The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story (8 page)

Chapter 9

I had grown up in asylums, and so one would think I was used to suffering. But my father did not encourage despondency. He held on to his hopes that insanity could be cured long after his peers had started to put such notions aside. And while other asylums had reputations for patient neglect, restraints, and containment—
“
like cattle in barns
,”
Papa had said disdainfully—Glen Echo was known for its milder, kinder methods. Of course, it helped that it was a private asylum, catering to the rich. Insanity knew no class, after all. Discretion was the order of the day. Few in New York City had ever heard of Glen Echo, though it was only a few miles up the Hudson River, ensconced in woods that were lush in the summer and picturesque in the winter, with the churn of the river our famously soothing lullaby, mentioned in every publication and letter espousing our services.
“A tranquil place of comfort and rest.”

My father had dreamed of having a superintendency of his own from the time I could remember, and my mother and I did everything we could to further those dreams. My mother—from a good family in New York City, with a name that still garnered respect, if not influence or cachet—had a particular brilliance for sniffing out secrets, and a charm that was as important as Papa’s skill. It was my mother who won Papa the superintendency at Glen Echo. She had gone to school with the previous superintendent’s wife, and Mama had cultivated her for years—teas and luncheons, suggestions carefully couched, so as not to seem as crassly ambitious as they were. When it came to getting what she wanted without obviously wanting it, my mother was brilliant.

Which is why when I was twelve, I was sent to finishing school in the hopes that I might learn my mother’s skill. Or, at least, further my father’s ambitions. I would never make the kind of marriage that could help him—that was understood from the start. No one in society would marry their son to the daughter of an asylum superintendent. And so, because marriage couldn’t actually benefit my family, it was never spoken of. I was to be instead the symbol of the care at Glen Echo—kind, progressive, and genteel. As much as possible, the patients were to be made to feel that they were in their own homes, with all the elegance and sophistication they were used to, and so I had to move about in society as if I were born to it, and I was taught like any rich man’s daughter, that I might pepper my speech with French and comment with ease upon art and literature and the latest fashions. It was even more important given that, in those early days, Glen Echo was a bastion of
Moral Treatment, that is, the theory that the uncontrollable could be reined in without punishment or medicines, through kindness, gentleness, pleasant social interaction, and productive labor.

You’ll notice how well I say that, how perfectly rote it is. No asylum is ever truly such a utopian environment for the mad, though that was what my father said and what he trained me to say at every social occasion, at every dance put on for the families of our patients, at every consultation, where I stood smiling by the door, dressed in the latest fashion, assurances that
yes, all our patients are happy and productive; yes, we believe them capable of being cured
, falling pleasingly from my lips.

Of course, the reality was not so nice. Glen Echo
was
progressive, but even my father began to realize that medicines were a necessity, and he reintroduced restraints when one of our patients bashed in an attendant’s skull with a spittoon in the ballroom because he believed the attendant was a gargoyle come to demonic life. The truly unfortunate part was that the spittoon was only a prop—there was no tobacco allowed.

I was the model attendant, dressed and trained so that our patients’ families felt comfortable leaving their loved ones with us. If attendants were so well-bred, so smilingly efficient, well, dear Johnny or Frederic or William would think they were at home. I was happy enough to be that for my parents. In fact, I took pride in it. I
liked
being the shining example of our exacting care. I wanted to be perfect for my father, my mother. And as for the part of me that wanted more, that dreamed of romance and foreign places and a life away from madness and pain, it was impossible to do more than dream. My parents needed me. Glen Echo needed me.

But Glen Echo was as full of misery and futility as any other asylum. It weighed upon me. There were nights I couldn’t sleep for the hopelessness. I felt everything too deeply, perhaps. I began to long for a life away, a life that could never be, and so I decided to take on more responsibility, to make myself too busy for yearning. I worked in the female wards, hoping activity might dull my longing, but my sense of being smothered grew worse. I began to empathize with my patients too well. I might have my faculties, but I was as trapped within these walls as they were.

And then, a door opening. My mother was growing tired of constantly traveling, and my father began to speak of my taking her place as the voice of Glen Echo in society. I grasped hold of the idea. When Joshua Lockwood was brought to us, it was an opportunity to show my father I was ready to go out into the world. I charmed Joshua’s parents so well that they asked that I be involved in his care, and though my father kept a rigid division between men and women—only male attendants for male patients, and women for the women—the Lockwoods were so insistent, and we were shorthanded. There was no one available to read to Joshua, as they specifically requested—
It soothes him so
. Papa reluctantly agreed that I could do so.

I was determined to do well. I knew my future rested upon it.

What a fool I’d been. Such a terrible fool.

I remembered too well that last meeting, and the grim, grieving faces of the Lockwoods. I had seen no forgiveness there, and no chance for redemption. And as for my parents . . . even now, the thought of my mother’s groveling—my mother, who was never anything but cultured and graceful and self-possessed—was impossible to reconcile, impossible to watch or believe it had ever happened, that it had been she who so desperately begged for clemency. Even worse was the way my father looked, as if he could not bear to see it, not for one moment, as if it broke his heart.

Days later, I’d packed, numb and barely seeing the plain and utilitarian clothes I needed as I put them in my trunk, setting aside my gowns of the latest fashion, which had been bought for those events meant to display patients to their families, ball gowns trimmed in bows and lace, elegant tea gowns. Such lovely things I would never wear again. When I was finished, the trunk was still half-empty. So sad, really, that a life could be compressed to so few things. Three or four books, a photographic portrait of my parents and me. Should someone wish to write my biography, a paragraph would be enough. Whatever hopes I’d had once that it could be different were gone now, my life shrinking down to size, to a future that required no imagination to predict. My own fault. No one else’s. What a relief it would have been to be able to assign blame elsewhere.

I went to my window. My bedroom was in the tower wing of Glen Echo, and so had one of the best views. I stared out at grounds that were pristine and barren, only the footsteps of the groundskeeper marking the snow. Trees fringed the perimeter of what was a rolling lawn in the summer, and past them the Hudson River, and I wondered what Massachusetts was like. Littlehaven was such a bucolic, peaceful name for a town. It would be a good one for an asylum. It was so tiny, it was barely noted on maps. There would be a single dirt road dividing the general store from the livery. A tavern, no doubt. Perhaps a milliner’s, though I supposed that was too much to hope for.

I wondered if the snow below was as soft as it looked, and whether the jumping or the landing would be the worst part. The jumping, I thought. The will to do it, to acknowledge that it was over, that you no longer wished to try. Or was it possible to simply open the window latch and lean too far out? Leave falling to Fate, no decision made, just looking out and then . . . one more inch, and then another and another and another, until you could no longer catch your balance on the sill, and then letting go, tumbling and tumbling. How easy it would be. The snow sparkled and beckoned. Was that a whisper I heard, welling up from beneath it? A sound so deep and low it seemed to rumble within me, a feeling more than words.
Come. Come to me. Why do you stay? I’m waiting for you.

I had my hand on the window latch when the knock on the door startled me.

“Miss Spira? Your father wishes to see you.”

I was surprised. It had all been decided; there was nothing to do but wait for the carriage to take me to Littlehaven, due within the hour. What more was there to be said?

The maid, Anna, led me down the hall, this one carpeted, though not all of them were so, and tendered a brief smile that I knew was meant to be reassuring. We passed the room that held the medications, and I turned quickly away.

Anna rapped sharply on the door. “Miss Spira, sir,” and I saw shadows move behind the frosted glass, behind the blocky black letters reading
Superintendent
.

My father’s office for only a few more days.

“Come in, Elena.” My mother’s voice. I felt a pang at the sound of it; to me it still held the heaviness of her tears.

I went inside. Usually, the room was full of plush, thick carpets, comfortable chairs, a polished maple desk that radiated confidence and authority, all meant to reassure patients and their families.
Yes, this is where you belong
.
We can help you.
I supposed that sometimes it was even true. But now, the office was almost barren but for the crates stacked against the wall, books, pictures, framed diplomas packed away, ready to be carted out at the end of the week, delivered to a storehouse until something else could be found, Mama and Papa moving in with her sister. The evidence of what was to come was intolerable.

“There you are,” Mama said with satisfaction. She looked composed, her blond hair plaited and woven about her head, her blue eyes calm. There was no sign of the woman who had been in that room with the Lockwoods; the stress that had lined her plump face was gone.

My parents exchanged a glance. “Plans have changed,” Papa said. “I received a telegram from James Farber two days ago.” He gave me a look as if James Farber were the antidote to a poison, and one I should somehow know to take.

“You’re to go to Venice, Elena!” Mama burst out.

I frowned at her, not understanding. Papa smiled tenderly at her, and said, “Patience, Dolly.” Then he laid it out: the Farbers’ proposal, Samuel Farber’s beating, the upcoming wedding, epilepsy and secrets.

I knew of Samuel Farber, of course. I had been with my mother when the Farbers had first come to Glen Echo six years ago, hoping to find someone who could help their son. It was the first of many such commitments for Samuel. He would come, stay for a few months until Papa had him stabilized, and then go out into the world again, only to return when his debaucheries got the best of him.

But there were many patients at Glen Echo, and he had stayed in the male ward, and so I had never met him face-to-face. His last visit had been more than a year ago.

Mama said, “They’ve promised your father a new position if you succeed. An asylum of his own to run, wherever we like. It’s to belong to us.” She was glowing, seemingly ready to burst at the thought of our deliverance.

Papa said, “We could leave all this . . .
unpleasantness
”—a sublime understatement—“behind. With their patronage, we can start over somewhere else.”

“You would trust me with this after everything?” I asked softly. “The Farbers would trust me?”

“I’ve convinced them that it was all a misunderstanding. They trust me, and it helps that you impressed them greatly when you met. I’ve told them I have every faith in your abilities. And I do, Elena. I know you have learned from your mistake.”

I could only nod.

“It will mean, of course, that your own wedding must be postponed. But I didn’t think you would be upset by that.”

“No.”

Papa took a deep breath. “I’ve informed Michael and your aunt that you won’t return until July.”

“July? But I thought I was to have Mr. Farber back by January?”

“Yes. But . . . with the money the Farbers are providing, I thought perhaps we could afford to give you six months on the Continent. Your French tutor, Madame du Vallon, is abroad. She’s agreed to chaperone you. You’ve always liked her, haven’t you?”

I was stricken by the evidence of his love for me, by how well he knew the things I hoped for. In those words I heard everything he wasn’t saying, the wish that marriage to my cousin wasn’t my only choice, that he understood the yearning that had driven me to make such a terrible mistake. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I like her a great deal.”

“It will help that you’re away. Your aunt is rather relieved, actually. She has feared that the talk may follow you to Littlehaven, which will do Michael no good. The time abroad will help people forget. You’ll be able to start a new life with your husband when you return, unencumbered by gossip.”

Because, of course, my work at the asylum was done, and there was no hope of taking my mother’s place now. I could not stay with them. Papa would be better able to redeem his reputation and his position if I was not around to constantly remind everyone.

“You know this is not what your father and I would have wished for you,” Mama said softly. “But Michael is a good man. I think you’ll be happy. And of course, you’ll have your memories of your Grand Tour.”

Papa said, “
If
you can bring Samuel around. It all depends on that, Elena, mind me now. Everything. It all falls away otherwise. The Farber money and their support. The Continent. All of it.”

“When do I leave?” I asked.

My parents’ relief was palpable. I realized that they had been afraid I might refuse. How could I, when everything they had toiled and strived for was threatened now, all because of my one careless stroke?