Now how can you listen to this same demand, involving precisely the same principle, and urge it as a reason to justify you in perpetuating my imprisonment, based on the same principle?26
McFarland and Theophilus listened in stony silence. “They did not deny or contradict one statement I made,” Elizabeth later said, “although so very hard upon them both.”27
She spoke for nearly fifty minutes. Yet as soon as she stopped, the trustees asked to hear more. She rejoiced to have the chance to deepen her case as she revealed “the darkest parts of this foul conspiracy, wherein Mr. Packard and their Superintendent were the chief actors.”28 Fearlessly, she “exposed their wicked plot against my personal liberty and my rights.”29
Yet she also acknowledged that—unlike her husband—McFarland had allowed her spiritual liberty, at least, while in the asylum.
“So long as he did that for me,” she said softly, “I should trust him, though he slay me.”30
Theophilus was then asked to leave the room; McFarland followed. Elizabeth was left alone with the board. They all, perhaps to her surprise and certainly to her relief, “manifested a kindly interest in my welfare,”31 so much so that she was convinced of their “benevolent intentions.”32 The earlier sanctimonious gravity of the meeting dissipated until good spirits hummed throughout the room. Elizabeth relaxed enough to confide that her husband claimed she was insane because she was “not as [she] used to be,”33 but she said she knew full well that the change in her behavior came only from “a natural growth of intellect.”34
“My husband placing me in an Insane Asylum to be cured of this natural development,” she said boldly to the trustees, “was like his placing me under the treatment of a cancer doctor to have my breasts removed, insisting upon it that my breasts were cancers, since they were not there when I was a girl!”35
A “roar of laughter”36 met these remarks, “accompanied by the expressions, ‘That’s good!’ ‘？’Tis apt!’ ‘To the point!’”37
Eventually, she was asked to step outside while they made their decision. She waited in the adjoining matron’s room as McFarland returned to give them his opinion. She did not mention if Theophilus was there.
She waited for perhaps ten minutes. She could not hear what the men were saying as they adjudicated her future, but she did, from time to time, “hear roars and roars of laughter.”38 She took that as a good sign; her own heart leapt a little higher.
She wondered what Theophilus’s presentation before she’d entered the room had entailed. In fact, unlike Elizabeth’s all-too-brief preparation, he’d been putting in groundwork for weeks beforehand, having known her case was coming up for review. He’d therefore brought with him signed affidavits from various members of his church attesting to Elizabeth’s insanity, even though they hadn’t seen her for over two years. Theophilus’s entire presentation “protested against her discharge.”39
But whether the trustees—and McFarland—would take his side or hers remained to be seen.
Finally, Elizabeth heard the door open and turned expectantly. McFarland explained that an unusual decision had been made. As was recorded in the trustees’ record book, “In relation to the case of Mrs. Packard…it is Ordered, That the final consideration of the case be postponed until the next meeting of the Board”40 in December.
Hearing this news, Elizabeth let her breath out in a rush. She nodded briskly, understanding. She’d explained to the trustees that she point-blank refused to return to her husband for fear of the legal power he still held over her; she wanted to be released only on her own responsibility. She surmised that this unprecedented request had led to this postponement, while they figured out how such a discharge might be done.
The deferment was undeniably good news. They had not dismissed her appeal out of hand. They had not opted for unlimited imprisonment. Though the postponement made no firm pronouncement either way on her future, it still gave her something priceless: a deadline to count down toward.
And it was only three months away.
Elizabeth knew the quarterly meetings were always held at the start of the relevant month. As she remembered this, her breath caught tightly in her chest.
She could be home in time for Christmas.
Oh, how grateful she was. How pleased. She thought fondly of the trustees, “I regard them all, now, as my friends… I do think they now see the injustice they have done me, to keep me so long unjustly imprisoned.” She concluded, “I expect they will discharge me at their next meeting.”41 Her heart skipped just to think of it.