A Taste for Monsters Read online

  “That is … wonderful, I’m sure.” I didn’t know why he was telling me this. It did not strike me as a boast, but I could think of no other reason for him to say it, and anyway I was too tired to give it much care.

  “A college for women?” Mr. Merrick said. “What a marvelous thing.”

  “I quite agree,” the professor said.

  A few minutes went by in which I once again felt sleep overtaking me, and Mr. Merrick went equally quiet.

  “I can see these nightly visitations have thoroughly exhausted you,” Professor Sidgwick said. “I shall stay awake if you would like to sleep. We have a few hours, yet.”

  Mr. Merrick and I both complied with his suggestion, and though my sleep was fitful in the upright chair, it did me good, for when the professor roused us at three that morning, I felt somewhat refreshed. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, and then added some coal to the fire. The professor made another circuit around the room, checking his instruments and scratching in his book, his eagerness for Polly’s arrival palpable. We said little as the minutes went by, each of them bringing us closer to the appointed hour.

  When the clock tolled half past three, I readied myself, as did Mr. Merrick. I quivered a bit, still nervous, but I felt no ghostly presence move outside the door.

  Professor Sidgwick looked at me. “Your scars?”

  I shook my head, feeling no ache there.

  Before long, it was a quarter to four, and Polly had failed to appear. Then it was four, and still she kept away.

  “This is most unexpected,” Mr. Merrick said.

  Professor Sidgwick frowned, but continued to monitor his instruments and wait.

  The minutes multiplied upon themselves and became hours, still absent Polly, and soon absent Annie as well. Professor Sidgwick had spent an entire night without witnessing those things he had stayed over to see, and therefore had gleaned no answers to our questions or his. Disappointment rounded his shoulders as he gathered his instruments and rewrapped them.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, unsure of what to make of this development. I desperately wanted someone more learned than myself to witness the ghosts. It wasn’t that I doubted my own senses, but I wanted answers. I wanted a way to stop the hauntings for Mr. Merrick and myself. “We have wasted your time, Professor.”

  “Think nothing of that,” he said. “This sort of thing happens with some regularity. Ghosts hate to be studied, it seems, and become shy around scientists. I’m only sorry that I can’t be of more help to you. But perhaps the ghosts have gone and will trouble you no more.”

  “But what if they return?” Mr. Merrick asked. “What do we do?”

  I felt sure they would return, and still feared them as greatly as I had before.

  The professor paused. “Those who claim to know of such things often say that spirits who haunt are suffering under the tyranny of powerful emotion. The young widow stricken by grief over the death of her soldier husband, for example. The emotion is the engine of their haunting, and must be resolved if they are to find peace.”

  “How can their emotion be resolved?” I asked.

  “That depends upon the source of it, I suppose. Someone living must do what the ghost would do were they alive.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, but this truly is not my area of expertise. I’d hoped that if I could see these ghosts I might better understand it all. But now I must return to Cambridge.”

  “I thank you for coming, at any rate,” Mr. Merrick said.

  “I was glad to, and hope to come visit again. It was a pleasure to meet you.” The professor shook Mr. Merrick’s good hand and then asked if I might join him a moment outside. I followed him, and in the courtyard he brought up the subject of his women’s college once more. “You could attend,” he said. “I could see to it that you’re admitted.”

  “Me, sir?” It seemed absurd enough to be a mockery.

  “Why, yes. From our conversations last night, I can see you have the intellect, as well as a previous education.”

  He made it sound as though those things were all that was required. He did not understand how it was for me, the eyes on me always full of loathing and fear. He did not understand how painful it would be for me to attend his college, day after day bearing the weight of knowing that I was not wanted there. If the streets had rejected me, what chance did I have in a lofty place of learning?

  “Why not consider it?” he asked.

  I wanted to tell him to look at my face, but he had seen it all night and still he’d extended this invitation.

  “No, sir,” I said. “I thank you most gratefully, but I am content in my position with Mr. Merrick.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “I would not ask you to leave him now, certainly. He clearly relies on you, and your service to him is admirable. But what about … after?”

  “After?”

  “After he passes from this earth.”

  He made Mr. Merrick’s death seem imminent. “Sir?”

  “Treves informed me he’s not sure how much longer Merrick has to live. When the hospital first took him in, no one believed the lad would survive this long.”

  It had not occurred to me that Mr. Merrick’s condition might shorten his life, and I wondered if these were the changing circumstances to which the matron had alluded. That realization shocked the breath out of me for a moment, and replaced it with grief.

  “You might give a thought to your future, Miss Fallow,” the professor said. “I see potential in you. With that, I bid you good day.”

  The hope that Professor Sidgwick’s visit had brought vanished quickly, and by the afternoon an oppressive melancholy had returned to claim Mr. Merrick. He did not eat, and did not wish to engage in any of his usual activities. Instead he sat by the fire, alternately staring blankly into the coals and dozing, and I didn’t know what I could do for him.

  “Maybe they won’t return,” I offered. “They didn’t last night.”

  His response was very slow in coming, and weak when it finally emerged. “They will return. I know it. But there is nothing I can do for them.”

  “Let’s just wait and see,” I said.

  “Will you be with me?” he asked.

  Though I had no wish to be, for myself, there was only one possible answer I could give him. “Of course I will.”

  His forecast proved accurate, for that night Polly and Annie came back, and their visitations proceeded as if indelibly recorded on a phonograph cylinder, to be turned again and again in perpetual, haunting repetition. It was indeed a kind of tyranny, just as Professor Sidgwick had described it, from which neither they nor we could escape. That night, and the next, and the next after that, they came, and with each successive appearance Mr. Merrick grew weaker. At times I tried to convince myself it was simply the exhaustion from his lack of sleep, but more often found I could not deny the unnatural aspect of his decline.

  On the Sunday following Professor Sidgwick’s failed investigation, Dr. Tilney came to visit Mr. Merrick. I felt glad to see him again, for our encounter a few nights earlier had been pleasant. Upon entering the room, he stood by the door, wearing his long coat, his top hat in hand, looking at his shoes, in obvious discomfort he attempted to hide.

  “Dr. Tilney, it has been a long time,” Mr. Merrick said. “It is good to see you.”

  “Yes … um.” Dr. Tilney turned to me, clearly flummoxed, and so I interpreted Mr. Merrick’s speech. “Yes, Joseph,” he then said. “It has been a long time. I’ve been quite busy, you see. I lecture now at the medical college.”

  “Congratulations,” Mr. Merrick said. “I’m sure the students learn much from you.”

  This I also translated.

  “I trust they do,” Dr. Tilney said, finally lifting his eyes to Mr. Merrick where he sat in his bed. The doctor then took a step farther into the room. “Are you well, Joseph? You do not look it, old chap.”

  “I doubt I ever look well, Dr. Tilney.” Mr. Merrick attempted a chuckle.
r />   “Right, of course.” Dr. Tilney crossed the room and placed his hat on the table next to the model church. “What I mean is, your complexion is quite peaked. Are you eating?”

  “Some,” Mr. Merrick said.

  Dr. Tilney looked to me, and I answered honestly. “He eats but little.”

  “And are you sleeping?” the doctor asked.

  “Some,” Mr. Merrick said.

  This, too, I corrected, though naturally I omitted the cause.

  Dr. Tilney pulled me away for a hushed aside. “How long has he been in this condition?” he asked me.

  I lowered my voice. “Two weeks now.”

  “Is Dr. Treves aware of it?”

  “He has spoken of performing another medical examination, yes.”

  “A medical display, you mean,” Dr. Tilney said.

  I detected disapproval in his voice. “Pardon me, sir?”

  “What Treves refers to is a display of Joseph naked before the medical body of the hospital. It isn’t about the man’s health, it’s about the mystery of his condition.” He shook his head. “Never sat right with me, to be perfectly honest. How different is such an exhibition from Merrick’s freak show days? It’d be better to let the man live out his remaining days in peace.”

  “Are his remaining days so few?” I asked. Professor Sidgwick’s words had sat heavy with me, and I felt both worried and sad.

  “It’s impossible to know for certain, of course,” he said. “Before, I would have expected him to reach at least thirty-five years of age. Seeing his condition now …”

  “How long, sir?”

  He simply shook his head and said, “Treves must know of this. But what of you? You do not look well, either. When was your last day off?”

  “I’ve not taken one,” I said. “I’ve no wish to leave the hospital.”

  “Do,” he said. “You need it.” He then retrieved his hat from the table and raised his voice. “Joseph, it was wonderful to see you!”

  “I’m sorry you must leave so soon,” Mr. Merrick said, but Dr. Tilney didn’t wait for me to interpret his speech.

  “I’ll try to come again soon,” the doctor said, heading toward the door. “In the meantime, eat and sleep more, yes? Doctor’s orders.”

  “I’ll try,” Mr. Merrick said.

  “Good man.” Dr. Tilney gave me a nod. “Miss Fallow, good day.”

  Then he was gone, and Mr. Merrick blinked at the door. “That was a surprising visit. I didn’t know Dr. Tilney still worked at the hospital.”

  “Like he said, Mr. Merrick, he’s an important man now, and quite busy.”

  “What were you both whispering about?”

  “Oh …” I attempted a casual lie, something I’d not had to do recently. “Nothing to trouble yourself over.”

  “You were speaking of me, were you not?”

  “It was nothing,” I said, and attempted a change to the subject. “What will you do with this model church when it’s finished?”

  He swung his prodigious head toward his table. “I think I shall give it to Mrs. Kendal, to thank her for everything she has done for me. Did you know she once arranged for me to have basket-making lessons?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Yes. I wrote to her that I should like to know how it was done, and a man came to teach me.”

  “And where are these baskets that you made?” I asked.

  He tapped his tuberous hand. “It will probably not surprise you to learn that I was not very accomplished at it.”

  I thought he meant that as an attempt at humor, and I smiled.

  “I’ve been thinking about what Professor Sidgwick told us,” he said. “About what the spirits want.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I wish that I could do for them what they cannot, because they are dead and I am living.”

  Once again, I marveled at the kindness in his nature, how a man could be so pitiful and despised, and not grow angry and hateful of the world in return, but rather show it such charity and compassion. “Would that all men were like you, Mr. Merrick,” I said, and immediately knew how he would respond to that.

  “Most men would—”

  “I don’t mean your face, you joker. I mean your character.”

  He laughed, and the sound warmed me through. “I know,” he said, but within a moment had grown somber again. “But I am in earnest about what I wish.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I wonder …”

  “You wonder what?”

  “It … might be too much to ask of you.”

  I was seized then by a fear quite different than that which I felt in the presence of the ghosts. This was not a fear of the unknown, but a fear of what I knew all too well, and if Mr. Merrick was about to ask me what I thought, I wanted no part of it. I would not venture back out into the streets of Whitechapel, not for myself and certainly not on a spirit’s errand.

  “Would you do for me what I would do for the ghosts?” he asked.

  “Mr. Merrick …”

  “Please, hear me out. I’ve been thinking about Polly. She seems to be under a tyranny of fear that William would abandon her. Perhaps if I—that is, perhaps if you find her William and tell him about her father, she would know William loved her in spite of it and be at peace.”

  What he suggested seemed both overly romantic and impossible, like something from a novel. “Mr. Merrick, you’re saying you want me to track down a strange man of unknown quality to deliver a message from his dead wife that’s very likely to upset him?”

  “Yes.”

  My fear mounted higher, especially at the thought of Leather Apron on the loose. “No,” I said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Merrick, but I cannot do what you ask.”

  “I know it is difficult—”

  “It’s not difficult.” My voice quavered. “It’s unthinkable, Mr. Merrick. You of all people … you know what it is like out there. You came here to hide, the same as me. I beg you, don’t ask me.”

  He said nothing for several moments, and then he extended his good arm toward me as near as he could reach, and I met him the rest of the way and took his hand in mine, which he gently squeezed. “I understand,” he said. “I am sorry to have asked.”

  My fear diminished, and I softened toward him. “It wasn’t wrong of you to ask,” I said. “I just can’t do it.”

  “I know.” He released me and slumped backward against his pillows. “It isn’t something anyone can do,” he said with a sigh of utter surrender.

  I thought about what Dr. Tilney had told me, and I felt a constriction of grief in my chest that nearly stopped me from breathing. “We don’t even know if that would help Polly, do we? I mean, Professor Sidgwick didn’t even know.”

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  In honesty, I was trying to reassure myself. The thought that I might be able to do something to stop the hauntings and thereby relieve Mr. Merrick’s suffering but chose not to filled me with guilt. So I instead relied entirely on a faith that the doctors would find a way to help him, and I strained toward a hope that with time, perhaps the spirits would simply leave him in peace of their own accord. They did not leave him in peace that night, though, but I was with him at least as he sought vainly to comfort Polly and understand Annie through her endless screaming. Dr. Treves came the next day to examine him, during which I left his room, motivated more by a respect for Mr. Merrick’s privacy than by my previous fear of his body. After the examination, Dr. Treves sought me out and found me in the laundry.

  “I am at a loss,” he said. “I’ve not seen him this low since he first came to me. I don’t understand this sudden decline, but then, we know little about his condition. He is simply wasting away. Can you not get him to eat, somehow?”

  “I provide his meals, sir,” I said. “Beyond that—”

  He stopped me short with a flick of his hand. “Yes, yes, I know. It’s not as if you can force the food into him, now can you? I didn’t mean to suggest any negligence on
your part.”

  “What can be done for him?” I asked.

  “Well, I must give some thought to a more suitable bed. Perhaps if he could sleep more comfortably, he might regain some strength. As for this melancholy, I may solicit a few more visits from the society women I know. And he has wanted to go to the theater for some time. Perhaps Mrs. Kendal could use her connections to arrange it. A pantomime, I think. That would give him a reason to look ahead and get his strength back.”

  I knew Dr. Treves meant well, but his efforts on behalf of Mr. Merrick seemed to me somewhat patronizing, in the same way as the nickname he’d given him. Mr. Merrick was a man worthy of forthrightness and respect, not a child to be sheltered and indulged, but I simply said, “I’m sure he would enjoy all those things.”

  He nodded. “In the meantime, do what you can to encourage him to eat. Make him as comfortable as possible. See that he rests.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “And if you should uncover the source of his melancholy, please inform me of it. I think that may be at the root of his poor health.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” I said, wincing inwardly at a twist of guilt.

  “In the coming weeks, I shall present him before the medical college. It has been some time since we made a study of him.”

  I did not want to seem brazen, but I thought about what Dr. Tilney had said and felt driven to protect Mr. Merrick. “Sir, do you think him well enough for that?”

  Dr. Treves scowled. “It is because of his condition I feel it necessary. For the betterment of our medical profession. I am duty-bound to take what opportunity we have to study him, and if he is coming to the end of his tragic life, we must act quickly. We may not have another chance.”

  His calculation possessed the scientific indifference of a balance scale, and even had I been willing to risk a further impertinence, I had no argument against his logic. He left me then, and after I’d finished taking care of Mr. Merrick’s bedding, I went and filled his coal hod.

  On the way back, I chanced to meet a porter about some hospital errand. He was a brutish-looking fellow with a simian’s brow and a bricklayer’s hands. I was alone with him, and now the newspapers had insinuated a suspicion into the mortar of the walls I’d thought would protect me.