by James Carnac
“Yes,” I agreed. And took another sip of the burning fluid.
“And when did you see them last—before this, I mean?”
“About a quarter to two,” I told him.
“What were they doing? Having a quarrel or anything like that?”
“No, not exactly. At least—” I hesitated, “I don’t think so. They may have had one. My father was in the surgery—had been in the surgery with my mother— Oh, I don’t know. He was there when I left. My mother came out with me; she was going to see Dr. Sims.”
“Oh, going to see Dr. Sims? You didn’t leave them together then?” He thought for a few moments. “Got any relations?” he asked.
“I’ve got an uncle and aunt living at Peckham,” I told him. “At least—my aunt’s ill with cancer; but there’s my uncle—”
Just then the door burst open and in came our next-door neighbour, a Mr. Everett. He was, in fact, one of the neighbours who had lent his assistance on the night of the furniture smashing to which I have alluded.
“My poor boy!” he cried. “This is terrible! Terrible! I am sorry! He’d better come in with us, Inspector. He can’t stop here.”
“No, sir, he can’t stop here,” the inspector agreed, looking somewhat relieved. “If you wouldn’t mind taking charge of him for the time—He tells me he has an uncle over the other side of London. I’m going to send for him at once.”
“Come along, lad, come along,” said Mr. Everett. “It’s a terrible thing to happen. You must try to bear up. We are sorry.” And to an undertone of sympathetic exclamations he led me next door, where his wife was waiting, white-faced, in the hall.
And then under the sympathetic demonstrations of these kindly people I suddenly broke out into loud blubberings.
—
On the following morning a constable arrived and, telling me he was the coroner’s officer, drew out of me by kindly but persistent questioning the whole story of the curious doings preceding the tragedy. He wrote it all down in a large note-book and then made out a slip of paper which he handed to me explaining that it was a subpoena for the inquest. Mrs. Everett, who was present at the interview, promised to accompany me on that occasion.
“There is nothing to be nervous about,” the officer told me as he left. “All you’ll have to do will be to tell the coroner just what you’ve told me. He’s a very nice gentleman; he won’t worry you at all.”
Later in the day my uncle arrived from Peckham.
Chapter 7
My uncle, Mr. Charlie Evans, was a man well over fifty years of age, short, inclined to stoutness, and with a red, jolly-looking face framed in grey chin-whiskers. His clothes were of a “sporting cut,” light in colour and completed by a red and yellow check waistcoat across which was slung a heavy gold watch-chain. A diamond ring glittered on his left hand, and as he entered Mr. Everett’s sitting-room he carried in his hand a light grey billicock hat. Leaving home in a fluster on the receipt of the police message, he had overlooked the unsuitability of his dress for the occasion; but realizing his negligence on reaching Town, he had partly remedied it by purchasing a large black silk cravat which he now wore hastily tied and embellished by a gold horse-shoe-shaped tie-pin set slightly askew.
He was excited and grieved by the tragedy, and kept shaking my hand and patting my shoulder while he fired a long series of questions at Mrs. Everett, her replies to which he punctuated by deep sighs and head-shakings. “Poor things!” he would say, every few minutes. “Poor things!”
When I ventured to enquire after my aunt’s illness he told me she seemed a trifle better “in herself” but that there was a nurse in charge; and in the meantime I was not to worry because he was going to see me through this terrible business. As we sat down to tea Mr. Everett returned home and was introduced to my uncle; and after a repetition of the manifestations of sympathy, Mrs. Everett kindly suggested that Mr. Evans might care to stay there until after the inquest. To which he gratefully agreed. And since he had come away from home quite unprovided with necessities, he took me along to the High Road that evening and made various purchases. These included, I remember, a black overcoat (which fitted him very badly), in order partly to conceal his light clothing at the inquest, and a black hat. He also bought me a ready-made black suit and black tie; these things, he thought, “would do until after the inquest.”
—
The inquest was fixed for the following morning, and my uncle and I set out immediately after breakfast accompanied by Mrs. Everett who, although relieved of her responsibility towards myself by the presence of my uncle, desired to attend the proceedings. The news of the double tragedy had evidently become known, for a small crowd of sightseers had gathered in the road, and a youngish man with a note-book pushed forward and accosted us as we left the house; but my uncle elbowed him aside and led me quickly out of the road. I cannot recall exactly where the inquest took place, for I was slightly dazed by the whole affair; but I think it must have been in the neighbourhood of the High Road, for I recollect my uncle stopping at the juncture of Philip Lane and the High Road and commenting upon the old pump which stands there. However, I know it was a large, white-washed room having the appearance of a school-room; I remember it seemed full of people and that several policemen without their helmets were loitering about near the door.
I cannot pretend to give full details of the inquest; I can remember only isolated details. I know I felt slightly disappointed at the lack of that formality and dignity which I had expected. I had anticipated that the coroner would be wearing a white wig like a judge, but he was quite an ordinary-looking man in everyday clothes while the jury, instead of being packed in a jury box, were seated on two rows of wooden chairs behind a long table. They looked very awkward and embarrassed and seemed hardly to know what to do with their arms; most of them ultimately settled down with their arms folded.
We were given chairs near the same table, at the head of which sat the coroner, and I recognized near us old Mrs. Mahon and Dr. Sims. Between them and ourselves was an old couple of a countrified appearance clothed in mourning who, I discovered later, were the parents of our girl Mary.
I was not allowed to remain in the room during the whole of the proceedings. I was called to the table, given a small, black book to hold in my hand and asked to read aloud the words of the oath which were printed on a card pinned to the table before me. Then the coroner asked me a few questions. He seemed to have before him the whole of the story which I had already told to his officer, for he went through this bit by bit following with his finger the lines of what I took to be a written statement of my information upon sheets of paper. Every time he looked up at me, I would agree to what he had said with a timid “Yes.” It was not a bit like the giving of evidence as I had anticipated it. After the coroner had finished with me and Dr. Sims had been called, my uncle tip-toed up to the coroner and whispered with him for a few minutes; I suppose the subject of the conversation was the propriety of my remaining to hear all the evidence, for presently my uncle returned and told me we would go out for a bit and return later.
I resented this strongly, but had no option but to get up and follow him out. We went for a walk down the High Road past my school and the old alms houses, and round by Bruce Castle. My uncle chattered all the time; he was trying to keep my mind off a subject which my mind simply would not keep off. Useless for him to talk about my school, and the new steam trams, and John Gilpin and King Bruce, when my mind was entirely occupied by the visual impression of two wax-work figures with red ribbons round their throats and a pool of blood between them. I had thought about those figures all night, tossing from side to side, with hot eyes and a dry throat, in the strange bed provided for me by Mrs. Everett. “Thought” is, perhaps, hardly the correct word; the scene had been actually before me, sometimes as I had observed it, sometimes, when I sank into a doze, hideously distorted, the faces twisting and mouthing, the blood
spreading, rising and whirling, and half-recognized figures groping and pawing.
My uncle consulted a large, gold watch at intervals and finally, thinking sufficient time had elapsed, escorted me back to the place of the inquest. We did not return to our original seats, but stood in the doorway, for the coroner was speaking, evidently framing in legal form the verdict upon which the jury had just decided. I gathered that Mary had “died as a result of an illegal operation performed by John Carnac” and that this amounted to manslaughter against “the said John Carnac”; I learned also that my father had been a murderer. He had murdered my mother and then committed suicide “while of unsound mind.”
Dr. Sims came up to us after the proceedings had closed and introduced himself to my uncle. He seemed greatly shocked by the whole affair and muttered with my uncle for some time. Then the coroner’s officer came to us and drew my uncle away to the coroner’s table where I saw that some kind of paper was being prepared; this was handed to my uncle who, after some further conversation with the coroner, returned to me, took my arm and led me from the building.
“Why did they say that Father was of unsound mind?” I asked him, when we arrived at the street. “Did they mean he was mad?”
My uncle explained that if there was any doubt, a jury always added that clause “of unsound mind.” “Then the poor chap can be buried in consecrated ground,” he added. And went on to tell me that in olden times a suicide was buried at the cross-roads with a stake through his chest. I wondered whether, had that saving clause not been inserted, they would have so buried my father. And which cross-roads would have been chosen. And who would have driven the stake in; and whether they would have left the end sticking up through the ground so that people should know a suicide was buried there.
Some instinct deterred me from asking my uncle exactly what an “illegal operation” was; I knew it was something shameful, not to be talked about. It was a long time before I understood fully what the term meant.
—
My parents were buried on the day following the inquest, and in the evening my uncle took me home with him to Peckham.
Chapter 8
I now entered what I may call the second period of my life and I embark upon a description of it with extreme diffidence, for I am called upon to deal not with a series of events so much as the development of a state of mind. No; I will be modern. I will call it a complex. And in writing about this period I am very conscious of my literary inefficiency. I am no Bennett or Dreiser to do justice to this time so barren of physical event and yet so fruitful in its purely psychic trend.
As I have said, immediately after the tragic end of my parents I went to live with my uncle at Peckham. His wife, my mother’s sister, was then extremely ill; she was confined to her bed-room and a nurse was in constant attendance. It says much for my uncle’s kindliness that in spite of the anxiety and distress occasioned him by his wife’s painful illness he did everything possible to settle me comfortably in this new home, and to palliate what he supposed to be despondency over the loss of my parents.
In point of fact he not unnaturally misinterpreted my mood. I had received a shock, but I was not “shocked” in the sense that term is usually meant to imply; that is to say I was not over-whelmed with grief at my loss. I missed my parents, just as I should have missed the sudden withdrawal of anything—animate or inanimate—with which I had always been familiar, but I do not believe I was suffering actual sorrow. Was I a callous young beast, or had I never cherished any real affection for my parents? I prefer to think that contemplation of the peculiar circumstances of their death swamped in my mind the feeling of sorrow at their death. And when I sat silent over the fire in my uncle’s parlour, an unregarded book upon my knees, I was not thinking “I shall never see them again” but “What did my father feel like when he cut my mother’s throat?” I was wondering whether the scalpel went in easily; whether human flesh cuts like cooked meat under the carving-knife or whether it is softer in its yielding. Whether the blood spurts out violently when a throat is cut, or whether it wells and trickles. And in the midst of these and similar thoughts I would be suddenly conscious of my uncle’s hand patting my knee, and would make a show of returning to my book.
My uncle spent most of his evenings sitting opposite me beside the fireplace, puffing steadily at a meerschaum pipe, with an eye on me and an ear cocked for any sounds filtering down from his wife’s room overhead. He read nothing but the newspaper although he possessed quite a number of books. I often wondered in what frame of mind he acquired them; probably he regarded books as dressings or embellishments to the furniture.
At the time of which I write my uncle was an elderly man on the verge of retirement, and he seemed content with little companionship other than my own. This may seem strange in a man of my uncle’s trade, for the “sporting man” is usually supposed to enjoy a large circle of acquaintances by the very nature of his interests. My uncle may, or may not, have had such a circle, but during my residence with him very few business friends were invited to the house. He kept his business interests and his private life distinct and separate. It is possible and, I think, probable that I was, to some extent at least, responsible for this. From the first he made it quite clear that he did not wish me to have anything to do with his business or to take any interest in it. “I’ve not done so badly out of racing,” he told me, “but it’s a mug’s game and I want you to steer clear of betting and gambling. You see, Jim, I know something about it.” He never allowed me to accompany him to race-meetings, and only on rare occasions had I been to the little office in which he employed a wizened man who acted as his clerk and, I gathered, went with him to meetings.
—
My first month with my uncle was a sombre and slightly nightmarish time. I was brooding, thinking and dreaming: I do not mean day-dreaming, but dreaming in my sleep. I cannot profess to recall the details; I only know that they oppressed me with a repetition and development of my thoughts of the day. And a benevolent and all-seeing Providence was seeing fit to torture my aunt to death with cancer while my uncle could do nothing but sit hopelessly by.
He and I took occasional walks to Greenwich and Blackheath, I glum and silent, he chatty with a spurious and pathetic cheerfulness. Then one day he asked me, with some diffidence, whether I would care to go to the theatre; I think he felt it was a trifle soon after my parents’ deaths. But I assented readily to the suggestion. We went to Town and saw William Terriss in a dramatization of “The Vicar of Wakefield.” (It was, I think, that actor’s first big part and, as it happened, I was also present many years later on the occasion of his last performance, in “Secret Service,” at the conclusion of which he was stabbed on leaving the stage-door of the Adelphi Theatre in Maiden Lane.)
My uncle, it appeared, was passionately fond of the theatre, but this, alas, was his last treat for some time to come. For on our return to Peckham after the performance we learned that his wife had died during our absence. The poor old chap bitterly reproached himself for not having been with her at the end.
—
I am becoming more and more sensible that this is going to be a tragic book. In all great tragedies, like Hamlet and Punch and Judy, most of the characters are killed off before the fall of the curtain. But I have already killed off most of my characters before getting to the events which justify the narrative. I am left only with my uncle, and I must make the most of him and my thoughts and emotions in an effort to bridge the passage of time from my nineteenth birthday to that time when his turn-down collar—no, I must not prematurely refer to that collar—when I fled from his house.
After my aunt’s death we moved to a smaller house at New Cross. My uncle felt he could no longer bear to remain on the scene of his wife’s sufferings, and he bought a squarish, stuccoed house which appealed to his fancy not far from New Cross Station. It had, I remember, a square portico flanked by two round pillars of dubious compos
ition and approached by a short flight of steps. Although a double-fronted house, it was deceptive as regards size; the two living-rooms were of moderate dimensions, but the other rooms were quite small. The portico to which I have alluded formed a kind of miniature verandah which could be approached from the window of either of the two front bed-rooms—approached, that is, by anyone with a mentality curious enough to prompt him to go there; for it was dirty and offered no advantages when attained. I hardly think anyone can ever have sat there to take the air for it would have been difficult to get a chair there, and the good-sized garden at the rear of the house was a far pleasanter resting place. But I mention this verandah because I found a use for it—on one occasion.
Of the two bed-rooms referred to I occupied one, my uncle the other. There were two other bed-rooms in the house; one was given to the housekeeper whom my uncle engaged, the other was used for the storage of trunks, boxes and the miscellaneous rubbish which every householder contrives to accumulate.
My bed-room was well and solidly furnished by my uncle from the effects which he had removed from Peckham, and to this furnishing I added the large selection of books which had once belonged to my father. I also had his microscope and his set of scalpels—including the scalpel, which had been politely returned, cleaned, after the inquest on my parents. My uncle was averse to my keeping this thing; he wished me to break the set by disposing of the instrument of tragedy.
—
Looking back on that time I realize that my uncle was, in his way, an excellent old fellow; he had many good qualities. This reference may seem lacking in the extreme cordiality on my part which may be expected, for he was kindness itself to me and I have every reason to feel grateful to him. But he had one bad fault, a fault which in him and in other people had been—and always will be—a source of almost excruciating irritation to me. He was a dirty feeder. He made a god of his stomach and the rites with which he carried out his worship were of the beastliest description.