by Martha Lea
“Of course, he did,” said Hettie. Her face had not lost the ashen complexion it had assumed.
“I want to take a passage as soon as possible.”
“Trust everything to me,” Tristan said. “I’ll find you a good ship.”
Edward valued Tristan Grindlock’s blunt empathy, and the softness with which he had listened to Edward’s guilt-ridden ramblings. But now he knew he was making Hettie and Tristan uncomfortable. In their position, he might have felt the same. A mammoth obligation surely, to console a man who has lost his wife and only child when one was literally surrounded, overrun with one’s own progeny. The pressure of so many children at such close proximity did not disturb Edward. They were not Augusta.
He tried to project himself a few months forward, sitting at home, attempting to make sense of his collections. But he could not even picture which home that might have been.
“Regret,” Tristan Grindlock broke into his thoughts, and yet again Edward was grateful. They were standing together watching Edward’s few belongings being ferried over the water to the ship. “Regret. There is no point to it, no usefulness to be had from it. If you give in to it, it’ll drain you till there is barely any part of you not smudged by it. But, I tell you this for nothing, I’d hop on that boat with you in a trice.”
“Your kindness has been immeasurable, but I couldn’t let you part with your family on my account.”
Edward smiled at Tristan Grindlock weakly and briefly. They were standing on almost exactly the same spot where he had greeted Edward so effusively. Edward caught something odd in the man’s eyes.
Tristan patted Edward’s shoulder. “There’s no need to worry. I wouldn’t burden you like that.” His hand stayed on Edward’s shoulder, and neither man said anything more as the time came for Edward to be taken across the water. The pressure of Tristan’s hand on Edward felt immense.
Edward sat facing away from the steamer. He knew the sunlight glinting off the water into his eyes would make his smile seem grim. Tristan Grindlock held up a hand, half salute and half farewell, before he turned and walked away. Edward promised himself that he would write to the man, as soon as he felt able, on his return to England.
Part III
Chapter XLVIII
THE TIMES, Friday, October 5, 1866.
MURDER TRIAL AT THE OLD BAILEY.
EXTRAORDINARY scenes were witnessed at the Central Criminal Court today as the Prosecution called for Miss Natalia Jaspur to give evidence. Miss Jaspur, once notorious for her appearance alone, is well known these days for her vocal virtuosity as a soprano, having appeared in a number of operatic performances last season and due to do so again this year.
Mr Probart: “Did you know Mr Edward Osbert Scales, Miss Jaspur?”
A: “I did know him. I met him eleven years ago, when my life was hard. Life was difficult for me then. I took my living however I could. Mr Scales was trying to be a doctor. I let him make observations of me. This led to many meetings with Mr Scales which grew sentimental, and eventually an attachment was formed between myself and Mr Scales. However, he was married, and his wife, a very beautiful creature, hated me, and I saw him no more.”
Q: “Did the prisoner know of your former attachment to Mr Scales?”
A: “I do not know.”
Q: “Were you aware, Miss Jaspur, that a novel had been written about you, in which details of your affair with Mr Scales were laid out?”
A: “I do not pay attention to rumours, though to be quite correct, I do not believe Mr Scales’ name was ever mentioned.”
Q: “But you freely admit that you had an affair with Mr Scales which lasted—how long did it last, Miss Jaspur?”
A: “I saw him last seven years ago.”
Q: “Two years, you say?”
A: “Simple subtraction suggests it.”
Mr Probart then thanked his witness before going on to say that the so-called false allegations made against Mr Scales in the books Mrs Pemberton had been so keen to locate and eradicate were, in fact, true, and that, therefore, Mrs Pemberton was well versed in calling the truth a lie and then attempting to cover up the truth with more falseness.
Chapter XLIX
London. February, 1864.
On the ship to England, Edward had taken a grim pleasure in the special violence of his sickness. His berth had a bucket, which he slopped out only once a day. He took his meals in his cabin and never once took a turn on deck.
In the first days back, the extreme change in temperature, which had begun on the voyage, settled into his head. The cold winter air seemed to compress his skull as he walked and slipped on the frozen shit and mud on the streets. He had arrived back in England in the most shabby state imaginable, but he had not realised this until he was among his own countrymen again. He affected strangers in a different way. He had assumed it was because of his own misery—that others did not want to be infected with it—but catching sight of himself in the glazed shop-fronts he understood that it was because he looked like a vagrant. His face was shaggy with untamed beard, and framed with a mass of unkempt, dirty hair. His shoes were coming apart again because the string which had held them together had rotted and worn away. His bare toes were visible with every step he took. His clothes hung from him. He passed his nights in a cheap hotel, and the company of bed bugs had kept him from sleeping. There was something so vile about the bugs in the hotel bed, which burrowed into his consciousness as well as his skin; they were far worse than any of the leeches, ticks, biting flies or mosquitoes they had endured in Brazil. The thought of these bugs biting strangers in that same bed drove him out, and Edward finally returned to his own house. Scratching his bug bites as he looked for a cab, Edward saw a shimmering black edge to everything in his path, and everything else around him. And as the wind bit his face and gnawed at his exposed feet and gloveless hands, he was aware of an aperture opening in his torso, which grew with every step and let in the cold air. Fist-sized to begin with, now as he neared the rank of cabs it felt large enough to admit a small dog. He was embarrassed at this, and hoped that the driver would not say anything about it. The black line around the edges of the man fizzed, and as Edward saw the frightening bulk of the horse gush its steamy piss onto the ground, simultaneously dropping its manure, he wanted to dive under it, make it rear up and bring its hooves down on his head, and break his spine. But the thought of what miscalculation might entail stopped him. Edward got into the cab. As soon as they moved off, Edward fell asleep, the dullness of his thoughts being composed of nothing more or less than the knowledge that he would never be able to put his name next to anything definite except the death of Augusta and Gwen.
Many hours later, in his own old and unfamiliar bed the hole in his torso had gone, but the black lines remained. He took himself to a barber as soon as he could.
He knew that a letter would never do, but he still composed them with the thought that he could pull it off, and not have to face her. But the more he left it, the worse he knew it would be when he finally did manage to get down to the business of breaking the news. The bag containing the few things he had rescued from the wreckage of the day he had lost them lay untouched. He took it with him everywhere; he could not let the bag out of his sight, because although he had not the courage yet to look inside, it had slowly begun to dawn on him that Gwen’s notebooks contained his only chance of gaining some measure of scientific celebrity. Edward packed an old overnight bag, musty from the back of a wardrobe. He took a cab to the bank and then to the train station, where he bought a third-class ticket to Falmouth. It would not do for this journey to be remotely pleasant.
Chapter L
Helford Vicarage, Cornwall. February, 1864.
“You feel that the air around her is filled with an essence that, once it has touched you, some small part of you, will forever be there to determine the course your life will veer down.” Edward glanced at Reverend George Sparsholt who in turn repressed the urge to look at his pocket watch. “You hav
e to imagine her as you would a large gilded moth under close scrutiny. The closer you get, the less of the initial attraction you see, yet still she pulls you in, inviting you to observe every scale. Under the microscope, the lustre disappears and yet you seek the brilliance that you know is there. She holds an illusion you must step back to appreciate, all the while longing to bring her up close to your face.”
Reverend Sparsholt studied his cuticles; stiff and bored, he was not really paying attention to what Edward said. What little he had heard, he had not understood at all. When he spoke, he was alarmed at his own volume; it was almost a bark. “Moths! What wonderful creatures they are. I never tire of watching the hawk moths on the verbena just outside the study during the summer months.” He took a swig of sherry and sloshed it between the gap in his front teeth before swallowing it. He knew it was not good for his teeth but he could not help himself in the company of this man. It was nervousness, and he stuttered a little. “In the late hours of a July evening, one can be induced into something almost resembling a trance; I have never yet been moved to still one, however. This may seem contradictory to a scientist like yourself, but I always feel that to stop one (he did not like to say “kill”) would somehow diminish it, would remove some of the magic of our Creator’s imagination. That is not to say I disparage your work in the least, I merely wish to say—”
Edward interrupted. “Reverend Sparsholt, I have managed to contrive a mess—an unintentional mess which I don’t know how to untangle.”
“That is hardly surprising, but you must not be disheartened. You must disentwine yourself in order that you may step back and view the situation from a more dispassionate standpoint, to which, I think, you were alluding. And, really, I cannot see how you come to lay blame on yourself when you were a thousand miles away.”
“But that is precisely what I have tried to explain.” Edward’s voice began to rise. George began to sweat. Feeling the moisture accumulate on his top lip, he wriggled his nose and mouth, and raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was a sympathetic gesture. He was flummoxed. Edward went on. “It is all connected; it is all because of me.”
George stood up and placed his sherry glass on the mantle-piece where gummy stains and other telltale rings marked the marble, now blackening with dust and a fine film of dirt. He caught sight of his reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. The mass of wiry greying hair he had tamed with grease that morning had become unruly, and fell into his eyes. He pushed it back and wiped his hand on the seat of his trousers.
“My dear fellow, Miss Carrick is, I am assured, merely suffering from a heightened sensitivity which is self-induced. I do not claim to have any knowledge in medical matters, but it seems pretty obvious to me that her problems are nothing a few months’ rest won’t see to. Ah, notwithstanding, of course, the, ah, period of mourning, which, understandably—”
“No! No! That is not it at all. I am to blame for the most part. Oh, God, I wish I still had Susan’s letter.”
George Sparsholt wished that this twitchy, blasphemous man was not taking up space in his study. It had been something of a relief that morning to realise that here, finally, was another to take an interest in Miss Carrick. He had waved aside a disinclination to invite the man in; his Darwinist views and his adultery and his wild look—despite being clean-shaven—should not be impediments, not that morning, anyway. Now, it was afternoon, well into the afternoon. The sun had not only moved out of his study, it was beginning to set, and Mr Scales was still galloping through his sherry. He had missed lunch because of this man. Whatever had been intended would be served up cold for dinner. The man was obtuse. George wished Mr Scales would vanish like the lustre on the moth wing. But he would not. His eyes, rather disconcertingly, were glittering, and the prospect of George being able to relinquish some, if not all responsibility for Miss Euphemia Carrick now appeared to diminish by the second. George was now responsible; he now had two persons under his roof whose normal faculty for straightforward reasoning had abandoned them, or was severely depleted. With a feeling of hopelessness and a need to be in his kitchen where he might get some food, he grasped at the mention of Susan.
“Ah now, Susan. I know exactly where Susan is. She is with Mrs Brewin. I will go and fetch her.” This piece of information seemed to shock Mr Scales out of his private reverie for a moment. He looked up at George, and George thought if he had told Mr Scales that the queen herself was in the kitchen, he would not have looked more horrified. “Well, I shan’t be a moment then. Perhaps some tea, also. So, if you’ll excuse me.”
George swung open the door. He could not get out of the room quick enough. He was not sure whom Mr Scales had been likening to a moth. He had assumed that there was only one female now in the equation, but it would be better if he stopped assuming anything at all. Mr Scales’ willingness to lay himself open, to disgorge his most secret, intimate feelings for a woman made George uncomfortable. It was too much. The nearer he got to the kitchen and its pleasant smells, the less irritated he became.
Mrs Brewin and Susan had their heads together over a large book on the table in the middle of the room. Every surface was sprinkled with grains of sugar and punctuated with drips of pulped fruit. Ranks of gleaming preserving jars were lined up, warming near the oven and a flupping, plopping sound came from the giant preserving pan on the hot-plate. He cleared his throat twice to get the women’s attention. “Ah, there you are, Susan. I wonder if I might extract you for a moment. Mr Scales is most anxious to speak with you.”
“Is he still here?”
“Yes. Yes, indeed, still here.”
Mrs Brewin glanced at him, but there was nothing in her gaze except matters pertaining to jam reluctant to set. George liked his housekeeper a great deal. She was young but plain enough for George not to desire her. And he did not have to worry about losing her to another. She was faithful to the memory of her husband, lost in the Crimea. Initially, George had worried that this fact might inflame Miss Carrick, but Mrs Brewin had told him quite bluntly that she didn’t go in for all that murmuring and nonsense. She was pleased, she said, to have Susan to help her; she was a good girl and pleasant company.
Whilst Susan washed her hands and put on a clean apron, George made a pot of tea and fetched the biscuit tin. Mrs Brewin was quite used to him bumbling about in her kitchen and ignored it, but Susan was perturbed by it. Susan tried to take over, but all he would let her do was fetch a small jug of milk. She had to follow on behind down the passage towards the study as he bore the tray in front of him. It had crockery for three. George could feel her alarm and agitation at his back. He had a large stride and the china rattled.
Edward Scales was poking the fire and adding another lump of coal from the wrong bucket. There were two buckets next to the fire: one with the wet stuff, and one with the dry. The fire belched thick, greenish smoke, and as George came into the room the draw from the doorway caused the smoke to guff out into the room. When Edward turned around with the poker in his hand, George had a strong impulse to reprimand his guest, but he did not. He asked Susan to bring up another chair.
“Yes, sir.”
Susan wanted to rescue the fire but didn’t. She watched the gobbet of smoke unfurl along the ceiling from the corner of her eye.
Chapter LI
Mrs Brewin was a religious woman but she did not believe in divine retribution. She felt a great deal of sympathy for Mr Scales, even though he had committed the sin of adultery. She did not believe in an Almighty who, having given Mr Scales the gift of a child, should then take it and its mother in such an horrific way. Accidents could happen, and these accidents had nothing to do with anything except extremely bad luck. Certainly, Mr Scales seemed to be a luckless man, if not perhaps perfectly stupid, as well. It wasn’t clear whether Mr Scales was a bigamist; he had referred on more than one occasion to his wife, meaning the late sister of Miss Carrick upstairs, and not the late Mrs Scales who had lived in London and was now buried in the Reverend’s churchy
ard.
Mrs Brewin and Susan had taken turns all morning to listen at the study door. If she had not heard it herself she would not have believed it. She had seen pictures of a crocodile once, and she imagined that an alligator was much the same thing. The crocodile pictures were in a large heavy volume belonging to Reverend Sparsholt; it had been left open on the settee, of all places. The vision she had then of George Sparsholt with a heavy book in his lap did not sit comfortably with the way he stood at the lectern in his study to practise his sermons. The picture now fullest in her mind of Mr Scales killing all those creatures and emptying their guts in search of his loved ones appalled and inspired her.
It went against her principles, to eavesdrop. She had always looked down on others who indulged and divulged, as she called it, yet it had been she, not Susan, who had started it that morning. As a result, there was no hot meal for the vicar and Miss Carrick, only some runny plum jam from her stock of bottled fruit, which should by now have set.
She had been George Sparsholt’s housekeeper for some years. She liked the position; it was not taxing. He did not notice dust, and she had time to read novels. She had never done that when her husband had been alive. And though the sermons were boring and she was obliged to go and listen every Sunday (as well as through the week in disconnected dribs and drabs), she did at least get to sit in the pew usually reserved for the vicar’s family (as he had none), and so did not have to spend the time looking at the back of people’s heads.
Now, she felt herself somehow infected by the sudden rash of activity in the vicarage. Susan’s enthusiasm for melodrama bubbled over. There seemed to be a surfeit, and Mrs Brewin absorbed it readily, like a sponge sopping a puddle leaking in under the back door. Poor Mr Scales. He’d spent the first hour of his interview with Reverend Sparsholt weeping. Mrs Brewin had never heard a man cry like that before. From the stuffy confines of George Sparsholt’s study had come the sound of heaving sobs and hiccoughs. She thought it a very sorry state of affairs, that Mr Scales had felt compelled to remove himself and his mistress to such a remote corner of the world. She’d heard of Romantic Couples going off to Italy; surely, that would have been better. Elizabeth Brewin felt sure that the waterways of Venice were safer, being riddled not with alligators, but handsome gondoliers.