A Taste for Monsters

by Matthew J. Kirby

  The spirits upset me, too, for they had offered no explanation for their demands but had demanded them nevertheless. They were all of them flayed to the deepest part of their pain, and I could not help but feel some of it with them, along with a helplessness at being unable to relieve it. Perhaps that was what exhausted Mr. Merrick and brought him low, because he felt for them in a way I still couldn’t understand.

  Gradually, my seething wrath boiled down to a single name—Leather Apron—and in that moment I wished I could somehow seek him out and believed myself capable of tearing him apart. But I could not sustain such a state indefinitely, and as the hours of haunting approached, I felt a devastating fatigue set in.

  When Long Liz came bent and breaking into the room, I found it difficult to even rouse myself from my chair in fear as she approached in her fitful way, crying, “I need money!”

  “No,” I whispered.

  She stood up straight, cracking all the way. “Please! I need money!”

  “No,” I said, raising my voice in anger.

  “My husband and children! They drowned on the Princess Alice!”

  “No, they didn’t!” I shouted back. “I think you are a liar. Your husband died in an asylum.”

  Her mouth snapped shut, she stared at me, and I knew I was right. In the waters of her eyes I saw no depth, nothing but a slick of pain at the surface. “My husband … he drowned.” Her voice sounded weak.

  “He didn’t,” I said. “I’m not sure why you tell this lie. Maybe you want pity. Maybe you just wanted a different life. But no one here believes you. No one will give you money. You best move along.”

  “Please—”

  “No,” I said. “Not one farthing.”

  She trembled as a spiderweb in a breeze.

  “Unless you tell me the truth,” I added.

  A moment passed.

  “The truth,” she said.

  Then the spirit’s posture relaxed and she paced about the room, cracking less. Her movements eased as she let go of the rigidity in her joints, and the breaking of her spine ceased. “My husband was John Stride,” she said. “We kept a coffeehouse once, and he sometimes was good to me. But we had no children. My life was not what I wanted.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “My life has not been what I wanted, either.”

  She let out a sigh that lasted longer than any mortal breath.

  “But why did you tell that story?” I asked.

  “For pity and charity, at first,” she said. “But soon … I suppose I just liked to believe it myself. But it weren’t the truth.”

  “You’ve told me the truth,” I said. “And you have my respect for it.” I reached into my skirt. By then, I’d spent most of my money, but I pulled out the coins remaining. “Here, Liz. All that I have.”

  “No, but I thank you,” she said.

  “Please, Liz,” I said. “Let me give this to you.”

  She bit her lip, then nodded and held out her hands, and I dropped the coins into them one at a time. They fell into her substance without a sound, and as the last one reached her, she said, “Thank you,” again, and vanished. The coins fell to the floor with a clatter, and the pain in my jaw ceased. The scene called to my mind that verse in the Bible. The truth had set her free, but I had little time to revel in my success, for the tattooed spirit soon appeared.

  This time, I didn’t look away as she tore into her own flesh, but forced myself to engage with her.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “What do those letters on your arm mean?”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she screamed, bloodied by her own doing. I had no notion of what could make a person turn on herself in such a way, but then she was gone, and I cursed Leather Apron once again.

  When Polly entered a few hours later, her gladness lifted some of the darkness from my mind, even as her fear broke my heart. She strode to Mr. Merrick’s weakening body, and thence to the fireplace, where she scanned the mantel. Partway down it, she seemed to grow especially curious about an item, and leaned in closer.

  “That’s William’s hand!” she exclaimed.

  I’d forgotten about his letter, which I’d left there earlier that morning. Polly plucked it from the mantel and took a long time reading it. I watched her, wringing my hands as I waited and hoped. When finished, she looked in Mr. Merrick’s direction and spoke to him as though he were awake.

  “He knows,” she said, blinking in surprise. “I don’t know how, but he knows.” She looked back down at the letter. “And still he wants to marry me. Can you imagine that?”

  “Of course he wants to marry you,” I whispered.

  She folded the letter back into its envelope and glanced toward the door. “I best be going. He’s waiting for me at Saint Bride’s, and I don’t want him to think I’ve jilted him. I—I’m scared to face him, knowing he knows, but he’s there, ain’t he? He’s there.”

  “He’s there,” I said. “Godspeed, Polly.”

  “Happiest day of me life,” she said, and then she vanished in the manner of Annie and Liz, and the letter she’d been holding fluttered down into the fireplace. I didn’t move to retrieve it, but instead watched it flare up on the coals and go to ashes, which then rose up on drafts of heat into the chimney.

  That was two ghosts I’d helped put to rest in one night. I hoped the departures of Polly and Liz would at least be enough for Mr. Merrick to recover his consciousness by morning, and then I had but one more spirit to deal with, and after that he would be free of them altogether, so long as Leather Apron took no more victims.

  Mr. Merrick did return to us early that morning, to the joy of Dr. Treves. Though weak and reticent, Mr. Merrick was nevertheless able to sit up on his own, drink more beef tea, and even sit by the fireplace. His strength returned by degrees, and when we were alone, I related all that had happened, from the assault in Flower and Dean to the departure of the two spirits.

  “Will Charles be all right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “He will heal, and hopefully replace his violin soon.”

  “I’m so sorry for what befell him.”

  “It was not your fault.”

  “I feel it was. This is all my fault, somehow.”

  “Mr. Merrick, we’ll have none of that,” I said, scolding him. “Charles wanted to help. You must allow people to care for you.”

  “Do you allow other people to care for you?” he asked, but with curiosity rather than a barb.

  “I … yes,” I said, but the question frightened me as I really considered it. I rarely allowed myself to trust anyone, and I certainly hadn’t let myself believe that Charles fancied me. “If a person truly cared for me, I’d accept it. I accept your care, don’t I?”

  “But not from Charles,” he said.

  It seemed our time together had given him the ability to hear my thoughts. “You seem awfully concerned about Charles and me.” I did my best to keep my irritation to myself. “I think it’d be better if you applied your concern to getting better.”

  “There is only one spirit left? The one whose name you don’t know?”

  “I shall find it out today at the inquest.”

  “But Polly is gone?” he said. “You’re sure of it?”

  “Quite sure, Mr. Merrick. Why?”

  Even through the rigid mask of his flesh, I’d begun to discern the subtle ways in which his emotions manifested, by the twitch of his lip, the wrinkles around his eyes, or the angle of his gaze, and in that moment, he seemed quite sad about something.

  “Mr. Merrick, what is it?”

  “It’s just … I didn’t say good-bye to her.”

  His sensitivity still had the ability to surprise me, especially in contrast with the callousness of the city around us. I believed there were very few besides Mr. Merrick who gave Polly any thought at all. “I’m
sorry, Mr. Merrick.”

  “Well, she is at peace, and that is what matters.” He sighed, and then he slowly looked about the room. Then he pointed at the table where I’d left some of my newspapers. “What are those?”

  “I was trying to learn more about the spirits,” I said.

  “May I see them?”

  “Of course,” I said, and handed them to him.

  He spent the next several minutes perusing them, until he stopped on one page and tore a section from it.

  “What is it you have there?” I asked.

  He showed me an advertisement for a men’s dressing case, which included a hairbrush, toothbrush, and hat brush, all silver-backed, as well as an ivory-handled razor. He needed none of it, of course, but I imagined he admired it for the same reason he’d kissed my hand upon our first meeting. He liked to imagine himself a proper gentleman, and to that end he saved the clipping.

  He then felt up to laboring on his card model church, and with the raising of its final spire, he finished it. I thought it quite lovely in its completion, and all the more impressive for how he’d built it with but one good hand. But the experience was also a melancholy one for me, for as we’d worked I remembered my status at the hospital, and I felt very glad to have spent the time with him and seen the model completed before the matron sacked me. Now that Mr. Merrick had recovered, I expected that to happen at any moment.

  “I shall give this to Mrs. Kendal,” Mr. Merrick said, sounding quite pleased with how the church had turned out. “As a token of my thanks for all she has done for me.”

  As he spoke, my stomach turned and turned as I thought about what waited for me. “I believe Dr. Treves is going to ask her to arrange an outing to the theater for you.”

  His expression brightened even more. “Truly?”

  “That is what he said.”

  “Will you come, too?” he asked.

  “I doubt I shall be invited,” I said. “If they take any of the staff, it will likely be Miss Doyle or one of the other nurses.” I did not mention to him that I would surely be gone by then.

  He humphed. “I shall ask for you to accompany me.”

  “That is most kind of you,” I said.

  Dr. Tilney entered the room then, and brought with him a jovial air. “Ah, Joseph!” he said. “Dr. Treves told me you’d rebounded. I’m pleased to see he was right.”

  “You sound surprised,” Mr. Merrick said.

  “And I’m happy to be so,” Dr. Tilney said. “Be a good chap and keep on surprising us, won’t you?”

  “I’ll do my best, Dr. Tilney. But praise must be given to Evelyn. I would not have recovered without her care.”

  “Indeed,” Dr. Tilney said, appraising me with a knowing smile. “I’ve observed her ministrations to be most admirable and devoted.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” I said.

  “Might I speak with you, Miss Fallow?”

  “Of course,” I said, not sure what he could want to speak with me about. The Leather Apron theories from the newspapers insinuated themselves into my mind—“the maniac must be a medical man”—but I did my best to brush away the unease.

  Outside in Bedstead Square, Dr. Tilney lost a shade of his cheer. “Why are you here?”

  “Sir?”

  “I have been watching you, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why you’re a maid when you could be a nurse. You should be a nurse.”

  He sounded almost angry with me, and it threw me off my balance. “Dr. Tilney, I applied to the matron for a nurse’s position, but she refused me.”

  “What? Did she give a reason?”

  “My age.” I looked down at my feet. “But, sir, I think you must be aware of the true reason.”

  “What? Your scars?”

  I said nothing.

  “But that’s ridiculous,” he said. “I am a skilled surgeon. If I were injured, would the matron prevent me from doing my work saving lives?”

  “You would have to put that question to her,” I said.

  “I just may,” he said. “She’s wasting your talents and abilities where you are.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” I said. “But I’m happy where I am, serving Mr. Merrick. Though I’m afraid I won’t be for much longer. Now that Mr. Merrick is better, the matron will dismiss me.”

  “Nonsense,” he said.

  “You were there, Dr. Tilney. Her threat was not idle.”

  “Perhaps not, but I’ll raise Cain if she tries to sack you.”

  I’d not had someone speak so defensively of me since my father was living, and it rendered me speechless for a moment, confused almost to the point of tears. “I … appreciate that. Truly. But Dr. Tilney, why are you so confident in me?”

  “I will answer that with a question of my own,” he said. “Why are you not confident in yourself?”

  His words echoed something of what Charles had said to me, and what Mr. Merrick and I had just been talking about, and even what Dr. Sidgwick had told me. Though I inwardly resisted all of them, I had no reply for Dr. Tilney, other than to ask, “What good would it do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Confidence cannot change my appearance.”

  “It may not change your appearance, but it can change how you are perceived.”

  Again I had no response, for I’d told Mr. Merrick something similar, and I had believed it to be true for him.

  “Think on it, Miss Fallow,” he said.

  I nodded, and he left, and then I went back into Mr. Merrick’s room unsettled by the conversation. I felt I should have been grateful and comforted by it, and I was, but I was also made quite anxious and didn’t know why. It felt as if Dr. Tilney, like Professor Sidgwick, was inviting me to cross a crowded public market without my shawl, and no amount of confidence could take away my fear of that. They had no idea what they were asking of me.

  When Miss Doyle and Miss Flemming came shortly to give Mr. Merrick his morning bath, I pulled Miss Doyle aside and asked her if I might leave the hospital for a few hours.

  “But Mr. Merrick is doing quite well,” she said. “You need more of the … remedy?”

  “I just want to make sure,” I said.

  “I see.” She gave me a little frown. “Very well. I’ll cover for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, but couldn’t leave until Charles arrived. I hadn’t seen him since he’d left the hospital, and I hoped he would come soon. The paper had said the inquest would begin at eleven, and the Coroner’s Court on Golden Lane was in the City of London, in Cripplegate. I’d been there once before in my life, and I knew it would take time to reach even by way of the Metropolitan Underground. When Charles did finally come, he looked a little worse than he had on Tuesday. The bruises around his eyes and cheek had gone mottled and green, and he moved as if his broken rib caused him considerable pain.

  “Joseph, my ugly bloke,” he said. “I wouldn’t take a wager on who looks worse, me or you. I’d play you a song, except I’ve lost my violin, and truth be told”—he pointed to his battered face—“they gave me what Paddy gave the drum, as my Irish friends say.”

  “You do not look well, Charles,” Mr. Merrick said. “I am sorry.”

  “You should be,” Charles said. “Even as those bludgers was slugging me, I was saying to meself, I says, ‘Charles, where’s that ugly bloke, Joseph? Could sure use an ally right about now.’ You missed a proper thrashing, you did.”

  “It seems so,” Mr. Merrick said, laughing weakly. “But I am especially sorry for your violin.”

  At the mention of his instrument, it didn’t seem Charles could varnish the pain with humor, and his nod grew heavy. “I thank you for your sympathy, Joseph.” Then he turned to me and said, “We should get underway.”

  “Right,” I said, and tied my shawl around my face. Thus far none of Leather Apron’s killings had taken place during the broad day, but my nerves quivered nevertheless.

  We bade good-bye to Mr. Merrick and left the hospital g
rounds through the gate on East Mount Street, and from there we made our way by omnibus down the Whitechapel Road tramway until it reached the old city wall. Then we walked to the Aldgate Station of the underground railway, the same station I had used earlier. I did not like to go down belowground again, but to reach the inquest in time we had no other choice, and besides, Charles was in no condition for a lengthy trip. We bought our tickets, but whereas my last journey had taken me south from the station, we now boarded a train heading north. Columns of brick arched over us like the rib cage of some long-dead serpent buried beneath the city’s foundations, through the remains of which we now coursed.

  When we stopped at the Bishopsgate Station, passengers got on and off, while we kept our seats and did the same at Moorgate Station, but at Aldersgate Station we disembarked, and the underground railway disgorged us on Aldersgate Street at its crossing with Barbican. We took Barbican east, by foot, for two blocks, passing warehouses and train yards, until we arrived at Golden Lane and turned north.

  It was easy to spot the Coroner’s Court because of the crowd already gathering outside. Some would be reporters for the newspapers, a few would be family or friends perhaps coming forward to testify at the inquest, but most were curiosity-mongers and bystanders seeking scandal.

  The court itself was a fairly large building of brick and stone, housing the courtroom, mortuaries, offices of the coroner and attendants, as well as the shelter block where families found temporary living quarters if infection rendered the cleaning of their residence necessary.

  I hadn’t adequately prepared to see the place again, and its appearance nearly overturned me on my wheels. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Charles asked.

  “This is where I came to identify my father.” I shuddered at the image. His body, lying there on the table, covered by a white sheet, had been purpled and bruised about his face and looked all wrong to me, like a waxwork. I’d held my nose against the sharp sting of disinfectant in the air, wanting to tell the policeman the body couldn’t possibly be that of my father, as if that could make it so. But I knew it was, and he was gone.

  Charles looked again at the building. “You want I should go in without you?”