by Martha Lea
“Now, my dear, what say you to this? You have seen my work. You have seen how I have the ability to transform you into a wondrous creature. Let me do more. Allow me to continue. And if your modesty is likely to be offended I will practise my art on the rest of your body with a blindfold. You may even tie it to my eyes yourself.”
I felt my skin ripple in horrific anticipation and yet I knew that I would not be able to leave this man until I had allowed him to do what he proposed. I must expose my naked body in all the truth of its condition in order to satisfy this man’s unfathomable desire to swipe his blade over my belly and breasts, over my arms and legs, even, as I was to discover that night, down to the hairs which grow on my toes. He was not a man to be dissuaded once he had set his mind on something. I cowered at the thought of this man thinking of me in such a way; not for a fleeting moment, something which might spark before the eyes and then be dismissed out of hand, but each day. Planning, mixing his special oil. Well, Isobel, what would you have done, if you had been so unlucky as to have been me?
There was nothing I could say.
As I lay there, Isobel, I found myself slipping into a trance, being conscious only of the sensation of those hands moving the blade across my skin; the quick, sure rub of his thumb where the hair had been removed and then moving on again, working around my arm in a spiral pattern from my shoulder down to my wrist. He wiped my arm slowly when he was satisfied that he had been thorough, and then embarked upon the right arm, after covering my left side. At this moment, Mr Tench spoke to me. “Are you well enough, my dear? Do you feel the air too cold? I must keep you warm, you see, for, if not, your skin will raise bumps like a plucked goose and I will not be able to continue.”
In fact, I was roasting under the cape and the towelling. It was one of those nights when the air never finds its coolness, and there is no relief from the smothering atmosphere. I felt trickles of perspiration running down my sides, and I knew that my underarms were beginning to let loose the odour of stale sweat. But he was already employed in removing all the hair from under my arms.
You are blonde, Isobel. I wonder if you can sympathise at all with the story I am relating to you. You perhaps have used a weak solution of arsenic to make your underarms silky smooth, ready for your evening gown. Perhaps you have even used it on your long, slender legs. There is nothing I shall not tell you Isobel.
Your husband once told me that he liked the sensation of going from one extreme to the other. So, I assumed, as I still do, that your own body is as naturally hairless as mine is naturally covered in (the words of your husband) “a thick luxurious mane, a sumptuous, luscious, glossy fur”. He would come to me after those tortured nights with you, in your enormous, bug-free bedroom. He would leave your house while your servants were sleeping, perhaps one boy still awake, polishing your husband’s riding boots. He would carry his shoes and his clothes down the hall and go into his room to change into different clothes.
Afterwards, he would wash himself carefully with his own soap and his own washing cloth, which he kept in his doctor’s bag along with the morphine and the smelling salts and the callipers and the glass suction cups and the jars of leeches and the speculum and the tweezers and all the other instruments of his trade which he was to abandon in favour of rocks and fossilised forms. But that was to come.
When Mr Tench came to that place between my legs he said, “This is a place where a woman should have hair aplenty. This is the place I vow I shall never ever touch with my razor.” And he kept his promise. Do I shock you with these words, Isobel?
He smothered my entire body in the almond oil, the scent of which was overpowering now. Its cumulative effect and the lack of sleep made me very tired. I had not dared to fall asleep before, but now all I wanted to do was curl up and let myself fall into a deep and intense slumber. I felt I could sleep for a whole day and not feel refreshed on waking. But the man had to be satisfied. He worked his hands over my shaven body. His hands moved over the lubricated surface of my body in swirls and he began to knead my flesh like you must if you have suffered a cramp. His hands pummelled my body; my muscles at first felt soothed by it, but as his hands continued their journey over my newly revealed form it became more and more uncomfortable. And as the discomfort turned into something more sinister, Abalone Wilson Tench began to groan again. He squeezed and kneaded my skin and flesh as though it was dough on a baker’s table. He began to push his weight into my shoulders. He lingered so long over this that he needed to apply more of the almond oil to my skin. The groans became longer and longer, more noisy and abandoned. The room was awash with his feral grunting and I thought that I would faint from the pain, which had turned into such an agony that I barely knew that I was still alive. He began to slap my body; lightly at first, and only with each new application of oil. I felt the palms of his hands burning into my unprotected skin and still I kept silent.
He stopped abruptly.
My body was sore. My muscles protested as I slowly moved away from Mr Tench. With my back to him, began to dress myself, pulling on my stockings and my underclothes which clung to my bare skin. As I dressed, I listened to the room. I could not tell where he had gone. I had not been aware of his leaving the room. I did not try to look about me. I kept my eyes from straying into the mirror, and attended to the rest of my clothes. The fabric felt unfamiliar on my skin. As the daylight began to filter through the blinds, and the noises of the streets outside became more lively, what had happened to me seemed to become unreal. I allowed myself to look again in the mirror to fix up my bonnet, which was limp and bedraggled. I avoided my gaze, concentrating only on the business of hiding my unruly hair under the bonnet as well as I could. There was a hairbrush, silver-backed, right by my hand, but I did not like to pick it up. I did not want to touch anything connected with Abalone Wilson Tench. Whilst I looked in the mirror and tied the ribbons under my chin, my hands knowing the form but being surprised, all the time I did this I let my eyes dart about the room behind me. As my body became used to its new state, in all its hurt, in all its injury and its shaven state I noticed that I was hungry again. I looked at the door leading to the street. People’s shadows flitted past under the small gap where the blind on the door did not reach. I studied the door for some minutes, remaining with my back to the rest of the room, unable yet to discover by listening whether I had been abandoned, even if only temporarily. My heart beat hard. I had only to walk three paces and turn the key, open the door and step out onto the street. I hesitated, my head in a frenzy of indecision before I felt my hands fumbling with the key, the door swinging open and my feet on the pavement outside. I pulled the door shut, leaving Abalone Wilson Tench inside, neither looking to see if he watched me depart nor waiting to wonder whether he might call me back or try to haul me back into his shop.
The sunlight was bright in my eyes. The stench of the night still hung on the air but it was as a sweet reality to me, then. I did not care to smell anything properly perfumed. I started walking, trying to find my way by keeping the sun on my right. My slippers had worn right through before I found a cab.
And so, as I sat in my room, scrubbing my skin which plagued me with the discomfort of the re-emergence of my hair, I thought of myself as a ghost who was no ghost. And yet unremarkable, Isobel. You will know this feeling. You, too, have harboured the desire to stare and take in your fill. I spent a long night contemplating my future, and with the first light on a chilly September morning I knew that I would have to turn to Leicester Square, not as a sightseer, but to investigate the place as a means to my survival. So, Isobel, I come to the question to which I already have the answer; and it is not so out of the ordinary that one might be shocked. Yes, if I were to ask you, you would admit, perhaps after a little hesitation that you believe that the spirits of the deceased can manifest themselves in this world. I have not been entirely honest with you.
How did you feel when you faced the mirror image of your husband’s newest mistress? You went there to
Carrick House in search of your dead children, and you sat in the parlour, in its darkened state, waiting for Euphemia Carrick to drift into her trance. What were you hoping to see? What were you thinking? I could have told you that Euphemia was nothing like her sister. That you would not find Gwen. For what is the mirror image but the opposite of that object which you seek?
How can I know these things, if I was never there to see them myself? How can I know that Euphemia Carrick spoke in many tongues—incomprehensible gibberish which the newly bereaved allowed themselves to believe were the tangled thoughts and messages of those struggling to contact them from the other side.
And you fainted, Isobel. The spell worked on you. No bells tinkling, no table rattling, no pointer on a board twirling magnetically, no glass tumbler of water tipping over. No gifts dropped into your lap from the other side. Only Euphemia, Gwen’s sister, babbling and burbling like the babies you once held in your arms whose lives were the briefest of flames, their sickliness only the fault of your loneliness.
You were never your husband’s wife, Isobel, and neither I. The impossibility of perfection festers and cripples his mind. You hoped in the end that your presence at the table would be enough to stay the cycle of disaster. But, faced with those sisters, your efforts came adrift. Let a different wind fill your sails, Isobel, as you make that final journey. Not an abrupt end for you, Isobel. I cannot imagine that you would follow the cowardice of your closest friend, Dr Charles Jeffreye.
Forgive me, Isobel, for I get ahead of myself.
Should I go straight to the part now where I met your husband? Shall I describe what he did, or would that be too distasteful?
He came to Saville House one evening. The place was thick with tobacco smoke. People were leaving. It had been my first week there as the Mysterious Lady, though there was not much mysterious about me it seemed—other than whether or not it was me singing and whether or not I was a lady at all.
That night, I would not consent to see him. He gave me his card, or rather he sent it up to me, telling me that he was an admirer. I did not want to see another admirer. I fancied there was another Abalone Wilson Tench down at the grand entrance to that Den of Iniquity. No. That night, I took the advice of a little man called Fergus Harris. I think the name may be familiar to you, if you are the sort of woman who keeps track of her servants’ names. Certainly, you will have remarked him; his size set him apart. I liked him instantly. He was direct; the only person in that stinking, louse-infested room who had come to listen to my singing. My voice captivated him, and he was persistent. I did not think that he would prove very troublesome if I invited him to dine with me—people like us, we cannot stand on ceremony, we must behave all as equals and not simper behind Japanese silk fans and parasols. I do not believe in a second sense; I never have thought that one human being may read the mind or thoughts of another, but there was something uncanny about that evening. A prickle shivered down my neck when I spoke to Mr Fergus Harris. It was I for once who felt that I must not let another out of my sight—and it was invigorating. I was exhausted after my long performance, but a new energy came over me.
Fergus Harris was very deferential towards me, though it soon became clear that his personality would have fit inside a body as large as Abalone Wilson Tench’s. And so he became my eyes and ears in your house. When you finally became aware of his talents you sent him on his way to Carrick House. You were able to persuade him with a bigger purse and the promise of cleaner air; an easier life but a more demanding role. He took the challenge, he took it to his heart because he had something to prove and because he enjoyed the irony. He has proven his weight, Isobel, but do not forget that his loyalties will change with the prospect of better weather. His ambition is no brother to duty and the rewards for his endeavours cannot be measured in guineas.
Chapter XLII
Observations.
Pará, Brazil. 1861/1862.
Underneath, she was floating.
Her eyes followed the things around her before her brain had a chance to catch up. She managed, in ways which were not too strange, to look after her baby.
I didn’t come all this way, she heard herself thinking over and over, just to be his unkissed mistress, to have a child, hidden away in the jungle under lies, swaddled in deceit. To think about Gus Pemberton was too painful and so she tried not to.
On the surface, she was still.
She watched her baby, whose name was Augusta—yes, she remembered that, though other facts were difficult to retain. She watched Augusta watching her with unfocused eyes.
First, the baby was like a grub; pale, and startlingly basic in her needs. Gwen learned how to anticipate the bodily functions of the grub, the baby, Augusta. There were no mountains of soiled napkins to launder or send away for laundering. Maria taught her things; and there was a small dog which came to live in the house and which removed mishaps from the floor.
But this creature was not interesting to Gwen. She never called the dog by its name or petted it in any way. Sometimes, Gwen saw Edward going through her things. He would stand for an hour, perhaps more, unaware that she was watching him read the notes she had made alongside the work she’d so far put into her sketchbooks. Occasionally, Edward would shuffle into his own room with her sketchbook in his hand and then write things down in his own notebooks while referring to hers. She didn’t know whether he was transcribing or what he was doing; it was curious behaviour to her and only mildly interesting.
Gwen was aware that she did not speak. When he was out of the house, Edward couldn’t hear her whispering to Maria.
The grub learned to roll over. The baby smiled. The baby became mobile. Augusta rolled and rolled across surfaces until she came to an obstacle and then looked about her, unable to roll back the other way.
By the time Baby Augusta had learned to crawl, and dribbled and began to eat plain things, like bananas and rice, Gwen had read the book six times.
There must be a hidden message, she thought, and I have to find that message, and understand it. But all there was to understand was that she could not understand him.
There are certain books, Gwen wrote feverishly, which are all well and good for the lay-person vaguely interested, one rainy afternoon, in finding out about the secrets a microscope might offer. But they do not illustrate properly, or investigate fully, or show such possible investigations that they might, and which I think that they ought. By which I mean that the secrets of the microscope will remain secrets largely to the entire population of the civilised world, other than those with the time, means and inclination to investigate for themselves. This cannot be right. I do not feel that it is proper . . .
My own purpose, then, is to create a kind of Atlas of the Insect World.
How frustrating, it is, as I know through my own experience, to see, “a fly leg” illustrated, for example, in amongst other, unrelated bits taken from other creatures and laid out prettily, without being able to ascertain from which fly the leg came and which leg it was which happened to be illustrated in isolation.
It is my opinion, which I am free to expound in the privacy of this journal, that there should be available to any adult person or intelligent and inquisitive child, the kind of Atlas that I mean to create. Moreover, in creating such an Atlas it should, in part, remove the need for the intelligent and inquisitive child (or adult) to plunder nature so unnecesarily, and with such careless attitude in the pursuit of elementary scientific enquiry and knowledge.
Of course, I could never speak of this to anyone. On the surface, my idea is to produce something which is instructive, as well as being a work of Art. I wish to make my work appealing to both the scientist and the art lover.
I think this Atlas might take up the rest of my days here. I cannot continue to make lovely representations of insects set in their ranks and be satisfied.
We cannot understand the truth of a creature and its place in nature, through the singular fact of its carcass.
And s
o I wish to say: let us be done with this obsession for collecting variations in a specimen to the last available insect, to be pored over by but a few and left forevermore to the darkness of the cabinet. (Is this Science? No, it is Vanity.) Let us try to understand Nature in a way that does not deplete Her, or ravage Her, or decimate Her. Because I think that this attitude which leads a man to take as much as he can, without thinking with due care for the result of his actions, will lead that man to no good purpose, and ultimately waste his whole life in the pursuit of false knowledge. I do not mean that Darwin’s idea is false; I mean that for others to pursue what he has already proved is stupid. We do not need to replicate his work; we need to find other ways if we are to progress. I cannot condone wholesale capture in the name of vanity.
I have thought very much on the ways of the ants here. They are everywhere and there are many different species. We have had to protect our equipment and our food against the attentions of these enterprising insects from the outset, and must always be vigilant against their ingenuity.
Recently, I have been trying out an experiment involving the enticing of a small colony into a large specimen jar which I had prepared. After a frustrating start, I discovered that the ants will only begin anew where there is a Queen to serve, and that the colony is not merely a collection of individuals, but a collective; an organism made up of other organisms, with their beating heart, their Queen, at the centre. I now have a system of cords leading in and out of the jar, which are suspended by treated cords from the ceiling. I have taken the extra precaution of standing the specimen jar in a large bowl of water.
The most marvellous thing that I have found is that these leaf-cutting ants, which we had both assumed were consuming the leaves, are not. A kind of midden heap is prepared by the ants, and it is the resulting flungus growing there on the leaf cuttings which the ants eat.