Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📕

almost certainly also some whose temporary madness is made permanent by confinement to a madhouse. It is a problem for physicians that the risks of testing this hypothesis are intolerable.

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Mamma does not come to the wedding. She writes: she cannot leave the Home, the Hospital, and if Ally will insist on marrying in London instead of from her own home, she must accept that her friends and family may decline the inconvenience of attending. And Ally deludes herself if she imagines that any hospital will employ a married woman, if she has really convinced herself that she is not throwing away all the gifts and opportunities that others have laboured to offer her. Mamma is ashamed to have to tell Miss Johnson that Ally has chosen, after all those years of work, to marry. Perhaps, Ally says, the letter in her hands, they should after all postpone the wedding, rearrange so it can take place in Mamma’s church when Tom returns from his journey. A few months, after all, taken from a lifetime together? Aunt Mary takes the letter from her; no, she says, Ally, your loyalty will belong to Tom now. Elizabeth has always been hard to please and you must not sacrifice your marriage, your husband’s interests, to your mother’s urging. You are not a child, in whom obedience is in principle laudable, but an adult who must, and does, take the most serious decisions on a daily basis. Begin as you mean to go on; if you have real doubts about your marriage, address them with the utmost attention. If not, do not allow the concerns of a person who has never met Tom to trifle with his and your happiness. Of course you will find work; I am sure that many women would much rather be attended by a married woman than a virgin, and certainly male patients are more likely to find your attendance acceptable. Is there not a crying need for a female nervous doctor, when so many of women’s mental troubles begin with experiences unique to our sex? There is, after all, a modesty of the mind as well as the body. There are many things it will be perfectly proper for you to know as a married woman. It is not, she adds, in the least unnatural that you should marry from the establishment that has been your home these four years. And I believe that Alfred will come, whatever Elizabeth does.

And on one count, at least, it seems that Aunt Mary is right. Ally has written to the Chief Medical Officer of the Truro Asylum, who has recently published an essay on the diagnosis and treatment of religious melancholy, asking if she might study with him with a view to developing a specialism in nervous and mental cases. There is a letter with a Truro postmark at her place at breakfast; yes, he would welcome her, and is pleased to see that some of the best new graduates take a serious interest in mad-doctoring. With the expansion of the great asylums, he believes there will be many opportunities for new research and employment in this area, and some women patients will doubtless respond better to a female physician. It is not a paid position. They will depend on Tom’s salary, for now, and will live in the cottage he rents, with a weekly girl to help Ally with the rough cleaning. You should perhaps, says Aunt Mary doubtfully, ask Mrs. Bridge to teach you to cook. Aunt Mary, who has not stirred a pan or sliced an onion these twenty years, has forgotten Mamma’s methods.

They decide that she is too old for orange blossom and tulle, that it would be ridiculous to see a doctor blushing under white lace and a veil. In years to come, Aunt Mary says, I suppose there will be so many doctor-brides that their dress will not seem a problem in the least. I suppose professional women will find ways of doing these things. Ally will not promise to obey; it seems a bad idea, says Tom, to begin a marriage with an undertaking made in bad faith. Not being a parcel, she declines to be given away. They are making new rituals, building the road under their feet. There will be no honeymoon, for Tom, already back in Cornwall and barely able to spare time to come to London for the wedding, is required at work. It will all, he writes, be worth it in the end, when their ship comes in. Penvenick has won the big colonial contract and he is being sent to make the preliminary surveys. Mr. Penvenick will not tell him where he is going; the whole project is of the utmost commercial sensitivity, and while naturally he has complete faith in Tom or he would not be sending him, it is possible that even the nature of Tom’s preparations would betray his destination if he knew what it is. And so Tom must trust him, as he trusts Tom, and if all goes well they will both be rewarded.

Presents arrive. Annie’s Mamma sends a tea-service, white bone china patterned with yellow and blue tulips, with pointed handles and octagonal saucers and plates. Tom’s mother passes on her own silver coffee-pot, sugar bowl and cream-jug on a silver tray engraved with roses, which will require constant polishing. When Papa sends a small Persian carpet, flickering with purple and blue, she knows he will not come. A post-card comes a few days later: Papa has been honoured by the inclusion of one of his pictures in the grand exhibition in Paris, and he and Aubrey are passing the remainder of the summer in France. There is a revolving bookcase from Miss Johnson and a hand-made kidskin doctor’s bag from the Manchester Women’s Education Association, whose scholarship paid for the first years of her training. They, at least, see no betrayal in her marriage. And Aubrey, who has not acknowledged her graduation,