Free Flowers From The Storm by Laura Kinsale Page B

he’d understood. “Sine, yes.”
    He repeated his one success. “Cosine. Tangent.” His fingers caressed her hand. He wanted to say “don’t go,” and instead it emerged, “No… no.”
    She gave a little sigh and started to stand up; he realized she was leaving and shook his head violently.
    Don’t! Stay here, don’t leave yet, not now !
    “No, no, no, no,” was what he heard himself uttering, and cut it off, tilting his head back and yanking at the bonds in wrath.
    “Peasdon sethee! Clietcliet!” She put her forefinger up to her face, the tip just beneath her nose.
     
    He gazed at her. It meant something, that gesture; he knew it meant something, but he couldn’t think what. The echo of the noise he’d made died away, a mere ripple of disturbance in this house full of howling beasts.
    Her hand lay on his shoulder. He shifted his head, pressed his cheek against the back of her palm. Stayhere, Maddy. Don’t leave me .
    All that got out was, “No. Mnnh . No!”
    He groaned, turning from her.
    She took his face between her cool fingers. She stroked his hair back from his forehead. He closed his eyes, shuddering inside, holding back the tide of feeling. He lay still.
    “Weebwell,” she whispered. “Vreethin wilvee well.”
    Wilv well. Will well.
    Vreething will well.
    Everything will well.
    He hadn’t really comprehended it; it came after his mind seemed to sift down through the sounds, settling finally on an intuition.
    But it was something, anyway. It was something to keep as she turned away and took the candle and paper. One small glass ball to float when he was drowning: she thought everything would be all right, and he’d almost understood her when she said it.
    Maddy pursed her lips, carefully folding the brochure about Blythedale Hall into the letter that Cousin Edward had dictated to a Lady Scull, describing in glowing terms the kind and loving treatment that her sister might expect at Blythedale, referring discreetly to a rate of six guineas a week, and inviting Lady Scull for a visit at her convenience. On the brochure, the engraving of the house looked completely serene, with couples strolling beside the willows and the lake and the swans.
    Nothing in the letter or brochure hinted at the pounding sound of metal that reverberated through the halls, that had woken everyone this morning and lasted throughout Cousin Edward’s stiff and angry lecture on Maddy’s folly in sending Larkin away on a made-up pretext and visiting the Duke of Jervaulx in secret, that went on while Cousin Edward read his mail and she filed letters, that went on still while Maddy wrote out her dictation with trembling fingers; the sound and fierce shout that went on and on and on: crash— Tangent !—crash— Distance !—crash— Squared !—crash— Minus !—crash— Yone
    —crash— X two —crash— Mah-she !— crash— Mah-she !— She !— She !— She !—outraged, desperate; on and on until the echoing voice was hoarse and grinding; pleading, plaintive, corroding down to an inarticulate syllable between each smash of the barred iron door.
    She had not thought him mad last night, but she thought him mad this morning. The truth of Cousin Edward’s warnings was patent—she should not have disturbed him, should never have gone to see him in that way. Everyone in the house was agitated, the other patients unnerved; Maddy had heard Cousin Edward instruct Larkin to explain to Master Christian that he would be restrained, taken to the seclusion room and left there if his conduct had not improved by noon.
     
    Maddy already knew about the seclusion room. It was an essential part of the moral therapy practiced at Blythedale, the management of the patients’ behavior by an appeal to their dignity, the subtle balance between encouragement and intimidation as the situation demanded. Cousin Edward had given her a copy of Mr. Tuke’s Description of the Retreat , the famous Quaker asylum at York that had pioneered the