at the story. Visions of the crazy people filled my head immediately. Poor Jack was tied forever to a mad woman. I felt a deep despair at their tragic tale. No wonder Meg didn’t want me to talk to Jack! It would have saddened him greatly. How awful.
‘What can be done about it? This is so sad,’ I asked Magda.
‘Nothing can be done. The vows of marriage are sacred. He will just have to wait and pray the madness ends. So now you see why he can never marry Meg. It would be only the death of his wife that would allow it, and no man could ever ask for that on their conscience, no matter how unwell Rebecca is.’
I nodded and started to cry. Magda watched me for a while before walking around the table to stand behind me and put her arms around me. She uttered soothing words I couldn’t hear but I realised their gentle intent. After some time I ceased crying and blew my nose on her handkerchief.
‘Fear not, Master Charles. These things have a way of working out in the end.’
She showed me to her door and I walked glumly home, not noticing the thoughtful look in her eye as she turned back into the kitchen. Jack had suffered for far too long she mused.
The night seeped around the building standing starkly on the field. It was slightly foggy and damp with a mossy hint in the air. The stars and the moon seemed apathetic on this cool, dank night. The hospital alone was imperious to it all and held its ground as chief probationer of mad souls. It gave hope and despair to all that drew towards it. Staff and residents on first sight of this building would shudder uncontrollably at what scenes might lie inside. But onwards towards the rather antediluvian door they walked, for inside lay a slight chance for redemption and a better future. However slender and tenuous it may be, it was still another opening in a narrowing world. With a rising fortification of shadowy despair, they gritted their teeth and got on with it.
Magda considered the asylum in front of her. The structure had no evil forebodings to her. She had visited on a number of occasions and could only look upon the patients as unwell and afraid. Not too uncommon in the outside world either really. Some of them she had assisted to a full recovery and some of them she had put into the institution by her own hand. But the latter deserved every torment that lay with them now and regret for their actions had become their own bitter pill. She wasted no sympathy on them. Magda slowly drifted past each room peering in the small porthole of the doors. She had full access to all rooms thanks to a spell performed on the guard earlier to relieve him of his keys. When he woke, he had no recollection of her and spent hours hunting for his lost keys. It was only after he had searched everywhere twice that he surrendered and went to confess to the head matron. He stood in front in her in pusillanimous shame as the caustic vitriol fell out in staccato sentences advising him of his responsibilities to the security of the establishment. After she had finished, she handed him the spare set and dismissed him from the office.
The visiting hours were over. All the residents were tucked into their chambers blissfully loaded up with antimony tartrate and calomel. Some had gloves carefully secured at the wrists in an attempt to reduce self-harm. Some wore them because it made them feel secure. Others were wide awake as no chemical could nullify their mania. Magda slowed at the sight of one man enthusiastically drawing on his wall. She could just make out one line. ‘Like shades in love and death’s oblivion lost.’ It stirred her and she repeated it to herself so it would be remembered and revisited later. She noted the man’s body shape but was frustrated at not seeing his face. She consoled herself that she would visit him next time and learn more.
Dragging herself away from his room, she carried on searching for Rebecca. The hospital staff at Northampton were oblivious to her presence. They walked down the corridors routinely checking on their patients. During the night shift the sounds they heard were familiar in their own evocative way but no longer disturbing, and Magda was mere shadows and whispers in their minds.
Rebecca’s room was near the end by the communal lounge. Magda looked in and could see she was sitting cross-legged on the floor swaying and chanting. She quietly opened the locked door with her brass key from her pocket and walked in. Rebecca was gaunt. The hospital gown she wore hung desultory on her shoulders. Her hair was neatly plaited down her back and had been shampooed by one of the nurses. Her fingernails were trimmed short and clean and she attended the shower bath therapy twice weekly. Yet, with such care and devotion, she maintained an air of abandonment. Her arms were heavily scarred and Magda noticed bruising around her neck. She had recently attempted to strangle herself but fell unconscious before finishing the deed. They had begun to force feed her in a last-ditch effort to keep her alive. Her collarbone jutted out and the leathery skin sank between each rib. Her eyes were dead and her hands flew like spiders in the air. She was a dreadful sight to behold and Magda wept a tear looking at her. She sat down on the floor in front of her.
‘Rebecca,’ she whispered softly, touching her on the knee.
Rebecca looked at her knee and continued swaying. She went quiet.
‘Rebecca. Look at me. I am the white mistress.’
Rebecca looked up at Magda and stopped swaying. She stared curiously at her face, which seemed vaguely familiar. Her hand jerked upwards and twitched towards Magda. Magda held her hand and brought it to her heart.
‘Look at me, Rebecca. I am here. Feel my heartbeat. I am alive. I am your white mistress and I have come to help you.’
Rebecca placed her hand flat on Magda’s chest and closed her eyes. She focussed on the thump-thump of Magda’s heart and became soothed. She smiled and opened her eyes again.
‘Good, good. You hear me now. I am in front of you. I know you, what you were and what you have become.’
Rebecca stopped smiling. She looked deeply into Magda’s eyes.
‘You have suffered, my love. You have suffered more than any woman should bear. The loss of a child has taken you to the darkest Hell and bound you to it.’
A small tear welled in Rebecca’s eye and tipped down her cheek. She remained mute.
‘I am here to free you. To take away the pain you have submitted yourself to. You have punished yourself enough and have earned your liberty. George is waiting for you. He wants you to join him in the spirit world. He knows you have been trying for so very long now. Trying and failing. But you have never given up. Never. You are strong in your love for him. He knows that. He has always known that. He is your blood.’
The tears streamed down her face as she listened attentively. She nodded.
‘I, the white mistress, release you. I can give you the power to be with him. If you wish to end this misery, you may have it now. Tonight and forever… Is this what you wish?’
Her face shone with hope and she nodded again with surety. Magda nodded slowly back at Rebecca and squeezed her hand. She reached into her pocket and produced a small glass vial with a purple-coloured liquid inside. She handed it to Rebecca.
‘Mind carefully. Once you drink this, there is no turning back. Think of what you are doing.’
Rebecca took the vial and smiled. ‘Thank you, white mistress.’ She emptied the vial and handed it back to Magda.
Magda smiled sadly back and helped
