The Specimen Read online

  “Thank God. Thank you, I hardly know what to say.”

  “I am sure you’re tired, and want to go to your own house and sleep properly.”

  “You are exhausted.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you are sure that you want this?”

  “I am. It is not because of what my sister has done, or only partly. It has become impossible for me to live with her, but it is also impossible for me to continue to live the way I have been since the day I met you. I want to be with you every day, and I want to expand my scientific knowledge. So, yes, I am sure I want this, because I want you.”

  Edward lunged across the room and smothered her in a tight embrace. “You can’t know how glad that makes me.”

  “I can guess.”

  “I have almost seven weeks to make the last arrangements. I must return to London for a short while. I have been given the name of a gentleman who will verify and buy specimens and I must meet with him to discuss terms. And there are other matters to tie up. But these things are routine, I should be able to return in three weeks’ time. Our ship embarks from here.”

  “You mean from Falmouth?”

  “Yes. I thought that if you did decide it was something you wanted, then you would not want to travel all the way to London or to Liverpool.”

  Gwen nodded and closed her eyes. She was sure that this was what she wanted. It frightened her more than anything and it gave her a thrill it was difficult to conceal. It was worth enduring the next weeks, no matter what kind of hysterics and difficulties Euphemia devised, when afterwards she would be able to be true to herself and to be with Edward.

  “This is what we were always meant to do,” he said. “Our joining together, in this way, is more divine than anything ever imagined.”

  Gwen opened her eyes again to find that he was leaning in; before she could speak he had clamped his mouth around her partly open lips.

  Chapter XIX

  Helford Passage, Cornwall. September, 1860.

  Susan stood with her hip against the kitchen table in Carrick House and rubbed at the brass key with her apron. Fergus watched her bring the key up to her face and blow the last bits of soil from its crevices. She was calming herself after all the bother with the large crate of glassware which had arrived that morning from town. There had been some wrangling, but Susan had managed eventually to persuade the deliveryman and his lad to get the thing down the outside steps to the cellar. She eyed Fergus over the jumble of things on the kitchen table. He had been emptying another cupboard, and was halfway through examining the contents. The stone jar of flour was half sifted into a large bowl and a white layer of dust covered everything else. Susan cleared her throat and rubbed harder.

  “I usually do that kind of thing in the springtime, Mr Harris,” Susan met his eye, “and that flour was only bought very recent, as you well know. You won’t find no grubs in there.”

  “I ain’t looking for grubs, Miss Wright.”

  “Then what are you up to? It’s making such a mess.”

  Fergus put down the sieve with a resigned huff. “I’m sorry, Miss Wright. I thought, with all the house being so upside down, I might have found—”

  “Yes, Mr Harris?”

  “You’ve been at this place a while, Miss Wright. Do you think—I mean, does this business seem out of the ordinary to you?”

  “I never do the spring cleaning like that, if that’s what you mean, Mr Harris.”

  “No. I mean the thing with the key. Her hiding it all over. And the other things, as well.”

  “You mean has Miss Euphemia done this before?”

  “It is her, then? Not the other?”

  Susan pulled out a chair and sat on it, holding the brass winding key in her lap. She looked at him square in the face. “Mr Harris, Miss Gwen would never do anything to annoy me, she’d never do anything to upset me and she’d never ever make extra work for me. I know that girl. She’s as true as the day is long.”

  “And what would you have to say if I was to tell you that Miss Gwen has been making plans to go away?”

  “Don’t be daft now, Mr Harris. Where would she go?”

  “I ain’t being daft, Miss Wright; she’s going,” he lowered his voice, “to South America, Miss Wright. Yes,” he said seeing her expression change, “Brazil.”

  “I swear, Mr Harris, you shouldn’t tell tales on people like Miss Gwen. It’s not nice.”

  “Maybe, but it’s true.”

  “How come you know all about it?”

  “Walls and doors have lugs, don’t they?”

  “Why? Why would she do that to us, leaving us with her batsy sister?” Susan covered her mouth with her hands still holding the key. “I never said that.”

  “Yes, you did. And it’s right enough. She is barmy.”

  “We’ll never manage her in this house on our own, Mr Harris. I’ll have to have words with Miss Gwen.”

  “You won’t change her mind.” Fergus laughed under his breath.

  “I might; she’s a good girl. She’s not like most people.”

  “She’s running off, Miss Wright, with a man. The man what sorted this out,” he gestured at his bad eye, still very much bruised and sore. Fergus closed his good eye, and he sighed deeply. He felt so bad this morning, awful. His head throbbed. He knew that a fever was building up. He poured himself a drink of water and wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve.

  “I never heard anything so out of character in all my life, Mr Harris. Are you sure?” Susan put the brass key on the floury table and stood up to tower over Fergus. “You don’t make no sense at all today, Mr Harris. I reckon you’ve got this all wrong. I reckon what you heard is that Miss Gwen is having her sister put somewhere for a while. Though it would be a shame for the family, it wouldn’t be no shame for this house. I could do without all her ghostly visitors, all them ladies in their black lace and musty taffeta. Now that is extra work, having them in the house four or five times a week. Wears me out—I never sleep when they’ve been.”

  Fergus gave a wry grin, and stopped himself from swaying. “You should have told me before, Miss Wright; I’d have set your mind at rest.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Ghostly visitors, Miss Wright? It’s nought but a trick. Well, maybe a gift, in her case, she does it so well.”

  “And what would you know about ghosts, Mr Harris?”

  “Nothing; but I know a damn, pardon me, fine ventriloquist when I see one. And not just that, the voices, my word, she does the voices.”

  “But that’s just it, Mr Harris. The noises that come out of her, they don’t come from this world.”

  “You’re right there, Miss Wright. They come straight out of another world. I’ve often wondered where she learned it. I mean, I’ve seen it done often.”

  “At meetings, in that big house you was at, in London?” Susan sat down again and shoved some of the jumble of jars and bowls to the side to lean over the table and fix Fergus in an avid gaze.

  Fergus shook his head. “No, Miss Wright, nowhere as nice as that house. No, I saw it done in Saville House, in Leicester Square, years ago.”

  “At a Spiritualist meeting,” Susan said.

  Fergus laughed through his nose, shaking his head; his brain felt as though it was coming loose. “Saville House was a den of infamous beings, that’s what they called it. I used to go there, I used to go there an awful lot.”

  “You saw spirits there, Mr Harris?”

  “Oh Lord help me, no. What I saw was—” His tone softened, seeing Susan’s expression. “What I saw was all kinds of trickery, Miss Wright. Like Miss Euphemia does, with the voices. Some was so lunatic you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Mad people?”

  He smiled. “It was mad what they believed they was paying for, in some of them rooms. Learned Pig was one. There was a pig kept in a cellar that was supposed to be able to read and write. And the lady who had her head cut off, every night, every half hour.”

&n
bsp; “Oh, my word, how awful.”

  “But you see, Miss Wright, it were a trick. There was two of them, the same, or almost. But see? I almost told you how it was done, and I ain’t supposed to.”

  “Who’d know?”

  “Me. Or take the Horned Lady. She was a friend of mine. She wouldn’t mind me telling you, she showed me her scars on more than one occasion.”

  “I’m not sure I think you should be telling me anything about that, Mr Harris, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “She weren’t no lady friend! She was a pal, like. Like you and me.”

  “Are we, Mr Harris?”

  “Well, I should hope so, Miss Wright. See, what I’m saying to you is, there ain’t no need for you to bother about ghosts, and what have you. It ain’t real.”

  “I’m sure I want to believe you, Mr Harris, but on the other hand, I’m not so sure. It might be nice, in a funny kind of way, to think you could get messages, from the other side.”

  “But the dead can’t talk. Once you’re gone, that’s it.”

  “This has turned very gloomy indeed all of a sudden.”

  “Then we shall talk of it no more, Miss Wright. I shall undertake to divert, delight or charm you in more light-hearted ways.”

  “Mr Harris! Whatever shall I do with you?”

  The bell pinged and bounced on the wall. Susan started, half jumped out of her seat. She gathered the tray of breakfast things and hurried out of the room with it. Fergus gave up the search in the kitchen. He felt very bad. He felt that he needed to lie down, and so he did, right there on the floor. The cold stone was like a balm to the fire that now engulfed him. He hadn’t the strength to loosen his shirt; he just let the weight of his head press against the cold floor and waited for Miss Wright. Fergus wasn’t sure if she would come in time. He let his mind sink a little further as his temperature raged. Here was something to hang onto. Something real, something that had been good in his life.

  London: May, 1858. He’d been at Saville House in Leicester Square, that den of infamous beings which changed like the weather. He’d been there, as usual, to look out for an interesting angle, a new trick to add to his own tired repertoire of regurgitating objects from his stomach at will. Saville House: it could send your head into a spin if you didn’t know what to expect. If you wanted, for sixpence, you might watch a lady have her head cut off and suffer no ill effects. You could go to the North Pole in another room, or see a diorama of gold-diggers in California. From dingy corners, ventriloquists would send a whisper into your ear, making you jump half out of your skin. Jugglers were two a penny. Fergus saw living serpents wrapped around a lady’s naked body. And another lady whose enormous snake might have swallowed him whole. Its huge body rasped as it moved slowly over her skin and between her thighs. He saw her muscles quiver at the feat of holding the beast up for so long, but she was not at all afraid of it. This was the place where he met many other people who were like him, though he never spoke to any of them. They acknowledged him in the staircase and in the corridors. A nod, a pat on the shoulder, a quiet bustling family of strangers. No one asked Fergus for his money. His size was his ticket in Saville House. He moved unseen through the hall and down the cellar steps to see the learned pig, which seemed to have lost the will even to grunt. Once, he had seen hens’ eggs being hatched out in a steam-filled cage in one room up the stairs, while in the adjacent chamber the lady was having her head cut off again. Above the disgusted gasps and muted shrieks he heard singing. Distracted, he had watched the exhausted chick still with its shell stuck to its rear end. It panted heavily. The singing was so light and airy it sounded to him like a nightingale—how he imagined a nightingale would sound. He watched the chick roll onto its side and flex its tiny legs. He didn’t wait to see what happened next. He knew it already. The feathers would not dry out in the steam. He walked away from it.

  The Horned Lady was having a break. A bright, jade-coloured turban of silk covered the lumps on her forehead where the ivory had been pushed in under her skin.

  “Hello, my sweetheart,” she said from behind her thin cigar.

  “Madam, good evening.” He bowed low, making her laugh.

  “You little ones are a caution.” She drew heavily on the cigar and blinked her eyes through the thick smoke. “You’re always on the lookout. You lost somebody?”

  “Who is that singing?”

  “Mysterious Lady. They say she’s so flippin’ ugly, she’d turn you into stone, so she keeps her face hid—well, she ain’t so much ugly as just covered in hair. Sings like a lark, though. As a matter of fact I was meaning to go and have a proper word with her. See if she wanted to pair up. But you know how it is.” She took another long draw on her cigar and tapped off the ash, spilling it over her silk gown. “Looks like she’s worked her spell on you.” She blew smoke over his head and grinned. Her perfect false teeth gleamed in the lamplight. “Go on, I don’t mind. Upstairs on the right. Now, I’ll have to get this off my head and earn the rent.”

  It was late; almost chucking-out time. Fergus climbed the stairs. Narrow and steeper than the staircase leading up from the hall, they curved as he followed the sound of her singing. There were so many bodies crushed into the small room Fergus couldn’t get a peep, but her voice wound over heads and through legs to reach him.

  “Look at her shoulders, then. That little lady is hairier than what I am.”

  “Show us yer face, love.”

  “Shut up, I’m listening to her singing.”

  “Show us yer bits then, luvvie.”

  “It’ll no’ be a lassie at a’, maybe.”

  The singing went on, unwavering through all the catcalls until the room began to empty a little. Fergus found spaces. He wriggled his way to the front, squashed next to the wall. The singing was pure and light, unchanging. The black veil over her face fell way below her chin. It billowed when she took a breath. The song finished, and she remained in position, with one leg stretched out, toe pointing.

  Fergus dawdled his way down the staircase. Saville House was now closed to the public, but there were still plenty of punters milling around in the larger rooms downstairs and the main gallery. The sounds of their voices permeated the rest of the building. Fergus looked through the balustrade on the first-floor landing and surveyed the scene below him through a thick haze of tobacco smoke. One man stood out from the rest. His coat was long, almost touching his unfleasibly shiny shoes, and he stood right next to the main entrance. He looked as if he was waiting for a cab. People less conspicuous pushed past the man now and then, and he was obliged to make way. Every so often he took out a large handkerchief to wipe his top lip. Either he was suffering from the effects of overdressing for the occasion, or he had smelled something disagreeable. Both seemed likely to Fergus. He couldn’t see much of the gentleman’s face behind the upturned collar of that long coat. After a couple of minutes another man approached him on the step. Fergus recognised Miss Jaspur’s assistant. The two men exchanged a few words whereupon the gentleman took off, turning on his heel so that the hem of his long coat flared out. As he turned, Fergus could see that the gentleman carried a large leather bag.

  “He has come this night, asking for me again, the man down there at the door, the Doctor Scales.” Miss Jaspur’s voice lisped; Fergus noticed that her breath smelled faintly of aniseed. “Mr Scales wants to interview me. I cannot decide whether to make him wait a few more nights or put him out of his misery tomorrow.”

  “Would you like my opinion, Miss Jaspur?” He wondered if she had been sucking on a bon-bon, or drinking that French stuff—what was it called?

  “It would do no harm.”

  “Make him wait, Miss Jaspur, for a week. If he’s a genuine type, then he won’t give up. Whereas if he is looking for a quick—if his intentions are less than genuine, he’ll move on sure enough.”

  “Well, I should think his intention is genuine; that is not the question.”

  Perhaps she had been drinking after al
l and had suddenly grown tired of the charade. Only a few people now were left to be shepherded out of the building.

  “If you have far to go, I should be happy to take you in my cab. It is waiting for me.”

  “But you barely know me, Miss Jaspur.”

  Her throaty laugh rang out too loudly. “I don’t suppose you will prove troublesome, will you?”

  “Wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble. I ain’t got far to go. Only just a couple of streets.”

  “Forgive me, but you are not a very tall man, and at this time of night there are all kinds of unmentionable, horrid people out there. Come.” And she slipped her arm through his. Fergus was swept away down the wide staircase amidst the flurry of Miss Jaspur’s rustling cape, her forearm jammed up inside his armpit.

  “You’ll tell me everything he says, Susan.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Euphemia sat up with a posture of renewed force, “Everything; I won’t stand for any mishaps with your memory, Susan. None.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Susan told Euphemia about Saville House, but not the part about the trickery. Euphemia sat back a little and waited for her to finish. Eventually, Euphemia sighed with impatience.

  “Yes, I know all about Mr Harris’ low beginnings, Susan. Did he tell you nothing else?”

  Susan said that no, there was nothing else Mr Harris had told her.

  When Susan went back into the kitchen she didn’t see Fergus on the floor. She thought he had gone off to create another bit of chaos elsewhere in the house, and she cursed him silently for leaving all that mess on the table. He’d had long enough to clean it up. Miss Euphemia had kept her back for an hour. Everything covered in a shower of flour. She began to clear it up. When she moved to the sink she tripped, and the armful of crockery she carried flew into the air as if time had stopped. Later, she didn’t think that she could remember the sound of the breaking things all around her. In the instant before they hit the ground, Susan Wright turned her head just a few degrees and saw that she had tripped over Mr Harris. He was gone.