This story begins in 1883, as I have moved the entire Phantom story ahead 10 years to bypass all the political mess that blew through France 1870 to 1874. I hope this offends no one.

Chapter 1

At the tender age of 36 years, after 18 years of employment within the mental healthcare field, I found myself to have acquired the singular reputation of being able to help some of those who were in the grips of mental illness or emotional distress. I profess no magic cure, no regimen of choice, and certainly no guarantee of results. The vocation had been dropped upon me from out of the blue at a time in my life when I'd found myself without a 'pot to piss in' as my beautiful mother would say, and I needed employment in order to feed my family.

At the time of my employment as an aide at the well-known Elysian Fields Sanitarium for the Mentally Ill, insanity was believed to be an illness strictly of the mind. As such, it could not be dosed or bled or removed, much less laid bare for examination. It existed in the ether of human thought, and manifested itself in the outward behaviors that mirrored those thoughts. This was the generally accepted dogma of mental health care in Europe, 1883.

Care for the mentally ill consisted usually of removing such patients from the general public, and providing mainly custodial containment and the bare necessities of survival to patients with a wide range of clinical disorders and social abnormalities. Naturally, a 'cure' for most of the really spectacular illnesses was not to be found, although it was thought by some early intervention and treatment could offer a cure in some respects.

Generally speaking, however, those who were judged mentally ill could not look forward to treatment for their malady. They were warehoused, kept as docile as leather straps, cold or hot baths, spinning chairs, and a total lack of intellectual stimulation could render them. The power of fear and intimidation was also the mainstay treatment administered by the near-criminals charged with caring for these unfortunates. Standards of treatment for most afflicted with mental illness were barbaric. The more money paid for the care of the patient could usually insure better treatment if pressed into the right hands.

There were those, of course, who had physical afflictions that exacerbated an already unsteady mind; the chronic drunks, opium addicts, syphilis infected, and pregnant or menopausal women. You smile at the last two items, but it is true; pregnancy and menopause were accepted as aggravating factors in women who displayed pathological behaviors. Of course, women were judged to have 'weak' minds to begin with.

The recent death of my parents and the simultaneous loss of our family business had left me without income and the head of a household of three younger sisters and brother. My older brothers were either married with families, still back in Ireland in the horse business, or both. My eldest sister had a family of her own, living abroad. I found myself with the responsibility of raising my 6 year old brother, Quinn, and sisters, Derry, 8 Grania, 9, and Kenna, 11. I was barely 18.

I quickly found that employment for women, especially single women of 18 years, and untried in any profession but caring for pregnant broodmares or younger siblings, pays very little. Work that did not involve alcohol or living away from one's home was impossible to find. And so I despaired, stretching the tiny savings left by my parents, and shamelessly accepting covert gifts from my brothers Tiarnan and Kavenaugh, much to the disgust of their wives.

Ah, women. Are we not our own worst enemies?

I finally secured a position working as an aid at a very exclusive sanitarium on the outskirts of London, caring for those whose families found themselves too troubled, aggravated, or embarrassed to do so themselves. I met the grocer's wife while picking through the over-aged vegetables behind Bishop's Grocery. She had heard of an aide's position just open through one of the employees there. It seems the position was precipitously abandoned after an overly amorous naked male inmate accosted the former employee.

Clasping my hands in hers and smiling up into my face, she had breathlessly shared that she immediately thought of me for the job. I thanked her for her consideration, and her good deed done, she bustled back inside the grocery. Idly I wondered why she felt naked love-sick males would of be of little consequence to me, considering my lack of exposure. With further introspection however, I felt I could probably deal with every male state, having spent most of my life living with the drunken, randy puppy behavior of four older brothers.

I immediately brushed myself down and appeared before the head doctor at the Elysian Fields Sanitarium, smiling, bright-eyed and anxious to work. I would like to believe that I was given this position, without reference or past experience, because I was judged to be honest, hardworking, strong and capable. However, I do believe I won the job on my looks alone, tall, knockle-boned and board-straight though I was. The gentleman who hired me, Dr. Charles Emory Melbourne, was struck by my resemblance to his deceased mother, obviously beloved but as plain as the cook's spoon. I did not know whether to think him blind or as addled as his clientele. I could certainly sympathize with the departed Mrs. Melbourne!

I did know to keep my mouth shut and smile, however, and smile I did. The good doctor hired me, and thereafter often spoke to me of his dear mother, and I feel fortunate that he suffered no Oepidical tendencies. The job was God-sent, paid well enough to secure our home for my siblings until the last left the family home at age 15, to join his brothers in the business they had launched in the years before.

I found myself an unmarried spinster and totally alone at age 26. Oh, there were proper Catholic gentlemen callers for several years, and I briefly knew the heady stuff of infatuation a time or two. However, always there stood my chosen profession to contend with—no gentleman wanted his sweetheart dealing with naked, dangerous, crazy people. It would have been far better had I done laundry from dusk till dawn for pennies a day, or worked as a maid or housegirl for the local gentry, being paid even less for more hours. These were things a man could understand as woman's true vocation!

Add the fact I no more wished to stay home and drop a baby every 14 months than sell my body for sixpence on the street corner. Oh, and the fact I was all but excommunicated from the Catholic Church…

The fine Catholic gentlemen found younger, more compliant women to woo, and I buried myself in my work, took piano lessons from the organist at the local Church of England vicarage, and returned to my sketch block.

And so I spent the first eight years of my profession in London, dealing with the institutionalized highborn and well-bred citizens who regularly shite themselves, ate foreign substances, sliced constantly at their own bodies, or displayed other less-than-attractive habits. My first two years I cleaned more feces-coated surfaces than I care to remember. I also learned to firmly deal with those who felt my body should be available for whatever demented and demeaning use they felt appropriate. I perfected the ability to bring calm and quiet to those who felt screaming and physical attack would best slay whatever demons beset them. There is also my uncommon height and obvious physical strength which is intimidating to all but the most psychotic of patients.

There is little room for the expression of compassion or understanding in the care of the insane, much less disgust, repugnance, disapproval, fear, amusement, pity, and anger. Speed of response and a display of quiet confidence and competence did more to quell, reassure, and convince the uneasy of mind than any handholding or sharing of tears. I was as emotionally removed and yet physically capable as I could manage, and this proved to be exactly what was needed for the broken minds I dealt with daily. My height of six feet and a bit barefoot, and the fact I could lift most of the female patients without strain did not hurt either. Years of horse handling has provided me with the skills to maneuver the most obdurate of patients. It is all in where you push.

I never, however, used my physical advantages to purposely intimidate a patient. I felt this counterproductive to a patient's potential to heal. I have found that trust and fear are mutually exclusive.

Eventually I felt it necessary to move from the house that had been the family home for fourteen years. I sold it, turned the results realized over to Beyvin and Quinn, the eldest sister and youngest brother, packed my few personal belongings and left London, traveling south to the burgeoning city of Brighton, and the sanitarium there, Nettles Home. After receiving my letter of inquiry concerning possible employment a few months before, along with glowing (and tearful) reference from Dr. Melbourne, I was offered a job straight away.

Brighton was not that far from the teeming metropolis of London, and served as a minor port of entry for travelers from France. As many of the sanitarium residents were French citizens, French became my third language, after the Gaelic of my youth, and English. It was but a distant third, however, as my Irish tongue did not work as well when asked to perform the arrogantly glottal and hissy French language. I am afraid the French patients suffered tremendously when I spoke at any length in their tongue.

At Nettles Home, there were separate wings for the men and the women, and an additional wing designated exclusively for women who were suffering from emotional malaise due to pregnancy and menopause. It should be noted that the ladies in the Pre-Partum Wing were, as a fact, well-heeled, and either of the aristocracy, or married to/involved with those of the aristocracy. No village bride who found herself scared spitless at the thought of giving birth would be afforded the opportunity to enjoy such care at the time of her lying in.

Post-partum malaise had yet to be given recognition at that time by any but those who could afford to seek the palliative treatment. My mother, God bless her, raised 10 healthy children, having one nearly atop the next, and I never saw any of the emotional hand wringing and over-dramatics that a few of our fine ladies got up to. Having never borne a child, I can only conjecture on the emotional impact inherent to that of having a child. I now realize I may never know myself.

I will say I was never treated with less respect in any other wing of the hospital, even when I was just the automaton scraping shite off naked arses or the walls in the private patient suites in London. These women were usually children having babies, and were therefore throwing tantrums and misbehaving outrageously due to terror, loneliness and physical discomfort. I was the frequent target for their sense of outrage and feelings of abandonment.

No man, however young, randy, or insane offered near the physical threat to that presented by a pregnant, and emotionally volatile female. I was a reproach in the fact that I could walk comfortably, wear attractive clothing (although I didn't have any) and go home to my own special things, instead of being cooped up in a private golden cage. I could feel pity for a 15 year old who had found herself wedded to and skirts up beneath a Lord of the Realm, triple her age and ugly to boot, who now suffered the insult of pregnancy. Sickness, debilitation, and loss of attention led to ill humor in the 'increasing' female. Moreover, it was just such lasses who took special delight in trying to behead me with the husband's and/or lover's latest guilt offering of flowers, vase thoughtfully included.

I will admit that I accepted the uncivil treatment afforded me in the Pre-Partum Wing with no loss of self-respect, merely because I understood their elevated social class had totally stripped them of any personal worth. They had no freedom in their lives and were, many of them, nothing but prize broodmares (but without the loveable personalities). Few read, enjoyed music, or developed interests in anything beyond what society…and their husbands…dictated. Once a woman had dropped the 'heir and a spare', and survived, she was free to pursue whatever dissipations and distractions she saw fit. Gambling, sexual promiscuity, drug use, and other unhealthy physical habits were common. This was the world of the idle rich, a world that held so few healthy outlets for a woman's emotional life, and gave so little regard to her intellectual potential.

I went home to my small comfortable apartment, located over the local subscription library, to my cat, Mudkins, and my piano. I sketched and painted frequently at the town park, weather permitting, and I stabled my fine foxhunting/driving mare, Lyric, at the Ballyho Stablery a short walk from my front door. I foxhunted, thanks to the kindness and support of Dr. Smythe, who was Head of Psychiatric at the Nettles Home, and I was considered a fine horsewoman. I lived alone. Granted, I was subject to every appellate danger and threat that my singular state carried.

It was also true that I had chosen a profession deemed little better than street whore or opera singer to the ruling and middle classes. Add to that my advanced age (anything over 25 years), physical appearance (too tall, too thin, no style) and you see where I might find myself with much time in which to enjoy my 'freedom'.

As often happens to a woman in my circumstance, my work became my life.

I did, of course, by God's gentle grace, land flat-footed into the upper echelon of this profession, never serving in the 'general' wards of the poor homes and church hospitals in England or France. My career was birthed with a silver spoon shoved in its gob, so to speak. During my employment I had cared for those of the nobility who were deeply in substance abuse, such as alcohol or morphine, or who had inherited Great Aunt Margaret, Duchess of Tuckberry's curious affinity to shucking every stitch of clothing and running amok through the front manse shrubbery.

There were indeed all sorts of afflictions. There were too many cases, I'm afraid to say, that were cases of "the sins of the fathers". And finally, those of the mother…