‘The story has a happy ending, James,’ she smiled. Her face was a little swollen from crying. ‘We found one another at last. Shall I ring for tea?’
I am unable to resist her.
We walked along the river front at dusk, watching the lamp-lighter moving rapidly between the streetlights with his long rods, like a burglar scurrying from house to house. And what would other people have seen? The little doctor, moving stiffly but still ferociously straight, his military bearing undiminished, and the gorgeous figure of the famous Mrs Jones. Who is to say that the old actress is slightly overdressed? No matter. It is all the very latest style, down to the short cape and trimmings. She bows to her passing public, always gracious, never haughty, heroine of the boards and applauded to the echo. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! But perhaps the most subtle performances are never detected, and cannot therefore be admired.
* * *
I look out over the Atlantic. I hear seagulls crying, following the ship, weaving back and forth in patterns, swooping and diving into the wake. I notice the creak of the ropes, the wind singing in the rigging. The water level shifts in one of the buckets by the mainmast and the gust bulges the sails. I neither move nor stir. We are moving steadily westwards. I know this from the position of the sun. I can hear no other human voice, only the gulls circling, calling. Is the ship abandoned? This cannot be. I am here and the decks are well scrubbed, the brass polished and gleaming. The ropes are new, the hatches closed. I listen to the steady rush of the waves against the keel as the sloop thrusts ever westwards and I feel the sun on my left cheek. Far out to sea, I can see the dolphins, forked flashes, leaping, vanishing, then appearing again, two or three playing together in the bright water. All around, as far as the flat line of the horizon, stretches infinite, illuminated space and the ship moves onwards. I hear no voices. I am alone. I gaze out into this endless clear distance, this great dome of pale ether and this grey-green blue. I close my eyes. When I stare once again into the great spaces of ocean and sky, I feel that the wind has freshened. We are moving more swiftly and the jib is now full. The buntlines and bowlines are taut. Someone has hung stern sails on the mizzen-mast, and we are now taking all the wind there is. Here are the flying fish in vivid colours and the sea is an extraordinary, deep, transparent blue. The light has changed, from washed white to gold. We are entering the tropics. And is it to be so? Am I returning there to die? Is this my last voyage home? Was my home there with you? In the place you chose – for I can accept it now – that you chose to slip quietly over the rim, away from the great hot light of the sun, down, down, down, into this unending, deep transparent blue.
* * *
‘James, can you hear me?’
A slight shiver moves across his features. The barest of nods.
‘James, shall I send for the priest?’
The mouth tightens.
‘Well?’
The answer comes in a tender, slipping breath.
‘No.’
‘James, you godless fool! You were baptised a Catholic. You can’t die without the last rites of Holy Church. What would your uncle, your mother and your stepfather have said?’
There is the faintest glimmer of a smile.
* * *
25, Duke Street
Westminster
25th July 1865
Sir
I have the honour
Inspector-General to report that
Dr James Barry the officer named in
the margin died at
Disease: Diarrhoea 4 o’clock am this morning
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient
humble servant
D.R. McKinnon M.B.,
S. Surgeon Major
Somerset House
25th August 1865
Staff Surgeon Major D. R. McKinnon
Sir,
It has been stated to me that Inspector-General Dr James Barry, who died at 14, Castle Street East on the 25th July 1865, was, after his death, discovered to be a female.
As you furnished the certificate as to the cause of his death, I take the liberty of asking you whether what I have heard is true, and whether you yourself ascertained that he was a woman.
Perhaps you may decline answering these questions: but I ask them not for publication but for my own information.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your faithful servant,
George Graham
Registrar-General
25 Duke Street
Westminster
To George Graham 26th August 1865
Registrar-General.
Sir,
Further to your enquiry as to the sex of the late Inspector-General Dr James Barry. I had been intimately acquainted with that gentleman for a good many years both in the West Indies and in England and I never had any suspicion that Dr Barry was a female.
I attended him during his last illness and for months previously for bronchitis, and the affection causing his death was diarrhoea, produced apparently by errors in diet.
On one occasion after Dr Barry’s death I was sent for to the office of Sir Charles McGregor (Army Agents) and there the woman who performed the last offices for Dr Barry was waiting to speak to me.
She wished to obtain some perquisites of her employment which the Lady who resided with Dr Barry as his intimate companion in the house in which Dr Barry had died had refused to give her.
Amongst other things she had that Dr Barry was a female and that I was a pretty doctor not to know this and that she would not like to be attended by me. I informed her that it was none of my business whether Dr Barry was a male or a female and that I thought he might be neither, viz. an imperfectly developed man.
She then said that she had examined the body and that it was a perfect female. The woman seemed to think that she had become acquainted with a great secret and wished to be paid for keeping it.
I informed her that all Dr Barry’s relatives were dead, and that it was no secret of mine, and that my own impression was that Dr Barry was a hermaphrodite.
But whether Dr Barry was male, female, or hermaphrodite I do not know. I am prepared however to swear as to the identity of the body being that of a person I had known well for eight or nine years, and I myself see no purpose in making the discovery, given that Dr Barry’s professional reputation is above criticism.
I have the honour to remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
Major D. R. McKinnon
Staff Surgeon
From Edward Bradford
Deputy Inspector of Hospitals
To The Editor, Medical Times
Sir,
The stories which have circulated since the death of Dr James Barry are too absurd to require serious refutation. There could not have been any doubt, among people who knew him, on the subject of his physical constitution which was really that he was a male in whom the development of the organs of sex had been arrested from the sixth month of pregnancy. It is sad that no qualified persons took the opportunity of his death to examine closely the physical condition of the deceased.
I remain, Sir,
Yours, etc
Edward Bradford
The Old Manse
Winderton
Cumberland
20th September 1865
Sir,
I had the honour of serving with Dr James Barry for many years and of knowing him first at university, where we studied under Dr Fryer, and subsequently at Guy’s Hospital, where we were both apprentice surgeons of Sir Astley Cooper. We were then colleagues at the Military Hospital in Portsmouth before his removal to the Cape. I was his life-long correspondent and had the pleasure of visiting him at his London home less than three years ago. Dr Barry was a dedicated doctor whose primary concern was for the welfare of his patients. He was a short-tempered man and would not tolerate inefficiency, incompetence or uncleanliness. He made many enemies in the profession and elsewhere on account of his championship of the
weak and helpless. His diminutive stature and the fine hands which were so advantageous to his work as a surgeon, combined with the above-mentioned professional jealousy of many years’ standing, have led to the insulting slanders published in the press over the last weeks. Dr Barry was a perfect gentleman and a courageous man. We were intimately acquainted and I am prepared, on my honour, Sir, to vouch for his reputation.
I remain Sir, your obedient servant,
Robert E. Jobson
Surgeon-General (rtd)
Poynton Hall
Berkshire
To The Editor 3rd October 1865
The Times
Sir,
I have read the rumours concerning Dr James Barry published in your organ with mounting amazement. I served in the IV ****shire regiment along with Dr Barry on the island of C**** over forty years ago. Our paths in life may have diverged, but I have never forgotten him & no one of his acquaintance ever would. An unfortunate misunderstanding led us to confront one another with loaded weapons before Dr Barry had been on the island above a year. It is well known that the doctor was an expert marksman, and had his magnanimous generosity not spared my life I had been a dead man. No woman would be capable of such a deed. No, Sir, Dr Barry was a small man in stature alone; in all other respects he was generous, compassionate and in every way admirable. I owe him a great deal and I will not tolerate these insults to his honour and his memory.
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
James Loughlin (Bart)
5th October 1865
My Very Dear James,
I saw your letter concerning Dr Barry in The Times and I could not resist writing to you again. I know that we agreed to maintain a decent silence for the time being, so please forgive me. But tell me at once, is it true that Dr Barry commenced a liaison with the actress Mrs Alice Jones, upon his return from the West Indies? We have heard rumours that they were actually living together! Although they went so very little into society. Can this really be the case? If you have any positive information, please do write to me directly.
As to the rumours concerning the good doctor’s true identity, I am in a position to quite positively affirm his masculinity, although I could never admit to that in public, but I imagine that you are too. For you travelled alone together many times. Yes, I do believe you did. And I simply cannot imagine that the extraordinary Mrs Jones would ever take up with a man who was unable to give her every satisfaction. She has that kind of reputation.
I have sent this under separate cover as we used to do, so that your wife need not know that we are in correspondence, as I am sure you would prefer that. But pray do write to me by return.
I am, as always, your devoted
Charlotte
Charlotte, Lady Fraser (née Walden)
The journalist’s name was Henrietta Stackpole. She had a neat, quick step and was freshly trimmed at all the edges. She swept into the front hall, smelling of energy and America. Alice watched her through a crack in the dining-room door, while she gave her name in ringing tones and began opening her smart leather attaché case and extracting notebook and pencils. Alice was used to the press, but not to lady journalists. The maid set off up the main staircase carrying the embossed card, and Alice ran for the back stairs. She crashed into Jesse on the upper landing, snatched the card and hurtled, breathless, into the drawing room.
‘Shall I show the lady up, ma’am?’ Jesse demanded anxiously. Jesse was only just weathering the scandal. She had adored her master.
‘Let her wait a minute while I compose myself. Then show her up.’
Alice paced the floor.
None of this would have happened if I’d laid James out myself. I never thought that Sophia would blab. The unscrupulous chit wanted money from all sides. Can’t say I blame her. Shhhhh, Psyche, don’t whine. We’ve got to get along together now, without him. He wouldn’t want us all to fall to bits at the final hurdle. I can’t get rid of the Army Agents. They want to control and suppress the whole thing. If that man McGregor comes round here again I shall show him the door myself. What would James have done? Does it matter? He was the one who lost his nerve at the last. Not me. What on earth did he want to do? Retire as a woman to some secluded cottage like the last Poet Laureate? Ridiculous! You can’t suddenly become a woman. It takes years of practice. He knows nothing about clothes, manners, gestures. He wouldn’t even know how to walk up and down a staircase, let alone climb in and out of a carriage. Or how to manage the servants. I can’t see James learning how to ask people to do things instead of telling them. And he didn’t even have a name. I suppose it must have been Miranda. But so far as the army and I are concerned it’s still James Barry, after his uncle. But what am I supposed to do in the face of all this gossip? Silences cease to be dignified if the scandal persists. They become positively sinister. And certainly suspicious. I’m the talk of the town already. Again.
Alice smiled to herself, with not a little satisfaction.
Everybody’s waiting for me to speak. Well, if I never knew, then that proves one thing. That it was an entirely virtuous connection, with separate bedrooms. The lot. And ever so much more interesting than an ordinary liaison. Eyebrows will go up all over London. I’ll be invited everywhere and able to get out of this reclusive confinement – into which James had us so securely locked. Freedom! I could go up to Lincolnshire for Christmas. I may be an old lady now, but there’s life in the old bird yet. I was still dancing last season. I’ll be able to receive a lot more visitors. Instead of Mrs Jones being endlessly indisposed at Dr Barry’s command.
I’m not saying that it wasn’t wonderful, being together with him at last. But I did feel all gobbled up. Like a theatre that the bailiffs have closed down before the last performance in the run was over. He’d been on his own so long he couldn’t imagine what a social life was like. Locking his bedroom door at night, too, so that I was reduced to stratagems, like Iachimo, to get a peek at Imogen’s breasts. And sometimes he didn’t speak for hours, just sat there like the Sphinx. Mind, you, he always was like that. Even when we were children. He’d read, or sit silently, thinking. Too much thinking isn’t good for you.
All right, then, yes, we’ll talk to the Americans.
How do I look? Mmmmm? Past my best some years ago. No amount of paint is going to change that, but in a dimmer light not so bad.
‘Jesse, draw the blinds and show the lady journalist up to the drawing room. Bring us some cold champagne.
‘Yes, I did say champagne. Why not? Here’s the key. Quick, girl. Run. She’s been standing in the hall for long enough.’
Alice arranged her black mourning into a becoming torrent of grief and bowed her head. She heard the brisk click of Miss Stackpole’s boots on the stairs, then the soft thud of her arrival in the drawing room.
‘Miss Stackpole, ma’am,’ whispered Jesse, terrified.
Alice raised her stricken head slowly to meet Miss Stackpole’s curious green gaze. Oh God. She’s taken her hat off and the woman has red curls, just like James. What a shock!
‘Mrs Jones, it is very good of you to see me.’ An American twang. The voice was sympathetic, but direct.
Alice allowed a lengthy pause to become almost alarming, then murmured, ‘Miss Stackpole, you must be very tired after your long journey. Will you take a little champagne?’
‘Thank you, no. I never drink while I’m working.’
Out came the notebook and here was the fresh white page, folded back with a snap.
‘Will it disturb you if I take notes?’
‘No, not at all,’ whispered Alice, with the Egyptian dignity of a mummified queen. Miss Stackpole looked about the dim but laden room, blatantly inquisitive, taking in all the paintings and the bibelots.
‘Thank you, Jesse. Put the bucket here, beside me.’ Silly prig. I’ll drink it all myself. Alice imagined that she had complete control over the situation. But there was no holding Henrietta Stackpole. She had a public to inform.
‘A
m I right to assume, Mrs Jones, that you had known Dr Barry since childhood?’
‘Indeed, I did,’ said Alice calmly. All right, here goes. Take the plunge.
Noli me tangere, said the doctor. I am not for human hands. But no one knew why, not until the final revelation. The leading lady, much deceived, became the heroine, nay, the lover, in this version of the tale, consumed with an enduring childhood passion for the bastard son of David Steuart Erskine, Earl of Buchan. Be definite about that. This is being written down for history. And all her life she had loved in vain. Until her affection, if not her ardour, was finally returned in a tender meeting of minds at the moment when the fires of the flesh were dampened down.
Dampened down, my eye, but the public expects that. It’s not considered decent to enjoy a squeeze and tickle once you’re past sixty. But I’ve known plenty of old goats, still standing about with their beards shaking. Louisa was quite right about that one.
Then the last illness. The lamp burning day and night. Make it sound more like consumption. Diarrhoea is decidedly unpicturesque. America doesn’t want to hear about soiled beds and boiled sheets. The midnight hour passing. The priest withdraws. Those last vows exchanged in whispers, and the quiet end.
Alice wiped her eyes. Miss Stackpole had the decency to cease scratching with her pencil and to suspend her insolent interruptions when Alice got to the deathbed scene. There was a pause in which the actress sipped her champagne. On to the shocking revelations and the truth of the body as the winding sheet was peeled back.
James Miranda Barry Page 40