Shadows of the Workhouse

very sympathetic towards extreme old age.
    Whilst the charges were being read by the police superintendent, Sister Monica Joan sat between her solicitor and Sister Julienne, who was scarlet with embarrassment and kept her eyes lowered. In contrast, Sister Monica Joan sat upright and looked around her with haughty grandeur, every now and then exclaiming something-like “poof” or “tosh” or “fiddlesticks”.
    When the superintendent had finished, the presiding magistrate said, “You have heard the charges?”
    “I most certainly have.”
    “And do you understand them?”
    “Don’t be impertinent, my man. Do you think I am stupid?”
    “No, Sister, I don’t. But I must be quite sure that you understand the charges brought against you by the police.”
    Sister Monica Joan did not answer. She looked towards the clock on the wall and raised her veined hand towards her chin like an actress posing for a photograph.
    “I am not sure that she does, sir,” said Sister Julienne quietly to the solicitor who stood up to speak.
    But, before he could do so, Sister Monica Joan turned on them with quiet rage. “Do not presume to speak for me. Speak for yourselves. Bear witness to your own imperfections. We stand, each of us, alone and naked before the Judgement Throne, where none but the silent dead can testify.”
    The presiding magistrate was having second thoughts. This was very different from a grandmother whose conversation was confined to: “I’m ninety-three, you know, think of that, ninety-three.” He addressed Sister Monica Joan very seriously. “Have you understood the charges brought against you?”
    “I have.”
    “Do you plead ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’?”
    “Guilty! Guilty? Do you imagine, my good fellow, that I accept a charge of guilt from the hoi-polloi I see before me?” She sniffed scornfully and drew out a laced handkerchief from beneath her scapular, which she applied to her nose with an affected gesture, as though an unpleasant smell had assailed her. “Guilty indeed – huh? ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ Does your small mind understand the hidden meaning of ‘guilt’? Before you use the word again, it behoves you to find out, if perchance you are capable of such intellectual exercise, which I very much doubt.”
    Such rudeness to the presiding magistrate was Sister Monica Joan’s undoing. Had she shown a little more humility, a little more uncertainty or even contrition, it is likely that, in their discretionary powers, the magistrates would have taken the matter no further. As it was, after a brief consultation, the decision was made to accept a plea of not guilty and to refer the case to the London Quarter Sessions for trial by judge and jury.

    Sister Julienne was devastated by Sister Monica Joan’s performance in the Magistrates’ Court. She had hoped that the matter would end quietly there, but now the full publicity of the Quarter Sessions would have to be faced. But Sister Julienne was not a woman easily beaten. She prayed about the matter. The inspiration granted to her from a heavenly source was that the defence of mental deterioration should be strengthened. She consulted the solicitor and it was decided to obtain a third medical opinion.
    Sir Lorimer Elliott-Bartram had an enviable reputation as a psychologist. He was well known in London, having given medical evidence in several legal cases. Sir Lorimer was getting on in years but not so far on that he could not maintain a thriving practice in Harley Street. In fact, the further on he got, the more patients came flocking to his doors and therefore the more money he made. It was all very satisfactory.
    Sir Lorimer had qualified as a surgeon in 1912, and had had a distinguished record as an army doctor in the First World War – distinguished, according to the military commanders, as a first-rate officer and doctor; and distinguished, according to the men in the ranks, as a butcher.
    Although Sir Lorimer had never qualified, nor attempted to qualify, as a psychiatrist, he had made a fortune in Harley Street by dabbling in psychotherapy, memory loss, personality change, mental block, hypomania, dypsomania, kleptomania and related subjects. He was a tall, handsome man with a deep, resonant voice that could easily adopt a silky tone. The majority of his patients were women.
    There is an old saying in medical circles that if you want to make a study of invective, you should listen to two