The Keeper of Secrets Page 21

  Hansard laughed. ‘Sir Hellman, forgive my young friend. He is a Cambridge man, and it seems they do not teach logic there. He sees no gaolers, so assumes that the prisoners are free to wander at will. I see no gaolers, and deduce that the inmates are so carefully restrained within doors that there is no fear of them ever reaching the gates.’

  Sir Hellman, most truly the gentleman, smiled. ‘Let us suspend judgement.’

  The house dated from Tudor times, with matching wings added during the reign of Queen Anne. The aspect was pleasing, with sheep grazing quietly on a great meadow, separated by a ha-ha from a circular gravelled area quite large enough to turn a carriage. As soon as the coach stopped, liveried footmen appeared, promptly letting down the coach steps and handing us down, and we were welcomed into the house by a grave butler. Everything spoke of civilised normality.

  ‘We are here to speak to the superintendent,’ Sir Hellman announced.

  ‘I will see if Dr Brighouse is available, sir,’ the butler said, with a perfectly judged bow. He might have been Pemberton’s double, so closely did he resemble the butler at my family’s London house.

  Nonetheless, we sent our cards in with no explanation – however discreet the man appeared, we tacitly agreed to reveal our business to no one except the superintendent himself. After a moment, during which we cast our eyes on an undistinguished set of family portraits, we were ushered into a spacious study, complete with not only a fine set of bookshelves but also a pair of globes. The furniture looked to me like examples of Hepplewhite’s craft.

  We were soon joined by a round-faced man in his early sixties, soberly enough dressed to be a man of my calling, and with a wig that predated Hansard’s in fashion. To my delight, my friend touched his own scalp, in an unconscious gesture of self-satisfaction at having had his hair dressed more fashionably.

  ‘Dr Brighouse at your service, gentlemen. Please be seated,’ he said, rather curtly for a man whose business might well be to soothe and reassure relatives that their ailing loved one would be safe in his care.

  ‘Dr Brighouse,’ Dr Hansard said, having introduced himself and us, ‘I understand that families unfortunate enough to find themselves with an offspring who is – shall we say – unstable, may seek help here.’

  ‘Indeed they can. But I fail to see why you need the presence of a clergyman and another gentleman to discuss my avocation.’

  I forbore to glance at Hansard, but surely there had been a slight emphasis on the word gentleman?

  ‘It is not your very noble calling we wish to discuss. Sir Hellman and I are here in our capacity as justices of the peace. But,’ he continued, as Dr Brighouse’s arm shot to the bell, ‘for the time being we merely wish to make the most discreet enquiries about one of your inmates.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘I believe that Lord Elham may be in residence.’

  A ghost of a smile flitted across Brighouse’s face. It seemed that he filed away the phrase for future reference, much as Widow Jenkins did, though in markedly different circumstances. ‘He is indeed in residence, Dr Hansard. But why should you wish to know?’

  ‘Dr Brighouse, I am sure that you deal in the confidential all the time. So, in this instance, do we. You may rest assured that it as a matter of considerable moment, however.’

  The other medical man nodded. ‘Do you wish to speak about him or to him?’

  ‘Both, in time.’

  An expression of strong reluctance crossed Brighouse’s face. ‘I cannot think it would improve his health and temper if he were to receive such a deputation.’

  ‘You make an interesting distinction, Dr Brighouse,’ Hansard smiled. ‘Do I infer that while some of your patients are indeed mad, some are simply bad?’

  ‘You may infer what you wish. Indulgent parents, inadequate nurses and timorous governesses kow-towing to the heir all contrive to spoil headstrong children – and, believing that their wayward children are oversensitive, the parents then decline to send them to school. Some of their waywardness would be beaten out of them at Eton or Harrow for sure,’ he added.

  Was I the better for all that pain at Toone’s hands? At least my subsequent path in life, though far from that my father would have chosen, had not led me here as a patient.

  ‘And in which category does Lord Elham fall?’ Hansard asked.

  Brighouse stroked his chin, a gesture designed but failing to make him look wise. In fact he looked more like one of my chubbier pupils trying to make sense of simple arithmetic. Any residual apprehension I might have felt in the man’s presence melted away.

  ‘It is hard to say,’ Brighouse finally admitted. ‘Certainly there has been a want of discipline, with no inculcation of morals or manners. But there does seem to be an innate and at times uncontrollable violence underlying his boorishness, which is why, of course, he is a frequent visitor here.’

  I was impressed, despite myself.

  ‘And how are you treating him?’

  ‘He is no longer under restraint, though there have been occasions when that has been necessary. Indeed, the lowering diet and regular bleeding I prescribed at the start of his present sojourn here appeared to have done the trick. I am always pleased, gentlemen, when one of my patients can return to his home.’

  ‘Despite the detrimental effect this must have on your income?’ Sir Hellman put in.

  ‘There are always others in need of treatment,’ Brighouse replied, adding belatedly and rather unctuously, ‘alas.’

  ‘Alas, indeed. Is there any likelihood that Lord Elham will ever return home permanently?’ I asked.

  ‘I regret that as soon as he returns to his old surroundings, and, I believe, to his several bottles a day, he suffers a relapse, and is compelled to return to our care.’

  ‘He has done this more than once?’ Hansard asked sharply.

  ‘Indeed. One might almost describe his visits as regular, were there any set pattern to them. We first treated him two years ago, but his father insisted that his behaviour was simple high spirits, and removed him, despite our fears that he was not ready to return to society. Her ladyship thinks him too delicate for our regimen.’

  If only I had spoken more forcefully to my cousin about her son’s behaviour! However, I could not imagine her having let me get beyond the first syllable of criticism. ‘Would you tell us the dates of his periods here?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’ Removing a key ring from an inner pocket, he selected a key and bent to open a drawer in his desk.

  A loud bell sounded. Whoever was ringing it did not stint his energies – or stop.

  He paused, removed the key from the lock, and replaced the key ring in his pocket. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’ None of would have said that he hurried, but he left the room swiftly, with an undeniable purpose.

  A slight click from the door prompted Hansard to rise also. As he tried the door, he turned to us, hands spread. ‘Gentlemen, it seems we are locked in.’

  After ten minutes of kicking our heels, I confess that had I been a housebreaker I would have taken a penknife to that tantalising drawer. To do so would at least have ended the speculation that filled the intervening minutes.

  At first, with a gasp of shock, we had remained silent, especially when Hansard, still at the door, declared he could hear the footsteps of what he could only deduce must be a very large dog. A baying confirmed this.

  ‘So despite Dr Brighouse’s affability and ease, all here is not Paradise,’ Sir Hellman had observed. He rose to his feet and, shielding his eyes against the sun, peered through the window. ‘Nay, they might be preparing for a fox-hunt, with these hounds and these men on horseback.’

  ‘For a man-hunt,’ I corrected him, as I joined him at the window.

  It did not take long. A figure – I do not like to say it was a man, though it was mother-naked – fled across the gravel and hurtled towards what he possibly saw as the safety of the meadow. He misjudged the ha-ha, and fell awkwardly, clutching his ankle, from which blood w
as streaming. There must have been a tripwire, which I had failed to observe. He strove nonetheless to hobble on. As we watched in horror he was floored by two dogs, and gathered into a straitjacket by no fewer than three burly attendants. Even as he lay panting and screaming on the soft grass, Dr Brighouse forced a contrivance into his mouth, and poured liquid inside. When he judged his patient sufficiently calm, he had him loaded on a large handcart and, still surrounded by dogs and attendants, trundled away.

  Too shocked by what we had seen to talk, we resumed out seats. After a while, as our pulses slowed, we heard the click of the door being unlocked, and a footman and a maid brought in wine and a laden tray.

  The butler, following on their heels, bowed. ‘Dr Brighouse’s compliments, gentlemen, and he is sure that you will understand the reason for his temporary absence. He hopes you will partake of refreshments while you wait.’

  Although he retired, he left the two servants with us, thus inhibiting any conversation we might have wished for – and any unauthorised exploration of that drawer. He also locked us in again.

  I noticed with distaste that there was still blood on Brighouse’s cuffs when he returned, clearly anxious to reassure us that such behaviour, while distressing to all, was easily controlled by those with experience. At the same time he contrived to suggest it was a rarity in the calm and ordered existence of his establishment.

  ‘Now, may we proceed to Lord Elham’s records, and, if necessary, to speaking to the young man himself?’ Dr Hansard asked, the servants having been dismissed.

  ‘I cannot think that the latter will be possible,’ Brighouse replied. ‘After an incident like today’s, all our inmates are unsettled and we find it necessary to…to pacify them.’

  ‘You mean by dosing them with laudanum, whether they need it or not?’

  ‘And by bleeding them,’ came the even response. ‘Dr Hansard, if you know of a better way of dealing with those of such a disposition, pray tell me,’ he added, more tetchily. ‘Now, to Lord Elham, and whether he will ever be able to take his place in the Upper Chamber.’

  ‘Nay,’ said Sir Hellman, breaking his silence at last, with a gust of laughter, strangely out of place in its vehemence, ‘put him in there and his strange ways will never be noticed.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Dr Brighouse agreed smoothly, as he bent to unlock a drawer and produce a ledger. ‘In here I keep the dates of admission and discharge of all my patients.’ He ran an index finger along the columns. ‘See: there is the date; the patient’s alias; the reason for admission; any special regimen; date of discharge. And if the patient has to be readmitted, then we begin the whole process again.’

  ‘You do not list the patients by name?’

  ‘It would not be easy to steal this ledger, but it would not be impossible. You can imagine that confidentiality must at all times be maintained, when information in the wrong hands could lead to…unpleasantness. I am thinking of inheritances, marriage settlements and so on. So full details of the patients are kept separately, under a numerical system.’

  ‘Very creditable. Now, might I just compare the dates that I have in my notebook with those of Elham’s residence?’

  I might have known that Dr Hansard would be so efficient, noting down details I had kept but vaguely in my memory.

  His face impassive, he copied information from the ledger into his notebook. ‘You are absolutely certain of these dates?’

  ‘Absolutely?’

  ‘I think that we may need to speak to Lord Elham, as soon as you deem him to be fit.’

  ‘In connection with what, Dr Hansard? A criminal offence? Because I must warn you that in a court of law he might not be considered to be fit to plead.’

  ‘Even though he would be tried – as a peer of the realm – in the House of Lords!’ Sir Hellman observed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  If I had had a choice of being treated by Dr Brighouse or by Mrs Brighouse, I would have chosen the former.

  We encountered his good lady as we made our way to the west wing of the house, every door being unlocked for us and locked behind us, a decidedly intimidating experience. A soberly dressed female, weighed down by a huge chatelaine laden with keys, was berating a quaking maid for some failure. She made no attempt to lower her voice, let alone desist altogether, as we approached, Dr Brighouse escorting us. At last, when it was a choice between sending the young woman on her way or continuing to block the corridor and prevent our further progress, she abandoned her prey. Us she treated with more affability than we would have chosen as her husband introduced us.

  ‘This is Mrs Brighouse, gentlemen, who does me the honour of acting as matron and housekeeper here at Lymbury Park.’

  Instead of curtsying, she shook our hands in an almost mannish way, her grip being the equal of any sportsman I had met. In her forties, she had the air of one who had married above her station, but was determined not to be obsequious in any way.

  ‘Good day, gentlemen. You catch us at one of our rare crises, you see.’

  ‘Indeed, madam, the sight of that poor patient being pinioned and drugged was not what we hoped for,’ I said.

  ‘You would rather have seen him run, as he was, into the village and ravish the nearest female? Well, that would not I. Mr Brown, as I shall call him, is a danger not just to himself, you see, but to others. If he was not here, I swear you’d see him swing at Tyburn, gentle birth or not.’ She lifted her chin in challenge, arms akimbo.

  ‘My dear, I have explained to these gentlemen that we are providing a most discreet and useful service.’

  ‘Good. And little enough reward we get for it too. I’d return these monsters to their families, for two pins, to see how they liked having them wandering round at all hours.’

  ‘Surely you lock them in!’ I could not help looking around me in some apprehension.

  ‘Mortal cunning, some of them, you see. But, bless your soul, gentlemen, you’ve no need to fear. Look’ee here.’ Reaching for the nearest door, she lifted a panel that concealed a small barred spy-hole. ‘Go on, see for yourself how docile they can be.’

  Her husband swiftly closed the panel. ‘Nay, Honoria, my love, they are here to meet one man only. Mr Bossingham.’

  She pulled a face. ‘He’s up on the third floor this week. The more restless they are, the higher we put them, you see, gentlemen.’ Surely this contradicted her husband’s optimistic assurances. ‘Now, if you’d be so kind, just step this way.’

  We followed her up what would have been, when the house was a family residence, the backstairs, their mundane meanness somehow emphasised in what I increasingly felt, despite Brighouse’s earlier optimism, to be a place of despair. Each pace, moreover, took us deeper into a smell, and then a stench, of human ordure, such as one is most used to in the stews of poor towns and cities.

  Mrs Brighouse bustled ahead, banging vigorously on any door behind which an inmate was foolish enough to cry out or weep. No words were exchanged, but it was clear that on other occasions they might have been, and at once the hidden room fell unnaturally silent, with not the movement of a chair or the scratch of a pen to be heard.

  At last she stopped, and, with a theatrical flourish, lifted Mr Bossingham’s hatch.

  Hansard stepped forward softly. As he peered in, his face became inexpressibly sad. He gestured me to take his place. There was the noble lord, the Eleventh Duke of Elham, reduced to a sobbing boy, clutching a child’s rag doll for comfort as he lay, wearing no more than soiled small clothes, on a straw mattress on the floor. A stinking bucket in one corner catered for his bodily needs. I was reminded, most horribly, of the cell from which we had plucked young William Jenkins. Never had I liked Elham, nor found him a decent human being, even, but to see him like this was past enduring.

  I replaced the flap as quietly as I could, not wishing him to have the further humiliation of knowing he was the object of derision or pity.

  ‘You still wish to question him?’ Brighouse asked curtly.

&n
bsp; ‘Indeed I do,’ Hansard declared. ‘Pray have him cleaned up and conveyed to a more presentable room where he and we may have a little more dignity.’

  * * *

  We declined the offer of further refreshment, and passed the time calming our souls in the delightful pleasure gardens to the rear of the house. They were laid out in the French fashion, with elegant promenades between weed-free beds. One man lazed in the shade of a tree, while four or five others, all dressed in the same drab blue shirts and breeches, applied themselves with hoes and rakes. None of the latter took any notice of us, but the solitary man sprang to his feet and touched his hat. A large dog, which I had not seen till that moment, was instantly alert, almost begging its master for permission to spring into action. But he kept it firmly to heel, and walked authoritatively towards us, an upright carriage combined with a pronounced limp suggesting an erstwhile military career.

  It was clear that neither Sir Hellman nor Dr Hansard felt inclined to explain our presence, but I said mildly, ‘I take it these are your trusty inmates? And that you care for them out here, in the open air? We are visiting Mr Bossingham, you know.’

  ‘Waiting for them to make him presentable, are you? If you asks me, there’s nothing wrong with him that a spell under Old Hookey wouldn’t put right, begging your pardon, Padre. If his father purchased a cornetcy for him, he would have done in Portugal or Spain just as well as here. A few route marches under the sun, a few nights bivouacked under pouring rain, and under a good sergeant he’d soon have learnt to mind his temper and his tongue.’

  ‘And where did you see action?’ I made myself ask, despite the familiar feelings of nausea rising in my gorge.

  ‘Back in ’08, sir, at Vimerio. We showed them our mettle, I can tell you. Then they replaced Old Hookey, and we were done for, no argumentation.’ He spat, copiously. ‘A well set-up man like, you, Padre – I’m surprised you’re not in the Peninsula yourself.’