In the Shadow of Lakecrest(45)
Then, lightly, he said, “Jock Halverson was warning me the other day how emotional women can be when they’re expecting.” A smile. A fatherly pat on the cheek. “He said I should buy you flowers every week, but I’ve done him one better. I picked up a little something for you during my trip.”
Matthew reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small velvet bag. I pulled it open, and a stream of diamonds slipped into my hand. Matthew picked up the necklace and brushed my hair aside to fasten the clasp. He brought the hand mirror from my dresser so I could see the gems form a cascade of light against my skin.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“It’s gorgeous.”
Matthew looked as happy as if he’d designed it himself. Hadn’t I always dreamed of wearing diamonds? And about a dashing husband who’d give them to me?
Matthew started talking about Jock’s new racehorse and whether I’d like to visit the Halversons at Saratoga one day, and I found I had nothing more to say about Marjorie. Matthew was the one I needed on my side, not his sister. He’d rushed home when he found out I’d been hurt, and his presents were getting more and more lavish. What else mattered?
I didn’t consider until later how much Marjorie’s fate was tied to my own. If Hannah didn’t hesitate to lock up her own daughter, what would she do to me if I ever crossed her?
CHAPTER TEN
What is madness?
Attempting to formulate a concise answer to that question risks an onset of the very disorder under study. Madness has taken a multitude of forms through the course of human history. At times, it has been as revered as it is now maligned.
My own approach is a psychological-cultural one, examining the methods by which deviations from behavioral mores have been described and treated in the medical and humanistic literature of their time.
Honestly. You’d think a book about lunatics would be a little more fun.
On Dr. Gordon’s advice, I’d been sentenced to a week in bed. Matthew had gone back to Michigan, and I was hoping Dr. Rieger’s book might lead to some revelations about Cecily. Judging by the introduction, it would be more useful as a sleeping aid.
Bored, I flipped ahead, stopping at the occasional pictures. Illustrations of the human brain. An engraving of a medieval madhouse. A painting of women in flowing gowns cavorting in a field. I stopped and looked at the chapter title: “Madness as Divine in Ancient Greece.” I skimmed the text:
In his Phaedrus, Plato ascribed to Socrates the belief that madness can be inspired by the gods. As such, it arises in four distinct forms: the madness of love (caused by the machinations of Eros and Aphrodite), the madness of artistic inspiration (the Muses), the madness of prophecy (Apollo), and the madness of mystical rite (Dionysus). The Dionysian rites, in particular, offer persuasive evidence that madness does not always spring from a physical cause. It was a state that could be achieved through particular actions and thus could be discarded afterward with little effect on the memory. Such madness has been given no place in our modern world, but we reject it as a relic of the past at our peril. Unleashing that madness can serve a larger social purpose, and we might all benefit were we to rediscover and adapt those ancient mysteries to our own times.
That caught my attention. I read on, enthralled, as Dr. Rieger described a play where women ran around in leopard skins as they were initiated into a secret sisterhood. When they discovered a man spying on their rites, they tore him to pieces. It almost made me regret my lack of a classical education; the stories were as melodramatic and blood soaked as the tawdriest horror novel.
Ancient sources record countless instances of women obtaining cathartic release from episodes of “madness” that bear little relation to the disorder as it is understood today. However, the particular elements of each rite were lamentably undocumented by its practitioners, secrecy being essential to such groups’ convictions. In the absence of such knowledge, preposterous theories could spread unchecked. Scenes such as Pentheus’s death in The Bacchae cannot be held up as historical evidence, for it may be no more than a playwright’s attempt to shock his audience. Whatever such rites entailed, the madness of Dionysus was widely accepted as a religious practice. Indeed, it was one of the few ways women were able to obtain a measure of freedom in an otherwise limited public sphere.
Was this where Cecily had gotten the idea to wander the grounds, spouting poetry in the middle of night? From what Mabel had told me, Cecily’s rituals were odd, but harmless. I turned the page and stopped at a photo of an ancient Greek vase featuring painted female figures pulling a man apart, their expressions grim.
I thought of Matthew’s dreams. Cecily’s blood.
It didn’t make sense. Cecily couldn’t have been the victim of some murderous frenzy. There had been no acolytes at Lakecrest that evening, no rites at the Temple. No evidence of anyone coming to a bloody, tragic end.
I skipped past chapters on medieval asylums, the Enlightenment, and the rise of modern psychology. The final page had a photograph of Dr. Rieger holding what looked like an inverted metal bowl attached by wires to a small electrical box. Probably the infamous Millchen Cap I’d been hearing about. I saw a resemblance to Hannah in the doctor’s stiff, upright posture and narrow nose. But it was impossible to tell what he really looked like behind the bushy mustache and thick glasses.