Elephant Man (23 page)

This last exclamation was drawn from her by the sight of Mothershead bearing down on the table. As if by a signal every one of the young nurses suddenly remembered that she was due on duty any minute. Mrs. Mothershead watched the mass exodus with grim humor. But when they were gone and she picked up the magazine that Nora had dropped in her haste, the humor vanished from her face to be replaced by an expression of anger.

It had been seething inside her for some time now as she watched Merrick’s room fill up with a succession of photographs and trinkets, for his new visitors seldom came without bringing a gift in addition to the pictures—an elegant necktie, a set of studs, a watch; they seemed, thought Mothershead crossly, to have a genius for offering Merrick what was useless to him.

Her anger did not touch Merrick himself, who, despite his disturbing quickness of mind, she still regarded as a child to be cared for. She would never be close to him or touch his heart as Treves had done, but his plight, his gentleness, and above all his need of her care had aroused the protective instincts she usually kept deeply buried within her. These days she often stopped Treves to inquire how fast the donations were coming in, and shared the sinking of his heart at their slowness.

She seldom did the menial tasks of nursing Merrick now, but she supervised them constantly to see that his care was kept up to standard, and this morning she went herself to collect his used breakfast things.

He looked up timidly at her polite greeting. He had finished eating and was making marks on his cardboard
cathedral, which had grown very little recently. Shortage of cardboard was one reason, but the other was the sudden dramatic upturn in his social life.

“The nurses will be along for your bath soon, Mr. Merrick,” Mothershead said as she piled plates onto the tray.

“Oh yes. Thank you. It’s very important—today.”

“More visitors? You had two lots yesterday didn’t you?”

“Yes. Lady de Grey came in the morning. Look.” He pulled forward a photograph of the famous aristocratic beauty that showed her sitting on a hammock, leaning enticingly to one side, one hand clasping a fan which she held just behind her head. In contrast to the stately poses of many of the women who now crowded Merrick’s mantelpiece the picture of Gladys de Grey was openly flirtatious. Mothershead just stopped herself clucking her disapproval.

“It doesn’t do her justice,” Merrick said gravely. “She is much more beautiful in the flesh. Mr. White said so, too.”

“Who is Mr. White?”

“I don’t exactly know. He came with her—she called him ‘Lukie.’ ”

“But he’s not the lady’s husband?”

“I didn’t like to ask—but I don’t think he can be. Did you say something?”

Mrs. Mothershead had said, “Hrrmph!” before she could stop herself, but she judged it wisest not to repeat it. She had her own opinion of married women who went visiting with other men, but this wasn’t the place for it.

“Who came in the afternoon?”

“The Countess of Warwick. Look.”

The Countess’ pose was statuesque and almost in profile. The photograph had evidently been taken when she was ready to go riding, and showed off the tightly corseted, hourglass figure to perfection.

“Did anyone come with her?” demanded Mothershead.

“Oh yes. Lord Charles Beresford.”

This time Mothershead yielded to temptation. “And where are the husbands of these ladies when they come visiting you with other men?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t ask them, could I? What was that? You
did
say something.”

“I said, Hrrmph!”

“I don’t understand. What does it mean?”

“It means you’re making some very funny friends, my lad.”

“They’re very kind to be. Lord Charles gave me this.” Merrick handed her a solid gold cigar-case inscribed with the Beresford coat of arms.

“Delightful of him. What does he think you’re going to do with it?”

“Well, he used it to keep cigars in. I shall keep it as a memento of a friend.”

“John,” said Mothershead curiously, “do you feel these people are really your friends?”

“Of course. They take so much trouble to come and see me, and I really do appreciate them giving up their time. They all have so many other engagements, but they manage to visit me.”

She was silent for a moment before she said, “Who’s coming this afternoon?”

“Lord and Lady Waddington, at five o’clock.”

“Well then, I expect you’d like some tea delivered. I’ll see to it.”

“Thank you.”

In the hall downstairs she encountered Treves in a hurry.

“Sir, I’d like to speak—”

“Can it wait awhile, Mothershead? I’m due to see Mr. Carr-Gomm and I’m a bit late.” Halfway up the stairs he turned and called back. “Is anyone coming to see John today?”

“Lord and Lady Waddington. That was what—”

“Of course, I’d forgotten. You’ll see them in if I’m not here, won’t you, Mothershead?”

“Yes, sir.”

Carr-Gomm dismissed Treves’ apologies for his lateness with a wave of the hand. He was in a sober mood.

“If the contributions don’t pick up soon, Treves, I’m afraid we’re going to have a difficult time with the Committee.”

“How much longer before they meet?”

“A fortnight.”

“Can’t you find a way of putting it off, sir?”

“I
have
put it off—three times. I’ve stalled until I’ve run out of ways to stall. Not unnaturally Broadneck has become thoroughly suspicious. He is now threatening to get together a quorum and call a meeting against my wishes. I am afraid that he can do that. That would be a disaster. I would have even less influence over such a meeting than I can see I’m going to have anyway. So I asked you to come and see me because I wanted to tell you myself that the meeting will be in ten days’ time, and I want you most particularly to hold yourself free to be there.

“Our last hope may be that you can influence the Committee by telling them how our friend had developed over the past few weeks, and what an insane piece of cruelty it would be to throw him out with nowhere to go but the workhouse.”

“I honestly believe,” said Treves slowly, “that John will find a way of killing himself before he goes back there. It
must
not happen. It would have been bad enough to send him back weeks ago when he first came in here—but
now
, when he’s beginning to believe in himself as a human being, as a man … if you could see the change that’s come over him …”

“I should like to visit him again. You must make me an appointment. From all I hear Mr. Merrick’s days are crowded now.”

“Ever since Mrs. Kendal came to see him he hasn’t stopped having visitors. She came back for a second visit the other day. That pleased him more than anything else, I think. Most people don’t come a second time, but when they go away they tell their friends
about him, and the friends come. So there’s always a new stream of guests. He receives them like royalty. Mothershead found him a tea set from somewhere, and he’s even learned to pour tea with his good hand.”

“But what on earth do they talk about?” said Carr-Gomm, puzzled at the picture that was being conjured up for him.

“Mrs. Kendal talks to him about the theater. He loves that. He sees the theater as a child would see it—a magic place where you can dream of being or doing whatever you like …”

“Dangerous …” muttered Carr-Gomm.

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on. They talk about the theater. What else?”

“They—er—read Shakespeare together.” Treves stopped abruptly, feeling the impossibility of describing the strange and touching scene when Mrs. Kendal had been Juliet to Merrick’s Romeo. He himself had been an intruder at that moment. Carr-Gomm gave him a sharp glance but did not press the matter.

“And the others?” he queried.

Treves grinned suddenly. “Mr. Merrick is getting adept at the niceties of conversation,” he told Carr-Gomm. “He asks them to tell him about their lives and he tells them about his. Since their experiences are so widely different there’s usually plenty to talk about.

“What pleases me most is that he’s losing his shyness—not just with his formal visitors, but with everyone. He spends a lot of time at the window during the day, and the men who work in Bedstead Square have got used to him. They pop across to chat to him as though he was just anyone, and gradually I think that’s how he’s beginning to think of himself.”

“But surely, that’s not possible. Every time he sees himself …”

“I don’t allow mirrors of any kind in that room, sir. Since he can’t see himself, and people treat him so
normally, he’s starting to forget, or at any rate to think that his deformity isn’t so very dreadful.”

“Let us hope that nothing happens to remind him violently that it is.”

Both men fell silent as though a shadow had fallen across them. After a moment Carr-Gomm seemed to force himself to speak cheerfully.

“So Mr. Merrick is now used to conversing with the very cream of society. How exceedingly dull he will think me after the Countess of Warwick, who I understand came calling yesterday.”

“That’s right. John admires her greatly, though not quite as much as the Duchess of Manchester.”

“
What!
Are you telling me, Treves, that one of the most notorious women in London has been visiting here?”

“Yes, and she brought Lord Hartington with her.”

“Good grief!”

In an age when the indiscretions of the aristocracy were successfully concealed from anyone outside their own immediate circle, the German-born Duchess Louisa had flouted convention to an extent that could not be kept a secret. She had been married for nearly thirty years to the Duke of Manchester, and had borne him five children. But this had not prevented her, when a young woman, from having an affair with Lord Derby, in the course of which she extracted a written promise from him that should he ever become Prime Minister he would get her appointed to the Queen’s household, as Mistress of the Robes. In due course he had become Prime Minister, and been as good as his word; something which, when she discovered it, infuriated Queen Victoria so much that she excluded her Mistress of the Robes from the invitation list to the Prince of Wales’ wedding—an incredibly open snub for a woman of the Duchess’s rank and position.

Louisa’s most blatant indiscretion was a longstanding love affair with Lord Hartington, or “Harty-Tarty” as society called him. For her sake he remained
unmarried, ignoring his duty to provide an heir to the Dukedom of Devonshire, which he would one day inherit, and it seemed that nothing, not even age—for Louisa was now in her fifties—would shake him from her side. Even now she was still a considerable beauty, and her picture was one of the most prominent on Merrick’s mantelpiece.

Under the urbane exterior of a man of the world Carr-Gomm concealed a puritanical soul. It caused him now to say, “It seems to me, Treves, that you have contrived to turn this hospital into a way station for all the notorious riffraff of London society.”

“Well, John doesn’t know they’re riffraff, sir. And it means a lot to him to see them.”

“Oh, very well. Who is it today?”

“Lord and Lady Waddington.”

“Well, at least they’re decently married—and to each other,” said Carr-Gomm, unconsciously echoing Mothershead.

It was Mothershead who showed Lord and Lady Waddington to Merrick’s rooms later that day. As soon as she saw them she feared the worst. They were young, attractive, and empty looking. Lady Waddington twittered aimless pleasantries until Mothershead produced a photograph of Merrick. It was Treves’ instruction that all visitors must be made familiar with their host’s appearance before going in, so that they could experience their initial shock where he could not see them. Treves was determined that there should be no repetition of the day when Nora had come upon him unaware.

When Lady Waddington saw Merrick’s picture, Mothershead thought she was going to faint.

“I can’t, Charlie,” she fluttered prettily. “I just
can’t
. Oh, do let us go away.”

He coughed. “Impossible, my sweet. What would people say? I mean—everyone knows we’re coming, you know.”

Mothershead’s lips tightened.

“If her Ladyship doesn’t feel up to the visit,” she
said at last, “it really would be better if it were not made. If Mr. Merrick sees that his appearance upsets people—”

“Oh no, no.” The girl recovered herself elaborately. “Charlie’s right. We’ve told so many people we’re coming, and besides,” she made a noble effort, “one must be kind to these poor unfortunates, must one not?”

With difficulty Mothershead restrained herself from hitting her.

“If you’ll follow me then …” She led them down the hallway to Merrick’s door and knocked.

She hated Lord and Lady Waddington for the eagerness in Merrick’s voice as he called, “Come in”; hated them even more when she saw him standing there ready to greet them, dressed in his best clothes, the window carefully open so that the last of his lingering smell should not offend them; hated them totally for the joy in his eyes when they controlled themselves sufficiently to simper forward and shake his hand.

“I’ll get you some tea,” she said gruffly, and departed.

She sent Nora along with the tea, but returned herself half an hour later to see how everyone was managing. Her sensitive nose for atmosphere warned her as soon as she entered that the young couple were both on the verge of screaming, although smiles were fixed onto their faces as though held on by steel rivets. To all this Merrick was happily oblivious. He was examining a ring that just fitted onto the little finger of his good hand, and a silver-tipped walking cane that rested against his chair.

“Thank you for your kind gifts,” he was saying. “I can’t say enough about this ring. And this walking stick is ever so dashing. So much more elegant than my old one. More tea?”

They nodded shakily, beyond speech. John reached over and lifted the teapot to refill the lady’s cup. She
sipped delicately and seemed in control of herself, but as she replaced the cup it rattled against the saucer.

“If you have a chill, I can close the window,” Merrick offered.