‘It is not a fit book for anyone.’
‘The book is a masterpiece. The illustrations are amazing.’
‘Aye, they are that alright. And I was truly amazed by them!’
When I recollect what I said to him that day, he must have thought me daft. Very young and very foolish in my high-minded outrage. Yet he did not say so. Instead he took me seriously, engaged me in the debate, hoping to persuade me that I was wrong. Was I wrong? Well perhaps so. Or perhaps not. I confess that age has brought me no certainty whatsoever in this matter.
‘Did you not find them so?’ he pressed me. ‘The artist was a young Dutchman. Rymsdyk. The contribution it made to our knowledge was immense. You could almost have believed that some of those babies – that they were –’
I spat in the dust. He flinched.
‘Alive,’ I told him. ‘You were going to say alive.’
He shook his head, frowning, trying to see it from my point of view. ‘I see that the book has distressed you deeply.’
‘Distressed is not the word.’
‘I’m very sorry. I had no idea.’
‘I could not bear to look at it and yet I turned the pages and hated myself for doing it.’
He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Ah God, I didn’t realise how it would look to you. I should have had more understanding, more sensibility.’
‘But the pictures, man. Those poor women with their insides laid out for inspection. And the weans. It didnae distress me, man. But I’ll tell ye this much. It offended me. It offended the heart of me.’
‘All the same, William, it is a great work of scholarship. Can you at least allow that?’
‘But they were pictures of deid women, Thomas! Deid women and deid weans. “A lovely and bitter cold day, ideal for preparing the young lady that died last night.” That was what he wrote.’
‘They were already dead. I am truly sorry for their predicament but nothing could be done to save them.’
‘To save them? Could it no’? So how did they come there, I wonder? Were they cast out of their homes by good God-fearing men like us? How did they die? And how did Hunter and his artist come by the models for the work? Why did he do it, I wonder?’
‘It was his life’s work. And I happen to know that he lost money by it. He lost a fortune before he died.’
‘Aye well, he may have done that. But I think he lost his soul at the same time.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I understand well enough. It was his passport to fame and fortune and patronage. Much like our esteemed Professor Jeffray.’
It may have been a consideration but I think he did the work for its own sake. I think the professor does too.’
‘But such work. And does none of that matter? Did naebody think to ask these questions? And if they didnae, what does that say about the hale damn lot of ye?’
I could feel the anger rising in me all over again. I was hot-tempered in those days. I had a handful of wee pebbles, chuckie stanes just, and I threw them at the wall, venomously. The wall was so badly built that I had a feeling of surprise when it did not come tumbling down at once, but stayed where it was, each boulder leaning precariously upon its neighbour.
‘He was a difficult man,’ Thomas remarked. ‘They say he could be a difficult man.’
‘He was a butcher. It was a violation. The women were violated. Every precious detail of them exposed for public viewing. And all in the name of progress. Jesus, and your professor accuses me of impropriety.’
‘I am so sorry, William. I had no idea you felt like this.’
‘But why would anyone not feel like this? That’s the wonder of it. Ach it’s plain to me you see things differently. We see things differently, the two of us.’
‘You have to try to understand that the knowledge he gained will help to save other women’s lives, now and in the future. Nothing could save those women then. But I can and do help those who come after. I bought the book as a work of scholarship merely. You must know that.’
He was right of course. My head told me that he was right, but my heart could not agree with him or forgive him. Not at that moment. I was still possessed by a sense of outrage at the book itself and the tragedies that lay behind it.
‘I know you do, and you are a good man. An honest man, that’s for sure. But I don’t believe your professor has quite such fine motives. He’s nae fool, Thomas. I have small affection for him, and he certainly has nane for me, but even I can see that he is nae fool. He cannot possibly imagine that he will ever be able to reanimate a corpse and yet that is what he wishes to do.’
‘Where on earth did you hear such nonsense? I have never heard the like. Certainly Jeffray has never spoken of it.’
‘I hear the students talk. How can I not hear them? They pass me every day and treat me as if I were a tree, so little attention do they pay me. Even in your classes they do not talk to me, but regard me with suspicion, like the interlowper I am. Your man must know what they are saying, and yet he surely cannot believe it is desirable, or even possible.’
This was well before Jeffray’s experiments with galvanisation. They were all to come, and yet there was much speculation in the college about the man’s ambitions and already some crazy talk of bringing the dead to life. The scholars were, of course, very taken with the idea and talked about it in hushed tones, but with an underlying excitement that scandalised me.
‘No. I don’t think he does believe that,’ said Thomas. ‘But fame would be a kind of immortality and even the best of us may have thoughts about that. Oh, he will do it right enough. Sooner or later. Not resurrection, of course. But the imitation of it. Movement without breath. Animation without life. He will attempt it, by way of experimentation. If he can get his hands on the right body.’
‘Who would give the body of a loved one for sic a cause?’
‘He’s waiting for a criminal. He’s waiting for a hanging.’
‘But who would want to resurrect …’
‘A murderer? Who indeed? But then, you’ve said it yourself, it isn’t possible. He knows it isn’t possible. What he will put on is a show, like a puppet master, like a man playing God.’
‘Aye, a trick such as will make him famous for all time to come.’
‘Well, I’ll allow there is something distasteful about that. But it is a different class of thing altogether from Hunter’s book. That was a work of true scholarship and is a different thing entirely! The two are not comparable in any way.’
‘Aye, but who is to say that we arenae puppets ourselves with our creator jerkin’ us this way and that at his will?’
He sighed and stood up. ‘You’re very angry, William, and it makes you unreasonable. I’m so sorry. I had no intention of upsetting you and I’m sorry for it.’
‘Deid weans. Women with their legs spread wide for an artist to pin down on the page. And us down here in the garden planting our trees for posterity with the blissful illusion of freedom.’
I have no idea where such ideas came to me at that moment, but the words came tumbling out of me, surprising me, surprising him. He just gazed at me and shook his head, shocked into silence.
‘You had better leave me,’ I muttered. ‘I must get on. I have work to do!’
He made a move away from me, but then turned, unwilling to leave me in anger. All of sudden, he held out his hand. He was half smiling, that rueful grin he sometimes had.
‘Oh, William!’ he said.
I could not resist him. There was something about him that was eminently persuasive, and besides I felt the ground shift under my feet and knew I had a fear of upsetting him, a fear that one day I would go too far, that he might really turn his back on me, withdraw his friendship altogether. I could not bear it.
I hesitated but only for a second or two and then put my hand in his. His palm was warm and dry and his grasp was strong. He shook hands with me and clapped me about the shoulders with his free hand.
‘William, I can’t quarrel with yo
u,’ he said. ‘I simply cannot do it. I have such respect for you, for your strength of feeling. It’s the last thing in the world I would ever want to do. To cause you pain. If I thought it might repair our friendship, I would take the book and hurl it onto the back of the fire. Such is my regard for you that I would do it. I mean it. Just say the word and in it goes!’
‘No. You mustn’t do that. It is a valuable volume and I would feel guilty at your loss.’
‘Then you’ll just have to find it in your heart to forgive me. I had no intention in the world of upsetting you so much.’
‘There’s nothing to forgive. Are two friends not allowed a disagreement now and then?’
He seemed ridiculously relieved. It struck me that perhaps he did value my friendship as much as I valued his. I think now, with all the benefit of hindsight, that I was somewhat unreasonable. I don’t know if I really was as moral as I pretended to be, or if my shock at the sight of the book was some compound of pity and prurience that in turn made me feel guilty, good Presbyterian lad that I was.
Besides, I believed him when he said that he would cast the book into the flames on my say-so. In a curious way, it made me even more disposed to agree with him, made me wonder if perhaps he was right and I was wrong. My mind was all on the dreadful privations of the poor and the ways in which the fate of these unfortunate women was so hideously illuminated by the book. He was a doctor, a healer, and he would experiment with whatever methods might further his own learning, but it was all in a good cause. It struck me that his motives were of the purest form.
His next words confirmed these feelings.
‘I promise, William, that I will use the book with care. I promise I will consider those who gave their lives to illustrate it. I promise I will use it to save other lives. Will that content you and even persuade you just a little?’
‘You speak as if you are beholden to me in some way.’
‘More than you know,’ he said. ‘More than you will ever know.’
‘Then I am content.’
And so, we resumed our friendship. If anything, we were closer than before, knowing that we could disagree, might even quarrel like equals, but that it would never damage our regard for one another.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sprigging
Later that year, Jenny declared that she had finished the christening cape at last. There was not one more stitch she could put into it and it was ready to be handed over to its new owners. I had been following its progress on my visits to her house and reporting back to Thomas. I found myself marvelling at her skill with a needle, which seemed to reflect her skill in her garden. If Rymsdyk drew and painted pictures on canvas and paper, then Jenny surely drew and painted pictures with her needle. Thomas and Marion had arranged the christening ceremony and issued invitations to their friends. Although he had seen samples of Jenny’s work before he commissioned the cape, Thomas had still not met my Jenny.
‘Why don’t you ask her if she would be so kind as to bring it to your house, William,’ he told me. ‘I should like to congratulate the seamstress in person when I pay her, so I think I shall collect it myself.’
Jenny’s father brought her to the door. I mind the day well, even at this distance in time. They set off early, travelling with one of the carriers on a rough and ready cart. She was carrying the garment wrapped up in a piece of pale silk to protect it from the dust of the road. Sandy Caddas had business in the town, taking finished cloth to the merchants who commissioned it from him. When Jenny was busy and he couldn’t leave Anna under the supervision of their neighbour, Nancy, with whom he seemed to be on increasingly good terms, he had got into the habit of bringing her with him and leaving her at our house. Anna was obliging enough and would sit quietly doing whatever task my mother allotted to her, drawing when she could get paper, but chiefly helping with cooking or baking bread, in which she seemed to take a tremendous enjoyment, being much more adept at it than either of my younger sisters.
On this particular day, however, Mr Caddas had made Anna stay behind with Nancy. I think he was aware that poor Jenny was on pins, wondering whether the christening cape would meet with Doctor Brown’s approval, and much too nervous to be bothered with her sister. My mother had been up early, cleaning the house from top to bottom in honour of the distinguished visitor. Thomas had become quite at home in our house and because he always turned the full force of his charm upon my mother, she was invariably pleased to see him. But she had never become exactly at ease with him. Instead, particularly after the gift of lemons, she would flutter about him as if he were royalty, a deference that irritated me but was none of his doing.
His occasional unanticipated visit would throw her into a panic. She would make him sit down in my father’s old chair, and give him whatever we had in the house that she thought might be fit for a gentleman: new ale, old whisky if there was any, which was seldom, bannocks and honey, soft fruit in season. Once she presented him with a platter of ripe strawberries from the garden as triumphantly as though they had been jewels. I saw that she had selected them all so that their size and shape were completely regular, although I couldn’t find it in my heart to comment on it. I understood her partiality. And to give him his due, Thomas accepted all this adulation – for that was what it must have seemed like – with his usual grace and good-natured diffidence.
* * *
I sit here in the sunlight and find myself remembering him the way he was then, with no thought of the old man he would have become during the years of our estrangement. There is a sense in which that old man does not exist for me. When I see myself in a looking glass, I am always faintly surprised by the face that stares back at me. Who is this wrinkled stranger who seems to me very like the turtle that my wee Jenny so loves to look at in my illustrated volumes of Daudin’s Histoire Naturelle? Where did he come from? And why is he usurping my body?
Did Thomas feel the same whenever he had occasion to glance at himself in the glass? And did he, I wonder, ever give a passing thought to me? Did he remember our friendship and grieve for it from time to time? I would give a very great deal to be able to travel backwards and see him one more time, really see him and not just with the mind’s eye, which is a cold substitute for reality, however potent. I wish I could see him as he was then, striding into my house, bringing light and air and ideas with him. I find myself wishing we could have met again, just once. But maybe that would have been a disappointment. Because I never did see him again, this is how he is in my mind still, young and vibrant, my best and finest of friends.
There was something peculiarly attractive about him, but it was not any great regularity of feature. I would not have thought him especially handsome, but there was some way in which he seemed comfortable in his own body. He had a certain effect upon young and old, male and female alike, that was quite devastating. I thought myself reasonably handsome and Jenny seemed fond enough of me. The other girls I met in the streets around the college and on my excursions into the countryside seemed happy enough to flirt with me, but I had no illusions about myself. Thomas was different. For a while, I fancied it was just myself who was so taken with him, because of his obvious regard for me. We do tend to approve of those who are at pains to show us that they like us, particularly those we consider to be our superiors. But with hindsight, I realise that it was like that with almost everyone he met. He was a man whom many people loved on sight and almost without effort on his part.
Dear God, even the flea-bitten and ragged dog, the little beast belonging to one of the college porters, would come and fawn upon him when he walked about the gardens, licking his hand gratefully when he bent to pat its rough coat. And I’m still, after all this time, not sure what it was about him that provoked such affection. But whatever it was, I see now that it was dangerous. You would think about him in his absence and wonder what madness had seized you and why you fell in with all his suggestions, thoughtlessly, heedless of your own self interest. But fall in you would, even
if you regretted it later. Which should explain a very great deal to me. Everything is forgivable in time. Well, almost everything.
All the same I want … what do I want? I think I want to put things straight. To put things right. To try to describe things as they were and as they are. Ah, but if by some miracle, I could be transported back to those early days, to the innocence and ignorance of that time when I was so fond of him, when I looked forward to our meetings as the high point of my day, when I trusted him completely, would I do it? If it meant forgetting all that had occurred since? Would I do that? If some magical creature appeared and granted me one wish, instead of the three that are more usual in such tales? Well, sometimes I believe I would. Which is both a shame and a revelation to me. With one proviso. I think I could not bear to lose my grand-daughter. I think I would elect to keep her, and in doing that, perhaps I would lose Thomas all over again. And I tell you, it would be hard, but I would have to do it.
Most of the time there was, I fancy, a certain calculation about him. It troubles me to think of it now. Perhaps he was all too aware of his power to influence, particularly where women were concerned. He must have realised it but he generally restrained himself. The trouble was, of course, that he had never yet met any woman, except for Marion, for whom he felt even the smallest regard over and beyond the normal pleasantries of everyday polite interaction. I believe he had known Marion since childhood, and they had moved very smoothly from friendship to courtship to marriage. But passion? The lightning strike that comes upon you in an instant? No, I do not think that had ever yet troubled Thomas. Or not to my knowledge, anyway. In fact, I flatter myself that he was more fond of me than of most other people.
He was well aware of the power of his personality and kept it very much in check. And although he influenced me and changed me and gave me thoughts and ideas that were a long way above the station to which I had been born, I’m convinced he meant nothing but good by it. I am certain that I would not be the man I am today, would not have had the considerable success I have had – albeit in an entirely different trade – without Thomas’s influence on me, his generous imparting of all kinds of knowledge, to say nothing of the confidence that my learning gave me.
The Physic Garden Page 17