CHAPTER 1: 1864

1864 4 November 1864

Received confirmation from the Superintendent that I will be given the opportunity to treat a very troubled and difficult patient. Dubious honour! Her name is Alice, and her prognosis is not promising. After looking at her file, I'm astonished she has survived this long. She has been nearly comatose for a year.

"Would I have admitted her had I known then what I know now?" -3/10/73

11 November 1864

Mute on a stretcher, with her head curiously bandaged, Alice seems to cling precariously to life. Her burns have healed remarkably in the year since the fire, but she languishes in a deep trance-like dementia. It's as if the blaze consumed her senses wholesale. Deaf, dumb and blind to all stimulation, she's a fair match for the infirmary's gloom.

In a frenzied instant, a cankered feline pounced on Alice while she was about to be carried inside. Startled by the cat's yowl, the bearers lost their grip and dropped the wretched girl to the ground. Most curious to behold, the cat stood atop Alice as if claiming territorial right, or as if defending a rodent captured in the day's hunt from other hungry predators. Only when an orderly threatened it with a stick did the creature scamper into a nearby hedge. Even then the cat crouched beneath the shrubbery. With eyes agape, it fixed on Alice as if it had some vital interest in our proceedings.

"It pays to heed the feline — something I've learned over the years." -21/10/73

13 November 1864

In the twelvemonth since the conflagration, Alice has dropped further into a grim and darkly quiet abyss. It's a wonder the Superintendent didn't bury her deep within the Bedlam catacombs. The surgeons were able to cure the flesh, but they've done nothing to treat the inflammation of her brain. It's not sure what he expects me to accomplish with her. I suppose he thinks that in my twenty-three years within these troubled walls I've mastered a curriculum not taught in Oxford classrooms.

14 November 1864

Her one possession is a toy — a sooty, stuffed rabbit whose single button-eye dangles from a loose thread. Plaything from her time of innocence, and her only link to life before the fire, the rabbit is now sentinel to Alice's deepening dementia.

"The rabbit may prove a valuable instrument for shock therapy. I should have noticed it sooner." -21/10/73

8 December 1864

When I hold a flame to her eye, nothing in her vacuous gaze betrays the faintest glimmer of response. I clap a pair of blocks at her ear. Nothing. Neither her sight nor her hearing appear to be damage, still she registers nothing at all. The rumor (passed on by Reverend Mottle amongst others) alleges that she feels nothing — not pain, or fear or other torments — is neither credible nor kind. Still, she is far, far gone, this one.

9 December 1864

In many ways it's as if she's in the grave already; her countenance so still she appears to be in training for the coffin. Indeed, if she were to die today in this old hospital, nary a person would take note other than those few who recall her name from the papers. Those few who'd mutter to themselves "ah, that's a shame - the poor girl," and then turn the page to learn more of the recent stabbings in Notting Hill.

"So quiet she appeared. Was the deep madness already coursing through her mind?" -23/10/73

10 December 1864

Though she appears weak, she must have a strong constitution to have survived until now. Her fever persists, her breathing heaves violently at times and, even after more than a year of healing, burns so massive commonly cause great discomfort. You'd never imagine she's in any distress, though, the way lies there, as lifeless as a British Museum mummy. I daresay, however, that I'll stir her from her dreamery, even if the response is involuntary. I'll begin tomorrow with a steady treatment of cold plasters and bloodletting. The bleeding might cause some relief to her dementia. I also have a new shock apparatus that I'd like to try on her. I'm curious to see how she reacts to this treatment.

14 December 1864

The physicians who treated her burns reported that she barely noticed when they debrided and dressed her wounds. Indeed, she rarely showed any agitation at all when they examined her over the months. They also report, however, that on some nights, she howled like a banshee. When the nurses responded to the screams, Alice would hush, as if magically released from her demons.

Eventually, they stopped responding to these outbursts. And, after a short while, she stopped uttering any noise whatsoever.