“That would be fine,” Dr. Forbes said.
George Smith looked resigned, his mother distinctly put out. None of us knew at the time that my innocent trip to the insane asylum would ultimately bring peril to us all.
2
Life abounds with chance encounters. Most leave no residue, but some have consequences that are serious and far-reaching. Such was my encounter with a woman named Isabel White, whom I met during the summer of 1848. Such was my meeting with Dr. John Forbes. Chance encounters such as these send us down one path instead of another, and we cannot know until much later that they have changed the course of our lives.
However, I had no intimation of this on the morning I was engaged to visit Bedlam. As I sat in the parlor of the Smiths’ house at Number 76 Gloucester Terrace in Hyde Park Gardens and waited for the carriage, I thought only of the interesting material for my long-overdue book.
I heard wheels rattle and horses’ hooves clop outside. I hurried to the door and opened it. In the sun-drenched street between the rows of elegant houses was a carriage, but not the one hired for me. Down its steps clambered Mr. Thackeray.
“Good morning, Miss Bronte,” he said, all sardonic smiles. “I’ve come to pay you a social call.”
Although furious at him for what he’d done to me last night, I had no choice but to usher him to the parlor.
“How is Jane Eyre today?” His eyes twinkled mischievously behind his spectacles.
My eyes saw red. “How dare you! After introducing me as ‘Jane Eyre’ and making a public fool of me yesterday, you mock me again!”
Mr. Thackeray took an involuntary step backward. Astonishment raised his bushy eyebrows. “Why, Miss Bronte, were you offended by what I said?”
“I was and am offended.”
“I meant you no harm,” Mr. Thackeray said, stung by my criticism. His manner turned patronizing. “You are too sensitive. If you intend to survive in the cutthroat world of literary society, you must grow a thicker skin.”
“People who think other people are too sensitive are usually as insensitive as a rhinoceros themselves,” I retorted.
Mr. Thackeray glared indignantly; then he remembered his manners. “All right. If your feelings were hurt, I apologize.”
“What kind of apology is that? I could just as well call you a cad and then say I’m sorry you are one!”
“You’ve already called me a rhinoceros,” Mr. Thackeray said, nettled yet amused.
“Only because you deserved it.”
Baffled now, Mr. Thackeray said, “I don’t understand what all this fuss is about. What I said was just idle, harmless teasing.”
“No, sir!” I exclaimed with a passion. “It was in poor taste at best, and cruel at worst!”
We faced off, I all in rage and Mr. Thackeray all haughty resentment. My fists were clenched, and I know not what I would have done if George Smith hadn’t heard us arguing and rushed in from his breakfast.
“Charlotte, you have every right to be upset,” he said, “but I’m sure that Mr. Thackeray truly didn’t mean to cause you pain. Do give him a chance to apologize properly.”
These reasonable words served to dash cold water onto the heat of battle. “I am sorry for offending you,” Mr. Thackeray said with genuine contrition. “Will you please forgive me?”
“Yes, of course.” I didn’t quite trust him, but felt better now that we’d had it out.
“I’d like to make it up to you,” Mr. Thackeray said. “Please allow me to take you and a party of friends to the theater. You may choose the play.”
The idea of another social occasion made my nerves quail, but I accepted rather than have him think me still angry. We made a date for the next evening. Then my carriage arrived, and I set out for Bedlam.
As the carriage bore me away from the decorous streets of Hyde Park Gardens, I began to have misgivings. St. George’s Fields, in which Bedlam was located, contained some of London’s worst slums. Deteriorating tenements lined dirty, narrow streets filled with the poorest, most downtrodden of humanity. The stench of garbage and cesspits was sickening. But of course the city authorities would not have situated an insane asylum in a finer district.
Bedlam was an imposing edifice, three stories high, crowned by a huge dome, with a classical portico and columns at the entrance, surrounded by a stone wall. Stately as a temple, it dominated the wide boulevard. Dr. Forbes was waiting for me at the gate. We exchanged pleasantries and he led me inside. A lawn bordered with flowering shrubs and shaded by tall trees seemed out of place amid the squalid slum. So did the folks who accompanied us up the wide staircase in an excited, chattering horde. Many were fashionable ladies and gentlemen, such as one might see in Pall Mall.
“Who are all these people?” I asked.
“Visitors,” replied Dr. Forbes. “Some are here to see family members who are patients. Most have come to tour the asylum.”
To view the inmates as if they were wild animals in the zoo, I thought. I felt ashamed of my own curiosity, until Dr. Forbes pointed out a booth at the entrance, where an attendant was taking admission fees, and said, “The money paid by the visitors helps to defray the cost of caring for the patients.”
Inside, the visitors’ footsteps and chatter echoed in a vast hall with high ceilings, lit by sunlight from many windows. So far Bedlam seemed a respectable institution, not the gloomy dungeon I’d imagined. It did not even smell any worse than other buildings in London, whose sewers taint the air everywhere. Dr. Forbes escorted me through a chapel, then the basement, which contained the kitchens, pantry, and laundry. There labored people I first took for servants.
“The patients who are well enough work to earn their keep,” Dr. Forbes said.
I took a second look at the men cutting vegetables with sharp knives and the women pressing sheets with hot irons. I was glad to see attendants standing watch over them, for I’d not forgotten George Smith’s warning about dangerous lunatics. We inspected the kitchen gardens, where patients watered neat rows of plants, and the recreation grounds where they strolled. Dr. Forbes talked about the therapeutic benefits of fresh air and exercise. The crowds of visitors lent the place a holiday air. I could almost have thought myself on tour of some great country manor, if not for the howls and shrieks that periodically emanated from the asylum.
“Shall we proceed to the wards?” Dr. Forbes asked.
I eagerly agreed. We went up a spacious staircase. The women’s ward had sunny corridors furnished with carpets, comfortable chairs, oil paintings, marble busts, and baskets of flowering plants. Matrons in white caps and aprons supervised the patients. These were young women and old, modestly dressed and clean. Some wandered aimlessly. One muttered to herself as she passed us; one followed us, plucking at my sleeve. Other patients welcomed visitors to a table that displayed knitted mittens, lace collars, pincushions, small baskets, and other handmade articles.
“They’re allowed to sell the things they make,” Dr. Forbes said.
I purchased a lace collar for my friend Ellen, and a wool muffler for John Slade. I know it is strange to buy something for a man I might never see again, but I have stockpiled a collection of small gifts, in case he should return.
So far the gifts were all I’d found to take with me from Bedlam. Where were the dramatic sights that would inspire a new novel? Mrs. Smith had said I have a taste for disturbing things, and I suppose she was right. Alas, my taste would not be satisfied here.
Then Dr. Forbes said, “I can show you some things that the general public is not allowed to see, but they’re not for the fainthearted.”
Various experiences had toughened my heart to the consistency of leather. I assured Dr. Forbes that I was ready for my tour behind the scenes at Bedlam. We watched doctors set leeches on inmates who were sick with physical as well as mental ailments, and apply hot, pungent, medicinal compresses on the shaved scalps of patients who moaned and resisted.