‘I am administering a cataplasm on top of a tisane, Sir. The blistering effect of the decoction will draw out toxins in the kidneys and bowels, and prevent an ague.’
‘I don’t agree. Leave me alone at once.’
A familiar voice emanates from before the window: ‘It’s a poultice, Mr Whitty. This is the physician Dr Gough. Now shut your gob and lie still.’
With difficulty the correspondent turns his gaze in the direction of that exquisite voice.
‘Mrs Plant. Dear Mrs Plant.’
‘Enough of your malarkey, Sir. Although you seem to be recovering.’
‘Truthfully, Madam, what is my present condition, in your view?’
‘As though you jammed your face in death’s door, you bloody fool. Is that not like you, vanity from start to finish …’ She turns away from the light, not to let him see how worried she has been.
Happily calculating the enormous fee to come, the physician removes his spectacles, dons his filthy coat and bows, like a seedy magician who has performed sleight-of-hand. Whitty shudders at a fresh stain on the doctor’s waistcoat, an ominous, dark fluid.
‘The fractures and contusions will restore themselves once the patient has a good blistering. The broken finger, which is very bad, has been strapped to its neighbour and, barring an influx of poison, may be saved. We have administered a herbal purge to treat the fever, which condition – of this there is not the slightest doubt – has been brought about by morbid excitement of the organs occasioned by the shock of the fall from a moving vehicle, and inflamed by unhealthy exposure to the night air. In short, Madam, the patient’s condition remains serious but not critical. It was a very near thing – indeed, I have just this morning come from performing an autopsy on a man who died from a similar complaint.’
Thinks Whitty: Hence, the splatter on the waistcoat, which, at more than one point in the proceedings, stood within an inch of his nose.
As the physician’s footsteps recede down the stairs and out the door, Whitty examines his hand, whose fingers have been strapped together as described.
Never mind: to have survived an English physician is a miracle in itself.
Whitty awakes. Therefore, he must have been asleep.
Collecting his senses one by one, he determines himself to be situated in a small bedroom above the main drinking-room at Plant’s. A steady rumble of discussion filters through the floor in tantalizing vowels, as though the gentlemen were holding pillows to their faces; and he recognizes the familiar hollow echo outside – of horseshoes, boots, iron wheels rasping on the cobbles below.
As well, he recognizes what he takes to be Mrs Plant’s personal taste in home furnishings – spotless lace curtains, walls the same green as the snug downstairs (thus saving the cost of paint); he notes the picture beside the mirror above the wash-table, depicting an Irish castle in a sentimental landscape of rocks, heather and sea.
Clearly the assailants returned him to whence he came. How nice of them – but if so, how did they know it would be, for him, a circular journey? For it was not from Plant’s that he was abducted, but from several streets hence. Therefore he must have been followed from Plant’s. Was he followed by the black carriage (or perhaps dark blue), or did accomplices proceed afoot? (In all probability the one signalled the other according to the drill favoured by teams of garrotters on the Ratcliffe Highway.) Hence, the enemy was present while he drank gin downstairs. Yet there were no strangers there whom he can recall, Plant’s being not the sort of place in which a stranger goes unnoticed, particularly one whose clothes, aspect, smell, accent, race or vocabulary are suspect.
Therefore his assailants had the co-operation of somebody known to the correspondent.
Fraser? Salmon? Dinsmore? The Captain? Mrs Quigley? Dear Heaven, the enemies accumulate like lint!
His chest burns painfully, which puts him in mind of the medical practitioner, whose memory draws his attention to the evil-smelling poultice applied to his chest; which, in turn, puts him in mind of … the pain! Sweet Jesus, the scalding pain! With a cry, he sits bolt upright, and instantly regrets his haste with another roar: the ribs!
Cracked as neatly as stonework: there’s a neddy for you.
Remaining upright for the moment, thus minimizing movement, Whitty lowers the bedclothes – slowly – in order to expose the poultice in its unwholesome ugliness, sticky and pungent, the colour of iodine – which abomination he slowly peels downward. Unhappily, the action tears the hairs from his chest, individually and to excruciating effect, inflicting further damage upon a skin already inflamed by quackery. Choosing swift, cruel punishment over slow torture, and with an additional, emphatic imprecation to Jesus, he rips the poultice from his body in one excruciating stroke and casts it aside, where it lands on the floor with a damp, heavy thud.
‘Mr Whitty, if you must take the Saviour’s name in vain, will you pipe down? You can be heard as far as the scullery.’
‘The Saviour and I have reached an understanding, Mrs Plant. We call upon one another when needed.’
‘I doubt that you’re first on His address book.’
‘Nor last, Madam.’
Gingerly he places himself back on his elbows, the better to take a good look at Mrs Plant, who once again (or possibly still) stands before the window. Daylight illuminates the copper in her hair, leaving her lovely face in shadow. Even in his reduced condition he cannot but notice that she is not wearing a corset. It comes as a mild shock to him, that a woman, in private, might choose not to wear that healthful garment. Which inspires Whitty to a remembrance of Mrs Marlowe, who likewise assumed such dishabille about the house …
No doubt he has been blackened with denunciations from his competitors – Fraser, huffing and puffing over Press Ethics, an oxymoronic proposition not unlike Police Protection … Beyond this room, Whitty has no doubt, his colleagues have judged his career to be at an ignominious end with the workhouse in sight – hence the easy laughter from below.
And yet, thinks Whitty, the story continues. Or, as goes the Hebrew maxim, look for the ending after the ending. In which one’s bespoke narrative takes an unanticipated turn …
Whitty peers out at the world like a knight through a visor. Mrs Plant stands in front of the window – still or again, as the case may be. The light from the window has changed its direction since his last awakening. And she wears a different dress, the sort of dress in which she customarily appears while working downstairs – corseted, thankfully.
‘Mrs Plant. It is indeed a pleasure to see you again. I seem to have nodded off a moment.’
‘Three days, Mr Whitty.’
Three days? ‘Madam, surely you exaggerate.’
‘You bugger, you nearly died, you had me so scared …’ She holds back the tears, not to give him the satisfaction. ‘Hit your head, you did, in the fall from the carriage. Might do you good, a few less brains – think of it as a form of pruning.’
Whitty, in the meanwhile, makes a collection of remembrances from the last day he had his health: the pathetic little bunter and her startling gift of a flask – which, as it transpired, belonged to Harewood; the prediction of a spoiler from Fraser, with others inevitably to join, like baboons in heat. What must Sala be thinking in his absence? He remembers having taken notes at one point … His sense of time seems to have deserted him. For all he knows he might now be an elderly man.
Three days?
‘Mrs Plant!’
‘Whitty, quiet down or the street will hear you.’
‘I beg you, I must be away now on urgent business. Please fetch my coat.’
So saying, he sits upright, slowly, bracing himself against the pain.
‘Mr Whitty, you misunderstand the situation. This isn’t a hotel. You’re an invalid. As such you are my responsibility, and you shall leave when I decide you are fit.’
Whereupon, to his horror, it comes to his attention that, underneath the bedclothes (presently draped around his waist), he is utterly naked, not
so much as a pair of drawers to cover his most private organ. He falls back onto the pillow, groaning with the pain of sudden movement, and pulls the bedclothes over his reddened chest, for it has become clear that he and Mrs Plant occupy a most indecent situation – which, if it were known, could do serious harm to both their reputations.
‘Mrs Plant, I beg to apologize most abjectly for my condition, but I fear I am in a state of – if I may speak frankly – of complete undress.’
‘Do not apologize, Mr Whitty, for it was I who undressed you. You needed a bath. You stank and were all bloody.’
‘Dear Heaven, Madam, I hardly know what to say.’
Whitty has, in idle moments before this, imagined himself and Mrs Plant, first as lovers, then as a cantankerous married couple in endless competition for the upper hand. And now this indignity – here is this selfsame woman, having viewed his privates at leisure, having bathed him like a toddler! It does not bear thinking about. He must leave the premises at once.
‘I beg you, Mrs Plant, please return my clothes now, so that I may retire with whatever face I have left.’
‘I regret that your clothes were not wearable, Mr Whitty. Everything was burned at once.’
From below comes a muffled cackle, from either the Devil or the correspondent from Dodd’s.
‘Do they miss my presence downstairs?’
‘No, you are there in spirit, for the number of times your name comes up.’
‘In what context? Prince among men sort of thing?’
‘A public flogging appears to be the way of it, Mr Whitty. One of your preludes to a hanging.’
‘My reputation has suffered before. Reputation is an elastic commodity.’
‘True for you, Sir. After all, you are not dead yet.’
From below comes the sound of unpleasant laughter.
The notes.
Breathing with difficulty, he resists the urge to leap from his bed and fling himself into the street. ‘Mrs Plant, I have a somewhat important question to ask you about my coat – did you burn the coat?’
‘Indeed, Sir, the coat was the first to go.’
‘Quite.’
‘Of course I removed the notebook.’
Bless you.
‘There wasn’t, I suppose, a sum of money in the pocket?’
‘No money.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Do you think me a thief?’
‘No, Madam, I think you are an utterly magnificent woman.’
‘You are delirious, Sir. I have put you in mind of your mother. She too has seen you naked.’
What the Devil can she mean by such language? Naked, indeed! Is he being patronized? – For the tone of her conversation hints at a form of mockery common to base sensibilities. What unilateral power is vested in a woman through the intimate, one-sided knowledge of a man’s naked body!
‘I shall have you understand, Madam, that the word ‘naked’ is not a permitted expression at The Falcon.’
‘Disrobed, then. Head to toe. Back to front.’
‘Quite.’
To Whitty, one thing seems self-evident: in mankind’s relations with the gentler sex, a threshold has been passed in his lifetime, beyond which no man may feel entirely at his ease with a woman – where a man can no longer predict what she knows, and what she will do.
‘Mrs Plant, I wonder if you will allow me to be candid.’
‘From you, Mr Whitty, that would be refreshing.’
‘I wish to say that I am most grateful for your assistance in the course of my difficulties. In light of what has passed between us in the past, I am truly amazed.’
‘Amazed by what, Sir?’
‘Kindness, I suppose. It is a rarity.’
‘Not for a woman. In every second house in Soho there is a sick, injured or drunk man, tended by his deluded Mary. For women, such kindness is a sort of hobby.’
‘Like tatting, I suppose.’
‘No, a frailty one is born with. Like a club-foot.’
‘Mrs Plant, you make reference to relations between the sexes in general, and I concede to your superior understanding. Yet, if you will permit me, I beg to become specific – to wit, solicit your view as to the accuracy of my suppositions on a matter of some urgency.’
‘I do not understand you, Sir. You’re talking Spanish.’
‘What I mean to say is that I beg to solicit your opinion of events as they have transpired, and what I think about them.’
‘That is acceptable. Please do so.’
‘Prior to a previous visit to your establishment, I happened to be met by a young woman of ruined character.’
‘Hardly a rare occurrence, Mr Whitty.’
‘Rarity or not, this young woman – who, I hasten to add, is not to blame for her situation – provided to me information of an extraordinary character. As a result of which I have reason to believe that, whatever his character, William Ryan and the infamous Chokee Bill are not the same man. Indeed, following and as a result of Ryan’s conviction, I believe that the latter has been conducting his activities at will.’
‘Rumours of such a thing have been circulating for weeks among the Radicals.’
‘Madam, the Radicals can detect a conspiracy in the weather. However, this unfortunate went on to recount a circumstance of which the Metropolitan Police are quite aware, and which, through agreement or collusion of interest (virtually identical in effect), similar institutions chose to ignore. I believe this young woman, because to construct such a narrative from whole cloth would require a cunning quite beyond a ruined doxy on the embankment. Indeed, if the young woman invented the tale she should be Mayor. For who can deny the feasibility of such a circumstance – in which officers of the city become selectively blind and deaf, with the blessing of officials in Whitechapel? Which would enjoy the complete co-operation of everyone who has a livelihood to lose – down to the last costermonger. By Heaven, it is even possible that the Fiend is a member of the police!’
‘A quaint theory, Sir. You could be a Radical yourself.’
‘Forgive me. I have not been well.’
‘Would you care for a cup of whisky? I appreciate the exertion it requires to speak plainly to a woman.’
‘Delighted more than words can express, Madam.’
Mrs Plant proceeds to the dressing-table, allowing Whitty an unhindered inspection of her form. ‘Please continue.’
‘Shortly after having published my observations (and, I’m obliged to admit, in a condition of slight over-refreshment), I took what I thought to be a cab. Later I awoke as you witnessed me – if witnessed may be deemed sufficient in this case.’
Mrs Plant approaches the bed with two cups made of blue glass, smiling to herself for an unknown reason. ‘I assume you have discounted simple robbery as a motive. That would be too straightforward for Edmund Whitty.’
‘It might have been my first thought – indeed, a hurtful amount of pounds were taken from me. Yet it doesn’t narrow the possibilities: surely no scoundrel who will break the bones of a stranger would flinch at robbery.’
‘Mr Whitty, I’ve become tired. Do you object if I am seated?’
‘On the contrary. Pardon me for not getting up.’ He takes a sip of the precious liquid, which tastes of peat and old library books. He reflects that perhaps it is good to be alive, even in reduced circumstances, if only to savour a decent whisky once more, to lie in a soft bed.
Whereupon Mrs Plant, no doubt to further test his tolerance for intimacy, sits on the bed right beside him!
Whitty had not for one second expected her to do this – after all, there is an empty chair in the room; which unforeseen development causes him anxiety over the situation beneath the bedclothes – the lack of a night-shirt or other insulation increasing the danger of an unwanted tumescence, rendered readily apparent by his prone position, which he cannot alter without severe discomfort; which danger has already become a horrifying possibility for, truth be told, Mrs Plant is a well-made woman �
�
‘Mr Whitty, it seems probable to me that, one way or another, you have displeased people who don’t brook displeasure gladly. I do not know how I might be of assistance …’ Mrs Plant pauses, having flushed somewhat, for the room has become warm.
‘Mrs Plant, have I your leave to make an unusual request?’
‘I am willing to entertain it, Mr Whitty.’
‘Please understand that I would not for a moment impose, nor cause offence.’
‘I shall take that into consideration.’
‘Madam, having emerged from death, so to speak, I find myself uncommonly aware of the sensations of the moment … so to speak. Furthermore, having, upon an earlier occasion, made mention of my high regard for yourself, I wonder if we might put behind us one certain precipitous and tasteless request, in order to entertain another?’
‘Whitty, are you going to ask me to kiss you?’
‘Madam, that was indeed my intent.’ He braces himself against the possibility of a blow to the face.
‘That is acceptable to me. Provided it don’t lead to further liberties.’
‘I assure you, Madam, in my present condition I am at your mercy.’
‘Very well, then.’
And so she leans toward him, and he strains upward toward her, as far forward as the situation permits, just far enough that their lips can meet, however tentatively, while closing their eyes – not only to maintain decorum but also to give themselves fully to this exceptional moment.
Whitty is no sensualist as a rule; he avoids Turkish baths and is not partial to the scent of flowers. And yet, to hold his mouth against her soft flesh, tasting of whisky, gently moving with his own, all touch between them concentrated in an area of approximately one square inch, while the scent of her fills him like smoke, infusing his head and loins with a sensation which does not compare with the sensation of opium or laudanum or alcohol or any other medicament with which Whitty customarily renders life acceptable, awakens a sensibility of which he has only the vaguest memory, having partaken of it as a child, at which time it might have been termed joy.
After an interval of uncertain duration, she returns to an upright position and straightens her hair. ‘Well, Mr Whitty,’ she says. ‘I’m sure I do not know what to say.’
The Fiend in Human Page 26