Soul

‘Lavinia’s mother died when she was a baby. The Reverend Kane did not like to speak of her, except to say she was high-spirited and of extremely attractive appearance.’

‘I see. Ah, the dangers of marrying below one’s class.’ Here the phrenologist sighed most ominously. ‘This structural irregularity is developed to the point where she may tend towards irrational outbursts that manifest physically. Has this been the case?’

‘Only a few times.’

‘There is also negative development in the guile organ located just above the ear. Is her menstrual cycle regular?’

‘I believe so.’

‘But she suffers from emotional polarity, irritability, skin rashes?’

‘On occasion.’

‘This would be the heat radiating from the guile organ. Other noticeable irregularities are the organ of the memory of facts—this appears to be misshapen, suggesting a tendency to distort facts and all remembered events; her sense of spatial sensibility is malformed, and there is a considerable indentation on the organ of the connectiveness between numbers.’ He looked up from his notes. ‘She is no mathematician.’

‘What woman is?’ the Colonel retorted, increasingly dismayed.

‘More positively, she has a very well-developed organ related to poetic talent, and also for religion—shown here in this particular protrusion. Both of which could serve to rein in her other traits.’

‘Overall?’

‘Overall, I would say we are dealing with a hysteric who suffers delusions of an imaginative kind. This particular hysteria is almost always inherited from the mother. Of whom we apparently know nothing?’

He looked up from his notes and fixed the Colonel with a sceptical stare.

‘I have told you what I know. But her father is a close associate. Although somewhat poetic and a romantic by nature, he is a rationalist of the staunchest kind. He will be most upset to hear about his daughter’s condition.’

‘It would be prudent not to tell him, Colonel Huntington. Rest assured, I do not believe your wife is of any danger to either yourself or your child. However, there was a case I read about in The Phrenological Journal. I believe the year was 1843…’

Dr Jefferies reached into his desk to pull out a yellowed leaflet. He opened it to an article illustrated by a diagram of a woman’s head.

‘Mary McDougal, convicted of murder in 1842.’ Excited, Dr Jefferies looked up. ‘Dr Combe had the good fortune to purchase her skull after execution. It showed some similarities with that of your dear wife—except, of course, in the organs of poetry and religion.’

The good doctor smiled, exposing a row of stained and blackened teeth. Colonel Huntington detected an element of Schadenfreude, and decided there and then that he disliked the man regardless of his accuracy.

‘But we are agreed that she is merely a hysteric?’

‘We are.’ With a hint of regret, Dr Jefferies closed the leaflet.

‘And what would you prescribe to contain such a condition?’

‘Difficult to say, Colonel, given that these are innate traits that will only increase as the subject matures. Stimulation will only encourage them. More laudanum, perhaps. Music is a wonderful tonic, but play her only the more frivolous composers—Mozart, Vivaldi and the like. Avoid Beethoven and Bach to prevent over- encouragement of the nervous system.’

‘Lavinia has a hungry intellect. In this she is more like a man.’

‘My dear fellow, do not make the fatal error of mistaking pathologically unnatural appetites for genuine need. To encourage her in this will only worsen her condition.’

‘I understand.’

The phrenologist, now humming triumphantly, rolled up a copy of Lavinia’s chart and pressed it into the Colonel’s reluctant hands.

49

LAVINIA GAZED OUT OF THE barred side window that looked out over Harley Street. The reception hall, with a stained glass window set above the front door, was little more than a converted hallway. A tall sallow-skinned nurse, her starched uniform folded like cardboard upon her bony chest, glanced over contemptuously.

I could leave now, Lavinia thought, escape into the anonymity of the working classes. She remembered a scandal that had swept the parlours of Dublin some two years before, when eighteen-year-old Lady Milhurst had eloped with a valet. When news of the notorious couple had emerged a year later, the valet was found languishing in the debtors’ prison, while the young aristocrat was incarcerated in the Bedlam madhouse, deranged. It was a sobering morality tale.

What skills do I have to survive, Lavinia asked herself. Could she become a governess, a companion? She would have to escape to the continent. Calculating all possibilities, she opened the purse that hung at her belt. It was empty. Lavinia was completely dependent on her husband for both shelter and food. Panicked, she glan