James Miranda Barry

by Patricia Duncker

  I take his hand quietly. I watch. I wait.

  Suddenly I hear muffled laughter and the unmistakable sound of footsteps upstairs. Mary Ann has gone, long ago. I sit still, wondering if I have imagined a presence in the upper floors. Who else is here to witness Barry’s stately, measured dying?

  Then again, a little cry, a voice saying hush, quiet murmurs far above me in the house. My first thought is simple. It is broad daylight. But that would not stop the assembly of criminals who live down the street and are given to persecuting Barry so assiduously. The old bugger is dying, or already dead. They have come to see what they can recuperate from the wreckage. I unsheathe my pistol and creep up the stairs.

  There is more than one person in the studio. The door is ajar. They are making no attempt to conceal themselves, or to hide. I see Barry’s empty bed, the old, stained, horsehair mattress folded up, as if he had already been called home. There is the chamberpot upended beneath the slats, next to a dusty pile of rags. At the other end of the studio, standing before the unveiled Pandora and inspecting every line and detail with enthusiastic gravity, is Mr Benjamin Robert Haydon, and on his arm, arrayed in lace, gloves, bonnet and veil, beautifully dressed as a lady of fashion, in what must be borrowed robes, is the elegant, the duplicitous, the gorgeous Mrs Alice Jones.

  Neither intruder is immediately aware of my presence. The temptation to do away with both of them at once flickers through me. Alice turns around just in time to see me pocketing my pistol. She lets fly a little screech. I address myself entirely to Mr Haydon.

  ‘Sir, I must ask you to leave this house immediately.’

  ‘Good Heavens! Dr Barry. We had no idea that anyone was here. The house looked closed. All the blinds are drawn at the front.’

  ‘Sir, were no one to be here you would still have no right to enter. I demand that you leave at once or I shall be forced to expel you myself.’

  Alice is tugging at his sleeve in alarm. She has not yet met my eye. Haydon has the gall to cast one last regretful glance at the Pandora, before Alice pulls him away. She stands open-mouthed, her naked double gleaming insouciant in fresh oils behind her.

  ‘Mrs Jones stays here,’ I snap.

  Haydon actually tries to argue. ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s possible,’ he begins.

  I take one single step towards him. He hastily pushes past me and rushes down the stairs. It is quite clear, from all the clatter he now makes, that he thinks the dying painter is no longer in the house.

  ‘I still had the keys,’ says Alice simply.

  Her bonnet and coat are new, well-cut and expensive. She is wearing satin dancing slippers, not her usual thick-soled boots. She did not walk the streets to get here. I run my eyes over every inch of her plumage. Haydon is not a wealthy man. He never paid for any of this. She has the grace to blush, but then stares back, meeting my eye at last, obstinate and defiant.

  ‘You said he asked for me. So I came. Is he already dead?’

  ‘So you will never marry me, nor any other man. Is that because you can do better by taking as many husbands as you like? Why settle for one? Did you think I didn’t recognise you in Barry’s paintings? Or in any number of daubs by Mr Haydon?’

  Alice becomes taller still. Her dignity is superb. All the colour is gone from her face. Nonetheless, I cannot fault the lines, nor her delivery.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. I will not stay to be insulted.’

  Exit. And, this is a wonderful touch, which puts me exactly in my place, she does not hurry down the stairs. I am left confronting Alice’s ravishing nakedness, while the lady herself closes and locks the front door behind her. I hear the keys fall onto the tiles as she posts them back through the box.

  The whole affair is over in half a minute. I stand gazing at the Pandora for far longer than it has taken to send Alice and her artistic lover packing. Finally, shaken to the core, I stumble back down the stairs to Barry, who, preoccupied with the process of dying, is un­­­disturbed, his chin sunk upon his chest.

  Around midnight he opens his eyes and sees me watching, patient and exhausted. His voice is very faint, but uncannily normal, almost conversational.

  ‘Bring Alice to me, my dear. She made an old man so very happy.’ These are his last words. Just after one in the morning his breathing ceased and he was dead.

  * * *

  David Steuart Erskine, eleventh Earl of Buchan, is now seventy-six years of age. But there he stands, magnificent in knee breeches and powdered wig. His ruffled collars well starched, his medals level upon his chest, the whole exuding a faint concoction of rosewater and damp, the haunting musty damp of the tiles in back passages and the linen in long unopened closets.

  We are considering a pile of documents embellished with official seals. We stand around a small, circular table upon which lie a silver tray and four glasses of cold champagne, untouched, the bubbles gathered on the surface. I have read the documents in question and hand them to Francisco. Mary Ann stands on tiptoe and reads over his elbow.

  I have won a significant promotion. I am to be Assistant Surgeon to the Forces at the Cape of Good Hope on the most southern tip of Africa. The Governor-General of the Cape has personally intervened in the matter of my appointment. My work in Portsmouth and at Chatham has been brought to his attention. He is anxious to make my acquaintance. He hopes that I will do his family the honour of becoming their personal physician. He expects great things of me. He sends his compliments to his dear friends, David Steuart Erskine and General Francisco de Miranda. He remains their most devoted and affectionate etc., etc.

  ‘It’s a great opportunity for you, soldier.’

  ‘But it’s so far, so far . . .’ There are tears in Mary Ann’s voice.

  ‘I’m damnably proud of you, my boy,’ murmurs David Erskine. I notice a tiny growing cataract in his left eye.

  My mind congeals with the clichés Alice so mislikes. If I cannot have her, I will wander the world.

  Part Four

  The Colony

  The island rose up out of the sea in the early dawn. Just as the steady, distant line which divided the smoky air from the darker blue began to appear, the symmetry of sea and sky broke open and an uneven humped shape reared up, far distant but perceptible. Barry leaned against the rail. Distances were difficult to judge in the lurching unsteadiness of dark blue air. The storm had blown itself to bits hours ago and his stomach, emptied early on, was responding well to a basin of strong green tea. None of his fellow passengers had dared the decks. In fact, the boat seemed curiously empty, unmanned. The slap and wash of a low swell made the timbers stretch and creak beneath him. Barry passed his hand over his eyes. At one point in the night he was convinced he had actually felt his body leave the bunk, hover in the air for a second, only to be slapped down again into the foetid sheets, insensible. He looked out at the pale horizon. The island was still there.

  One of the ragged boys, who appeared to be entrusted with their very lives, trotted past. His feet were streaked with tar. Barry caught his sleeve.

  ‘Is that our destination?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the boy, indifferent.

  ‘And shall we arrive before evening?’

  The boy looked up at the lightening sky.

  ‘Yes, sir, if wind. No, sir, if no wind.’

  Barry gave up. There had been sufficient wind the previous night. He concentrated on steadying the green tea, which was slopping from side to side in rhythm with the ship. When he looked out again the island was fainter, but still there. It had receded even further down the horizon. No one else appeared on deck. Barry undid his tighter buttons and leaned unsteadily against the rail. The quality of the light began to thicken, despite the earliness of the season.

  It was February. You could have counted upon the sunshine in the Cape. In England, at this time of day, if the murky air cleared at all, you could see every crystal of dew upon the leaves. But here, at sea, far south, in the Eastern Mediterranean, the transparent wind of dawn drew breath an
d immediately thickened into the opaque white light of the south. As he watched, the island vanished. Barry gave up hope. They might never reach land again.

  The swell deepened. He staggered back down the polished steps to his cabin, clutching the ropes. One of his fellow passengers appeared briefly on the gangway. It was the elder Miss Haughton, a maiden lady accompanying her niece. Her blouse was in disarray and her shawl stained with unmentionable liquids. She held her handkerchief to her mouth.

  ‘Ohhhhh, Dr Barry,’ she murmured piteously.

  ‘Lie down at once, madam. And take a very little sweet tea.’ This was his first and last attempt to treat the common malady. He dived hastily into his berth. Psyche was a sad mass of limp and wretched fur under the wooden desk, which was attached to the floor with brass rivets. She whimpered as Barry locked the door.

  ‘Don’t worry, my love,’ said Barry to the dog, crawling back into the unsavoury sheets. ‘No one cuts a fine figure when they are seasick.’

  The sun sent one terrible volley of light through the porthole. Barry pulled the sheet over his face and groaned.

  * * *

  The boat docked that evening. As the light was darkening again the sheds of the wharf became clearly visible. The Health Officers rowed out to greet them and came on board to inspect the ship’s papers and the log. They had last docked briefly in Italy so the quarantine period was probably unnecessary. All the officials wanted to meet Dr Barry. He spent some time shaking hands and dealing with openly inquisitive stares. All the lights on board the ship gleamed towards the answering lights on shore in the twilight. Port Health, a jolly red-faced man, bursting out of his uniform, waived the regulations for Psyche, who had permission to land with her master. Everyone was on deck now, gabbling with excitement. Barry had the younger Miss Haughton, still pale and interesting from the night’s exertions, firmly attached to one arm and his white poodle carefully stowed away under the other.

  ‘We shall see each other again, won’t we, Dr Barry?’ gushed the Misses Haughton. The ladies were fascinated by the courteous little doctor with his old-fashioned manners, his reputation for savagery and his irreligious opinions.

  ‘I shall call upon you as soon as I am at leisure to do so. Now, can you pick out anyone in uniform down there?’

  But nothing suggesting a military presence was to be seen in the early dark. The wind was still balmy and warm. Everyone declared their pleasure and surprise, and England was declared to be the damp, unhealthy isle, with a winter climate that was really quite unacceptable. They all agreed on a round of clichés: sea voyages were vile and to be avoided at all costs, all that had saved them from hurling themselves overboard was the pleasant society into which they had so fortunately been thrown and the herbal potions administered by our esteemed Dr Barry, who had clearly, singlehandedly, saved all our lives.

  A loud cheer went up from all the passengers as the first rope hit the great iron rings fixed into the wooden jetty. A fainter answering cry arose from the little crowd gathered round the sheds. They had arrived in the colony. The group on board fragmented, rushing to amass hat boxes, suitcases, coats, shawls and bags. Barry stayed at the rail for a moment, stroking Psyche to prevent her from barking. There was no one in uniform waiting in the crowd.

  But as Barry descended the gangway with careful steps, for it was damp and unstable and his heels caught in the ropes, a tiny swarthy man with a thick mass of dark curls clutched at his coatsleeve.

  ‘Dr Barry, sir. I am Isaac. I am your servant, sir.’

  Isaac’s statement of identity was accompanied by a deep bow. His assertion of servitude was probably meant literally, but was delivered with all the hauteur and austerity of a gentleman. And Barry took it that way.

  ‘I am honoured, Isaac.’

  They shook hands in the flickering dark; two tiny men, both vibrant with self-conscious dignity.

  Isaac described the vehicle which was to transport them up the hill to the hospital buildings as a curricle. He pronounced it ‘kurrikal’. The thing turned out to be a cart, whose construction was of uncertain date. There was one lantern, insecurely attached. But the horse was small, powerful, and sure-footed, the only element in the entire equipage which inspired any confidence. The lights of the port dropped away behind them as they jolted and swayed upwards into the unknown whistling dark.

  Barry was too disorientated to do more than comfort Psyche with a portion of his own vegetable soup and bread before retiring. He hardly glanced at his surroundings, but he left Isaac with detailed instructions as to where his trunks were to be placed. They were to remain locked. Barry would not give his servant the keys and clearly intended to unpack his trunks himself. No other master had ever done this. The houseboys were too timid to greet the new master, but they peered around doors and from behind screens, anxious to steal a glance at the tiny toy soldier with his red hair and fine manners. Psyche growled whenever Isaac approached and was gently reproved by the exhausted doctor.

  He called for hot water, retired to his bedroom and took the jug from Isaac at the door. Then he locked himself in. The key turned decisively against Isaac and the houseboys, who retreated through the chilly shadows to the warm, private glimmering of their kitchen lamps, and settled around their table to share their first impressions of the new master.

  * * *

  Reputations are like benign parasites. The carrier or the host is often unaware of their existence. Barry was cautiously open-minded when he encountered other people for the first time. He made no distinction between titled lords and naked Hottentots. His tone and manner never differed. Nor did he give any hint of his assumption that the naked Hottentot probably enjoyed better health than the titled lord and almost certainly had rather less to hide. But Isaac entertained no suspicion that the doctor was a democrat in the letter and the spirit. He greeted his new master with well-masked anxiety. Barry’s reputation had preceded him by many months and the colony was seething with gossip. It was a tiny tittle-tattle place, overflowing with the most turbulent conduits for rumour and speculation, that is, stuffy drawing rooms filled with bored English ladies.

  Colonel Bird, on his way back to England, had wintered on the island. Colonel Bird had known Barry well. They had served together in the Cape. Colonel Bird let out a delighted roar.

  ‘So! You’re getting Barry, are you? Well, good luck to you. He’s a tartar and a tyrant. No quarter to anyone. He carried through a veritable revolution in the hospital service down there. And in his first year he established a leper colony for those poor disease-ridden fellows that you must be damned careful not to touch. Did well for himself, though. He was private physician to the Governor’s household. When he arrived he was nothing more than an assistant staff surgeon and by the time he left he was the Colonial Medical Inspector. Ordering people about like nobody’s business. And loved doing it!’

  Colonel Bird qualified his views on Barry’s high-handedness with respect for his professional capabilities.

  ‘Mind you, he’s a damned fine doctor. He saved the Governor’s life back in 1818 when Sir Charles went down with typhus. We’d all given up the old boy for lost. He was yellow with fever. Harrowing affair. The wife ordered all the children out of the house. Nothing scares Barry, though. He’s got hands of ice, that man, and no nerves whatsoever. Or none that I’ve noticed. He’s a bit of a maverick. Follows his nose and is very sure of his own opinions. But you’ll never regret taking his advice. In fact, if you don’t, it’s probably the last thing you’ll do. And I’ve never seen a gentler chap when someone’s really ill. But you can’t work with him. You have to obey him. Or else. Give him his way and he’d have all the malingerers shot!’

  Colonel Bird threw back his head and roared some more. Then he began a fantastic tale of the great trek to the interior of the country. The ladies trembled delightedly at the descriptions of savage elephants, trunks raised and roaring, the rhinoceros, shimmering, white, which had almost charged, a lion snaffling one of the black boys from t
he camp in the dead of night, but which was persuaded to part with its prey when Colonel Bird himself burst forth from his tent, brandishing pistols, so that the lad escaped with an insignificant mauling. Yes, yes, a little blood, but there’s no need to faint. The set piece of this predictably heroic tale of adventure was the moment when the Governor, attended by Colonel Bird, Captain Sheridan and the tiny Dr Barry, confronted Gaika, the Kaffir chieftain, with his guard of three hundred warriors, all stark naked apart from their feathers and tattoos, waving their assegais.

  ‘. . . everyone kept their nerve, but they were grim fellows, I don’t mind telling you, who could have run us through a dozen times if they’d had half a mind to do it. The Governor was very dignified. Polite, but unintimidated. Barry was his translator. I’d no idea that the chap could talk as fast and hard as the natives, even in their own lingo. He did all the negotiating. And he wouldn’t give way on any of the original terms. He seemed to feel that it was his duty not to yield. And he knew how to hit just the right tone of haughty inflexibility, even when he talked Kaffir. Our retinue looked magnificent. Well, we were all laden with metal and feathers: full dress uniform, never mind the heat. That was Barry’s doing. He wouldn’t have it otherwise. He maintained that it was a question of respect. He may be a black savage, that chap Gaika, but he’s every inch a king. That was Barry’s opinion.’

  The fact that Bird did not like Barry, but was impressed by his performances, was not lost on the colonists. Two stories did the rounds: one about a quarrel in which Barry had sliced off his opponent’s finger at the dinner table with a fruit knife. The ladies listened, thrilled. Everyone looked forward to inviting the irascible little doctor to dine at their houses. The other story was ripe for embellishments. In December 1820, the Emperor of St Helena himself had fallen ill and Earl Bathurst suggested that help should be sent from the Cape, where the finest doctor in the colonies served under Sir Charles Somerset. Napoleon died before the reply could reach St Helena. But, as the tale spread towards the furthermost outposts of the colony, it became widely believed that, during the Emperor’s last illness, the famous Dr Barry had attended upon Napoleon.