But there was no sign of the devil in that morning meeting. In fact, Elizabeth judged it unnecessary for her to make an overt “plea of defence in favor of my sanity.”11 What would be the point, when her own conduct made it clear? At the close of the interview, she returned contentedly to her ward, the dinner bell ringing in her ears for what she expected would be the first and last time. “I do believe,” she wrote of the doctor, “that he became fully convinced in his heart that I was not insane, before our interview terminated.”12
She was so confident that later that afternoon, when she learned Theophilus had gone sightseeing without her, she grumbled about his selfishness, this now being the biggest slight in her mind. Jacksonville was known as “the Athens of the West,”13 and Elizabeth had wanted to see its famous elm-lined roads and magnificent state institutions. She was cross she would not get to enjoy them before she and Theophilus returned home tomorrow.
She was offered a compromise: an attendant invited her to take a stroll within the asylum grounds. Elizabeth leapt at the chance. Asylum tourism was in fact a common pastime of the era: one New York hospital attracted up to ten thousand visitors a year, while Jacksonville itself received large numbers of visitors who came to enjoy not only the grand building and expansive grounds but also the human zoo of the asylum’s inmates. It was an entertainment centuries old, once costing a shilling to see “the beasts”14 rave at Bedlam.
Another patient accompanied her. Their party of three paused briefly at the ward door while the attendant unlocked it before proceeding outside.
After the stink of the ward, fragranced by the many bodies of her fellow patients and the unflushed water closets, Elizabeth found “the pure air alone exerted an exhilarating influence.”15 Yet there was also much to inspire her in the grounds themselves. The hospital sat within 160 acres of well-tended farmland. Fields of luxuriant wheat and corn stretched across the horizon, home to over one hundred swine and a dairy herd of thirty. Nor were these the only animals. Horses frisked across the fields, wild rabbits scampered, and the skies were alive with all manner of birds: eave swallows, purple martins, and “a cloud of swifts.”16 Elizabeth noted with a gardener’s interest the heaving vegetable patch, a misnomer for a vast output that included carrots, parsnips, pumpkins, and more. Closer to the building, an “ample expanse of flowers…exhaled their rich fragrance in clouds of balmy perfume”17 while an orchard of fruit trees, elms, and sycamores provided “shade as well as ornament.”18 The scenery was “all but Paradisiacal.”19
But there was a snake in the grass. Elizabeth could not explore at will. At every step, she was shadowed by her attendant, who kept vigilant watch lest she try to run off. She was not allowed to be alone nor to wend her own way through the beautiful grounds. She was kept on a leash, a word or look yanking her back sharply should she try to pull away. “Is there no more freedom outside of our bolts and bars, than within?”20 Elizabeth sighed. On her return to the ward, the turn of the key at least felt honest: liberty audibly lost.
That night, Elizabeth was provided with a proper bed in a private room. She thought she could have borne one more night on the settee, given her stay would be so short, but as she settled down onto the comfortable, if narrow, mattress, she was appreciative. She had a long journey ahead of her tomorrow. She wanted to be well rested when she saw the children again.
It was the following afternoon before she heard anything more. McFarland had popped into her room briefly that morning, but as the meeting was “very pleasant and satisfactory,”21 Elizabeth felt assured all was well. She likely made ready her traveling basket for the return journey, knowing she and Theophilus would be leaving that day.
At 3:00 p.m., as though on schedule, her husband appeared at her door and invited her to go with him. She was magnanimous in his defeat. She took his arm, without its being offered, and together they strolled to the reception room. Once there, husband and wife took a seat on the sofa, sitting side by side as they had so many times before.
“I am going to leave for Manteno in about one hour,”22 he told her. Elizabeth may have nodded. Yes, they would make good time, would likely have to stay the night en route given the hour, but what a wonderful surprise for the children the next morning when she came sweeping back home. “I did not know,” Theophilus added, “but that you would like to have a talk with me before I left.”
Elizabeth paused in her imaginings. She could not fail to notice he had used I and not we. She drew away from him.