Pa laughed heartily. “Should those men come to fight us it would be a very short battle.”
I nodded, trying to pretend that I understood, but noted that my Ma frowned at her husband. “Hush, now, John.” She grasped my hand and said, “That is the Royal Military Hospital and those poor men were grievously injured in the war. They sacrificed much for their country and are here to collect a pension for their services.”
This I did not understand. “But surely we are not paid for our sacrifices. A sacrifice is given quite freely.”
My Ma frowned more deeply and my Pa roared with laughter, throwing me into a state of confusion as I had hoped to please both of them with my precocious learning.
“The boy will make a very fine businessman, that is certain! Education will indeed be the making of him.” He slapped his thigh and laughed again.
I was pleased to make my father proud and stared at the bedraggled men, unaware of their precarious position in life. Once I took up residence at the Dubourg School, I became accustomed to seeing beggars—male and female—on the streets of Chelsea and began to recognize several who sat in the same spot every day, their tales written out on cards and placed in front of them or scratched in chalk onto the pavement. I noticed one in particular, a woman who sat daily quite near our school, with her hand outstretched for alms, a basket of artificial nosegays next to her. Sometimes she had an infant wrapped up in her shawl and on other occasions there was a small child in her lap. I noticed her particularly as I could not fathom how a lady could be a soldier turned beggar, and did not understand at all what the flowers symbolized except perhaps the fallen on the battlefield. It is with shame that I recall my scorn for those poor souls, thinking them indolent wretches just as my entrepreneurial Pa did.
Fate eventually saw to punish me for this haughty contempt. It was the Christmas season, and I was in an excitable mood, very glad to be back home. To give my Ma some respite, Aunt Nancy was charged with taking me to Noah’s Ark toy shop in High Holborn. We had a glorious time there, and it was quite dark when we returned to our dwellings on Southampton Row. As we approached closer, I noticed a figure huddled near the entrance, a basket of artificial flowers next to her—it was the beggar woman who sat so often outside my school. She held out a nosegay of dainty violets.
“Here, darling. Come over here. Take one for your mother. It’s close on Christmas.”
I looked to my Auntie, but saw that she was engaged in conversation with a man who seemed to be asking for directions. The woman smiled kindly at me. She was a good deal older than my Ma, closer in years to my Pa’s mother.
“She can pin it on her dress or in her hair and will look very fine indeed.”
I thought the nosegay would make a good present for my Ma—it was pretty and would look very well on her. “What must I pay you?” I asked.
“What’s your name, son?” she asked in return.
“Eddy.”
She nodded. “I’ve been told your mother was a great actress, Eddy.”
This compliment had the desired effect upon me. “Yes, she was. But she died when I was very young.”
She smiled kindly. “Ah, but you’re alive and your new family must be very wealthy.”
I nodded, for so it seemed. “But I do not get much pocket money,” I added, “so I hope the nosegay is not so very dear.”
The beggar lady laughed. “No, indeed it’s not, for I will give it to you.” She handed me the bunch of purple velvet violets just as Aunt Nancy joined me.
“It is for Ma,” I said proudly. “A Christmas present.”
She frowned, but my excitement must have persuaded her against making me return the nosegay. “How much?” she asked the beggar lady.
“A penny,” the beggar woman interjected before I could speak. “You won’t find a better nosegay made anywhere in London.”
Nancy sighed and fished a coin from her purse before dragging me inside.
Later that same week, Aunt Nancy was charged with taking me to Russell Square, where I forced her to play catch with me until she was quite worn out. She went to fetch us some roasted chestnuts from a vendor not fifty yards away and as I carried on with my game, tossing the ball up into the air as high as I could and running to catch it, I noticed a small child approach my Auntie and tug at her dress. This I found impertinent and was shocked when my Aunt gave the child a bag of chestnuts. But before I could voice my childish rage, the very ground disappeared from under my feet, and I found myself being conveyed at speed through the park, clutched by some stranger whose face I could not see. A dirty rag was stuffed into my mouth, cutting short my yells of anger and terror. I could see little but the ground bouncing beneath my abductor’s feet, which were encased in broken-down boots made from grubby, brown leather—men’s boots, but worn by a woman with legs like a plough-horse. The reek of her much-patched dress was similarly equine, months of sweat woven into the fabric and arising from its threads like fumes of manure on a hot day. She wheezed with the effort of carrying me, and as the shock began to subside, I struggled in her inordinately strong arms.
“Hold still, you brat,” she commanded, but I kicked and thrashed like a caught fish until at last we both went tumbling to the ground. I scrambled to my feet and wrenched the filthy kerchief from my mouth as I ran back to Nancy, who threw her arms around me.
“Catch her!” Nancy shrieked as the beggar woman and the child ran for the gate. “Catch her!” But the beggar woman and the child eluded capture. I clung to Nancy, unnerved by my experience. She had lost all color, and I could feel her quivering. “You must not tell your parents of this,” my Auntie said. “Your Ma will be dreadfully upset.”
However, once home my fear dissipated, and I could not help but brag of my bold behavior in staving off my abductor. My tale did not have quite the effect I intended. My Ma fell into a faint and my Auntie immediately burst into tears.
“It was that beggar woman who has been sitting outside our doorway all the week,” Nancy sobbed.
“And outside my school since before Christmas,” I added.
Silence took hold of the three of them as they stared at me.
“Your school? Are you quite sure?” Pa asked sternly.
I nodded. “She is there most every day, selling flowers.”
My Ma started her weeping again, and I was very quickly sorry that I had not listened to my Aunt.
“To your room, Eddy,” my Pa commanded.
“But Pa, it is not my fault.”
“Now,” he answered.
After a day or two of much hushed discussion and tearful interludes, it was decided that I would go to a new boarding school in the countryside immediately after the holidays.
“You will be safe from the rabble there,” my Ma whispered before kissing my forehead. “I could not bear for any harm to come to you, darling.”
“Nor I you,” I whispered.
And so I was sent away from my dear Ma to keep me safe from all the wretched flower sellers of London town.
The Cooper’s Arms
Rose Street, Covent Garden
12 April 1784
My Rose, my Daisy, my Columbine,
Every flower makes me think of you. I would give you scented violets and pansies to secure your thoughts. I should send you rosemary for remembrance. Pray, love! Have you forgotten me? I wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at, but have had no word from you since Thursday. Am I but a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more? Have your affections flitted elsewhere?
A pair of star cross’d lovers we may be when under your father’s hand. Saturday is the day to make our own fate. Come away with me—to liberty and not to banishment. Your father will forgive you when you return a wife. What father can ever refuse the truest desires of his only daughter?
I await your letter and kisses,
Henry
20 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair
13 April 1784
Henry, my d
arling,
Do you think me so inconstant that I would forget you? My heart is yours only, but think not of Juliet or Desdemona or Ophelia when you think of me! And pray, be constant to one of the Bard’s plays, one about love and with a happy resolution. Consider A Midsummer Night’s Dream—it holds a mirror to some scenes from our story. It is indeed true that the course of true love never did run smooth.
These last few days I have tried to reason with my father, who thinks me a child at sixteen—a child he would marry off to a man twenty years my senior, with one wife already dead and buried. Marriage must be wed to love, but my father would invoke Athenian law given the opportunity. He cares not that I have no feelings for the banker, only for my security and status, both of which he threatens to withhold if I disobey him.
Could you still love me if you were all I had in the world? I await your answer.
Yours,
Elizabeth
The Cooper’s Arms,
Rose Street, Covent Garden
14 April 1784
My Dearest Love,
One play is not enough to reveal my heart to you. If I must borrow every line of Shakespeare to persuade you to be mine, then borrow with abandon I will.
Doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love you and you alone. Your father could indeed find you a better match if marrying happily is wealthily. Who steals my purse steals trash, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed. I have little to offer of material riches, but all that glisters is not gold. Devotion is the jewel of my soul.
If your father must play the role of Egeus, then you must be Hermia and I, Lysander. My childless Aunt in the country is called Gretna Green. Let me take you to visit her. Your father will forgive us in time. No father can abandon his only daughter forever.
Yours and yours alone,
Henry
LONDON, THURSDAY, 2 JULY 1840
It was six o’clock by the time I arrived back at Brown’s, where the desk clerk greeted me with a smile, despite my unfortunate appearance. He acquiesced politely when I requested that a hot bath be drawn for me and brought out a small packet from behind the desk.
“This arrived not long after you left, sir.”
My heart leapt with expectation—a letter from Mr. Dickens! But when I looked more closely, I became doubtful, for surely the packet contained more than one letter. Perhaps Mr. Dickens had entrusted me with a tale—I had, after all, sent him a full collection. Or perhaps he was returning my tales with unfavorable news. It was with these conflicting emotions that I took the packet to my room.
I discovered that it was not from Mr. Dickens at all; in fact, the identity of the sender was a mystery, as no note was included, which made the packet’s contents all the more chilling. Fourteen letters were inside, all antique, separated into two bundles, each tied with a length of green ribbon, which looked to be very new. I untied the first bundle of three letters and instantly recognized the handwriting as that of Elizabeth and Henry Arnold. The letters dated from 1784 and were older than the others in my possession; I read them with numbed stupefaction. I then untied the ribbon that secured the second bundle and glanced at the first few missives: one a peculiar Valentine and the next an account of yet another attack. Nausea overwhelmed me and my vision was so compromised I could barely see the third letter. I was finally released from my torpor by a knock upon my door and the voice of a servant informing me that my bath was ready. I thanked the girl for her timely arrival and scurried to the bathroom, relieved to escape whatever miserable tale the other letters held.
As I eased into the steaming water, confusion misted my mind. If Mrs. Allan—my adoptive father’s widow—were the author of this dreadful hoax, how could she have known I was in London and staying at Brown’s Genteel Inn? The bruises I had sustained in the attack began to throb, so I sank further into the bath, but felt the tip of a boot catch my ribs again. A shadow fell over me and with horror I saw the urchin’s face leaning over mine and felt someone’s hands pressing down upon my chest. My head began to sink and water seeped into my mouth—I thrashed and fought until finally I pulled myself into a sitting position. My gasps echoed through the tiled bathroom as I crouched in the tub, overcome by fear, until the water went cold and brought me back to myself. I realized that if I did not make haste, I would be late to meet Dupin, which would cause him to ask me questions I did not wish to answer.
* * *
Less than half an hour later, Dupin and I were seated by the front window of the Smyrna Coffee House, which looked out onto St. James’s Street. Although my gaze was directed toward the outside world, my mind was distracted by all that had happened to me earlier that day. And yet I did not confide in Dupin, I know not why. Instead I waited to hear what conclusions he had drawn from his further study of the letters. He was smoking a cigar, and it was unclear whether he was looking through the glass or if his gaze was lost within the smoke. He had not said a word since we had greeted each other, but this behavior was not unusual. When Dupin did not wish to speak, he was simply silent. He cared little for the niceties of polite company, but something was different on this occasion. His silence was neither companionable nor distant. There was an edge of hostility to it.
To distract myself from Dupin’s mood and my own fears, I tried to focus on the people jostling along outside. There were women of all kinds: the beauty in her prime; the heavily painted and bejeweled woman of later years presenting a façade of youth; and the child dressed to exceed her age, coquettish and sly. There were men of privilege striding confidently and drunkards in battered clothing moving with an unsteady swagger. An assortment of professions was represented on the street, from artisan to laborer.
“If you observe carefully enough, you will discern various tribes within the crowd,” Dupin said, breaking his silence at last. He pointed with his cigar at a small mob that had entered the coffee house. “Clerks,” he said, “but of a junior order.”
I studied the young gentlemen in tight coats with brightly polished boots and well-oiled hair. This was a kind of game we had often played in Paris—Dupin would make a cryptic observation, and I would try to fathom his deductive processes before he inevitably proved himself correct.
“And these here,” Dupin continued, “upper clerks of established firms.”
Those Dupin had labeled junior clerks had a supercilious manner and their clothing was the very height of fashion eighteen months previously The upper clerks wore more somber clothes: brown or black pantaloons designed for comfort, coats, white cravats, waistcoats and solid shoes.
“I see the differences in the dress of these characters, those being rather too flash and the others far more somber and restrained, but I cannot guess why you presume them to be clerks?”
Dupin exhaled a fog of cigar smoke, adding to the patina on the windows, and waved a finger at the upper clerks. “Notice that these men all have somewhat balding heads. We have discussed their somber clothing. They all wear watches with short gold chains. The façade they strive for is respectability.”
This was undeniable.
“See how their right ears are bent in a curious direction?” he continued.
“Yes?”
“The oddness of their right ears is from habitually holding a pen behind them.”
Dupin’s theory seemed as likely as any other to explain the clerks’ odd ears.
“And this man here is of neither group. Indeed, he is accustomed to working alone.” Dupin indicated a man of dashing appearance who had an expression of excessive frankness. “Notice his voluminous wristband.”
“Pickpocket?”
“Indeed. He is a speedy judge of occupation and temperament. He knows at a glance which character is likely to provide him with the most sport.”
At that moment, we were delivered two large bowls of meat stew with bread. Its fragrance made my belly ache with hunger, and I attacked my dinner with unseemly hast
e. Dupin extinguished his cigar and approached his food with what could only be described as caution. He prodded at the contents of his bowl for a time without partaking.
“I can assure you it is rather good, and I have not expired from the ingredients.”
Dupin acknowledged my words with a nod. He dipped his spoon into the bowl, paused to inspect the stew more closely, then tasted it cautiously. His face was the picture of restrained disgust as he pushed the dish away. After a gulp of wine he returned his gaze to me.
“It seems the Arnolds are no mere figments of Mrs. Allan’s imagination,” he said, lighting another cigar. “They existed. Indeed I have found evidence of their elopement.”
His words caused me to choke on my food. “But how did you come to know that?” I spluttered, when the coughing subsided. A strange brew of emotions flooded through me, with indignation chief amongst them. Had Dupin read the letters left for me? Had he been the one to leave the letters at the desk? I breathed deeply to calm myself and dispel my irrational thoughts.
Dupin retrieved a sheet of paper from his pocket and slid it toward me. “I located this announcement in The Morning Post when I was consulting the Burney Collection at the British Museum today and took the liberty of copying it.”
I unfolded the paper to reveal Dupin’s small, precise handwriting.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Miss Elizabeth Smith, the sixteen-year-old daughter of William Smith, eloped on Saturday the seventeenth of April 1784 from her father’s house in Mayfair to Gretna Green with Mr. Henry Arnold, twenty-three years of age. The particulars are these: the Smith family had an evening of entertainment planned at Vauxhall Gardens, but Miss Smith suffered a dizzy spell and remained at home with her maid to attend to her. Miss Smith’s indisposition proved to be a clever performance, however, and she and her maid spirited themselves away from the house and were met by Mr. Arnold in a post-chaise. They drove off into the night, and it was not discovered until morning that she had gone missing. Mr. Smith was highly angered to learn of his daughter’s elopement. He had opposed the match as Mr. Arnold had been a footman and was lately “of the theatre”, a profession Mr. Smith deemed unsuitable for the husband of his daughter. He had forbidden Miss Smith to have any contact with Mr. Arnold, but she is a young lady of stubborn and impulsive character. The two continued to meet in secret despite her father’s wishes and the plan was concocted to defy him with an elopement to Gretna Green. It is said that Mr. Smith remains highly piqued with his daughter’s actions and it is uncertain whether he will recognise her impetuous marriage.
Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster Page 6