8. Breakdown

In the fall of 1898 while in Edinburgh with Jack’s family, Trix became more and more depressed. The Flemings were alarmed as Trix’s moods alternated wildly from periods of agitation and anger to periods of immobility and mutism. Trix was furious with Jack, refused to see him, and was adamant that she be allowed to separate from him. It is likely that Jack had betrayed her. Trix was sent to stay with her mother in Southern England, where she was treated with the standard care prescribed for women—rest, quiet, and a fattening diet. Freed from the marital and domestic duties—sexual and otherwise—imposed on her by Jack, Trix was amazingly productive during this period. She wrote poems in concert with her mother, which were eventually published as Hand in Hand, and composed one hundred pages of comic dialogue featuring a miserably mis-matched married couple. In the spring of 1901, Trix was well enough to travel with her parents to Italy. During the period, referred to by Rudyard’s biographers as Trix’s breakdown, from the late fall of 1898 to the early fall of 1902, she was more often than not utterly sane and unusually creative. With Alice’s cooperation, Trix gave herself almost four years of what was essentially a separation from Jack.