Diane Setterfield - The Thirteenth Tale

"Good, good."

"With Adeline it is a different matter entirely."

They came to a standstill, next to a leafy obelisk with a gash cut into its side part of the way up. The governess peered at the brown inner branches and touched one of the new twigs with its bright green leaves that was growing from the old wood toward the light. She sighed.

"Adeline puzzles me, Dr. Maudsley. I would value your medical opinion." The doctor gave a courteous half bow. "By all means. What is it that is troubling you?"

"I have never known such a confusing child." She paused. "Forgive my slowness, but there is no succinct way to explain the strangeness I have noticed in her."

"Then take your time. I am in no rush."

The doctor indicated a low bench, at the back of which a hedge of box had been trained into an elaborately curlicued arch, the kind that frequently forms the headboard of a highly crafted bedstead. They sat and found themselves facing the good side of one of the garden's largest geometrical pieces. "A dodecahedron, look."

Hester disregarded his comment and began her explanation.

"Adeline is a hostile and aggressive child. She resents my presence in the house and resists all my efforts to impose order. Her eating is erratic; she refuses food until she is half starving, and only then will she eat but the merest morsel. She has to be bathed by force, and, despite her thinness, it takes two people to hold her in the water. Any warmth I show her is met by utter indifference. She seems incapable of all the normal range of human emotion, and, I speak frankly to you, Dr. Maudsley, I have wondered whether she has it in her to return to the fold of common humanity."

"Is she intelligent?"

"She is wily. She is cunning. But she cannot be stimulated to take an interest in anything beyond the realm of her own wishes, desires and appetites."

"And in the classroom? "

"You appreciate of course that with girls like these the classroom is not what it might be for normal children. There is no arithmetic, no Latin, no geography. Still, in the interests of order and routine, the children are made to attend for two hours, twice a day, and I educate them by telling stories."

"Does she appreciate these lessons?"

"If only I knew how to answer that question! She is quite wild, Dr. Maudsley. She has to be trapped in the room by trickery, or sometimes I have to get John to bring her by force. She will do anything to avoid it, flailing her arms or else holding her whole body rigid to make it awkward to carry her through the door. Seating her behind a desk is practically impossible. More often than not John is obliged to simply leave her on the floor. She will neither look at me nor listen to me in the classroom, but retreats to some inner world of her own."

The doctor listened closely and nodded. "It is a difficult case. Her behavior causes you greater anxiety and you fear that the results of your efforts may be less successful than with her sister. And yet"-his smile was charming-"forgive me, Miss Barrow, if I do not see why you profess to be baffled by her. On the contrary, your account of her behavior and mental state is more coherent than many a medical student might make, given the same evidence."

She eyed him levelly. "I have not yet come to the confusing part."

"Ah."

"There are methods that have been successful with children like Adeline in the past. There are strategies of my own that I have some faith in and would not hesitate to put into action were it not that…"

Hester hesitated, and this time the doctor was wise enough to wait for her to go on. When she spoke again it was slowly, and she weighed her words with care.

"It is as though there is a mist in Adeline, a mist that separates her not only from humanity but from herself. And sometimes the mist thins, and sometimes the mist clears, and another Adeline appears. And then the mist returns and she is as before."

Hester looked at the doctor, watching his reaction. He frowned, but above his frown, where his hair was receding, his skin was an unwrinkled pink. "What is she like during these periods?"

"The outward signs are very small. For several weeks I was not aware of the phenomenon, and even then I waited some time before being sure enough to come to you."

"I see."

"First of all there is her breathing. It changes sometimes, and I know that though she is pretending to be in a world of her own, she is listening to me. And her hands-"

"Her hands?"

"Usually they are splayed, tense, like this"-Hester demonstrated-"but then sometimes I notice they relax, like this"-and her own fingers relaxed into softness. "It is as if her involvement with the story has captured her attention and in doing so undermined her defenses, so that she relaxes and forgets her show of rejection and defiance. I have worked with a great many difficult children, Dr. Maudsley. I have considerable expertise. And what I have seen amounts to this: Against all the odds, there is a fermentation in her."

The doctor did not answer immediately but considered, and Hester seemed gratified at his application.

"Is there any pattern to the emergence of these signs?"

"Nothing I can be sure of as yet, but…"

He put his head on one side, encouraging her to go on.

"It's probably nothing, but certain stories… "

"Stories?"

"Jane Eyre, for instance. I told them a shortened version of the first part, over several days, and I certainly noticed it then. Dickens, too. The historical tales and the moral tales have never had the same effect."

The doctor frowned. "And is it consistent? Does reading Jane Eyre always bring about the changes you have described?"

"No. That is the difficulty."

"Hmm. So what do you mean to do?"

"There are methods for managing selfish and resistant children such as Adeline. A strict regime now might be enough to keep her out of an institution later in life. However, this regime, involving the imposition of strict routine and the removal of much that stimulates her, would be most detrimental to-"

"To the child we see through the gaps in the mist?"

"Precisely. In fact, for that child, nothing would be worse."

"And that child, the girl in the mist, what future could you foresee for her?" "It is a premature question. Suffice it to say that I cannot at present countenance her being lost. Who knows what she might become?"

They sat in silence, gazing at the leafy geometry opposite and contemplating the problem Hester had set out while, unbeknownst to them, the problem itself, well concealed by topiary, stared back at them through the gaps in the branches.

Finally the doctor spoke. "There is no medical condition I know of that would cause mental effects of quite the kind you describe. However, that may be my own ignorance." He waited for her to protest; she didn't. "H-hum. It would be sensible for me to give the child a thorough examination in order to establish her overall state of health, both mental and physical, as a first step."

"That is just what I was thinking," Hester replied. "Now… "-she rummaged in her pocket-"here are my notes. You will find descriptions of each instance I have witnessed, together with some preliminary analysis. Perhaps after the medical you might stay for half an hour to give me your first thoughts? We can decide on the appropriate next step then."

He looked at her in some amazement. She had stepped out of her role as governess, was behaving as though she were some fellow expert!

Hester had caught herself out.

She hesitated. Could she backtrack? Was it too late? She made her resolution. In for a penny, in for a pound. "It's not a dodecahedron," she told him slyly. "It's a tetrahedron."

The doctor rose from the bench, stepped toward the topiary shape. One, two, three, four… His lips moved as he counted. My heart stopped. Was he going to walk around the tree, making his tally of planes and corners? Was he going to trip over me?