Beyond the Veil of Tears Read online

  For my wonderful grandchildren – Sam and Connor, Georgia and Emily, and Reece.

  I pray for you always, precious ones, and hope life will hold God’s blessing and joy in abundance and great happiness. May you always have the courage to stand up for what you believe is right, and the strength to be yourselves in this fast-changing world.

  You are the future, my darlings, and I love you more than words can say.

  Author’s Note

  I had absolutely no idea of the horrors of the old lunatic asylums until a sentence or two on a news programme set me thinking. The result was the idea behind this story, and a personal journey for me, into a world that was both disturbing and harrowing.

  Before the nineteenth century, and in the absence of any curative treatment, public and professional attitudes veered towards the opinion that mental illness was somehow the fault of the individual – a spiritual weakness. Sometimes the manifestations of this disease were attributed to evil demons that had possessed the soul, and the cruel punishments that were inflicted on some unfortunates are among the worst records of man’s inhumanity towards his fellow beings.

  In Britain, apart from private madhouses – many of sinister repute – little existed beside Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, known as Bedlam. This grim institution became a macabre tourist attraction where, for the fee of one penny, genteel society could mock the strange and terrible antics of the inhabitants and watch them being bled or beaten.

  In 1774 Parliament passed an Act for the regulation of private madhouses, and a further Act in 1808 – the County Asylums Act – legislated that counties should establish institutions for the care of pauper lunatics. However, it was customary for mechanical restraints to be used, such as straitjackets, muzzles to prevent patients biting, and chains and iron manacles to prevent them harming themselves and others, along with purgings, bleedings, beatings and sometimes starvation; and each ward held the dreaded padded cell.

  These sprawling institutions were often self-contained, isolated villages in their own right, cut off from the outside world and cloaked in dark mystery to outsiders. And their remote locations tended to make visiting the patients difficult, particularly for the poor.

  One of the most horrific aspects that has come to light in recent years is that 30 per cent of the asylum population was unjustly incarcerated, without crime or due cause, often by members of their own family who had ‘inconvenient’ relatives, wives or husbands they wished to get rid of. These patients could be imprisoned for months, for years and sometimes even for life, amid those who were genuinely insane.

  By the middle of the 1800s restraint was beginning to be questioned by more enlightened and humane doctors as a form of treatment, but the fact that the Lunacy Act of 1890 provided for the use, under ‘careful medical supervision’, of both mechanical restraint and seclusion speaks volumes.

  As the century neared its close, campaigners for the improved property rights of married women – and for the greater freedom of women in general – seized the lunacy–liberty issue and rolled it into a larger battle. But the twentieth century saw the ‘new’ cure of electric-shock treatment come to the fore (although electric eels and electric fish had been used by people in ancient times to treat mental illness). ECT, or electroconvulsive therapy, sent patients into violent convulsions worthy of a medieval torture chamber, often destroying the memory, and so the fight for the rights of the mentally ill can have been said to have merely taken a sideways jump, rather than being advanced.

  By the 1960s there was growing disquiet about ECT and lobotomy (surgical severing of connections in the frontal lobe of the brain). And with new scanning devices in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the CT (computerized tomography) scanner and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), and more effective drugs in the 1990s, the twenty-first century has seen the treatment of the mentally ill change once again.

  However, the million-dollar question still remains: do we really have any idea of what we do, when we interfere with a human being’s most sensitive and complex organ – the brain? It’s a sobering thought.

  Contents

  Preface

  PART ONE

  A Lamb to the Slaughter, 1890

  PART TWO

  The Gilded Cage, 1892

  PART THREE

  Earlswood Asylum, 1893

  PART FOUR

  Breaking Free, 1893

  PART FIVE

  Though the Mills of God Grind Slowly . . . , 1900

  Preface

  It was the smell that brought her to herself, a nauseating odour that the stronger stench of bleach and disinfectant couldn’t quite mask. She began to struggle again as they half-walked, half-carried her along the green-tiled, stone-floored corridor, desperately trying to rise above the deadening stupor that had resulted from the injection administered some time before in the carriage, when she wouldn’t stop fighting.

  How could this be happening to her? How could she have been manhandled out of her own home in broad daylight?

  She was still weak from the complications that had followed in the wake of the miscarriage, but fear poured strength into her limbs. She kicked out wildly, and one of the men dragging her growled a curse as her shoe made sharp contact with his shinbone. They came to a brown-painted door and the same man knocked twice. Although her body was aching and bruised from the fight she had put up when they had come for her, and she felt sick and dizzy, she continued to twist and wrestle against the hard hands, and screamed with all her might.

  The door was opened by a stout woman in a grey dress and a starched white apron and cap. For a moment she felt a flood of relief at the sight of one of her own sex. Surely this woman would listen to her? She wasn’t mad – they would see that and understand this was a terrible mistake.

  ‘You’ve got yourselves a right handful with this ’un,’ the man she’d kicked muttered morosely to another woman sitting behind a large polished walnut desk. As she rose to her feet and stared disapprovingly, he added, ‘Carryin’ on somethin’ wicked, she’s been. I’m black an’ blue.’

  The woman ignored him. Looking over his shoulder to the third man who had been following in their wake, she said, ‘What medication have you administered, Dr Owen?’

  ‘She’s been on bromide and ergot for the last weeks, but I had to administer morphia on the way here, such was her agitation. I dare not give more for some hours, Matron.’

  The matron nodded, then inclined her head at the other two burly uniformed females in the room, who stepped forward and relieved the men of their prisoner. Their grip was every bit as powerful as that of their male counterparts.

  Granite-faced, the matron said coldly, ‘Do you understand why you are here? The court has issued a lunacy order, on the grounds that you are of unsound mind following a recent malady. If you do not cooperate, my staff will be forced to use the necessary restraints to prevent injury to yourself or other persons, and that will not be pleasant.’

  They weren’t going to help her. She stared into the gimlet eyes, and a terror that eclipsed her previous fear caused her ears to ring. She may well have lost her reason in the minutes that followed, because she couldn’t remember much of what happened, only that she fought until they thrust her into the padded cell. A number of women held her down and stripped her to her shift and drawers, before pulling a rough linen frock over her head and strapping her into a straitjacket – the white, stained, leather-covered walls and the floor packed with straw deadening any sound.

  And then they left her to the hell that had opened and engulfed her.

  PART ONE

  A Lamb to the Slaughter

  1890

  Chapter One

  Angeline Stewart stood in the swirling s
nowflakes that the bitter north-east wind was sending into a frenzied dance, but her velvet-brown eyes did not see what they were looking at. The bleak churchyard, the black-clothed figures of the other mourners and Reverend Turner standing at the head of the double grave had faded away. In their place were her beloved mother and father, as they had looked that last evening. It had only been a severe head-cold that had prevented her from accompanying them to the theatre, otherwise she, too, would most likely have been killed in the accident that ensued after they left the Avenue Theatre and Opera House in the midst of one of the worst snow blizzards Sunderland had experienced in years. The overturned coach had been found early the next morning after their housekeeper, Mrs Lee, who was also the coachman’s wife, had instigated a search after they’d failed to return. Her parents and the coachman were dead, pinned beneath the badly smashed coach. It had veered off the road and down an embankment, and the two horses had been so badly injured that they had been shot at the scene.

  Angeline brushed a strand of burnished brown hair from her cheek and took a deep breath against the picture that her mind conjured up. She hadn’t been allowed to see her parents after the accident. Her Uncle Hector, her father’s brother, had forbidden it after he had identified the bodies. He said she must remember them as they had been. He wasn’t to know that her imagination presented her with horrors probably far worse than the reality, images that caused her to lay awake most nights muffling her sobs.

  ‘All right, m’dear?’

  Her uncle squeezing her arm brought her back to the present, the moment before Reverend Turner beckoned them forward so that she could drop the two long-stemmed red roses she was holding on top of the oak coffins that had been lowered into the earth. Red roses had been her dear mama’s favourite flowers, and McArthur – their gardener – had kept the house supplied with fragrant blooms winter and summer, courtesy of the heated greenhouses that were his pride and joy.

  Angeline glanced at him as she passed the group of servants she regarded as family. McArthur’s weather-beaten face was grim and his two lads, Seth and Bernie, who assisted their father in the upkeep of the two acres of land surrounding the house on the edge of Ryhope, had no cheeky smiles today. Myrtle, the housemaid, Lottie, the kitchen maid, and Mrs Davidson, the cook, were openly crying; and even Fairley, her father’s butler-cum-valet, was struggling to keep back the tears. And poor Mrs Lee, who was standing with Angeline’s governess, Miss Robson, looked about to faint.

  Angeline paused at the woman’s side and touched her arm. She’d wanted the interment of the housekeeper’s husband to be incorporated in the service for her parents, but her uncle wouldn’t hear of the idea, saying it wouldn’t be seemly for a mere servant to be given such regard. She had tried to argue with him, but when Reverend Turner had agreed with her uncle, she had been forced to admit defeat. Simon Lee would be buried tomorrow, and his widow would have to endure a second funeral.

  Her uncle’s hand in the small of Angeline’s back urged her forward. The subtle pressure had the effect of making her want to resist. Her father would have seen nothing wrong in publicly expressing empathy towards their housekeeper, who had been with her parents even before she was born. He’d always maintained that it was their duty to care for and protect their servants, and that each should be treated as a valued human being. She had grown up knowing that her father’s father had been born in the slums of Sunderland’s notorious, disease-ridden East End. Her grandfather had escaped by running away to sea at an early age, returning a rich man at the age of forty. After setting up as a wine and spirit merchant, he’d married the daughter of a local jeweller. Exactly how he had acquired his wealth was never discussed, and she had been forbidden to ask any questions on the subject by her mother, but she did know that when her grandmother had died giving birth to her Uncle Hector, ten years after her father had been born, her grandfather had wanted nothing to do with his younger son. She’d thought that very unfair.

  ‘Come along, my child.’

  Reverend Turner was holding out his hand to her and she stepped forward. She didn’t like the Reverend. She had once heard her mother describe him to her father as a cold fish, when they hadn’t thought she was listening, and she’d thought this a very apt description. The minister always had cold, clammy hands even on the hottest day, and his pale-blue bulbous eyes and fat lips reminded her of the rows of gaping faces in the fishmonger’s window. She had said this once to her mama, and although her mother had reprimanded her, her eyes had been twinkling.

  She bit harder on her lip as her heart and soul cried out, ‘Mama, oh, Mama’, but not a sound emerged. Her uncle had warned her that, out of respect for her parents, she had to conduct herself with dignity and propriety today, as befitted a young lady of fifteen years. Shows of emotion were vulgar and were only indulged in by the common people who knew no better. She had wanted to say that they were only a step removed from the common people, and that if her grandfather hadn’t made his fortune, her father and uncle would most likely have been born in the East End instead of a grand house; but, of course, she hadn’t. Mainly because she always felt sorry for her Uncle Hector. It must have been awful growing up knowing that your own father didn’t like you and, furthermore, blamed you for your mother’s death. Her grandfather had died long before she was born – her parents had been married for more than twenty years before she’d made an appearance, and her mama had often told her they’d given up hope of having a child – and in his will he had left everything to her father. Uncle Hector hadn’t even been mentioned. It was as though he’d never existed.

  Angeline’s thoughts caused her to reach out and take her uncle’s arm as they stood together, and she gave him one of the roses to throw on her father’s coffin. Knowing what she did, it had always surprised her that her father and uncle got on so well, but then that was mainly due to her father. He had loved and protected his sibling all his life, and when their father had died, he’d set Uncle Hector up in his own business so that he could be independent and not beholden to anyone. Her father had been so kind, so good. Everyone said so.

  When the first clods of earth were dropped on the coffins, Angeline felt as though the sound jarred her very bones. She had the mad impulse to jump into the hole, lie down and tell the grave-diggers to cover her, too. The shudder that she gave caused her uncle to murmur, ‘Remember what I said, Angeline. People are looking at how you conduct yourself today.’ Then he added, in a gentler tone, ‘It’s nearly over now. Hold on a little longer.’

  The drive back to the house in Ryhope was conducted in silence. Angeline sat with her uncle and her governess in the first carriage, drawn by four black-plumed horses, followed by a procession of other carriages and conveyances. Drenched with misery, she stared unseeing out of the window of the coach. She’d always liked snow before this last week. It was so pretty, and she’d enjoyed taking walks in the winter with her mother, snug in her fur coat and matching bonnet. When they returned home they always thawed out in front of the blazing fire in the drawing room, with Mrs Davidson’s hot buttered muffins and cocoa.

  She hated the snow now, though. It had taken her parents, and she didn’t know how she would bear the pain of their passing. It seemed impossible that she’d never see them again. Never feel her mother’s arms around her or the touch of her soft lips. Never hear her father’s cheerful call when he came home in the evening.

  She choked back a sob, mindful of her uncle’s words.

  It was going to take every bit of her remaining strength to get through the next stage of the day, and she couldn’t break down now. That luxury would have to wait until she was alone in her bed. Her uncle had invited friends and family back to the house for a reception following the church service, and she was dreading it. Not that there would be many family members; it would be mostly friends of her parents and business associates of her father. When her grandfather had returned to the town after being at sea, he had severed all connections with his siblings and other famil
y members, going so far as to change his surname. Her mother had been an only child and, apart from two ancient spinster great-aunts on her side, there was no one else. No one but Uncle Hector.

  She glanced at him, but he, too, was staring out of the window and seemed lost in thought. She wondered if he would go back to his own house tonight, now that the funeral was over. He had been staying with her since her parents’ accident, and had seen to the arrangements for the service and other matters. This had included organizing for Miss Robson – who had previously come to the house every morning for a few hours, to take her through her lessons – to take up temporary residence and sleep in the room next to hers. This had been an added trial. She liked Miss Robson, but found her very stiff and proper, which was probably why her uncle had considered the governess an ideal companion and chaperone.

  Angeline’s bow-shaped mouth pulled uncharacteristically tight. She wasn’t a baby. She was fifteen years old, and her father had always said she possessed an old head on young shoulders. She knew some girls of her age were flibbertigibbets and given to fancies, but she wasn’t like that, possibly because her parents had had her so late in life that all their friends’ children were grown-up, and so she had mixed almost entirely with adults. It would have been different if she had been allowed to go to the local school, but her father had been against it, and her mama had been equally against sending her away to boarding school. Hence Miss Robson. Not that she had minded. She loved her home and being with her mother; her mama had been her best friend and confidante and companion. Some afternoons on their walks they had laughed and laughed until their sides ached.

  This time a sob did escape, and Angeline turned it into a cough. If she could just get through this day she would be able to take stock. She felt as though she had been in a daze since the accident.