Elephant Man (22 page)

“Come in,” he said mechanically, thinking it was the evening meal.

But it was Treves, with an air of suppressed excitement and apprehension.

“Good afternoon, John.”

“Good afternoon.”

“John, there’s someone here who would like to meet you. Would that be all right?”

“Yes—of course.” Merrick was flustered, as though Treves’ nerves had communicated themselves to him. He wondered if his visitor was another senior member of the staff, someone like Carr-Gomm.

Then Treves stood aside and Merrick saw a stranger standing in the doorway. He caught his breath. He truly believed he must be looking at the most beautiful woman in the world.

“John,” Treves said, “I’d like you to meet one of the brightest lights of the British stage, Mrs. Kendal. Mrs. Kendal, John Merrick.”

“Good day, Mr. Merrick.” Madge Kendal’s voice was deep and husky.

He recovered himself enough to remember his manners. “Good day …”

She moved into the room and came to stand before him, gazing directly into his eyes. Nothing in her expression betrayed the awful revulsion that swept over her. After seeing one of Treves’ photographs she had believed herself prepared for the worst but no photograph, she now realized, could prepare anyone for the piteous outrage of nature that was John Merrick. But Madge Kendal was not an actress for nothing. She fought now for control of her features and her eyes, and achieved it. Merrick became the recipient of the most dazzling smile at her command.

“I’ve brought you some things,” she said. “I hope you’ll like them, Mr. Merrick. I hope you don’t think it too forward?”

“Oh—no,” he scarcely heard her words or his own reply. He could not take his eyes from her.

“I knew you’d understand. Here.”

She took something from under her arm and handed
it to him. Dazed he looked at it and saw that it was a framed photograph of herself, looking as elegant and fashionable as she did now. He could not speak. The ache was back in his throat, but this time it was from joy. He was terrified of bursting into tears again. Looking closely at him Mrs. Kendal understood everything that was passing through his mind. To break the tense silence she spoke archly.

“I want you to know that I don’t go about giving my pictures to just anyone.”

He managed to speak at last. “Oh no. I would never think it! It’s so beautiful. You are so—I’ll give it a place of honor here, next to my mother.”

He stepped back and lifted the portrait to the mantelpiece where the newly framed picture of his mother stood.

“She’s very pretty, your mother,” said Mrs. Kendal.

“Yes.” Merrick looked from one picture to the other, as though unable to decide which one gave him the most pleasure. Then he turned, as though remembering the proper behavior of a gentleman to a lady paying a visit.

“Would you care to sit down?”

She thanked him and seated herself, taking the chance to lay on the table a large book she was carrying. She had got her second breath now and was able to look at him more easily.

Treves waved Merrick to the only other chair, refusing to take it himself. He stood watching the two of them, smiling with pleasure at the apparent success of his plan.

“I see you’re constructing a—church?” Mrs. Kendal regarded the cardboard box.

“A cathedral—yes. I have to rely on my imagination for what I can’t actually see …” He hesitated before coming back to something that was puzzling him. “Mr. Treves says that you are in the theater. Do you live there?”

“Oh no, Mr. Merrick. I just work there.”

“Well, even to work there would be wonderful. Is it beautiful?”

“You’ve never been?”

“Alas, no.”

She studied him curiously. The old-fashioned word had taken her aback. Despite what Treves had told her about Merrick’s intelligence she had somehow believed that “intelligence” in this case meant little more than the cleverness of an animal. Physically Merrick had surpassed her worst nightmares. But now, as she forced herself to talk to him, she found herself confronted by a wistful, gentle personality, whose words, though a little indistinct, were courteous and even charming. It disturbed her to discover that mingled with her pity was liking for the person he was.

“Well, you must go,” she said, trying valiantly to carry on the conversation. “It is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Of course, I’m rather partial.”

“Tell me about it, please,” he begged.

“It’s very difficult to put into a nutshell, but I should say the theater is the shrine of the imagination, where one may suspend disbelief and travel anywhere in the world, to any time you desire.” She was not blind to the shine that came into his eyes. She went on, uncertain whether she was doing more harm than good, but not knowing what else to say. “You may look over the shoulders of kings unobserved, battle with ruthless tyrants, and marry the beautiful princess, all in the space of a few hours.”

She smiled, and her voice took on an added gentleness. “Onstage you may be whoever you wish to be, do anything you please, and always, always live happily ever after. The theater is all the brightest and best things of the world, Mr. Merrick. It is lights and music, gaiety and joy. It’s—well, it’s romance.”

“Romance …” he whispered longingly.

“That’s one thing the theater has in great store. Which reminds me …” She turned to the book she had brought in with her. “I have something else for you …”

The book was bound in fine leather, and gold lettering announced it to be the complete works of William Shakespeare. Merrick could hardly hold it in one hand. He put it quickly down and began to leaf through it, touching its pages with reverence.

“Have you read it?” she asked politely.

“No, but I certainly shall.” He flicked over some more pages until he came to a play whose title caught his eye. “
Romeo and Juliet
. I know
of
this …” He began to read from halfway down the page, saying the words in his thick, lisping voice, but with perfect comprehension of their meaning.

Embarrassed by the last words he stopped. He had not seen the astounded look Mrs. Kendal had given Treves, nor the equally disbelieving one she turned on him. If what Merrick had told her was true—that he had never seen these lines before—then he was reading them for the first time; and sightreading them with an ease and flexibility that many a professional actor would envy. She stared, and the true tragedy of a man with such quick perceptions and sensitivity imprisoned in this ghastly cage, almost reduced her to tears in front of them.

But she recovered herself in time to halt Merrick as he began to close the book. She put her hand on his, and huskily began to recite back to him Juliet’s lines which she knew by heart.

He paused just long enough to search her face to see what she wanted him to do, then dropped his eyes back to the book and continued reading,

“Ay, pilgrim,” she replied at once. “Lips that they must use in prayer.”

His voice faltered on the last words, but she tightened her hold on his hand, urging him on.

“Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake,” she said quickly.

“Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.” Merrick came to the end of the speech and without stopping to think read straight on to the stage direction. “Kissing her …” He stopped, afraid he had gone too far, and lowered his head. Mrs. Kendal was shaken with pity. She forgot that he was hideous. She remembered only that he had nothing. Very deliberately she removed her hand from his and reached up to touch his face.

“Then have my lips the sin that they have took.” She continued the lines of the play.

After a moment’s confusion he managed to go on, “Sin from my lips? Oh, trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.”

Very slowly she leaned forward so that her face was close to his, aware that he had frozen in startled fear. But she had made up her mind that he should have the only gift it was in her power to give—the knowledge that he was not so different from other men that it was impossible for a woman to kiss him. He would never know what it cost her.

She put all the gentleness and tenderness of her
woman’s soul in the effort to lay her lips against the corner of his distorted mouth. When she drew away his eyes were closed, but he opened them immediately and they looked at each other for a long, silent moment.

“Why, Mr. Merrick,” she said in a soft voice so that only he could hear, “you’re not an Elephant Man at all …”

“Oh—no?”

“Oh no, no—you are Romeo.”

His eyes filled with tears. Treves, who had forgotten everything except what was happening in front of him, pulled himself together abruptly, and remembered his patient. The plan had succeeded beyond his hopes, but now he began to fear that Merrick had been subjected to more emotion than he could stand. Belatedly it occurred to him to wonder what the interview had done to Mrs. Kendal.

“Mrs. Kendal has to leave, John. She is due at the theater …”

She rose thankfully and said her good-byes, extending them as much as possible to cover the fact that he could hardly reply.

“I’ll come and see you again, John,” she said from the doorway.

In the corridor she took Treves’ arm, almost collapsing.

“Mrs. Kendal?” he said, alarmed.

“I’m fine, Mr. Treves. Would you mind if I were alone for a minute?”

“Of course. I’ll see to your carriage.”

When he had left her she went to the wall and stood staring at a large portrait of one of the hospital’s founders. She had no interest in the man and his features made no impression on her. But if she stood like this, no one could see the tears that were coursing down her face.

Prompted by Carr-Gomm, the editor of the
Times
was doing everything in his power to light the spark of public interest in the Elephant Man, but his efforts produced no more than a thin stream of offerings. Some well wishers, moved to deep compassion, sent repeated offerings, but these, though steady, were usually small in size, indicating that those whose generosity was the truest had the least to give. From wealthy homes the donations were meager. And the next meeting of the Committee was drawing inexorably nearer.

It would never have occurred to Treves or Carr-Gomm to appeal for help to the
Ladies’ Gazette
, chiefly because they were unaware of its existence. But when, a few days after Mrs. Kendal’s visit, a representative of that little magazine knocked on Treves’ door, the doctor spoke to him courteously enough. He was willing to talk to anyone about Merrick if it would help.

The
Ladies’ Gazette
was a publication that lived on the doings of famous and glamorous people; society, royalty, the stage—these were the breath of life to its pages. It was often read by the very people it wrote about, but the greater part of its readership lay in those middle-class homes for whom it provided a window onto the glittering world they aspired to, yearned for, and knew in their hearts they could never enter.

Its frivolous pages were scanned in the virtuous home of Mrs. Annabel Jameson, a well-to-do merchant’s wife of unimpeachable respectability and dullness. For a week, until the next issue came out, it
would be her bible and her comfort, after which she would dispose of it into the wastebasket, from where it would be rescued by the equally respectable governess to her children, Miss Elizabeth Ireland.

From Miss Ireland it usually passed on down to the kitchen maid, but there came a day when the maid searched Miss Ireland’s room in vain for the week’s discarded
Gazette
. The magazine was by now on its way to London, accompanied by a letter from the governess to her sister Nora at the London Hospital.

“I noticed the mention of the hospital’s name,” she wrote, “and, reading further, discovered a description of the man I think must be the one you wrote to me about—the one who frightened you so. If so, do write and tell me. Did you actually
see
Mrs. Kendal? I can’t wait to hear from you.”

When Nora had read the item, her first thought was to check the magazine’s date. It was now four weeks old. She stopped in the corridor on her way to breakfast, feeling a gleam of satisfaction. Much had happened in four weeks, and the letter she would send back to her sister Elizabeth would be full of news of the most surprising kind.

Over breakfast she yielded (without much difficulty) to the entreaties of the other young nurses at her table, to read from the
Gazette
.

“Mrs. Kendal,” she read, “always at the forefront of fashion and form, was seen leaving the London the other afternoon. No, dear readers, the most facile actress of our day has not been taken ill, but rather said she was ‘visiting a friend.’ And who was the lucky recipient of this attention? Quick inquiries proved it to be none other than Mr. John Merrick, the Elephant Man, of whom our readers may have heard. After a chat of three-quarters of an hour Mrs. Kendal was kind enough to leave Mr. Merrick an autographed portrait of herself.

“Owing to a disfigurement of the most extreme nature, Mr. Merrick has never been properly presented to London society. But knowing that wherever
Mrs. Kendal goes, others inevitably follow, the question arises—will London society present itself to him?”

Amid the little ripple of excitement that shook the table Nora announced with some pleasure, “I told you there was a whole load of tofts going in there, didn’t I? Every day for nearly a month. Now we know. And it’s not just Mrs. Kendal’s picture he’s got—oh Lord!”