If he can help her and enlighten me, he will; he has sworn so. I like to think he understands the consequences to both of us if he does not.
“Megrims”—that would be headaches, I thought, flipping forwards. So . . . Mr. Whitcomb wanted to hook his wife up with a psychiatrist, basically, years before that term would come into common usage. Have him, what—hypnotize her? Analyze her dreams? All very Ann Radcliffe, and still more than a bit controversial at the time, which was probably why he’d left “Dr. R’s” name out of the journal: to protect the doctor’s privacy, or his wife’s, or both.
The next page started abruptly: 13 June. Iris accepts Dr. R— at face value, or seems to; she says she finds him good company and they chatter away together, swapping fairy tales. Both keep mostly to English, no doubt out of politeness, but lapsing on occasion into the odd, guttural tongue of her birth. She continues to work, however, against my better judgement—claims it a salve against her sleeplessness, which persists, though Dr. R—’s drugs allow her to nap during the day or early evening. She sketches constantly, occasionally transferring the result onto a small canvas, which she fills at top speed then barely glances at afterwards. When they are dry she tends to burn them, unless I object strenuously. She left behind three in the last village alone.
The images are similar, far too much so: a storm overhanging a field, clouds bright-lit from within; the noonday sun engulfed, all wings and eyes. They hurt the mind to contemplate. I recall that fellow Knauff, his hand lingering on her knee—and me nearby, the scoundrel!—as he leafed through her folio before raising his head to observe, sadly: “Ah, meine schöne Madame . . . I see you, too, labour under the direction of an angel.”
At dawn we travel on. One more stop, perhaps two, before our destination.
Dr. R— says he will begin tomorrow night.
To be continued, I thought, flipping forward again.
The next document in the stack was a sideways shift, in a number of ways. A letter this time, dated from November of the same year. I recognized the name at the top: Adelhart Whitcomb M.D.—the surgeon-cousin. Mr. Whitcomb’s writing was different, too—smaller and more cramped, obviously scrawled in haste yet somehow easier to read, perhaps because it was addressed to somebody other than Arthur M. himself.
My dearest Adelhart, it began. Please do not let my lack of answer up till now imply reproof for your recommendation re Dr. R—, whose efforts have been unstinting, if not so fruitful as hoped. Nonetheless, things have happened in the interim that change everything, making him the least of my worries.
You will note, for example, that my wife and I are no longer on the continent, having been forced to curtail our tour by circumstances beyond our—beyond anyone’s—control.
Not long before we reached Dzéngast, Dr. R— used both medicines and counsel to establish a relationship of trust with Iris, such that when mesmerism was finally employed upon her it might yield its best result. As you prognosticated, when he judged conditions finally propitious, he placed my dearest into what he called the “monoideitic sleep,” a state of curious entrancement. It was deeply disquieting to hear my beloved, normally so sharp and animate, speak and respond in such a lethargic monotone, and to see her sit so lifeless. Yet within seconds of the experiment’s commencement both Dr. R— and she had lapsed into that foreign tongue they share. I could bear only some few minutes of that incomprehensible converse before excusing myself to the receiving room of our suite, attempting to read or scribe other letters, ever aware of that dull, unceasing murmur behind the not-quite-closed bedroom door.
When Dr. R— emerged, I confess I quite leapt to my feet, and only his hasty gesture silenced me till he had closed the door, joining me near the window. “Your wife, Mr. Whitcomb,” he began, “is neither deluded nor deluding. She is as sane as any woman I have known.”
The relief of this near finished me; I am not ashamed to say that I very nearly wept. Dr. R— proceeded to the liquor cabinet and decanted generously of the local brandy for us both before resuming. “I have placed her in a full natural sleep, from which I expect her to awake in an hour or so, hopefully much refreshed.”
“Will she remember the experience?”
“Oh indeed, all of it; it would be a waste if she did not.” The doctor smiled wearily. “I trust you shall not take it as a slight if I tell you I thought your wife’s narrative an invention, though not a wholly conscious one—a scrim concocted by what Herr Freud calls the ‘subconscious,’ to shield her from the trauma of witnessing her father’s death—or, perhaps, of having contributed to it. After all, the evidence in the case speaks volumes toward such an assumption, for was it not your own fear that this might be true that caused you to solicit my assistance to begin with?”
I could not but acknowledge it. “I would be a fool if I closed my eyes to the facts, since murder is a crime without limit. Yet still, it seemed so ludicrous—a nine-year-old girl, alone against a grown man, her own father. And then to do all that was done thereafter, the burial of his head, and such . . .”
“A madman weak with hunger and exposure, while she was terrified to near-madness herself? I have consulted in stranger cases. But for all her perturbations, sir, your wife has no guilt in this—not mentally, at any rate, leading me to suspect she is innocent physically of any crime as well.”
I felt a great urge to sit down, and fought it back by finishing my brandy. “You are certain?”
“Very much so. She is, as you know, a woman of capacity, forever at the mercy of her own intelligence, her sympathies, and her imagination. Indeed, it is that very imagination which may prove our greatest concern. For though I may state with near-certainty that nothing criminal was done on your wife’s part, that does not mean events can possibly have proceeded as she recalls them.”
“Explain, sir.”
Dr. R— hesitated, long enough that the fear within me grew intolerable, before replying. “The details are of little import,” he said at last. “What matters is the sincerity of your wife’s conviction, her firm belief she experienced something—numinous, if I may lapse into Spiritualist terminology; something wholly outside her experience, to all intents and purposes not of this world. But she does not now recall what it was, and that lacuna has become a void her fantasy struggles to fill, conjuring up all the contents of her dreaming mind. Until she can confront that missing memory, there will be no peace for her.”
“So taking her here, to Lusatia—to Dzéngast—was the correct decision.”
“The necessary one, yes. It may be that when she visits the fields outside her parents’ village, so reminiscent of where her family died, she will remember only an ugly, mundane truth. But truth, however ugly or mundane, is the only thing that will heal her.” And here he sighed, concluding: “The mind is full of mysteries, sir. As full in its way as the earth itself, or more so.”
You may be tempted, from the detail I have employed, to think that perhaps I have been fanciful or inventive in my recounting. I assure you I have not. The events of that afternoon are etched upon my brain as if engraved, and I greatly doubt that they shall ever fade, especially when placed in conjunction with what followed.
Three days later, our journey was complete. We reached that damnable hen-scratch of a village in early evening, ju
st in time for Iris to alight from our carriage and collapse, right there in what passed for a street. She was put to bed, where she lay like a dead woman, a wet cloth across her eyes, too much in pain even to moan. And I confess I was beside myself, since Dr. R— could apparently do nothing for her. Just as the sun sank, however, a young girl (perhaps twelve years of age, no more) appeared at our host’s door, petitioning to be allowed entrance to my wife’s chamber, to whom she referred by her maiden name—her original name: Giscelia Wróbl.
“The Kantorka sends her greetings,” she told me, through Dr. R—, “and begs to be remembered to the sparrow-child, daughter of Handrij, daughter of Liska. She will attend her in the morning and have speech with her. In the meantime, she has sent this potion to aid with her sickness.”
Dr. R— examined the mixture, declaring it wholesome. I brought it up to my darling myself, watched as she drank it down, and was amazed by the effect.
“I feel almost well,” she told me, sitting up. “Who was that, downstairs?”
“She said she came from the Kantorka, whoever that might be.”