Letters from Alice: A tale of hardship and hope. A search for the truth.. Petrina Banfield
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Alice rested her hand on the Redbournes’ file, her expression thoughtful. She hesitated for a moment before asking, ‘Do you remember tending to a child called Henry Redbourne? He came in at the beginning of the summer. You treated him for pneumonia.’
The doctor gave a small nod. ‘Is he unwell again?’
‘No, he seems perfectly well. It’s just that …’ She opened the file in front of her. ‘We called in on the family and,’ she paused, rolling her lips in on themselves. Across the room, Frank, who had been making notes in a ledger, peered up at her. ‘The children seemed quite well, but something wasn’t right.’
The doctor looked at Alice, his green eyes cloudy with impatience. ‘In what way?’
‘I am not sure exactly. Their eldest was upset and … I mean, she didn’t say much but she didn’t really need to. There was something … I still cannot grasp what it was, but it was unsettling. There was definitely something. I could feel it.’
The doctor raised his heavy brows. ‘I prefer to deal with facts, Miss Hudson. Not feelings.’
Alice stared at him for a moment before answering. ‘Yes, of course.’ She lowered her gaze, returning her attention to the file. She flicked through the papers and then turned back to the doctor. ‘A financial assessment was carried out before Henry’s admission, and when his siblings were treated before him, but the parents were not forthcoming at the time and –’ Her words were left floating in the air.
Dr Harland said nothing, but his lips narrowed into a thin line.
‘I wondered if you might shed a little light on the family, if you have memory of them?’ Alice pressed.
Dr Harland inched back in his chair, bristling. ‘They’re fairly respectable, from what I recall. We’re talking relatively, of course. But I noticed nothing out of the ordinary.’
Alice chewed on the inside of her cheek. ‘But Mrs Redbourne has been seen the worse for drink on a number of occasions while their children were left home alone,’ she persisted, flicking rapidly through the papers again, one way and then the other. ‘They’ve been lying to us about having lodgers, I’m certain of that, and … I realise it’s of no medical concern, but I feel that our help is sorely needed.’
The doctor made a face and returned his gaze to the pile of files on the desk. The almoner stared at the pages of the file in front of her for a full half-minute before returning her attention to Dr Harland. ‘There was something there,’ she repeated insistently. ‘Something about the place that just didn’t fit. I just cannot yet grasp what it was.’ The doctor puffed out his cheeks then returned his gaze to the files.
From across the room, through a cloud of smoke, Frank’s eyes were still resting on Alice speculatively.
We are all mad when we give way to passion, to prejudice, to vice, to vanity; but if all the passionate, prejudiced and vain people were to be locked up as lunatics, who is to keep the key to the asylum?
(The Times, editorial, 1853)
The call of distress from the Redbournes’ home came just before five o’clock that afternoon, as the meeting between Alice and Dr Harland was drawing to an end.
A quiet but feverish rapping at the door drew everyone’s attention. ‘Come in,’ Bess Campbell said without looking up. The tapping stopped but the door remained closed. Alice turned to meet Frank’s gaze. He sat motionless, eyeing her through a cloud of smoke. She huffed out some air and got to her feet. When she opened the door her eyes widened in surprised recognition – standing before her was one of the Redbourne girls, Elsa, wearing nothing more than a thin cotton dress. Soaked through and shivering with cold, the twelve-year-old looked close to passing out. ‘Please, Miss, can you come?’ she cried breathlessly. ‘Something awful’s going on.’
Alice glanced behind at her colleagues. Miss Campbell and Dr Harland were already on their feet. She turned back and quickly beckoned the girl into the basement. ‘Yes, of course, I will come directly, but what is it? What has happened?’
Bess Campbell draped a blanket over Elsa’s shoulders and guided her to one of the chairs closest to the hearth, where a fire blazed. The girl refused to sit down. ‘We have to go!’ she cried, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘Mum says you have to come. Charlotte’s gone mad and you have to lock her up.’
Alice, Frank and Miss Campbell exchanged glances. ‘Why, my dear?’ the Lady Almoner asked. ‘What on earth has happened?’
‘I dunno! They won’t let me see her, but Mum says she’s lost her mind and the devil’s responsible. She said you would take her away.’ Elsa began sobbing. Her legs buckled and Alice guided her gently down onto a chair.
Bess Campbell looked expectantly at the doctor. ‘I’m about to go off-duty,’ he said. After an uncomfortable silence he looked up at the ceiling and added gruffly: ‘Right, I’ll make a house call then, shall I?’
‘Good,’ said Miss Campbell. ‘Alice?’
The almoner gave a grim nod. ‘I’ll accompany them,’ Frank said, reaching for his hat.
Elsa made a move but Miss Campbell pressed her hands down onto the girl’s damp shoulders. ‘You’ll wait here with me, at least until the storm passes. Once we’ve established what has happened, then you may return.’
Moonlight flickered as Alice, Frank and Dr Harland disembarked from a hackney carriage taxicab at the end of Dock Street. The rain was lashing down, arcs of light from the terraced houses rippling over the surface of the puddles.
Clumps of confetti from the New Year celebrations still littered the pavements, the soggy flakes clinging to the hem of Alice’s long cape and the tips of her laced-up boots. A discarded sock trailed over the side of a cattle trough, the wool stiff with cold.
Frank marched purposefully towards the Redbournes’ house, his head tilted against the onslaught of rain. Alice wrapped her scarf carefully around her neck and squinted, the doctor following on a few feet behind. Their steps seemed to drag as they followed Frank. Setting out like this gave them all a sense of the likely grimness that lay ahead.
‘She was morally flabby right from the off,’ Mrs Redbourne proclaimed as soon as she opened the door to the small party. Her jowls quivered as she spoke, her compressed mouth growing so thin that her lips were barely visible. ‘Never sat still in church. I knew she’d never amount to much, what with the aggression and the wild ways, but you’d think she’d have learned her lesson after the last time.’ She looked angry, but her eyes were shiny with suppressed tears.
‘What ails Charlotte, Mrs Redbourne?’ Alice asked as she followed Frank into the hall. The doctor stifled a yawn on the shoulder of his coat as he closed the door behind them.
‘I don’t know what it is, do I? An overflow of blood to the head, George says. I say it’s the work of the devil.’
Alice was accustomed to dealing with families who were so mortified by their daughters’ behaviour that they claimed they had been inflicted by a sudden onset of insanity. A diagnosis of insanity was seen by some families as a way of ridding themselves of the embarrassment of wayward daughters, a sort of absolution from the stain of it. The affluent sometimes shipped their ‘excitable’ daughters abroad, or confined them and their offspring to a secluded cottage somewhere in the grounds. There were few appealing options open to most of the Royal Free’s patients.
Surprise rippled over the faces of Alice and her colleagues at the apparent spite shown by the woman, quickly followed by distaste. They watched her in silence for a few moments. It was Dr Harland who spoke next. ‘If you’ll show us the way, then, Mrs Redbourne,’ he said quietly, nodding towards the stairs. There was a coldness to his tone and a degree of irritation