Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [44]
Finally he shut her legs, wiped his hands, and helped her to ease herself up into a sitting position. Her back ached. She smoothed the nightgown over her knees, observing the creases.
"Miss F., do you ever suffer from maniacal fits?" he asked thoughtfully, letting go of her arm.
"No, sir," she said, startled.
"Have you any other symptoms you care to mention to me?" He fixed her with an intense look now, though she couldn't tell why.
She gave him what she hoped was a brave smile and straightened a little, where she sat on the edge of the leather table. "No, Mr. Baker Brown. Really, my back is all that troubles me," she said, laying her hand quite high up, on the left. "The pain generally begins just here—"
"Have you any, ah, pernicious habits?" It was the first time he had hesitated in asking a question.
"No, God forbid," she said. "Except for a sup of fortified wine. At Christmas," she added hastily.
A flash of what looked like irritation crossed Mr. Baker Brown's pink forehead. "What I meant to ask, Miss E, is whether you have ever in your life touched yourself? In an improper way, I mean?"
She stared at him.
"In a way that only a physician should touch you, or a husband, if you had a husband?"
Her cheeks were scorching. "I don't ... I don't know what you mean, Doctor. I mean, sir."
"Never mind," he said lightly, and glanced at his notes again. She had the feeling he was not pleased with her answer. "Would you say that you feel languid, debilitated? Not so lively as when you were younger?"
"I suppose so. Because of my back." She spoke mechanically. Her heart was still thudding.
"Can you compose your mind sufficiently to write a letter?" he asked.
"Oh, I would," she told him, relaxing a little, "if I only had the time. When I'm not resting I have to see to my brothers dinner, and his collars and cuffs, and I'm slow because of my back, as I said. The pain comes on so sudden—"
"Are you ever sleepless," he broke in, "or do you wake in the middle of the night?"
"Only if my back is bad," she said, aware that she was repeating herself.
"Unaccountable fits of depression?"
"Well. Not really." She tried to think. "Only a sort of lost feeling, once in a while, when I consider my future."
"Attacks of melancholy without any tangible reason?" he said encouragingly.
After a moment, she shook her head. "If I'm ever low in spirits, sir, its for a reason."
He put something down in his notebook. She wished she could have a look at it. She thought perhaps if she could tell this doctor all her reasons, all the real and unreal worries that ever lowered her spirits, she would then be able to shake them off. If this gentleman with the broad shoulders under the smooth black jacket were to write down all her troubles, she might stand up in the end, pain-free, released.
The patient becomes restless and excited, or melancholy
and retiring; listless and indifferent to the social influences
of domestic life.
Baker Brown snapped the notebook shut and screwed the lid onto his pen. "Miss F.," he began in the voice of one announcing good news, "forget your back."
She looked at him and trembled with shock. Forget her back? After two years of nagging, stabbing pain? After two years of being accused of malingering? "Don't you believe me, neither?" she asked, forgetting her grammar.
"Of course I do. Your pain is real," he said, bending towards her, and his eyes were earnest. "But what you are suffering from is a profound disease that affects your whole body and mind, not just your back. You are a victim of a loss of nerve power."
"Nerve power?" She repeated the unfamiliar phrase.
"It is brought on by peripheral irritation. It is all too common among women of every position in life."
"But—but why?"
Mr. Baker Brown shook his head sympathetically. "You know from your own experience that the female body is an exquisitely sensitive mechanism. This loss of nerve power, this hysteria