CHAPTER IX.
Gives a description of Fanny's visit to the madhouse, and of her interview with her father.
AFTER the lapse of some few days, during which Mr. Lupton left the hall on his proposed brief journey,—(though not without first sending a messenger to Whinmoor with a small packet for Colin, which the latter found to contain fifteen guineas, and a repetition of the invitation to appear again at Kiddal on the day previously named,)—Fanny's arrangements for going over Doctor Rowel's establishment were completed; and according to appointment she set out one morning, early after breakfast, and reached Nabbfield about ten o'clock. As she approached the place her heart began to throb violently, and her hands to tremble as she placed them on her bosom, as if by that action to still the poor troubled thing within. She gazed at the building as though every single stone was a separate source of fear to her; at its melancholy windows as so many eyes, out of which madness and pain looked upon the pleasant world below. As she passed along the footpath outside the boundary wall she stopped, and listened. Instead of sounds of woe, which she expected to hear from within, the blackbird and the linnet in the plantations sounded their pleasant notes there the same as elsewhere. The great and gaudy dragon-fly darted along the sunny wall, and little clouds of gnats flew in innumerable and ever-changing evolutions beneath the pendent branches of the young elms and sycamores by the roadside. When she saw the gateway she first lingered, and then stopped, to gather breath and resolution. She could not: she looked again, and then retraced her steps some yards, hoping to quiet herself, and grow more calm. She looked up at the sky: it was bright, and vast, and deep, with an intense blue, that seemed as unfathomable as eternity. She thought of her father, and then of another Father who alone could help her and sustain her in all trials. Fanny sunk down upon the bank, and clasped her hands together in silent and spontaneous prayer for assistance to meet the coming trial. She arose strengthened, calm, and assured.
As the keeper of the lodge-gate opened it to admit her, Fanny inquired, with evident signs of fear, whether the people whom she saw at some distance up the pathway, would do her any injury? These were several of the partially-recovered and harmless patients, who had been allowed to take exercise in the garden. Although Fanny's question was answered in the negative, and she was told not to be in the least afraid of them, she yet advanced up the pathway with a quick-beating heart, and a timorous step. As she approached them, several of the people held up their heads, and gazed half-vacantly at her.
Fanny hurried along with increased rapidity, and reached the doctor's house without interruption. She rung the bell, and stood a long time before anybody answered it, though she knew not it was more than a moment, so occupied was her mind with the thoughts of what was about to ensue. “If my father be here,” thought she,—“if I should see him, and hear him say his name is the same as mine, what in the world shall I do? How shall I conduct myself? What shall I say to him?” and, as she thus thought the door opened, and Fanny was ushered into an elegantly-furnished room, such as she had not before seen, and at the same time into the presence of the doctor's wife.
As I have before stated that the visit had been previously arranged, Mrs. Rowel was of course prepared to conduct her almost immediately over the establishment. As she successively passed through open rooms in which the more harmless patients were assembled,—some laughing and playful, others desponding and weeping over again their troubles of former days,—and thence was conducted down gloomy ranges of cells, the dim light of which just served to show the fairest of God's creations writhing in foul struggle with the demon of madness,—or, yet more remotely, was taken to behold sights which humanity forbids me to describe, but which, once seen, can never be forgotten;—as all this, I repeat, passed before the affrighted eyes of Fanny, and brought up to her mind still more vividly the picture of her own father, it was with the greatest difficulty she could hide her emotion from those who accompanied her.
Fanny and the doctor's wife now proceeded together, and unaccompanied, down that winding passage which led to the yard where James Woodruff obtained all of daylight and air which he had enjoyed during many years. The door was opened to the dazzling light of Midsummer time, so that Fanny could scarcely see, after being so long in the dungeon-like places of that dreary mansion. But there stood the black old yew-tree, looking as if carved out of ebony, amidst the blaze of a mid-day sun, and under its deep hard shadow lay a man, motionless as might be the monumental effigy in some old church aisle; his eyes upon the bright space above him, and his hands fast bound across his breast. As the noise occasioned by the approach of Fanny and Mrs. Rowel reached his ear, he gently turned his head, and displayed to the gaze of Fanny a countenance pale and thoughtful, surrounded by a profusion of deep black hair, and brightened by a pair of eyes of the same hue, that looked like spots of jet set in a face of alabaster.
“And is he,” remarked Fanny, as she turned towards her conductress, “is he as wild as those men we have seen in the cells?”