She had little time to discuss the revelation of John Dee’s symbol with her husband, though she could tell him that she knew Dee called it a ‘monad’. Charles had to attend the inquest into the awful murders on the Highway, so she left him to his own thoughts, and went off to St Luke’s to confront hers.
It took the best part of an hour to walk to Moorfields, and she took her time, enjoying the space in which to think. She had not seen Dr Drysdale during her visit of the previous day, and she wondered if she would today. She had not spoken to him for a week. The events of the last two days – the murders on the Ratcliffe Highway, the books Charles had found, her own research into them – had taken her away from herself, and that had partly explained her reaction to Charles’s concern. She had felt offended that her husband thought her mind was not strong enough to cope with these disgusting deaths, but the truth was she had worried about that herself. She had discovered that she was coping well enough, and wanted to share this knowledge with the doctor.
She went looking for him when she arrived at St Luke’s, the first time she had sought him out; previously, he had come to find her. But she saw on his face as she walked into his consulting rooms that there was a simple reason for their not meeting over the past week. He had not wanted to. He seemed embarrassed and somehow irritated by her arrival.
‘Ah, Mrs Horton. I’m afraid I have little time to talk today.’
‘Oh. Well, I shall not disturb you.’
She turned to leave, but he called her back and asked her to sit.
‘My apologies, Mrs Horton. I should not simply dismiss you. We have discussed much in these rooms, and I owe you an explanation for my avoidance of you.’
Avoidance? she thought, as she sat down.
‘You have heard me speak of Dr Bryson, of Brooke House?’ he said.
‘The physician there? Why, yes.’
‘But your memories of him remain sketchy?’
‘Yes, doctor. But, as I have said, my mind was much disturbed during my sojourn at Brooke House. My recollections are generally unreliable.’
‘Perhaps not as unreliable as you think, Mrs Horton. You see, Dr Bryson is not all he seems to be.’
‘He is not?’
‘No. In fact, the story he tells is so odd that he is currently incarcerated here, at St Luke’s, for investigation.’
This disturbed her. A mad-doctor driven mad by thoughts of Brooke House?
‘Bryson’s theories are in themselves sound,’ Drysdale continued. ‘I find his concept of moral projection to have some relevance, and his belief that the effect of mesmerism can be ascribed to it will, I am sure, be demonstrated one day. But his recollections of Brooke House have become . . . well, they have turned into something altogether different.’
I am not sure I wish to hear this, Abigail thought.
‘Bryson has talked extensively of a woman who had an extraordinary ability – that of persuading her fellow patients to perform actions which they were reluctant to do, or which they had not themselves desired. This was the area of his work that I was interested in; this was the essence of his moral projection theory of mesmerism. But I must admit that I imagined the woman of whom he spoke was yourself.’
‘Me?’
‘Why, yes, Mrs Horton. You do have an extraordinary capacity to put people at their ease, and I have witnessed you calming the patients here at St Luke’s with just a well-chosen word or phrase. I have been working for some months now under the assumption that you were Dr Bryson’s test patient; that he was investigating your ability while he was treating you. I was seeking to talk to him of his theories without revealing that I knew you; that I had, in fact, been investigating your own mental well-being.’
It was a pure and cold violation. She gripped one hand with the other to stop both shaking. He had been investigating her? Dr Drysdale seemed only depressed by his revelations. He had no conception of how he was affecting her.
‘However,’ he continued, ‘my assumption was entirely incorrect. I had not mentioned your name to Bryson during our discussions, as I wished to maintain our confidential relationship, but I fear that during a recent session with the man I blurted it out. He remembered you, of course, or claimed he did. But he said the woman he spoke of was not you. He said you knew the woman who had the peculiar abilities I wish to investigate. Her name was Maria Cranfield. Do you recall her?’
Something twitched at the back of her understanding, a sliver of memory, but it was not enough to grasp hold of, and in any case her mind was a kaleidoscope of anger and shame. She had been used under a misapprehension. Drysdale’s dishonesty dismayed her.
‘Dr Drysdale, I will not return to St Luke’s,’ she said, standing. ‘I am not your test experiment. I had thought we were jointly discussing your theories, partly as a means of understanding what happened to me at Brooke House. I had thought you wanted me to contribute to your research. I see now I was only a specimen. Goodbye.’
She turned and left, still holding her hands together, desperately trying to keep her self-possession until she could find somewhere quiet and dark to weep her shame away.