“Wonderful; as if nothing were out of the ordinary. He won’t go out, though; just stays in the dining-room—watches from there all the time.”
“The world must seem to him a conspiracy. If he remains sane long enough he’ll lose that feeling.”
“Need he ever become insane again? Surely there are cases of complete recovery?”
“So far as I can gather, my dear, his case is not likely to be one of them. Heredity is against him, and temperament.”
“I could have liked him, it’s such a daring face; but his eyes ARE frightening.”
“Have you seen him with the children?”
“Not yet; but they speak quite nicely and naturally about him; so he hasn’t scared them, you see.”
“At the Home they talked jargon to me about complexes, obsessions, repressions, dissociation—all that sort of thing, but I gathered that his case is one where fits of great gloom alternate with fits of great excitement. Lately, both have grown so much milder that he has become practically normal. What has to be watched for is the recrudescence of one or of the other. He always had a streak of revolt in him; he was up against the leadership in the war, up against democracy after the war. He’ll almost certainly get up against something now he’s back. If he does it will ungear him again in no time. If there’s any weapon in the house, Dinny, it ought to be removed.”
“I’ll tell Diana.”
The cab turned into the King’s Road.
“I suppose I’d better not come to the house,” said Adrian, sadly.
Dinny got out, too. She stood a moment watching him, tall and rather stooping, walk away, then turned down Oakley Street, and let herself in. Ferse was in the dining-room doorway.
“Come in here,” he said; “I want a talk.”
In that panelled room, painted a greenish-gold, lunch had been cleared away, and on the narrow refectory table were a newspaper, a tobacco jar, and several books. Ferse drew up a chair for her and stood with his back to a fire which simulated flames. He was not looking at her, so she was able to study him as she had not yet had the chance of doing. His handsome face was uncomfortable to look on. The high cheek-bones, stiff jaw, and crisp grizzled hair set off those thirsty burning steel-blue eyes. Even his attitude, square and a-kimbo, with head thrust forward, set off those eyes. Dinny leaned back, scared and faintly smiling. He turned to her and said:
“What are people saying about me?”
“I’ve not heard anything; I’ve only been to my brother’s wedding.”
“Your brother Hubert? Whom has he married?”
“A girl called Jean Tasburgh. You saw her the day before yesterday.”
“Oh! Ah! I locked her in.”
“Yes, why?”
“She looked dangerous to me. I consented to go into that place, you know. I wasn’t put there.”
“Oh! I know; I knew you were there of your own accord.”
“It wasn’t such a bad place, but—well! How do I look?”
Dinny said softly: “You see, I never saw you before, except at a distance, but I think you look very well.”
“I am well. I kept my muscles up. The fellow that looked after me saw to that.”
“Did you read much?”
“Lately—yes. What do they think about me?”
At the repetition of this question Dinny looked up into his face.
“How can they think about you without having seen you?”
“You mean I ought to see people?”
“I don’t know anything about it, Captain Ferse. But I don’t see why not. You’re seeing me.”
“I like YOU.”
Dinny put out her hand.
“Don’t say you’re sorry for me,” Ferse said, quickly.
“Why should I? You’re perfectly all right, I’m sure.”
He covered his eyes with his hand.
“I am, but how long shall I be?”
“Why not always?”
Ferse turned to the fire.
Dinny said, timidly: “If you don’t worry, nothing will happen again.”
Ferse spun round to her. “Have you seen much of my children?”
“Not very much.”
“Any likeness to me in them?”
“No; they take after Diana.”
“Thank God for that! What does Diana think about me?” This time his eyes searched hers, and Dinny realised that on her answer everything might depend.
“Diana is just glad.”
He shook his head violently. “Not possible.”
“The truth is often not possible.”
“She doesn’t hate me?”
“Why should she?”
“Your Uncle Adrian—what’s between them? Don’t just say: Nothing.”
“My uncle worships her,” said Dinny, quietly, “that’s why they are just friends.”
“Just friends?”
“Just friends.”
“That’s all you know, I suppose.”
“I know for certain.”
Ferse sighed, “You’re a good sort. What would you do if you were me?”
Again Dinny felt her ruthless responsibility.
“I think I should do what Diana wanted.”
“What is that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think she does yet.”
Ferse strode to the window and back.
“I’ve got to do something for poor devils like myself.”
“Oh!” said Dinny, dismayed.
“I’ve had luck. Most people like me would have been certified, and stuck away against their will. If I’d been poor we couldn’t have afforded that place. To be there was bad enough, but it was miles better than the usual run of places. I used to make my man talk. He’d seen two or three of them.”
He stood silent, and Dinny thought of her uncle’s words: “He’ll get up against something, and that will ungear him again in no time.”
Ferse went on suddenly: “If you had any other kind of job possible, would YOU take on the care of the insane? Not you, nor anyone with nerves or sensibility. A saint might, here and there, but there aren’t saints enough to go round by a long chalk. No! To look after us you’ve got to shed the bowels of compassion, you must be made of iron, you must have a hide like leather; and no nerves. With nerves you’d be worse than the thick-skinned because you’d be jumpy, and that falls on us. It’s an impasse. My God! Haven’t I thought about it? And—money. No one with money ought to be sent to one of those places. Never, never! Give him his prison at home somehow—somewhere. If I hadn’t known that I could come away at any time—if I hadn’t hung on to that knowledge even at my worst, I wouldn’t be here now—I’d be raving. God! I’d be raving! Money! And how many have money? Perhaps five in a hundred! And the other ninety-five poor devils are stuck away, willy-nilly, stuck away! I don’t care how scientific, how good those places may be, as asylums go—they mean death in life. They must. People outside think we’re as good as dead already—so who cares? Behind all the pretence of scientific treatment that’s what they really feel. We’re obscene—no longer human—the old idea of madness clings, Miss Cherrell; we’re a disgrace, we’ve failed. Hide us away, put us underground. Do it humanely—twentieth century! Humanely! Try! You can’t! Cover it all up with varnish then—varnish—that’s all it is. What else can it be? Take my word for that. Take my man’s word for it. He knew.”
Dinny was listening, without movement. Suddenly Ferse laughed. “But we’re not dead; that’s the misfortune, we’re not dead. If only we were! All those poor brutes—not dead—as capable of suffering in their own way as anyone else—more capable. Don’t I know? And what’s the remedy?” He put his hands to his head.
“To find a remedy,” said Dinny, softly, “wouldn’t it be wonderful?”
He stared at her.
“Thicken the varnish—that’s all we do, all we shall do.”
“Then why worry yourself?” sprang to Dinny’s lips, but she held the words back.
“Perhaps,” she said, “you will find the remedy, only that will need patience and calm.”
Ferse laughed.
“You must be bored to death.” And he turned away to the window.
Dinny slipped quietly out.
CHAPTER 23
In that resort of those who know—the Piedmont Grill—the knowing were in various stages of repletion, bending towards each other as if in food they had found the link between their souls. They sat, two by two, and here and there four by five, and here and there a hermit, moody or observant over a cigar, and between the tables moved trippingly the lean and nimble waiters with faces unlike their own, because they were harassed by their memories. Lord Saxenden and Jean, in a corner at the near end, had already consumed a lobster, drunk half a bottle of hock, and talked of nothing in particular, before she raised her eyes slowly from an empty claw and said: