Vintage Love (218 page)

“I’m afraid I found it less pleasant than you did,” she said grimly.

Her mother, paying no attention to her, rambled on. “It is pleasant to have you here. Your father is bound to be pleased. You will have much to tell him!”

She was startled by her mother’s senile ramblings. Hilda had warned her, but it still came as a shock. This was only a shadow of her once sharp-witted parent.

She tried to cover her upset by saying, “Hilda is waiting downstairs. She says the children are well. And James is busy with his politics.”

Lady Susan’s pale eyes took on a sharp gleam reminiscent of her old self. She snapped, “Why didn’t she come up here with you? She avoids me! They all do! James, the worst of them! And my grandchildren stare at me as if I were some loathsome creature! They’ve no idea of proper respect!”

Joy sighed. “I’m sorry, mother. Hilda felt she was being considerate by remaining below. She thought we would like to talk alone after my being away so long.”

“A good excuse,” her mother said bitterly. “You probably have heard that I was forced to send Mrs. Warren away.”

This was another shock. “Whatever for?”

“She is mad!” Lady Susan said angrily. “She was putting powders in my tea. Powders which muddled my mind and made me forget things. I should have suspected her long before I did. As it is my mind has been done such harm I’ll never be right again!”

“Nonsense!” Joy protested. “Mrs. Warren was your friend. She would not harm you!”

“You think not?”

“No. You should have her back if she will come,” Joy advised.

“Impossible,” her mother snapped.

“Why?”

“The vengeful creature is dead!” her mother said with malice. “Died not long after I sent her away. And I can promise you I shed no tears at the news!”

Joy was unhappy to hear her mother talk in this manner about a contemporary who had been a friend. Mrs. Warren had done her mother a service in coming to be with her as a companion. It seemed it had turned out badly. Poor Mrs. Warren!

She looked at the angry, withered face and decided she had remained there long enough. She said, “I’m going to rest now. I’ll be back up later.”

The old woman’s manner changed, and in a pleading tone she begged, “Please don’t leave London again!”

“I won’t,” she said quietly. “I plan to be here for some time to come.”

Her mother looked pleased. “That is how it should be. When your father comes home, we’ll invite James and Hilda with the children and all be a family again.”

Joy went back downstairs and gave Hilda a sober look. “Your warning was timely. She is not in her right mind. She rambles continually.”

Hilda, who was seated in a chair near Sir Richard’s life-sized portrait, glanced up at it and said, “He was fortunate to die swiftly. He would not have liked to have lived and see her like this.”

Joy gazed up at the military figure in the portrait with his red jacket and yards of gold braid. It seemed impossible that the stalwart figure with white hair and mustache had been dead for many years. So many were dead! John and Lisa! Memories of them still brought urgent pain.

She said, “I often miss Father. He was a wise man.”

“Without question,” Hilda agreed. “I shall never forget his kindness to me and the way he welcomed me into the family.”

Joy smiled sadly. “All in the past.”

“So it is the present we must confront. Do you have any plans?”

“I’m going to continue my nursing.”

Hilda’s eyebrows raised. “You mean to work as a nurse here in London? You are a titled lady.”

“I shan’t expect to be paid for my services. I shall do charity nursing. I have never found anything which satisfies me more.”

Hilda said, “I hear that Florence Nightingale is back here after spending some time in a hospital operated by the Sisters of Charity in Paris. Her health gave her some trouble while she was there, and made her decide to return sooner than she’d planned.”

“Many break down under the stress of nursing,” Joy agreed. “I thought I would never survive Vienna. What does Miss Nightingale plan to do now?”

“She has taken over a modest, private hospital. She was pointed out to me at a charity fête. She is rather plain, and thoughtful-looking, a few years older than us. But she appeared to have a gracious manner.”

Joy said, “She is a fine person. She has dedicated herself to nursing.”

Hilda said, “All the more commendable since like yourself she has the advantage of a prominent and wealthy background.”

With her return to London, Joy began a new phase of her life. She plunged into work at the hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem. The hospital’s name had been abbreviated to Bedlam by the mass of Londoners. It was anything but well run, but at least conditions were somewhat better than at the asylum in which she’d worked in Vienna.

She was always ready to take on the worst assignments, so much of her efforts were among patients considered hopeless. She surprised the medical staff by having better results than they had ever expected. Her efforts caught the attention of one of the chief doctors at the institution, a man named Jeffrey Murray.

She had been working for three months in the dangerous wards of Bedlam when he called her into his office for a discussion. He was a pleasant man, on the stout side, with thinning, reddish hair. His steel-rimmed glasses concealed sharp, blue eyes.

Gazing at her across his desk, he said, “You amaze me, Lady Joy!”

“In what way?”

“In the risks you take. You must have the wish to die a martyr. You work daily in wards which my male nurses try to avoid.”

“Those untrained fellows show their fear and dislike of the patients,” Joy said. “And the patients sense it. I try to be more friendly towards these unfortunates and in return they show less hostility towards me.”

Dr. Jeffrey Murray looked worried. “I hope you are not needlessly exposing yourself to danger. I have heard that a colleague of yours was murdered in one of the violent wards of the Vienna asylum.”

“That was the institution’s carelessness,” she said at once. “My friend needn’t have died.”

He said, “Your story may be true. But you must also realize that should harm come to you, our staff would likewise be blamed for neglect.”

“I have learned proper caution,” she said. “An ancient myth persists here among your attendants that the insane are wilfully obstinate. As a result they try to bully and intimidate the patients. Frequently they beat them into submission.”

He was studying her closely. “And you do not approve of this?”

“I do not. I favor Pinel’s method.”

“Ah! You are referring to Dr. Phillipe Pinel of the Hospital Bicetre in Paris.”

“Yes. He believes in treating patients as gently as possible. In spite of opposition from the more conservative doctors, he has taken the chains from patients and put an end to all brutality. This, along with wholesome food, and sunlight in the desperately unsanitary cells where the patients previously lived, have proven a great success. Pinel has had so many cures, his methods are spreading.”

“Among the medical staff we have our conservatives. If I promoted such changes they would be quick to indict me, just as Pinel was indicted.”

“Pinel took the risk and so should you,” Joy argued. “Until recently the insane in the United States were kept in county poorhouses or in the prisons. But a woman named Dorthea Dix is changing much of this. She is carrying the gospel of Pinel to every part of her country, and now there are at least two dozen asylums operated by the individual states. Proper places for the treatment of these unfortunates who were previously neglected.”

Dr. Murray smiled. “Perhaps you might get your brother to speak out for us in the House. He could be helpful if he supported your views.”

Joy said, “James is a reasonable man. I’m sure he’ll take an interest if I ask him.”

“I’ll talk to him as well,” the doctor said. “But if the war clouds darken I doubt if the government will spend on anything but the military.”

“Funds for a different sort of lunacy,” she said bitterly.

She at once sought out James and presented her problem to him. He listened and then in a tired voice told her, “This may seem urgent to you. But there are more pressing matters. At any moment England may be plunged into a war.”

“I think my cause is more important.”

“You may think so,” he said with frankness. “But I know the government is not in a mood to listen to a plea for the improvement of hospitals for the insane. Their minds are on this problem of an approaching war. However, leave some material with me and when I think the moment right, I will rise in the house and make an appeal for your cause.”

“Thank you, James,” she said quietly. “I know I can depend on you.”

She worked on grimly. Just after the Christmas of 1853 her mother died. The funeral was held the day before Joy’s thirty-second birthday. With her mother’s death, she was confronted again with the passing of the years. She was now close to middle age, though she did not look it, and she had not yet found her place in the world.

During the spring of 1854 she spent a month in Surrey, with Hilda and the three children. They were growing at an amazing pace. She found Joy more interesting as she grew older. The girl was truly much like her in other aspects besides her name. She found it amusing that Hilda should bear a child almost in her image.

James came down to join them for a few days. He was in a distressed state of mind. He told them, “The worst of news! War has been declared! We and the French are lining ourselves with the Turks to fight the Russians!”

Joy sighed. “So it has come!”

“What is the mood in London?” Hilda wanted to know. They were all sitting in the living room of the summer house.

“Only Lord Aberdeen and his government have any enthusiasm for the venture,” he said. “We have naval ships on the way, but no troops will reach the battle scene in the Crimea until September at the earliest. And we shall be in the impossible position then of attempting to wage a war two thousand miles away!”

“Surely it might have been prevented,” Joy said with some annoyance.

“The snobbish fools in the War Office want it,” James said angrily. “They had the Scots Guards march past Buckingham Palace before embarking for Gallipoli! A stunt to arouse excitement among the masses!”

“Did it work?” Hilda asked.

“Of course!” her husband said with disdain. He rose and began pacing before them. “In front of the palace the entire force presented arms as one man, the colors were lowered, the officers saluted. Then the band played, ‘God Save the Queen!’ And I swear you couldn’t hear a word of it for the cheering of the crowd!”

“What a charade!” Joy exclaimed.

“No doubt Victoria and Albert reviewed them from the palace balcony,” Hilda suggested wryly.

“Could you expect anything else?” her husband said with anger. “The soldiers recovered arms, took off their bearskin hats, and gave three deafening cheers. They waved their muskets, and tossed the bearskins into the air. Then they marched on to the Mall, the National Gallery and around St. Martin’s Church. In Trafalgar Square there was a crowd eight deep to cheer them as they swept by! The madness is in full swing!”

“What is the reason for this war?” Hilda wanted to know.

James halted his pacing. “Now that is a good question and not to easy to answer. Disraeli says that England is going to war to prevent the Emperor of all the Russias from protecting the Christian subjects of the Emperor of all the Turks!”

“Another senseless conflict that will leave the country much poorer,” Joy said. “You’ll never be able to offer my plan for improving mental hospitals!”

James grimaced. “Not while the head of our government is a prime candidate to be a patient in one of them!”

It was only when they returned to London a few days later that she realized how completely the country was caught up by war fever. The newspapers featured nothing but the war on their front pages. The Queen had given the enterprise her blessing, and so new shipments of troops were being planned.

One day Dr. Murray came to greet Joy in one of the dark corridors of Bedlam. He eyed her quizically through his glasses. “My predictions of war have proven all too correct, Lady Joy.”

“Yes.”

“So we have more lunatics on the outside than in here,” he said with resignation.

“We must bide our time,” she told him.

“Yes, we must be patient until they finish with their war games,” Dr. Murray sadly agreed.

The mail she received from Scotland also reflected the war madness. Jock wrote her that a new doctor had arrived, and the former one had joined the Scots Guards and sailed off with that noble company. He wrote that there was sadness in the village, for many of their finest young men had signed for the army and had left for the battlefields. Jock wrote that he had no heart for it all, but the new minister of the kirk had preached in favor of the war the previous Sunday. He closed with the news that Heather was well and so were their children.

Joy sat with the letter in her lap and thought of those other days in Invermere. She had recently had a letter from Rose. It seemed that Rose and her clergyman husband had been in Edinburgh for several years. She told of meeting the former schoolmaster who had made her pregnant and then deserted her. They had met at a church social given by the church. She said he looked very down at heel, and had fled from the party which she and her husband were giving.

These letters from her friends of the Invermere days were always welcome. Every two years she received a letter from Dr. Marsh at the University, tendering the name of the young doctor he had chosen to serve in the village hospital. She continued to send cheques every six months to keep the hospital open. The villagers had voted to name it the John Hastings Memorial Hospital. This pleased her. In this modest enterprise she felt John still lived.

One morning she received a note marked urgent from James. She at once donned a fresh dress and bonnet and had her carriage take her to his office near the House.

As soon as she was shown into his office he rose to greet her. He kissed her and pulled out a chair for her to be seated. Then he announced, “I have some interesting news for you.”