Part 77 (2/2)

Mrs. Archbold had more pa.s.sion than tenderness, but what woman is not to be surprised and softened? When her young favourite, the greatest fighter she had ever seen, broke down at the end of his gallant effort and began to cry like a girl, her bowels of compa.s.sion yearned within her, and she longed to cry with him. She only saved herself from some imprudence by flight, and had her cry alone. After a flow of tears, such a woman is invincible; she treated Alfred at tea-time with remarkable coldness and reserve. This piece of acting led to unlooked-for consequences: it emboldened Cooper, who was raging against Alfred for telling the justices, but had forborne from violence for fear of getting the house into a fresh sc.r.a.pe. He now went to the doctor, and asked for a powerful drastic. Bailey gave him two pills, or rather boluses, containing croton oil--_inter alia;_ for Bailey was one of the _farraginous_ fools of the unscientific science. Armed with this weapon of destruction, Cooper entered Alfred's bedroom at night, and ordered him to take them: he refused. Cooper whistled, and four attendants came.

Alfred knew he should soon be powerless. He lost no time, sprang at Cooper, and with his long arm landed a blow that knocked him against the wall, and in this position, where his body could not give, struck him again with his whole soul, and cut his cheek right open. The next minute he was pinned, handcuffed, and in a straitjacket, after crippling one a.s.sailant with a kick on the knee.

Cooper, half stunned, and bleeding like a pig, recovered himself now, and burned for revenge. He uttered a frightful oath, and jumped on Alfred as he lay bound and powerless, and gave him a lesson he never forgot.

Every art has its secrets: the attendants in such madhouses as this have been for years possessed of one they are too modest to reveal to justices, commissioners, or the public; the art of breaking a man's ribs, or breast-bone, or both, without bruising him externally. The convicts at Toulon arrive at a similar result by another branch of the art: they stuff the skin of a conger eel with powdered stone; then give the obnoxious person a sly crack with it; and a rib backbone is broken with no contusion to mark the external violence used. But Mr. Cooper and his fellows do their work with the knee-joint: it is round, and leaves no bruise. They subdue the patient by walking up and down him on their knees. If they don't jump on him, as well as promenade him, the man's spirit is often the only thing broken; if they do, the man is apt to be broken bodily as well as mentally. Thus died Mr. Sizer in 1854, and two others quite recently. And how many more G.o.d only knows: we can't count the stones at the bottom of a dark well.

Cooper then sprang furiously on Alfred, and went kneeling up and down him. Cooper was a heavy man, and his weight crushed and hurt the victim's legs; but that was a trifle: as often as he kneeled on Alfred's chest, the crushed one's whole framework seemed giving way, and he could scarcely breathe. But Brown drew Cooper back by the collar, saying, ”D'ye want to kill him?” And at this moment Mrs. Archbold, who was on the watch, came in with Hannah and another nurse, and the three women at a word from their leader pinned Cooper simultaneously, and, taking him at a disadvantage, handcuffed him in a moment with a strength, sharpness, skill, and determination not to be found in women out of a madhouse--luckily for the newspaper husbands.

The other keepers looked astounded at this masterstroke; but, as no servant had ever affronted Mrs. Archbold without being dismissed directly, they took their cue and said, ”We advised him, ma'am, but he would not listen to us.”

”Cooper,” said Mrs. Archbold as soon as she recovered her breath, ”you are not fit for your place. To-morrow you go, or I go.”

Cooper, cowed in a moment by the handcuffs, began to whine and say that it was all Alfred's fault.

But Mrs. Archbold was now carried away by two pa.s.sions instead of one, and they were together too much for prudence. She took a handful of glossy locks out of her bosom and shook them in Cooper's face.

”You monster!” said she; ”you should go, for _that,_ if you were my own brother.”

The two young nurses a.s.sented loudly, and turned and cackled at Cooper for cutting off such lovely hair.

He shrugged his shoulders at them, and said sulkily to Mrs. Archbold, ”Oh, I didn't know. Of course, if you have fallen in love with him, my cake is burnt. 'Tisn't the first lunatic you have taken a fancy to.”

At this brutal speech, all the more intolerable for not being quite false, Mrs. Archbold turned ashy pale, and looked round for a weapon to strike him dead; but found none so handy and so deadly as her tongue.

”It's not the first you have tried to MURDER,” said she. ”I know all about that death in Calton Retreat: you kept it dark before the coroner; but it is not too late, I'll open the world's eyes. I was only going to dismiss you, sir: but you have insulted me. I'll hang you in reply.”

Cooper turned very pale and was silent; his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

But a feeble, unexpected voice issued from the bed and murmured cheerfully, though with some difficulty, a single word--

”Justice!”

At an expression so out of place they all started with surprise.

Alfred went on: ”You are putting the saddle on the wrong horse. The fault lies with those villains Baker and Bailey. Cooper is only a servant, you know, and obeys orders.”

”What business had the wretch to cut your hair off?” said Mrs. Archbold, turning on Alfred with flas.h.i.+ng eyes. Her blood once up, she was ready to quarrel even with him for taking part against himself.

”Because he was ordered to put on a blister, and hair must come off before a blister can go on,” replied Alfred soberly.

”That is no excuse for him beating you and trying to break your front teeth.”

She didn't mind so much about his side ribs.

”No,” replied Alfred. ”But I hit him first: look at the bloke's face.

Dear Mrs. Archbold, you are my best friend in this horrid place, and you have beautiful eyes; and, talk of teeth, look at yours! But you haven't much sense of justice, forgive me for saying so. Put the proposition into signs; there is nothing like that for clearing away prejudice. B.

and C. have a scrimmage: B begins it, C. gets the worst of it; in comes A. and turns away--C. Is that justice? It is me you ought to turn away; and I wish to Heaven you would: dear Mrs. Archbold, do pray turn me away, and keep the other blackguard.”

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