Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë Read Online Free Page A

Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë
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the wards?” Dr. Forbes asked.
    I eagerly agreed. We went up a spacious staircase. The women’s ward had sunny corridors furnished with carpets, comfortable chairs, oil paintings, marble busts, and baskets of flowering plants. Matrons in white caps and aprons supervised the patients. These were young women and old, modestly dressed and clean. Some wandered aimlessly. One muttered to herself as she passed us; one followed us, plucking at my sleeve. Other patients welcomed visitors to a table that displayed knitted mittens, lace collars, pincushions, small baskets, and other handmade articles.
    â€œThey’re allowed to sell the things they make,” Dr. Forbes said.
    I purchased a lace collar for my friend Ellen, and a wool muffler for John Slade. I know it is strange to buy something for a man I might never see again, but I have stockpiled a collection of small gifts, in case he should return.
    So far the gifts were all I’d found to take with me from Bedlam. Where were the dramatic sights that would inspire a new novel? Mrs. Smith had said I have a taste for disturbing things, and I suppose she was right. Alas, my taste would not be satisfied here.
    Then Dr. Forbes said, “I can show you some things that the general public is not allowed to see, but they’re not for the fainthearted.”
    Various experiences had toughened my heart to the consistency of leather. I assured Dr. Forbes that I was ready for my tour behind the scenes at Bedlam. We watched doctors set leeches on inmates who were sick with physical as well as mental ailments, and apply hot, pungent, medicinal compresses on the shaved scalps of patients who moaned and resisted.
    â€œIt removes turbulent spirits that are thought to disrupt the brain,” Dr. Forbes explained.
    We saw patients sitting in bathtubs of cold water, metal lids locked over their bodies, only their heads showing. Dr. Forbes said it calmed them, and indeed they seemed calm to the point of insensibility. In one room a man wearing a gag lay trussed in a “blanket gown”—a garment wrapped and tied tightly around him so that he could not move.
    â€œThe blanket gown keeps him from hurting himself or anyone else,” Dr. Forbes said.
    I thought of Branwell, who’d suffered from violent fits due to drink and drugs. A blanket gown would have come in handy for him. The memory of him saddened me. Indeed, I found the patients more saddening than inspiring, and they were hardly a suitable subject for a novel. Critics had called Jane Eyre coarse, shocking, and vulgar. God help me if I set my next book in Bedlam!
    Leaving the treatment rooms, we met two physicians who asked Dr. Forbes for his advice about a patient. As he spoke with them, I looked around a corner and saw, at the far end of a passage, a door that was open just enough for me to see darkness on the other side. The darkness called to that which is dark in me. I approached the door, which was made of iron and had a large keyhole. I wondered why a door so obviously meant to be locked was not. What lay beyond?
    Reaching the door, I peered around it. Into my face blew a cold draft that smelled of urine and lye soap. I saw a dim, dismal corridor with an arched ceiling, its only light from a barred window at the end; I heard wails and gibbering. A not entirely disagreeable fear shivered through me. I had a premonition that the corridor led to something I should not see but must. My heartbeat quickened with anticipation; I looked over my shoulder. No one was about. No one saw me step through the door.
    The wails and gibbering echoed around me as I tiptoed down the passage; they sounded like utterances from Hell. On either side of the passage were doors, each with a window covered by metal grating set at eye level. I peeked through these. In one locked cell after another, through a maze of corridors, I saw a man or woman imprisoned. Some crouched in corners like animals in pens, but others were in
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