The Warlow Experiment

by Alix Nathan

  As to the state of Warlow’s mind it’s difficult to tell. He looked so very different from the ‘deranged creature’ about whom Mr Powyss had felt such guilt. The terrible figure with his great beard and claws she glimpsed behind the barricade.

  She can hardly describe him as happy. But then, how could he be? Does he remember? What does he remember? What does he say to himself about Hannah? What is he thinking behind those dark spectacles? Who could ever know what dreadful thoughts live deep within.

  She still wishes Hannah were there, more so since bringing up her children. But she can’t hate John Warlow, can’t condemn him. She can never forget the pathetic voice she used to hear when she took him his meals. The utterly wrecked conditions in which he lived.

  It is long known that Abraham incited him. Caleb Hughes told everyone, if partly to absolve himself from any blame. Abraham Price had driven Warlow to do what he did.

  Should she take Polly to see him? It is a thought left over from those strange underground conversations she had with him. She’ll have to see the hateful Grew again if she does, and there’s Polly’s sweetness of character, which should not be bruised, her sunny disposition that should not be clouded.

  She’ll wait awhile and think about it carefully.

  * * *

  —

  THE FOLLOWING DAY Polly and George are out earning pennies from Kempton, and Tom potters about in the yard, chasing hens.

  Catherine opens the door to a beggar. After the recent dreadful harvests beggars call often, the word having got round that she is ‘not without’. Emaciated, weather-bitten, his beard sparse, his borrowed clothes shabby, crumpled. This one really is in need of bread.

  ‘Catherine Croft?’ he asks, and immediately she knows it’s Herbert Powyss.

  ‘Mr Powyss! Oh, sir, you must come in.’

  She puts food and drink before him without further question, seeing his condition and he, realising he needn’t speak, doesn’t.

  He has cleaned himself, found clothes that must have been Samuel’s stuffed in a cupboard: of no interest to the invaders, who preferred his own velvet and silk no doubt. Moth-holed, the garments hang on him. He’s burned his stinking rags.

  Eventually he says: ‘I am grateful.’

  ‘It has been a long time. Have you come to live, sir? But the house is in no fit state…’

  ‘I shall live in it. It has a roof.’ His breath comes in gasps and he speaks these words with effort, looking at her for a while as if expecting contradiction. ‘Catherine, you have not changed.’

  ‘Oh, I’m fat now, though my hair’s not turned.’ She regrets saying this, seeing how very changed he is. There’s something about his mouth that’s strange, obscured though it is by his ragged beard.

  ‘You’ve been burdened with all the Warlow children. Are they well?’

  ‘Not much of a burden, truly, Mr Powyss.’ She tells him something of each one and then about her own child, Tom, who has sidled into the room and looks at him suspiciously from the other side of it. Not one of the children who saw him in the hills, too young.

  ‘Oh my God, it never occurred to me! When you said Price had taken the keys, that you were unwell. Catherine, I never thought of it.’

  ‘Let me tell you about John Warlow, sir.’ She’ll lessen his suffering if she can, and indeed it is a relief to tell someone about her visit to Kinnersford, though without mention of Grew’s impudence.

  He listens closely and says: ‘That is satisfactory. Dr Grew’s fees are no doubt large. It is only right that his patients be well fed and clothed. Besides, he is using free labour!’

  ‘I had not thought of that.’

  ‘I have seen Hannah Warlow’s grave. It has been cared for.’

  ‘Yes, Polly and George keep it tidy. At first I tended it with all the children, but they are the only two left now.’

  Polly, the little one, who’d looked like her mother, brushing the flowers for their scent.

  ‘She likes to pick flowers to put there,’ she continued, as if she’d heard his thoughts. ‘She says she wants some flowers like stars, but I don’t know which ones she means.’

  ‘Eucomis autumnalis. Pineapple flower.’

  ‘Ah!’

  A great weariness overcomes him.

  ‘You have had hard times, I can see, Mr Powyss.’

  ‘You will hear things. Rumours no doubt, for I’ve not been far from here. Recently I came to my senses, realised I was wrong to flee. I wanted to suffer, you see, but physical hardship is not repentance.’ He’s spoken too much, struggles to find breath.

  She says nothing until he becomes calm again.

  ‘Mr Powyss, I shall tell you what happened to the house. But first, please will you come with me, for there is something I must show you.’

  She leads him into the parlour where once she taught Price to read, coped with his crude embraces and finally fled his violence. She rarely thinks of that time now, though very occasionally a passing look on Tom’s face reminds her of the man. It is inevitable, though she does everything she can to prevent him from becoming like Price.

  The room is in any case transformed by signs of children, jugs of flowers, small piles of books and Powyss’s two globes by the window. The one with its unknown lands and names like Oceanus Occidentalis, the other smaller, its tiny spider-like stars embedded in shapes of bear and plough and goddess.

  ‘You will think I stole them, Mr Powyss. I hope you will understand that I wished to rescue them before they were broken or taken away and brought them here so that the children might learn from them. With this, sir, the Star Catalogue. Written by a woman astronomer, Caroline Herschel. I have learned a lot myself!’

  ‘I am glad of it, Catherine. There are books in the house still. I’d be pleased if you would take whatever you want for yourself and the children who remain here.’

  ‘If we could borrow a book or two occasionally…’

  ‘Of course.’

  The prospect is delightful for Catherine. To enter the library, even in the wrecked house, without first being rung for, or, and she remembers it with shame, creeping in furtively. To read the spines of all the books, to choose any one!

  ‘Oh, but the house, sir, I must tell you about the house.’ Another day. She sees he is borne down.

  Kinnersford House, 2 September 1800

  Dear Mrs Croft,

  I enclose a letter to you from John Warlow. Today I granted him leave to exchange his gardening duties for writing, and his self-imposed task has lasted all day, he having torn up many unsatisfactory drafts (as he perceived them). He vehemently refused my offer of help, as you will no doubt discern as soon as you begin to read.

  Trusting that you are in good health and looking forward to your next visit to Kinnersford,

  I remain,

  Your honoured servant,

  Josiah Grew MD

  Leter to CATH RIN

  I did think  you liv heer. Thiss plas ware I liv now But you don’t.  MR GRU did say. He did giv the long beens to the Kichin

  I  am sory  you dont liv heer you wer kynd afor    I hav a cat she do sleep with me.

  I wil pic mor long beens for you  if you wil come heer.

  Carits

  ternap

  leek

  spinij    nex yer pease  sparra grass

  J oh n War low

  * * *

  —

  ‘SIR, SOON AFTER YOU LEFT, Abraham Price returned. He didn’t show his face but I knew it was him from his handwriting, which was ever poor. He left a note you see. I kept it as evidence, though it was never used:

  Keep Awa from th Big Hous tonit. Lock yr Doors.

  ‘I took all the children with me to Mrs Lacey’s and everyone locked their doors in the village, too. T
here was no time to warn the magistrate.

  ‘He came with others, who knows who they were, and they broke the windows and tried to set fire to the place. They smashed what they could and roared and yelled. We could hear even in the village. Everyone was terrified, I can tell you, Mr Powyss.

  ‘I think they thought to find you there. They blamed you for Hannah’s death and for John being arrested and tried.’

  ‘They were right.’

  ‘Sir, I do fear he may try once more when he hears you have returned. I fear it.’

  Powyss says nothing to that.

  ‘I think they grew tired of destruction. They say it wasn’t Abraham who broke all the lights of the glasshouses.

  ‘When some of the militia arrived the next day it was far too late: the men had gone. The militia locked the doors, boarded up the lower windows. But word got round that you could easily get into the house and that it was full of valuable things. Price and his men didn’t take much. Their purpose wasn’t theft.

  ‘The children and I returned to this cottage, which they left untouched. But every so often shadows passed in the night. We’d hear loud whispers and wheels on the stones. People got in and stole what they fancied, sir.

  ‘I told the magistrate, but he just wrung his hands. He stationed some of the militia to guard it for a while, but said he couldn’t keep them there forever, they were needed elsewhere. He didn’t know for how long you’d gone away or if you’d ever come back.

  ‘And then there were the Frenchmen, sir.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Prisoners of war. Escaped. They came at night, too, but, you know, nobody wanted to report them, they were that useful. Seven of them, there were. They’d help with the shearing and anything people needed. And they were cheerful and sang their songs and made toys for the children from wood and Bloor gave them straw for their bedding in the house, sir.’

  ‘Bloor gave them straw?’

  ‘They worked for him for almost no wages even when food was scarce. They cooked a treat.’

  Though caught up in her narrative, especially this last bit, which caused her to blush, Catherine observes Powyss. It’s hard to see his expression. His black eyes were always unfathomable. His shrunken face seems partially to smile, perhaps almost to sneer, though she’s sure it is neither, just the way his flesh has fallen.

  She sees how he holds himself still, stiff, dry and hard like a dead tree no insects or birds have wanted to eat or inhabit.

  * * *

  —

  HER DON’T COME. The master, Grew, gives him a letter from her, helps him read it. Her do thank him for his offer of beans. Her’s glad he has a cat. Her be busy with the children. Children? What children? Hopes he is eating well. Hopes he do sleep soundly. Says her will come one day.

  Words. You writ them, you read them. They do no good.

  He picks fresh long beans. The last. Folds them up in his nightshirt with a bunch of small sweet parsnips. Takes a handful of tomatoes from the greenhouse, wraps them in a clean shirt. Puts it all in a sack and sets off. Just after dawn. Nobody about.

  Straight down the drive and through the great gates with lions. Still nobody. Soon he’s hot, stuffs his coat and waistcoat into the sack. Guesses the way, feels a strong urge to go left. Over that way.

  He meets a boy.

  ‘Moreham?’ His voice growls, for he’s dry.

  The boy is frightened by the dark spectacles. Points him generally in the direction of the biggest hills. Speeds off like a hare. Too young to recognise the meaning of the good quality of Warlow’s breeches, the respectable uniform.

  He walks all morning. Nobody follows. Good. Sun behind him. He scuffs up stones. Doesn’t know this road but it’s like all other roads. He hears hoofs and wheels, hears before he sees, crouches behind a hedgerow. Better they don’t see him yet.

  Walks and walks. Is suddenly very hungry and thirsty. Brought no food nor drink! No money! But he never has money. Does he? Fifty pound! What was that? He had fifty pound once. That was it, he had fifty pound. Must have left it behind. Must’ve hid it.

  He sits down at the edge of a cut field, pulls out his clothes from the sack: coat, waistcoat, earthy nightshirt, beans, parsnips still whole. Then shirt, yellow streaks. Them tomatoes, warm, squashed. No good. Can’t give her them. He eats two, another two, pisses with joy in the stubble, lies down and sleeps in September heat. Dreams he’s taking a horse to stable. Goes one way. Wrong. Goes another way. Wrong. No way’s right.

  When he wakes it’s too bright even through darkened lenses. He turns into nearby woods, pushes his way through thickets until dense brambles drive him back onto the road.

  Moreham, a carter says, gawping at him: five miles in that direction. Oh, he’s tired. Too much walkin. Gettin old now. What is he? Forty-somethin somebody did say. Did they? Or fifty was it? Fifty pound. Should’ve got a horse and cart with fifty pound. Never had a horse and cart.

  It’s late afternoon by the time he recognises the approach to the village. Damned Kempton’s over there, church over there. Stop now. Rest a bit. Behind churchyard wall.

  Hears cows come in to milk. Thwack. Thwack. Sticks on flanks. Cowman shouting. Sweet smell of soft dung slapping down.

  Sun goes. Roofs, smoking chimneys, huge trees autumn-shadowed. Walls of the big house. Moreham House.

  What’s he come for? It were the fif…No. What was it? Who?

  A woman it were. That Catherine. That’s it. Her’ll help him. Her’ll come soon.

  His feet begin to drag, want him to turn. Where’ll he go? If he turn back where’ll he go? Where he live now. Where is that? This is your room, Warlow. Where’s that? He slows. Stomach clenches with hunger.

  Her’ll bring me…Her’ll…

  Pheasants suddenly clatter up, squawking. Heart lurches in terror. Feet won’t move. Won’t.

  Dusk falls, drifts of smoke. His mouth is dry, dust in his throat. Darkling, shadows slash the road. A blackbird hurtles past, low, warning.

  Cold runs over his shoulders like ants. He puts on the waistcoat and coat from his sack. Feels the beans and parsnips. Can’t eat them. No. I’ll give them. To the woman when she come.

  Dusk deepens towards night. Too dark. Takes off the spectacles, still can’t see. Air smoke-thick.

  A bat skims past his head. He ducks, stumbles. Spectacles fall on the ground. Where? Crunch under his boot. Bends down to find them, kneeling, sweeping with his hands like he did afore. Like he did when he lived when he lived…

  Bat. Bats! Them’ve come for him. Air full o’ them. This place where he is. Why is he here? The woman’ll…No! Them’ll fly at him. At his head. Fly straight at his head, get in. Them’ll get in! Crack their wings behind his eyes, crack! Crack! Fill his head up, flappin, flittin. Their teeth and claws are sharp, pins in his eyes, splinters, glass. He’s got to beat them out!

  Behind his eyes. Beat! Beat!

  Black wings, devils, they wheeze, howl, thicken in his head so he tips right over and beats his forehead on the ground to get them out till there’s only banging and him shouting, shouting, banging them out, dark becomes black blind blackness, banging, banging, then seeping, blood seeping under his fingernails.

  12

  NEWS OF POWYSS tears round the neighbourhood like a sparrow hawk. Tharpe comes to see him and, standing in the almost empty library, for there are no chairs, offers him accommodation in his mansion while Powyss begins to set about the considerable task of refurbishing Moreham House.

  ‘It’s the least I can do, Powyss. I’m aware of a certain degree of failed responsibility, but you left us no instructions for the house itself, only for the miserable Warlow and his children.’ He looks at Powyss, hoping for a sign of gratitude, or at least understanding, but can perceive neither.

  ‘I trust you have read my letter about the arrangements that were made for War
low and are satisfied with them?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘You are content to continue paying the huge fees to the Kinnersford Asylum?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As for the house, it took a while to call up the militia, you see. So many demands for them nowadays. Since you were abroad, if indeed you were, though some say…’

  Powyss will not help him.

  ‘Having been away, I don’t suppose you are aware of the riotous tendencies erupting among the poor. Bad weather told against the harvests (frost in June, I tell you, sodden hay) and Pitt forced us all to eat brown bread, but the poor refused! Would you believe it? Disturbances throughout the country, not to mention war outside it.

  ‘Please consider my offer, Powyss,’ he finishes, when there’s still no response.

  For a time Powyss has a few other visitors and rushes out into the overgrown orchard to avoid them. Women are particularly keen to catch glimpses of his apparently cadaverous look and cheap, ill-fitting clothing; they’d soak up the desolation of his house if they could. Their carriages stop at the gate, they peer through, some with opera glasses, then send their maids with pies, jellies, cakes, China tea, with instructions to draw out the true story of his disappearance from Catherine. Invariably they gather nothing except the maids’ own imaginative descriptions. Elsewhere, gossip about his absence blooms from the exaggerated tale told by the two children.

  The women always found the man unsociable, strange, with his obsession for plants and peculiar objects. The business with both Warlows, the mad experiment, the unseemly affair, the murder, remain awful, delicious subjects, still much talked about, especially, breathlessly, to strangers and visiting relations. But now, with neither garden nor antique oddities to occupy Powyss, for he appears to take no action to change the condition of either grounds or house, the windows being still boarded with him living in it, the gardens entirely overgrown, they are deeply puzzled at his existence.