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After lunch, at which I ate alone with Sneijder, I tried once more to take a turn in the garden, but was quickly forced back into the house by the persisting fog and returned to my room to rest on my bed for a half hour or so, not tired enough to sleep. Afterwards, I once more found myself confined to the sitting room, where I took to drawing strange creatures that I imagined might appear out of the fog in the middle of the darkest of nights. Unhappily, my attempts were rather poor.
Around three, Sneijder stopped by to say that he believed it possible the fog may start to thin out later in the day. The housekeeper was a local woman, he informed me, and she was of the opinion a wind was sure to blow in soon, though on what she based such a view, Sneijder did not say. He seemed a little agitated, not wanting to linger for conversation, and for the first time since my arrival I got the impression he wished me gone as soon as possible; a view underlined by his statement that Selkman was available to take me back to New Cumnock as soon as the weather allowed. Had he, I wondered, worked out that I had been into his surgery? Perhaps there was some item I had unintentionally disturbed that gave away my actions. I chose to ignore the thought and pushed it to the back of my mind, though not without some difficulty.
It was a little after Sneijder’s visit, at a time when I knew him to be in his surgery with Harold Duncan, that Elizabeth Fitzsimon joined me in the sitting room. She was in a distressed state, lines of worry etched into her pretty face and her hands almost constantly on the move, unable to rest for anything but the briefest of moments. Something was clearly wrong, that much I could tell, before she had started relating what she had come to say. When she did speak, her voice was faltering, the confusion that must have been whirling through her mind making itself apparent in her struggle to put together coherent sentences. Not altogether surprisingly, she seemed a little uncertain how honest she might be with me, but a degree of desperation appeared to push her on.
“Mr Templeman... I... I...”
“Do take a seat, Miss Fitzsimon. You look rather distressed.”
She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. “No. I can’t.”
I stood up and placed a hand gently on her right forearm. “Perhaps a few deep breaths will help.”
She nodded, then filled her lungs with air, holding it there a little longer than would be usual, before letting it back out. She repeated this exercise twice more and it did, indeed, appear to calm her a little.
“Now then, how can I help you?” I asked, taking my hand from her arm.
“I hope you won’t think me mad, Mr Templeman.” She held a hand to her mouth and for a second or two closed her eyes again. “Oh, dear. I don’t know who else I can turn to. We’re so isolated here and there’s so little chance of reaching anyone else.”
“I can assure you, Miss Fitzsimon, I won’t think you in the least bit mad. In fact, you seem perfectly sane to me.”
To say that I was intrigued would be something of an understatement. I was most anxious to hear what she had to say and realised that my entire body had tensed, like a cat waiting to pounce. It was an odd sensation, there, at that time, but into my head returned my own earlier feelings of how peculiar things seemed to be in this house, most especially the patients.
“Mr Templeman, I... I believe that Doctor Sneijder is attempting to manipulate me. To fix unreasonable and undesirable thoughts in my mind.”
She looked close to tears as she spoke and I could see that she had begun to shake. I considered my response carefully, conscious that she was there because her father believed she was in need of specialist help with her mental and emotional state.
“That is quite a serious claim. Do you mind if I ask why you think he’s doing that?”
“He uses hypnosis. He sits us down in that big chair in his surgery and uses his pocket watch, swinging on its chain, to hypnotise us. I don’t seem to be very susceptible to the practice and twice he has been unsuccessful in hypnotising me. On both occasions he didn’t at first notice and proceeded with his treatment as if I was under his control.”
She paused and took another deep breath. I looked around, along the hallway, anxious to avoid our exchange being overheard and wishing to have the opportunity to take action if someone should be seen approaching. For now we were, as far as I could tell, entirely alone.
“What is it he says to you when this happens that gives you such cause for concern?”
“He asks me to think about how terrible a thing war is. How awful it would be if members of my family were to be killed or seriously maimed as a result of fighting in a war. Then he goes on to suggest that Great Britain should not oppose Germany and its allies if there should be another war on the Continent. He tells me that I should do all I can to persuade my father to the same point of view.”
I was taken aback. Whatever I might have suspected, it would never have been this. My mind raced, trying all at once to piece together the possibility of a diabolical scheme, but I forced myself to set that aside and focus on Miss Fitzsimon.
“And was it at this point that he realised you weren’t hypnotised?”
“Yes, the first time I opened my eyes with alarm. I think he was shocked to see me still far from under his spell. The second time he said he could tell I was not under because of my eye movements. When I challenged him, he said he was merely doing his part to help ensure peace continued in Europe. But the look in his eyes, Mr Templeman. That didn’t suggest he was sincere about wanting peace. He looked more as if he was frustrated, angry even. I’ve been so afraid. Too scared to say anything else to Doctor Sneijder and there seems to be no way of reaching help on my own when we are so isolated here.”
She looked by now close to collapse and I tried once more to persuade her to sit down, but she again refused.
“Well, you did the right thing to confide in me, Miss Fitzsimon. You don’t need to have any concerns there. In truth, I’ve thought things a little odd here since I recovered from my concussion. As a matter of fact, I had even wondered if my concussion was still affecting my senses.”
Much of the tension that had filled Miss Fitzsimon’s body seemed at this point to leave her. She let out a long sigh and a little brightness returned to her eyes.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear you say that, Mr Templeman. I couldn’t be certain it was safe to speak to you, not at first. I thought you might perhaps be an associate of the Doctor, or even a patient yourself.”
“I suppose I was a patient for a while, though not of the same sort as the rest of you. Have you not been able to speak to any of the other patients about your concerns? Perhaps to establish if they have been subjected to the same treatment as yourself?”
“No. I did try speaking to Mrs Downing, but I think the Doctor has her fully under his spell.” She hesitated for a moment, before continuing, “You don’t think I’m imagining things, do you? I’m not really going mad?”
She sounded a little uncertain, as if she couldn’t quite believe herself, no doubt the result of Sneijder’s efforts to persuade her that she really did have emotional problems. I suppose I ought to have been more cautious and considered fully this possibility; after all, I was no medical Doctor and it was entirely possible I was being hoodwinked by a patient suffering from paranoia, but what she had told me so matched my own sense of unease and suspicion that I couldn’t stop myself from taking her at her word.
I don’t suppose we had been talking for more than three or four minutes, but I had, all the same, been careless. Looking up towards the doorway, I saw standing there the figure of Sneijder and the huge, bulking presence of Selkman behind him. Sneijder wore an expression that would have better suited the worst of criminals in an overly melodramatic stage play, his eyes fixed on me, sharp as bayonets, and his eyebrows lowered. When he spoke there was an insistent, almost threatening tone to his words. It unnerved me for a moment.
“You really should not believe what Miss Fitzsimon tells you, Mr Templeman. She is suffering from an acute emotional disorder that includes displays of paranoia and fantasised storytelling. She is a young woman who needs help. Help of the sort only an expert such as I can provide, not a layman.”
The last few words were, of course, aimed full square at me. Sneijder was attempting to put me firmly in my place, that much was obvious. I was unimpressed.
“I think, Doctor, that Miss Fitzsimon should be free to make up her own mind as to what is good for her and what is not.”
I had no intention of abandoning Miss Fitzsimon without putting up a fight. The moral ground was ours, despite Sneijder’s insistence that it was a matter for him and him alone. I may have been quivering with nerves, but this was no time for weakness.
My assertiveness was too much for Sneijder, who wasted no more time on a diplomatic approach. Although he remained fully in control of himself, the flare of his nostrils and the narrowing of his eyes made it clear he was determined to have his way. His words were now a command. “Mr Templeman, you will return to your room and remain there.”
I felt Miss Fitzsimon move across and behind me, clearly anxious to keep me between herself and Sneijder. I didn’t need to be a Doctor to realise the woman was afraid. Anger began to well up inside me at the Doctor’s rude insistence, fuelled by my growing conviction that it was he who was engaging in fantasies, not his terrified patient. I stood my ground and wrapped an arm around behind me as a shield for Miss Fitzsimon.
“No, Doctor, I will not. I insist that we contact Sir Eustace at once and ask him to hear what his daughter has to say. If you won’t allow that, then I’ll speak to him myself.”
There was a brief pause before Sneijder gestured with a wave of the hand for Selkman to move forward.
“No, Templeman, you will do nothing of the sort. I won’t have you or anyone else interfering in a patient’s treatment. It could lead to complications, possibly permanent damage. Selkman, escort Mr Templeman to his room and make sure he does not leave it until I say he can.”
I prepared to square up to the imposing bulk of the Doctor’s handyman, but just as my fate seemed to be sealed and I feared coming off considerably the worse, Elizabeth Fitzsimon stepped out from behind me.
“No, please, there’s no need. Doctor Sneijder is right. I’m... I’m just tired and overwrought.” As she looked at me there was a sad, piteous tone in her voice and tears in the corners of her eyes.
“But...”
“No, Mr Templeman, really, you must listen to Doctor Sneijder.” She sounded as though she was pleading with me and I found it hard not to respond in the way I thought I should, but something about the way she looked suggested she was not giving up, merely making a tactical retreat.
I looked again at Sneijder, then Selkman and finally back to the upset patient. I trusted to my instincts. “Well, if you’re certain, Miss Fitzsimon.”
She nodded once, then let her gaze fall to the floor.
Selkman took me by the arm. I shrugged him off.
“We will speak later, Mr Templeman.”
With those last words from Sneijder, I was escorted by the silent Selkman along the hallway and up the stairs to my bedroom, the whole time wondering what I should do next, frustrated by the outcome in the sitting room. Leaving Elizabeth Fitzsimon alone with the Doctor, as I had, left me feeling annoyed and, frankly, something of a coward.
Those were my thoughts as Selkman closed the door on me and I continued turning them over in my mind for some little while as I stared out of the window, wishing to God that the fog would begin to lift soon. On one thing I was clear: as soon as I could see where I was going, I would leave the house, on foot if I had to, find whatever help I could and return at once to the house. What Miss Fitzsimon had told me was alarming in the extreme.
For some reason, I know not why, I thought to try the door to my room. When I did, I found it was locked from the outside. I was, at least for the time being, a prisoner.
