The Specimen

by Martha Lea

  There was something about his unspoken experience which left her feeling even more intimidated now that she was alone with him. And she did not want to admit that Vincent had been to see her. She looked over her shoulder towards the open door. There was nothing about the man to suggest that he was capable of malingering. He was whistling a tune. Though perhaps malingerers whistled: she did not know. Something complicated, and too high for his mouth and tongue to register. Perhaps it was part of an aria from an opera; and a giggle rose uncontrollably in her throat as she recalled the amateur operatic ladies’ performance. She was reminded suddenly of the surprise she had felt, a long time past, it seemed now, when she had learned that female voices could break. And the remembered surprise could not be dissociated from the look of bewilderment on her mother’s face. Gwen let her mother’s face slide away. She had not said yesterday to Vincent that her mother would have revelled in her daughter’s desire to travel; nor had she said that her mother would have made it impossible to leave Euphemia behind. She told herself Euphemia would never have come with her, even had she been asked. Had she been different.

  She would have liked to ask Gus Pemberton things that she had not thought to ask Captain Swithin. But, in between sips of coffee, black and punchingly bitter, she was still paralysed by this shyness. He smiled at her. Gwen consumed her breakfast in a state of extreme hunger. It was difficult not to appear ravenous as she bit into the crisp toast and salty bacon. He squeezed oranges over a greenish glass tumbler on the table. He pushed it over to her. “Mind the pips, you can spit them out onto your plate.” Gwen gulped the juice, swallowing the pips.

  He said, “I admire your tenacity.”

  She laughed, dispossessed finally of some of her shyness. “For not spitting?”

  “For not staying in England; for following your husband in his work. And, I may say, for your reputation. It precedes you, Mrs Scales.” Gwen blanched a little at the connection of Edward to work. It had not occurred to her that what he was doing was associated with the word. A vocation. “Of course,” he continued, mistaking her discomfort for something else, “it is yours as much as his. I have known couples whose combined efforts would have amounted to nothing without the female part of the equation.”

  “In our case that remains to be seen.”

  “Forgive me, that did not sound as I intended it. I don’t mean to cast any doubt over your husband’s own tenacity. But do not take this the wrong way. As amateurs you have set out on an equal footing. You have an enquiring and, I believe, determined character, Mrs Scales, that I know already. And talented as you are with the paint-box, I cannot imagine that your part of the venture will ultimately be restricted to such.”

  “Mr Pemberton, may I ask you a personal question?”

  Gus leaned back in his chair, and crossed his ankle over his knee.

  “Have you ever had malaria?” She watched his face for a sign.

  He uncrossed his ankle and reached for the coffee pot. “Fortunately, not for a long time. You mustn’t worry about contracting it here, if that is what the question is about.”

  She watched his hands and then met his gaze. “It wasn’t.”

  “I was wondering if you might mention the rather famous tussle over your microscope.”

  “Famous?” Gwen was at once mortified and confused.

  “Oh, perhaps not famous—you mustn’t worry about it. You are held in very high regard here, you know, for standing your ground. Marcus Frome was never an easy person to get along with.”

  “You know him?”

  He paused. “Ah . . . not as such. I don’t think anyone could ever have known him, really.”

  “Well, I am glad that he went back to England.”

  “Mrs Scales, did your husband not tell you? I’m sorry to have brought it up. I thought you knew.”

  “Knew about what?”

  “Marcus Frome went missing from the ship. No one can be sure of the precise point of the voyage, but, two weeks out, some other passenger was in need of a doctor and—he simply wasn’t to be found.”

  Gwen gazed at Gus Pemberton in mute disbelief. It seemed too ridiculous. She’d thought of him sometimes, and wondered if he really had been as desperate as he had seemed. “Mr Pemberton, I’m—thank you for telling me.” Gwen sat in stunned silence for a moment.

  “I came with the news on Old Year’s Night,” he said gently. “I had thought that your husband would have wanted to tell you as soon as possible.”

  Gwen recalled the excuse Mr Pemberton had used to get Edward to go outside. Fumigating the amphibians.

  “A lot of news escapes my attention, Mr Pemberton. The Times frequently has sections missing before it comes to me.”

  “That’s—regrettable.”

  “I can’t believe that a man would do such a thing over—such a dreadful thing to do, Mr Pemberton, over a microscope of all objects.”

  “Please, you must not think for a minute, Mrs Scales, that it was for want of a microscope that the man threw himself overboard.”

  “Well, whatever am I to suppose? He made it very clear that he believed—”

  “What Marcus Frome believed and what was fact did not always sit harmoniously; you must not dwell on it.”

  “I can’t help but dwell on it. Mr Frome was convinced that he was on the point of a momentous discovery.”

  “Suppose then, that he had been. Giving him your microscope would not have helped him. He would have needed to borrow everything you have, and more.” He leaned forward on the edge of his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. “And, frankly, Mrs Scales, he was not a lucky man. Do set your mind at ease.”

  She wanted to change the subject. “I have been —” she said, her voice rising. “I was led to believe that you were very ill.”

  Gus threw himself back into his chair, “Ach, this is about Vincent. I knew he had been to see you yesterday. I think you came into town to find me?”

  Gwen shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps I did.”

  “Whatever he has told you, you mustn’t feel let down by his inconsistencies. He means well, I can assure you of that.”

  “You are not hurt that he has lied about you.”

  “He meant no harm by it. But I feel I must be straight with you. He and I have come to blows over the direction of our own travels. We have agreed to go our separate ways.”

  “Then why did he not tell me that?”

  “It may have been my fault. I told him to say what he liked about me. That he only cites me as being ill is reassuring.”

  “Your disagreement was serious.”

  “In the light of day, on a morning such as this, it would sound petty in the retelling.”

  Gwen was surprised that a man like Gus Pemberton would admit to describing a disagreement like that. His openness pulled her in. “I feel deceived. I feel now that I have spent hours talking to an actor.”

  “Well, we are all actors, Mrs Scales—whether we think it or not. Even as our truest selves, even when alone with our thoughts.” Gus Pemberton took up a piece of rind and nibbled off a small portion. He played it around his mouth for a while. Gwen waited. After some time, he said, “In essence, it was about our authority, as outsiders, to disregard boundaries. I, I should say no more about it.” His smile was apologetic.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Ach, no need to be.” Gus Pemberton paused. Then, “He and I were not simply exploring. We were prospecting. Diamonds, gold. That is our business. Partnerships like ours, they come to blows sooner or later.” His tone was light. “It is no great tragedy.”

  “What will you do now?” Gwen felt small in the light of his candid speech. A man can be more than one thing if he chooses, she thought. He does not have to define himself by his means of survival.

  Gus said, “I am undecided. There is some property in Scotland, which I must dispose of, and then, after a suitable period, perhaps take my stick to pastures new. Maybe New Zealand.”

  “And what do you think Mr Co
yne will do, without you to guide him?”

  Gus Pemberton hesitated. “I think he should go back, precarious as times are. Perhaps in twelve or eighteen months he will be ready to return if he wishes.”

  “Mr Pemberton,” she said.

  “Gus, please. Call me Gus, won’t you?”

  “Gus. Mr Coyne has said that he will help me find someone.”

  “Indeed, he has.”

  “I don’t know how to put it, but I don’t wish to find anyone. And I don’t quite understand how.”

  “How?”

  “I have never mentioned anything about finding any person, ever, to anyone at all. Not a soul. And as far as I know, neither has Edward. And so—”

  “He’s talked to me, on occasions, at great length about this. I have understood that it has been widely known.”

  Gwen’s hands fluttered at her throat and then fell back down to twist in her lap. “Mr Pemberton, Gus. If I tell you something, I believe you will preserve the integrity of that thing. I don’t know you at all, but I have to tell you that this person, the search, is just a fabrication. No one needs to find her. In fact, I don’t believe she even exists. At least, not in the temporal world.”

  “I can see that it upsets you. Would you rather not speak about it?”

  “I merely wanted one other person to know.” She searched his face for any glimmer of amusement. There was none. “Gus, how could Mr Coyne possibly have come to believe anything so ridiculous and so specific?”

  “That, I can’t pretend to know the answer to.”

  “He is your companion. You must know each other very well.”

  “Mrs Scales, please understand. I will keep this to myself, I fully comprehend your anxiety—but Vincent, he . . . Look, we met, quite by chance, some few years back in Australia, and I took him on. He had a letter of recommendation from a fellow I used to know. We travelled, prospecting, and then later here, in Brazil and after, we parted ways—I had thought for good—until we met again, quite by chance in the spring of ’59 and—it really isn’t important. What is important is that Vincent will be leaving again, quite soon, and so you will have no need to bother about anything but your work.”

  His face was open, eager for her to be appeased. He leaned towards her and took her hand. His speech became low, a whisper. “Don’t let him travel with you, under any circumstances. Say nothing; he is here. I saw his shadow.” Before she could say anything, Gus had planted a kiss on her lips and pulled her towards him. She resisted him as she felt her big belly making contact with his body, but he made her stand up, still firmly connected by the kiss and then ushered her into his small sleeping quarters where he closed the door behind them.

  “Forgive, please forgive me, Mrs Scales. I didn’t have time to think,” he whispered.

  “Will he go away now?”

  “Yes, I think so. We’ll let him have a few moments.” They looked at each other. Gwen tried not to notice that Gus Pemberton favoured a firm bed over a hammock or that the impression from his head was still left in the pillow.

  Leaving Gus Pemberton, Gwen wondered how much influence he held over Vincent Coyne. What kind of influence was it that allowed one man to send another back home? Despite everything, and in spite of herself, she still liked Vincent. Or was it just that she liked him to speak to her. His attention. To look at him, he was so beautiful; that he was mad did not always seem to matter. Conversation with Edward was not stimulating, only irritating. In conversation with both Mr Coyne and Mr Pemberton they had both treated her as if her opinion mattered, as Edward had once done.

  The rain came down so forcefully in the afternoon that each drop seemed to have its own precise destination. The first drops fell on the leaves like fleas against newsprint gathering in numbers exponentially, swelling rapidly to a fully liquid sound.

  Gwen felt that the weather’s exactness was sharpening her senses; she let herself believe this for a while and revelled in her indulgence. What is there to stop me? she thought. Who is there to accuse me, if I never speak of it? The rain plastered her hair to her skull, and she felt the drops mapping its surface, washing all trace of Gus Pemberton from her skin.

  During the night she woke and thought that Gus Pemberton was beside her, somehow, in her hammock. She put her hand out into the dark of the room; a pair of frogs called to each other. She heard the soft snoring of Maria in the next room and closed her eyes again. But the image of Gus Pemberton was still in her mind. His words, the pattern of his speech, the touch of his hand on her sleeve.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs Scales. I’d never ask you to compromise your integrity, but I’d like to let you have my address. Please, you must write to me, tell me how things progress, regarding everything.”

  “I will.”

  She shifted in her hammock, smiling to herself that she would be able to write to Gus Pemberton and ask him to explain properly the things he had told her about Marcus Frome and the mosquitoes, and his own thoughts about how it might have been connected to Frome’s research—his great discovery. She relaxed back into a sleepy state, but then suddenly became wide awake again. Gus Pemberton had not given her his address at all, not asked her to write to him. And they had not, she realised now, talked in any detail about Marcus Frome’s mosquitoes.

  Chapter XXXVII

  THE TIMES, Thursday, October 4, 1866.

  MURDER TRIAL AT THE OLD BAILEY.

  HUSBAND of the prisoner Mrs Pemberton today gave evidence in the form of a statement read out to the court. The body of the statement was in effect heavily redacted by repeated objections from the Prosecution, all of which were upheld. Being frustrated in his attempts to read out Mr Pemberton’s account of his involvement in the case as a witness, Mr Shanks called Mr Pemberton himself, to the great surprise of the court.

  Mr Pemberton said, “I wish to make it known to the Jury that important information pertaining to this case has been omitted from the evidence so far submitted or allowed by this court. As the first person to enter the room where Mr Scales’ body was found, I can tell you, Gentlemen, that it was not an ordinary scene, if any scene of supposed murder may be called ordinary. What Detective Sergeant Gray and Doctor Jacobs failed to communicate to both the inquest and this court I shall now divulge.”

  Mr Pemberton went on to say that upon turning over the corpse, all three men noted that certain mutilations had been done but that there was no evidence of profuse bleeding, which, Mr Pemberton surmised, indicated that such mutilations had been carried out either post mortem or in some other part of the house at the time of, or close to, the time of death. Mr Pemberton went on to state that he spent some time searching the house for signs of such mutilation having occurred, and that although he found no direct clue, he did notice that the large table in the kitchen had been recently scrubbed clean, and that a copper full of articles of clothing was in the process of being boiled. Mr Probart for the Prosecution made objection to the nature of Mr Pemberton’s evidence, but the Judge overruled, and Mr Pemberton was permitted to continue. He said, “My wife’s clothing from the previous day had not yet been laundered, as I found to my relief when I returned home. Her clothes had not a single sign of blood spatters on them anywhere; this fact will be corroborated by my servants whose attention I called to this fact in a discreet manner. Therefore, I must ask the question of all assembled here: that perhaps some other person was responsible for those mutilations. Some other person whose motives, however obscure to us now, may soon become clear. I put it to the court that whomsoever perpetrated this ghastly detail upon the body of the unfortunate Mr Scales was also the perpetrator of his murder.

  “I might add further details of the general scene, if I might, of the room in that property. There was, attached to the back of the door in that room, a substantial hook, the screw of which being very long protruded an eighth of an inch to the other side of the door. The hook was a crude one, and its presence there was incongruous with the rest of the furnishings. On close inspection I found traces
of fresh sawdust on panel beadings directly below its point of entry. I made several and exhaustive notes on everything I witnessed in that house the same day, which I shall be happy to submit to the Jury for their considered inspection. I feel that such details are pertinent to this case and that without them no true conclusion can be made.”

  Mr Justice Linden allowed that such a diary may be submitted in its entirety with the redacted statement for the Jury to consider, with full copies to himself and to the Prosecution.

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Gwen lit a lamp and paced the rooms in her slippers and then kicked them off. Marcus Frome had actually thrown himself overboard. But why? Why am I anxious about it, when it is already done? The man has been dead for months. I am the last to know about it, when I—. But he was an obnoxious toad of a man, she reminded herself, and did not deserve my microscope, not at any price; even if he had been able to pay. But, she asked herself now, would I have let him take my microscope if I had known that he would do such a stupid thing. Was it stupid, though? How much courage does it take to throw yourself over the side of the ship?

  Stop it, she told herself. But she kept running over the things Gus Pemberton had said and realised that he had been trying to allay any doubts she may have had about her own part in Frome’s final act.

  As dawn broke she got back into her hammock, wild through want of sleep, and she did sleep for a while.

  Fitful on waking, she tried to work but found herself dull-fingered. She made errors which ruined whole pieces, and had to give in. I can’t go and visit him again, she thought.