Lunatic
Four months after the Union Army's defeat at Fredericksburg, Lottie Van Der Weyden gave birth to a healthy baby boy, whom she named Nicholas. It was a bittersweet moment for the young mother. On one hand, she was delighted at having a child. On the other, she was saddened because the boy's father, who had fallen on Marye's Heights, would never see his son.
Lottie's late husband had been born into an old, genteel family, one that settled in the Hudson River Valley at the time the Dutch West India Company was still in control of the region. While many of the early settlers of the New Netherland colony (such as Claes Maartenszen van Rosenvelt and Jan Aertsen van der Bilt) founded political and financial dynasties in the New World, the Van Der Weydens did not fare as well. Yet while they were not as wealthy as the Roosevelts and Vanderbilts, theirs was a name that still commanded respect in New York.
With no husband or close relatives to support her, Lottie moved in with her in-laws. Since the Van Der Weyden's only son had given his life for his country, the grieving parents pinned their hopes and aspirations for the family's future on their grandchild.
"I may have lost my poor son," the proud but impoverished patriarch declared, "but thank God we have Nicholas to carry on the name."
"Amen!" his wife exclaimed, clutching the tiny infant to her ample bosom. "And what a fine lad he is, too!"
In April 1865, the boy celebrated his second birthday. He assumed the cheering he heard in the street was for him. It was a reasonable assumption since his mother and grandparents doted on him and elevated him to a god-like position in the household. It was not until he was much older that he realized the people were expressing joy that the war had finally come to an end. Shortly thereafter, the cheers were replaced by tears of grief over President Lincoln's death.
Nicholas was eighteen when another president was murdered. However, the young man was in no way saddened by James Garfield's assassination. He had no interest in politics or anything else that did not directly affect him. Having been spoiled throughout his childhood, he grew up a self-centered and conceited young man.
"I wasn't lucky enough to be born into wealth," he confessed to a classmate at school. "I wasn't given a good brain or any specific talent. But I was blessed with this face, and so far, it's gotten me what I want."
This was no idle boasting. Nicholas was arguably the most handsome man in Westchester County if not the entire state of New York. From a young age, he put that one asset to good use. He learned early that he could wrap any woman around his finger. His mother and grandmother were proof of that. In their eyes, he could do no wrong.
He was barely into his teens when he discovered the amazing effect he had on women. Take, for instance, the female instructors at his school. Young Nicholas was far more likely to get good grades than his less comely classmates. His boyish charm frequently earned him special privileges, and his dimpled smile usually excluded him from punishment when he broke the rules, which was quite often. Better yet, the girls in the neighborhood vied for his attention, and their mothers entertained visions of a Van Der Weyden son-in-law.
By the time he reached manhood, he perfected his technique to the point where he had women eating out of his hand, figuratively speaking. Yet he was careful not to endanger his bachelorhood with false promises or actions that hinted at a proposal of marriage. He had no intention of settling down with just any woman; he wanted a rich one.
"What's wrong with Carleen?" his mother asked, when her son refused to pay court to the daughter of one of her closest friends. "She is a nice girl and comes from a good family."
"Who are practically penniless. I don't intend to spend my life working at some dull job just to put a roof over my head and food on the table. I intend to marry a woman with money who can support me in luxury. Her pedigree be damned!"
Although Lottie would have been offended had anyone else dared use such coarse language in her presence, she tended to overlook her son's shortcomings.
"Whoever you choose to marry, I hope she makes you happy."
"Don't worry, Mother," he replied with an alarmingly handsome grin, "if she has money, I'll be overjoyed."
* * *
Had Cassius Linton been alive, he would never have given his consent for his daughter to marry Nicholas Van Der Weyden. A shrewd businessman, he would have seen the young man for what he was and sent him packing. But cancer had taken the tycoon before his time, leaving Christobel, his only child, an orphan. Having been raised in a sheltered environment by an overprotective father, the seventeen-year-old girl was easy prey for a fortune-hunter, especially one with such a captivating smile.
After a two-month-long courtship, the handsome suitor went down on one knee and proposed. With her father in his grave, Christobel was free to make her own decisions. Naturally, she looked into those dazzling blue eyes and immediately agreed to marry him. Aunt Dulcie, her late father's spinster sister, who became the girl's guardian upon his death, was hardly fit to act in her niece's best interest. Having been charmed by Nicholas herself, she did not call in a lawyer or banker to safeguard the girl's considerable fortune.
"You look like a princess," the teary-eyed woman exclaimed when she saw her niece in her bridal gown.
"I hope so, for I am going to marry my Prince Charming today."
"If only I had met such a man when I was your age," her aunt said with a sigh, feeling a slight touch of envy.
Although she never married, Dulcie Linton was by no means lonely. She had a grand house overlooking Central Park, where she lived in comfort with her cats. Currently, she had twenty-two of them, and she loved them all as though they were her children.
At Christobel's request, the wedding was a small, private affair with only the groom's family, Aunt Dulcie and several family retainers in attendance. As the bride walked down the aisle unescorted, she wished her father could have lived to share the day.
When the minister said the words, "I now pronounce you man and wife," she felt as though a flight of butterflies were fluttering in her stomach.
Wife! I'm married! I'm Mrs. Nicholas Van Der Weyden!
She thought she must pinch herself to make sure she was not dreaming. There was no time for pinches, however, since those in attendance rushed forward to congratulate the couple.
"Oh, Aunt Dulcie!" she exclaimed, hugging the woman who had been both mother and father to her since Cassius Linton's death. "This is the happiest day of my life!"
Those words proved to be truer than she had imagined. For life with her Prince Charming would not be the happily ever after so often found in fairy tales. Her girlhood dream of love and romance soon became a nightmare, one from which she would not awaken.
* * *
Christobel did not object when her husband purchased a large home in the most fashionable neighborhood of New York. After all, she reasoned, they would need a big house when the children began arriving. Nor did she question him on the substantial amount of money he spent on new clothes, a custom-built carriage and team of horses, fine wines and other sundry luxuries befitting a wealthy gentleman. What did bother her were the nights he spent out on the town—at least six a week and sometimes seven.
"You're not going out again, are you?" she asked when she saw him dressed in his evening coat.
"Yes. There's a card game at the club. I told Hiram I would attend."
"But surely we could spend this night together at least."
It was his wife's birthday, and Nicholas had not bothered to buy her a gift.
"Perhaps tomorrow night we'll go out to dinner," he said, feeling no guilt at his oversight.
"Can we?" she asked, her eyes glowing with hope and happiness like those of a small child who had been promised a new toy.
"Yes. Yes. If that's what you want. Now, I really must go. I don't want to keep Hiram waiting."
When she heard her husband's carriage drive away, Christobel went into the parlor and wept. She did a lot of that since she got married.
Maybe I should have gotten cats instead, like Aunt Dulcie. Then, at least, I wouldn't be so alone.
That thought disturbed her. It was the first acknowledgement that her marriage was not a happy one, the first chink in the armor. It would not be the last.
Christobel spent the following afternoon preparing for dinner with her husband. She wore a new dress, which she accessorized with her mother's pearl necklace and emerald earrings. Her hair was styled in an elaborate chignon, and she dabbed French perfume on her neck and wrists.
"Why the devil are you so dressed up?" Nicholas laughed when his wife descended the staircase as though she were one of Queen Victoria's daughters.
"To go out to dinner with you."
"What? Oh, yes. I forgot. Well, I'm sorry, but I have other plans. Maybe next week."
"My birthday was yesterday!"
"Don't get upset. It's only a dinner."
"I have every right to be upset. You're never home. You're always out with Hiram or some other friend."
"Remember yourself, madam! I'm your husband, not your lapdog."
"Where do you go night after night?" she demanded to know. "Surely not to your club. How many card games can you play in a week?"
"You're getting hysterical. Perhaps you ought to lie down."
"I don't want to lie down," she screamed. "I want to go out to dinner with my husband!"
However, Nicholas had had enough arguing for one night. Without saying goodbye, he left the house, slamming the door behind him. Christobel was not the only one who was unhappy in the marriage. He was beginning to chafe at the bit himself. He was joined for life to a woman he did not love, and she was becoming increasingly annoying.
I wanted her money, not her! he thought with growing frustration.
He considered his alternatives. Divorce was out of the question. It would create a scandal and make him a social pariah. Murder was always a possibility, but there was no guarantee he could get away with it. The thought of spending his life in prison was deplorable. He wanted more freedom, not less. Then he thought of a third option.
In the years following the end of the Civil War, Dr. Thomas Kirkbride was an advocate of the moral treatment of the mentally ill. He devised a plan to house and treat patients using humane, therapeutic methods. His building designs, which favored fresh air, natural light and views of the outdoors, gave rise to a growing number of new asylums being constructed. Sadly, such facilities did not have strict admission policies. Women, in particular, could be committed to an asylum for all sorts of ridiculous reasons, everything from intemperance and acute melancholy to brain fever and dependence on drugs. Often, men simply dropped off their wives at the administration building, and that was it! Forms were filled out and few questions were asked.
A lunatic asylum. It's the perfect solution!
But how was he to get her there? Surely, she would resist his efforts to take her to such a place. He would need to devise a plan. Lucky for him, his wife was so desperate for attention that she readily believed the lie he told her.
"They put your mother in a mental hospital?" Christobel cried in disbelief when he told her the news.
"Yes. She apparently collapsed in church, and the doctor was afraid she might be prone to fits."
"I've heard such horrid stories about those places! We must get her out. If she's unwell, we can hire someone to take care of her at home."
"You'll come with me to the asylum to get her, won't you, dear? Your presence will put my mother at ease."
"Of course. Let me get my coat."
That was easy enough! he thought, congratulating himself on his clever ruse.
The remainder of his duplicitous plan went just as smoothly. Christobel's reactions when she discovered her husband's true motives only helped make his case for admittance.
"See?" he said to the doctor when his wife threw what could only be described as a temper tantrum. "This is how she gets at the least provocation. You should have seen how she behaved when I forget her birthday."
"Many women suffer from hysteria, but we have ways to deal with that. Rest assured," the doctor promised, "your wife will be in good hands here."
* * *
Christobel soon learned that objecting to her confinement would do little good. On the contrary, if she complained too vehemently, measures were taken to "calm" her. The first treatment, which she viewed as punishment bordering on torture, involved being restrained in a tranquilizer, or cage, chair. Designed by Declaration of Independence signer Dr. Benjamin Rush, the chair was meant to keep "maniacs" in a perpendicular position so as to limit the flow of blood to the brain. Patients were strapped to the chair, and a wooden, cage-like box was lowered over their heads to keep them motionless.
Her second outburst, less than a week later, resulted in confinement in a Utica crib. Named after Utica State Hospital where it first came into use, the device was similar to a child's bed, having a thick mattress on the bottom and slats on the sides. To restrain unruly patients, there was a latticed lid that locked from the outside. Measuring three feet wide and only eighteen inches high, the crib effectively prevented those placed inside it from moving.
"I want to see my husband," Christobel cried when she was shown into the doctor's office for a routine evaluation.
"I'm afraid that's not possible," he explained. "Both he and I believe his presence will needlessly upset you."
"You can't keep me a prisoner here! I have rights!"
"You're not a prisoner; you're a mental patient. As such, your rights are limited."
"This can't be happening!" she screamed.
"You mustn't upset yourself. If you become hysterical, I'll have no choice but to send you to either the crib or the chair."
Believing her situation to be hopeless, Christobel slipped into a state of depression. Like a tamed animal, she became silent, docile and obedient, as though she no longer had a will of her own.
Good behavior, she soon learned, was rewarded with privileges. Once the attendants could trust her to maintain control, they let her socialize with other nonaggressive patients. On days when the weather permitted, they would go outside onto the lawn.
It was on a warm, sunny day in late June that she met Mercedes Gaynor, who was sitting in the shade of a large maple tree. The beautiful young woman would no doubt stand out in any crowd, but in the asylum, she was like a bright red rose against a white background.
"I've never seen you here before," the friendly blonde called to her.
"This is the first time they've let me out," Christobel admitted, taking a seat next to Mercedes.
"Oh? You've been a bad girl then?"
"If you consider proclaiming my sanity and demanding to be let out of here bad, then, yes, I've been a bad girl."
"That's the funny thing about nuthouses. You can claim you're sane until you're blue in the face, and the doctors will think it's further proof of insanity. Why were you put in here?"
"My husband claims I suffer from hysteria, but I've come to realize he only married me for my father's money. And now that I'm out of the way, he can spend it however he sees fit."
"Isn't that just like a man!"
"Why are you here?"
"My father didn't approve of my seeing a certain young man. I went against his wishes and became pregnant," she said, rubbing her slightly protruding abdomen. "Being a politician, he didn't want my immodesty to cause him embarrassment, so he had me sent away. I imagine once I have the baby, I'll be let out of here. Then I'll elope with Kiernan, the man I love, and we'll raise our child somewhere far from New York, maybe in the south or on the West Coast."
"I hope everything works out for you."
"I'm sure it will. One of the nurses smuggles letters to me from Kiernan. Knowing he's out there waiting for me is the only way I survive this hellhole."
While living in the world outside the walls of the asylum, neither Christobel nor Mercedes ever had a close friendship with another woman. For all the luxuries and advantages that their fathers' wealth had afforded them, they were like two lonely birds held captive in gilded cages. Yet in the hell on earth born of Dr. Kirkbride's good intentions, the two women found each other, and their mutual despair helped forge a friendship. In a surprisingly short period of time, they grew to love each other like sisters.
"You never told me why your father doesn't approve of Kiernan," Christobel said as she watched one of the other patients flutter her arms as though she were attempting to fly.
"He's an immigrant," Mercedes explained. "Right off the boat from Ireland. And much worse, to my father's way of thinking, he's a poor immigrant. He doesn't have a cent to his name."
Given her own experience with Nicholas, Christobel could understand why a father would be suspicious of Kiernan's intentions, but to have his daughter sent to an insane asylum to protect her was a bit much.
"He's no fortune-hunter, though," Mercedes declared, quick to defend the man she loved. "He's a hard worker and a proud man. He would never live off a woman."
Then she saw the look of sorrow on her friend's face and wanted to take back her words.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she quickly apologized. "I didn't mean to ...."
"It's all right. I've come to terms with what Nicholas is."
"You know, when I get out of here, one of the first things I'm going to do is go see a lawyer."
"Why?"
"There must be something he can do for you. There's nothing wrong with you; you shouldn't be in here. We'll get you out, and then you can divorce that no-good cad."
Since physical contact between patients was frowned up, Christobel resisted the urge to hug her friend. She settled for surreptitiously squeezing her hand and quickly releasing it.
"I don't know what I'll do when you're gone," she cried.
"Let's not think about that now."
It was hard not to think about it. The baby was due in two months' time. Once he or she was born, mother and child would be free to leave—so Mercedes firmly believed. Christobel would be alone again, to face her wretched existence without a friend to bring an occasional ray of sunshine into the gloom.
Two months. Eight weeks. Approximately sixty days, maybe a few more or a few less. The time went by so quickly. On the third of October, just when the old maple tree under which the two women met was shedding its green frock for one of gold, burnt orange and red, Mercedes Gaynor went into labor.
"Do you have any names picked out?" Christobel asked in an attempt to take her friend's mind off the pain.
"Kiernan if it's a boy and Christobel if it's a girl."
"You're naming her after me?"
"Yes. I love you. You're the sister I never had."
Once the interval between contractions drew shorter, the mother-to-be was whisked off to the infirmary for delivery. Her friend waited in the common room for the birth to be announced. One hour. Two. She got up from the chair and paced the floor. Three hours. Four. She walked down the hall toward the infirmary but was turned away at the door. Five hours. Six. She clasped her hands and prayed. Seven hours. Eight. Added to the five hours of contractions Mercedes endured in the ward, that made thirteen hours of labor.
"Please God, don't let there be anything wrong," Christobel prayed over and over again like a mantra.
At some point after hour number nine, she heard footsteps in the hall. It was the same kind-hearted nurse who smuggled letters to and from Kiernan.
"It's over," she announced. "Mother and child both survived the delivery. Once Mercedes recovers, she'll be brought back to the ward."
"Thank heavens! What is it, a boy or girl?"
"A girl."
"She's naming her after me," Christobel declared proudly.
"I'm afraid it's not up to her to name the child."
"Why not? She's the baby's mother."
"She can't have a baby here in this place," the nurse explained. "It's not in the child's best interest."
"What will become of her?"
"She's already been sent to a foundling home where she'll be put up for adoption."
"But when Mercedes recovers and gets out of here, she'll want her child."
"I'm afraid that won't be for some time—if ever. Doctors have declared her insane."
"But she's going to elope with Kiernan."
"Surely you must realize her father would never allow it. Now, you get to bed. It's late."
Christobel did as she was told; she got back beneath the blanket and laid her head on the pillow. Sleep would not come to her, however. Several emotions vied for dominance in her mind: anger, sorrow, pity and two that seemed inseparable, guilt and joy.
I shouldn't be happy that Mercedes will be forced to remain here, she thought, but I can't help it. I don't want her to leave without me.
That guilt-tinged happiness was to be short-lived, for the young woman that came back to the ward was not the same one that went to the infirmary. She was still beautiful, but her spirit was broken. That joy of life, what the French called joie de vivre, had been extinguished.
"You mustn't lose heart," her friend urged. "You'll find a way to get out of this place, and Kiernan will still be waiting for you."
"It's too late," the despondent woman replied.
"Nonsense! You're a young woman. You have your whole life ahead of you."
"A lifetime ahead of me," Mercedes droned. "Years, decades, with nothing to look forward to."
"Don't say that."
"My baby is gone. They took her away."
"You'll find her. You'll get her back, and you and Kiernan will get married and have more children."
Mercedes's passivity vanished, replaced by an onslaught of tears.
"I can't have any more children," she sobbed. "After my baby was born, they sterilized me."
Christobel was so shocked by the callous inhumanity of such an action that words escaped her.
* * *
With a growing number of doctors studying mental illness, more advanced treatments became available during the last years of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth. Utica cribs and tranquilizer chairs went the way of trepanning (drilling a hole in the skull to release bad humors) and bloodletting. Asylums came to rely on hydrotherapy, using both hot and cold water; dry packing, which involved wrapping wet towels around a patient's body and letting them grow tighter as they dried; and insulin shock therapy, wherein increasing dosages of insulin were administered every day for weeks until a patient slipped into a coma, at which time the daily dosages were decreased. Christobel became familiar with all of these treatments because she had to endure them.
Just three weeks after the birth of her daughter, Mercedes Gaynor hanged herself with a bed sheet. Her suicide caused her close friend's so-called hysteria to worsen. Eventually, one or more of those treatments seemed to work. There were no more crying jags, no more resistance to the staff, no attempts to follow in her friend's footsteps and take her own life. If there were such a thing as a zombie, it would have been created in a lunatic asylum, for those institutions were masters of robbing people of their souls.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Christobel realized time was passing. When her husband committed the ultimate act of betrayal by leaving her in the "hospital's" care, she was not yet twenty years old. Since then, she had spent nearly two decades behind those limestone walls.
I don't even know how old I am anymore, she realized one day as she shuffled down the hall to the common room. But some of the hairs on my brush are gray.
When she entered the room, her eyes were drawn to a new patient, a young woman with blond hair. She felt that familiar stab of pain whenever she thought of Mercedes.
I wonder what's become of Kiernan. Did he ever fall in love again? And what of her father?
Her face hardened into a mask of hatred.
I hope that bastard rots in hell!
Lucky for her, the doctors could not read patients' minds. If they could, she would surely be carted off to a hydrotherapy tub.
As Christobel sat at the window, looking out on a winter wonderland of snow and ice, a nurse entered the room and announced, "You've got a visitor."
"I do?" the new blonde asked eagerly.
"No, not you. Van Der Weyden."
"What? You must be mistaken," a dazed Christobel insisted. "Who would visit me?"
"It's your husband."
She was led to a common room where patients could sit and talk with friends and relatives in private. It was a cheerful room, tastefully decorated and meant to project a sense of optimism and hope. Christobel had never been there before since no one had ever come to see her.
When his wife entered the room, Nicholas could not hide the look of surprise on his face.
Good God, she looks old! he thought.
The same could not be said of him. He took great pains with his appearance and thus looked much the same as he did the day they were married.
"This place isn't so bad," he said, looking at the bright yellow walls and the colorful paintings that adorned them.
"How would you know?" came his wife's angry retort. "You haven't been here in—how many years has it been?"
"The doctor didn't think ...."
(It was a lie. The decision not to visit was entirely his own.)
"The doctor be damned! This was all your doing."
"Keep your voice down. The nurses will hear you. You don't want them to think you're getting hysterical again."
This was no threat to intimidate her. He seemed to actually be concerned that she might be hauled out and given treatment if she did not calm down.
"What do you want?" she asked, suspecting he had ulterior motives for his visit.
"The doctors tell me you're getting better. In fact, they've agreed to let you come home."
Was this true? Was she being liberated from this purgatory at long last?
"Home?"
"Yes. An attendant is packing your things even as we speak. Here," he instructed, producing a bag with new clothes in it, "put these on. You can't go out dressed like that."
And that was it. There was no fanfare, no last visit with the psychiatrist, no farewell party. Once she was dressed in a suitable outfit, she took hold of her husband's arm and walked out the door.
That was as easy as ... as being put inside in the first place.
* * *
Christobel was not home long before she discovered her husband's true motives in seeking her release from the asylum. In the nearly two decades that she was deemed a lunatic, he had managed to go through most of her money. Fortunately for him, he still had power over women. Although his good looks and boyish charms were lost on his wife since she knew the monster that lurked beneath the surface, there were other, more unsuspecting victims. He had found one in Olympia Waldorf, a lonely widow whose late husband had left her an estate worth millions.
I'll be set for life, Nicholas thought, as he contemplated a second marriage.
But first he had to rid himself of his unwanted wife. As before, divorce was out of the question. And he was still loath to commit murder, but he doubted anyone would question a lunatic committing suicide.
I'll need to provoke her into a few public displays of emotion first, the devious plotter decided.
This proved more difficult than he had imagined. After being released from the asylum, Christobel packed a bag and went to live with Dulcie. From her aunt's cat-filled fortress, she resisted all his efforts to see or speak with her. Her stubbornness infuriated him.
"How dare she defy me like this?" he screamed. "I ought to send her back to that damned nuthouse."
Such a spiteful action would only foil his plans, however.
"I'll wear her down instead," he vowed.
Every day he showed up on Dulcie Linton's doorstep, demanding to see his wife; and every day the old woman sent him packing.
"You can't keep us apart!" he screamed.
"She doesn't want to see you."
"But she's my wife."
"Her doctor—her new doctor—believes your presence will be detrimental to her continued recovery. Now go away or I shall be forced to summon the police."
The siege continued for several months. Although she rarely left her aunt's house, Christobel received several visitors, mainly doctors and lawyers. These professionals, the most esteemed in the city, assured her that she would never be sent back to the asylum again.
Nicholas had visitors of his own: creditors and tradesmen to whom he owed money. Meanwhile, Olympia Waldorf, who was unaware of his marital status, was putting pressure on him to make plans for a wedding.
"I have an idea!" he cried, desperate enough to consider bigamy a solution to his financial woes. "Why don't we leave the country? We can move to Europe. Wouldn't you like to get married in Paris?"
"France would be a nice place for a honeymoon, but I want to get married here in New York where my friends and family can attend the ceremony."
"But ...."
Olympia, who was not as malleable as Christobel had been, would not listen to reason. As much as she wanted to marry Nicholas, she was not willing to compromise.
I have to get rid of Christobel, and soon, he thought as he headed toward Dulcie's house. I'll coax her to come home with me and then I'll drown her in the bathtub.
* * *
Although she had not been inside the walls of the asylum for more than three years, she remembered every detail of the building, both inside and out.
"It hasn't changed a bit," she told the doctor who sat at the desk across from her.
"That's not true. We redecorated the women's wards last year. But I didn't ask you here to talk about interior design or to reminisce about old times."
"No. You wanted to discuss my husband. How is he doing?"
"He has his good days and his bad—far more bad than good, I'm afraid."
After forcing his way into Dulcie Linton's house and attempting to murder his wife, Nicholas Van Der Weyden was declared a danger to society and was committed to the same asylum from which his wife had been released six months earlier.
Christobel appeared to remain stoic in the face of her husband's deteriorating mental state, but inwardly she rejoiced.
The bastard got just what he deserved.
"I hope seeing you might do him some good," the doctor explained.
"Perhaps. I'm certainly willing to give it a try."
A nurse led Christobel to the visitor's room. It was still painted a bright yellow, as though the cheerful color could hide the sorrow that lurked beneath. It certainly had no uplifting effect on the Van Der Weydens, who stood on opposite sides of the room, glaring at each other with hatred. The wife spoke first.
"Has it really been only three years? You look as though you've aged ten."
"Have you come here to gloat?" Nicholas asked.
"I'm here at your doctor's suggestion. He thinks my visit might do you good."
"Only your imminent death would do that."
"It's not wise to say such things," she said, enjoying her triumph over him. "I know from experience what they do to patients who act up."
"You may be out of here, but what kind of life can you, a woman with no resources, have out there?"
"What makes you think I have no resources? My father was an astute businessman. Before he died, he settled a large sum of money on his sister. That money was invested wisely and has grown considerably. Aunt Dulcie is now worth millions, and not only has she made me the sole heir to her fortune, but she also gives me a generous allowance."
"I should have killed you when I had the opportunity," he screamed. "But you just wait. I'll find a way out of here, and I'll come after you. You'll never have a peaceful night's sleep again."
But his threats were hollow. He had no hope of getting out of the asylum. He knew it and so did she.
"You keep telling yourself that," his wife said as she signaled to the nurse that she was ready to leave.
"I'll kill you!" he screamed and reached out his hands to grab her throat. "I swear it."
The nurse called several strong male attendants, and Nicholas Van Der Weyden was dragged down the hall toward the treatment room.
Before leaving the asylum for the last time, Christobel told the nurse, "Please inform the doctor that I won't be returning. Rather than calming my husband, my visit only seemed to make him worse."
This story was inspired by a visit I made in June 2021 to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia. No, I was not a patient, just a tourist.
Sometimes when Salem acts up, I have to call on the neighbor's dog to restrain him.
