Shadows of the Workhouse

mad. Perhaps he ill-treated her; perhaps his repeated insinuations really did unbalance her mind, so that she began to doubt her own sanity. We don’t know, but it is not difficult to drive someone mad. Eventually her husband persuaded two doctors to certify that she was incurably insane. It would not have been difficult in those days. Perhaps the two doctors were cronies of his. Perhaps they were paid to certify. I do not suppose she was ever examined properly by an independent and impartial psychiatrist, as she would be today. It would have been very easy for him to choose his own doctors and the certificate was irreversible. Aunt Anne was taken away, taken from her children, who from then on were motherless. She was locked up in an asylum, where she remained for the rest of her life. She died in 1907.”
    “That is one of the most shocking stories I have ever heard,” I said.
    “It was not uncommon. It was a very clever way for a rich man to get rid of an unwanted wife. He had to pay for the asylum, of course, but that would not trouble a rich man. After a period of years, I don’t know how many, he could get a divorce with no scandal. Easy!”
    “And did the woman have no one to speak for her?”
    “Oh yes, her father or a brother could, and probably would. It was not always plain sailing for an unscrupulous husband. But my grandfather, Anne’s father, was dead, and there were no brothers, only four daughters in the family. So poor Anne had no one to protect her.”
    “Could her mother or sisters not speak for her?”
    “Women had no voice in any matter. It had been the same for centuries. That is what we fought for.” Her eyes flashed and she banged the desk. “Independence for women. Freedom from male dominance.”
    “Were you a suffragette?” I asked.
    “Bah! Suffragettes. I’ve no time for suffragettes. They made the biggest mistake in history. They went for equality. They should have gone for power!” With a dramatic gesture she swept her arm across the desk, scattering pencils, papers and notebooks to the floor. “But I broke the mould in my family when I announced that I was going to be a nurse. Oh, you should have heard the rumpus. It would have been funny if it had not been so deadly serious. My father locked me in my room and threatened to keep me there indefinitely. Then he tried to insinuate that I was mad and should be confined to an asylum like poor Aunt Anne. But times were changing. Women were beginning to break the chains of their bondage. Florence Nightingale led the way and many others followed. I wrote to Miss Nightingale from my prison in my father’s house. She was quite an old lady by then, but she was very powerful. She spoke to Queen Victoria on my behalf. I don’t know what they said, but the result was that I was released from captivity. My poor docile mother never really recovered from the shock of having a rebel daughter. Nonetheless, I was thirty-two before I could break away from my father’s domination and start nursing. That was when my life began.”
    The chapel bell rang for Vespers.
    Sister Monica Joan took up her black veil and adjusted it over her white wimple. She turned to me with a naughty wink. “If my father had seen me as a nun, he would have had a stroke. But mercifully he was spared, because he died the same year that the old Queen died. Hand me my prayer book, child.”
    It was on the floor, along with the other items that had been pushed from her desk. I retrieved everything that was scattered around, placed them all on the desk and handed her the prayer book.
    “Now for it,” she said, her head held high, her eyebrows arched in a slightly supercilious curve. A mischievous grin crinkled the corners of her mouth and eyes. “Now for it,” she said again as she swept out of the room.
    There was nothing cringing or pathetic about Sister Monica Joan. She was going to battle it out to the end. If she couldn’t face her Sisters in chapel, she would sit with her back to them, and if they didn’t like it, they could lump it.

    After the evening visits we took supper in the kitchen. This was a meal prepared by ourselves, because we all came in at different times. We were looking the worse for wear, particularly Chummy, who couldn’t hold her drink but did not want to admit it, and had been protesting all day that she thought she had a touch of flu. Chummy was, in addition, torn by a feeling of guilt because she was supposed to have been on first