It was not a risk she could possibly take. That book was her ticket to freedom—and also the best way to help the other patients, as she could expose their abuse once out. No one could hear her scream within these walls.
Yet the book was still not published; there had not been time. Nevertheless, Elizabeth was confident of her release. No matter her other concerns about the doctor, he was still standing by her at least.
He was still recommending that she be discharged from the asylum.
So Elizabeth sat tight, counting down the days to December 3. She rose each morning, dined in the hall—so close to Sophia and yet so very far, the women forbidden to converse. She watched proceedings with her usual observant eye, even though she was prohibited from discussing them with friends.
One day, a thin woman at the table caught her attention. She looked absolutely desperate, but that wasn’t an uncommon sight at that time, with all the patients suffering severe sensory deprivation from being kept indoors.
But this patient had been pushed too far. With a clutching hand, she caught a knife in her fist. She raised it to her throat…and slit it.
Blood burst forth in a stream of scarlet, though not enough to make a fatal wound. As Elizabeth watched, nerves shaken by the suicide attempt, the woman was bundled away in a straitjacket to be dumped in solitary.
It was not the only drama. Another patient, “mild and gentle,”49 who’d arrived only a few days before, also made a bid for freedom. It happened outside the ward; she’d been taken to the sewing room to work. There, high above the asylum’s gilded-cage grounds, she suddenly spied opportunity in the unbarred window.
She threw herself from it, a flight of floundering skirts and fear…and hit the solid brick basement beneath.
The snap of her neck made a staccato full stop.
Sophia saw these dreadful acts of suicide as “unmistakeable portents that a storm was coming.”50
The clouds were about to burst.
CHAPTER 30
On the morning of December 3, 1862, the breakfast bell and sunrise came within minutes of each other. Elizabeth rose in tandem with the glowing orb, her hope and expectation burning just as bright. Today, she would be released. Today, she would start her long-awaited journey home to her children: exiting the asylum as a free woman, with the liberty to write and publish as she wished. The truth could be told, laws could be changed, and liberty would thus, eventually, not solely belong to her but also to her sisters.
It was fifteen days before Arthur’s fourth birthday, twenty-two until Christmas. Elizabeth let herself dream of that day. What a feast she would be able to cook for her family! Her mouth, so long accustomed to unappetizing asylum fare, almost watered at the thought of her own home cooking. She would fire up her trusty iron stove and busy herself in baking, stirring love into her sauces, the singing of her copper teakettle a serenade to scenes of sweet reunion. What “good talking times”1 she would have with her children! She likely smiled as she dressed, each garment adding another layer of excitement to this special day.
The trustees’ meeting was accompanied by one of their quarterly inspections. Tellingly, although by Sophia’s account the “reign of terror”2 was at its height, the trustees commended in their report “the capacity, intelligence, and kindness, of the attendants.”3 Though McFarland worriedly informed them that the asylum was currently “full to overflowing,”4 with the hospital having reached its “extreme limit in numbers”5 with 302 patients, the trustees claimed the asylum had never “been in so good a condition as at the present time”6—a curious comment given that overcrowding and the wartime understaffing. Yet they had nothing but praise for the “great professional skill and excellent administration of Dr. McFarland…and the order and cleanliness observable in every part of the establishment.”7
It does not appear that Elizabeth made a second presentation to them. It is possible she shared some extracts from her book. She had to wait all day for their verdict, stuck in her room, probably pacing until her carpet wore thin. Finally, however, she heard the ward door clanking and the blessed sound of McFarland’s steady footsteps in the corridor outside.
With a gentlemanly knock upon her door, he entered, bearing news more precious than priceless jewels.
Her release, he announced with gravity befitting of the moment, had been “indefinitely postponed.”8
Elizabeth must have blinked, shocked. No… No, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Even the doctor had said she should go home.
Why could she not have her liberty?