WILLIAM DAVEY
The Committee, ever volatile when there was an issue to consume them, was nothing if not docile when excitement died down. Surgeons and professors returned to their normal activities; articles were composed in public and letters written in private. Calm returned to the mesmeric world as the Year of Grace 1859 wore on.
Esdaile never quite left my mind, particularly since the object of my greatest interest—the statue—was still beyond my grasp. Jackson and I continued to suspect Fergusson, though that line of inquiry was a dead end. As the months wore on we had other matters to distract us.
When the calendar turned to February again, I received a telegram from the Scottish Mesmeric Association. Leaving the Scots alone, in my experience, was usually the best approach: they had their own governance and their own methods and directions of research. Though they were ultimately answerable to me, we only came in direct contact for matters that concerned all of Britain.
They had been happy to leave the matter of Esdaile in our laps when he decamped from Scotland to Sydenham years before. The leader of the Scots organization, Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane (Major General, Retired, GCH, GCB), had been more than willing to tell me exactly how happy they were.
Then the old man had died. He was eighty-six and had lived a long and active life full of adventure and heroism—a soldier, a governor, a scholar, and of course, a powerful mesmerist to whom every Scot practitioner meekly deferred. Death had come quickly and quietly at his country home in Ayrshire at the end of January; he had outlived all four of his children and had left a few things undone—such as designating a successor.
Thus, despite my mild trepidation at leaving England, I felt I must travel north. Preparations took more than four weeks; I took proper precautions to leave all in good hands, and then departed north to make that disposition before it made itself. It was always better not to leave these things to chance, or to the determinations of lesser men.
I felt rather like Edward Longshanks, going north to choose between Bruce and Balliol. I hoped the Scottish mesmerists would not draw the same parallel.
I took the opportunity to travel by way of Manchester: not the most direct route—it was part of the preparation for leaving my direct domain. Readers who may encounter this narrative years from when I composed it might have the wrong idea about the matter of domains—I was in no way constrained from travelling, as will become apparent as I continue—though I was at greatest strength within England. I wanted to make sure that if any of my esteemed colleagues wished to take advantage, it would not go well for them.
And, indeed, there was someone in Manchester I wished to visit.
I arrived at the Manchester Mechanics’ Institute just at the stroke of eight o’clock, and found a place in the back of the lecture hall. The figure on the stage, a well-dressed man of robust middle age with carefully groomed side-whiskers and a few stray wisps of hair atop his head, was just completing the answer to a question from someone in the audience; after he had responded—concisely and courteously, as was his wont—he took his watch out and consulted it, then gave a polite nod to the audience of tradesmen who had assembled to listen. He then turned back to the simple lectern to gather his notes.
As the attendees began to file out of the room, he chanced to look up and our eyes met. I remained standing in my position, meeting the glance. Annoyance was the emotion that seemed to grip him at that moment, and it was apparent in his expression. He hesitated only slightly and returned to organizing his papers and putting them into his portfolio.
Eventually, the room was empty save the two of us and an orderly of some sort, whose duty it was to gather up any debris from the floor of the hall and to sweep away dirt carried in by the artisans’ boots. The speaker gathered his portfolio and walked to the side, as if he had chosen to ignore me—then stopped and sighed, his shoulders conveying the same annoyance mixed with resignation.
“I suppose,” he said, “I should be duly appreciative that you did not choose to arrive during my presentation.”
“I am not here to disrupt your work, Dr. Braid. I have the utmost respect for your dignity and for your scholarship. I would not dream of disrupting it.”
James Braid allowed himself a slight smile.
“I am not sure just why you are here, Reverend,” he said, turning to me. “But I thank you for that small courtesy.”
I did not answer, but merely nodded.
“I have a late dinner engagement. Whatever has brought you here—will it take longer than an hour?”
I walked down through the rows of chairs to stand before and below him. “Most assuredly not, sir. But it does require a certain modicum of privacy.”
“Does it.” The smile returned, very slightly broader. “Very well—there should be no one in the Institute library at this time. Will that suit your need for delicacy?”
“Admirably,” I answered. “Please lead on.”
Braid and I walked through the halls of the Mechanics’ Institute, a building erected some thirty-five years before. The Institute itself was an educational body with the objective of uplifting the standards of intellectual pursuits for the laboring classes. After hours in the mills and factories and workshops of Manchester—the dark Satanic mills, as William Blake would have it, or what Mr. Dickens characterized as the first circle of the Infernal—they could come and hear Dr. Braid tell them of the form and function of the brain as he understood it.
The Institute’s goals, now in practice for a second generation of workers, were noble: my readers must not think me too cynical in offering faint praise for its, or Braid’s, philanthropy. Even the lending library into which we walked, established a decade earlier by contribution and public donation, spoke well of intentions. But as with so much in England of that time, intentions were not always harmonious with results.
Truthfully, I did not trouble myself so much with it. Indeed, it was this sort of motivation that had elevated me from Devonshire lacemaker to ordained minister—but I owed my present station to hard work, ambition, and skills whose existence Dr. James Braid vehemently denied. I do not believe that the irony of the setting was lost on either of us.
As he had intimated, the library was nearly empty at this hour. We took seats at a reading table near a banked fire, some distance from the half-dozing proctor who was minding the room at that time. I should have liked the room to be completely vacant, but satisfied myself by making the young man even more sleepy and inattentive. I am certain that Braid noticed the gesture, but let it lie except for a sigh of exasperation.
“Well, Davey,” he said when we had taken our seats. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“I am concerned about some recent remarks by my colleagues. You are not well-liked in the Committee, Doctor, though I suspect that is no surprise.”
“It most certainly is not. Dr. Daniel keeps me well informed of what he hears.”
“What does he hear?”
“Whatever Annie tells him. Which, these days”—and here Braid actually seemed to smile a bit—“is quite a lot. Despite your annoying distractions, she seems finally to be looking to a young woman’s proper pursuits.”
“Marriage.”
“And a family, I pray,” Braid added. “This insufferable nonsense that you practice is a burden, Davey. She is nearly twenty-nine years old. Now that she looks kindly on Richard’s—Dr. Daniel’s—affections, I suspect that she will soon put it behind her.”
When I thought about this conversation years later, I was always rueful—Ann Braid was no more likely to give up mesmerism, then or later, than the sun was likely to remain below the horizon in the morning. She was determined and acquisitive and more. Even then, even on that cold February night.
“We shall see,” I said. “In the meanwhile, I can only suggest to you, Dr. Braid, that some of ‘my people’ would do violence to you, or cause it to be done, as long as you speak against our practices.”
“I stand for truth.”
“Truth is malleable, sir, and depends often on the person speaking it.”
Braid’s brows furrowed. He folded his hands on the table in front of him. “Reverend Davey—and I speak your title out of respect for your position, not from any belief that you fulfill its requirements—your last statement is itself a canard. Truth is absolute and has nothing to do with the speaker. Or the hearer. Or the time or place or method of delivery.
“I know what you believe; but I know what I know. Hypnotism is a natural phenomenon; it does not pay heed to any”—he unknotted his fingers and waved them in the air: the proctor stirred for a moment, gave us a sidelong glance and then settled back into position—“magnetic fluid. Mesmer was a fraud; Puysegur, Lafontaine, Dupotet, Elliotson—they were all actors and impostors. I can do all of their parlor tricks, and all of yours.”
“You have made your position on this matter patently clear, sir. I am not here to debate mesmerism’s merits with you.” Nor, I thought, to disappoint you about your daughter. “I am here instead to warn you about undesirable consequences to your continued public statements.”
“You seek to silence me.”
“I seek,” I replied carefully, “to assure you in the strongest possible terms that there are those in my community who would do you harm—physical harm—for continuing to speak against the practice. They read your books at Cambridge and Oxford, sir.”
“I am extremely gratified.”
“You are in danger, sir. I do not know why you fail to understand it.”
“Danger, is it. I beg your pardon, Reverend Davey. Your supposed ‘powers’”—once again he moved his hands; a small log in the fire cracked, throwing a few sparks out—“your ‘powers’ have no effect on me.”
“Let me repeat, sir. I fear actual physical violence against your person. I have forbidden such actions; for nearly a year no one has defied my orders. But after a certain amount of time, such admonitions lose their potency.”
“You cannot control your pawns. That is an unfortunate attribute for a chess master, Davey. I really do not see how you can maintain your standing.”
“I have come only as a courtesy, Doctor. I do not care to be mocked, sir: neither by you nor anyone else.”
Braid did not reply; instead, he reached into his portfolio and drew out three or four closely-written manuscript sheets and spread them out on the table before him. They were written in French in a crabbed hand; another, more careful writer had made annotations in the margins, along with a few strikethroughs and additions.
“This is a letter from a distinguished colleague, Dr. Étienne Azam. I don’t suppose you know him?”
“No, sir. I cannot say that I do.”
“He is a surgeon in Bordeaux, with a most unusual patient whom he calls ‘Félida X.’ This young woman suffers from something he calls doublement de la vie. Two alternate personalities. One is serious and sad—this is the girl’s normal state; the other is merry and generous. What is more, they do not know of each other, or say they do not.”
To me, it sounded painfully like the situation of Eliza Weatherhead Esdaile—the persona of the chthonic spirit overlaid upon that of the woman herself.
“What is of interest to me, Davey,” Braid continued, “is the way in which this addresses the entire idea of Self.”
“Fascinating,” I said.
He picked up the papers and tapped them against the table to straighten and align them. “The reason this is important,” he added, “is that between Dr. Azam and myself, we shall evaluate the evidence, examine the patient, and come to a scientific and rational conclusion. There will be no magnetic fluids, spiritualist table-turning or elemental demons involved. This is an unusual case but not a supernatural one.”
“I defer to your knowledge, Doctor,” I said—and was sincere: I really had no opinion on the subject.
“This is truth, Davey. In that, I have the utmost confidence.” He put the pages back into his portfolio. “And this is science. You may make all the magnetic passes you want; but someday, perhaps not this year, perhaps not the next, but someday, it will be my party that shall be victorious. Your ‘new science’ will go the way of leeching and witch finding and fire walking and all the rest.
“I will concede to you that I perceive an honest concern on your part; whether that derives from your respect for my title, or because of my daughter, or for some other self-interested reason about which I care little, I accept it and appreciate its spirit. But I am in no more danger now than when I was assaulted in public, here in Manchester twenty years ago, for the same truth that I still hold so precious.”
I stood; Braid stood as well. I extended my hand, expecting it to be ignored—but to my surprise he took it and shook it warmly. If he believed me to be an enemy, it was an unusual response; but James Braid, though pedantic and bluff, had ever been an honest gentleman.
“I do not seek to convince you by force of personality,” he said. “That is more in your sphere. I will let my words and writings speak for me, as they can do that even in my absence.”
“I respect your position, sir,” I replied. “And I accept your confidence. I hope that my concerns are exaggerated and that all will be well.”
I let go of his hand and turned to go. From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw motion in the fireplace; a faint wavering, a shimmer—but then thought myself mistaken.
I walked out of the library, looking backward for a moment at James Braid, who stood near the fire, his face half in shadow and half-lit by the fire and the oil-lamps.