A Taste for Monsters Read online

  “How do you like the hospital?” he asked.

  “I like it very much,” I said. “It is far superior to where I’ve been living.”

  “And where was that?”

  “Wherever I could afford.”

  He put down his fork. “It was once the same for me. I’ve slept in the meanest of places. I’ve lived in that hell on earth they call a workhouse, but I don’t like to think on it. The hospital is immeasurably better.”

  I had long ago resolved never to go to the workhouse. Anyone I’d known desperate enough to do so came out of that infernal place worse for it and refused to ever go back, even if it meant dying in the gutter. What horrors must Mr. Merrick have endured there?

  He returned to his meal, and the two of us sat there together as evening fell about us and the room darkened. Try as I might to disregard it, the sight and sound of his eating were enough to turn my stomach, and it was difficult not to contemplate the reality of my position. I was to sit with this monstrous man, cutting his food, watching him attempt to eat it, three times a day, until such a time as Matron Luckes might deem me capable of other work.

  A gob of partially chewed lamb tumbled from his mouth to the table. My gorge rose with a swell of nausea at the sight of it, and I felt the need to flee from that room once again, but I stayed in my chair.

  “Pardon me,” he said.

  I shook my head. “No need for pardons, Mr. Merrick.”

  He wiped at his mouth with the napkin. “I am finished.”

  “Very good.” I rose from the table. “Shall I tend the fire?”

  He, too, stood and hobbled the few feet over to his bed. “Yes, if you would.”

  I crossed the room and knelt before the hearth in the embers’ bloody light. The coal hod was nearly empty, but I used the tongs to add more fuel, enough to keep the heat up for several hours. By the time I stood and turned around, Mr. Merrick had climbed back into his bed and was sitting under the covers, his pillows behind his back.

  “Would you like me to help you lie down?” I asked.

  “I can’t sleep that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “The weight of my head. It twists my neck so I can’t breathe.”

  “Then how do you sleep?”

  He brought his legs up nearly to his chest and wrapped his arms around his shins, and then laid his forehead upon his knees. “Like so.”

  “That doesn’t look very comfortable.”

  “Some nights, I rest well. Other nights, I start to think I might be willing to trade breathing for sleep.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Good night, Evelyn. I shall see you in the morning.”

  “Good night, Mr. Merrick.” I took up the tray with his plate and left his quarters.

  Outside, the night sky was starless and colorless over the empty square. I turned toward the nurses’ house and found my way back to the kitchen, where I washed Mr. Merrick’s dishes, though the cook wasn’t there to compel me. After that, I went to my room, where I undressed and climbed into my bed. Thoughts of Mr. Merrick kept me awake until Becky came in with another servant she introduced as Martha.

  “Where you been?” Becky asked. “You eat supper?”

  “No,” I said. I’d not given a real thought to my own food, incredibly hungry though I was. It was far from the first night I had gone to bed with an empty stomach, but I hoped it would be the last.

  “You been with the Elephant Man?” Martha asked. She had rust-colored hair, an abundance of freckles that stood out against her pale skin, and a sharp voice like that of a coster’s boy, used for barking wares.

  “Yes, I have,” I said.

  Becky sat down on her bed, leaning toward me. “What’s he like?”

  I didn’t know if she meant his appearance or his character, but I did not want to talk about the former. “He is very gracious and polite, actually.”

  “Gracious and polite?” Martha flopped onto her own bed. “That freak of nature?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He is very well mannered.”

  “That so? Did he doff his cap and kiss your hand?” Becky said.

  “Course he did,” Martha said. “He’s a proper gentleman, that one.”

  They both giggled.

  “He is well mannered,” I said, raising my voice, and their laughter ceased. “And undeserving of your mockery.”

  “Easy now, Evelyn,” Becky said. “We meant no harm.”

  “Just a bit of fun,” Martha said.

  “Just a bit of fun.” I shook my head, a bit surprised at my sudden defensiveness of Mr. Merrick. It’s not as though the girls had said anything truly vulgar, and I was sure Mr. Merrick had endured much, much worse. But I did not like to hear them laughing at his expense. “He is a pitiable person,” I said.

  Becky stared at her hands clasped in her lap. “I suppose … you know what that’s like.”

  She referred to my own disfigurement, but did so with the same innocence as before. “Yes, I suppose I do,” I said.

  “Were it phossy jaw what did it?” Martha asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Well, that’s two ends and the middle of a bad lot.”

  She may well have been sincere in her sympathy, but I wasn’t yet prepared to show my back to her, especially considering the way they’d been speaking of Mr. Merrick. Earlier that same day, I might have met these two on the street as enemies.

  “Get you some rest, Evelyn,” Becky said. “I’m to show you the lay of things tomorrow.”

  I nodded. “Good night, then.” And I lay back down, facing away from them, trying not to listen to their whispers, which continued well into the night. I tried also to ignore the sense that I was defended only by a cold wall of brick and mortar against the patient and merciless streets that waited nearby to reclaim me.

  The next morning, I rose, washed, dressed, and sat down for a breakfast of tea and buttered toast with the other servants, all women, before the sun was up. We ate with our elbows touching at a couple of long tables near the kitchen. I tried to keep my shawl in place to hide my jaw as best I could, but eating made that difficult. It seemed news of my appearance had spread quickly among the staff, at any rate, for those at my table either avoided looking at me altogether or gave me sidelong stares.

  Near me, a stout barge of a woman with ruddy cheeks named Beatrice read from a newspaper and seemed to believe it her duty to relate the contents to everyone else. “Did you know that Martha Tabram woman was stabbed thirty-nine times?” she said, phrasing as a question what she clearly wanted to state. “Thirty-nine times! A lot of hate behind that knife, I’d wager.”

  “I hope it were the first strike that killed her,” Becky said.

  “Remember that Emma Smith?” Martha asked. “She didn’t go quick. Poor girl.”

  Becky shook her head. “I don’t like to think on it.”

  Beatrice let the newspaper topple and peeked overtop of it. “I remember that Smith girl. Someone brought her to the hospital, oh, back in April was it? A gang had got hold of her and—”

  “Please.” Becky’s voice had gained some urgency. “I don’t like talking about the departed. The ones what died here in the hospital, leastwise.”

  Martha turned toward me. “Becky’s afeared of ghosts.”

  “We all got a soul, ain’t we?” Becky said.

  “Bah! Superstition.” Beatrice raised her paper wall of gossip, but she said nothing more about the ignominies and tragedies written there.

  I was glad for her silence, for I could have easily been one of the women whose brutal murders they talked about. I’d openly feared for my life so many times, and I shuddered to think how close I had come to such an end, without even knowing it, at the hands of one who prowled the shadows. As for ghosts, I was already haunted by too much of the living world to worry over the spirits of the dead.

  A few moments passed before normal conversation resumed, and from it I gleaned a bit about the hie
rarchy of the hospital. It seemed I was more fortunate in my position than I’d realized. Those servants who lived on the hospital premises were only the highest ranking, attending to the matron, the hospital governor, or the young men training to be doctors and surgeons at the nearby college. Likewise, the women around me all had experience in service, while I had none. I knew myself and my abilities to be much closer to those of the scrubbers and porters who were forced to make their homes out in the city. My assignment to Mr. Merrick was the only reason I was sitting at that table. My scars, it seemed, had at once driven me to the hospital and also secured my place here.

  “We’d best hurry,” Becky said, tipping back the last of her tea.

  I swallowed my final bite of toast, and we rose from the table.

  First, Becky showed me where to find the laundry and linens for changing Mr. Merrick’s bedding, along with the necessaries for cleaning his rooms. Then, I learned where I could find the small coal and kindling with which to build his fire. Next, she instructed me on his mealtimes for breakfast, luncheon, tea, and dinner.

  “And most days the nurses bathe him twice,” she said. “Once in the morning, and again in the evening. For the smell.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “That’s all I was asked to show you,” she said as we stood in Bedstead Square. Beyond her basic instruction, she hadn’t offered to assist me with my tasks, but from the way she cast a wary eye in the direction of Mr. Merrick’s rooms, I guessed that to be in hopes of avoiding him. “You have any more questions, you come find me,” she said. “All right?”

  “Yes, thank you,” I said.

  She turned away and hurried toward the hospital’s door, while I turned toward Mr. Merrick’s, remembering to remove my shawl before I entered.

  Inside his room, I found him still asleep in that awkward position of his, and I wondered for a moment how anyone could be comfortable in that manner. I took his coal hod to refill it, and he did not stir until I had returned and begun to kindle the fire back to life.

  “Good morning, Evelyn,” he said, lifting his great head.

  “Good morning, sir,” I said. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Not until the small hours.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Not to worry. I’m accustomed to it. At least I got some rest.”

  “Shall I fetch your breakfast?”

  “Yes, but before you go, could you help me out of bed? I must go to the water closet to relieve myself.”

  “Oh, um, certainly.” I assumed the frankness of his statement was owed to his living in a hospital, where the functions of the body were a common matter, but it was also true that I had heard men speak openly of much worse.

  I went to his bedside and pulled and supported him as he stood, momentarily taking from him a measure of the strain his body placed on him constantly. After he had gained his feet and shuffled to the inner door toward his bathroom, I left and retrieved his breakfast from the kitchen.

  When I returned, I found him at his table turning over pieces of the card model church.

  I placed the tray of food before him. “That’s coming along nicely.”

  “It’s the Mainz Cathedral in Germany. I can’t work at it alone. The nurses help me with it when they have the time, which isn’t very often.”

  His hinting came with a childlike innocence. “I could help you with it sometime, if you like.”

  “I would like that very much. Thank you.” He put down the piece of card and turned toward his breakfast. In addition to tea, the cook had sent eggs, a sweet bun, toast, and a slice of cold meat, none of which required my help in carving it.

  He took a bite of crispy toast. “Evelyn,” he asked, “are we better acquainted?”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that question. “Better than what?”

  “Better than we were yesterday.” He ate some of his eggs. “Dr. Treves said I ought not to ask you about you until we are better acquainted.”

  Again it was a child’s question, and a child’s way of asking it, which I would not have expected from a grown man. “How old are you, Mr. Merrick?”

  “Twenty-six,” he said.

  A grown man, to be sure. But he had not lived the life of a man, at least not an ordinary one. “Well,” I said. “You may rest assured that we are acquainted well enough for you to ask what you wish.”

  “Have you also come to the hospital to hide? Like me?” He took another bite of eggs.

  His sudden perceptiveness disoriented me; it seemed he had found the kinship in me Matron Luckes had hoped for. “I … yes, Mr. Merrick.”

  “I thought you might,” he said. “Hiding is difficult to manage, isn’t it? I don’t want to be seen. But at the same time, I do want to be seen. Truly seen, that is, beneath my deformity. Did you know I used to stand on a stage, and people would pay twopence to gawk at me? It was right across the street from the hospital, next to a greengrocer’s. That was the opposite of hiding, but not one of them truly saw me. Now I am hiding here.”

  I gestured toward the cards on the mantel and smiled at him. “It doesn’t seem you’ve been hiding very well.”

  He laughed. “I suppose you are right about that. But at least people finally see me.”

  There came a knock at the door.

  Mr. Merrick asked the caller to enter, and in strutted a very fine young man carrying a violin case, which he set down on the floor. He was tanned, wore common clothes: wool trousers, vest and coat, scuffed leather shoes, and a bowler cap he removed once he’d closed the door behind him. He wore his brown hair short and flashed a smile that could catch a fish in the filthy Thames. I fought a powerful desire to raise my shawl.

  “Charles, how good to see you,” Mr. Merrick said, and I heard genuine joy in his voice.

  “Joseph!” The young man Charles nearly bounded across the room to Mr. Merrick’s side. “My ugly bloke, how are you? It’s been too long.” He clapped Mr. Merrick on the back.

  “Too long,” Mr. Merrick said. “What have you been doing?”

  “Oh, you know me. Some of this, a little of that. I keep telling you to come out with me sometime. I know where to find the jammiest bits of jam.” He winked at Mr. Merrick, and then looked at me, directly into my eyes. “But maybe you don’t need my help, eh? Who’s this? Got yourself a girl, have you?”

  “No, not at all.” Mr. Merrick spoke with all seriousness. “This is Miss Evelyn Fallow, my new maid. Evelyn, this is Charles Weaver.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Weaver,” I said.

  “Pleasure is mine, Miss Fallow, to be sure. And please, call me Charles.” He smiled that fishing lure smile again and then looked back at Mr. Merrick with such ease it seemed he hadn’t noticed my scars at all, though they lay bare. “I don’t have long today, so what say you? Care for a tune?”

  “If you would be so kind,” Mr. Merrick said.

  “Let me help you to your chair, then.” Charles took Mr. Merrick by his arm and around his back, then helped him to his feet. Mr. Merrick shuffled over to his armchair by the fireplace, and Charles supported him as he sat down. I noticed, then, how odd the chair was, canted backward at an angle by ebonized front legs nearly three times as long as its rear feet. This arrangement seemed to allow Mr. Merrick to comfortably recline and rest his head while sitting nearly upright.

  Charles went for his violin case, opened it, and pulled out his instrument, a battered old violin. “How about ‘The Lights o’ London Town’?”

  “I shall be pleased with whatever you play, as always,” Mr. Merrick said.

  Charles nodded, then lifted the violin to his chin and set about tuning it.

  “Do you come and play for Mr. Merrick often?” I asked. Something about him spread unease through me, though I could not say what it was.

  “When I can,” Charles said, between discordant notes and without taking his eyes from the violin’s strings. “Not as often as we’d like, eh, Joseph?”

  “To
be sure,” Mr. Merrick said.

  A moment later, Charles plucked at the violin and nodded to himself as if satisfied at the sound. “Right, here we go,” he said.

  The riotous tone that then leapt out of the instrument as he pulled the bow across it filled Mr. Merrick’s room to the top and ran over the sides, the sound of the violin exquisite in spite of its shabby appearance, and the song was a familiar one heard in all the music halls. It called to mind the exuberant noise and crowd of a London market at night, with its hawkers selling hot potatoes, ice cream, ale, winkles and oysters and other relishes, cheap medicines, and jewelry.

  Mr. Merrick tapped his toe in time with the rhythm, as did Charles as he played with his eyes closed. He was obviously an accomplished and talented musician, with a performer’s grace and natural charm that captured his audience’s attention and held it.

  When he finished, Mr. Merrick applauded, as did I.

  “Delightful!” Mr. Merrick said, manifesting the greatest degree of emotion I had yet seen upon his face. “Wonderful!”

  “Thank you very much, Joseph.” Charles bowed, then looked at me, once again directly into my eyes and not at my jaw some inches lower. “And you, Miss Fallow? What think you of my entertainment?”

  “I find it quite diverting,” I said.

  He bowed once more. “You’re a penn’orth o’ treacle, you are. How about another?”

  “I’d like that,” Mr. Merrick said, though the question had been directed at me.

  “‘Afton Water,’ then,” Charles said, and began a second song, this one of a gentler inclination, and after the violin had sung some lovely notes, Charles offered his own voice in complement to his instrument.

  Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,

  Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise.

  His voice had the solidity of old wood with deep grain, dark stain, and smooth varnish, and he employed it with the same skill as he did his violin.