too, have am twenty years old. My name is Thomas Midwinter. I have come from England." "I thought perhaps you did. We are from Brittany. May I introduce my friend Jacques Rebière, a great doctor of the future." Jacques held out his hand to Thomas. "What did he say, Father?" "He is the same age as you and he comes from England." Thomas introduced Richard and Sonia. "Do you speak English?" Thomas asked Jacques. Jacques shook his head, looking startled. "Jacques's education was late in starting," Abbe Henri said, 'but every week he is making up the ground that he lost. And you yourself, sir, I presume you are studying at one of those fine old English universities." "Yes. It is very ancient and very fine. My sister thinks I do not work enough, but this is not true. Each morning I must do a lecture and a practical demonstration of the anatomy." "You speak very good French." "No, this too is not true. This is why I am come here in France. When I speak then about lecture and anatomy it is easy because the words are the same thing in English. Like this I have the air of a good French. But it is not true." Thomas noticed Jacques's tense expression resolve at last into a brief grin; it was an extraordinary expression, like a piece of fruit gashed by a cutlass. His mouth had a hundred shining teeth; then it was closed, the moustache realigned itself and the brows re-knitted in perplexity. Thomas felt his own lips twitch in amusement. It transpired that Abbe Henri spoke some English and was able to make himself pleasant to Richard, who looked displeased at having been excluded from the conversation. One of Sonia's accomplishments, one of the make weights in her father's downward adjustment of her dowry, was a fluent if idiosyncratic French; her accent was free of any Gallic influence, but she was able to understand almost everything and to reply at speed. At the end of the evening, they parted company in the hotel vestibule, but Thomas did not feel ready for bed. He turned to Jacques. "Would you want to walk for a few minutes?" Jacques shrugged one shoulder. "Yes." "To the beach?" "Yes." "Good night, Sonia. Good luck at the tables, Richard." It was a warm evening as they went down the streets towards the front, between the quiet villas and their tree-shaded gardens. Each took off his jacket and carried it over his shoulder. Thomas smiled encouragingly at Jacques in the darkness but could see no response. When they arrived at the front, Jacques said something that Thomas did not understand. After some repetitions, it was agreed that they should walk on the sand, and they made their way past a series of small wooden changing huts and some bathing machines that had been pulled back from the tide. Thomas took his shoes off and tied them round his neck, then put his socks in his pocket so he could feel the cold sand under his feet. "It is good," he said, but Jacques merely shrugged and walked on. Thomas wondered what he would have to do to elicit another of those smiles. "What do you study?" said Thomas. "I am studying medicine in Paris." "Does your family inhabit Paris?" "My family is from a small village near the coast. Sainte Agnes. No one has ever heard of it. It is very bare and bleak. Monsieur the Curé says even the rocks of the seashore cry out for God's mercy." Jacques spoke rapidly, with no concession to his English listener; Thomas, struggling to follow, was not sure whether to be irritated or flattered. Perhaps Jacques was inhibited in some way by his presence, but there seemed little he could do about it, now that they were committed, close to the dark water's edge with no one else in sight. They stared towards the sea in un companionable silence. It was a clear night, and beyond the bay of Trouville to their right Thomas could make out the distant lights of Le Havre; above them, the sky was smeared with stars. Thomas pointed. "How do you call this star?" "The polar star." "We call it the North Star. Do you think there is an... Intelligence there?" "In the sky?" "In the Universe." Jacques said nothing and Thomas wondered if he had insulted him. He knew that, although France was proud of the fact that it was a lay republic, most French people were still fierce in their Catholic beliefs; he feared that he had offended Jacques by questioning the existence of his god, though in fact he had meant to suggest something vaguer. "I ask pardon if I..." He could not find the words. "No, no." Jacques cut him off. Thomas sat down on the sand. He would not give up yet, he thought; he would simply continue to talk without asking questions, and see if that way he could tempt Jacques to respond. Laboriously, he set off. "My sister inhabits London. I like the theatre. I go often to the theatre. Do you like... I like Shakespeare. He is an English writer. Perhaps you do not know him at France. I am a student of medicine. I have one brother also, he is older and will take the work of my father and his house. I find interest in philosophy same word in English and the way in which functions the mind of the human." "Stop! Stop! Wait there. I will be ten minutes. Don't move from there!" Jacques ran off, stumbling, back over the shallow waves of sand, then gained his footing more surely as he neared the road where, as Thomas watched in astonishment, he leapt the small brick wall beneath the streetlamp and ran back into the town. Thomas lay flat on the sand and shook with laughter. Ten minutes later, Jacques, panting, knelt down beside him. He carried a wicker basket, from which he took a bottle of wine, two glasses, a half empty bottle of cognac, a Camembert, a loaf of bread and a box of violet-scented chocolates. He drew the cork and poured some wine into a glass which he handed to Thomas. His white teeth flashed in the darkness. "Thank you," said Thomas. "Where have you found these things?" "In the boarding house. I know where they are kept. Do you want some cheese?" "Not now. And what ' "Wait. "Jacques put his hand on Thomas's arm. "I am always hungry, even after dinner. And the food at the pension, it's ' "It's marvellous." "Yes, it is. But wait. I want to talk to you, but it's difficult for me. My mother died when I was a baby and my elder brother is not well. I left school when I was young so I could go and work for my father, and Abbe Henri is the only real friend I have had. So when you began to talk ' "Excuse me," said Thomas. "May you talk more slowly, please. Thank you." "Ah, it's difficult." Jacques stood up. "I have so much to say and I sense that for the first time in my life I have found someone who can understand it. I only met you this evening, of course, but I know it... Here." He banged his sternum so hard with his closed fist that Thomas thought he must have hurt himself. "Slowly," said Thomas. "Slowly. At least you may help teach me French." "I will. At once. The best way to learn is to listen." "Is that true?" "Yes. Alas." They laughed at the same time. Jacques began to describe his studies in physiology and anatomy, the lectures, the classes, the unforgiving timetable. "I sleep on the floor of another student. He is often out at night, so sometimes I climb into his bed. Abbe Henri has paid for my courses and I can't ask him for more money, so sometimes I have to work in the laundry or at a bar. I don't mind. My mind is so much on fire for what I'm learning, but I am frustrated because I want to move beyond the movement of the bowel or the function of the liver and ' "Gently' "Forgive me. When you spoke just now what were the words you used? About the mind. It doesn't matter. I can come back to that. You see, I have this idea that we must somehow try to understand the meeting point between thought and flesh. That is what the next great aim and discovery of medical science will be. Are you with me?" "I think so. I ' "We have alienists in the asylums. We call them asylums but they are prisons, really. We have neurologists, great neurologists in this country, and in Germany, and of course we have physicians. Even in your country forgive me ' "It's all right, I ' "Physicians by the score! But a medicine that would understand and cure those whose sickness is in the mind and which could determine its causes... That is something I dream about." Thomas looked over his wineglass as Jacques's torrent slowed for a moment. He had understood most of it, he thought. "I think the proposition, "Thomas said, "it this. Forgive my French. To understand... To accomplish what you describe is a thing not only of medicine. I need, you need, also to see at what point the human being rests on his journey of evolution. You know the book of Mr. Darwin which comes out twenty years past?" "In the year of my birth?" "Exactly. Our birth, in effect. And for me there is also a question of psychology, such as the great writers speak of, which is important here also. I mean to say, it is more than a question of dissection of dead people to see the cause of a malady. And at last..." Thomas found himself struggling, but thought it was important to continue, because this aspect of what he had to say was to him the most important. "There is at last the question of what we might call... how does one say... the sensation of being alive and of thinking..." "Awareness?" said Jacques. "Yes. To know if that is a faculty which also evolves. For some scientists, this power of what are we calling it awareness is that which separates humans from animals. It was God who provided it. But if this is a faculty of the mind which evolves as the human reason has evolved, or our ability to make things, then we are only animals after all. Forgive me. I explain myself badly. Or perhaps awareness is a thing which is there but which we do not yet completely see or use, as for many millions of years human beings did not have fire, or electricity. Then, once it is discovered, everyone has it." Jacques grabbed his arm. "Exactly. Exactly. These are the questions I have been asking myself for a long time. I feel that there is an answer, perhaps a single answer, which may help us. But it is the project of a lifetime." "I have a lifetime," said Thomas. "And you have a project." As Jacques began to talk again, Thomas began to see how aspects of his own interests and ambitions things he had previously thought to be irreconcilable might be brought together. Perhaps he and this extraordinary young man might really one day work together. And then, what might they not achieve? The discovery of new diseases that could be named after them Midwinter's Disease, Rebière Syndrome; a great teaching hospital that would carry on their methods after their death; but, more than such conventional stuff: a map of the mind and its million pathways... As Jacques's ideas raged on in front of the gently breaking Channel waves, almost anything seemed possible. Thomas was thrilled not just by the exuberance of Jacques's talk, but by the certainty of the references. Although the Curé had said something about his education starting late, he clearly had a scientist's turn of mind; though there was also, in his gesticulating hands, a suggestion of the crusader. If Jacques had begun with chemistry and moved through the elements of medicine to an interest in neurology and behaviour, it might be, Thomas felt, almost a mirror of his own journey, which had begun in the abstract land of words and verses, taking half a handhold in psychology before he had acquainted himself with the rudiments of anatomy. If there was a common ground where they now met, it was unlikely that they would cross and diverge that Jacques would ever end up reading Shakespeare or that he himself would master the details of chemical change. To this extent, their interests, while similar, also seemed to complement one another. It was beginning to grow light, the colour of darkness slowly receding from the sky over Le Havre, leaving the pallid grey of cliffs and clouds to re-emerge from the mist. They still had a little cognac left, the last of which Thomas poured into the two glasses. They had been talking for more than six hours, yet he felt he had only begun to explore what needed to be said; he could not catch the next thought fast enough for his determination to do justice to the previous one. As the night began to fade, Jacques drained his glass. "Shall I tell you something peculiar that has happened in the course of this conversation?" he said. "What?" "You have become fluent in French." "Have I?" "Yes. At the start you had all the words in the wrong order and you spoke slowly. Now you talk like a native. A native of Brittany, I am afraid, like me, with a Vannes accent, but at least you sound like a Frenchman." Thomas felt gratified. "Now I shall have to teach you English." "Dear God. Let us do the simple things first." "Establish a new clinical method." "Yes. And a map of the mind." "Then English." Thomas bent down and put on his socks and shoes. "We can continue our conversation," he said, 'over breakfast. One of the cafes on the front should be open by now." "Not the front. Let's find a back street. And before we go," said Jacques, 'we should drink a toast to our future work." Thomas lifted his glass. "All right," he said. "I propose we drink to that phrase of yours, if I remember it right. "The meeting-point of thought and flesh"." They drank solemnly. "Don't finish," said Jacques. "I have another. It was something you said, in your ancient French your former language. It was a fine phrase and I think we should drink to that as well. It was the words that made me know you would be my friend, which is why I ran back to the pension to get food and drink. I propose a toast to: "The way in which functions the mind of the human"." They drained their glasses. "If," said Thomas, "I am to be your friend and we are to speak in French, we will need to find some better words for "mind"." "Very well. You can be the master of words." "I may force some Anglo-Saxon distinctions on you, or we may improvise with German." "Good. But now... To breakfast." They laboured back over the cold sand and walked into the town, heads down, glancing up only to see if they could find a cafe that was open. That afternoon, when Prince Albert had slowly cleared the plates of langoustine shells, the Muscadet bottle, peaches and grapes, Richard said he needed to go up to the room for a rest. He had returned at two in the morning from the gambling room of the Trouville casino and was enigmatic about how the night had gone for him. Sonia set off with Thomas to hire a boat. "Do you know how to sail?" she asked, as they walked along the front. "Yes. I learned that summer at Mablethorpe. But I imagine we would take a man with us." It was a hot afternoon, and most of the holiday makers stayed indoors behind the shutters of the new Norman villas. Sonia wore a wide-brimmed straw hat held in place and fastened beneath the chin by a pink scarf; even so, she felt uncomfortably warm in her long skirt and high-necked blouse. "Do you like Deauville?" she said. "It needs to be used a little more, doesn't it? I don't like the way that all the streets are at right angles to one another. I think I like the look of Trouville better. It has more character." "That's where the boat man is." "Perhaps we should stay and have dinner in a dirty old cafe after our sailing." "I would love to. But... Well, we can't, can we?" "No." There was a pause, then Sonia brightened. "And in any case the food at the pension ' "I know. Those langoustines. And the little cheese things afterwards. I could grow very fat in that dining room." They came to the boat man's house down a small path on the hillside above the bay; it seemed to belong to an earlier century than the houses of the resort and there was a long silence after they had knocked at the splintery front door. They could hear an old man's voice calling out from inside, then the sound of boots crossing a flagged floor. The door scraped back and they found themselves looking into the startled face of a tousle-haired young man, whose eyes moved up and down Sonia's figure, from the bonnet to the boots, finally coming to rest on Thomas, somewhere in the region of his chest. "Yes, yes, come in," he said, when Thomas explained why they were there. "Come and sit down for a moment." He pulled back two chairs from the table in the cool parlour and disappeared. Sonia and Thomas looked round the room, where lobster pots and fishing tackle were piled up between the chairs. He raised one eyebrow. "Can you swim, Queenie?" "Stop it. You know I can." The young man returned. "This is my grandfather. It is his boat." Thomas held out his hand to be shaken by the owner and found it grasped with painful firmness. "Guillaume," said the powerful old man. "You can call me that. My grandson is also Guillaume. Little Guillaume." "And your son?" said Thomas. "Is he ' "I have no son. The boy's mother is my daughter. I always wished for sons, but alas... So the lad and I run the business together. Staying in Deauville, are you? I remember when it was just a swamp. Even young Guillaume remembers, don't you? Where are you from?" "From England," said Sonia. The old man looked surprised. He rubbed his hand through the white bristles of his cheek. "We've never met a... Anyway, I will send the boy with you. Guillaume, don't forget to look at the pots on the way up this evening. Mind your step on the way down to the boat." Young Guillaume beamed with impatience. "Shall we go?" He went ahead and held out his hand for Sonia as she descended, lifting her skirts to avoid the sharpest of the small rocks. He took them to a jetty and helped them into a wooden skiff, which he then rowed out to an anchored sailing boat. When they were safely embarked, he took off his shirt and shoes and flung them down on the deck; then he rowed the skiff back and attached it to a wooden buoy closer to the shore; to Thomas and Sonia's surprise, he then dived over the side and swam back to them, hauling himself up into the sailing boat, disdaining Thomas's offer of help, and slithering aboard like a familiar dolphin, shaking off the drops of seawater as he set about rigging the sails. Sonia sat on a bench, her lips pressed together, trying not to catch Thomas's eye. Guillaume soon had the boat heading out into the bay, picking up what small breeze fluttered in the torpid afternoon. He had replaced his shirt, with mumbled apologies, but his rolled cotton trousers still dripped onto the deck. As he whisked the tiller from side to side, shouting instructions when the boom swung across, he kept his gaze fixed on Sonia, as though not quite able to believe that a woman as elegant as this was in his grandfather's battered craft. Thomas asked a few polite questions about the resort and the weather, which Guillaume answered without taking his eyes from Sonia. Eventually, after a sudden change of tack, he found himself opposite Thomas. "And you, Monsieur, you are also from England?" "No," said Thomas, "I am from Vannes. In Brittany. Do you know it?" "No, no, we have not travelled far in my family." "Really, Thomas," said Sonia in English, 'you are a child sometimes." "I know. But not for much longer. I shall soon be twenty-one and then I shall find the cares of the world pressing in on me. There's not much time left to be a child in." "No. Not for either of us, I suppose." Sonia looked over the sea for a moment. "But he seemed to believe you, didn't he? I must say your French is extraordinary. What happened?" "I did a rapid course last night. It lasted twelve hours, from when we said goodnight in the hall, to about ten this morning. I spent the whole time with Jacques, the young man from the boarding house. I have never met anyone like him. He is wonderful. He is just like me ' "Is that why he is wonderful?" "Let me finish! He is just like me, but completely different at the same time. He has had all the same thoughts yet they have come from a different life, a different world. It's like two men bumping into each other in the jungle when one started in Iceland and one in China and finding they are reading the same book. He has a marvellous mind, he's so lucid, yet at the same time he makes me laugh. I want to laugh all the time when I'm with him, though I think he is a sad man, really. I have never had a friend like this, ever. The boys in the village, I mean, I liked fighting them and the boys at school, or at Cambridge there were one or two, of course, but that was like befriending the man in the next cell. But Jacques Jacques, I feel as though I've been waiting all my life to meet him." Sonia laughed. "My dear Thomas, you sound as if you are in love." The boat tracked back and forth, heading west into the Deauville bay and then beyond. "Stay out as long as possible," Sonia told Guillaume, who nodded vigorously. She rearranged her hat, to shade her from the sun, and settled back against the side of the boat. "And you?" said Thomas, looking up from where his fingers split the white water by the hull. "Me what?" "Are you in love?" "Oh, Thomas, you cannot ask that question of a married woman." Sonia looked away. Thomas knew the answer, but thought Sonia might like to tell. "Did love come?" he said. "As mother said it would?" "It's not right to ask me such questions." "Did it?" "Yes," said Sonia. "Yes, if you really insist on knowing. I have great affection and respect for Richard. He has many fine qualities and I like trying to manage his house." "It sounds as though you like the job of being a wife more than ' "I do enjoy it. I like cooking, as you know. I try out some of the old receipts I learned from Mrs. Travers." "Sheep's head broth?" "Do you remember that?" "I used to dread Tuesday suppers. Every day from the previous Wednesday' Sonia laughed. "Kidney pudding he likes. And I got away with giblet pie." "Why is money so short?" "I think the sugar business has not proved as easy as we thought. There have been sugar brokers in London for a long time, and some of them are very large and powerful companies. And the partners in the business have been reckless. There's one called Jackman who has been especially ill-advised, I am told." "Is it a problem with buyers or suppliers?" "It's no use asking me. I don't understand how the business works and I have been told very little about it. My husband says it's not something for me to know about." "And do you mind that?" "Of course not. He does his work and I do mine. Though I wish sometimes he would not be quite so strict. My dress allowance has been cut to almost nothing. I made the curtains for the bedrooms myself. It's not that I mind or that I think it is beneath me, but he ordered four new coats for himself. He says he must have them to impress his clients. And I am hardly allowed out at all." "Poor girl. No parties." "I am not able to go to parties because he has sent the little coach away and I am forbidden to take a cab." "Poor Queenie. I am sorry." "It doesn't really matter. As long as I please him." "And when will you start a family?" Sonia stared at her hands, clasped in her lap. "I have been to see a doctor about it. He says he can see nothing wrong with me, but I fear there may be. Sir James Bannerman was his name. He has a brass plaque in Wimpole Street. I asked Mama if she would pay his account because I didn't want my husband to know." "Did he have no solution at all?" "He recommended patience." "Might it not be worth Richard going to see a doctor?" "No, no! I did mention it to him but he told me he was perfectly healthy. No, Thomas, I think the problem lies with me." They were far from land and could make out no more than the smudges and outlines of the town. "Sonia, would you mind if I went for a swim?" "But you have no bathing costume." "I know. But I love the feel of the water on my skin. It's one of the greatest feelings in the world, to swim in a deep sea." "How will you dry yourself?" "The sun will dry me quickly. I'll explain to Guillaume. You look the other way while I undress and dive in." Guillaume grinned incredulously when the plan was explained; he slackened off the sail and a few moments later Thomas dived into the cold green water. He surfaced, spluttering and exclaiming. "It's wonderful! I feel like a primitive animal in his element at last. Sonia, you must come in." Sonia laughed. "You silly boy." "I mean it! "Thomas disappeared under the water and re-emerged on the other side of the boat. He gripped on to the side, gasping and laughing. "It's so wonderful. You feel it wash you clean. It's like being an animal, a porpoise. I'm sure we must once have lived in the sea." "Is it cold?" "Not at all. Do come in, Sonia. I'll make Guillaume look the other way, then I'll hold up my shirt for you when you want to come back." "Thomas, don't be ridiculous. I am a respectable married lady with ' "No, you're not! You're little Sonia from Torrington. The little girl from the big house. Or the not so big house in fact, but don't tell your husband." "I'm not telling him anything of this nonsense." "Will you please do what I say, Sonia. Get in at once." "You are a bully, Thomas." "I am a strong character, Sonia. There is a difference." In Sonia's green eyes he saw the look he had most loved in any human being in his short life, the look of modesty at war with daring. He admired both qualities in his sister, the fact that they could exist together and the way that daring always won. He explained to Guillaume that he must fix his gaze on the land behind Trouville until such time as he was told otherwise. "Sonia, tell me when you're about to be indecent and I shall dive under the waves. Then jump in." He could see Sonia's skirt and stockings being laid on the bench on the other side of the sail; they were followed by some undergarments, and when she was dressed in only a shift she called out, "I'm coming!" Thomas sank beneath the waves and held his nose for as long as he could. When he came up, it was to hear Sonia screaming from the other side of the boat. "It's freezing!" He swam round to her, laughing so hard that he could barely breathe. "Isn't it marvellous?" "It's freezing! You horrible man, why didn't you tell me?" "Swim up and down, you'll soon get warm." Sonia did as she was told, her head above the gentle waves, its hair still neatly parted in the centre as she cautiously breast stroked to and fro. "You liar, you horrid liar," she spluttered through her chattering teeth. "But you did it, you did it!" "I know. And now I want to get out." "All right. Look the other way while I clamber in. Then I'll hold up my shirt for you." Thomas heaved himself up over the stern and pulled on his cotton drawers. "Trouville!" he shouted to Guillaume. "See if you can make out your grandfather's cottage. Tell me what he's cooking for your dinner. Come on, Sonia. Lift yourself up while I look towards England. I am holding up my shirt for you. Dear old England! If she only knew..." Sonia managed to pull herself, shivering, back into the boat and put on Thomas's shirt. She went back to her place, shaking and laughing. "You'll soon warm up," said Thomas. "Do you want my jacket?" He draped it round her shoulders and hugged her as he did so. "You are a sport, Sonia. Dear God, let no one in the world ever deny that." He kissed the salt water on her cheek. "All right, Guillaume," he said, 'you can look now, so ' "No, he can't. My legs! Tell him to wait." When Sonia was dry enough to dress again, Thomas went to sit with Guillaume in the bow until such time as Sonia said they could turn round. Thomas pulled on his trousers and resumed his seat, allowing the early evening sun to dry his bare chest. "All right, Guillaume, once round the bay, then home for dinner." "Very well, Monsieur." Sonia was still shivering slightly, but apart from that, and her damp hair, had so resumed her former bearing that no one could have told that she was not the most conventional young wife in Deauville. That night Jacques packed his small suitcase to return home: a white shirt that was a patchwork of Tante Mathilde's repeated needlework, a dissecting knife, a pair of hairbrushes given to him by Abbe Henri. He stowed them neatly against the check lining of the cheap case, but as he did so, he felt sick. The months ahead were like a tundra, a grey plain through which he would have to drive himself until he could arrange to see Thomas again. He sat down on a cane-seated chair in the window, where he parted the shutters and looked down on to the garden. Prince Albert was delivering what looked like a jug of citron pr esse to Sonia and her husband at the table beneath the magnolia. Jacques felt his heart give another lurch. Sonia looked flushed beneath her hat and a little uneasy; there seemed an awkwardness between her and the English husband. Yet in her open face, her pale pink dress with its white sash and the gentle movements of her hands as she stirred her drink, Jacques saw all the qualities that had been absent from his life. Perhaps his anguish was more complicated than he had thought. When they said goodbye on the beach the next morning, Jacques wanted Thomas to swear an oath in blood, a promise that they would always be friends, but feared that Thomas might think it puerile. "But you will write a letter from England, won't you?" "Yes, I will. There is not much to do on those cold evenings in East Anglia. And you will reply?" "Of course," said Jacques. They faced the sea for the last time. "One day, Thomas, we will work together. We will do great things to alleviate the suffering of human beings." "I hope so, Jacques, if we are not ' "No, we will do it. There are no ifs. It will happen." "I was going to say, if we are not deflected by the petty demands of life, the need to make money, families, idleness..." "My family does not really exist. As for money, we will make enough together. We will both be doctors of one kind or another and there is always a need for medicine." "Will you come to England one day?" "One day, Thomas. When I have some money. Tell me what your plans are now." "I shall finish my degree. I will train further. I will travel. I don't know exactly' Thomas felt Jacques squeezing his arm ferociously. He laughed. "I am too young to be certain." "But you will write. You will not lose touch." "I promise. Anyway, what about you? What will you do next?" said Thomas. "If I am to understand and cure the afflictions of the mind, I need to study them first. To try to understand. I am going to study further in Paris." "All right," said Thomas. "For my part, I promise this. When I am ready, I will come to you. I will take no other work until we have tried together. Until we have tried to climb our mountain." "Do you swear?" "I swear." Thomas held out his hand and Jacques took it, then gathered Thomas in his arms. They embraced tightly. No need for blood, thought Jacques. The wind was beginning to moan softly and waves were starting to swell; there was the first rumble and spray of the coming autumn. "I love you," said Jacques. "What?" said Thomas, over the noise of the sea. When Sonia asked if he would like to go sailing again, Thomas told her that he needed to study that afternoon; she tried to persuade her husband to come instead, but he was having lunch with a man he had met the night before in Trouville, someone who, he told Sonia, might be the very person he had been looking for. "He knows everyone in Paris, stockbrokers, people in the Government," said Richard, flushed with excitement. "He is a marvellous fellow as well. I just know he is the man to turn our little craft about and head her into the wind. I shall telegraph to Jackman. Meanwhile I am taking him to the best lunch in town. You have to spend money to make money, that's what I always say." So Sonia went alone to the next bay, feeling a little furtive, but not knowing why. When she knocked at the door of the fisherman's cottage there was no answer, and she went to sit in the garden until someone should return. "Ah... Madame. Excuse me, I did not see you there." It was Guillaume. "Have you been waiting long?" "No. I am sorry. I had no way of telling you I would be coming." "I am afraid I cannot take you out this afternoon because my grandfather has the boat. He won't be back before nightfall." "In that case," said Sonia, "I had better return to the hotel. Perhaps we could make an arrangement for tomorrow." "Would you like a drink before you go back, Madame? It's hot, isn't it?" He gave an awkward laugh. "Perhaps a glass of water." In the cool of the parlour, Guillaume seated himself opposite her, with a jug of water and two glasses. He grinned repeatedly and, Sonia thought, if he had had a tail, it would have been thumping the wooden bench he sat on. This made her think of Dido, and Amelia, the force of whose wagging tail had once freed a frozen tap in the backyard, and she felt wistful for her old home. Guillaume showed her some fishing hooks and floats he had made, but it soon became clear that what he wanted to talk about was her. Sonia could not think what made her life seem intriguing to him; she presumed it must be the fact that she was foreign, and Guillaume had never before spoken to a person from another country. "What was your home like?" he said. "Not like this." He glanced round the jumble of nets, pots and clothes left to dry over the furniture. "It was a happy home. We never had very much money, but that did not matter to Thomas and me. When he was young, he used to sleep in my room. I had always wanted to be a big sister because I have an elder brother and I grew tired of being the little one all the time. Thomas was a naughty boy. He made us all laugh. I used to read him stories before he could read for himself. He was always very violent in his feelings. Occasionally he seemed to see things I had not seen, so that I began to look forward to what he would say. Then when we were older I was sent away to learn to speak French and to practise the piano and all these things that make you a more valuable wife while Thomas stayed at school and learned many more things than I ever knew. And then there was a time when I felt he might leave me behind because he was impatient. But something seemed to stop him. Although he argued with my parents, he stopped short with me. It was as though he remembered the old days when we slept in the same room and fell asleep together each night by the light of the candle. And if it was cold, he would climb into bed with me. These are the things you remember about your home, I suppose. The pattern of the candle shadows on the wall, the fiery little boy who needs your arm round him to make him sleep. Nothing happens to make you happy. There are no prizes or thunderbolts or adventures. Just the shadow of the candle on the wall." "I see," said Guillaume. Sonia coughed. "Then one day, when you are grown up, you suddenly become aware that something has gone. In any event," she said, making an effort to recollect herself, 'my husband and I live a very satisfactory life. In London. A very big city." "I imagine." Sonia smiled. "No one has ever asked me these questions. I am not sure that even I know the answers." "Excuse me, Madame, I ' "No, no. It's all right. In fact, I like it. It's... Reassuring." "You like to be reassured?" "Yes." "But why, Madame? You are forgive me, beautiful, and wealthy and ' "Not really. Neither." "But look..." Guillaume gestured with outstretched hand to the messy parlour. Sonia blushed. "Yes... But we are not rich, I promise you. And I am certainly not beautiful." "But ' "Ssh. Please. I know. My mother used to tell me my best feature was my feet." Sonia laughed. "Can you imagine?" Guillaume also laughed. "Perhaps she did not mean that. Perhaps ' "Now we will talk about something else." "But, Madame, tell me one thing. Why is it that you need to be reassured? If I was like you I would wake up every day and thank God for everything he has given me. I would not need to be told every day how fortunate I was. I would still remember from the day before!" Sonia began to laugh. "You are right, Guillaume. It is a mystery, an utter mystery. All I can say is that a plant needs water not once in its life but every evening, sometimes more often." "Yes, Madame, but a plant ' "I know. It was not a precise comparison." Sonia took up her hat and prepared to leave. Richard would be waking from a sleep made heavy by the wine he would have taken with his new business friend; it was a slow and fractious time of the afternoon, before the cool of evening brought a change of clothes and a quickening of pace. She pictured him stirring, licking his dry lips and splashing water from the washstand into his face. There was a loud knocking on the parlour door, which Guillaume went to open. Sonia, with her back to the door, recognised the English voice. "I'm looking for my wife ah, there she is. What on earth are you doing here?" Sonia rose to greet her husband. To her annoyance, she found that her face was hot with shame. "Hello, Richard. This is where we come sailing. I ' "I know it is. They told me at the hotel. Why aren't you sailing?" "Guillaume's grandfather has the boat. I don't think he will be coming back until evening, so Guillaume kindly offered me a glass of water before I set off." "Sonia, what on earth do you think you are doing?" "I told you, Richard. How was your luncheon?" Richard snorted. "The bounder didn't come. Wretched man. Made an ass of me, sitting there on my own at the best table with the confounded waiter hovering over me." "I am sorry. What a disappointment. I imagine ' "I think you imagine far too much. It is not your place to imagine, it is your place to be with your husband. Go back to the hotel at once. I will deal with this young man." Richard's voice was shaking. Sonia had not seen him angry in this way before, yet she sensed that the rage had somehow accumulated in him and felt uneasy that she had been responsible for making it overflow. "Guillaume has behaved with perfect propriety, so please..." Her voice faltered then died, as Richard came towards her. "Get out of here! Go home." She turned and hurried through the door, without glancing back.

Four

The building blocked the down land view in both directions: low, brick upon brick, some livid, some ochre, stretching from one horizon to the other. In the centre of the monstrous construction was an oddity: a bell tower like that of the cathedral in Siena; and such Italian ate fancy was not what Thomas had expected of the county lunatic asylum. He entered by the guarded double iron gates where the coach had set him down and walked slowly up the avenue in a mild September afternoon. It was Sunday, and he had been told to report at three o'clock before the arrival of new patients at tea-time. He clasped a leather bag with his spare clothes in one hand and, in the other, the book he had been reading on the coach, A Manual of Psychological Medicine by Bucknill and Tuke. Around him on the lawns, contained within the high enclosing walls, were specimen trees, some with benches placed beneath them; beyond a pale willow was an ice-house, and beyond that further brick outbuildings, workshops, laundries and what looked to Thomas like the back of pig sties. He walked confidently to the main door of the building, and pulled the bell. A spy hole swivelled, and he saw a single eye inspect him before, with a grinding of numerous locks, half the door was opened. In the entrance hall was a wooden booth with a glass front, in which the porter who let him in had been reading a newspaper by gaslight. Thomas's nostrils twitched at some unfamiliar smell. "Dr. Midwinter. I am the new assistant medical officer. I believe Dr. Faverill is expecting me." "The superintendent's office is down the far end. The name's above the door." The porter spoke with a sceptical edge to his voice, as though not sure if Thomas was who he said he was. Thomas wondered if the man was a former patient. "Shall I?" Thomas gestured towards the corridor on his left. The porter looked at him, then said, "Walk outside the building. You don't have no keys yet. Take the green door at the end." It was, although Thomas could not have said why, a relief to be in the open air again. He walked along the flank of the asylum, on a gravelled path; at his feet were half-windows from the basement, barred, their lower lights underground. Occasionally he would go past a ground-floor window with the same arched top as the others, but bricked in. He was reluctant to turn his head to look, and kept his gaze ahead of him until he had reached the end of the wing, where he found the green door at the foot of one of the smaller bell towers Inside, he knocked on a door beside which was Dr. William Faverill's name, painted white on a black background, as his own had been at the foot of his staircase at Cambridge. He remembered the time he had climbed his college wall in the small hours after a visit to Newmarket to find that some vandal had painted out the letters 'winter' from his name and substituted 'night'. He knocked. Faverill's office was full of smoke from a pile of coal in a small grate, beside which sat a woman in a shawl, rocking back and forth in her chair. "Midwinter. Yes, of course." Faverill waved his arm towards a vacant seat. He was a gaunt, tallish man, with fair hair parted in the middle and swept into two curling wings above the ear; his beard was sparse on the upper cheeks, but dense and grey beneath the jaw. He looked at Thomas over the top of his spectacles, then through them, then peeled them off his face altogether as he sat down. "You are very welcome, sir. Matilda, this is Dr. Midwinter, who has come to assist us in our mission. Dr. Midwinter, this is Matilda who helps me with all manner of details, domestic and medical. Forgive the smoke. It is our first fire of the year and I fear the chimney needs sweeping. Let me see." He picked up a piece of paper from the desk. "Cambridge. Edinburgh. Then St. Bartholomew's? Is that right? Is that where you completed your studies?" "Yes." "Very good. Commendable. You will enjoy meeting my colleague, the deputy superintendent, Mr. McLeish. A Scot. From which town is he, Matilda? A Fifer, I think. Not a real Highlander, though I have never been certain of Scotch tribal terms. An inspired people, though, and with a medical tradition second to none. McLeish is the lungs and liver of the asylum." Thomas wondered who the heart was, but found it difficult to concentrate on what Faverill was saying because he was too interested in the rocking figure by the fire. If the porter was not a former lunatic, then this woman certainly exhibited florid symptoms of insanity, muttering to herself and grinding the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other. The office was lined with bookshelves, and Thomas narrowed his eyes in an effort to read their titles through the smoke. Apart from some standard texts on anatomy and two editions of Bucknill and Tuke, there seemed to be little of any medical, let alone psychological nature; most of the space was taken up with books on botany, geography and philosophy. There was even, Thomas noticed, a shelf of novels by Sir Walter Scott. Well, he thought, psychiatry is a young discipline; that is part of its excitement. "Now we shall have some tea," said Faverill. "I find it beneficial to have a refreshing cup before the arrival of our new patients. After the reception process is complete I sometimes take something a little stronger. Perhaps you would care to join me then. No, I have another idea. As your introduction to the asylum I shall allow you to write up the new arrivals. McLeish shall do the men and you may do the women." Faverill busied himself with a kettle and teapot. "Numbers," he said, 'that is the difficulty that is facing us, Midwinter. In a word. Numbers." Thomas was surprised that it was Faverill, not Matilda, who made the tea, but she seemed to expect nothing less, and took her steaming cup from him, as her due, when it was ready. Faverill sat in the rather beautiful wooden chair behind the desk, its walnut curve accommodating his frock-coated back, as he stretched out and placed his buttoned boots on the blotter. "Doubtless you are aware, Midwinter, that families once looked after their lunatics at home, but the great men of our calling I hesitate to call it a profession until it is recognised as such by our equals have demonstrated beyond contradiction that a well-run asylum can offer restorative benefits unavailable even to the most well-meaning family. Our fellow-countryman Samuel Tuke, among others, has shown that with kindness, a firm hand and tasks to occupy the mind most people can be helped in their affliction. The word asylum, let us never forget, denotes safety." He sipped his tea. "Oh yes," said Thomas, pleased to have a chance to show his enthusiasm. "I visited the York Retreat and was most impressed by what Mr. Tuke had established there. It was almost a model society, though of course its citizens were... Eccentric' He did not look towards the fireside. "But the so-called moral treatment is certainly the best palliative that exists until such time as we can establish the aetiology of the different diseases." He felt pleased with the rigorous way he had expressed himself; his superior would surely see in him an assistant of entirely scientific mind, not someone whose first interest had been in play-going. "Er... Yes," said Faverill. "Very possibly. But numbers, you see, Midwinter. That's the thing. We are nigh on two thousand. Your appointment here as additional medical officer has been authorised by the county council, but it was granted only after considerable pleading yes, I think pleading is not too strong a word on my part." "Do you mean ' "I mean, that sometimes I find myself the captain of a stricken vessel. I have the stars by which to navigate; I try never to take my eyes from the heavens, because I know the constellations. I know the direction of our landfall. But on bad days I feel that we are holed below the waterline. Do you understand me?" "I think so," said Thomas. A clearing in the smoke had just revealed the poetry of Tennyson and Wordsworth on a shelf behind the desk. "Your task one of your many tasks, I may say, but perhaps the most important single one is to help me never to take my eyes from the stars in the sky." Faverill stood up and walked round the desk. He smiled at Thomas. "Let us go then, you and I, Dr. Midwinter. We shall walk the length of the building, at the other end of which I shall introduce you to Mr. McLeish. Matilda, the keys if you please." Faverill put his arm round Thomas's shoulder and ushered him towards the door, clasping in his other hand a large iron ring that Matilda had passed him, from which hung a dozen keys. From the inner vestibule, Faverill unlocked a double, iron-barred door which gave into a low-roofed corridor, whose walls and ceiling were tiled in white and whose floor was made of some kind of asphalt spongy, uneven and disintegrating. There were dim gaslights at intervals of fifty feet or so, though not all were working; a sort of low mist seemed to have gathered from the damp floor, obscuring the way ahead, so that, as far as Thomas could see, the passageway was never-ending. "This side is the ladies' wing," said Faverill, unlocking a smaller door to his left. He gestured Thomas into a large, twilit room with whitewashed, unplastered walls, a brick floor and a fireplace, inactive, with a padlocked wire guard. Thomas estimated that there were about sixty patients. Half a dozen women sat at a plain deal table in the centre of the room, some dressed in black overalls and hobnailed boots, some in bombazine dresses and woollen shawls, a few in clothes they appeared to have stitched for themselves. An elderly, white-haired patient was banging her enamelled tin bowl with a wooden spoon and screeching. Her nearest neighbour was a blank-faced young woman, clearly an idiot, Thomas thought, perhaps also deaf. On a bed behind them lay a woman who panted and moaned and mopped at her face, which even in the gloom Thomas could see was flushed; she appeared to have soiled the bed, though had not noticed in her delirium. Typhoid fever, he thought, with the reflex speed of diagnosis he had been taught in the acute wards; little could be done for her, and it would remit in time. If there had been a meal, most of the women seemed to have finished and returned to their beds or to corners of the room. Some sat with their arms wrapped round their knees, hunched, waiting, rocking; many chattered, though without care for a listener, like rooks calling to an open sky. A small woman with large eyes and ingratiating smile made her way across the room to them. "Hello, Ruth," said Faverill. "This is Dr. Midwinter, my new assistant." Thomas noticed that the woman wore a dress of toughened sailcloth with stitching that might have withstood a force-ten gale; the sleeves were sewn into the side of the dress so that her hands were allowed little movement. She was able, nonetheless, to stroke Faverill's sleeve as she spoke to him. "Do me right now, sir," she said, and her voice had an undulating Welsh accent. "A little bit of what's good goes a long way, as the plough boy said to his master. When I was a girl, you know, they used to come from all parts just to look at me. Some of them wanted to touch me, but I said, "No!" I was never like that. I was a proper girl from a good family. Twelve of us there were and went to chapel every day and twice on Sunday. So don't think that of me. Don't tell me you think I'm like that, now, please. When my father comes to collect me, now, he'll put you right. Have you heard from him yet? Did he write to you like he promised?" She gripped Faverill's arm with her separated hands. "Don't believe what they say about me, will you? I'm not that sort of lady, you should know that by now." "It's all right, Ruth," said Faverill, freeing himself and moving away. "As you know very well, I have the highest regard for you." "And you!" she said, turning towards Thomas. "Wouldn't you like to now? I can see from your eyes that you would. You filthy vermin!" Thomas felt Faverill's hand on his elbow, moving him down the ward. "The ways of gentleness," said Faverill vaguely. "What?" "It was a phrase used by Pinel. It describes the path we try to follow." On either side of their slow progress were beds on which lay women with conditions that made them twitch or shake; some cried out as they trembled; one appeared to be at the start of an epileptic fit. Next to her sat a fat girl, no more than fifteen, with mongoloid features and filth-matted hair. "Ruth," said Faverill, 'is a good woman, I believe. She is educated, and she worked quite happily as a clerk in a tobacco company for some years." "What brought her to you?" "Mania." "Do you have no more detail of her illness?" "My dear Midwinter, we have more detail than we can record. The woman is a fountain of detail. For the purposes of the asylum and what we can do for her, however, she falls clearly into the category of mania. You are of course familiar with the categories?" "Yes, sir," said Thomas. "Melancholia ' "She is seldom melancholic. She has none of the chronic symptoms, no more than you or I." "Idiocy." "Quite the opposite, I should say." "What do we know of her heredity?" "Enough to say that there is no degenerative trend. Which leaves dementia. I have occasionally thought, Midwinter, that her mania has had elements of dementia in it. But it is sufficiently concentrated on one thing, what one might call the amorous ' "Erotomania?" Faverill sucked air over his teeth. "I recoil from diagnosing any lady so simply, but there is a certain consistency to her mental process." He picked his way with skilled elegance down the narrow space between the beds. "I shall show you the rooms we are proudest not to use. Come." A back door from the main ward opened into a bathing area, stone floored, with three doorless cubicles. An attendant sat on a rush-seated chair by the entrance and Thomas wondered why she was sitting when there seemed so much to be done among the sixty or seventy beds that had been packed into the main part of the ward. From the bathroom, Faverill pushed open another door into a small cell with ironwork over its window; the walls and floor were padded with canvas from which horsehair was spilling. "I am pleased to say that we have not had recourse to this room since I have been here. We leave the door unlocked. I made it my mission when I arrived never to resort to mechanical restraint. I was much influenced as a young man by a book written by a Mr. Conolly, an English alieni st on this very matter. Perhaps you have heard his name?" "I have read his book, sir. It is inspiring." "Indeed so," said Faverill. "It is one of the stars by which I navigate." As they closed the door on the padded room, they were timidly approached by a young woman of about twenty years old, neater in her dress than most, but with troubled brown eyes. "Sirs," she said, 'if I could ask you... I am going crazy for want of something to do. I am locked in here for so many hours each day and I had the misfortune not to be taught to read when I was young. Not that there's books anyway' "You have the airing court for exercise?" said Faverill. "Yes, sir, I do and right glad we are of it." She had the accent of the county, Thomas noticed, but not the upward lilt of the voice it normally engendered; her tone was melancholic, and she appeared terrified that she had exceeded her rights and might at any moment, at the wave of a doctor's hand, be confined more strictly. "I shall speak to the attendant," said Faverill, 'and see if she cannot find you some work, on the farm or in the laundry. Should you like that?" "Oh yes, sir. Yes, please, sir. "The girl's eyes filled with tears, but she was not smiling. "You will not forget me, will you, sirs? My name is Daisy' "I shall not forget," said Faverill. Thomas smiled at the young woman as they left, reminding himself to remember her. "What is her diagnosis?" he asked. "I am not familiar with the young lady," said Faverill. "As I told you, we are close on two thousand now, and more than half are on the female side. You can find her name in the register with her admission notes. McLeish will show you. I suggest you look up her Christian name first because she may not have a surname." "No surname?" "Some have no names at all." Faverill locked the door of the ward behind them, and they were once more in the infinite corridor. Faverill noticed Thomas's stretched, inquiring look as they set off. He smiled. "It is built on an impressive scale, our asylum, is it not?" "Indeed, sir," said Thomas. The gas lamps grew less frequent as they walked on over the asphalt floor. Mingled with the damp that rose beneath their feet was an odour of missed excrement and saturated brick, a redolence of despair. This, with the failing light and the narrowing perspective, combined to give Thomas the impression that he was walking slightly downhill. "Can you imagine," said Faverill,"the total length of passageway in this building?" "I could not easily put a figure to it, sir." "Including the first floor, where one's passage is through the wards themselves, we have six miles of corridors." Thomas could think of nothing to say. "Remarkable," said Faverill, 'is it not? What a feat of engineering. It contains more than ten million bricks and was built in less than two years. And what generous intentions it bespeaks towards the unfortunate!" Thomas could still not find anything to say; in any case, his mouth was dry, his throat was closed. "In the circumstances," Faverill continued, 'you will understand if I do not take you into every ward. We should need several days. This corridor alone is more than one third of a mile long." "One third..." Thomas managed words at last. "Indeed," said Faverill. "We believe it to be the longest corridor in Europe." After fifteen minutes' walking, broken only by Faverill's occasional unlocking of a door, they reached the centre of the building. Through an internal window they could see the hall with the wooden booth where Thomas had first entered. The porter smirked from behind the glass partition. "Good afternoon, Grogan," called Faverill, moving smartly onwards to a set of double iron-barred doors. "Now for the men," he said to Thomas, with a faint but noticeable dulling to the brightness of his manner. The doors swung to behind them. "Grogan enjoys Sundays," said Faverill as they plunged down into the gloom again. "He is allowed to take supper with McLeish. When we have admissions, he takes pleasure in seeing the unfortunates as they arrive, knowing they will always outnumber those we release. It reassures him in his sense of singularity. He came here fourteen years ago, raving and incontinent. He spent six weeks naked in the safe room, covered in his own filth." "And how was he cured?" "My predecessor gave him henbane, camphor, morphine, I believe. I stopped that. I set him to work in the gardens and the farm. He revealed an extraordinary brain. He can calculate and keep records better than I can." "Should he not have returned to his family?" "We did ask." Faverill coughed. "I am sorry to say that they declined. He prefers living in the asylum in any case. If he goes outside the walls he hears voices. I use a number of the saner patients in positions of responsibility. The attendant you saw in the women's ward, for instance. She came to us three years ago with acute melancholia. She is paid a little now to help the other attendants. She is not a very active person, I'm afraid, but she is intelligent in her way and they tell me they can rely on her. She is very strong. You would not think it from so small a woman, but she can carry the dining table on her back." Faverill pulled a watch from his waistcoat pocket, but it was too dark to see it until they reached the next gas lamp. "I have time to show you one men's ward," said Faverill. "McLeish shall have to show you the rest tomorrow. Where are we? Let me see. Number Twelve." He glanced at Thomas's young face in the half-light. "No. Perhaps not. Number Fourteen, I think. Yes, I think that might be better." He fumbled at the ring of keys and opened a door on their left. The room was similar in shape and design to the women's ward they had visited, but with an asphalt floor and high, unopenable windows. A few men were playing whist, surrounded by half a dozen onlookers; many were walking up and down, talking to themselves or to the reeking air. It was striking how properly dressed most of them were, in frock coats, suits, white neckerchiefs, pinned stocks, white shirts with collars; so at first only the untrimmed beards and the lace less boots marred the impression of normality. As Thomas moved gingerly into the dense atmosphere, his senses took in other strangenesses. A gentleman with neatly parted grey hair and gold tie ping was masturbating at the dining table; opposite him, oblivious to his behaviour, sat a clerkly looking man, bespectacled, with eyebrows thick as moustaches, who moved his head slowly up and down in time to an incantation he endlessly repeated, which, to Thomas's ears, sounded like, "Di-ater. Di-ater." Round them in the tea-time air rotated boot makers and porters, domestic servants, glaziers and painters, drapers, fishmongers, chimneysweeps, watchmakers and nurserymen; adrift from their former selves, they argued, jabbered or stood motionless, listening to absent voices. Their experience of living, their awareness of the moment, was so individual, it seemed to Thomas, that it could find no true expression, let alone response or comprehension; it was so individual, in fact, that it could only be seen as part of a mass a 'mass of lunatics', he reflected, the most heterogeneous entity you could imagine, a perfect oxymoron. Most men seemed too lost in their thoughts to register the doctors' presence in the room, though one man with a beard down to his chest wrapped his arms over his head and retreated to a corner, whimpering, crouched, looking back occasionally through his hands at the intruders. Faverill gestured to an attendant to come over. "Tyson," he said, 'this is Dr. Midwinter, our new assistant medical officer." Tyson held out his hand, and Thomas noticed the bottom of a tattoo at his wrist as the sleeve rode up; he was a swarthy, muscular man with an unsmiling face. Faverill gestured to the dining table. "Can you stop that man doing that? His organ appears to have become blistered." "It bleeds," said Tyson. "He won't leave it alone." "Have you given him potassium bromide?" Yes. And they put some ointment on the organ too." "Liquor of Epispasticus," said Faverill to Thomas. "No wonder it is blistered. Have you tried sewing up the front of his trousers?" "Yes," said Tyson. "He just takes them down." "Does he ever find... Relief?" "No. We could use the strait waistcoat Nothing else can stop him." "Then you had better leave him. Does it distress the others?" Tyson pursed his lips and shook his head. "Not here, sir. They have other things on ' "Yes. Quite. There is the most terrible stench in here, Tyson." "It's this floor, isn't it? It absorbs it. Them that shits themselves." Faverill began to edge away. "Do something. Find a mop." As Tyson went reluctantly to the bathroom, Faverill said, "He used to be a merchant seaman. He has no training, but he has his uses. Good afternoon." He spoke to a neatly dressed man, grey-haired, with a polite manner. "Doctor Faverill, is it not? Might I beg a moment of your time among these poor lunatics? My brother has written to me, do you see, a long letter from the War Office where he works. As you know, I am a man of considerable means though through no fault of my own I am unable to pay my debts at the moment. Mr. Gladstone, who is a close friend of my wife's family, has graciously invited me to submit my patent for a new kind of warship, which was to have been commissioned next year. The editor of the Pall Mall Gazette has commissioned a lengthy article from me. I should very much like you to cast an eye over it." Thomas felt Faverill's hand on his elbow again. They had to cross the room to reach the door back into the corridor, and Thomas sensed as they made their way through the press that something had changed in the atmosphere. They walked through the moaning and the shouting, with hands reaching out to them. Thomas bit his lip and remembered holding Jacques in his arms on the Deauville shore. From the corner of his eye, he saw Tyson wrestle someone down onto a bed; he felt his sleeve being pulled back roughly, wrenched himself free, and they were outside again, in the endless corridor. As he inhaled deeply, Thomas realised he had tried not to breathe during his time in the ward. Faverill consulted his watch. "Very well, Dr. Midwinter. It is now time for us to see Mr. McLeish. I know he will be looking forward to meeting you. We have ten minutes to get to the other end of the men's wing from here, so no dawdling, please." As they tunnelled onward, past the moans and cries that reached them from behind locked doors, Thomas felt afraid. Suppose I become separated from myself, he thought: the warship designer was once as steady and sane as I am. He brought to mind more homely images as he walked on: of Sonia sitting on his bed that cold Christmas at Torrington, inventing a profession for him; he pictured Jacques, his black eyebrows driven to an apex as he puzzled over some point of physiology before the light of victory came into his eyes. It felt important to keep these pictures near the front of his mind. McLeish's office was, in design, the mirror image of Faverill's, but it had no printed books, Thomas noticed. Instead, there were several ledgers on a shelf by the window and two new ones, leather-bound, open on the desk. McLeish was bald, short and meticulously dressed; the shine on his toe caps was like a reflection of his polished head. After a few pleasantries, McLeish said to Thomas, "The new patients will be arriving in ten minutes' time. The Superintendent tells me that you are to book in the women." "Yes, if you will show me what to do." Although McLeish's Scots accent was mild, he pronounced the word 'women' as 'woman', as though there were one in particular that Thomas was to see. As he stood and gathered up the two open ledgers, a white bull terrier, hitherto concealed, heaved itself out from behind the desk. McLeish fastened a chain to its collar and went towards the door. The three men walked back along the outside of the building to the entrance hall beneath the main tower, where Faverill left them and hurried back towards his own wing and towards whatever 'something stronger' was awaiting him. "Did you meet Grogan yet?" said McLeish as they went up to the main door. "The porter? Yes." McLeish unlocked the door. "We tried to discharge the little bastard last year but his family refused to take him back. In you go." Grogan had set up two long trestle tables in the hall, behind each of which sat two attendants with papers and ink. "That chair's for you," said McLeish. "You take their papers, you classify, and the attendant will give them a ward number. Don't be long about it." Thomas said, "I am going to wait outside for a moment." The September dusk was falling swiftly on the parkland as he looked up the avenue towards the guarded gates where he had himself come in. A fine rain was beginning to drift across the lawns on the first winds of autumn. It was all unreal. What fate, what loops of time or circumstance, he thought, decree that I stand here? It might as well be me descending now from the carriage that has brought these people from the railway station. In another life that I have lived but cannot recall, cannot quite touch with my mind, perhaps it was me; and in another time, it could be me again. As our real world runs parallel to that of these poor lunatics, to be seen but not inhabited, so other times and lives are separated from ours only by the dimmest veil, through which an awareness more developed, more evolved than mine could reach out. The lunatics began to walk down the avenue, their heads low, some supported or cajoled by family, some resolutely alone. Many were in the clothes of the workhouse, some brightened with colourful additions, gifts or remembrances of home. For most of them, the journey was almost over: another hundred yards of park and drizzle, then the doors would swing shut behind them. In the terraces or slums, the farm cottages, shops or houses that had once been home, this evening would begin with candles, lamps or gaslight; there might be Bible reading and sewing; there might be strong drink and violence; but from all this and much more that passed for normal they were now removed. In a place of safety, in the name of comfort, they were hereafter free to relinquish their struggles with the life outside and battle only with their several realities. Attendants brought the women one by one to Thomas when he took his seat behind the trestle. He was handed two doctors' reports for each patient. Some were cautious and detailed: "Patient imagines herself to have been hypnotised. She declares she hears voices, and instances one as saying that her brother has been shot. They order her to carry out various acts. She declares there is electricity in the air that acts in her. Her appetite is poor and she has become anaemic' He looked up and saw a woman in a black dress, half bald, with strong features, and hands like a man's. "Do you know where you are?" he asked. "What is your name?" She had been transferred from a private asylum where she lay with sheets over her head, talking to voices in a state of agitated depression. "How do you feel? We are going to make you better." "Classification," muttered the female attendant on his right. Thomas sighed. "Dementia." "Refractory?" "I cannot say after one minute with the patient." "Looks like it. Look at the hair. Put her in Twelve B." "B?" "Basement. Refractories. If it turns out she's not, so much the better. They need some quiet ones even if it's just to help muck out the room." "All right. What is your name?" "Miss Whitman. Senior attendant, ladies." She spoke with a genteel, enunciated precision. "Dr. Midwinter." "I know. You have another customer." "When can I see the first lady again?" "Whenever you want, young man. There's no appointments books here!" Miss Whitman let out a deep laugh. "Come along now." Some doctors' reports were more outspoken: "Acute maniacal excitement. Says she is pursued by animals and passes her nights in what she calls "a sweat of death". Uses foul language and displays her private parts. Clothes dishevelled. Appearance that of a lunatic' "How old are you?" said Thomas. "Do you have children?" "They murdered my baby in the hospital. Stuck a needle through his throat till he choked on blood." "Have you been in a hospital before?" "Of course! That's what done for me." Thomas was aware of McLeish barking out a single word every thirty seconds to his left as the queue of men diminished in front of his table: "Melancholia. Ward Fifteen. Epilepsy. Nine." His dog was snoring loudly. Thomas turned to his attendant. "Do we have a ward for puerperal mania?" "We don't say "mania" in front of them, it gives them ideas," said Miss Whitman. "Just a number. Put her in Five." "Not Basement?" "Wait and see." "Before you go." He looked down at the papers and saw her name. "Mildred. Do you have a husband, Mildred? A family? When you feel better you can go and see them. Did you know that?" The woman laughed as she was led away into the corridor. Thomas watched her recede, slowly, into the narrowing, darkening distance. Another patient was waiting. Thomas found that each time he looked up from the doctors' reports to the woman herself, he hoped to meet the eye of understanding, to look into the face of someone whose awareness of the gloomy hall in which she stood was something like his own. Each time he was disappointed, and the notes he read, while full of individual incident, delusion of almost comic peculiarity, began to take on a strangely familiar air. "Convinced that a murderer is after her... incoherence of manner... thinks she is pregnant (which she is not)... careless and filthy about her person... injured herself with a bread knife... profound melancholia... believes God is coming for her... crimes she has not committed." "Classification!" "Ward Eight," said Thomas quietly.... Unless we have a ward number for Unknown." Alerted by some peculiarity, he stood up to examine the next patient, a girl of about twenty with a red bow in her hair, clear skin, full skirt and beige bodice, sweat-stained beneath the armpits. "Where are the notes for this patient?" "There are no notes. She's workhouse. No family' Thomas laid his hand on the young woman's arm. "What is your name?" She pulled her arm back, but did not speak. "How old are you? May I touch your face? I promise I won't hurt. There. I didn't hurt you, did I?" She shook her head. "We must give you a name," said Thomas,"otherwise you will have no record and I fear you will disappear for ever down that corridor. What name would you like?" The woman said nothing, and Thomas peered closely into her fixed eyes. "Shall I choose a name for you? Will you be called... Mary?" He touched her sleeve again to show her whom he was addressing; and very slightly, she inclined her head. "Idiocy. Five," he heard from McLeish's table. "Aha. My final customer. This is a record time. It is not yet eight o'clock." Thomas looked over Mary's shoulder where his line of waiting women stretched out into the night. "Classification," said Miss Whitman sharply. "Mary," said Thomas. "Tell me how many fingers I am holding before your face." Mary lowered her head and mumbled some inaudible word. Thomas saw that the top of her scalp was raw where she had scratched it. "Dr. Midwinter! Will you please tell me what to write down for this woman!" "This woman," said Thomas, taking her hand as he spoke, 'is blind." It was half past one when he finally finished writing up his new admissions. The patients themselves had been classified by ten, but he wanted, beneath the pasted-in notes of the examining doctors, to note down his own impressions in the ledger, while they were still clear in his mind. One of the problems was the simple question of identity. The majority of the women he admitted would not be released and most of them would receive no medical consultation while they were in the asylum. In addition to Faverill and himself, there was one other doctor, also with the rank of assistant medical officer. His name was Stimpson, and Thomas was due to meet him in the morning. McLeish, it had transpired over a rushed supper in the kitchen, was not a doctor. After a spell in the county regiment, he had been the warehouse manager at a porcelain factory in Stoke-on-Trent, where he had shown unusual ability as an administrator. He had been hired by Faverill's predecessor on the recommendation of the governing body, who were reluctant to pay for medical expertise. One doctor to six hundred patients was a not abnormal ratio in the English county asylums, they concluded, and while Faverill's predecessor had the help of Stimpson, it was thought that a proven warehouseman would be more helpful than a third alieni st Even with the most rigorous schedule and the briefest of consultations, it was clear to Thomas that he would not be able to follow the course of six hundred illnesses, let alone devote to them the long-term observation they required. From what McLeish told him, it did not appear in any case that patients were assigned to any medical officer in particular. "Here, Captain." McLeish threw a piece of fat to his dog, who sat beneath the table, while he, Grogan and Thomas were completing their supper. "Am I at least free to visit whichever patient I wish?" said Thomas. McLeish laughed. "They don't expect to be visited. They are not here to tell you the story of their lives, young man. In fact, it is because they cannot tell you the story of their lives that they have been sent to us!" "But I should like to find out more." "You will find your time is full enough without trying to interfere with individual cases. There are six miles of madmen to be looked after. I think you will find that work enough." Grogan held out his glass to be refilled from the jug of beer. "Are you prescribing hyoscine?" said Thomas. "I believe it has had some good results." "What is it?" "It is a form of henbane, mightily toxic, but carefully administered it can bring relief in mania, I believe. Or paraldehyde? It is a sleeping medicine." "I don't know," said McLeish. "Ask Stimpson. Is paraldehyde the one that makes them smell? We don't go in for treatments a great deal, that much I can tell you. From the last papers I had from the apothecary, I recall that the number of male patients taking physic was sixty-five out of nine-hundred-odd, and among the ladies it was seventy-nine out of almost eleven hundred." "So that's about..." "It is seven per cent." "And for the others? What treatment are they receiving?" "They are receiving the treatment of the asylum," said McLeish. "They are given a safe home, free food and lodging; they are given tasks to perform in the grounds, the farm and the workshops. They are given exercise in the airing courts if they are not fit to work. They are given entertainments and distractions. Next Saturday evening they will have a visit from the Temperance Hand Bell Ringers." Thomas did not wish to provoke McLeish, but he found his pride as a doctor a little scuffed by McLeish's warehouse manner. "Do you not think we might do more from a medical point of view?" he said. '"We are an asylum not a hospital," " said McLeish. '"We are a hospital only in occasional instances, but we are an asylum always." "Is that your belief?" "Yes," said McLeish. "And not only mine. I was quoting from the report of the chairman of the Committee ofVisitorsYou would do well not to forget what the word asylum means. From the Latin: a without, sylutn cure. Get down, Captain." Thomas suppressed the pedantic correction that occurred to him. "I accept what you say, Mr. McLeish. I respect your experience here. But I shall follow my own hopes in this establishment." "You can follow what you like, young doctor. We have our successes, our cures, do we not, Billy?" Grogan nodded over his beer. "Some people do leave the asylum and return to their families. However, the weight of experience is the other way. More than ten years ago a state hospital in New York made it a point of policy that no patient should be discharged. They gave themselves the honourable task of acting as custodians. Most of the hospitals in the United States have begun to follow that example, and I think you will find that our American cousins have the habit of always being a wee bit in advance of us." Thomas left them to it and returned to his room to complete his notes on the admissions. He had been given a cubicle between wards Seven and Six on the female side; the attendant who normally occupied it had been discharged when she became pregnant and was yet to be replaced. Faverill promised Thomas a better room in one of the towers, above the babel, when one became available. In addition to the narrow iron bed, there was a chest, a shelf and a writing table, on which Thomas had completed his notes by the light of an oil lamp. He put down his pen, rubbed his eyes and sat down on the edge of the bed. The question of identity. He could make small pencil sketches of each patient in the ledger, but it was hardly scientific. Who looked at the books, anyway? McLeish probably. The Committee ofVisitorsThe Commissioners in Lunacy. They would not want to see Thomas's un gifted draughtsmanship. He would have to write down brief, coded mnemonics to himself: red face, tremor, stench, scar; he could perhaps do it in Latin, in which language he would certainly escape detection by McLeish. Or photographs. Would Faverill permit photography? He had heard of an alieni st in London who took pictures of the patients in his asylum because he was an amateur of physiognomy, who wished to demonstrate the importance of race, inter-breeding and cranial phenomena in the process of morbid degeneration. He himself might use photographs to a simpler end, he thought. He took a wash bag from his case and went quietly out, across Ward Seven to the bathroom, where he scrubbed his face and teeth. Back in his cubicle, he undressed, put on a night shirt and pulled up the blanket over him. To his ears, from the wards on either side, came the moans and jabberings of shipwreck. Oh Sonia, my sister, he thought. Oh Jacques, my dear friend. He tried to sleep, but his head was filled with the faces of lunatics, their palsied hands, their shattered eyes. There was a meeting after breakfast in Faverill's office, and here Thomas met the third alieni st Stimpson, a black-jawed man of forty or so who smoked cigars and was interested in experimenting with different sedatives. He proposed that by default each patient should be dosed daily, unless obviously in the category of idiot or epileptic when such medicine would be either useless or harmful. Support was lukewarm from McLeish in that he regarded his own methods of management as sufficient, and from Faverill in that the proposal lacked any diagnostic element. At the end of the meeting, also attended by Matilda, rocking by the fire, Miss Whitman, the senior ladies' attendant, and by Tyson from the men's side, the staff went their different ways. "Come with me, Midwinter," Faverill said, and showed him to the back of the building, where three high walls, together with the rear of the asylum, made a square that had been laid to grass. "Have you ever visited France?" said Faverill. "Yes. I went with my sister to Deauville and I have a friend who is studying medicine in Paris. I have been to visit him." "There is a pleasant hillside, a sort of barrow, I suppose, that overlooks the River Aisne. It is called the Chemin des Dames because it is where the ladies of the court of Louis XIV used to take their exercise. I sometimes think of it when I come into this airing court. Alas, the view to the river here is blocked by the wall, but I feel it is important for the women to have something charming to look at." In the centre of the square was a decorative iron arch, up which wist aria was being encouraged; around it was a marquetry of gravelled paths and triangular beds with ankle-high box at the edge. A simple lawn enclosed this cultivated centrepiece, stretching to a path that went round the perimeter of the square; the lawn was spotted with dandelions and grew ragged at the edges where it ran into the brick. "One or two of them have cultivated flowers in the beds," said Faverill. "We cannot give them sharp implements, so it is a little haphazard. But I think it pleases them." "It is admirable," said Thomas. "Very pleasant. And do the men have something similar?" "Yes, a similar space, but they grow vegetables. We wanted to instal a greenhouse for them, but alas... The glass, you see." There was the sound of locks being turned in a battered, green-painted door and twenty or so 'ladies' were ushered out into the airing court. An old white-haired woman, of the kind Thomas had seen a thousand times behind the counter of a confectioner's shop or pulling a grandchild along the street, walked to a decided spot on the grass, squatted down and defecated. None of the women spoke to one another; most seemed to have locomotive routines that involved pacing round the perimeter at speed, with stretched, unnatural stride or else making intricate but repeated patterns of steps: two to the left, one back, one to the right; and repeat. Two kept up shrill unending narratives; one stretched her neck and screamed. There was no horticulture that Thomas could see. The men's airing court, to which Faverill next led him, was similar in the extent to which each man stood apart from the others. None attempted to communicate, and Thomas wondered if they noticed one another. One sat on the grass and rocked himself, with his temples between his hands, to an angle of about forty-five degrees each way; there were bald patches on the sides of his head where the insides of his wrists had rubbed away the hair. There was a rumbling of menace that had not been present on the female side, and when a stout, bearded man grabbed a vacant-looking youth by the throat and began to beat his head against the wall, a wail of fear ran through the court. The rocking man rocked harder and moaned under his breath; the striders at the edge strode faster, looking more fixedly ahead, and those measuring out their patterned steps did so with a whimpering precision that suggested that their safety depended on it. A scholarly-looking man of sixty or so put his hand down his trousers, pulled out the faeces that he found there and anxiously began to stuff them into his mouth, glancing guiltily this way and that as he did so. Two attendants took away the miscreant, and one of them gave the half-throttled youth a stick of liquorice. Faverill, who had a report to write, told Thomas to explore the grounds and the farm at his leisure and to take note of what he saw. "Come and report to me at five o'clock in my office when Matilda shall make us a cup of tea. A charming creature, is she not?" "Yes, sir," said Thomas. In Ward Four on the ladies' side he found Daisy, the young woman who had accosted him and Faverill the day before. His eyes met her impatient gaze as soon as he unlocked the door: she was sitting at the table in the middle of the room and sprang up when he entered. Thomas smiled. "Steady! I had not forgotten. First I need to tell someone that I am taking you." He signed a daybook at the request of an attendant then told Daisy to come with him, which she did, following so close to his heels that she tripped herself and stumbled as they left. When they found themselves in the open air, Daisy gave a jump of elation, and held on hard to Thomas's arm, as though she feared someone might separate them and shove her back into the reeking atmosphere of the ward. "How long have you been in the asylum?" he asked. "I don't exactly know. I lost count of time. I've seen two Christmases here. We do it up nice at Christmas, all the wards. Nothing you can do with that corridor, though." They were walking through the grounds, up towards the workshops. "And where were you before that?" "I was in service, but they didn't need me so I was chucked out. I went to work in a pub, which is what I done when I was a little girl. My ma used to take me round and I did tricks for the customers, turn cartwheels, sing songs and suchlike. Then they'd give us a few pennies at closing time. This time I was seventeen and I was arrested for... For something I didn't understand what he was on about. Moral something. I got a fine from the magistrate but I didn't have no money. And my ma was dead so I was in the workhouse then, and it sort of drives you mad that place." Daisy's contralto was more animated than on the previous day; there was something in her voice and manner that Thomas found charming. "I see," he said. "Have you been to the farm here? Or the laundry?" "No. Never been out of Ward Four, except the airing court. They wouldn't let me go because they said I was... I don't know' "I have not been able to find your notes," said Thomas. "I expect it is in there. Do you have a surname?" "My ma never told me because she wasn't married, so I don't know. Her name was Wilkins. But no one ever called me that, just Daisy." The redbrick outbuildings of the asylum were at the top of the gentle slope, most of them ranged about a rectangular yard; the layout reminded Thomas a little of the boarding school he had attended in Yorkshire. "All right, Daisy. We shall find out together what lies behind these walls. You can tell me more about yourself while we look round. You decide which place you might like to work and I shall see if I can arrange it." The metal and carpentry workshops were staffed entirely by men, who looked bewildered to be interrupted at their work by a doctor and a girl. The tailoring, upholstering and shoe making was also done by men; so, of the buildings on the hillside, only the laundry was left. The atmosphere inside was shrill and tense. A few weeks earlier, a patient had drowned herself in the cold rinsing tank, and the number of attendants was higher here than in the other workrooms large, muscular women in uniform black who kept watch over the steaming vats and the red-faced lunatics who struggled back and forth with tubs of washing balanced on their heads. Thomas felt Daisy's fingers grip his arm; she let out a small whinny of fear. Attached to the washing, drying and ironing rooms was a needlework studio, which, despite its vast size and the number of women employed in it, had a calmer atmosphere. The farm and the brewery were also reserved to male patients, so Daisy's choice, Thomas explained when they had finished their tour, was needlework, kitchens or helping on the ward. "I must get out of that place," she said. "Anyway, that Miss Whitman, she don't like me, she wouldn't let me help. Can I work for you, doctor, like what that girl does for Dr. Faverill?" "I could do with a secretary, or a clerk, someone to help me with the books." "I can't read, can I? What's the bloody use? You must have known, you..." "It's all right, Daisy. Be calm. Perhaps someone can teach you to read and write. Calm yourself. Don't cry." The storm of anger passed quickly through Daisy's face, which then resumed its natural look of bovine hopefulness. "Will you teach me?" "No," said Thomas. "I do not have time. My hours must be passed in medical research in doing something to understand the people here. But I shall find someone who will." They were walking down the slope, back towards the great building. "We shall make a deal, Daisy. I shall find you a teacher. You learn to read and write well, then you can come and help me with my books. Until then, it is kitchens or needlework." Thomas knew there was no chance that Daisy would ever be skilled enough to work for him, but the deal still offered her a better life. He turned with some trepidation to see how she would respond. To his surprise, he saw her smile. "Yes, doctor. Here's a bargain too. Take me out of here one evening. I know all the pubs. I would, wouldn't I? Take me out of this place one night, just for an evening out, and I'll tell you what you need to know for your... Whatever you call them, medical researches." Thomas laughed. "My dear Daisy, that would defeat my purpose. I should be dismissed and very likely prosecuted under some bylaw and you would be sent into a refractory ward." "Me and you, we could do it clever, though, so we didn't get found out." "Put the idea out of your mind and just tell me one thing. Sewing or kitchen." "Sewing. It gets me out of this building." "I shall instruct the attendants that you start tomorrow. Good luck, Daisy. I shall come and see how you are getting on." It was one o'clock in the morning before Thomas finally sat down at the table in his cubicle. He pulled the writing paper towards him with the intention of telling Jacques of his experiences, but he felt somehow not ready yet; he needed to be less tired, perhaps, or to have formed a clearer picture of his work. Instead, he wrote: Dear Sonia, How I miss you. How welcome you would be in this extraordinary place. Across the downs you see this building, like an Italian palace, the site of some Great Exhibition, but what it exhibits is chaos and pity. Grand without; but inside, no thought or money has been spent. A group of patients has painted the ceiling in one of the men's wards, sky blue, and even that is some relief to their eyes. Some of the women have pinned up small pictures brought to them by visitors, sentimental scenes of cottages or posies of flowers; it is most affecting to see them look at these or at pictures of children, thinking of what was theirs. How all this would benefit from a Sonia's eye or touch, when instead they are tended by lumpish women (on the ladies' side; men on the men's), some patients themselves, some former patients, none qualified or with an interest in the mentally unwell, many of the type washerwoman, fishwife or what Mama would call 'sulky shop girl The ordinary attendants are paid 22 a year, so even with board, lodging and washing it is not hard to see why such a poor class of person is all that can be employed. My colleagues here are good men, I think. Dr. Faverill, the superintendent, is a man of science and learning, rather grandiloquent, filled with the optimism of our time. He is a believer in our ability to cure, to enlighten, to discover how the mind works. But, goodness, there is a great deal for me to do. This morning I supervised the bathing treatment of some male melancholies. This consisted of their being kept in a bath at a temperature between 92 and 96 degrees while cold water was intermittently poured upon their heads from a watering-can. Some great French alienists recommend cold shower baths of three minutes or more, but a man in a London asylum recently died from the weight of icy water pouring down on him. We have a Turkish bath here also, though it appears to be out of order. I am writing to you from the cubicle in which I am temporarily lodged until the rooms, to which by virtue of my great rank here I am entitled, are redecorated or prepared (Dr. Faverill is unclear on this point) or perhaps just rid of their present occupant. It is past one in the morning and there is utter darkness all round. The governing body has only lately granted the expense of gaslight, and that only partially; so that the corridors (oh, the corridors...) are thus intermittently lit, and some of the wards, but not all; so here, for instance, the attendants are obliged to carry lamps with which to investigate the most outlandish of the night-time noises (the merely bestial are ignored), while elsewhere many with suicidal thoughts or epileptic convulsion are not watched by light at all. I wonder what this enormous building must look like from the outside, as I write; often passers-by do stop on the top road and peer down between the railings, though those going by now must be night-workers, or revellers. They could just make out this vast folly, if you will forgive the word, the million delusions of its inhabitants contained in utter darkness. I am not allowed a holiday until the summer, when I shall return to Torrington. Perhaps you can manage to be there as well. Shall I send you my dates? In the meantime I am allowed one day of rest a week, which is hardly time enough to make the journey. I am anxious to know how things are with you in your fashionable London house and whether you have managed to get to the theatre at all. I send my regards to Richard and my love always to you, dear Sonia; forgive me if I write no more now, I am tired as a dog.

From yr affectionate brother, Thomas

Sonia read the letter as she walked upstairs to the drawing room of her house. She had not been to the theatre for a year; she had not been out in the evening for almost three months since the economy measures imposed by her husband now forbade all such frivolities. Richard Prendergast did himself venture out at night sometimes, but, as he explained to Sonia, his time was spent in cultivating his business acquaintance, so that even the occasional game of baccarat at a Pall Mall club might pay dividends. Sonia had the impression that victory at such games was, in fact, almost their last hope. Five years had passed since her visit to Sir James Bannerman, the expensive gynaecologist, and still there was no sign of an heir. In Richard's mind this was proof that Sonia had failed him; in Sonia's there lingered a doubt, because the act by which children were conceived had become so infrequent. Very occasionally, Richard returned late, flushed and breathing heavily, and made his way into her bedroom. Sonia did not mind these rare and abrupt intrusions; it was part of her duty, seriously undertaken and fully understood at the time (she had not been a particularly naive girl, after all). Men needed certain things and were entitled to them; that was the arrangement; and even to be held roughly, for a short time, and then, when her function was performed, left to sleep alone, sometimes seemed better than not being held at all. Thomas's letter amused but also worried her a little, which, she thought, was typical of her perpetually mingled feeling towards him. Her anxiety was over whether he had the strength for what sounded like life-sapping work; she felt certain that in addition to long hours, the circumstances in which he worked would tax his resilience. It was not necessary for him to describe the plight of the insane or the conditions in which they were kept: as a member of the local Dorcas Society, she had once visited Bethlem hospital to take flowers and fruits to the most mildly afflicted of the patients (and only those with a hope of cure were admitted to Bethlem, it had been explained), and even that solitary hour had marked her soul, she felt, with a profound unease about God's love and purpose. Sonia's other anxiety for Thomas was less severe, and was to some extent contradictory. Suppose he was not worn down or exhausted by the work, but, on the contrary, overtaken by impatience, by that reckless side of him. Was he sufficiently serious for labour that showed no dividend? Was he by temperament really a scientist? She had followed his life since the summer in Deauville with deep amusement and vicarious pleasure, but also with a thudding heart. After a short rustication from his college and two more contretemps with the university proctors, he had succeeded in obtaining his medical degrees; but before completing his qualification as a physician in London, he insisted on the need to improve his German because it was, according to him, the 'language of the new psychological sciences'. The self-tuition had taken him to the obvious centres of Munich and Vienna, but also to Heidelberg, where he had fallen in love with a nurse at the hospital. He explained in a letter to Sonia that it was necessary for him to travel further to put this young woman out of his mind, and to that end he went on to Italy, guiding himself on a miniature grand tour, which he subsidised by teaching English, French and his latest acquisition German to the children of wealthy families he met at the Italian seaside. He assured Sonia that he read painstakingly in German at night and by the time he returned to England he could even manage to make his way in Italian. Still, Sonia thought, for all this admirable self-improvement, there was something unpredictable about him; something in the way those dark brown eyes lingered on your face that made you forever unsure which way he was going to leap. That evening, after dinner, Richard Prendergast summoned Sonia to his study. "There is something important I want to ask you," he said, packing the meerschaum pipe Thomas had brought him as a present from Vienna. "Yes, of course," Sonia sat with her hands in her lap, pleased to be consulted. "When we were married," said Richard, 'your father passed over to me a sum of money by way of a gift or settlement." "So I understand." "There were some conditions attached to this sum of money." Richard looked down to the rug on the floorboards and Sonia noticed how there was no hair on the crown of his head; the curls that were left made an approximate half-circle from one ear to the other, giving him the look of a bald angel. "If you say so," said Sonia, who knew nothing of conditions. "I was not to invest the money in any business venture of my own, but to keep it in some sound scheme that would provide for you and our children." Richard's manner was showing the defensive edge that always made Sonia uneasy. "I suppose he saw it as a family gift rather than an investment in your company," she said. "Indeed. However, since the condition of the gift did not apply, I saw no reason to adhere to the detail of the understanding." "I do not quite follow." Richard coughed. "I mean that since you were barren, there was no need for me to put the money aside for the wellbeing or education of our children. I have therefore drawn substantially on the sum." "How substantially?" "To the extent that I need to seek further finance." "From whom?" "From your father." "But surely, the bank ' "The bank has disappointed me. Their outlook is short-sighted and they are unwilling to continue. Indeed, they are pressing me with quite unreasonable demands for interest on loans already made." "There must be other sources of money, Richard. Your father, for instance." "I have investigated every possibility, believe me. What do you imagine I do when I leave here at seven each morning? I have worked myself into the ground. And as for my father, he has not put a penny in the way of my business. From the day of our marriage he has dealt with me as though I were a burden of which he is pleased to be free." "What will happen to the house?" "I shall relinquish it at the end of the next quarter. There are rooms." "Rooms?" "Jackman has found me rooms somewhere in Clerkenwell." "And me?" "What?" "You said, "Jackman has found me rooms", as though it was lodging for just one person." "Well, of course you can come if you like." Sonia said nothing. She wanted to be quite certain that she had heard correctly. Richard pushed at a loose thread on the rug with the toe of his shoe, and, in the silence, she could hear the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. She did not wish to catch his eye; she wanted him to have time to consider. She breathed in, but still did not speak. What Richard had indicated to her was that she was no longer essential to him, no longer required, except as a short-term financial intermediary between him and her father. Sonia knew that if her father could be persuaded to lend or give Richard more money it would be on this one occasion only; so that by the end of what, tomorrow, next week? her usefulness even in this limited role would have expired. Eventually, she did meet her husband's gaze: he thrust his chin out for a moment, then looked sheepishly away, but his face made it clear that he did not retreat from the implications of what he had said. Sonia was grateful for the clarification; it seemed to her, in fact, that Richard had not only made his position clear but had done so in terms as delicate as could really be managed. Why, then, did she feel this childish rage and indignation? Why was she convinced that she was entitled to better treatment; that she had, as it were, a right to love and respect? What 'right' was this, and by whom granted? She had bound herself to this man for life, and what sort of person reneged on such a vow? Richard's wife was who she was, who she had freely chosen to be and that partly, she admitted, from an unruly impatience for her own life to begin. The choice was simple. There was her petulance and her desire for self-fulfilment on the one hand; and on the other, her honour, fidelity and devotion to a common venture on which she had entered gaily, of her own volition. The choice between the two imperatives was an easy one; the decisions that you made between such conflicting claims was the measure of your human worth. She needed only to assure herself that her motives were pure. She said, "I suppose you have done well to last this long when the business has always struggled." "We had our good times." "Yes, but as long ago as Deauville, you were ' "Yes. I know' His crestfallen tone allayed her small doubt, and her eyes filled with compassion for him. She stood up and wrapped her arms round him, her heart burning with a sense of their shared failure. "It's all right, dear Richard," she said, stroking his back. "We have lived too closely, been through too much. I will not leave you. I cannot, any more than I can leave myself. Being your wife is what I am. We will manage together." She drew determination from her own words and squeezed Richard more tightly, as though the resolve might flow from her fingers, through the thick cloth of his jacket and into his spine.

Five

The corpses were delivered at noon to the Ecole Pratique d'Anatomic and then distributed to the various dissecting rooms; by two o'clockjacques found himself up to his elbows in the abdominal cavity of an old woman whose blue eyes seemed to look down approvingly at his rapid scalpel work. Behind him, a skeleton was suspended from a hook attached by a chain to the ceiling; an hour earlier it had been a fleshy young woman who had died in childbirth. Her uterus was on the cast-iron table next to Jacques, where two other students were bent over it. Jacques had a splashed textbook of anatomy propped open next to his old lady; he wore a skull cap of the kind favoured by Professor Charcot of the Salpetriere hospital and paper sleeves over his shirt. He smoked powerful cheap cigars whose ash occasionally tumbled into the cavity. He thought this disrespectful, but had discovered, like other students, that it was the only way to tolerate the stench. The dozen bodies in the room were of different vintages, some having been retained by the supplying hospital for two or three days. Behind him, two cadavers had been prepared to show the workings of the nervous system, so that they looked, if he allowed himself to think so, like flayed martyrs. He worked patiently but fast, because speed helped him to view the flesh as scientific material not as a person who, a few hours earlier, had had thoughts and a name. The professor of anatomy, a tall, enthusiastic man with a glittering eye, strode among the car cases and organs like a sculptor in a studio of his apprentices, nodding his approval over Jacques's bench, pointing him to a previously prepared cadaver for purposes of comparison. An impatient mop was shoved up against Jacques's feet by Bernard, the porter, who swabbed the worst of the blood from the floor and collected the off cuts into a galvanised bucket. In the courtyard were stray dogs, rounded up and tied at the ankle in readiness for their own dissection; into their latticed cages, Bernard poked the contents of his bucket. The dogs snarled at him as they grabbed the human pieces. Every medical man has been through this, thought Jacques, lighting another cigar: therefore I must not complain. Thomas cut up corpses in a filthy shed in Cambridge and I cannot allow him to outstrip me in our partnership; I must have done as much as he has when we come to share our knowledge. So he cut on dextrously, with the fixed concentration he had first cultivated in the bedroom at Sainte Agnes. He could bear this bloody work. What he hated was when at last it was over and he staggered out into the Paris street, reeking, scalpel in one hand, textbook in the other; and, in the early darkness of the winter afternoon, he could just make out the look of distaste on the ladies he brushed past. Assaulted by the smell of his drenched clothes, they shrank back from what they took to be an ostler or a butcher's boy. Thomas, meanwhile, was told by Faverill that a room had been prepared for him on the second floor, and he went up the stone steps of the western bell tower two at a time. His new lodging had a window overlooking the downs to the south, a gas lamp bracket and a washstand with an enamel basin; there was also a bookcase where he could at last set out not only the registers and records on which he was working, but the medical texts he had had sent on from Torrington. If only the room had been a little warmer, he might have felt almost at home, but the system of iron pipes that carried steam through the lower floors had not been extended to the upstairs parts of the asylum, and he was dependent on one bucket of coal a day, delivered after breakfast by a melancholic called Stevens. That evening, Thomas took a taper from the mantelpiece and lit the splintered kindling in the grate; he knelt down and blew gently until he inhaled the sweetly acrid smell of the coals first catching. He stood and rubbed his hands, then moved over to the tea-chest and started to unpack. He was proud of the number and variety of the volumes he had acquired; they were in French, German and Italian as well as in English, and he had paid for them by working at often uncongenial tasks. The books he piled onto the threadbare rug represented, he believed, everything that was known about madness. The history of the subject was shameful and brief. There had been the dark ages, when wandering idiots were mocked or pilloried; there had been the superstitious centuries when people spoke of 'possession' and other devilish nonsense; then there had been the era of cruelty, of imprisonment and taunting, when the idle sane paid to make faces at the lunatics. This had turned into the era of 'restraint', earlier in the century, when the gathering of many mentally afflicted people in one place for the first time had necessitated the use of manacles, irons and strait waistcoats Even before such practices had become widespread, however, they were starting also to become obsolete under the influence of enlightened thinkers, some medical men and some, like the famous Mr. Tuke of the York Retreat, laymen of humane and philanthropic vision. This was, in Thomas's view, the true beginning of his medical discipline. It was curious, he had to admit, that the first medicine was not a herbal preparation or a surgical procedure, but simple kindness; odd, because the struggle of the pioneering mad-doctors had always been to establish that illness of the mind was organic, a physical malfunction, to be treated in the same way as an illness of the liver or the foot, the brain being just such an organ, entirely comparable to the others if more complicated. Yet one did not treat cirrhosis or a broken metatarsal with kindness, so here was a paradox. It was one that Thomas could explain to himself, however. Morally, it was right to grant gentle care to the sick; practically, if a cure worked (and private asylums of France and England had had some successes) then a doctor was obliged to use it. And medically, the use of sympathy and concern was not the primary but only the auxiliary treatment specific to this illness. To the patient with the broken tibia you gave a pair of crutches; to the one with the abscess, you gave a bandage, but surgery came before the crutch or dressing. Kindness to the lunatic was like the support or bandage; the odd thing about psychiatry, he had once explained to Sonia, was that its cart had come before its horse: its task was now to discover its primary treatments, the cures of surgeon or apothecary. The bookcase had two long shelves, and on the top one Thomas placed, in approximate chronological order, the works of his century that he believed could be taken together to show a consensus of quickening advance. On Insanity, by a Florentine called Vincenzio Chiarugi, was strictly of the previous century, but Chiarugi's argument, that an asylum might in itself be therapeutic, seemed in spirit to belong to the modern era. Thomas, in any case, was fond of the three-volume edition he had bought from a barrow in Rome, because it was the only Italian book he had ever managed to read to the end. Next to Chiarugi, he placed a copy of Johann Reil's Rhapsodies of the Psychological Method of Curé in Mental Alienation, the first book, as far as he knew, to have stated that madness was not a supernatural visitation, but an affliction of the tissues of the brain, in a way that pneumonia is an ailment of the lung, no less physical for being invisible. Next to that he placed Traite medico-philosophique sur I'alienation men tale by the Frenchman Philippe Pinel, who was known even to the dreamy undergraduates in Thomas's lectures as the man who 'struck the chains from the lunatics' at the Bicetre hospital and the Salpetriere in Paris. Thomas's professor had pointed out that Pinel had in fact replaced the chains with straitjackets and that his real contribution was to have believed that lunatics with periods of lucidity were curable. In any event, there was something else Pinel had written that was of particular interest to Thomas because it seemed to have a bearing on the plight of Jacques's brother, Olivier. Pinel had noticed a particular group of symptoms that first afflicted young people, between puberty and adulthood; he seemed to have sensed, without stating it clearly, that this might be a distinct disease entity, and Thomas was convinced by what he had seen in the asylum that a large number of patients, particularly those demented and hearing voices, were suffering from what for lack of any other term he and Jacques had come to call "Olivier's disease'. On this point, Thomas was also excited by the writing of an English alieni st John Haslam, a medical officer at Bethlem. In Observations on Insanity, Haslam reported how he carried out postmortem inspections of twenty-nine Bethlem inmates and found that the lateral ventricles of the brain were noticeably larger than normal; he filled them with measured spoonfuls of water to prove it. If such physical phenomena could be shown by a teaspoon and a naked eye, Thomas thought, what might more advanced techniques not show? What, indeed, did Olivier's brain look like? Had Sonia been able to see the care and respect with which Thomas shelved his small library, her anxieties for him might have been allayed. His own mind had been so inflamed by enthusiasm that he was almost immune to weariness; he felt the pity of what he saw about him in the asylum, but it did not touch him with despair; it inspired him: the slavering, the shouting and the shipwreck drove him on. Next to Haslam, he placed the three volumes of Des maladies men tales published by Pinel's pupil, Jean-Etienne Esquirol, in 1838. Esquirol had become master of the asylum at Charenton, a place of cultivated gardens, billiards, dancing parties, tender nursing and something approaching douceur de vivre, from which patients had been sent home cured. Here, just outside Paris, the rising arc of enlightenment had seemed most exuberant. Next to Esquirol, in the middle of the shelf, in a place of honour, Thomas placed Die Pathologic undTherapie der psychischen Krankheiten, the book most admired by the other alienists he had met. Its author, Wilhelm Griesinger, was a physician who insisted that, since lunatics suffered from a disease of the body in nerve and brain, psychiatry must become part of medicine as a whole. The training he devised bore out his belief: one of his student psychiatrists was instructed, in mid-tuition, to intervene in a complicated labour causing concern in the obstetric ward next to the lecture hall. Thomas had read Griesinger in Heidelberg; even with dictionaries to hand, he found the prose extremely difficult to understand, but all the students he had met in Germany knew by heart Griesinger's battle cry that psychiatry must emerge from its hermetic life as a kind of guild and become an integral part of medicine. Thomas was considerably irritated to discover, on his return home, that the book had been translated into English more than a decade earlier. These were his heroes, respectfully shelved; but now psychiatry was in need of a new one. While he sincerely believed that there was a rapid increase of knowledge and a growing consensus of the wise, it had to be admitted that there was an insidious and growing counter-movement. The setting-up of public asylums in France and Britain had brought welcome seclusion to many and had ended the use of chains and irons; but before long the huge buildings had come to falter under the mounting weight of numbers from the jabbering multitude for ever at the gates. The trouble was that although the pioneering writers had humanely and beautifully described the problem, they had not found any cures. While Griesinger and the scholars scratched their heads, while they pored over corpses on the slabs, observed their patients and puzzled at the wondrous meeting of thought with cell, there came into being an alternative philosophy whose main tenet was simple: in the absence of cures, there can only be management. Such a brutal belief naturally did not need volumes to articulate itself, Thomas thought, because it found its purest expression in McLeish's book less shelves. The last volume he put away epitomised the urgent need for rapid advance. The Physiology and Pathology of Mind by Henry Maudsley argued that lunacy was passed on from generation to generation; that characteristics not only inborn but acquired by a parent could be transmitted to a child and that the mentally ill were therefore part of a process called 'degeneration'. As such, they were to be viewed as a waste product of healthy evolution and were fit only for excretion. Maudsley doubted whether asylums helped to cure patients and pointed out that many became better only when they were released; he thought sedation by narcotics not much better than imprisonment by ball and chain, and concluded that psychiatrists were well advised merely to watch and learn until such time as they were in possession of more information about their subject. Maudsley was right about the need for further observation, Thomas thought, the need to study the whole length of a disease from childhood to post-mortem; but such work needed time, and time was what a medical officer in a giant asylum never had. On the contrary, he had to rush and grasp at any evidence he could find in the rooms that opened off the reeking corridor. What laboratory conditions, Thomas thought. What carnival of delusion and inconsequence. What temptation to despair. A symptom that occurred in two people might be the central diagnostic point of the illness in one, and incidental in the other. Without time, though, how would he ever tell? He relied on certain facts and insights provided by the authorities whose books he treasured and, to support them, he depended, to an extent he admitted was undesirable, on instinct. In the confusion and the headache, there were patterns, he was sure, and he could occasionally see them. There was, for a start, such a thing as Olivier's disease. He could predict how those afflicted by it would behave and report their symptoms; there were common, recurring factors that gave it a profound identity. A young German called Kahlbaum had also noticed the group of symptoms and called it 'hebephrenia', or young madness. How it was to be cured, though, he could not say. Then, thought Thomas, there was the case of the warship inventor, whose wife was such a friend of Gladstone and who daily expected a letter from the Queen. These symptoms were also predictable, consistent and apparently separable from other kinds of madness; they formed a stage in the general paralysis of the insane, which had been noted by Haslam and Esquirol many years before; some thought the source of the illness appeared to lie in youthful debauchery and use of prostitutes, and that it might be related to physical symptoms of syphilis earlier in life; but how it entered the mind was impossible to describe. Thomas stood up and stretched. When he had committed himself to this life, he had been thrilled by the possibilities it offered: the chance to solve intractable problems, to bring relief to those afflicted and enlightenment to all mankind. The zeal remained it had increased but to it had been added, by his fuller understanding of where the science stood, a sense of urgency. If he and Jacques, and others like them, did not find solutions quickly, there was a chance that their work would be overwhelmed not only by the number of incurable patients but by the growing doctrines of despair within their own world. Sonia's father arrived early, grumbling about the fare of the hansom cab he had taken from St. Pancras. Sonia kissed him warmly and took his travel-battered bag upstairs to the spare bedroom. In her absence, he looked about the scruffy hall, where a huge cobweb had been spun from the fanlight to the chandelier. "What happened to the maid?" he said. "Abigail? We had to let her go. Come up to the drawing room and have some tea. I've got in some of that fruit cake you said you liked from the baker in Mount Street." In the absence of Richard, who was at his office, they were able to talk freely of the Midwinter family and its fortunes. Sonia's mother was suffering from rheumatism and had had to give up hunting; Edgar was proving bullish and astute in the family business, to his father's evident delight. "Yes," he said, 'and little Lucy, what a treasure she is. Such a pretty little thing. And three grandchildren already' "Yes," said Sonia, looking down. "I'm sorry, my dear, I didn't mean to ' "No, no of course. Little Henry must be nine now, I suppose. How is he?" "Quite off his head," laughed Mr. Midwinter. "And the twins. A merry little pair." "Yes, I heard from Lucy that they are flourishing. She wrote to me a letter a few weeks ago. And Thomas, do you hear from him?" "Hmm," said Mr. Midwinter. "Occasionally we have a rushed line or two from that confounded asylum. What about you?" "Yes, I have had two or three letters. He works such terrible long hours, from six in the morning until midnight some days, I believe. He seems happy in a Thomas-like way' "I don't know what possessed him to be a mad-doctor. Your mother and I dined at the Manor the other day and I was sitting next to a very distinguished lady. She asked me about my children and I told her what you all did. She gave me a very clear impression that she did not consider medicine to be on the same level as the church, or even the law. She said that the surgeon who had operated on her husband had been not quite a gentleman." Sonia laughed. "Nonsense, Papa. Thomas will make a great success of his life. You will see." "Why is it that so many young medical men have to take unpaid work at the hospitals, then? What respectability is there in that?" "I think it is just while they make a name for themselves. I believe it is difficult to make a start in private practice without being known and without having some experience." "And is that what he intends to do? Private practice?" "I believe so," said Sonia. She made no mention of Thomas's intention of setting up with a penniless Frenchman in a foreign country. "But mad-doctors," said Mr. Midwinter. "Everyone knows they are the hopeless ones. I read an article in the paper the other day by one of the most famous mad-doctors, I forget his name, and he said that a fully qualified young man who chose to work as an alieni st must be either desperate for cash or so wealthy that he doesn't mind the awful pay. He more or less admitted that it was not a proper branch of medicine." "Well," said Sonia, "I think it is a fine and humane thing that he is doing. Now, let me take your teacup." "Thank you, my dear. In the mean time, tell me about Mr. Prendergast." "Oh," said Sonia airily, setting down the china cup with a rattle. "He is very well, thank you. As always, he is looking for new investors. And knowing your generosity, he ' "Tell me, what staff do you have here?" "Staff? A woman comes to clean the house. Sometimes." "You have no carriage? What about a dress allowance?" "I make do. Since I seldom go out, I have no need for new clothes." Mr. Midwinter looked at his daughter. He had always been a little uneasy with her, unsure what girls or women wanted, but she had been a dependable source of order and good humour at Torrington. There had been awkward moments, it was true, but Sonia had provided something in the house that no one else could muster: a kind of poise. When he looked in her eyes now, she could not meet his gaze, but smiled and looked down at her lap; he saw with a pang of sadness that some light had been extinguished in her. He thought how much he missed having her in his house. "Richard will be back presently," said Sonia. "I thought perhaps you should go to his office, but he said he preferred to meet here. I think I shall go out and leave you to discuss the business. I have some small matters of my own to see to." The interview with Richard Prendergast did not go at all as Mr. Midwinter had foreseen. "Take a glass of sherry wine, will you?" said Richard in a way that sounded more like an order than an offer. "We shall have some claret with dinner." They were in the small morning room off the main hall on the ground floor. Richard had his foot on the low fender and an elbow on the mantelpiece; Mr. Midwinter stood opposite, watching him. "I expect Sonia has told you where we stand," said Richard. "No. She expects the men to do the business. She merely passed on your request to see me." "Yes, but not just business. Rather... The whole picture." "I don't know what you mean." "Well, let's... Let's do business. Business before... Business first, that's what I always say' "Very well. How much money do you want?" Richard outlined at length the difficulties he was facing, and ended by naming a sum that was almost twice what Mr. Midwinter had allowed. "What guarantees would I have of seeing this money again?" "Guarantees?" "I believe it is normal to secure a guarantee before making a loan." "Alas, there is little... material that I can offer. The house, as you know, is not mine. I have a handful of securities in a safe box at the bank but they are pledged already. I can certainly ask Jackman whether he would consider granting you some share in our company at a future date." "The guarantee cannot be attached to the speculation," said Mr. Midwinter. "That would defeat the purpose." "Indeed. I suppose I had rather hoped that you would take a more, how shall I put it, familial attitude to the matter. It is money after all that could go to securing the future of your daughter." They discussed the prospects of the business for a further twenty minutes. Mr. Midwinter had no doubt that from a commercial point of view it was a waste of money; he might as well have written out a cheque and thrown it on the meagre fire between them. He was disinclined to continue with this young man in any event; there was something self-important yet pathetic in his manner; he was, in a phrase popular in the Midwinter warehouse, full of chaff. He had seemed a reasonable match for his daughter at the time, but the fortunes of Chas Midwinter & Sons had since improved, and these days Sonia could have hoped for something better. There were the girl's own feelings to consider, however, and although he found it impossible to think that she might feel affection for this man, she did exhibit loyalty when she spoke about him. He sighed, and named a sum that was half of what Richard had asked for. "And in order to be what you call "familial"," he said, "I should allow the loan to run over a period of five years with no interest payable. At the end of that time you would repay it in full and it would be understood that you would make no further calls on me." Mr. Midwinter had expected his son-in-law to negotiate upwards or knowing him to take the matter personally and make a stand on his affronted dignity. To his surprise, Richard did neither, but stroked his chin and looked into the fire. "I wonder," he said at last, 'if we are seeing this problem in the correct light. I appreciate your offer. It is not unreasonable in the circumstances. The provision for interest, or lack of it, is decidedly generous. I am concerned, however, by what you may gain from the arrangement." "You are worried about my profit?" Mr. Midwinter was baffled. "Not merely," said Richard, 'in a strictly financial sense. I rather wondered whether in return for investing a larger sum you might not ask for more from me." Mr. Midwinter opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. Surely Prendergast could not be suggesting... He thought again; this was a moment for extreme caution. "You mean..." He opened his hands with an invitation to Richard to proceed. Richard coughed and drained his glass of Marsala, then paused, as though waiting for the wine to lend him eloquence. He licked his lips. "We always try in our business to look ahead, to think in periods of five years. Then where shall we be?" The debtors' prison in your case, thought Mr. Midwinter, but said nothing. "The circumstances in which I married your daughter have changed. As you know, she is infertile and in that respect has failed me as a wife. She is no longer young and ' "Sonia is not yet thirty years of age! She barely looks twenty. She has her life ahead of her." "Exactly," said Richard. "She may indeed have a life ahead of her. A different life from this one. Or she may not. I suppose that, embarrassing though it is, onerous though the choice may be, it rather depends on me." Mr. Midwinter looked at his son-in-law closely. "Are you suggesting ' "I am not suggesting anything. Nor am I trying to raise the figure I originally mentioned. Supposing, however, we were to view that sum as a loan more or less without strings." "A gift, you mean. Or to be precise, a payment." "It is probably not necessary to be precise about the term we use. In return, you would have your daughter back. As you say, she is still a young woman, and she has admirers." "What would Sonia think of such an arrangement?" Richard sucked in the air over his lower teeth. "I think she might resist at first. But I imagine that she would find it difficult ultimately to prevail against the will of her father." "And of her husband?" "Indeed." "I should require written assurances that you would never ' "I took the liberty of having my lawyer draw up some heads of agreement, which I think you will find answer all your anxieties. I have a copy of it in my pocket. Perhaps you would care to peruse it in your room and let me know your decision after dinner." Richard handed over the paper and took out a watch from his waistcoat. "We dine in half an hour." As Richard left the room, Mr. Midwinter found his mouth opening and closing. He had never felt so thoroughly outwitted in a business conversation; yet the resentment he felt was more than equalled by his pleasure at what seemed to him the advantageous terms of the deal that had been offered. As he took a cigar from the box on the table and walked over to look out of the window on to the traffic going down to Grosvenor Square, he wondered why, with skills like these, Richard Prendergast had not made more of his business. Three weeks later, at nine o'clock on a dry, cold evening, Thomas went quietly down the uncovered stone staircase and into Faverill's vestibule at the foot of the West Tower. He was certain that this was the time that McLeish took supper in the kitchen, usually with Tyson and Miss Whitman, so the wards would be watched only by junior attendants, slumbering in their cubicles or staring ahead into the turbulent darkness. With the largest key on the ring, he unlocked the main doors into the corridor, then closed them gently behind him. He carried a candle, whose flame he protected with his hand against the foetid draughts. It took him ten minutes of slow tunnelling, locking and unlocking, until eventually he arrived at the door of Daisy's ward. He swallowed and licked his lips. This was an act of madness, and he hoped that Jacques would never discover it; suppose he were struck off the medical register as a result? I don't care, he thought: I will practice in Bohemia with fake papers; I will continue my researches somehow; and what is the sane, the healthy life that we are trying to restore to the afflicted if it has no room for laughter and beer? He turned the key gently in the lock. Daisy was waiting in the shadows near the door, as they had agreed, while Thomas went to find Maud Illsley, the attendant, and distract her attention. She was sitting at the dining table, doing some needlework by candlelight; Thomas knew her to be timid, kind and unimaginative. She had worked in service until a year ago and saw her new duties as little more than tidying up and counting heads. She seemed surprised to see Thomas. "Just making sure everything is all right," he said. "Yes, thank you, Doctor." "Good, I like to look in occasionally. I pick a ward at random, just to have a sense of how the patients are resting. They seem very quiet tonight. Well done, Maud. I shall lock the door as I go." Outside, Daisy was leaning into the darkness of the low corridor; she grabbed at Thomas's arm as he emerged and he noticed that she was trembling. "Are you all right?" She put her arms round him and squeezed. He saw then that she was not trembling, but laughing. "Come on. Follow close behind me. If anyone comes, though, remember what we said." "We're not together." "Yes, but I'll find an excuse for your being out. "That was the plan, though he had in fact not yet been able to think of any reason for a patient to be out of the locked ward at night. When they reached the end of the corridor, Thomas went ahead into the lit hallway and looked about before gesturing to Daisy to emerge. She ran out past him into the night while he locked the door back into the corridor. She took his arm again as they walked up through the grounds towards the laundry and the farm. "Are you good at climbing, Daisy? Are you acrobatic?" "I should say so. That's how I used to make my living, remember? Doing cartwheels and that." "Good. Because we're going out over the brewery gate. I can't use the main gate because Patterson's on duty and he might recognise you. I thought of passing you off as my sister but I haven't had a visitor signed in, so I can't." Thomas had reconnoitred the means of escape and had concluded that the high walls were impassable except at this spot. Although the asylum was almost self-sufficient, there were sometimes heavy goods from outside, such as bricks or sacks full of hops, that were delivered through a pair of bolted wooden doors let into the perimeter wall next to the brewery. There was an iron manger for the dray horse attached to the brickwork, which Thomas believed would give him a foothold from which he could step onto the nub of the thick upper bolt and thence lever himself onto the top of the gate. "I'll go first, Daisy. You watch what I do and follow me. When you get to the top you must swing over and hang down off your hands because it's too high to jump down." Daisy put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. They walked across the cobbled courtyard, trying to make no noise, though the hobnails of Daisy's boots clicked on the stones. The laundry cast a giant shadow in which the other brick workshops seemed shrunk, and deprived of their institutional grandeur just buildings, idle and alone at night, thought Thomas, not mills where lives were ground out. After four years of scaling walls and gates in Cambridge at odd hours of the night, he did not find the brewery gates a difficult proposition. He squatted on top for a moment to whisper encouragement to Daisy, then dropped down on to the path outside. A minute later, she was with him. They walked for a mile, away from the town, until they came to a village in which, Daisy said, there was a friendly inn where she had once performed as a child. They picked out the lights, some way back from the main road, and went down the path to a side entrance. Thomas looked through the window in the glow of lamps on the tables and the fluttering firelight. "Try and keep your boots out of sight. Pull your skirt down over them when we sit at the table," he said, even though most of the men looked too inebriated to notice two strangers. They made their way over the stone flags to a corner, where Thomas sat Daisy down and brought some beer over from the bar. The landlord's eyes took in Thomas's frock coat and white tie with more curiosity than Daisy's shabby black dress. At the table, Thomas raised his glass and clinked it against Daisy's. He noticed the reek of the ward on her clothes as she leaned in, but when he sat back against the wooden settle he saw that there were tears of exhilaration in her eyes. "Good health, Daisy. May we never be found out, and may your life take a turn for the better." "Already has, Doctor." "Good. Drink up, then. You're almost as slow at drinking as my real sister. She takes an age to drink a glass of wine." "What's her name?" "Sonia." "Is she married?" "Yes." "Tell me about her then. Talk to me, Doctor. You've no idea what it's like in there, how much I've wanted someone just to talk to." Thomas told her about Sonia and a little about Richard Prendergast. At her prompting, he described Torrington House and what they had done as children. "Sounds ever so grand. Sounds like where I used to be in service." "Not really. It's a lovely house, but it's not grand. And they only have a cook and a maid to help. Though things have looked up, I believe, so maybe they have another pair of hands now." He bought more beer and carried it back through the press. It was a Friday evening, and many of the customers had clearly just received their wages. They were in high spirits, which pleased Thomas because it meant they were not likely to pay much attention to him. One of them took out a fiddle and began to play, singing on his own at first, then with half a dozen others who gradually joined in. Daisy leaned back and closed her eyes. Thomas noticed that she had combed her hair and put a ribbon in it; but her skin was mealy, blotched with sores around the lips; her red-rimmed eyes were circled with black arcs of weariness and there were streaks of grime appearing over the high-buttoned collar of her dress. He looked at the skin stretched over her temples and followed it with his eye to the hairline; as he did so, he could not help but envisage the frontal bone beneath the dermis, the rippling of sulcus and gyrus over the folded cortex inside. Daisy, a little drunk from the beer, began to smile ecstatically, still with her eyes closed. Sonia was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring straight ahead. Her father and her husband had colluded to decide the future of her life, and it seemed that there was nothing she could do to stop them. After dinner, she had been called back to the dining room and told to sit down. Her father took the lead in explaining the agreement, though Richard made it clear that he concurred by nodding his head at intervals. "So," Mr. Midwinter concluded. "I think it is a solution that suits everyone. Mr. Prendergast shall have his investment and a chance to start a family, perhaps, with another wife. You can be free to do the things you enjoy, without the restrictions of economy and, who knows, you too may find another suitor, perhaps an older man, a widower with children of his own. Your mother and I can have our dear daughter back at the house, where there will always be plenty to occupy you." "But I don't want to," said Sonia. "This is my home, here. I have put so much work into it, the curtains, the decoration, silly things, I know, but... And Richard is my husband. I married him for better or worse and though it has been in some ways worse than I foresaw, I am not in a position to abandon it. I cannot stop being who I am." "Come, my dear," said Richard, 'you cannot pretend that ours has been a marriage of romantic love or passion." "I learned to become fond of you," said Sonia tightly. "Truly fond of you. I worked for you and with you. I took real pleasure in your occasional successes. And when you failed, I wept real tears for you." The men eyed each other across the dining table, over the curling orange peel and the split walnut shells. Neither had suspected what they might unleash. Mr. Midwinter thought she was being perverse in clinging to a man she clearly did not love, yet as he moved to sweep aside her objections, he was caught by a sudden memory of her as a child, a naked three year-old, dancing alone to imaginary music in the kitchen one summer day, and felt with a panicking lurch, that he had failed her. "My dear..." Richard began. "Don't call me that! How can I be dear to you if you can sell me off like this?" "I thought," said Richard gently, 'that it would please you. I know that I have disappointed you as a husband, in more ways than perhaps your father suspects. I honestly and truly thought that you would welcome your liberation from... From me." There was something becoming in the way he spoke which made Sonia for a moment blink and look down to her lap. "I do not know how I am supposed to proceed," she said. "It is as though you were taking my name from me and telling me that from now on I am to be called something else. It is not that I love you so dearly, Richard, I suppose. It is that loving you as much as I have been able to manage has defined the person that I am. That is who I have become." Neither man was able to answer. Sonia looked from one to the other, and eventually spoke herself. "I suppose you will prevail. If a husband no longer wants to keep his wife, then that is the end of the matter. But I ask you both to reconsider this demeaning arrangement. I am happy to pretend that this conversation never took place. Discuss it between yourselves and tell me what you decide. If you want to agree that it never happened, I promise never to mention it or think of it again. If you still want to proceed, I will do as you wish. Meanwhile, I am going to visit my brother, who, I now see, is the only person I can trust, the only one who truly loved me." She stood up, holding her hand across her trembling lip, and left the room with a rustle of silk. Her father and her husband grimaced at one another and at the closed door. Their excursion over, Thomas was cupping his hands to make a foothold for Daisy, so that she could pull herself up onto the top of the brewery gate. Twice she lost her balance and fell off, giggling; at the third attempt, she secured a handhold and hauled herself up, scrabbling at the wooden doors with her boots. Thomas himself was able to reach the top without help. "I'll see you by the ice-house," he whispered to Daisy. "Are you all right?" he called after she had dropped down inside the walls. "Yes." He walked up to the main gate and hammered at the window of the small lodge. "Don't say anything about this, Patterson," he said, 'and I won't report you for being asleep." Patterson blinked several times, manifestly wondering how Thomas could be coming back when he had not gone out. Thomas ran down to the ice-house, where Daisy was waiting. "The doors are barred inside at ten," he said, 'so we shall have to climb the drainpipe at the back. I wedged the casement open on the first floor landing, so we can get in there." Daisy gripped his arm. "Listen," she said, "I must be the first lunatic to break into an asylum." It was decided by Dr. Faverill that in December the patients should have a ball. At the morning meeting in his office, he set out his plan to the staff. "It is my intention that we should invite observers from outside, representatives of the Committee of Visitors county councillors, the gentlemen of the press. They must be allowed to see how well our little society functions. I appreciate that all this will entail considerable preparation and, on the night itself, some vigilance." Faverill looked round the faces in the room: McLeish sceptical but silent; Tyson and Miss Whitman exchanging worried glances; Matilda, rocking; Stimpson, puzzled, smelling of the pharmacy; and Thomas, tired but eager. It was not a difficult choice. "Dr. Midwinter, I should like you to take charge of the preparations. I can make a small sum of money available to you, though most of the decorations, the refreshment and so forth will be homemade." "I understand, sir," said Thomas. "As for music," said Faverill, "Mr. McLeish, I believe that the asylum band is ultimately under your control. Please ensure that the conductor has a suitable programme and that they are well rehearsed." "Yes, sir. Tell me, where exactly do you envisage the revels taking place?" "The central hall. What used to be the dining room." "It's not been used these ten years, since we started to feed them in the wards." "Well, ask Grogan to set to work. Detail some men from the farm to help. Clear it up and paint it. They should enjoy doing that." "I see," said McLeish. "And what sort of numbers had you envisaged? And what manner and degree of affliction would you consider appropriate amongst the revellers?" "I suppose we could manage two hundred patients. As to which ones, I imagine there will have to be a degree of selection." "Aye." "But I should not like to think it was merely the most presentable who are invited. You should also have in mind those who would most benefit from it. A dancing party can be therapeutic' Thomas left the meeting with a youthful excitement at the prospect of a celebration, even a lunatics' ball, and found he was able to put to one side his misgivings about how much time the preparations might take from his already attenuated day: he would simply have to go to bed later, he thought. First, he needed to form a small committee. Daisy would be a good lieutenant. He had, since their night-time excursion, found her admission notes. "Overexcited and rambling in her discourse. Says she is afraid to sleep at night," the first doctor had recorded. The medical officer at the workhouse complained that "She keeps others awake at night by walking round. Has been seen engaging in self-abuse. Loud of voice, confused." She had been diagnosed, by McLeish, as suffering from mania. The only subsequent entry reported that her behaviour was improved, but that she was moody and unpredictable. After reading the notes and talking to Daisy, Thomas could see no sure evidence of organic illness because there was little in her record that could not be explained as a reaction to the conditions in which she had found herself. Although he was wary of her, he did not see why she could not be trusted to help; the more he was able to remove her from the locked ward, the more lucid she appeared. Thomas thought it would also be wise to have one of the potentially more recalcitrant staff on his side, so approached the muscular Tyson and flattered him with assurances that the success of Faverill's scheme depended on Tyson's ability to deliver the appropriate male patients, clean and compliant. Since Thomas had been given the task of admitting the women on his first day, he had become by practice if not by any design associated with the female side, so Tyson's help with the men was vital. There would need to be planning meetings, he added: in the evening, with beer. The committee of three met in the kitchen at nine o'clock, over cheese, bread and half a gallon of the asylum's best bitter. "We can disqualify all men with infectious diseases and all the chronic bedridden," said Tyson. "That gets rid of half "Daisy," said Thomas,"I would like you to ask round on the female side. I will tell the attendants that you have leave to wander. I should like you to ask the blind girl, Mary. It would be particularly good for her, I think. And any other odd cases like that." "Yes, Doctor," said Daisy. She looked distrustfully over her beer at Tyson. "What about Ward 52? You going to invite anyone up from there?" "What is Ward 52? I have never heard of it," said Thomas. "There's no need," said Tyson. "It's a back ward." "I am the senior assistant medical officer of this asylum. I think ' "We can see about that later. Let's write down some names. "Tyson pushed a pad of paper over the table to Thomas, who hesitated, then began to write. McLeish, meanwhile, told the conductor of the asylum band, a former professional violinist called Brissenden, to report to Dr. Midwinter; and with that McLeish concluded his personal involvement in the festivities. Brissenden worked in the carpentry shop, and Thomas extracted him one morning to discuss the programme. He was a tall, nervous man with woolly grey hair, and long fingers that he pulled till the joints cracked; he had an educated, high-pitched voice. "Yes, indeed, Doctor. We could manage a waltz or two, a polka I have no doubt. Would you like a quadrille? No. Too tricky, I suppose. I wonder if in addition to the dances you would like a recital or some songs? A full dance programme might overexcite some of the weaker brethren." Thomas thought. "That might be a good idea. Perhaps we could have an interval in the dancing during which we could have these other ' "Indeed, and perhaps some recitation," said Brissenden. "I believe Dr. Faverill could give us "John Gilpin's Ride"." "You must come to the next meeting of our committee," said Thomas. "I shall speak to the attendant on duty in your ward. Then we can put together some sort of programme that I can show to Dr. Faverill. Do you like beer?" "Beer? Oh, dear me no." Brissenden's knuckles went off like a drumroll. "Alcohol was part of my undoing. I was principal violin with a distinguished orchestra in Portsmouth when ' "Never mind, you can just have some chocolate. Where does the band normally rehearse? Do we have any good musicians?" "Ah, rehearsal. Yes, a routine more honoured in the breach than the observance. Still, I am certain the prospect of a ball will ensure a better turn-out. It is a mixture of staff and lunatics. We have some fair woodwinds and a couple of good string players, rather too many percussionists. At the last count, we had only one horn player, very unreliable and I fear he has been removed to a basement ward in any event. Do you play an instrument, Doctor?" "I can play the piano, but not at all well." "We have a most excellent pianist. A Miss Mary Ann Parker. A little inclined to rush ahead, but a most pleasing touch. We rehearse in the old dining hall, though of course the piano desperately needs tuning." "Consider it done," said Thomas. "We shall meet on Friday evening at nine in the kitchen. I need to come and fetch you. Which ward are you in?" "Number eleven," said Brissenden. "The attendants call it CD, chronic demented. I call it Beethoven's Ninth. Confounded choirs. Never a moment's peace." Over the days that followed, Thomas found time to submit a programme for Faverill's approval and to send out invitations to the external visitors. The piano was tuned by a wary-looking man from the town and Tyson in due course delivered a list of men. "Some of these will need to be dosed first," he said. "I'll speak to Dr. Stimpson. Half of them shouldn't have beer. The rest should be all right. I shall be on the lookout." Thomas went to the old dining-hall to hear the band rehearse. Among the patients were three attendants who helped Brissenden to produce a ragged but more or less recognisable series of tunes. The sound was quite well served by the high-ceilinged, empty space, which, Thomas noticed, like the dining-hall of his college in Cambridge, had a gallery at the back. If they could find enough staff to supervise the movement of numbers, it seemed to him that many of those not invited to the dance itself might at least be taken by turns into the gallery to watch. On the night of the ball, Thomas walked up to the main gates to welcome the visitors; a light fall of snow had frozen on the path and cracked beneath his feet as he made his way up to where he could see the yellow lamp outside Patterson's lodge. He rubbed his hands together in the frosty darkness and paused for a moment to think how strange his life had become. The asylum, for once, was lit from end to end, and from Thomas's raised position at the gates, looked like an elongated vessel, its bell towers funnels, built to the specifications of a crazed warlord determined to fill onlookers with despair and awe at the number of these twinkling casements, each beaming its untrustworthy light into the surrounding sea. When the dozen or so visitors were assembled, Patterson led the way down through the grounds, holding a flaming torch above his head, so that the distinguished visitors, reporters and representatives of the towns women guild should not lose their footing before they reached the revels. A number of chains and bolts had to be freed on the front doors, by Grogan, at his least hurried, before they were finally admitted to the place of entertainment. Access to the dining hall could not be gained from the central tower, so Thomas had to unlock the doors into the main corridor and gesture his guests to follow. He was aware of conversation dwindling, of anxious glances being exchanged, as they made their apparent descent into the narrowing passageway, through more chains, through air that began to carry feral odours and odd, disconnected cries. At the foot of a ventilation tower, they finally left the corridor by a small side door and emerged into a brighter area, a hallway lit by numerous candles. A banner had been strung from the bannisters, over the doorway and across to the opposite wall; its message was picked out in winter flowers, white and pink, under Daisy's supervision: WELL COME it said; and Thomas had not had the heart to demur. Dr. Faverill showed the guests into the ballroom, where the selected patients awaited them, lined up along the walls beneath streamers and floral decorations. At one end of the room, the band was seated on a raised platform, and at the other, the gallery was filled with faces, some blank, some preoccupied, some craning to see the spectacle below. Thomas had a moment of despair, as he always had when seeing madness en masse, a sense of trying to empty the sea with a bucket. Then, as he made out people he knew, it began to pass and he remembered his own duties for the evening. "Do we mix with the lunatics?" a female visitor asked him. "I doubt whether any of them will ask you to dance. If they do, you are quite at liberty to decline the invitation or to accept it. Entirely as you wish, Madam." Brissenden tapped his music stand with the drumstick he used in place of a baton, and the band struck up a waltz. The attendants, as instructed, approached a patient each and led them on to the polished floorboards. The less demented of the male patients approached female partners and steered them round in approximate time to the music. Faverill watched anxiously from the doorway, running his hand back through his hair from time to time, stroking the beard beneath his jaw and rubbing it between thumb and forefinger into small grey twists. There was the dogged scrape of the string section, a reedy whistle from the woodwinds and the occasional, plangent punctuation of the trumpet, like a foghorn or a battle-cry to some engagement all its own; but apart from that, there was no sound in the hall, so that in the moments when Mary Ann Parker's piano had to pause to allow the others to catch up, Thomas could hear the slide of shoe leather on wood. The dancers did not speak. They held each other at arm's length and watched the patterns of their feet in silence; it was as though the concentration required to make contact and move in time with another being left them no resource for speech. Thomas did not know all their names, but he recognised most of their faces and their ailments. The young man, about Olivier's age, whose thought was controlled by French spies stationed in the park, had so broken free of their influence as to be able to escort Miss Whitman repeatedly from one side to the other. He pushed her carefully, like a gardener with a wheelbarrow full of fragile pots. The old woman in Daisy's ward who wept when anybody spoke to her allowed herself to be rocked back and forth, gravely, on the spot, by the inventor of warships. The woman who had defecated on the grass of the airing court had devised a dance of her own: she made a trancelike pattern with both arms held out in front of her, as though perhaps rocking a large child in her arms, while her face, in which the mouth was puckered inward over blackened gums, was stretched by an expression of concentrated wonder. Thomas moved down the line of female patients until he came to Mary, the blind girl he had admitted on his first day. He laid his hand gently on her arm, told her who he was, and asked if she would like to dance. She shook her head, but only slightly, more of a tremor than a denial, and it occurred to Thomas that she might not really know what dancing was. "Will you trust me?" She nodded, and he placed his arm round her waist, took her right hand in his left and guided her with all the delicacy he could manage on to the floor. He had never been much of a dancer Sonia had laughed at him during the lessons they had had one Christmas but he felt it necessary not to tread on Mary's foot or frighten her. "What you do, Mary, is you allow yourself to move in time with the music. Do you see what I mean? You go with the tune, like this, and like this. The whole floor is full of people dancing, it is not just you and IYou have to hold on like this so we don't bump into someone. You doing very well. Have you ever danced before?" Mary's feet moved only a few inches on the wooden floor. She shuffled one boot forward, brought the other alongside, then slid the first one back. Through the waistband of her dress, however, Thomas could feel the faintest stir of rhythm in her spine. Her glaucous eyes were touched at the corner by what might have been the twitch of shyness, or of mirth, he could not say. The violins swept upward, urged on by the conductor, and Thomas felt Mary's diffident grasp tighten in his hand as her fingers squeezed down onto his shoulder. He saw the inflamed skin of her scalp as she laid her head against the bosom of his shirt, where it hung heavy, like ripe fruit. It was possible, he thought, that she had never before in her life been held in someone's arms. The music ended, and he led her back to her place by the wall. He hesitated before leaving her. He should say something; he could not just cast her off, throw her back into the abyss of time. He moved away a step, then stopped. He wished that he had never patronised her with his kindness, because now he was obliged to her. But he had duties, he had work to do with other patients, a difficult evening to negotiate and in truth he could not bear to look back at her face. He could not bear it because, God forgive him, he was too young to take on the implications of what he knew he would see. He walked away. The mock-Ionic pillars of the dining hall were wreathed with garlands of paper flowers and trails of ivy. On the re-whitewashed walls were festive greetings painted on to boards, each decorated with a sprig of holly. Beneath the central "Merry Christmas To You All' were spread four long trestles, with beer, lemonade, hot chocolate, meat pies and pieces of cake for the dancers; attendants, three of each sex, stood behind to make sure no patient took more than one glass. During supper, programmes were circulated giving details of the entertainment that was to follow. "Reading: "The Arab's Farewell to his Steed": Dr. Faverill; Song: "Trifles Light as Air": Miss Illsley; Recital: "Misadventures at Margate": Dr. Stimpson." Thomas drank some asylum bitter and watched as Stimpson made his way efficiently to the end of his piece. Few of the patients showed much interest when Stimpson took to the stage, or when he came down from it, though there was some shouting from the gallery and some off-key laughter that was followed by the sounds of a scuffle and a slamming door. "I say," said the female visitor next to Thomas, 'that gentleman in the corner." "Which one?" She pointed towards a small bespectacled man who sat hunched on the floor, moving his head convulsively from side to side and pulling at an invisible thread on his trousers. "Is that Mr. Hayward?" "I do not know his name, Madam." "I am quite sure it is. He worked at Evans the drapers. For years and years. My husband bought shirts from him when we were first married. He was the outfitter for my children's school. What is the matter with him?" "He is afflicted with melancholy' The lady visitor seemed a little affronted. "It seems hardly right. All those years. And then to end up... Like that... In here." Thomas filled her glass with lemonade and looked down at his programme: "Recital "Precepts of Politeness": Mr. Grogan. "There was a listlessness among the patients when Grogan climbed on to the platform; they seemed anxious to return to the dancing, Thomas thought, and their mood was not helped by Grogan, whose attempt to introduce humour came over as a kind of leering. The climax of the interval entertainment was a duet:'" Grieve No More": Mr. Tyson, Daisy Wilkins, with Mary Ann Parker, pianoforte." Tyson had a surprisingly pleasant tenor, and Daisy sang with conviction, a semi-tone sharp, occasionally missing a line to catch up with Mary Ann's restless fingers. Neither singer looked at the other; the trio performed as individuals, each apparently bent on completing an unpleasant duty as fast as possible, though in Thomas's mind there was never any doubt about the likely winner. Tyson shuffled his feet and swallowed his last, unsung, half-line as the asylum band resumed their places on the platform behind him. The couples once more took to the floor and resumed their silent marking out of space. Not even Brissenden's liveliest polka, the Louisa, could prompt them into speech, though Thomas noticed a dishevelled old woman occasionally burst into harsh, irrelevant laughter. She tossed back her cropped white hair and showed her edentulous jaw, causing the man who held her at arm's length to pull back further. He was a former watchmaker, well known to the attendants for his conviction that only if he could compete in a walking race to Blackpool would his lost soul be returned to him by the group of Plymouth Brethren who had stolen it. At a quarter to ten, Dr. Faverill took to the platform to declare the evening's festivities over. The double doors at once opened from the vestibule, and a dozen attendants came into the room, taking their appointed places by the wall and marking their patients out with warning eyes. Any escape from the asylum was deemed to be the relevant attendant's fault and the expense of recapture was deducted from wages. . wonderful evening," Faverill was saying, 'and I would like to thank our most distinguished visitors for taking the time to come and share in our seasonal celebrations. I feel sure that they will take away with them the most favourable impression of our asylum. It is an unusual household, we are the first to admit. We have our share of black sheep, of wicked uncles and long-lost cousins. But we have as well the comfort of a Christian faith, which teaches us that God loves each of us as His own. There is no man or woman here tonight whose life is not dear in the eyes of Our Lord. First, I would like to present a small bouquet to Mr. Brissenden, our most excellent bandmaster. There you are. Thank you, sir. And now I should like to ask Miss Whitman if she would be so kind as to present this bouquet to Mrs. Cunningham, wife of the chairman of the Committee of Visitors. Thank you, Miss Whitman. "Before we all go off to our beds, I would like to conclude by thanking all of you, the patients, for coming tonight and making the evening so pleasant for us all. I have occasionally, I believe, compared myself to the captain of a ship a somewhat vainglorious comparison, it now occurs to me. But on a night such as this, I feel proud to think that this vessel sails onward. The weather threatens, sometimes we may steer blind, but, if I may quote the Bard, "Though the seas threaten, they are merciful'; and we must not curse them without cause. The ways of the Almighty are mysterious to men. I cannot presume to unriddle to you the details of his intricate plan. I cannot begin to explain to you my own sense of the strangeness of our human lives and my conviction that it might so easily, with the merest tilt of the world on its axis, be so entirely different. One thing I can say with certainty is this. Tonight my heart is filled with love and pride in you, my dear friends, and I wish you with all the fervour I can command a safe and peaceful harbour at the end of the voyage the Almighty has set out before you. Ladies and gentlemen, good night." The attendants moved into the room, gathering their charges. "Come on Alice, move along, girl. Don't do that, you filthy man. Come here, Jack. Put that down. Bedtime now, come along, come along." Thomas stood in the vestibule as they marshalled their patients through the door and into the long corridor. In the ballroom, the instruments were already packed up and Tyson was turning off the gas lamps; Brissenden was the last to leave, walking silently across the floor with his gathered sheet music furling beneath his arm. He was humming to himself as he walked past and did not hear when Thomas wished him goodnight. Dr. Faverill had already left the building to escort the visitors to their waiting carriages. Maud Illsley and Miss Whitman had put up stepladders to blow out the candles in the hall and take down Daisy's banner. Thomas stood for a moment, looking, hearing the rattle of keys and the clank of locks being turned, as through the length of the building the lamps were turned out. He took a candle to light his way through the resumed darkness.

Six

As Sonia had foreseen, there was nothing she could do to affect the course her husband and father had chosen, and the practical details of a divorce were surprisingly easy to arrange; what was more complicated was the disarray in which she was left by her conflicting emotions. She sighed from the depths of her heart as she packed her trunks and locked up the rooms of the London house. She knew that it was perverse, almost comic, for her to be the last to abandon the marriage when she was the wronged party within it; yet the more her efforts to be a good wife were mocked, the more anxious she became to make them work. Of course, she had been too young to marry; but she was quite grown-up for her age, and she had deceived no one about the nature of her feelings. She had followed the good advice of those who knew better and was content to believe that love would come; or that in its absence, the pleasure she brought to her parents and husband would be reward enough. A sort of love had come an absolute identification of her interests with Richard's and an anguished desire for him to prosper, which was tested but not shaken when she saw that as well as being socially inept, her husband was a bully. Any resentment she might have felt at this discovery was stifled by her guilt at being unable to conceive: Richard was entitled to be brusque when he had been disappointed in a man's simplest expectation. In the months after their separation, when she had returned to live with her parents, Sonia endlessly reviewed the course of her marriage. She should perhaps have resisted acting as financial go-between; but there was a sense of unease in her that she had been influenced to marry in the first place by a degree of impatience. Maybe she ought to have left when he casually told her, of the rooms that had been found for him: "Of course you can come if you like." At the time she put her staying down to a sense of duty, a conviction that someone at least must behave with dignity; but had she really clung on from fear of the unknown? It seemed to her, as she resumed her old duties at Torrington, that she had undoubtedly missed a chance, somewhere; she had been made a fool of, sold and re bought Such was the effect on her self-respect, however, that she could feel little relief at being rid of a man she did not love, and one who had behaved unkindly towards her. So unsure was she now of what value to place on herself that she could not even feel affection for her father: he seemed to think that he had ransomed and redeemed her and to expect her gratitude in return, but she felt that he had merely dealt with her at Richard Prendergast's level. For some months, Sonia wept at night from a sense of injustice. She even missed the rough embrace of her husband, alone as she was, and cast back into her child's bedroom. Then, very slowly, a little relief did find her; she became able to smile a little at the memory of some of Richard's absurdities, and her own. By the time the spring came, her grief had turned through tears into a kind of mute acceptance. She was in all probability unable to conceive, though this had not, in her view, been proved beyond doubt. Assuming the worst, however, her prospects as a wife were limited; but this was something she could adapt to, and need not circumscribe her life too narrowly. One thing in all the uncertainties did become clear to her: that she would never, in any circumstances, allow herself to be so used again. She held this determination tight in her heart, as some of the old lightness, her humour and her influence about the house began to return. One morning in early summer Jacques received a package from England. Madame Maurel, his landlady, handed it over in person, curious that one of her tenants should have an overseas correspondent, but Jacques did not respond to her imploring glance as he walked out into the morning. As he tore open the envelope on his way to the hospital, two pieces of paper fell out: one was a folded English banknote, and the other was a return ticket, issued by Thomas Cook and Son, for the Channel steamer. There was also a brief accompanying letter in English from Thomas.

My dear Jacques