European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

by Theodora Goss

  JUSTINE: Catherine, sometimes you are not very nice!

  CATHERINE: When did I ever claim to be?

  “All right, follow me,” said Atlas. “He’s on the second floor.”

  “Will you be all right here?” she asked Beatrice.

  “Alas, it is I who am a danger to others, not the other way around,” said Beatrice, drooping like a melancholy flower.

  CATHERINE: And I do wish you wouldn’t be so droopy about it. It’s good to be dangerous.

  BEATRICE: You’re interrupting the story simply to tell me that?

  CATHERINE: Yes, because you need to be reminded. Constantly.

  Catherine followed the Strongman up the stairs to the second floor. She could smell a midday meal being cooked somewhere below. It consisted mostly of cabbages. Why were the English so enamored of cabbages? She was glad Mrs. Poole rarely cooked them. They were an affront to a respectable puma’s nose.

  “We’re all worried about Martin,” said Atlas. The stairs creaked under his weight, and the hallway was almost too narrow for him. “His headaches seem to be getting worse.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Catherine. Really, whoever had chosen the wallpaper should be sent to prison for a good long time. It was criminally ugly, and the dingy light coming through a small, dirty window did not help. Poor Martin, stuck in a place like this. He had always been very sensitive to his environment—which was, he had told her, a common problem for members of his profession.

  At the second door they came to, Atlas knocked softly. He opened the door just a crack. “Martin,” he said. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  “Come in,” said the faint voice of the Marvelous Mesmerist.

  CHAPTER IX

  The Marvelous Mesmerist

  Atlas pushed open the door. The room was dark, with curtains pulled over the window. In the darkest corner, on a narrow bed, lay Marvelous Martin, the mesmerist of Lorenzo’s Circus of Marvels and Delights. His eyes were closed, and his face was as pale as the bedsheet.

  “Martin,” said Catherine, going over to the bed. “Lorenzo says your headaches are getting worse. I’m so sorry.”

  He opened his eyes and gave her a wan smile. “Cat. How lovely to see you.”

  Martin looked exactly like a mesmerist should, with a gaunt, spiritual face, deep-set eyes, and long black hair that lay in disorder on the pillow. Up close, Catherine could see that the roots were coming in gray. So he dyed it? She had always wondered. Well, he was a showman after all—she had seen him powder his skin with chalk to make it whiter, more luminous under stage lights. But the pain in his face was entirely real.

  “Martin, I’ve come with a question that you may not wish to answer.”

  He reached out one pale, thin hand, with the long fingers of a pianist. She took it and sat on the edge of the bed. “Anything for you, Cat Girl.” He smiled, which made him look even more gaunt.

  “Is mesmerism real? What you do—is it fake, like a stage magician? Or is there something to it?”

  Martin closed his eyes again, and for a moment she was afraid she had offended him. But then he opened them and looked at her very directly, and with as much sincerity as a circus man, who is used to misdirecting the attention of an entire audience, is capable of. “Some of it is trickery, I’ll admit. But the mesmerical waves? Those are real enough. Not everyone can sense or manipulate them—some who call themselves mesmerists are cheats and frauds. Even the great Dr. Mesmer may not have had significant mesmeric powers, although he convinced himself otherwise. But when I was a child, I could sense them all around me—like we were all living in the ocean, under water, but only I knew we were wet.”

  He shifted in the bed, as though uncomfortable, and Catherine said, “Here, let me.” She adjusted the thin pillow, moving his head as little as possible, and smoothed out the blanket, which had been disarranged. Good Lord, she was turning into Mary! That was a fate worse than . . . well, if not death, then something else very distressing.

  MARY: There is nothing wrong with being me, thank you!

  DIANA: That’s not what Dr. Freud said. And he’s supposed to be the expert, ain’t he?

  MARY: Isn’t he.

  DIANA: Don’t change the subject.

  “I was only a poor boy,” said Martin. “Destined for the fields or factory work. But I had the good fortune to attract the attention of a scientist, Dr. Henry Bell, who saw my potential. He came to our village to illustrate the power of mesmerism. I went with my mother, God rest her soul, to see his demonstration in the village pub, which had been turned into an impromptu lecture hall. There he was, standing at the front of the room in his high silk hat, and there I was in the back, a boy in ragged clothes with no shoes on his feet. But halfway through the show, he said, “For this next demonstration, I need an assistant. That boy, standing in the back. Yes, you, lad. Come on up.” Later, he told me that even from across the room, he had seen the waves dancing over my head.”

  “What are the waves?” asked Catherine. “Also, would eau de cologne on your forehead help?”

  “Perhaps,” said Martin, looking doubtful.

  “I have a handkerchief. Atlas, who would have eau de cologne, do you think?”

  “Madam Zora might,” he said doubtfully. “She’s the type that likes to make herself fancy. I’ll check, shall I?” He left on his errand, shutting the door behind himself a little too loudly. Martin moaned.

  “We are not purely material beings,” he continued. “Dr. Bell would say that we are not material beings at all, although I would not go that far. But we are surrounded by waves of energy. You’ve seen them in operation, even if you have not seen the waves themselves. If a husband and wife are happily married, their energy becomes entwined, so they think the same thoughts. A loving mother will know that her son has died or been injured, no matter the distance. Two sisters separated when young will be married on the same day, and not even realize it. It is the effect of mesmerical waves, traveling between people. They are often behind what we call the supernatural. A ghost is only the energy of a person that has died, not yet dissipated into the aether.”

  “Can the waves cause someone not to see me? As though I were not there, or invisible?”

  “My dear,” said Martin, “you’ve seen my act. I can convince people that I’m Queen Victoria, and they will bow down to me, calling me Your Majesty. I can make them believe they have turned into pigs, like Odysseus’s men, and they will begin rooting about the stage.” His deep voice echoed around the room majestically, as though he were standing on a stage at that moment. “Such a thing would be child’s play, to one who could manipulate the waves. But”—and here his voice sank back to its usual timber—“why do you ask?”

  “Here you go,” said Atlas from the doorway. He must have realized that he had been too loud, because he came in as quietly as a mouse. He handed her an elaborate cut-glass bottle, rather large, with FLORIS written on the label. “Compliments of Madam Zora.”

  Catherine opened it—the scent of orange flowers was almost overpowering. She shook the scented water liberally onto her handkerchief, then laid it across Martin’s forehead. He signed and closed his eyes again.

  “Martin, if I brought someone over, a girl I know, could you tell me whether or not she has mesmeric powers?”

  “Of course,” he said. “And I presume she’s demonstrated this ability—to make someone invisible?”

  “I’m not sure. I just know there’s something going on with her. But I’ll bring her tomorrow—if you feel well enough.”

  He clutched her hand, but did not open his eyes again. “It should pass. It always passes, eventually. I find, as I get older, that I cannot control the waves as I once could—they are too strong for me. I’m afraid someday my physical frame will not be able to contain them.”

  “Well, not anytime soon, I hope,” said Catherine. She squeezed his hand, then laid it on the blanket. “Until tomorrow, then.”

  He smiled, and it was not unti
l she was downstairs that she realized she had left behind yet another of Mary’s handkerchiefs.

  MARY: How many have you lost at this point? Seriously.

  CATHERINE: They’re handkerchiefs. Little bits of fabric. Tiny little bits of fabric I could shred with my Cat Woman claws. . . .

  MARY: They’re a shilling a box, is what they are, and you owe me.

  Downstairs, Beatrice was still talking to Clarence, but Lorenzo had been replaced by a woman that Catherine guessed must be Madam Zora, of the eau de cologne. She certainly looked foreign—her skin was as brown as Catherine’s, and she had dark brown eyes outlined with a great deal of kohl. She was wearing some sort of multicolored robe, embroidered with gold thread, and her hair was entirely hidden by a turban of the same pattern. It was difficult to guess her age—perhaps a little older than Mary? She certainly looked the part of a snake charmer.

  “How is he?” asked Clarence, who had moved to the sofa, next to Beatrice. For goodness’ sake, hadn’t he listened to Catherine at all? She had warned him that Beatrice was poisonous. This was the problem with Beatrice’s beauty—it drew men in, and women too, no matter what you told them.

  “Not well,” she said. “Bea, do you have anything in that poisonous greenhouse of yours that can cure migraines?”

  “Not cure them, no,” said Beatrice. “But mitigate them, certainly. Migraines are caused by constriction of the blood vessels leading to the brain, or so my father believed. I can create a medicine from the common foxglove that will ease vasoconstriction, and at least decrease the symptoms—if taken in small doses. The medicine is always in the dose, as you know.”

  “I don’t know, but whatever. I’ll bring it to him tomorrow, with Alice.”

  “Alice?” said Beatrice, startled. “Why Alice?”

  “I’ll explain later. Madam Zora, I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

  “I’m failing in my social duties,” said Clarence. “Madam Zora, this is Astarte, the Cat Woman of the Andes. Catherine, this is the great Madam Zora, who has traveled to England from the Mysterious East. There, she learned the art of charming serpents, so that, Medusa-like, she can walk across the stage carrying vipers wrapped about her arms and forehead. She can wear a python around her shoulders as though it were a coat. Cobras can bite her without causing the least inconvenience.” He turned to Madam Zora. “Am I remembering it correctly?”

  Madam Zora rose, put her hands together as though praying, and bowed. In a deep voice with an undefinable accent, she said, “I am pleased to meet you.”

  “Mysterious East, hunh?” said Catherine. “Whitechapel or Spitalfields?”

  “Hackney, actually,” said Madam Zora, grinning. Well, the accent wasn’t undefinable anymore—this was the voice of London, inflected by the East End. “But my mother was born in India, right enough—Lahore, she told me, though I’ve never been there myself. My father was a soldier in the army—a sergeant, by the end. He married her even though he knew his family would disown him for marrying a native woman. They live in London now, running a hat shop on Shoreditch High Street.”

  “Did you learn how to charm snakes from her?”

  “Not likely!” Madam Zora laughed. “She hates them, says they make the hair on her neck stand up. No, she doesn’t approve of what I do, though my da’s more understanding. I’m the rebellious one in the family, you might say. Ran away to the circus when I was sixteen, and learned my trade proper from Medusa herself. I mean Madame Medusa—that was her stage name at Baldessari’s, which is what Bartoli’s used to be called, before it changed management. She taught me the tricks of the trade. How did you know I wasn’t”—here she affected the foreign accent again—“the mysterious Madam Zora?”

  “No one in the circus is who they pretend to be,” said Catherine. “Clarence isn’t a Zulu Prince, and I’m certainly not the Cat Woman. I mean, I sort of am, but not the way I appear on stage.”

  “Is it true that poisonous snakes bite you, and you are not affected?” asked Beatrice.

  “Sure, if I take their teeth out,” said Madam Zora. “Most of them, I do it that way. Some I let keep their teeth if they’re not too sharp, and I’m careful to get all the poison out before the show. That way the audience can see the teeth marks on my wrist—always impresses them.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Beatrice, clearly disappointed. Catherine wondered why, then realized she was being stupid. Of course—it would have meant a great deal to Beatrice, finding someone who was not affected by poisons. She could have shaken hands with another human being without even the protection of gloves.

  “I’m sorry,” said Catherine. “I would love to chat longer, but Beatrice and I have a great deal to do before we leave.”

  “Yes, I heard you were coming with us to gay Paree,” said Madam Zora. “We’ll have plenty of time to chat, I’m sure!”

  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Rappaccini,” said Clarence, rising and bowing.

  “And you,” said Beatrice, smiling and lowering her eyes in the way women do when they are about to become complete fools over a man.

  BEATRICE: Catherine, that is absolutely not true!

  DIANA: Oh, come on. Admit that you like Clarence.

  BEATRICE: Clarence is simply a friend. A friend I do not want to poison.

  DIANA: Well, what if you weren’t poisonous?

  BEATRICE: But I am, and that is that. End of discussion, as Mary always says.

  MARY: Do I say that? Seriously, do I?

  “Until tomorrow, then?” said Clarence, who knew perfectly well what that reaction meant. Most men do, you know.

  “No,” said Catherine, “because I’m not bringing her tomorrow. You’ve breathed in quite enough of her poison for one day. She’ll see you on Friday at Charing Cross. Come on, Bea!”

  If Beatrice had not been poisonous, Catherine would have dragged her out of that wretched boardinghouse. As though they needed another problem, in the midst of so many. And men were always, always a problem. Or a complication, anyway.

  “Your friend Mr. Jefferson is a fascinating man,” said Beatrice as they walked toward St. Pancras, where they could catch an omnibus. “He was telling me about Boston, his time at law school there. Catherine, if he has a law degree, why is he in Lorenzo’s circus pretending to be a Zulu Prince? It does not make sense.”

  “First of all, if you expect things in this world to make sense, you’re going to be disappointed. Second, circus folks don’t ask one another questions. We all have things in our past, Bea, or we wouldn’t be there. He’s never asked me why I’m the Cat Woman, and I’ve never asked him why he’s the Zulu Prince. And third, Clarence happens to be my oldest friend at the circus. He’s the one who first helped me develop my act as Astarte. He’s the only person I told about Moreau’s island before I met Justine, and he’s kept that secret like a true friend. I would really prefer for him not to be poisoned.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Beatrice, sounding hurt. Was she thinking of her lover Giovanni, whom she had inadvertently poisoned, and who had died drinking what he believed to be the antidote? She must be. But all she said was, “The omnibus is coming. I didn’t mean to make you angry, Catherine.”

  “You didn’t. Really, you didn’t.” Inwardly, Catherine cursed—she had not meant to hurt Beatrice’s feelings. There, you see? The situation was becoming complicated already. “I’m just worried—about everything. Mostly about Justine and Mary, and yes, even Diana. I want to be with them, in Budapest. Or wherever they are now. Let’s just make sure we’re there by the twentieth, all right? I don’t want them walking into a trap, at least not without us. Mrs. Poole sent a telegram warning Miss Murray, but what is a governess going to do against Seward and Van Helsing—plus whatever forces they have at their command?”

  “I know,” said Beatrice. Quickly, with one gloved hand, she squeezed Catherine’s arm—it was the most contact she would allow herself. “We’ll get there in time to help them, I promise.”

  They mounte
d the steps of the omnibus and sat up top, where Beatrice always sat to avoid poisoning anyone.

  “Well,” said Catherine. “I suggest we stop at home to eat something, then go directly to 221B Baker Street. I promised Mrs. Poole I would tell Holmes what we were up to.” Beatrice just nodded. She was probably still feeling hurt, but what could Catherine do? The truth was the truth, and sometimes it was unpleasant to hear. She didn’t want Clarence to end up like Giovanni.

  When they arrived at 11 Park Terrace, walking up from Marylebone Road, they found Watson waiting for them. As soon as they had let themselves in, Mrs. Poole appeared in the hall and said, “Dr. Watson, parlor. Needs to see you at once. Terrible worried, he is. I’ll bring up tea.”

  Once they had removed their hats and Catherine had laid aside her gloves, they proceeded into the parlor. There was Watson, smoking his pipe and pacing up and down in front of the fireplace.

  “Miss Moreau, Miss Rappaccini, have you seen or heard from Holmes?” He looked at them anxiously. “He hasn’t been home since Thursday afternoon, when he said he had an appointment with his brother, Mycroft. It’s not unusual for him to be gone for some time when he’s on a case, but he gave no indication that he would not be coming home that evening—neither did he take anything with him. All his clothes, his toothbrush, his shaving kit, are still at 221B.”

  “That’s strange,” said Catherine, flopping down on the sofa. It occurred to her too late that it might look rude, but she was tired. “What was his business with his brother? Isn’t Mycroft Holmes some sort of government official?”

  “I have no idea why they were meeting,” said Watson. “Holmes would not—or perhaps could not—tell me what it was about. And yes, Mycroft works in the government, although I do not know which branch. He has always been very discreet about what he does, and for whom. I got the impression that this was one of those hush-hush government affairs. Holmes seldom keeps anything from me, but Mycroft is involved at the highest level. I went to his club this morning and was told they had not seen him since last week. Unless of course the porters are lying, which is perfectly possible. It is the Diogenes Club, after all—the most secretive club in London. I thought Holmes should at least see Mrs. Norton’s telegram, informing him that Miss Jekyll is safely in Vienna. I assume you received that news as well?”