A Taste for Monsters, Page 2

  “And your mother?” the matron asked.

  “She died when I was eight while giving birth to my sister, who lived but five days.”

  “I see.” The matron looked down at her desk, drumming a tattoo with her fingertips, and a delicate hope fluttered inside me. Several moments passed with maddening slowness, counted by the ticking of the wall clock. But then she looked up abruptly, and by the serious expression she wore, I knew my hope had been false.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Fallow. I truly sympathize with your plight. But here are the facts, which cannot be ignored. Our patients come to us in the extremities of pain and despair. A nurse is engaged in divine work, and to be of comfort and benefit, she must possess an angelic countenance. Your disfigurement would cause shock and discomfort, I am afraid. There is also the matter of maturity. How old are you?”

  “Seventeen, ma’am.”

  She sighed. “There we are. Probationers must be at least twenty-one. You have my deepest pity. Had I the power, I would—”

  “Begging your pardon, Matron, but I did not come here for your pity.” I swallowed to keep my voice steady and strong. “I came for a position, and if I’m to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t out of charity, either. I came because I have nowhere else I can go. I have no money, but I refuse to debase myself with men. I do not want to die in a doss-house, but I am terrified that is my fate, or something worse. Please, ma’am. I’ll accept anything. Just allow me—”

  She held up a hand to stop me from speaking. “You have strength of character, and I admire it,” she said. “But it does not change the facts I have already stated. I am sorry, Miss Fallow, but there is nothing I can do.”

  “I see.” I felt my whole being collapsing inward, but forced myself to my feet. “Thank you for your time, Matron.” I managed a curtsy, reclaimed my bag, then turned and crossed her office, eyes downward on the Persian rug, attempting to scrape together a desperate plan for where I would go and what I would do outside the hospital walls. I reached the door and grasped its cold handle.

  “Miss Fallow,” the matron said.

  I turned to face her. “Ma’am?”

  “A possibility has just occurred to me.” She came around from behind her desk and approached me, joining her bejeweled hands in front of her waist. “It is actually your condition, as well as the strength you have shown, that may render you suitable to the task I have in mind. But I must warn you. The patient has proven too much for even the most seasoned and accomplished on my staff.”

  I forged my voice of adamant. “Whatever the duty, ma’am, I accept it.”

  “You will be a maid, but also the patient’s attendant. You will light his fire, bring his food, and you will assist him with whatever he requires.”

  I would not have to return to the streets, after all. I had escaped the city and what it had tried to make out of me, the life and death that waited for me there. “You have my deepest gratitude, ma’am. I know I am capable, and I won’t disappoint you.”

  “But this duty is different from whatever it is you are expecting, I assure you. This patient is quite singular.”

  “How so, ma’am?”

  “His name is Joseph Merrick. You may have heard him referred to as the Elephant Man.”

  Matron Luckes was right. I knew of the Elephant Man. Girls from the match factory had seen him on display as a great freak of nature some few years earlier. One of them had apparently run screaming at the sight of him, and another had simply fainted on the spot from the shock. The grotesque images they had conjured in my mind at that time rose up now to haunt me. I felt crushed in a vise, desperate not to return to the streets, but terrified of this new spectre.

  The Elephant Man.

  “Ma’am … I …”

  “You have heard of him, I see. I warned you, Miss Fallow. He is quite singular. If you do not think you have it in you to undertake this, I urge you to say so now.”

  As frightened as I was by this unknown, I was more frightened by what I knew full well awaited me in the streets at night. There were worse ways to die in Whitechapel than in the bed of a doss-house. “I have it in me, ma’am.”

  “You are certain?” She fixed me with a blade of a stare that transformed her from hospital monarch to inquisitor. “You are quite certain?”

  Though I had once faced down a huge longshoreman crazed with drink, I found myself unable to combat her gaze and lowered mine. “I am quite certain, ma’am. I am sorry for my hesitation.”

  “When you are introduced to Mr. Merrick,” she said, her voice as honed as her eyes, “no matter what your inward reaction might be upon seeing him, you will maintain a pleasant and compassionate demeanor. He must see no outward sign of your discomfort, whatsoever. Do you understand?”

  “I do, ma’am.”

  “Good.” She looked at my carpetbag. “Shall I have a porter assist you with your other things?”

  “This is all I have, ma’am.”

  “Very well. I shall escort you to the maids’ dormitory, and later, you’ll be introduced to Mr. Merrick. Provided that goes well, you will begin your duties tomorrow. Your wages are six shillings a week.” She reached around me and opened the door. “Please, after you.”

  I hesitated leaving the office, because my face lay exposed, and moved to lift my shawl. Matron Luckes waited patiently until I had it adjusted before ushering me out into the corridor.

  “Under the circumstances,” she said as she led me back down the wing, “I will allow you to wear your shawl when moving about the hospital. But when you are in Mr. Merrick’s presence, you will refrain from covering your face.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, then risked an impertinence. “May I ask why, ma’am?”

  “To do so would undermine the very reason I selected you. It would not do him good to see someone of vastly better circumstances ashamed of her disfigurement.”

  “I see.” It seemed I was there to show the Elephant Man that he was not the only monster in the world. Only I wasn’t a monster, in spite of how I looked and what I’d done, and ordinarily I would have been angry, but in that moment I was much more worried about seeing him than I was about being seen by him.

  The matron moved along with a rigid grace lessened somewhat by a slight swivel at her hips, like a barrel walking. When we reached the main hallway near the receiving room, we turned toward the garden doors I had seen earlier.

  “That is a fine locket you are wearing,” she said. “Beginning tomorrow, when in uniform, you must not wear it at any time. I do not permit anyone on my staff to wear jewelry.”

  I thought of her many rings, sparkling on her fingers even now as we stepped outside and down a set of stone steps to a gravel path. “Why is that, Matron?” I asked.

  “It invites distraction and risks offense. A crucifix, for example, might cause discomfort for our Jewish patients and benefactors.”

  “I see,” I said, but resolved to wear it under my clothes where it wouldn’t be seen, for it was my talisman of better times.

  The hospital’s garden filled in the wide space between its west and east wings, the dense flower beds having already begun to shed the last of their blossoms and color with the coming of autumn. On the garden’s far side, beyond the ends of the building, lay a shady lawn and a tennis court.

  Matron Luckes led me down a path that skirted the eastern wing, which towered over us several stories, until about halfway along its length we came to a set of stairs leading up to another pair of doors. We entered through them into an open lobby with two wards on each side, to the right and left. We paused here, allowing for a longer glance through their double doors than I’d previously been given. Some of the patients were sitting up in their beds, while others reclined. Some had bandages wrapping various parts of their bodies, the injuries and maladies of the others not plainly visible.

  “Gloucester and Bowley wards on your left,” the matron said. “Cambridge and Albert on your right. Your regular duties will not require you to enter any
of the wards. You will refrain from doing so unless directed otherwise.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  We crossed the lobby and exited from the opposite side of the wing onto an open square, where women were washing and scrubbing iron bed frames, the smell of carbolic more pungent in the air than it had been inside the hospital. Additional bed frames that appeared in need of paint or repair waited in forlorn stacks in the corners of the courtyard. A third hospital wing enclosed the square on the opposite side and to the left, and a somewhat forsaken quality oppressed the space.

  “That is the Grocers Wing.” Matron Luckes pointed across the way, and then nodded toward the women at work. “And this is commonly referred to as Bedstead Square, for obvious reasons.”

  We descended a few steps and turned to the right, strolling down the length of the square, and a short distance later we reached another flight of concrete steps, these leading downward to a low wooden door into what appeared to be the basement of the east wing.

  Matron Luckes halted before the top of the stairs. “That door leads to Mr. Merrick’s quarters.”

  I looked again, suddenly fearful, and a mite curious. The door had a fanlight above it, and a narrow sash-window at its side, through which I wondered if the Elephant Man was watching us even then, just on the other side of the darkened glass. At that thought, I felt a prickly coating of unease spread over my scalp.

  “We will return here later,” the matron said, and strolled on in the direction we’d been going. “When we do so, you will curtsy upon your introduction to Mr. Merrick. You may offer him your hand to shake, if you wish, but as a maid that is not expected of you. I can, however, say that he would deeply appreciate it, and he may extend his hand to you. When it comes to members of our sex, he has a kind of general infatuation. But it is naive and quite innocent, I assure you.”

  “Then … I shall take his hand,” I said, though the thought unsettled me. But I did wish to be kind to him.

  “Good. I’ve not found a way to adequately prepare a person for their first encounter with Mr. Merrick. His appearance is quite extraordinary, and his deformity renders his speech difficult to understand.”

  “I’m sure I’ll grow accustomed.”

  “Most people do, with time. Dr. Treves—you will meet him later this evening—now understands his speech completely, and though I still have some difficulty in that area, Mr. Merrick’s appearance strikes me but little.”

  That offered me a measure of reassurance, though I remembered there had been others before me for whom he had proved too much. We approached the end of the hospital’s east wing, where it joined with another building perpendicular to it, and climbed a few steps to another set of doors. Through them, we came into a small, wainscoted foyer decorated with vases and plants, and from which a corridor reached outward and a staircase climbed both upward and downward.

  “This building opened two years ago to better meet the needs of our staff, and you will find it equipped with all modern conveniences. To your right, down that corridor, you will find my rooms and those of my assistant.” She gestured to the left. “Nurses and sisters have their rooms that way. Above us are the nurses’ sitting and dining rooms. Servants are below.”

  I followed her down the staircase to the basement floor, where the air smelled of roasting mutton and potatoes, and having skipped the doss-house breakfast, the aromas wet my mouth. The sound of pots clanging and women’s laughter carried down a hallway toward us on a draft of heat and steam.

  “The kitchens,” the matron said, “where you will take your meals and collect Mr. Merrick’s.” She turned in the opposite direction. “And this way you will find the servants’ dormitories.”

  She guided me down a dark and narrow hallway lined with doors to either side, and stopped at the third to the right. “There is an unoccupied bed in this room, I believe.” We entered without knocking and found the room empty.

  A single high window let in light from what I guessed to be the back side of the building, toward Oxford Street if my orientation was true, but there was a gas lamp in the wall and oil lamps as well, all currently unlit. The plain walls were painted white, the floor made of wood. A tall bureau and three beds occupied the space, the iron bedsteads similar to those I had just seen being scrubbed. Two of the beds had been made, while the third lay bare to the mattress. It was by far the cleanest bolster I had seen in years.

  “That one will be yours,” the matron said. “You may take one of the empty drawers in the bureau as well. I shall have bedding brought to you momentarily, in addition to your uniform.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “You will keep both in a state of great cleanliness, as well as your person. Once you have your uniform, you will wash yourself and put it on.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She waited a moment before speaking again. “Miss Fallow, I can see that life has been quite hard for you. Please feel free to take some hours’ reprieve to settle in. Later this evening, I shall come for you and make your introduction to Mr. Merrick.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She nodded and had the door halfway closed before I managed to call to her, “Matron Luckes?”

  She leaned back into the room. “Yes?”

  “Thank you,” I said, but had insufficient words for my gratitude. “Thank you very much, ma’am.”

  She smiled with a warmth that rounded the edges of her regality. “You are welcome. I pray this arrangement will prove mutually beneficial.” She nodded again, and this time the door closed all the way, and then I was alone.

  I crossed to the bureau and opened the drawers until I found one that was empty. Into this I laid the contents of my bag, all the possessions in the world I owned. There was my other dress, redolent of every inch of street I had walked and every doss-house in which I had slept; a hairbrush; a hand glass I rarely looked in; a couple of frayed ribbons and hairpins; spare stockings and chemise; and finally, my treasured copy of Emma by the author Jane Austen.

  The book had been my mother’s. Miss Austen had delighted her, and before my mother died I spent many evenings with my cheek against her knee as she read aloud to me. I understood little of it, of course, and I believe my mother knew that, but she read the books to me nevertheless, perhaps believing the words would simply soak into me as milk and honey soak into bread. Through everything I’d done, I had not and could not part with this last book of hers, which I had managed to preserve.

  A gentle sentimentality prompted me to carry the book to my new bed, where I lay down very slowly. The mattress gave beneath me, and even though I knew it to be of only modest quality, I luxuriated. I could not smell any of its previous occupants, and there were no fleas attacking me from within it.

  I reclined on my back and held the book above me. I could not remember the last time I had opened its cover, but did so now, and at the sight and sound of the first sentences I recalled my mother with such clarity that I wondered where she had been hiding all those years. Her voice echoed in my ears and her scent filled the room, that of neroli, the citrus perfume recipe her mother had passed down to her. The power of the memory soon overcame me, and I felt myself suffocating on it, for it did not offer me the nourishment of real air, but merely the illusion of it.

  I sat up gasping, the wet sting of tears in my eyes both frightening and rare. I wiped at them furiously, but then realized I had no reason to fear them there, so I lay back down and set them loose. It wasn’t a violent sobbing that followed, but rather a slow and careful release of innumerable pains ignored and denied.

  I don’t know how long I cried there, but a terrible exhaustion followed, which seized me and dragged me down further into the mattress. I closed my sore, spent eyes and slept deeply enough it felt nearly final—

  “Miss Fallow?”

  I awoke.

  A young black woman about my age stood near the bed, wearing the black dress and white apron and cap of a maid. She wore the tight curls of her raven
hair pulled up, her features full and smooth, and she smiled when I raised my head.

  “Evelyn, is it?” she asked, her voice gentle.

  “Yes.” I imagine it would’ve been as difficult to climb from my own grave as it was to rise from that bed, but I somehow reached my feet. “I didn’t mean to sleep.”

  “I won’t tell. You slept right through luncheon, though. You must’ve been awful tired.” She held out a neat pile of sheets, atop which were folded a dress, apron, and cap like the ones she wore. “Matron Luckes asked me to bring you these.”

  I accepted them from her. “Thank you,” I said, and turned to put them all down upon the mattress.

  When I faced her again, I saw she’d picked up my mother’s book. “What are you reading?” she asked.

  “That’s mine!” I said, and before I could bridle my instinct I snatched it back from her with such force she flinched. I realized then how hard it might be to break the habits of survival I had adopted on the streets. “I’m sorry,” I said, and turned the book so she could see its spine. “Emma, by Jane Austen. It was my mother’s. I don’t have much left that was hers.”

  She peered warily at the gold leaf lettering, which had almost been rubbed away. “You miss her? Your mother, I mean.”

  “Yes. Very much.”

  “I miss my mother.” She still stared at the book. “She died last spring.”

  “I’m so very sorry,” I said.

  “It were cancer took her. Cancer of the lungs. She were in service, too.”

  “I’m very sorry,” I said again.

  She bobbed her head and sighed. “I’m Becky Dods. That’s my bed.” She pointed to the one farthest from mine, then fixed her eyes back on my book, and I wondered if she perhaps wanted to read it, but then I realized she was simply avoiding looking someplace else. My shawl lay on the bed where it had fallen as I slept.